it was released? How do I know your companies haven’t gone down in value?”
He opened a carved box filled with darts that lined both the bottom of the box and its lid, and offered them to Tucker. “Because you’ve been watching me. You know exactly what I’m worth.”
Tucker chuckled. He took a dart, aimed at the board and made a bull’s-eye.
“Ah. A real challenge for me today!”
Tucker sighed. “You’re not going to talk business, are you?”
“No. You’re tired from your trip. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Right. Don’t try to kid somebody who makes his living knowing when people are lying to him.”
“All right. You want to be blunt. We will be blunt. If you can’t deliver my son to me, totally understanding my position—that his mother contacted me once, on a busy day, when I was so overwhelmed I barely registered what she said, let alone had brain power to believe it—then you don’t get my company.”
“So there’s no point in talking specifics?”
“Exactly.” As he spoke, Constanzo opened the drapes of the den, revealing his shimmering pool. The gray stone outdoor space had furniture groupings that ran the gamut from formal seating areas to casual placement of chaise lounges around the pool.
And on one of the chaise lounges lay a pale woman in a one-piece, pinkish-purple bathing suit. A lock of strawberry blonde hair blew in the slight breeze.
Olivia. Vivi. Casual, happy, like-me-as-I-am Vivi. The woman who’d actually drawn him into a personal conversation the night before.
“I worry she’ll fall asleep in the sun.”
Tucker took a swig of beer. “If she does, she’d better have sunblock.”
“She is pale.”
She was pale. Trusting. And he’d finally realized that was the thing that drew him about her, even as it annoyed the hell out of him. She wanted to understand, asked a million questions, because she wanted to trust life.
Trust life. As if one could.
He took in her smooth shoulders, her trim tummy. Even being exactly the opposite of what he liked in a woman, she tempted him.
Which was ridiculous. He liked sleek, sophisticates. Not hometown girls.
She shifted on the chaise, onto her side. The hat slid over her face, but the position pushed her breasts precariously high in the brightly colored suit. Her long legs stretched out, bared to him on sand-colored canvas. All right. She was sexy. She might not be sleek or sophisticated, but she was definitely sexy.
“Vivi...she is more than your assistant?”
Tucker swung around. Good God. Now the woman had him staring. “No.” He walked over to the bar and grabbed three darts. “I told you, she’s really not even my assistant. Betsy, the accountant who generally works with me was in an accident. Vivi—” Oh, Lord. Had he just used her nickname? “Is a temp.”
He laughed. “I see.”
“She probably won’t be with me the next time we meet. But you’ll like Betsy. She’s incredibly competent.”
And he was counting the days until she finished rehab and returned to the office. He didn’t want a sexy assistant. He didn’t want to wonder about the slander suit filed against her. He wanted Betsy back so his life could return to normal.
Still, every time Constanzo took his turn at the dart board, Tucker’s gaze drifted out to the pool.
* * *
“Drink, Miss?”
The white-coated butler scared Vivi awake and she jumped. She shouldn’t be surprised that she’d drifted off to sleep since she hadn’t even had so much as a nap on the plane. But she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to adjust to her new time zone.
“Sorry for jumping.”
He smiled benignly. “It’s quite all right.”
She wasn’t in the mood for a drink, but a little caffeine might give her some energy. “Do you have iced tea?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He left as quickly and quietly as he’d arrived, brought her drink and disappeared again. She sipped her tea, then flipped over so she didn’t get too burned.
But even before she settled on the chaise, she had the strangest feeling. Like someone was watching her.
She sat up and glanced at the house. The entire back of the first floor of the renovated house looked to be a wall of windows. Because of the framing, she guessed some of the ‘windows’ were actually double doors. But the angle of the sun made the glass dark. She couldn’t see inside.
She adjusted the strap on her suit, smoothed her hands down her legs, unable to shake the feeling of being exposed.
She frowned. Of course, she was exposed. She was outside. Lounging on the patio of a house that had at least one maid, a butler and a driver. There was probably a cook and a gardener, too. Four people could be gawking at her if they wanted to be. But why would they want to?
It was stupid to be paranoid. A better explanation for what she was feeling was guilt that Tucker and Constanzo were working and she wasn’t. She hadn’t come to Italy to lie about. As it was, Tucker Engle didn’t like having her along. Even if the trip had been grueling and she was tired, she had to get to work. Plus, she’d had a nice little nap. She had her brain back.
After gathering her cover-up, she padded to her room, put on her plain trousers and yellow shirt and headed downstairs again.
The house was a maze of corridors and beautifully decorated rooms. She could have stopped in every parlor to examine the furnishings and art she was sure was real, but needing to find Tucker and Constanzo, she kept looking until she found the pair in a den.
Playing darts. Drinking beer.
She shook her head. “You know, I was out by the pool, feeling bad because I wasn’t working, and here’s where I find you guys? Playing darts.”
Tucker faced her. His suit coat lay across the back of an overstuffed recliner. His white shirt sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, his black-and-silver striped tie loosened. He looked so casually gorgeous, she swallowed hard.
Her foolish attraction was growing, but at least now she understood why. He’d grown up poor, but he was successful now. Just as she wanted to be. They had common ground. He wasn’t just a good-looking guy. He was somebody she wanted to know.
“Vivi, come in! Do you throw?”
Glad for the distraction of Constanzo, she settled herself on the arm of an overstuffed chair beside the pool table. The room wasn’t dripping with diamonds or gold the way one might expect a billionaire’s house might be. Instead it seemed to exist for Constanzo’s comfort. Which, she supposed, was the way a billionaire should live.
“No, I don’t throw.”
“Your boss is beating me.”
She laughed. But Tucker kept his attention focused on the dart game. She hoped he wasn’t angry with her. He was the one who had suggested she sit by the pool while he and Constanzo talked. So he couldn’t be angry with her.
She let her gaze drift around the room but she stopped suddenly when she saw the chaise lounge with the empty iced-tea glass sitting on the table beside it.
Her gazed jerked to Tucker’s. This time he didn’t look away. His perfect emerald eyes heated.Her breath leached out in a slow hiss. Pinpricks of awareness skittered down her spine. He’d seen her in the bathing suit.
She tried to be Zen about it, because, really, it was a one-piece suit. So what if he’d seen her legs? It meant nothing.
But