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Did he feel it? Could it be possible that he reacted to her the way she did to him? The thought short-circuited her brain. It was quite literally mind-blowing.
She turned away from him, back to the sunset. ‘Everybody likes the vibrant colours of a sunset,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘All that magenta and orange—gorgeous but gaudy, like an old broad with too much make-up.’
‘I’ll agree with you that the moment after is more your style. Understated elegance. Quiet sophistication.’
‘And which do you prefer? The moment before or after?’
Chase didn’t answer, and Millie felt as if the very air had suddenly become heavy with expectation. It filled her lungs, weighed them down; she was breathless.
‘Before,’ he finally said. ‘Then there’s always something to look forward to.’
Millie didn’t think they were talking about sunsets any more. She glanced at Chase and saw him staring pensively at the sky, now deepening to black. The sun and all its gaudy traces had disappeared completely.
‘So tell me,’ she said, turning away from the railing, ‘how did you arrange a private terrace so quickly? Or do you keep one reserved on standby, just in case you meet a woman?’
He laughed, a rich, throaty chuckle. This man enjoyed life. It shouldn’t surprise her; she’d labelled him a hedonist straight off. Yet she didn’t feel prissily judgmental of that enjoyment right now. She felt—yes, she really did—jealous.
‘Full disclosure?’
‘Always.’
He reached for a blue button-down shirt that had been laid on one of the chairs. He’d thought of everything, and possessed the power to see it done. Millie watched him button up his shirt with long, lean fingers, the gloriously sculpted muscles of his chest disappearing under the crisp cotton.
‘My family owns this resort.’
She jerked her rather admiring gaze from the vicinity of his chest to his face. ‘Ah.’ There was, she knew, a wealth of understanding in that single syllable. So, architect and trust-fund baby. She’d suspected something like that. He had the assurance that came only from growing up rich and entitled. She should be relieved; she wanted him to be what she’d thought he was, absolutely no more and maybe even less. So why, gazing at him now, did she feel the tiniest bit disappointed, like he’d let her down?
Like she actually wanted him to be different?
‘Yes. Ah.’ He smiled wryly, and she had a feeling he’d guessed her entire thought process, not for the first time this evening.
‘That must be handy.’
‘It has its benefits.’ He spoke neutrally, without the usual flippant lightness and Millie felt a little dart of curiosity. For the first time Chase looked tense, his jaw a little bunched, his expression a little set. He didn’t smile as he pulled out a chair for her at the cozy table for two and flickered with candlelight in the twilit darkness.
Millie’s mind was, as usual, working overtime. ‘The Bryant family owns this resort.’
‘Bingo.’
‘My company manages their assets.’ That was how she’d ended up here, waiting out her week of enforced holiday, indolent luxury. Jack had suggested it.
‘And you have a rule about mixing business with pleasure?’
‘The point is moot. I don’t handle their account.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He spoke with an edge she hadn’t heard since she’d met him. Clearly his family and its wealth raised his hackles.
‘So you’re one of the Bryants,’ she said, knowing instinctively such a remark would annoy him. ‘Which one?’
‘You know my family?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ The Bryants littered the New York tabloids and society pages, not that she read either. But you couldn’t so much as check your email without coming across a news blurb or scandalous headline. Had she read about Chase? Probably, if she’d paid attention to such things. There were three Bryant boys, as far as she remembered, and they were all players.
‘I’m the youngest son,’ Chase said tautly. He leaned back in his chair, deliberately relaxed in his body if not his voice. ‘My older brother Aaron runs the property arm of Bryant Enterprises. My middle brother Luke runs the retail.’
‘And you do your own thing.’
‘Yes.’
That dart of curiosity sharpened into a direct stab. Why didn’t Chase work for the family company? ‘There’s no Bryant Architecture, is there?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Definitely not.’
‘So what made you leave the family fold?’
‘We’re getting personal, then?’
‘Are we?’
‘Why did you throw out your canvas?’
Startled, she stared at him, saw his sly, silky little smile. ‘I asked you first.’
‘I don’t like taking orders. And you?’
‘I don’t like painting.’
He stared at her; she stared back. A stand-off. So she wasn’t the only one with secrets. ‘Interesting,’ he finally mused. He poured them both sparkling water. ‘You don’t like painting, but you decided to drag all that paraphernalia to the beach and set up your little artist’s studio right there on the sand?’
She shrugged. ‘I used to like it, when I was younger.’ A lot younger and definitely less jaded. ‘I thought I might like to try it again.’
‘What changed your mind?’
Another shrug. She could talk about this. This didn’t have to be personal or revealing. She wouldn’t let it be. ‘I just wasn’t feeling it.’
