The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

her personally, of course, but from everything I’ve read or heard about her she appears to have a great heart. That was evidenced at the luncheon, and the generous check presented to the Women in Business organization. I didn’t see her, though. Someone else presented the check.”

“Mom wasn’t there. She and Dad have fallen in love with Scandinavia and since he’s assured Mom his retirement is permanent, Dad has cloaked hotel location scouting missions under the guise of Nordic vacations. The girls stepped in to fill the gap left in her increasingly frequent absences.”

“The girls?”

“Lauren, Ryan and Dee, my sisters-in-law, or in-love, as Mom always corrects me.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Their marriages were the wedding bells heard round the world. Surely you read about them.”

Sam gave a slight shake of the head. “I’d heard about Christian’s wedding but only learned that two more brothers had tied the knot upon returning to the States. How many brothers besides you does that leave standing single?”

“I stand alone,” Nick dramatically intoned. “We have several business partners on the continent who said their nuptials made a big splash even there.”

“While in Africa, I lived in a rather insular world.”

“Since word on the street is you married a prince, a luxurious one, no doubt.”

“Yes.”

A physical wall couldn’t have made Sam’s intentions clearer. Whatever had happened while abroad, she didn’t want to talk about it. But Nick couldn’t resist.

“Yet you’re back here and working. What does your husband think about that?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re no longer together.”

“Separated?”

“Divorced.”

The tone beneath that one word closed the door on the subject of Sam’s personal life better than King Tut’s sealed tomb. It only made Nick even more curious, about both her failed marriage and her current love life. Now was obviously not the time to talk about it, but one day... Patience was not a virtue Nick knew well, but one he could employ when necessary. Now was definitely one of those times.

His body language remained relaxed but he adopted a businesslike tone. “Whatever brings you back to Las Vegas, your timing couldn’t be better. I need the best and fastest-working designer that money can buy. Before running off to become an African princess, that was you.”

A grin accompanied Sam’s twinkling eyes. “I’d like to think it still is. What’s going on?”

“A project that has to stay on schedule and a designer who isn’t delivering on the promises she made.”

“How many rooms are we talking about?”

“Not rooms...homes.” Nick noted Sam’s surprised expression. “This isn’t a hotel design. It’s a series of private island homes being advertised for vacation rental among the world’s most elite.”

“Wow. I had no idea you guys had expanded beyond the original hotel framework. Considering how the hospitality industry is changing, though, it sounds like a smart move.”

“It’s proven to be right on time with industry trends.”

“Does that smirk confirm the obvious, that this was your idea?”

“Still a smart-ass, I see.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Ha!”

“So I’m right.”

“All of the brothers are involved but yes, it’s more or less my baby. Which means failure is not an option. You feel me?”

“Tell me more.”

Sam leaned forward, unconsciously revealing the slightest peek of a creamy quarter-moon of her breast. When his attention returned to her face, Sam was frowning. Damn. To her professional credit, however, she didn’t comment on eyes determined to rove on their own. She simply adjusted her blouse and sat back, waiting, to learn why Nick had brought her here.

Nick leaned back as well, determined to take control of a meeting he’d called, ensconced in the comfort of discussing an industry he knew better than he knew himself. Business now, pleasure later, he thought as he began discussing his baby, CANN Isles. There was no way around it, even pushed to the back of his mind. The attraction for one Ms. Samantha “Sam” Price was real, intense and not going away.

Before it was mere speculation. Now she was sure. It shouldn’t have mattered how much she wanted to see her old lover. Not only should Sam have not returned Anita’s phone call, she shouldn’t have made this appointment. She shouldn’t be here with Nick. Her body was clear about it even if her mind wasn’t sure. Every cell of her body had lit up, awakened by the irrefutable attraction that hadn’t dimmed in all this time away. An attraction that given the sticky situation that even thinking of working with Nick presented, and the increasingly troublesome email and text exchanges with her ex, had no chance of being acted upon.

Being this close to him in proximity was TROUBLE, all caps. Just seeing him relax made her heart skip. She watched the lines on his forehead fade away as he broke into a spiel he’d probably recited a hundred times. Clearly, speaking about the company was his forte, his stomping grounds, his zone. But that brief look of desire she’d glimpsed before Nick realized he’d been caught staring at her cleavage suggested something impossible. That he still felt the attraction, too. Surely after all this time it was something she must have imagined. While the night she shared with Nick was seared into her conscience, and intimacy with her husband had been fleeting at best, she imagined there’d been a constant stream of women in and out of Nick’s bedroom to make him forget all about it.

She wasn’t quite sure when her attention went from what Nick was saying to the lips forming the words that came out of his mouth. But somewhere within his glib delivery about CANN International’s latest expansion beyond casino hotels and spas into the lucrative and growing industry of offering private rental vacation homes, she was struck by the perfectly formed Cupid lips enunciating goals and intentions and reminding her of how skillfully they’d brought her to and over the orgasmic edge and changed her life forever. If her body was a violin, Nick’s tongue was the bow that had played a melody etched in her soul, stamped into her mind and burned inside