Free Surrender Your Heart by Raven J. Spencer Page B

arrangements to make for the business deal, but
maybe afterwards, I can win her over with dinner under the stars.
    If she still
wants to touch me, tomorrow I might let her.
    * * * *
    At the breakfast
table, Penelope wears a flowered sundress with a white cardigan, and a defiant
expression. I’ve given her, and myself, a year. That’s a reasonable time for
making her understand this is not a usual courtship. I’ll never harm her, never
intended to, but I can’t take any chances. Business aside, I couldn’t possibly
stay with her after the first time, a first time that came sooner than each of
us expected.
    “Good morning.
Did you sleep well?”
    She glares at
me. “What do you think?”
    Even pouting,
she’s adorable, so I’ll let this go. She isn’t ready to do so yet.
    “You didn’t need
to yell at Marlene about the freaking razor.”
    So she figured
it out.
    “I pay the
people who work for me, well. I expect them to be able to follow simple rules.”
This is still getting me more emotional than I care to admit.
    “You’re going to
fire her?” Penelope asks, anxious.
    “No.
Unfortunately, I can’t cook like this.”
    “Oh.” She drinks
her coffee, silent for a moment. I know. The attraction is there, I’ve seen it
back in the café when one look made her all flustered and blushing…but even
after last night, she still has trouble wrapping her mind around all this. At
least, she’s wearing her clothes, didn’t attempt to hold on to her old ones.
Baby steps.
    “You always
expect the worst of people, don’t you? Is that from experience? What did you
think I’d do with that razor other than making myself presentable?”
    Those are many
loaded questions for an early morning. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of everything
you needed, but the next time, just ask. It’s not that Marlene can’t give you
things or make decisions when I’m not here. She should have known better. If
you want, I can bring in a cosmetician for you.”
    She frowns,
obviously not happy with that solution, or the subject, for that matter.
    “Unless you’d
like me to have a Brazilian, I think I’m okay. Not that I plan to. Can we not
talk about this?”
    I can’t help the
smile, knowing that my diversion worked. “No problem. So…how are you
feeling?”
    I study her,
wide brown eyes, her full lips, the soft blush to her cheeks. It’s such a
cliché, but I wanted her right away. I wasn’t kidding when I told her that last
night. I could sense there was something behind her obvious beauty, something
untainted, uncompromised, a quality clearly lacking from my own life.
    Maybe we can
have a little time to ourselves before I have to return to my desk.
    “Okay, I guess.”
    Now that’s
sobering. I raise my eyebrows at her, making her blush even more when she
realizes what we’re talking about.
    “What do you
want me to say? I guess you didn’t oversell yourself. It was good…until it
ended kind of abruptly.”
    “Yeah, I’m
sorry.” I finally butter my toast. I’m not the type of person who runs on black
coffee and a piece of fruit for half of the day. “I had to work…and I’m really
sorry. I told you this was a vacation, but I’ll need a few hours for calls and
emails today, all the boring stuff.”
    “Are you going
to tell me more about it eventually?”
    She caught me
there, “boring stuff” was too much of a quick evasion. Maybe telling her about
the Wellington deal would
actually improve Penelope’s opinion of me, but I don’t want to manipulate her
that way.
    I don’t have to.
I brought her thousands of miles away from her home, everything she knows, to
be with me. I don’t need to be petty.
    “If you really
want to know, sure.” There’s something else on her mind, I can tell. “You can
ask, I told you.”
    “I remember.”
She looks away, then reconsiders and holds my gaze. “I’ve been wondering…You
made that decision, and then you created a file for me, a to-do list, things
you needed done