“Yes, Fiona,” he snapped when his cell phone rang a few days later. He was still irritated that his investigators hadn’t discovered her job. She walked dogs occasionally. But other than that, she left the house only to meet her friends. And she did too much of that, he thought as he glanced at the report on his desk.
There was a slight pause before she started talking and Charles instantly regretted his harsh greeting. “I’m going to buy a house. Should I go through your bank to finance it or should I find someone else who doesn’t mind that I don’t balance my checkbook?”
Charles stared at the phone, thinking this must be some sort of joke. “A house? What kind of a house?”
She sighed. “One with four walls, a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. A normal house. Sort of like the kind other people buy,” she teased and he could hear the laughter in her pretty voice.
Charles pinched the bridge of his nose at the mention of Fiona in a bedroom. He instantly pictured her on a bed. Naked. “Yes. Right.” He stood up and walked to the windows of his office that looked out onto the Mississippi River. The swirling brown water never ceased to fascinate him, so he’d kept the headquarters of his bank here despite the crazy humidity and heat. “Where is this house?”
Fiona bit her lip, not wanting to give him any information. “Look, why don’t I just call your mortgage department. I don’t want any special services just because I know you.”
Charles gritted his teeth, digging deep for patience. She’d damn well better get used to dealing with him about anything having to do with financial matters! There was no way he would allow her to deal with anyone but him! He didn’t want anyone taking advantage of her. She was too soft, too trusting and damn too naïve. “Fiona, give me the damn address.” There was no way in hell he’d let her go through the mortgage branch. They’d stamp rejected on her mortgage application before she even stepped out of the building. Besides, he’d put a flag on her accounts. Any time she called the bank, no matter what branch or department, she was instantly transferred to him. So there was no way she could even call the mortgage department and talk to a representative there.
Fiona spat out the address of the precious home she’d been so excited about. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to drive to your place, pick you up and we’re going to look at this house together.” He didn’t wait for her to respond but simply ended the call and walked out of his office. “Cancel my appointments this afternoon,” he told Lizzy.
The older woman peered at him over the top of her glasses, stunned speechless. Cancel his appointments? The man never left the office before seven o’clock in the evening. What was going on?
Charles wasn’t sure what he was thinking. His only objective was to figure out what Fiona was doing. She was so beautiful and sweet, he could just picture some disreputable realtor trying to sell her a bad house. He’d find out exactly what was going on and make sure that the realtor never had the ability to hurt his Fiona again.
“His” Fiona? Where the hell had that thought come from?
He pressed his foot to the accelerator and sped up, determined to get to Fiona before she did something she might regret.
When he walked up to her apartment, he was ready to tear the realtor apart, already having made him out to be a lecherous swine with bad intentions and illegal financing terms. But her sweet smile when she answered the door calmed him down. She looked so young and yet, so…
“Where’s this house?” he demanded, his voice extra gruff because he couldn’t think of her in those terms. She was a client, damn it! And he was supposed to protect her. “Let me see it.”
Fiona pulled back, her eyes suddenly wary. “I don’t think I want you to see the house,” she said. “You’re in a cranky mood. You’ll mess up the spirit of the house.”
Charles stood outside her apartment, his hands fisted on his hips and waited. He was actually waiting for her to explain that statement. It was so utterly ridiculous to think that a house had any sort of spirit. It was a building. It didn’t have moods or auras or whatever she was talking about. But she simply stood there, staring back at him as if she was making perfect sense. She even nodded once for emphasis.
He shook his head and stepped back. “Right. Grab your purse and let’s go.”
Fiona bit her lower lip, trying to decide what was going on. Why was he always so cranky lately? “Charles, you’re not going to like it,” she said. “I think I should just go to another…”
He moved closer, looking down into her startled brown eyes. “Fiona, if you even utter the idea of going to another bank, I think I’ll have to turn you over my knee and spank your adorable bottom. Do you understand?” he practically growled.
