When they arrived at Ellie’s apartment, Sandor requested her key card to park in the visitor’s area of the secure garage under her building.

      “Are you planning to come up for a while?” she asked as he pulled into a parking slot.

      He waited until she looked at him to ask, “Are you planning to invite me?”

      She usually did, but tonight she’d hoped to have some time to think.

      He reached out and cupped her nape. “Invite me up, pethi mou. I am not ready for the evening to be over.”

      Just as it did every other time, his slightest touch impacted her senses with the power of a Level 10 earthquake.

      “Even though it didn’t have the outcome you wanted?” she asked breathlessly, knowing she would not turn him away if he was intent on staying.

      “You did not refuse me. It is enough.”

      “Is it?”

      “I learned early to be patient when going after something I wanted. Rushing the outcome can sour it faster than facing opposition.”

      Why did the unabashed business-speak liquify her insides? She shouldn’t be reacting to corporatese as if he’d said something intoxicatingly alluring, but the problem was that he’d said it in that low, sexy voice that had been shaking up her equilibrium since the first time she heard it. And, in effect, his sentiment was sensual. He was talking about convincing her to marry him, which would land her in his bed. Even if unbridled passion had not.

      “I see. So, I’m a corporate merger you’d like to make?” she asked, trying to keep it light…trying to temper her own reaction to what shouldn’t be nearly so much temptation.

      “You are the woman I would like to marry, not a company I plan to buy—but the similarities exist, yes.”

      She couldn’t help smiling wryly. Of course he would see most of his life in business terms. It was all he knew, that and the lessons on integrity he’d learned at his grandfather’s knee. She shivered when she thought what it must have been like to be raised by a man who loved him, but not enough to see past his illegitimate birth. A man intent on making sure that what he considered bad blood would not show itself in his grandson.

      If the older Christofides were alive today, Ellie would have a few choice words for him. But then if he were alive, Hera probably would never have left Greece and taken her son with her. Ellie and Sandor would never have met. Coming on the heels of her inner revelation regarding her feelings for him, the thought chilled her.

      “Come up,” she said on a defeated sigh.

      Sandor had not conquered her desire to be alone and think; her own conflicting needs undermined it. She wanted to spend time with him. She craved his presence like a drug and was just glad he wasn’t one. She’d always thought she had a strong sense of self-control, but when it came to Sandor, she lost touch with it and her sense of self-preservation as well.

      Which was one very good reason for not giving him an answer to his proposal tonight.

      He climbed out of the car and came around to open her door. Always the gentleman, even more so than a lot of men born to money, social elevation and manners. He helped her from the car, transferring his hand to the small of her back once she was standing. She realized he did that a lot, this guiding her where he wanted her to go with a possessive-protective hold.

      He kept his hand on her even in the elevator. He did that a lot, too…simply touching her for the sake of doing so, not because he needed to. He touched her like she was already his. It was one of the reasons she had been so confused over him not pressing to make love.

      She understood better now, but wasn’t sure that with understanding came acceptance.

      Silence reigned in the elevator on the way to her fifth-floor apartment and no one else joined them to break it. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but she was lost in her own thoughts and she sensed that Sandor was content to leave her that way.

      He waited patiently for her to open her apartment door and deactivate her alarm with the code and her thumbprint. The double locks on the solid steel door molded to look like a classic paneled wood door undid with a snick. She pushed the door open and led him inside.

      “I like the security here.”

      She laughed. Sometimes, she got the impression that, like her father, Sandor considered the security at the Denver Mint no more than routine. “I picked out the apartment in a secure building to help Dad make the transition to me no longer living at home. That wasn’t good enough for him. He gave me a security system installed by Vitale Security for a housewarming gift.”

      “I have used that firm before myself. They are very good.”

      “I’ll say and the installation expert was to-die-for gorgeous.”

      “Was he?” Sandor asked in a rough voice.

      “Totally delicious.” She licked her lips. “But too short for me. He came all the way from the head office in Sicily. Dad demanded the best.”

      “I must then be grateful I inherited some tall genes somewhere, hmmm?”

      She eyed his six-foot-four frame. “I bet that’s one good thing you got from your father.”

      Sandor frowned, but he didn’t deny it. Considering the fact that his mother was barely over five feet, maybe he couldn’t.

      “We all inherit things from our parents, and we hope they are the best things,” she said as she led him into the living room. “I got my dad’s stubbornness. Just ask him.”

      Sandor waited until she sat down on the bright yellow leather retro sofa before settling right beside her. “I have no need, having seen ample evidence of it myself.”

      She laughed again, loving just being there with Sandor at that moment in time. She kicked off her sandals and curled her feet under her, turning her body slightly so she faced him.

      He wasn’t smiling in response to her laughter. Instead he was looking at her like he was trying to piece together what made her tick. “You’re very understanding of George’s need to protect you.”

      “I love him.” She sighed. “And I understand that as the sole heir to a man as wealthy as he is that I’m a good candidate for a kidnapping.”

      “Yet you insist on living alone.”

      She barely stifled the urge to snort. “I don’t exactly live alone, do I? His security team has the next apartment over. They monitor me as well as my apartment while I am gone.”

      “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply live in your father’s home?”

      “Maybe, but while it may not be perfect, I have a lot more independence than I would have if I had stayed at home.” It was also easier to convince herself that the reason she saw so little of her father was that they lived apart, not because he didn’t care enough to make any time for her. “Besides, I really don’t want my dad’s money dictating every aspect of my lifestyle.”

      “You would prefer to be able to live without the security detail.”

      “Yes.”

      “But you make the concession to George’s feelings—to his fears for you.”

      “And