“It’s too late to worry about that,” he said with a little laugh. “Sorry. I just—I have some things on my mind, that’s all.”
“Second thoughts about this trip?” she said, her tone stiff.
“Yes,” he said bluntly, “but not about you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t, either.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with questions, and he sighed. “My brain is in a fog. Thinking about you kept me awake most of the night.”
“That makes it unanimous.”
“Well, why don’t you take a nap, sweetheart? It’ll take a few hours for us to get to Texas.”
Amanda lifted her eyebrows. “Is that whe-ah we’re a’goin’?” she said in a lazy drawl. “To Tex-as?”
Nick groaned. “That’s terrible,” he said, and grinned at her.
Amanda grinned back. “It’s the best I can do. I’m not a native Texan.”
“Better watch that phony accent.” He touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “Our host is known for having a temper.”
She yawned and burrowed closer, inhaled the scent of him. “Must be a Texas tradition. He can’t have more of a temper than my stepfather. Are we going to a ranch? Is that why you told me to pack jeans?”
“Clever woman.” She was cuddled up to him like a kitten, all warm, soft and sweet-smelling. Nick turned his head, buried his nose in her silken hair. “Yes. We’re going to a ranch.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said, and gave another delicate yawn.
“It is?”
“Uh-huh. Maybe we’ll get the chance to go riding. I like horses. And I love to ride.”
“Do you?” Nick said, knowing he was grinning like an idiot. “Like to ride, I mean?”
“Mmm.”
“I do, too. My father breeds Arabian horses. They’re an ancient breed. Graceful, fast—”
“Mmm. I know something about Arabians.”
He smiled. “Really?”
“Arabian horses,” she said, and laughed. Her warm breath tickled his throat. “My stepfather has a weakness for them.”
“Well, so does the owner of the ranch we’re going to. My father shipped a stallion to him, but something must have gone wrong during the flight.”
“Where is this ranch? What part of Texas?”
“It’s near Austin. Do you know the area?”
“A little. I’ve spent some time there. My mother and stepfather live nearby.”
Nick put the briefcase aside, leaned back and gathered Amanda closer. He didn’t much care about reading through the papers Abdul had provided. Not right now. All he wanted to do was enjoy the feel of Amanda, nestled in his arms.
“Perhaps they’re familiar with the ranch we’re going to.”
“What’s it called?” She smiled. “The Bar Something, right?”
Nick grinned and kissed her temple. “Wrong. It’s called Espada.”
Her body, so soft and sweetly pliant seconds ago, became rigid in his embrace.
“Espada?” She sat straight up and stared at him. “We’re going to Espada?”
“Yes. Do you know it?”
“Do I…?” Amanda barked a laugh, pulled free of his arms and shot to her feet. “Yes, I know it. For heaven’s sake, Nick! Jonas Baron owns Espada.”
“Right. He’s the man we’re going to see.”
“Jonas is married to my mother.”
It took a minute for the message to sink in. “You mean—you mean, he’s your stepfather?”
Amanda chuffed out a breath. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Nick couldn’t believe it. How could something like this have happened? The irony was incredible. He’d never taken a woman with him on a business trip until today—and now, his business trip was taking Amanda straight into the bosom of her family.
No, he thought, and bit back a laugh. No, it was impossible.
He never got involved with the families of the women he dated. Oh, he met mothers and fathers from time to time. You couldn’t live the life he did and not have that happen. New York seemed like a big city to outsiders but the truth was that the inner circle, made up of financiers and industrialists, politicians and public figures, was surprisingly small.
After a while, the Joneses knew the Smiths and the Smiths knew the Browns and the Browns, of course, knew the Joneses. The names and faces all took on an almost stultifying familiarity.
But that wasn’t the same as spending a weekend—a weekend, for God’s sake—with a woman’s parents.
He’d always been scrupulously careful about that. He’d turned down simple invitations to spend days in the country or on Long Island if it meant Daddy or Mommy would be there, and it hadn’t a thing to do with anything as simple as the propriety—or the impropriety—of sharing the bed of the daughter of the house.
It had to do with far more delicate matters.
Family weekends were complications. They were far too personal. They created expectations he never, ever intended to fulfill.
“Dammit, Nick, say something! Didn’t you hear what I said?”
He looked at Amanda. She was standing in front of him, her hands on her hips.
“Yes,” he said slowly, as he rose to his feet. “I heard you.”
“Well, I can’t go there. To Espada. You’ll have to tell Tim—”
“Tom,” he said as if it mattered.
“I don’t care what the pilot’s name is!” She could hear her voice rising and she took a deep breath, told herself to calm down. “Nick, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take me back to New York. Or—or have your pilot—have Tom—land at an airport, any airport. I can take a commercial flight back to—”
“Amanda.” He took her hands. “Take it easy.”
“Take it easy?” She snorted, looked at him as if he were out of his mind. “Do you know what they’ll think if I show up with you? Do you have any idea what my mother will—what Jonas will…Oh, God!”
She swung away. Nick caught her, drew her to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her. She was stiff and unyielding, but he didn’t care. If anything, that was all the more reason to hold her close.
“They’ll think we didn’t want to be apart,” he said roughly.
“Nick—”
“They’ll think we just met and yes it’s crazy, but the thought of being away from each other, even for a couple of days, was impossible.”
“Nick,” she said again, but this time her voice was soft and her eyes were shining when she lifted her face to his.
“They’ll think I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he whispered, and then her arms were around his neck, her mouth was pressed to his, and nothing mattered to either of them but the joy and the wonder of the moment.
CHAPTER NINE
THE afternoon sun was high in the western sky as Marta Baron settled into her chair on the upper level of her waterfall deck, smiled politely at her guests and wondered what on earth she was supposed to say to the stranger who was her daughter’s lover.
At least, she assumed Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid was Amanda’s lover.
It hadn’t been a very difficult assumption to make.
The expression on the sheikh’s handsome face when he looked at Amanda, the way he kept his arm possessively around her waist, even the softness in his voice when he used her name, were all dead giveaways.
He might as well have been wearing a sign that read, This Woman Belongs To Me.
Amanda was harder to read.
There was a delicate pink flush to her cheeks, and she had a way of glancing at the sheikh as if they were alone on the planet, but Marta thought she’d noticed an angry snap in her daughter’s eyes when the sheikh’s arm had closed around her—a look he had studiously ignored as he drew her down beside him on the cushioned teak glider.
“…so I said, well, why would I want to buy a horse from a man who couldn’t tell the front end of a jackass from the rear?” Jonas said, and Marta laughed politely, along with
everybody else.
She’d always considered herself a sophisticated woman, even before she’d assumed her duties as the wife of Jonas Baron. She’d lived through the sexual revolution, looked the other way when her girls were in college and one or the other of them had brought a boy home for the weekend. Not that she’d put them in one room, but she’d known that closed doors hadn’t kept them from sleeping—or not sleeping, she thought wryly—in the same bed.
Not Amanda, though.
Marta smiled at something the sheikh said, but her attention was focused on her middle daughter.