Fiona’s mouth dropped open but, after a pregnant moment where she stood a few inches away from his incredibly tall body, she nodded her head even though her eyes were still wide with shock. She completely dismissed the possibility of him spanking her. Charles would never stoop to anything so uncivil. No, her whole mind was focused on the fact that he thought her butt was…what was the word he used? “Adorable”?
He thought her butt was adorable! Wow!
Charles watched in fascination as her entire face beamed. It started off slowly, but the transformation was…amazing. Startling.
He was confused by her reaction and not sure what to make of it. “What just happened here?” he asked, his voice husky and he was unable to tear his eyes away from her beautiful features. He told himself to move back, to give her space. But he couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She was just so damn beautiful!
“Nothing,” she replied happily, a bounce to her step as she practically vibrated with that crazy energy that always seemed to surround her. “Thank you.”
Charles blinked when she stepped back and grabbed her purse. A moment later, they were walking down the hallway together and Charles still didn’t understand what had changed her lovely features from worried to happy in the blink of an eye.
“It’s a two bedroom, one and a half bath cottage style house over on Clairmont Street. I liked that area because it is close to the waterfront. I also heard that someone is buying up the land on the other side to make a really nice development. So this sounded like a good investment.”
Charles knew exactly what was going on with the waterfront area, since his bank was financing the Alfieri Properties project that was going to tear down the abandoned warehouses and build up a whole new community. It was a massive project, but Charles had complete faith that Dylan Alfieri would get the job done profitably.
He held the door to his black sedan open for her but when she didn’t step into the passenger seat, he looked back at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Fiona stared at the magnificent car. Of course it was the top of the line luxury vehicle, but this baby had a bit of kick to it. The sleek, black lines of the Maserati impressed her. She would have thought he’d drive something traditional and sedate, more banker-ish, like a Mercedes or a Lexus.
Fiona shook her head, unaware of the way her curls danced around her delicate features or the instant impact those dancing curls had on Charles’ imagination. This car indicated the man had much more underneath that conservative exterior than she’d realized. “Nothing at all,” she smiled up at him and slipped into the supple leather seat.
Charles almost slammed the car door closed as he tried to get his body back under control after that smile. Damn! What the hell was going on with him? She was just a client. A client he needed to take an unexplainable, special interest in so that he knew she was okay, but still, just a client.
It was a short ride to the house Fiona had in mind, but Charles asked her questions about why she wanted this house over another house, the design, the neighborhood. Most of his questions, she couldn’t answer. She finally sighed and looked up at him, confused with his interrogation. “Charles, I don’t know what the school system is like,” she told him with exasperation. “Good grief, I just love the house. It feels good and with a bit of care, it could be a beautiful home.” She didn’t want to go into the issue of future children because the idea of any man touching her other than Charles made her skin crawl. Which effectively meant she’d never have children. And that was okay. Almost.
“It’s right there,” she told him, pointing to a small cottage style house about three houses down from the corner. “Isn’t it adorable?” she asked.
Charles parked in the gravel driveway and stared out through the windshield at the building. It was more mess than home, with weeds growing through the cracks in the cement, a broken window in the basement, no landscaping to speak of, and a decidedly sad look about the whole thing. Only Fiona could think of this house as a happy place because, in his mind, it looked like a candidate for being demolished.
“Fiona…” he started to say but she was already out of the car and hurrying up the sidewalk to greet some guy. When she wrapped her slender arms around the man and even kissed his cheek, Charles saw red. Whipping out of his car, he came around, unaware of his hands fisting, ready to punch this guy who had dared to touch Fiona.
She spun around, that bright smile stopping him. But just barely. “Charles, this is Reggie Duncan. He’s the realtor who showed the house to me yesterday.”
Charles looked at the man, who immediately understood that he was in trouble. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Henson,” Reggie said nervously, extending his hand to Charles.
