Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

Casting a final glance at the king-sized bed piled high with pillows and covered with fresh crimson rose petals over the royal-blue silk sheet, he went to answer the soft knock on his suite’s door.

Audrey stood on the other side, wearing her pajamas and robe from the night before. Her chocolate gaze reflected unmistakable trepidation and anticipation.

“You remembered slippers tonight,” he said by way of a greeting as he stood back to allow her entrance to his personal sanctum, this one even more off-limits to others than his jungle paradise.

She nodded, making no move to come inside.

“Are you having second thoughts?”

Audrey shook her head, her lovely brown hair rippling and sliding against her robe.

He reached out and guided her inside, lust spiking in his belly from the simple touch of his hand against her silk-clad shoulder. She didn’t balk but came without hesitation, despite her clear inability to take this step of her own volition.

Just as it had in the pool last week, her instinctual compliance intoxicated him more than the champagne waiting in the other room ever could. She gave herself so beautifully and completely to his desires. She ensnared him with bonds he could not hope to break.

And in her innocence she had no idea.

“I would like you to leave your slippers, robe and pajama bottoms here.” He waited to see if she would comply, his atavistic instincts certain of her reaction even as logic insisted the connection between the two of them could not be that deep and elemental.

Against all rational expectation of her reaction, his words seemed to relax her as an undeniable air of tension surrounding Audrey bled away.

She toed off the ballet-style black slippers, managing to place them neatly to the side of the rose petals creating a path from his door, through the suite to the bed in the other room. She surprised him by removing the bottoms first, folding them and dropping them on top of the slippers.

When she went to untie her robe he reached out and gently took over the task without any previous plan to do so.

That lack of fore-planning should bother him. He always planned every action in the bedroom. His control thing, as Audrey called it, didn’t just extend to his partners. Enzu demanded total restraint of himself.

Since his very first foray into sex Enzu had never once lost his self-mastery. Until the previous Saturday night, when he had kissed without thought and come within inches of burying himself inside Audrey’s untried body.

It had been his knowledge that to do so would cause her unnecessary pain that stopped him, not his own willpower or plan.

“Enzu?” Audrey looked up at him with inquiry, but no mockery.

He’d lost himself in his thoughts and she was not amused by it, did not tease him about losing control of the situation.

“You are a very good match for me, più amato.” The endearment slipped out, but he would not take it back. Best beloved.

He also had no intention of telling her what it meant if she asked.

She didn’t, only observed, “Not on paper.”

“Externals are not important Not here. Not between us.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No.”

“We are almost polar opposites.”

He slid her robe from her shoulders and then dropped it over the back of a nearby armchair. “Perhaps that is what we both need.”

“Yes.” She smiled, a mischievous light shining in her brown eyes. “I don’t think you’d find it nearly as much fun with someone as bossy as you are.”

He chuckled, but cupped her cheeks, making sure their gazes met and she could read the sincerity and challenge in his. “I do not believe you would enjoy yourself as much with an overly civilized partner, either.”

“I’m not even sure I would have ever been open to another sexual partner,” she admitted painfully.

“You have not been tempted in the past six years?”

She shook her head. “At first I was too hurt by the betrayal of the most important men in my life to trust anyone else enough to even go on a date.”

“You were busy trying to keep a home together for you and Toby while finishing your schooling as well.”

“Yes, but…” She swallowed, trying to turn her head from his gentle hold.

He would not let her. He sensed there was something important here he needed to know. “But what?”

“If I’d been open to it, I could have dated.”

“You weren’t.” She’d already said so. “What is it you think is so important you need to hide it from me?”

Her eyes widened as if his insight shocked her. He almost laughed. Did she not realize he expended more effort reading her than he did his strongest business rival?

He thought back over their words, looking for a clue to what Audrey was trying to keep from him. “You said at first.”

Fear skittered across her expression.

“What came next?” Had she had a bad experience?

“Toby started high school and he did really well, academically, socially—he was well-adjusted all around.”

“And he needed you less?”

“Yes, so I thought I should maybe start dating.”

His gut clenched. “What happened?”

“I saw you.”

It was so far from what he’d expected to hear Enzu dropped his hold on her face. “What?”

“You were visiting the bank. I saw you in the hall.” Clear discomfort colored her voice. “You turned to say something to Gloria and I saw your face full-on.”

“There is a portrait of me in the lobby of the bank building.” She had to have seen his face before that.

“Yes. I’d looked at it a lot. Only not really consciously, you know?”

“No, I do not know.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” She turned away and went to one of the huge bouquets of crimson and white roses that he’d had flown in to fill his suite.

“Audrey…” he prompted, his tone letting her know he would not drop this.

She reached out and ran a fingertip over one velvet blossom before leaning over to inhale the fragrance of the perfectly open blooms.

Her action wasn’t necessary. The heady perfume permeated the suite from sitting room to bathroom and the bedroom in between.

She was stalling.

“What did catching a glimpse of your employer have to do with your dating?” he asked, thinking a more specific question would get her talking again.

She turned back to face him, the picture she made in the silky pajama top that just brushed her upper thighs nearly making him forget their conversation all together.

“I didn’t see my employer

in that moment.”

“That makes no sense.” Even when she’d worked at the bank, as its president Enzu had ultimately been her employer.

“I saw a man.”

Not for the first time in this woman’s presence, Enzu found himself speechless.

“A man I wanted.”

“That was four years ago.”

“Yes.”

“So you did not date in hopes of one day catching my eye?” he asked in disbelief.

“No. I never thought I’d come under your notice. But it didn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t generate interest in other men.”

“Even though you knew there was no chance you would have me?”

“It was so stupid, and I was determined to break the pattern once Toby had gone away to university.”

As illogical as it might be, Enzu did not like hearing that. “You were going to date?”

“I’d even created a profile on one of those online dating sites.”

“That needs to be taken down immediately.”

“I deleted it before it ever went public.”

“Good.” He did not examine the relief he felt at that assurance. “So, what you are saying is that you’ve had a celebrity crush on me for four years.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“What else could it be?”

“Love.”

“What? You cannot love someone you do not know.”

“No, you can’t be in love with a stranger. But the spark of love can be ignited. You’ve fanned it into a raging flame since that first day in your office.”

He crossed to her, putting both hands on her shoulders, his urge to kiss her strong. “You are saying that you love me?”

“Yes. Isn’t it stupid?”

“I have no experience with the emotion, but I do not think it is stupid, no.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” Perhaps these feelings she had for him explained how stunningly she gave herself to him.

“You don’t mind?”

“That you love me?”

“Or that when I came to you the first time I obviously had ulterior motives for approaching you?”

“If not for Toby, would you have approached me otherwise?”