We came to a stop at a red light and my eyes fell to her legs. Her smooth, tantalizing legs that called to my fingertips. It was all I could do not to move my hand. It took all my strength as a man not to run my palm down the length of her smooth shin. The second my eyes hit her at the top of the steps, it was game over. If there was any doubt in my mind about backtracking from what had happened between the two of us, it wasn’t happening any longer. Her creamy skin against the pale pink dress she had on. The navy accents that just happened to match my suit perfectly. Her barely-there make up that made her amber eyes sparkle and her raven hair glow. The soft curls called to my fingertips. The way her dress fluttered just below her knees made my cock throb. Her calves flexed in her pale pink heels that matched her ensemble perfectly, but it was the pearls around her neck that caught my eye.

I recognized them instantly, and it tugged at my heart.

I’d never seen her wear them. Not since her mother passed. I knew Clay had given Callie her mother’s pearls, but I’d never seen her do anything with them. Part of me wondered if she ever kept them. Or if she got rid of them because it hurt too much. The way they laid against her skin so perfectly. The way the studs clung to her ears and somehow still managed to draw my eye to the length of her neck.

Callie was a vision, and it took all I had to head to the restaurant instead of to my office where I could have her all to myself.

“The light’s green.”

Her voice ripped me from my trance and I pressed down onto the gas. I could barely focus with her beautiful presence next to me. I had us reservations at one of the nicest French cuisine restaurants in Los Angeles. It was one of the few food cultures I couldn’t master, so I indulged it whenever I could. I wanted to take Callie to my favorite spot whenever I wasn’t in France myself. It took a pretty penny to book the private room at the back of the restaurant. That place was usually booked months in advance. It took a pretty penny to get it for the two of us tonight, but anything was worth it when it came to Callie.

Always had been. Always would be.

We pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and I rushed around to open up Callie’s car door. The hostess spotted me immediately and led us straight back, not allowing us to stop for anything. I felt Callie’s eyes on me. Her quizzical look as I led her through the dimly-lit restaurant. The hostess opened the door for us and I gazed down into Callie’s eyes. Then, my hand slipped to the small of her back.

I adored how perfectly my hand sat in that lewd little dip.

“We can sit at a regular table, Colt. This isn’t necessary.”

“We’re going to have some privacy while we eat. Some peace,” I said.

I pressed my hand into her skin, feeling her heat barreling back against me. But instead of fighting me, she moved. Walked into the room with her heels softly clipping against the floor. Callie pulled away from me as I stood there, making sure the hostess put in an urgent order for a bottle of chilled white wine. I didn’t want Callie to worry about anything for a few hours. I wanted her to relax, enjoy herself, and eat her fill. We could talk, or not talk. She could vent, or not vent. We could sit in silence for three hours, for all I cared.

I wanted her to have what she needed.

“This is beautiful,” she said.

Her fingertips ran lovingly along the edge of the table perched in the middle of the room, and I found myself growing jealous of that slab of wood.

“It feels cozy in here.”

“It’s why I prefer private back rooms,” I said.

Callie quirked an eyebrow as she gazed at me from over her shoulder. Her bare shoulder as the fabric of her pale pink dress hung down over her upper arms.

Holy hell, she was beautiful in the flickering candlelight.

“Are we going to sit?” she asked.

“Do you want to sit?”

“Depends. Will you stop answering my questions with your own questions?”

“Depends. Does it annoy you?”

She giggled, and the sound bled a comfort through my veins I had only ever associated with her. The two of us sat at the dinner table illuminated with candlelight and the wine soon followed. We placed our orders before handing off our menus, then I settled back into my chair. I gazed into Callie’s beautiful brown eyes. Watching them focus on the flickering flames as they mesmerized her. I wondered what she was thinking. What was turning around in that mind of hers.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to open a practice where I could help people overcome massive tragedies like the one I dealt with when Mom died.”

I nodded my head, then crossed my leg over my knee and buckled in for the story.

“It was never a question, really. I woke up one morning in high school and simply decided I was going to do it.”

“And here you are,” I said.

“Did you ever think I’d be anything else?”

Her eyes finally fluttered up to mine as my brow ticked in confusion.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve known me my whole life, Colt. Dad, for a time, thought I was going to be a meteorologist. I went through this time where I--.”

“Fell asleep at night watching the weather channel.”

“Yeah,” she said, grinning.

“I knew you weren’t going to be a meteorologist.”

“What did you think I was going to grow up and be?”

Mine.

“I thought you’d take the teaching route,” I said.

“Education?”

“Yep. You always enjoyed sticking it to Clay and making him stammer over his words. I figured a fire like that was bound to find its way into a higher ed classroom,” I chuckled.

“You’re such a jerk,” she giggled.

“It’s the truth. You never rebelled as a teenager. Your version of rebellion was putting your father in his place whenever you came back home from college. He’d try to give you advice, and you had arguments, scientific articles, and popular opinion pieces you used to put him in his place. Your arguments were practically doctoral theses in the making.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were the most intelligent brat I’d ever come across.”

She bit down onto her lower lip and giggled again, and I felt my world come crashing down. It crashed and faded away with her smile as she dragged her teeth across her lower lip. It drew my eye. Everything about her drew my gaze. The way her lips curled when she grinned. The way her raven hair lit up with the dancing of the candle’s flames. The way her head fell back when laughter overtook her body.

All of it, wrapped up in a beautiful package I never wanted to let go.

“Do you think you’ll ever get your Doctorate?” I asked.

I watched her grab her wine glass as she contemplated my question.