In return, Charles looked at Fiona’s hands, still wrapped around Reggie’s arm, then back up into Reggie’s eyes. The silent warning was received because Reggie cleared his throat and stepped back, forcing Fiona to release his arm. “Um…yes, well…”
Fiona didn’t understand what was going on, but one moment Reggie was his usual effusive self and the next moment he was having trouble clearing his throat. Looking up at Charles, she suspected that it was his fault and she glared up at him. “Be nice,” she whispered to Charles as Reggie walked up the sidewalk to unlock the front door.
Charles didn’t respond in any way other than to put a hand to her back and lead her up the cement stairs. “Tell me again why you want this house,” he commanded.
Fiona looked up at him with worry in her brown eyes. “Why? Is it bad? Is something wrong with it?”
Charles looked down at her and something inside of him twisted with the decreased happiness in her brown eyes. “The driveway would need to be repaved, costing you about ten thousand dollars. The sidewalk needs to be jackhammered out and replaced because there’s no way you can fix those cracks. The roots of that tree,” he said, pointing to the large maple tree on the front lawn, “have grown up underneath and pushed the cement out of the earth. That’s going to cost another ten grand.” He proceeded into the house as Reggie nervously opened the door and stepped back. “Not to mention, there are probably a lot of electrical and plumbing issues that need to be addressed.” He looked over to the realtor. “Is the kitchen updated with new appliances?” When the man didn’t respond quickly enough, Charles snapped, “I’m taking that as a no. And what about the bathrooms? Has an inspector come in to check out the plumbing?”
Fiona walked over to Charles and took his hand, immediately stopping him from going into any other potential downsides to her little dream cottage. “Those are all valid issues, but come here. Look at this fireplace,” she encouraged, bringing his hand to her chest and almost bouncing with delight. “The tile work on this is amazing. You can’t buy tiles like that anywhere. They have to age through time and change color as the fire is used through the generations.” She tugged him closer and he felt a pang of regret when the back of his hand was no longer pressed against her soft breasts. “And the mantle is solid wood. Isn’t the intricate wood carving amazing? Not many people take the time to carve wood like that. If you see it in houses now, it is most likely clay that is painted to look like wood.”
Charles watched as her soft hand smoothed over the mantle, then she looked up at him with hopeful eyes. He couldn’t really speak, his mind was completely focused on both of her hands, one which was still in his and the other which was stroking the wood. In his mind, he was picturing her stroking his chest in the same way, her long fingers running over his skin and his body hardened. His mind was blank except for that image.
Fiona saw the strange look in his eyes and thought she was failing to convince him about the beauty of the house so she doubled her efforts. Grabbing his arm and inadvertently pressing her breasts against his bicep, she pulled him into the kitchen. “You mentioned updated appliances and, yes, that’s probably something I’ll have to figure out but look at these cabinets. They’re solid wood. The hinges are all iron, put in by some guy who wanted to surprise his wife about fifty years ago. And look,” she opened several of them and closed them again, “they all work perfectly. I checked.”
She grabbed his hand again, pulling him through to the dining room. “And just look at these original hardwood floors,” she said, standing in the doorway to the room. “Just think about all of the meals that have been eaten in this room.” She sighed as she stared down at the floor. “Generations of families have been fed in this room. The floors are scuffed in certain areas. Feel it and see where there are almost grooves because of the table and chairs that have slid back and forth on the wood over the years.”
Charles could honestly say that he had no idea if the flooring was wood or asphalt. The only thing that he understood in his mind was the fact that Fiona was pressing her perfect breasts against his arm. His mind was whirling with ideas on how he wanted to explore her soft, full breasts with more than just the side of his arm. He pretended to look around the room, noticing that the floor was indeed scuffed up but he really couldn’t give a damn about the floor when her breast was pressed against him like this.
Fiona continued to hold his hand, dragging him over to stand in front of yet another fireplace. “And here again is another mantle, all solid wood. This fireplace would keep the whole family warm while they ate Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving dinners, birthdays, and just normal family meals.” She looked up into his blue eyes hopefully and Charles was not immune to her plea.
