the past week, he’d acted—and was still acting—to keep her safe.
She’d been shocked, but her heart had melted a little at the revelation. No one had tried to safeguard her since the day her mother died. No one else had cared enough … until Ryder.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself as she reinforced the walls around her heart. Just because it seemed he’d been protecting her, she couldn’t let herself be swayed into forgetting the deal he’d made with her father.
To buy her hand in marriage.
A secret transaction with her as the currency.
Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the car as her lungs struggled to inhale. She clicked the window control and when the breeze pushed gently against her face, she sucked in a deep breath.
“Are you all right?” Ryder asked, the palpable concern in his voice reaching across to caress her skin.
Macy almost laughed. He was at it again—making sure she was okay, when he was the cause of her problem. Confusing her.
She spared him a quick glance, nodded once to avoid further questions, then turned back to the safety of the window. The hairs at the back of her neck still prickled, and she knew he watched her.
While she focused on the passing scenery, Bernice’s cheery voice caught her attention, asking questions about Melbourne.
Reluctantly, Macy closed the window and answered, keeping her eyes on the back of Bernice’s head, trying in vain to be more focused on Bernice than the man mere inches from her on the backseat.He’d betrayed her in a deal with her father. Yet, in this moment, sitting beside him in the backseat of a car, all she could think of was the cab ride home seven days ago which had led to the bone-melting kiss in the lobby. A mere touching of lips that still kept her awake every night, tossing and turning.
Realizing her breaths were coming quicker, she dug out a report on the outer-Melbourne chocolate factory they were about to inspect with the view to purchase, and passed it to Ryder.
But he didn’t raise a hand to take it. “I told you I’m not here to read reports. You can fill me in with a commentary during the tour.”
Macy took it in her stride, and filed the report back into her briefcase. “Of course.”
His BlackBerry beeped with a message, and as he thumbed the buttons, he asked, “How was the rest of your meeting with the ingredients supplier yesterday?”
She thought back to the afternoon meeting with a quick smile of satisfaction. “Very good. We nailed down the details on the points we’d discussed with you.”
Ryder had been taking meetings all week with Australian, New Zealand and Southeast Asian managers from subsidiary companies of Bramson Food Holdings. Management from his biscuit company, prepackaged food company and sauce company had all been through the office yesterday for their chance to report in to the CEO.
In between his scheduled appointments, Ryder had made a point of keeping up with what was going on in her Chocolate Diva project.
He paused in his rapid one-handed typing on his BlackBerry and looked up at her. “Do you want to discuss any of it?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m happy with the progress.”
When Ryder had started sitting in on her meetings, she’d been wary, feeling like Big Brother was watching over her shoulder. But as the days had passed, she’d found they worked well together as a team and had come to value his input.
He nodded approvingly and threw the BlackBerry on the seat beside him. “Good work.”
They traveled in silence, Bernice and the driver chatting in quiet voices, Macy mentally running through the day’s agenda and preparing the commentary she’d be giving Ryder at the factory.
And thinking about their upcoming conversation about her building’s security.
Every so often, she flicked a glance at her boss lounging back in his seat. He occasionally watched the cityscape, but more often, made or took calls. Had his sleep been disturbed, too, or had the kiss been a purely clinical exercise for him with an eye on her father’s company?
Even in the spacious luxury car, his legs lay spread to accommodate his considerable height, and one of his thighs rested within touching distance from hers. She could feel the body heat radiate across the distance, and she fought the urge to trail her fingers along the length to see if the muscles were as firm as they appeared through the taut fabric.
She turned to focus on the peak hour traffic on the motorway, unwilling to let herself indulge in fantasies of an incredibly inconvenient physical attraction. A man who treated her as a commodity to be bought and sold was not a man she could let herself lose control with again.
The problem was, she couldn’t put Ryder in a simple box. Instead, when she thought about him she almost became dizzy from the back and forth….
He’d worked beside her in harmony for a week.
He’d tried to buy her in a business deal.
He was secretly protecting her from the media.
He wanted them to have a loveless marriage.
He brought her body to life like no man before.
Macy closed her eyes to quiet the tumult of emotions churning in her belly. This project would be over in one month and one week, and then she’d be free. Would never have to see Ryder Bramson again. And in ten days, Ryder would have finished his appointments with his management teams in the Asia-Pacific area and would be on a plane home to America.
All she had to do was survive ten days. The rest, after he was gone, would be easy.
Ten days.
She could do that.
She began reciting projected growth figures in her head and came very close to forgetting about the masculine thigh that lay mere inches from hers.
Very close, but not quite.
Four
After two hours of walking through the chocolate factory with Macy and shaking hands with employees, Ryder had developed a monster of a headache.
It was probably sleep deprivation—he’d had major trouble getting a full forty winks since the moment he’d kissed Macy’s sweet lips. His body had been demanding a repeat performance, and more. Most nights he’d given up and worked until dawn … though he’d been tormented by visions of her mouth, the feel of her hands in his hair, the sensual sound she’d made in her throat when he’d claimed her lips.
As he strode down the corridor, he took a deep breath and brought his body back under control. He was dangerously close to showing everyone in the factory just how much he wanted her. Fatigue made restraint seem less appealing, despite knowing he had to take it slow with her.
He needed time to regroup. Mercifully, a twenty-minute break had been scheduled for him and Macy to discuss their thoughts so far.
The obsequious assistant manager who’d taken them on the morning’s tour showed them into a boardroom. “This is where we’ll be meeting with the factory’s owner, so I thought you’d be most comfortable here. You won’t have to move.”
Macy shook his hand. “Thank you, Peter. We appreciate it.”
Peter held her hand a moment too long and Ryder scowled. “I want a cup—no, make that a pot of coffee, a glass of water and a box of aspirin.”
Macy disentangled her hand. “And a cup of Earl Grey tea, if you have it.”
Peter hurried off to carry out his orders as Ryder stalked around the room, lowering the blinds to eliminate the curious stares from people walking past, then dimming the lights halfway for his headache’s sake.
He turned to Macy, surveying her. She’d worn her silken hair back