Hot Property

error in her thinking. Either she listened or he was shit out of luck. He didn’t want to think about that possibility.

He entered without knocking.

Startled, both Amy and Yank, who sat across from her desk, turned to stare.

“Roper!” they both said at the same time.

Suddenly he felt like an ass. But his reasons for barging in hadn’t changed so he kept walking toward her. “Hi, Yank,” he said to his agent. “Bye, Yank.”

As if agreeing with Roper, Yank’s fluffy dog barked.

“Of all the nerve!” Amy strode around her desk and stepped between the two men. “You can’t barge in, interrupt a private meeting and expect to get your way. Yank, you aren’t going anywhere,” Amy said, her cheeks flushed pink with anger.

The older man leaned back in his seat. “You heard the girl. I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Yank said, his tone not only smug but amused.

Roper wasn’t worried. He still held the trump card. “My career may suck at the moment, but I’m still worth money. If you want to be the one who gets me the deals, you’ll give me and Amy some time alone.” Roper stared his agent down because otherwise Yank, who loved drama and gossip as much as any female, would have kept his ass in the chair.

Yank groaned. “Man, you’re taking what little fun I still get out of my life,” he muttered as he rose from his seat.

“You’ll survive,” Roper said wryly.

“It’s my office. I have the final say.” Amy perched her hands on her hips.

Roper took a moment to admire her high-waisted black slacks and fitted buttoned-down shirt, which accentuated the curves he’d learned well, both with his hands and his tongue.

He shifted positions before dealing with the task at hand. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m the client. And the client is always right,” Roper said to Amy. Then he turned to Yank. “Tell her I’m right.”

He ran a hand through his shaggy hair and groaned. “We’ll talk later, girlie,” Yank said. He pulled on Noodle’s leash and he and the dog strode out of the room.

They were alone. Roper might have won the battle but he didn’t kid himself. He hadn’t yet won the war.

Amy’s heart beat fast in her chest and her head pounded so hard she thought both might explode. “How dare you!” She faced Roper and poked him hard in the chest. “This is my office. Where do you get off walking in here and calling the shots?”

Despite her words, a traitorous part of her was glad to see him. In the time since she’d been home, she’d been fighting her deepest feelings. The rational part of her understood that she and Roper were trouble waiting to happen. But looking at him now, it was difficult to remember why.

“You need to calm down and listen.”

She inhaled deeply. “What?” she asked, her voice deliberately cold.

He shook his head and laughed. “You don’t make things easy.”

She opted for silence.

“We grew close at the lodge,” he said in his most seductive voice.

She swallowed hard.

He stepped nearer. She stepped back. He stepped closer. She stepped back. The dance continued until her back hit the radiator by the window and he had her cornered.

Just as he had at the solarium. Memories and seductive heat swept through her.

“Very close,” he said as he took his final step, his thighs coming into direct contact with hers. “Remember?” He stroked her cheek with his hand.

“It’s over,” she said in a shaky tone. Damn, she hated the effect he had on her. The longing and wanting threatened to make her forget her reasons for not being with him.

“Actually, it’s just beginning.” His eyes bore into hers and his fingertips stroked her face, her cheek, her throat. “I love you, Amy.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly, though everything inside her turned to liquid, molten heat and a sudden yearning for so much more settled inside her chest. “You-”

He inclined his head. “I love you and I believe you love me, too.”

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. How long had she dreamed of the day when the man she loved would tell her he felt the same?

And she did love Roper. She knew it in a soul-deep way and had for a while, though denying and pushing it away from her consciousness had become second nature.

“Tell me, Amy,” he said, his lips inches from hers.

She was enveloped by the sensual cologne he wore that made her weak. She wanted to let herself be swept away by the dream. But she couldn’t.

Because it was nothing more than a dream.

“I can’t.”

“No, you won’t. You’re scared. I understand that. I’ve never said those three words to any woman before in my life. But we can make it work.” His tone was low and imploring.

She drew a deep breath, steadying herself. Reminding herself of the reasons she’d left the lodge and had steered clear of him since. “We can’t. I gave you all the tools to fix your life. I took you away, I showed you what you needed. But the first time you were faced with a choice, you chose to cave into your family’s needs.”

“Let me explain.”

“In a minute. I need to finish first. Until you can make that separation between yourself and your family in a way that leaves you healthy emotionally, you aren’t remotely ready for the kind of relationship that love entails.” Her heart and her voice cracked as she spoke.

“Are you saying you love me, too?”

When she didn’t reply, the knowing smile that had teased the corners of his mouth disappeared. “I will handle my family. You just can’t expect me to shut them down with no explanation after a lifetime of doing just the opposite.”

He made sense. He did. But it wasn’t enough. She merely shook her head.

“There’s more bothering you than just my family,” he stated with certainty.

She trembled, unwilling to admit to anything more. She couldn’t put it into words herself. “The family issue’s enough, considering it’s not going to change.”

“It will. And when it does, are you going to admit you love me? Or are you going to use the press as another excuse to stay away?” Once again, he spoke as if he knew the answer.

She wondered why he even bothered asking the question. “The press is another part of the problem,” she admitted.

He narrowed his gaze. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

Before she could answer, his cell phone rang.

Both Amy and Roper froze.

He glanced down at the number. “It’s Ben,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Ben never calls.”

“Unless something’s wrong. Go ahead and answer it,” she said, resigned, as she raised her hand, waving him away.

She wasn’t surprised at the intrusion. She supposed it was just as well. She didn’t want to have this painful talk, anyway.

“I’m going to handle this. I’m going to break my family into the way things are going to be from now on. And then I’m coming back to finish this conversation. We aren’t done. Not by a long shot,” he said, before answering his phone.

Oh, yes, we are, she thought as she watched him engage in the same frustrating discussion with his brother that he always had.

Then he left without another word.

They were over.

It was exactly what she told herself she wanted and needed. Yet she’d never felt so miserable in her entire life.