With every word that fell from the woman’s blood-red lips, Ian’s tension seemed to rise, and the instinct to protect him from anything else his horrible ex-wife had to say had Tatiana reaching for his hand. “We met at a wedding.”

The need to protect him quickly turned into something that ran even deeper as she stared down at her hand in his and was rocked by such a strong jolt of sensual—and emotional—awareness that she found herself confessing, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look better in a suit.” But it was what she saw on his face when she looked up into his eyes that had her continuing to speak straight from her heart, only for him, their audience completely forgotten. “All it took was one handshake for me to fall for you, Ian.” Palm-to-palm, the memories of that first time they’d touched came rushing back.

“Trust me,” Ian’s ex-wife said, shattering the moment with all the precision of a baseball hurled straight through a plate-glass window, “Ian might be good in bed, but even the best orgasms in the world don’t make up for what it’s like to live with him. Or should I say, not live with him, since I promise you that after he gets over his current infatuation, even you are only going to see him when he needs to screw away his tension from a business deal gone bad.”

“It’s past time for you to go, Chelsea.” This time Ian put his hand on her arm to make sure she didn’t linger. Unfortunately, her heavy scent did.

Tatiana would never be able to wear Chanel No. 5 again.

She had wanted to teach his ex-wife a lesson, but she hadn’t planned on doing it like that, by finally opening up her heart to Ian so suddenly. And so completely. It was simply that she hadn’t had it in her to lie about her feelings for him—not even to his ex-wife.

Interestingly, though, Tatiana was certain that it had also been the best possible way to strike out at the other woman. Because nothing could have infuriated her more than knowing how thoroughly she’d been forgotten by her ex-husband.

Chelsea was his past.

And Tatiana had just made it perfectly clear, in perhaps the most unplanned and non-well-thought-out way possible, that she hoped to be his future.

CHAPTER NINE

Tatiana’s mind raced with a half-dozen different ways to approach Ian when he came back into his office. Would it be better to act like nothing had happened? Or should she try to cut the tension from what she’d witnessed with a joke that he wouldn’t see coming and wouldn’t be able to resist laughing about?

If she were in his place, she finally decided, what she’d really want was an ear, a shoulder, someone to gently talk through the whole situation with. Of course, that meant she’d need to force her own emotions into the background so that she could help him.

So then, if she’d been so sure about the best way to deal with things, why was the first thing out of her mouth when he walked back into his office, “Why did you give her the money?”

Only, she knew exactly why she’d said it, didn’t she? Tatiana had never been any good at hiding her feelings. Especially when she felt more for the man standing in front of her than she could ever remember feeling for anyone else.

There was only the barest hitch in Ian’s gait as he moved to his desk to pull something up on his computer screen. “I have more money than time to deal with lawyers,” he replied in a voice utterly without inflection or emotion. “She knows that and capitalizes on it.”

What he’d said about his money-to-time ratio was certainly true, but in Tatiana’s mind it didn’t come anywhere close to explaining what had happened. She frowned as she thought about the scene between Ian and his ex-wife.

One thing continued to stick with her: the guilt she’d seen in his eyes.

“You think you owe it to her—whatever she asks you for—don’t you?”

Ian Sullivan had a masterful poker face, and she’d thought more than once that if he hadn’t become a captain of industry he could easily have ruled the high roller tables in Vegas without breaking a sweat. But she could have sworn she saw a crack appear as she continued, “Why? Why would you think you owe her anything? I saw the way she acted. I see the way she is. What more than what she’s already gotten from you do you think she deserves?”

Every time she said the word why, Ian’s eyes flashed hotter, darker. He’d always held his inner fire in check, but now she expected it to burst free. Finally.

“I’m late for my next meeting.”

Tatiana was momentarily stunned by the way Ian completely ignored her questions. Stunned into utter silence, actually.

She’d never known anyone who could shut down—or shut her out—so quickly. Or so thoroughly. And maybe, Tatiana told herself, that’s where she should let the whole thing go. Any rational woman would.

Only, there was more than just what had happened between Ian and his ex-wife to deal with, wasn’t there? Specifically, when she’d said, “All it took was one handshake for me to fall for you, Ian.”

She wasn’t ashamed that she’d finally admitted her feelings to him, and she didn’t much care that his ex-wife had heard it. But she couldn’t imagine sitting through a bunch of meetings with it hanging between them...or worse, with Ian pretending she’d never said it at all—as if what she felt for him didn’t matter in the least.

So even though the rational part of her knew the timing was all wrong, that in the wake of dealing with his ex-wife Ian was as closed off as he could possibly be, Tatiana couldn’t stop herself from moving closer into his personal space. Personal space that he’d just made perfectly clear he wanted to keep as his alone.

She reached for his arm. “About what I said at the end—”

“Forget it, Tatiana.”

Now her eyes were the ones leaping with fire. “I can’t forget it. I won’t.”

“You have to. We both do.” As open as he’d been when they’d been laughing together fifteen minutes earlier about her falling asleep in the meeting, he’d now swung all the way to the far side of closed. “This next meeting will be even more boring than the one we just came out of, so you might as well skip it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Having dismissed her, he walked out of his office, leaving her standing alone with a difficult decision to make, one that she couldn’t believe had become so thorny in such a short time. Should she do what he was obviously hoping she’d do—and what, at the moment, her stung pride was demanding—by picking up her bag and finding another CEO to shadow? Or should she suck it up and continue forward on the path she’d been so determined to walk just a few days ago?

But the truth was, continuing to shadow him wasn’t about her pride. And it wasn’t completely about researching her role, either.

The real reason she was going to stay in his life was because she recognized, deep inside herself, that there wasn’t any decision for her to make. Not when her heart really and truly had made it for her all those months ago in Napa Valley, when Ian had held her hands in his...and she’d looked up into eyes that she’d been waiting to gaze into her entire life.

Yes, she knew that it was crazy to try for Ian’s heart. While he was a caring man, he wasn’t an easy one like his brothers. On top of that, he had obviously been terribly scarred by his marriage, his heart now imprisoned behind a thick, seemingly impenetrable wall.

And yet, she couldn’t help but feel that it would be so much crazier not to try—to let him go without knowing she’d risked absolutely everything first. His mother’s words from Friday night replayed inside her head: “What I learned when Ian’s father and I were trying to make things work between the two of us, was just how much determination it can sometimes take to stay on your heart’s path. I also learned that love is worth the struggle. Always.”