Page 16 of A Billion-Dollar Heir For Christmas

Perhaps he had been lying to himself all this time.

He scowled at the books, seeing not a single one of the old, cracked, much-loved spines. He was thinking instead of Lillie moving over him in that bed in Spain, rocking her hips against his in that maddeningly lush rhythm that had undone him. He was remembering her back arched in a perfect bow, her head thrown back, and all those glorious curls moving with her.

And when he shifted his gaze to the door once more, she was there.

Quite as if he had summoned her—though Tiago already knew too well that despite his best efforts, that never worked.

It never had before.

“Oh.”She looked as startled as she sounded, but he drank her in as if she was a dose of clear, sweet water and he had been wandering for five some months in a barren desert. He felt as if that was no more than the simple truth. “Tiago.”

Her hair was haphazardly pinned up on the top of her head, as if she’d tossed it up and forgotten all about it. And he was a sophisticated man. He attended formal black-tie events as a matter of course, ate at the finest restaurants, and normally dated women who were renowned for their beauty and elegance above all else.

Yet this was the one who seemed to have taken up all the space inside his chest. With that wild hair and her siren’s eyes, too much like the sea.

She had changed into soft-looking lounging pants, obviously made of the finest cashmere with what looked like a touch of merino wool for structure, and the sort of T-shirt that looked defiantly simple yet was cut by artisans to make her curves into a song.

And there was no denying what he had already noticed—that he had found her astounding before, in Spain, but this new ripeness of hers might very well be his undoing.

When he was not a man who could beundone. Everything in his life forbade it.

“I’m sorry if I’m intruding,” she was saying, though she did not appear particularly apologetic, to his eye. “I was exploring.”

“I feel certain I made it clear that you were to be kept to your wing of the house,” he said, softly enough. And perhaps she could hear the menace in his tone. Or perhaps she had no experience with such things and couldn’t identify it when she heard it.

Whatever it was, she seemed unfazed. He was unused to...noteliciting reactions wherever he happened to find himself.

“What a lovely house,” she said instead. “I can’t wait to walk around tomorrow and pay more attention to the view. It must be epic.”

“Lillie.” And he meant to cut her off. To cut her down to size while he was at it. But instead, just as it had in Spain, his gaze...got caught. On her.

And he couldn’t seem to do a thing about it.

Because nothing in his life before or since had prepared him for the sight of her, like a sledgehammer, as he’d walked through that crowded pool area, and had seen her there.

He still wasn’t prepared.

Tiago found himself on his feet and moving toward her. When he knew that what he wanted to do was stay put. Keep his distance. That was what heneededto do. At the very least, it would be wise to avoid these interactions with her until ground rules were set out, contracts signed, and the way forward carefully plotted out and wholly understood by both parties.

What he could not understand was why this woman was the one thing on the whole of the earth that made him reckless.

And maybe she was reckless too, because surely a wise creature would take one look at him in this current, dangerous mood he was in, turn, and run.

But Lillie,his Lillie, stayed where she was. She leaned against one side of the open doorway, doing nothing at all but gazing back at him as he prowled toward her.

Tiago wished that she would say something. Point out that he should not think that he could so easily hide her away here. Fight with him. Yell at him. Hold him to account for getting her pregnant in the first place, and leaving her no possible way of finding him again.

Why didn’t she do any of these things?

But as he came to a stop before her, he knew.

He had never asked for this ability to read her, this strange woman he still barely knew. But he could.

Just as he had once before.

And so he knew that it wasn’t that she didn’t feel all of those things. She did. It was that she felt other things far more.

Damn her.