CHAPTER THREE

      MAXWELL DRANK A glass of very good champagne and watched Romi Grayson fulfill her role as maid of honor for Madison Beck, née Archer, with her usual flair.

      Adorned with a tiara every bit as ornate, if significantly smaller than Madison’s, Romi’s smooth bob of hair glistened in a fall of black silk around her face. Large but tasteful diamonds in a classic setting twinkled in her earlobes. She wore no other jewelry with the designer silk gown of blue that exactly matched her pretty eyes and was cut to complement Madison’s 1950s vintage gown.

      Romi flicked a look at him and he made no effort to hide the fact he watched her. Pleasure zinged through him at the blush that tinted her cheeks.

      She looked away, but her azure gaze returned to meet his almost immediately.

      He let one eyelid slide closed in a slow wink, allowing his lips to almost tilt into a smile.

      The blush darkened and he could see the breath she took. Imagining he could hear the soft gasp of air that followed, he started across the room toward her.

      A hand landed on his arm and he barely broke stride to shake his head decisively at a woman he’d flirted with previously on a couple of occasions. The sister of a man who owned one of the major companies in Silicon Valley, she was a contact worth cultivating.

      But not right now.

      Romi had not moved so much as an inch since he’d started toward her, waiting as if she stood inside a bubble of her own.

      No one approached her when she’d spent the last hours talking to everyone. But there was something ethereal about her in that moment and Maxwell knew he wasn’t the only one who felt it.

      He stopped in front of her, his hand out. “Dance with me.”

      This time he heard the small catch of air. “I…”

      “You know you want to.”

      “We don’t always want what is best for us.”

      He shook his head, not buying it. “No word games right now, Romi. Just dance with me.”

      “You are demanding.”

      He shrugged and pulled her into his arms, not surprised when she didn’t object and not even a little shocked when her body unhesitatingly molded to his. They reacted to each other in a physical way that was almost mystical.

      If he believed in that sort of thing.

      The music was slow and he pulled her body close into the shelter of his own so they could move together in a special kind of intimacy.

      “Did you enjoy the wedding?” she asked in the soft tone that haunted his dreams.

      “How did you know I was in attendance?” The invitation to the reception had not surprised Maxwell, but the invite to the wedding had.

      He knew it was Viktor’s doing. Or perhaps the older Becks. They considered Maxwell family by dint of their shared heritage and years spent as friendly neighbors.

      “I seem to have some kind of homing device where you are concerned,” Romi admitted in a voice that didn’t sound either particularly happy or bothered by that reality. “I’m pretty sure Maddie didn’t know you were there.”

      “It was predominately family.” The other heiress wouldn’t have been looking for his face among her other guests.

      “Yes.” It was a statement, but with a question underlying the agreement.

      “I grew up with Viktor.”

      “I didn’t know that.” Romi looked up, her blue eyes searching his face. “It should be hard to imagine you as a child, but it isn’t.”

      “I do not know why. Everyone is a child at some point.”

      “Are you sure?” she teased.

      He frowned, but he wasn’t actually even a little annoyed. “I spent time in diapers and playing in sandboxes just like anyone else. I promise.”

      “No popping fully formed into existence as a corporate tycoon?” she taunted.

      “You are feeling feisty, aren’t you?”

      She shrugged. “I just like teasing you.”

      “I noticed.” No one else but his mother ever had.

      And Natalya Black was too practical to be playful all that often, even with her only child.

      “I was a child like everyone else,” he assured her. “You said yourself you could picture it.”

      Her smile was nothing short of wicked. “A child surely, but not like everyone else. Not you.”

      “I was. I even wanted to be a fireman when I was a little boy.” A common aspiration among his classmates.

      Romi grinned. “I wanted to be a princess.”

      He was charmed. “Right now, you look like you got your wish.”

      She laughed, the sound joyous and instantly addictive. He couldn’t help but join her.

      “Did you really say something so naff?”

      “What is naff about it?” But he knew. In any other instance, he’d think another man telling a woman she looked like a princess was completely cheesy.

      The truth made it something else.

      “You said I look like a princess,” she pointed out with patent disbelief and a lot of leftover humor.

      “I did.”

      Her eyes widened innocently, and she asked, “Aren’t you even a little embarrassed?”

      “Corporate kings don’t get embarrassed, didn’t you know that? Especially when we speak the truth.”

      She gasped and went silent for several seconds before asking, “When did you realize you’d rather be king than a firefighter?”

      Oh, she did like avoiding things that made her uncomfortable. He only let her get away with it sometimes. This would be one of them.

      It should be an easy question to answer, but Maxwell realized he wasn’t sure when he’d given up his aspirations of saving lives and instead decided he wanted a different kind of power. “Somewhere between wanting to be a super hero and realizing Batman had to be as rich as the royal family to do the things he did.”

      “Did you ever stop wanting to be a superhero?”

      “Corporate kings don’t save the world.”

      “Don’t they?” She was very serious all of a sudden. “Black Information Technologies is one of the most sustainable of the Fortune 500 companies.”

      “It’s