He breathed in deeply, trying to get his thoughts together. “Fiona, the house is...”
“Wait!” She covered his mouth with her hand and Charles was hard-pressed not to nibble against her soft skin. Oh, the things he could do to her hand that would make her toes curl. His mind pictured her writhing on his bed just from the things he would do to….
Damn, he had to get control of this lust he was feeling for Fiona. It was hitting him harder than normal today. Well, was there a “normal” when it came to Fiona? Definitely not!
Her soft, brown eyes implored him to not judge just yet. “You haven’t even seen the best part.” She grabbed his hand once more and pulled him up the old wooden stairs that creaked with their weight. “Wait until you see…” Fiona stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down at him.
“The best part?” He prompted when she didn’t go any further. As he looked up into her soft, brown eyes, he wondered what was going on inside that pretty head of hers. Of course, he also wondered what she would do if he pulled her closer, buried his face against those breasts and explored her…
Damn!
“Um…” She hesitated, not sure exactly what to do. Fiona had been about to take him into what would be her bedroom, but the idea of Charles, tall, handsome, amazing Charles being in her bedroom was too much for her.
“Well, you probably don’t want to see anything up here. You’re right, the bathrooms need to be renovated and…”
Charles sensed something was truly wrong and he didn’t like it. “Fiona, what do you not want me to see?” Charles asked, taking the last step on the stairs and towering over her petite figure. She was still holding onto his hand, but his other hand came up, his thumb gently caressing her cheek.
Fiona gasped as the fire from his touch burned all the way down to her stomach. “It’s just bedrooms up here,” she whispered, wishing she had the courage to put her hands on his chest and stop his forward momentum.
Charles told himself to move back, to give her space again. But he didn’t. He seemed to be having this argument too often lately, but there was something in her eyes that drew him even closer. “Show me the bedrooms, Fiona,” he commanded softly but with that deep voice that his employees knew not to argue with.
He felt the shiver as it raced throughout her body.
Fiona stepped back, taking a deep breath that wasn’t filled with the incredible Charles-scent that she love so much. “Yes. Right.” She turned around and looked at the two doors, one leading to the right and one leading to the left. She decided to show him the smaller of the bedrooms, the one she wouldn’t be sleeping in. “See? Isn’t this a beautiful room?” She walked over to the large windows that looked out onto the front yard and one that looked out onto the side yard. “There’s more wood work up here and even crown molding. The closets are big and spacious, and all of the doors up here are solid wood as well.”
Charles stood in the doorway, irritated that she’d dropped his hand. He wanted those soft breasts against his arm again and he was having a hard time getting over his resentment towards the house.
“The house seems solid enough, but what are you going to do about the yard?”
Fiona’s smile was brighter than the sunshine when she looked up at him. “I’ll learn to garden. How hard can it be? I mean, don’t you just put plants into the ground and they grow?”
Charles crossed his arms over his chest and leaned one shoulder against the door frame. “I think it’s a little more complicated than that.” He thought she was cute, being so optimistic about planting things. He could tell her about watering methods, shade loving plants, sun loving bushes, the roots in the front yard from the enormous tree that were going to make digging a hole almost impossible, not to mention how the tree would most likely steal all the water from whatever she planted.
Fiona simply shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I guess I have a new learning experience on the horizon then, right?”
Charles was not immune to her enthusiastic attitude and couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped him. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it.” He turned around and looked behind him. “What’s in the other bedroom?” He walked towards the other door, peering inside. Because he had his back turned to Fiona, he wasn’t expecting what came next.
Fiona saw what he was about to do, and jumped into action. “You can’t go in there!” She nimbly stepped around his large body, blocking the entrance to the doorway.
Charles looked down at the little woman who was trying to block his way, amused and still so turned on. “You know that I’m going in there, don’t you?”
Fiona shook her head, her curls dancing around her lovely features. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”
Charles smiled slightly, intrigued by this mystery. “What is in that room that you don’t want me to see?”
