Exotic Nights

His blue eyes met hers and sparked again. ‘I have programmers who build the software, Bella. Then I use the programs to do the work that needs doing.’

‘I’m surprised you need the programmers, Owen,’ she teased, pleased to have his humour back. ‘Why don’t you get all your precious computers to do it all for you?’

He chuckled. ‘There’s one thing that computers can’t do. Something that I can do really, really well.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Imagine,’ he answered softly. ‘I have a really, really good imagination, Bella.’

She stared at him, reading everything she wanted to read in his expression—heat. She was a dreamer—her father had told her off for it. That she wouldn’t get anywhere sitting in a daydream all day …

‘Someone has to dream it up.’

Someone like him. He was so enticing. Did he know what she was imagining right now? She suspected he might because that look in his eye was back.

Confusion made her run for deflection. ‘I could never sit at a computer all day.’

‘I could never stand on my feet slaving after people all day in a ton of noise.’

‘I like the noise of the café. I like watching the customers as they sit and people-watch. I like the face-to-face contact.’

‘I like face to face.’

‘Really?’ She didn’t quite believe him. She had the feeling he holed himself away in that big apartment and thought up things her brain wasn’t even capable of comprehending. And then he sold them. She’d been wrong—he was more entrepreneur than anything.

His grin turned wicked. ‘And body to body.’ He leaned closer, his voice lower, his eyes more intense. ‘Skin to skin.’

Owen grinned as he saw the change in her eyes again. The sparkle went sultry. When he stepped close to her, when he spoke low to her, she coloured, flustered. But he wanted her more than flustered, he wanted her hot—and wild. And now he saw the way to that was so much simpler than he’d thought. All he had to do was get close to her. And she wanted to know about him? He’d tell her about him.

‘A couple of years ago I sold the business to a conglomerate for many millions of dollars.’ He was upfront, knowing money wasn’t something that rang her bell. She seemed to take a strange joy in being broke; it was almost as if she deliberately mucked up—as if it was some sort of ‘screw you’ signal to her dad.

‘So what did you do with all your millions?’ she asked, her tone utterly astringent.

There, see? He’d known it would go down like the proverbial lead balloon. ‘What do you think I did with it?’

‘Bought yourself a Ferrari,’ she snapped, ‘and a few other boy toys. A plush pad in the centre of the city. An easy, playboy lifestyle.’ Her eyes were like poisoned arrows pointing straight at him.

He batted them away. ‘Yes to the Ferrari—it was my one big indulgence. But not so many other toys. As you’ve already seen the plush pad in the city isn’t so plush—half of it still has to be plushed up.’

He paused, took in her focused attention. Good, it was time his little fairy saw things the way they actually were.

‘I put half into a charitable trust and built a think tank with the other. The people you saw in that meeting yesterday have some of the brightest and best minds you’ll find anywhere. Total computer geeks.’ He winked at her. ‘I get them together and they work through problems, building new programs.’

‘That you can sell and make lots of money with.’

‘That’s right. We take the money, give half away and get on with the next idea. I like ideas, Bella. I like to think them up and get them working and then I like to move on to the next big one.’

‘You don’t want to see them all the way through?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t like to get bored.’ He didn’t like to be complacent. He didn’t like to be around long enough to ‘miss’ anything. It was better for him to keep his mind moving. ‘As for the easy, playboy lifestyle—sure, occasionally. But for the most part I work very long, very hard.’

‘Why? When you’re wealthy enough to retire tomorrow?’

‘Because I like it.’ Because he couldn’t not. Because he needed something to occupy his mind and his time. Because he was driven. Because he couldn’t face the void inside him that he knew couldn’t be filled. Because he was missing something that everyone else had—the compassion, the consideration, the plain awareness and empathy towards others. His relationship with Liz had made him feel claustrophobic. The family she’d threatened him with had proved to him he wasn’t built for it and he had bitterly resented her for trying to force him into it. He would not allow that pressure to be put on him again. But he’d have a woman the way he wanted—he’d have Bella the way he wanted.

‘For all that success—’ he underlined the word, knowing the concept annoyed her ‘—I’m still the guy who made you laugh that night.’ He tossed the pizza crust into the box and stood. ‘I’m still the guy who made your legs so weak you couldn’t stand.’ He took a step back, determined to walk away now. He spoke softer. ‘I’m still the guy who made you alternately sigh then scream with pleasure.’ He paused. He’d leave her knowing exactly what his intentions were—plain and simple. He spoke softer still. ‘And I’m the guy who’s going to do it all again.’

CHAPTER EIGHT