grinned, his gaze brushing over Emmy’s short, layered hair, over the curve of her back. Goose pimples winged over her skin.
“I’ve kept up on your life,” she said. Good, that much was true. She’d stick to basic gossip, keeping the situation as innocuous as possible. “You were such a football star in school. Quarterback, right?”
He lifted up a hand in resignation, glanced away. “That’s over and done with.”
“Why didn’t you keep at it? You were supposed to be pretty good.” He’d been the best. She knew because she and her friends, Carlota and Felicia, had faithfully followed the papers, the gossip.
“I always knew I was meant to run Rhodes Industries one day,” Deston said. He grabbed a twig from the ground, bent it, straightened it. “But my family gets a lot of mileage out of the whole Longhorn quarterback mystique.”
“It does add prestige to your business image, doesn’t it?”
He snapped the twig, tossed it away. Stood to his full height. His body cast a shadow over Emmy, all harnessed strength and dark memory.
“Isn’t that why your father wanted to spend time here on the ranch?” he asked. “Because he wanted to talk statistics and relive a few glorified touchdowns?”
Her Papa? Nigel Brown, bless him, was thirteen years gone. And he’d be miffed by his daughter wanting to be anyone other than what she was born for.
She opened her mouth to correct Deston’s assumptions, but he was talking again.
“That’s how Edward Rhodes the Third draws them in, with promises of pigskin glamour and riches beyond imagination.”
A threat of bitterness laced his words. She knew about Mr. Rhodes, how strict he was about running the ranch, the staff, the polished reputation of a millionaire family.
She couldn’t see Deston’s face, thanks to the sun’s angle. Good thing, because once she revealed she wasn’t from the Stanhope family, she didn’t want to see his reaction.
There was a loud thrashing from across the swimming hole, and they both glanced over to see what had caused the racket.
A white-tailed deer had emerged from the foliage, gracefully walking along the water’s edge.
“Look,” Emmy said, momentarily lost in the sight. It’d been a long time since she’d been in Hill Country, and she’d missed it terribly.
The animal sensed them, stiffened, then burst away in a flash of legs and brown hide.
Deston leaned down, casually plucked at the knot that held together the back of Emmy’s hankie top, then stood again. “Come on, let’s make the most of your last day here, Lila.”
He started to unbutton his shirt.
Lila. “Hey, I—” Her mouth clamped shut.
He’d whipped off the material, revealing tanned skin, work-honed muscles, abs that you could grate cheese on. When he undid the fly of his jeans, Emmy averted her eyes.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?” Heavy denim thumped in front of her, bodiless.
Oh, mercy. He was—as her mama might say—nudo, wasn’t he?
Unable to help herself, Emmy peeked out of the corner of her gaze. She caught a glimpse of white boxers. Phew. Or maybe not. No, definitely phew. The last thing she needed was to be out in the middle of the boonies with a buck-naked boss’s son. She’d get Mama fired in a second flat after what had happened a few years ago between Harry Rhodes and the maid, and, Lord knew, Mama needed every penny….
“You just gonna sit there?” Deston asked.
Emmy nodded, staring straight ahead. Should she concentrate on her book now? Like Water for Chocolate, something she’d read and used for recipes a million times before.
“Suit yourself.” He whisked by her, body arching into the pond like a switchblade cocked open.
Deston obviously knew the depths of the swimming hole from his youth. When the servant kids had played here, they’d vacated the hole at the first sign of a Rhodes.
Emmy had never seen him swim, never seen him knife upward in a spray of droplets. The water sprinkled onto her arms, and she leaned backward.
“Hey!”
He laughed, clearly having the time of his life, slinging the hair out of his eyes with one whip of his head, pushing into a backstroke as he aimed another burst of water at her.
“Come in,” he yelled, turning over and swimming away.
Moisture sluiced off the sinew of his back, trickling over the smooth taper of muscle flowing into waist. His boxers were plastered to the rounds of his backside, hugging the indentation right below his hips. She could imagine fitting her palm there, tracing the ridges of him.
Emmy watched him move effortlessly, athletically, parting the water before him. Diving beneath the surface, he disappeared.
She inhaled, spellbound, while fingering a fringe on her old, ugly shorts.
He’d asked her to come in. With him. Her. Emmylou Brown, a girl who was no more important than a piece of furniture in the Rhodes sitting room.
But what if she could be more than that?
Years ago, with Paolo, she’d asked the same question, and the answer had cut the heart right out of her.
This time though, what if she really could pretend she wasn’t poor-girl Emmy? What if she could convince Deston she was an equal before he could guess who she really was?
Emmy bit her lip. And what if she could do it by being Lila Stanhope, even for an hour?
She crept closer to the edge of the stone slab, wondering if she’d be brave enough to dive in.
Underwater. Peace.
That’s all Deston wanted. The silence you could hear below the pond’s surface, where nothing existed but the present, the sunlight waving through the water.
He held his breath, lungs near to bursting, then with a thrust of energy, surged upward, breaking toward the sky.
The first thing he saw was Lila, one of his father’s ranch guests. He faintly remembered her as a kid, but something had happened on the trip from the blurry Lemon Face of his recollection to today’s woman. Now, she had a smile that lit up from the inside, brightening her dark cocoa eyes, her dusky skin. Even her hair was a point of light, short, shaped into bouncy layers. It looked like ginger to him. Ginger with vanilla streaks flowing over the strands near her face.
Damn, he hadn’t remembered Lila Stanhope being such a beaut, just a girl with stringy brown hair and a nondescript stare. If he’d known that she’d turn out so gorgeous, he might have agreed right off the bat to what his father had been nagging him to do for a week now.
If you act sweet on her, Mr. Rhodes had said in his lecture voice, business with the Stanhopes will go much smoother.
Deston was a sight too old for lectures. At the age of twenty-nine, he was ready to think for himself. Had been for years. And he’d come to the conclusion—all on his own, if that could be believed—that courting Lila Stanhope in the name of corporate interests was not his style.
His father’s eye had once again turned to the Stanhopes. That’s why Deston hadn’t seen Lila lately. Because Mr. Rhodes had lost interest in Stanhope Steel.
Until now.
Deston would do anything for his family. Work long hours, forgo a personal life in the process. Anything, except go against his own instincts.
Instincts. Bothersome jabs of fear that had everything to do with Juliet Templeton—the woman he’d loved and lost so tragically—and nothing to do with logic. His “instincts” kept him sane, and they