Page 50 of Tempt

He shook his head like he wasn’t going to tell me.

“This is all so beautiful, Theo.”

“You forget, this isn’t new to me,” he said. His voice was low and deep, with more of his accent coming out again. I was glad to finally understand why the privileged Londoner slipped in and out of a mildly Scottish accent, and why it mirrored Higgins when they were together. It was something that happened all the time back home in Calhoun Beach as Southerner’s coastal accents collided with Northerners, and all the different variations of drawls from across the American south. I even found myself extending my vowels from time to time, and I was as un-southern as you could get.

So it made sense that Theo slipped in and out of an accent—those late teenage years had a way of imprinting on your brain.

He pushed up from the counter he was leaning against. “Watching you makes it all new again.”

I blushed. There was definitely magic in the hills, but there was also something magical happening between the two of us. It made me want to pause and examine it moment by moment. I wanted to rotate us in three dimensions, look at us from all angles, and see if all the things I was feeling were really there, or imaginary.

“I traveled a lot growing up, but we tended to stick to big cities,” I said. “I’ve done London a few times, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Madrid… my mother likes to shop. She wasn’t big on small towns.”

He took my hand as we returned to the street. “Then there are still a lot of places to explore.”

My heart fluttered in my chest. “Exactly.”

We walked back to the car in silence. The clouds were getting thicker and we needed to finish our trip to Keswick and Theo’s hotel. Well, partially his hotel. He was a partner in a small chain of boutique hotels, but this one was his favorite, or so he told me while we drove.

I also learned that he stored the silver roadster in a garage near the airport in Manchester because going for long drives through the Lake District was his favorite way to de-stress.

Other than spending weekends in bed with me, of course.

“I figured if I was going to enjoy my holidays, I should have a car that made it even more fun,” he said with a wink.

And it was. Sure it was an antique, but it was a work of art. Fast, maneuverable, and sporty, I felt like I was in a different time and place. And I liked that feeling very, very much. It was like we’d left our real lives completely behind. There was no work or stress. Theo wasn’t the CEO of iON Innovations and I wasn’t an architect with two controversial projects on my desk, or a family asking me to come home. He was a boy I was falling in love with, and I was a girl ready to fall.

Could a secret affair really end in a happily ever after? I didn’t know the answer. At this point I was pretty sure we had a darn good chance of crashing and burning as the terrible idea we’d always been. But the closer we grew, the more I wondered if we could overcome the past, and the family obligations, and be together simply because we’d fallen in love.

At least I knewIwas falling in love. I had no idea if Theo had the capacity to understand feelings like that, let alone admit to them. Luckily I wasn’t in a hurry. I had all the time in the world.

“I want to show you something,” he said as he pulled the car off the main road and down a much smaller one. He had a hopeful look in his eyes and he was more relaxed than usual. As if he felt comfortable.

Or at home.

That was the first thought I had when I noticed the change in him. The look was the one I knew I got every time I saw my childhood home. The large lawns, the two story building set behind a large fountain, my mother’s gardens… regardless of how I felt about taking over the family business, I loved my home and felt more comfortable there than anywhere else on Earth.

That was the look Theo had right now.

He pulled my hand up to his lips and brushed them along my knuckles. “Tell me about your family.”

How did I ask this delicately? “How much do you already know?”

He glanced at me out of the side of his sunglasses. “Honestly? Very little. Martin knows more than I do.”

“You know who my family is though?”

He nodded. “I may have Googled you a few weeks ago. But just to find out who you were. I didn’t spend hours reading every detail. That’s Martin’s job.”

I sighed because I couldn’t fault him for that. I’d looked him up, too. “Well, tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the rest.” The countryside rolled by with only the barest signs of life dotted here and there. It was amazing how they’d been able to keep development at bay.

“I know your family owns a cosmetics company and that you are well off. You went to all the best schools and you’re an only child.”

Yep. Those were the basics. “They want me to come home and take over the company.”

He smiled sadly. He knew the complications of family obligations better than most. “I take it you don’t want that?”

I shook my head. “Unlike some people,” I tilted my head toward him, “I don’t particularly enjoy the megalomaniac CEO lifestyle.”

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