Fiona once again started to shake her head, but this time she put her hands against his chest to stop him. “Charles, you are not going in this room.”
One black eyebrow went up in challenge. “I’m going in there, Fiona.” With that, he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up against him. It was a simple task to simply change places with her.
Fiona gasped at the contact with his hard body. Her fingers were reluctant to move away from his chest, which was surprisingly more muscular than even what she’d pictured in her mind. She wouldn’t have thought of him as a man who worked out that often, but those muscles were a testament to a consistent and intense workout regime. The man was a workaholic, so when did he have time to work out? But the muscles in his chest were not something that he could come by casually. Oh goodness, her fascination with Charles ratcheted up several more notches.
Charles looked around at the empty room. It looked almost exactly like the other room, but larger. There were double windows on both sides of the outside walls, but other than a closet, there was nothing special about this room. “What were you trying to hide?”
Fiona wrapped her arms around her waist, her mind instantly picturing a big bed and Charles in the middle of it, his conservative suit laying on the ground and his eyes telling her to come closer. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks and quickly turned away so he wouldn’t see her blush and question her about it. The man really wouldn’t let any detail get by him.
“It’s just another room, Charles. Nothing special about it, and there’s nothing wrong with it.” But Fiona wouldn’t step into the room, not with Charles in it as well. The images swirling through her vulnerable, Charles-hungry mind were too vivid, too erotic.
Charles looked at her suspiciously. Something was going on. Something that he didn’t understand. “Fiona…”
“Let’s go downstairs and I’ll show you the backyard.” With that, she turned around and walked down the stairs, feeling a little bit clumsy since she was still trembling after feeling his arms around her waist and her breasts pressed against his chest. “You’ll approve of that area, at least. It is filled with lots of trees and shade.”
Charles stepped out of the bedroom and watched her walk down the staircase. His eyes sharpened on her sexy butt in those jeans, but he forced himself to look away. She wasn’t his. She was a client.
So why was his mind thinking of this particular client in completely inappropriate ways?
Fiona stood in the middle of the backyard, her face turned up towards the dappled sunshine that streamed through the trees. She took several deep breaths, trying to get her body back under control. Charles had muscles. That realization was so tantalizing. She should never have touched him, she should never have let him look in that bedroom. Fiona almost cried as she thought of all the things that she wanted to do to that man, with that man, on top of that man and underneath him…in that bedroom. She could picture him in rumpled sheets and looking up at her with desire in his eyes. She had a little trouble trying to think of him with morning stubble. She’d never seen him except when he was perfectly shaved. She suspected that he might even wake up at midnight to shave just so that he would wake up looking just as marvelous and pulled together.
When she heard the door opening, she turned and forced a smile to her face. “Isn’t it lovely?” She took a few steps towards one of the old oak trees. “I could plant daffodils and tulips over here so that there is color in the springtime.” She walked over to another corner of the yard. “And over here, there’s just enough sunlight for hydrangeas.” Her smile brightened even more. “Yes, I looked up how to grow one particular plant. I really love hydrangeas. Did you know that they can be pink or blue, depending on the amount of iron in the soil?”
Charles walked over and stood in the middle of the yard. He didn’t see the future daffodils or tulips, nor did he see the giant mops of hydrangea flowers. What he saw was a yard filled with tall trees and the roots that were coming up through the grass. Fiona would have to add several inches of topsoil or build raised flower beds in order to plant anything in this yard. But her soft, brown eyes looked so hopeful that even he, bastard that he was with most of his clients, couldn’t discourage her from planting, or from trying to plant, her flowers.
“Do you really want this house?” he asked her softly, already knowing the answer since it was written all over her beautiful features.
Fiona nodded her head, a bit more sedately this time because she wasn’t sure what he was going to say next. The man could be harsh, but he was usually right as well. No one argued when Charles Henson discussed money. He was simply brilliant when it came to financing or investments.
But in this instance, she spoke from her heart. “Yes, I really want this house.”
