Author: Bella Andre

“I’m not frightened of anything.” She tossed her head, her long, dirty-blond hair flowing down over her shoulders and breasts. “Certainly not of you.”

This time he was the one raising an eyebrow. Still forcefully shoving down the urge to move across the round room to drag her against him, he shrugged. “Could have fooled me.”

Even as her fists clenched tighter, she moved closer to him. Her scent—a sweet hint of flowers wrapped in sinfully hot spice—wound through him. Lord, he’d loved her passion. The problem was that he’d been too young, too idiotic, to know how to appreciate it...or to know the true worth of one woman’s love versus ruling the world from a stage.

“Fear isn’t why I don’t want to take you on as a client. It’s because you’re fickle and self-centered, and I don’t have time for people like you who say they want a home in Seattle, but are really just wasting my time because you’re bored with all your money and playthings and staff scraping and bowing at your every command.”

“Seattle has always been my favorite city,” he told her in an easy voice. He shrugged again. “But I understand if you don’t think you can take me on as a client because you’re not over me.”

“Not over you?” Her glare was sharp enough that he could almost feel it slicing through his clothes to pierce his skin. “If you’re done with this really fun trip down memory lane, we’ve got three houses to see today.” She gestured toward the room with a flick of her hand. “This is the tower. It’s unique and one of my favorite things about this house. The stones were imported from a thirteenth-century castle in the north of England.”

Each word was clipped and scrupulously professional, but he still had to work like hell not to smile—at least not until she’d turned her back on him to head for the stairs.

Ford Vincent had been on stage in front of millions of people, had crushed music industry sales records with his last release, and had some of the most famous people in the world on speed dial...but he hadn’t felt this alive in years.

Chapter Four

In that first moment that Mia set eyes on Ford, looking gorgeous and strong as he stood in the tower, her heart had leapt as if he were the fairy-tale prince finally coming to wake her from her emotional slumber with his kiss of true love.

By moment two, thank God, she’d remembered the truth of who he really was.

Even so, she couldn’t possibly deny that seeing him again hadn’t just been a punch in the gut. It had been a punch in her heart...and her libido, too.

The week she’d met Ford five years ago had begun as the best of her life, and ended as the worst...all because her every fantasy of love had been kindled, then left to burn out and smoke, her eyes watering long after he’d gone.

Ford walked just a little too close behind her as they made their way down the staircase. Close enough that she could smell his clean, masculine scent, the same one that had driven her wild on those nights when they’d lain skin to skin, their hearts racing from their fierce, wild lovemaking. She had never been able to get close enough to him, and at the time, she’d thought it was just a physical manifestation of how badly she wanted him.

Only after he’d gone had she understood that there had been an actual distance between them, because for every part of her heart that she’d given to him, he’d returned little of his own.

Unfortunately, Mia could feel his warmth again now in the small stairwell, and her skin automatically heated up as if he’d touched her. A bolt of pure, instinctive need shot through her at the thought of his hands on her skin again. Just like the first time she’d seen him on stage, he was in dark pants and a T-shirt that was worn enough for her to see that he was even more muscular, as if he’d grown into his body. With a half-dozen new tattoos snaking up his arms and even along the base of his neck and broad shoulders, it made her mouth water just to look at his incredible masculine beauty.

No matter how much she hated him, the truth was that no one had ever made her feel so good, so alive...or, she harshly reminded herself, so devastated.

Until Ford, Mia had been the heartbreaker. Not because she relished hurting men, but simply because she had never returned any of her boyfriends’ feelings with the same intensity. But after Ford had broken her heart, as much as she hated the thought of being the forlorn woman, it was nearly what she’d become after he left. She’d almost given up everything for him, had almost lost her own identity in the name of love.

Frankly, she still wasn’t sure whom she’d hated more: him for being a bastard, or herself for being so weak. And so stupid.

Although, she reminded herself as they headed back through to the main part of the house, she really shouldn’t be too hard on herself for the past. After all, she’d been only twenty-three the first time she saw Ford on stage in that club downtown, young and full of dreams. The fact was, any woman would have been hard-pressed not to feel special when his eyes had locked with hers in the crowd and he’d sung directly to her. It was only natural that someone as young and idealistic as she had been would have believed the fantasy that she’d be Yoko to his Lennon, that she could be the only woman who mattered when he could have had anyone...and that it would be okay to let her own passions and dreams dissolve into his just because she loved him.

Well, Mia thought as she stopped in the kitchen and slowly turned to face him, she was a hell of a lot smarter this time around. No matter how great a guy was, she would never again lose sight of her own dreams, her own identity, or her career. And she definitely wasn’t going to fall for Ford’s charm, or his good looks, or her memories of how good making love with him had been, or—

Damn it, enough already. He was a client. And she was here to sell him a house. Nothing more.

Reaching into her leather bag with a steady hand, she pulled out a color flyer and handed it to him. “Okay, Rutherford, here are the details on the house.”

