“You took back your maiden name.”
The statement made her hand slip. The remainder of the fettuccini plopped into the pot. Her hand shook as she very deliberately set the timer. She wouldn’t tell him how numb she’d been after the accident or how little she’d cared what her name was or if anyone ever used it again.
“All my documents were in my maiden name. It was easier not to change everything over.”
“The security team says you rarely leave the building. Why is that?”
She turned abruptly. He’d checked up on her? “I don’t know anyone in Dallas.”
“You know me. I’ll show you the city.”
“I don’t want to go out with you.”
“I know the best places to see and to eat.”
Her mouth watered at the thought of eating something besides her own cooking or the occasional takeout.
“No, thanks.”
“If you do nothing else, you need to see the gardens.”
“Gardens are your thing, not mine.” Liar. Lucas had taught her to appreciate more than run-of-the-mill shop flowers during their time together, and she adored puttering in the container gardens on her patio.
He’d taken her to FairchildTropicalGarden in Coral Gables on their first date. Not a place to impress a girl, in her opinion, yet he had with his extensive knowledge of the exotic plants growing there. And, yes, okay, the flowers had been pretty and it had been interesting to actually see them in nature instead of in a vase.
Back then Lucas had been all about nature. On their second date he’d taken her to a state park. Initially, she’d been underwhelmed by his choice until they’d paddled around the marshes in a rented canoe talking, flirting and just enjoying each other’s company without distractions. He’d shown her a side of nature not even the Audubon calendars could touch. And she’d loved it.
After they’d docked he’d cooked dinner for her on one of the public grills. She’d never had a man other than a paid chef prepare a meal for her before. It’s no wonder they’d ended up making love for the first time that night in a campground cabin.
She was a Ritz kind of girl. If anyone had told her the most romantic night of her life would involve sitting on a fallen dead tree, listening to bugs chirp, wine with a twist-off top and dinner served on paper plates, she’d have called them crazy.
Not a memory she needed to wade through right now.
She yanked her thoughts back to the conversation. “It’s July and it’s hot. I don’t want to tramp around outside. Especially with you.”
“You never minded the heat before.”
The lowered timber of his voice implied more than the temperature outside and rustled up memories of hot, sweaty outdoor sex. And hot, sweaty indoor sex.
She hustled to set the table. “You still like plants? I can’t see you making the kind of money you’d need to buy a skyscraper as a landscaper.”
“I changed my major from horticulture to business.”
“Why?”
His jaw shifted. “Because it wasn’t practical to pursue a physically demanding career when I wasn’t sure I could do the job.”
Her breath hitched at the reminder of his injury.
The timer beeped. She knew from experience that homemade pasta disintegrated if she didn’t get it out of the water promptly. Stifling her curiosity about the path he’d chosen, she strained the fettuccini, divided it onto plates then ladled sauce over it and set the dishes on the table. In the confusion of having him there she’d forgotten to steam the asparagus. Too bad. But giving him balanced meals wasn’t her job.
She sat at the table, but the delicious aroma wafting up from her plate couldn’t tempt her from what she really needed. “How long was it before you could walk again?”
He wound the noodles around the tines of his fork. “Fourteen months.”
A long time to be scared. Sympathy softened her anger toward him. Unacceptable. Don’t forget he had your father’s money to ease his worries. While you had nothing and no one. You’d lost your baby, your husband and had memories of your mother destroyed.
“Eat your lunch, Lucas. I have plans this afternoon. And they don’t include you.”
Nadia opened her door Wednesday morning, bent to pick up her newspapers and froze.
Instantly on alert, she straightened, blinked to clear her gritty, sleep-deprived eyes and reluctantly lifted her gaze. A dozen feet away his door stood open.
“Good morning,” Lucas said the moment her gaze collided with his over the top of his newspaper. He sat in a chair that hadn’t been in his spacious foyer yesterday with a coffee cup and two more folded papers at his elbow on the credenza. Judging by the way he’d left his door open and angled his chair to face her apartment the man was unabashedly waiting to pounce.
The delicious aroma of her favorite Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee crossed the hall to tease her nose. The rat. Her gourmet brew had been one of the first casualties of her new budget.
Determined to ignore him, she scanned the hall for her newspapers. All three were missing, and not once since she’d moved in had a paper been delivered to his door.
“You stole my papers.”
“I’ll share them with you over breakfast. C’mon over. We’ll eat on the patio.” He folded the paper and rose.
Her heart skipped at the sight of his muscled chest outlined to perfection by an Armani crew-neck black T and his long legs encased in low-riding black Prada jeans. The man knew how to dress his assets.