‘You don’t seem like the type to rely on feelings.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Still typecasting me, Chase?’
He laughed, an admitted defeat. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I play to type.’
‘On purpose.’
She eyed him uneasily. Perhaps this was personal after all. And definitely revealing. ‘Maybe.’
‘Which means you aren’t what you seem,’ Chase said softly, ‘are you?’
‘I’m exactly what I seem.’ She sounded defensive. Great.
‘You want to be exactly what you seem,’ he clarified. ‘Which is why you play it that way.’
She felt a lick of anger, which was better than the dizzying combination of terror and lust he’d been stirring up inside her. ‘What did you do, dust off your psychology textbook?’
He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Guilty. I’m bored on this holiday, what can I say?’
And, just like that, he’d defused the tension that had been thickening in the air, tightening inside her. Yet Millie could not escape the feeling—the certainty—that he’d chosen to do it, that he’d backed off because he’d wanted to, not because of what she wanted.
One person at this table was calling the shots and it wasn’t her.
‘So.’ She breathed through her nose, trying to hide the fact that her heart was beating hard. She wanted to take a big, dizzying gulp of air, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. ‘If you’re so bored, why are you on holiday?’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
She blinked, not sure if he was joking. ‘How’s that?’
‘The stress was getting to me.’
He didn’t look stressed. He looked infuriatingly relaxed, arrogantly in control. ‘The holiday must be working.’
‘Seems to be.’ He sounded insouciant, yet deliberately so. He was hiding something, Millie thought. She’d tried to strike that note of breeziness too many times not to recognise its falseness.
‘So are we actually going to eat?’ He hadn’t pressed her, so she wouldn’t press him. Another deal, this one silently made.
‘Your wish is my command.’
Within seconds a waiter appeared at the table with a tray of food. Millie watched as he ladled freshly grilled snapper in lime juice and coconut rice on her plate. It smelled heavenly.
She waited until he’d served Chase and departed once more before saying dryly, ‘Nice service. Being one of the Bryant boys has its perks, it seems.’
‘Sometimes.’ Again that even tone.
‘Are you staying at the resort?’
‘I have my own villa.’ He stressed the ‘own’ only a little, but Millie guessed it was a sore point. Had he worked for what he had? He was probably too proud to tell her. She wouldn’t ask.
She took a bite of her fish. It tasted heavenly too, an explosion of tart and tender on her tongue. She swallowed and saw Chase looking at her. Just looking, no deliberate, heavy-lidded languor, and yet she felt her body respond, like an antenna tuned to some cerebral frequency. Everything jumped to alert, came alive.
It had been so long.
She took another bite.
‘So why are you on holiday, Millie?’
Why did the way he said her name sound intimate? She swallowed the fish. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, no. Boss’s. I haven’t taken any holiday in a while.’
‘How long?’
That bite of fish seemed to lodge in her chest, its exquisite tenderness now as tough as old leather. Finally, with an audible and embarrassing gulp, she managed, ‘Two years.’
Chase cocked his head and continued just looking. How much did he see? ‘That’s a long time,’ he finally said, and she nodded.
‘So he told me.’
‘But you didn’t want to take any holiday?’
‘It’s obvious, I suppose.’
‘Pretty much.’
She stabbed a bit of rice with her fork. ‘I like to work.’
‘So are you a hedge-fund manager?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘And you like it?’
Instinctively ‘of course I do’ rose to her lips, yet somehow the words didn’t come. She couldn’t get them out, as if someone had pressed a hand over her mouth and kept her from speaking. So she just stared and swallowed and felt herself flush.
Why had he even asked? she wondered irritably. Obviously she liked it, since she worked so hard.
‘I see,’ Chase said quietly, knowingly, and a sudden, blinding fury rose up in her, obliterating any remaining sense and opening her mouth.
‘You don’t see anything.’ She sounded savage. Incensed. And, even worse, she was. Why did this stupid man make her feel so much? Reveal so much?
‘Maybe not,’ Chase agreed. He didn’t sound riled in the least. Millie let out a shuddering breath. This date had been such a bad idea.
‘OK, now it’s your turn.’
She blinked. ‘What?’
‘You get to ask me a personal question. Only fair, right?’
Another blink. She hadn’t expected that. ‘Why do you hate being one of the Bryants?’
Now he blinked. ‘Hate is a strong word.’
‘So it is.’
‘I never said I hated it.’
‘You didn’t need to.’ She took a sip of water, her hand steady, her breath thankfully even. ‘You’re not the only one who can read people, you know.’
