Fiona McArthur - Dreaming Of... Bali - The Man to Be Reckoned With / Nine Month Countdown / Harry St Clair - Rogue or Doctor?

And to see Robert ache to see Nathan, to speak a few words to him, she couldn’t back down now. Not when Nathan was finally here.

“Fine. Come to work Monday morning.”

She saw the shadow of something in his eyes—a promise, a challenge.

“I’ll stay two months. I’ll even dance with you at the wedding.”

“I don’t want to dance with—”

“You started this, Riya. I’m going to finish it.”

She breathed in cold gulps of air, only then seeing the faint shape of a chopper. “Stop saying my name like that,” she said, not sure when the words had exactly left her lips.

Frowning, he stepped closer. “Am I saying it wrong?”

There was that strange little tension again. Winding around them, tugging at them.

“No. I just...we’re...”

The helicopter blades began whirring, and he bent toward her to make himself heard. A firestorm danced through Riya as his breath played on her nape.

It was a heated brand, a molten caress. The simple touch of his fingers on her waist as she swayed seared through the cotton of her shirt.

“Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Mathur are too formal when we’re going to work in close quarters for a couple of months. And calling each other brother and sister, especially when we...” Her heart drummed in her ears, a flash of heat bursting all over her as he paused dramatically. “... obviously don’t like each other will just earn us a place on a daytime soap opera, don’t you think?

“Nathan and Riya, it has to be.”

She felt his smile instead of saw it, the faint graze of his beard against her jaw making her hyperaware of him. He lifted his head and Riya stared mutely at the striking beauty of the planes of his face.

All wicked, from the twinkle in his eyes to the dimples in his cheeks. And sexy all the way.

“See you Monday morning.” He stepped back, sending her heart pitter-pattering all over her chest. “And FYI, I’m what they call an exacting boss.”

By the time Riya walked the long way around the acreage back to the house, she was hungry and tired and her head hurt.

Turning the gleaming antique handle on the side door into the kitchen, she stepped in. Even though her stomach rumbled, all she wanted was to get into bed and forget that this day had happened.

She couldn’t believe that Drew had sold her out so easily, couldn’t believe what she had set in motion. And of all things, she couldn’t believe the sharp and stringent quality of her awareness of Nathan, of his every word and gesture, of the flash of the same awareness in his. But she had no doubt, where she was floundering and flailing in the wake of it, it was nothing but a game to him.

The overhead ceiling lights came on, bathing her in a blaze of light.

Jackie stood near the curving staircase, her eyes glittering with fear and fury. “If you knew he was coming, why didn’t you stop him?”

Guilt settling heavily on her shoulders, Riya sighed. If only life were as simple as her mom thought it was. “It’s his estate we’re living in. One of these days, he was bound to return.”

“Just when Robert has finally agreed to the wedding and—”

Unable to hear another word of her mom’s self-absorption, she cut across her. “Robert will be happy to see him. I can’t just send him away, even if I wanted to.”

Her elegant hands wringing in front of her, Jackie walked around the huge dining table. “What does he want with you?”

“He wants the estate back.”

“No,” Jackie said, her tone rising, her gaze stricken. “He’ll probably just kick us out if you do that. You can’t—”

Even as she wished her mother would think of Riya’s feelings for once, she softened her tone. Whatever her weaknesses, Jackie had found stability and peace here with Robert and the estate. “I can’t stop him from taking what is rightfully his, Jackie.”

Jackie’s gaze zoomed somewhere far away, and Riya locked out the urge to shake her mom. That look meant nothing she said was going to get through to her now. “I don’t care what you have to do. Just make sure he doesn’t have the house back. Do something, anything to send him back, Riya.”

“I can’t take him on,” Riya said, looking away. If Jackie found out he was here because of what Riya had done... “If I fight him on this, he threatened to drag us through the courts. I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you can. You have Robert on your side. He’ll never agree to Nathan taking the estate from you. If there’s a long court battle, then so be it. You can’t lose the house, Riya. I can’t take this uncertainty, this kind of stress at this stage of my life.”

And there was the heart of the matter. Bitterness pooled in her throat, but Riya shook it away. As she always did. “Robert will look after you, Jackie. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Does it occur to you that maybe it’s you I could be worried about?”

“There’s no precedent for me to think that, is there?”

Jackie paled.

Now Riya felt like the green scum that lived under a rock.

Jackie sighed. “You slogged over the estate for years. Where was Nathan when he was needed? Do whatever you have to do, but make sure you hold on to this house.

“You have just as much right to this as he. Or even more.”

Nathan’s dark smile as he’d stood close to her sent a shiver over her skin. His offer for Travelogue was more than she’d hoped for, but she didn’t like the look in his eyes.

It wasn’t just that ever-present energy between them. It was more. As if he could see through her, into the heart of her. As if he could see her fears and insecurities and found them laughable. As if he knew how to use them to trip her up.

She just had to remember that whatever he threw at her, she could cope with it. The only danger was if he had true interest in her. He didn’t. Nathan was a man who traveled the world over.

Like everyone else in her life, she would matter very little to him once he realized she wouldn’t budge from her goal. And then he would leave her alone.

For years, she had lived with the knowledge that her father hadn’t cared about her. For Jackie, she was nothing but a crutch of safety, the one who would never leave her. For Robert, she had been the means to assuage his guilt about Nathan and his mom. Not that she didn’t appreciate his kindness.

But the truth was no one had ever really cared about her, about her fears, her happiness. And Nathan would be no different.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN RIYA ARRIVED at work Monday morning, it was to find Nathan leaning against the redbrick building, head bent down to his tablet.

Pulling in a breath, she forced her nerves to calm down. She had agreed to this, actually forced him into this. Now she had to see this through for Robert and for her own company.

The shabby street instantly looked different, felt different. And more than one woman sent him lingering looks as they walked past. But he was unaware of the attention he was drawing.

Today, he was dressed in a V-necked gray T-shirt coupled with blue jeans that hugged his lean hips and thighs in a very nerve-racking way. His hair gleamed with wetness, his beard still hiding his mouth. The veins bulging in his forearms, the stretch of the cotton across his chest. Every time she set eyes on him, something pinged inside her.

So early in the morning, with no caffeine in her system, he was just too much testosterone to stomach.

“You’re wasting my pilot’s time.” His gaze didn’t waver from his tablet.

“Pilot? What are you talking about?” Feeling heat in her cheeks, she dug through her bag for her phone.

For the first time in two years since she and Drew had started Travelogue, she had resolutely refused to check her work email. Now she just felt stupid because she had obviously missed some important communication.