Quit gawking. Her molars clicked together. “I don’t want to share my papers or breakfast with you. In fact, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“So you said after lunch yesterday.” He picked up the other newspapers and strolled deeper into his space.
She debated her options. She could slam her door and ignore him, chase him down and wrestle the papers from him, do as he’d asked or call her brothers and beg them to buy her an airline ticket home.
She sighed. While the last choice appealed the most, it wasn’t going to happen. She had to stick this out. Shutting out Lucas literally and figuratively came in a close second, but one of the few things she had going for her in her exile was she finally had the time to stay current in world events by reading the papers cover to cover. She’d already lost touch with her life and her job. She wasn’t ready to give up the outside world, and she could only take so much of the news channels’ continuous looped coverage and cookie-cutter anchors.
That left options two and three. He was too big to tackle, which meant she had to endure his company. But if he expected her to change into something more attractive than her loose-fitting yoga pants and T-shirt or to put on makeup, then he was out of luck. She nabbed her cell phone from the hall table and padded barefoot across the hall, through his living room and out the glass door. The steamy Dallas heat instantly enveloped her.
His outdoor space, like the part of his apartment she’d seen, was twice the size of hers, and he even had a pool at the far end.
He dropped the papers on the table and faced her. “Why do you have a driving instructor waiting outside for you every day? One you ignore, I might add.”
Her gaze snapped from the profusion of brightly colored potted flowers intermingled with odd-looking cacti to him. The security guys must have ratted her out. They’d get no more cookies from her. “None of your business.”
“If you lived in Manhattan, I might understand why you don’t have a driver’s license. But most people in Miami drive. Why don’t you?” He pulled out a chair at a glass-topped table set with dishes, a stainless coffee carafe and a heated, covered buffet server and gestured for her to sit.
“What makes you think I don’t?” His knuckles brushed her back. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. Darn him.
“I checked.”
Anger burned a trail under her skin. “You have no right to invade my privacy.”
“You live in my building. That gives me the right to do a background check.” Leaning over her shoulder and invading her space, he filled a coffee cup for her, then circled the table and sat opposite her.
Okay, maybe he had a point. But she didn’t like it. Squelching her irritation she lifted the cup, inhaled the rich aroma and sipped the dark, robust brew. Heaven. She might have to tolerate his company just for his coffee.
He removed the serving dish’s lid revealing mushroom omelets, Canadian bacon and baked apples. The cinnamon and brown sugar scent made her mouth water. “Help yourself.”
She usually skipped breakfast, but there was no way she’d pass up a meal she hadn’t had to prepare and wouldn’t have to clean up after. She filled her plate.
He passed her the newspapers and served himself. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I never needed a license. I’ve always had a driver.”
“You don’t now.”
She chewed slowly, trying not to let his statement ruin the delicious buttery taste of the eggs and melt-in-her-mouth bacon. She swallowed. When she, Rand and Mitch were younger a driver had been both a necessity and a security measure. Of course her brothers had rebelled over the restriction and gotten their licenses as soon as legally possible. But she never had because her father had been extremely over-protective. Then after the accident she hadn’t even wanted to ride in the front seat of a car let alone drive one. Give her the backseat of a Lincoln or a limo any day.
She shoved the thought away and pressed a hand to the gnawing ache in her belly. Lucas might not have died, but her son had. “I guess your spies told you that, too?”
“My employees are paid to notice what happens on or around my property. I’ll teach you to drive.”
Her stomach knotted and her appetite fled. She halted her apple-laden fork an inch from her mouth and lowered the utensil. “No, thank you.”
“You were studying for your driver’s license exam before our wedding. Why didn’t you pursue it?”
“I just didn’t, okay.”
“If you’d stayed married to me, you would have.”
“Moot point. I didn’t stay married to you. Your choice, remember?”
His eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his chair. “Are you afraid to drive?”
Her fingers spasmed on the fork. How could he know fear held her back? “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”
She hoped he missed the crack in her voice.
“You can’t let fear rule your life, Nadia.”
She couldn’t quite meet his eyes and focused on the tip of his nose instead. “It doesn’t.”
“You claim your father’s will requires you to penthouse-sit for a year. What happens if you don’t?”
She would have been happy he’d changed the subject had he chosen any subject but that one. She abandoned her breakfast. “I’ll fail to fulfill my portion of the inheritance clause.”
“And then what?”
That her father was willing to give everything he owned to his enemy rather than his own children was too humiliating to share. “I’ll let everyone, but mostly myself, down.”