He gripped her hand along with the flyer. “You know how I feel about people calling me that.”

He didn’t hide the emotion in his eyes, and she got lost in the dark brown depths for a moment too long. “You’re right,” she replied as she yanked her hand out of his. “Anyone who’s read Rolling Stone knows you don’t like your given name.”

It was a perfect reminder that she’d never been any more important to him than any other groupie he’d slept with, since the reason he hated his full name was just one of the many things he hadn’t cared enough about her to explain.

She’d spat the Rolling Stone comment out in an offhand, albeit bitter, way, but was surprised when he seemed to be warring with himself. Was he finally going to confide in her? Five years too late, but still...

His too-beautiful mouth tightened down right before he said, “That name doesn’t fit me. It never has and it never will.”

She waited for him to say something more, to explain why Rutherford didn’t fit but Ford did, until she realized she was being a fool again.

Nothing. He’d shared precisely the same nothing he’d given her before.

Disappointment came before she could pretend it hadn’t. How many times did she have to learn this lesson?

Ford took everything...and then gave just enough to keep her hooked.

Still, she shouldn’t have been so petty as to use his formal first name when she knew he hated it, even if she didn’t know why. It wasn’t just mean of her, it was sinking to his level. And if there was one thing she absolutely needed to do, it was rise above.

Not fall any deeper.

Mia forced her pride far enough to the side to be able to say, “I apologize. That was unprofessional.”

He looked momentarily surprised by her apology, before moving toward her. “Mia—”

She cut him off as she took a step away from him. “This home has six bedrooms, five and a half baths, an Olympic length pool, a custom-built wine cellar that was featured in Wine Spectator magazine, and, of course, you’ve already found the tower.”

“Alana told me it was where she would go when she wanted to be alone to think.”

“You know Alana?” Her mind immediately swam with visions of just how intimately he likely knew the owner of the house they were standing in.

“She’s my business manager’s sister,” he said, and then clearly reading her mind, added, “And she’s never been anything but a friend.”

Pushing aside the relief, she snapped, “I don’t need a list of everyone you slept with before or after me.” Realizing too late that she was doing a terrible job of remaining cool and unruffled, she said, “Look, Ford, I think you’ll agree that the best way to do this is to keep things strictly professional.”

“No, Mia,” he said in as steady a voice as she’d used on him, “I can’t agree with that.”

Heat—and senselessly desperate desire—shot through her before she could stop it. “If you want me to be your Realtor,” she informed him, “you’re going to have to agree with it.”

His eyes were dark and as mysterious now as they’d always been. “I won’t promise anything about the future, Mia, but for today, I’ll try.”

It wasn’t much of a concession to the rules she was setting up between them, nor anything close to a promise. She shouldn’t have accepted it, should simply have turned and left. Instead, she found it impossible to walk away from him. Telling herself she was just doing her job, she asked, “Have you spent much time in this house apart from the tower?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t we start with the ground floor?” Reminding herself to treat him just as she would any other client, as they moved from the kitchen into the large formal living room, she began to ask the questions she would normally already know the answers to if her client hadn’t insisted on remaining anonymous until the first showing. “Will this be a primary residence or a vacation home?”

They were standing side by side in the elegant room that looked out on the exceptional water views when he answered, “Primary.”

She only barely stopped herself from whirling to face him in surprise, and quickly had to clarify, “But since you’re on the road all the time, I’m assuming you’ll probably use it about as much as you would a vacation home.”

“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “I’m not going to tour anymore.”

This time she couldn’t hold back her surprise. “Wait a minute. You aren’t going to tour anymore?” When he shook his head again, she had to ask, “Why would you do that?”

“Because I’ve finally figured out some things are more important than being on the road.” His gaze intensified as he turned from the water to look her in the eyes. “Much more important. So as soon as this tour ends next week, I’m done.”

Keeping her voice scrupulously professional even as she reeled at the thought of Ford giving up the touring that was clearly his life’s blood, she asked, “And how many people will be in full-time residence?”

“Just me, at first. Though I’m hoping it won’t remain like that for too long.”

Odds were, she suddenly decided, this whole home-buying thing had come up because he had a gorgeous—and annoyingly insipid—girlfriend who was dying to play house with him and redecorate down to the last inch of trim along the floorboards of the laundry room. Even though the house and the furnishings that came with it were already perfect as they were.

But what kind of woman would claim to care about Ford and then ask him to give up everything that mattered to him for her?

Telling herself it was none of her business, and that it shouldn’t matter to her what he did with the rest of his life, Mia pointedly didn’t ask any more questions about his personal life as they walked through the rest of the ground-floor rooms. Instead, she pointed out the many features of the beautifully built house. And all the while, she did her very best to ignore the way Ford always seemed to stand a little too close to her, or worse, brush up against her as he went to take a closer look at something.