“Have you looked at any other houses?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t even planning to buy a house until I saw this one while I was driving by yesterday. I immediately called the realtor asking to look inside. When I saw it yesterday afternoon, I fell in love with it.”
Charles suppressed his groan. Financial decisions should never be made using emotion. He’d told her several times never to make a financial decision based on emotions, but here she was, looking adorable and hopeful. There was no way he could give her yet another lecture, or advise her not to buy this house. He sighed as he rubbed his forehead. Somehow he would make this right for her. Looking back at the house, he knew that it was a money pit, but he couldn’t deny her the excitement.
“Let me talk to the realtor.” He looked at her sternly. “Don’t say a word!” He waited for her nod of agreement.
She looked so excited that when she smiled up at him, it took a great deal of effort for him not to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Talk about an inappropriate action, he thought. She’s just a client, he reminded himself for the millionth time. “And you have to wipe that smile off of your pretty face, Fiona.” A split second later, she frowned. Even Charles could see that it was a fake frown and he rolled his eyes.
Charles put a hand to the small of her back and led her back through the house. He found the realtor standing on the front porch, a victorious smile on his face.
The realtor saw them coming towards him and straightened up, his smug expression changing to a polite smile now. “So do you have any questions?”
Charles crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring the beautiful woman next to him. He knew that she was holding back on her desire to dance around the front porch as her excitement threatened to spill out of her slender, delicate body. “As I said before, the driveway needs to be paved, the sidewalk needs to be redone,” he wrapped an arm around Fiona’s waist before he said the next words, squeezing her to give her warning, “the floorboards in every single room are warped and need to be sanded down, re-polished. The bathroom is outdated, all of the appliances in the kitchen need to be replaced and the backyard is a mess of roots. Every single tree in the backyard would need to be taken down and shredded before anything else could be planted in the backyard.” He felt Fiona’s body stiffen but squeezed her again, silently telling her not to speak or react. “There are three other houses in this neighborhood that were sold in the past six months, every single one of them $20,000 less than this one. The asking price on this house is about $60,000 too high before we even get an inspector in here to check out the electrical wiring and plumbing. So we’re going to pass on this house.”
Charles could feel the horror emanating from Fiona’s petite frame. But he couldn’t back down. He took her hand and led her over to his car. Waiting. Five, four, three, two…
“Wait!” The realtor called out. “Let’s just talk. This house has been on the market for about 120 days. I’m sure that the owners would be willing to negotiate.”
Charles continued to nudge Fiona into his car. “Call me at this number if there is any wiggle room in that price. But we’re not doing anything until the inspector comes through and gives me a report.”
The realtor looked down at the card, his eyes widening as he saw who he was dealing with. “Yes, yes!” The realtor looked down again, just making sure he had the name right. “I’ll get back to you this afternoon Mr. Henson.”
Charles closed the passenger side door and walked around the front of his car. He waited until his car door was open before he replied to the realtor, wanting Fiona to hear his answer. “We will be out looking at other houses this afternoon. I don’t think the woman should settle on this house since it’s the only one she’s looked at so far.”
He ducked into the car and started the engine, not looking at the realtor as he backed up. “You did a great job,” he said to Fiona as she silently sat beside him while they drove away.
“Is it really that awful of a house?” she asked sadly, wishing he wasn’t so observant.
Charles sighed and took her hand, squeezing it gently where it rested on her thigh. “That’s just an opening position, Fiona. The man thought he had the sale completed. He rubbed me wrong so I gave him a list of things that are wrong with the house. But all of them are fixable,” he told her, vowing to ensure that every single one of them was fixed before he let her move into the house. “He’ll now drop the price a bit, I’ll come back with an even lower price and we’ll finish up somewhere in the middle.”
Fiona beamed up at him, thrilled with his brilliance. “So it was all a negotiating tactic? And you love the house just as much as I do?” she asked, actually nervous about his opinion.
Charles stopped at the stop sign and looked down into those brown eyes that never failed to make his body stir almost instantly to life. “I think t