“I think it’s in my future. But not in my immediate future. I’d need one if I wanted to write prescriptions in my practice, but I’m not sure that’s the angle I want to take with it. I didn’t need medication to deal with my mother’s death. I needed an unbiased ear to work out my anger with.”

“You could get a doctorate in something else.”

“Like what?”

“There’s more in the Psychology world than clinical work, I’m sure.”

“But clinical work is what I want to do.”

“I meant more along the lines of getting published. I’m sure there’s a research route in the doctoral world. And I know doctoral programs are usually the easiest ways to get published because that’s where the bulk of the connections are,” I said.

“That’s… actually not a bad idea.”

“You could branch out into giving conferences that way. Build on that momentum. During the weeks, you could spend your time in your practice with patients one-on-one. On the weekends, you could be out there giving seminars and helping even more people. Or, you could hire someone to work at your practice with you and do all of that during the week, and still get weekends off.”

Callie narrowed her eyes at me as our food set down in front of us.

“It sounds like you’ve been thinking about my career more than I’ve been thinking about it,” she said.

“I knew you’d stop thinking about it once all this shit with Matthew cropped up, and it’s not good to drop the ball. That’s why Clay and I have succeeded in our years as a team. If I have a point in my life where I’ve dropped the ball, I know he picks up the slack. The opposite works as well. Like when Clay married your mother. I stepped up at the CEO for almost three months while the wedding was finalized and they took their honeymoon. Right now, you’ve got bigger things to think about. So, I’m keeping the ball on the road for you.”

“Why?” she asked.

One simple question. One simple word. And yet, the answer held everything I felt. Callie’s fork was poised in her hand, but she wasn’t eating. I knew she wouldn't until I gave her an answer that suited her.

But the real answer was too much for this evening. A muted response would have to do until other things could get sorted out.

“Because I care about you, Callie.”

The two of us ate dinner in relative silence after that. Even though I figured my response was muted, at best, I could tell it still hit her hard. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but I wished it hadn’t existed. Talking with her was easy, and having her open up that dialogue in the first place lightened the load on my heart. But when we finished up dinner and the check was paid, I saw something flash behind Callie’s eyes.

Something a little… sad.

“Ready to head back?” I asked.

I offered her my arm and she took it effortlessly, but she didn’t respond. I escorted her back to the car in silence, and slowly the weight of it grew heavier and heavier. Dinner might not have been awkward, but this silence was different. It was fraught with tension and stitched together with bloated stitches of unspoken words. I helped Callie sit down into her seat before closing her car door, then I walked around to mine and slid in beside her. I closed my door and drew in a deep breath, stifled by the tension that had poured itself slowly over our bodies.

Then, I reached for her hand and turned my body to face her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Callie said.

But my eyes continued to drill into the profile of her face as my thumb caressed the skin of her hand.

“It’s just the first time in a long time I’ve been taken somewhere I didn’t absolutely hate and worn something I wanted to wear and felt beautiful,” she said.

It boiled my blood to hear those words come out of her mouth.

“I guess I just wish it didn’t have to end, is all.”

I watched Callie shrug. Like she had spoken some nonchalant wish she knew would never come true. What kind of relationship had she had with that pathetic little boy? Had he treated he with absolutely no regard as to the incredible woman she was?

“I can make that happen, if you want,” I said.

“Really?”

“Anything for you, Callie.”

Her eyes whipped over to mine and I held my breath. Hung onto her silence. Cried out for her lips to mutter the one word that would give me full power over our evening together. The things I could show her. The things I could treat her to simply by uttering my name were astounding. There were things Matthew would have never been able to treat her to that I could have in front of her at the snap of my fingers.

And as if the heavens above decided to grant me my one wish, Callie nodded her head.

I released her hand and sat back into my seat. Time to work my fucking magic. I slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone, quickly dialing the one hotel in the city I kept on speed dial. It was the only place I ever put clients. People traveling overseas to come sit down and have meetings with us. The amenities were the best in Los Angeles, and Callie deserved nothing less than the best.

“Grand Oaks Resort and Spa, this is Camille speaking. How may I help you this evening?”

“Camille. This is Colton Roper.”

“Mr. Roper. How nice of you to get in touch with us. Another client on the books?” she asked.

“Not this time, I’m afraid. I’ll need your penthouse suite along with a bucket of iced champagne.”

“Sounds like a wonderful evening, Mr. Roper. Will you be needing any spa services for your stay?”

“The situation is ongoing,” I said.

I peeked over at Callie and saw how wide her eyes had gotten. I enjoyed being able to shock her speechless. She deserved that type of treatment, especially when it came to the finer things in life.

“Anything else I can help you with?” Camille asked.

“Put a spa kit on the bathroom counter as well, please. And make sure we’ve got a late check-out. I don’t plan on leaving until up in the afternoon.”

“Of course, Mr. Roper. I’ll make a note of everything. When can we be expecting you?”

“In twenty minutes.”

“I’ll have someone up there right away to prepare your room for you.”

“Thank you, Camille. You’ve been a wonderful help this evening,” I said.

I hung up the call and slid my phone into my pocket, then turned my gaze back out the windshield. I buckled myself in and slid the keys into the ignition of my convertible, allowing the top to fall down on us again. I cranked up the car and put it in reverse, then slid my hand behind Callie’s seat.

My eyes met hers, and a comfortable grin settled in my features.

“Ready for the next leg of our adventure?” I asked.

Her neck flushed a gorgeous shade of red that offset her pink dress wonderfully. She nodded her head, and her silence gave me more than her words ever could have. Speechless was a good look on her, but after tonight I’d have her screaming out my name. Only this time, I wouldn’t have to clamp my hand over her mouth.

Not unless she wanted me to, of course.

Because whatever Callie Roper wanted, Callie Roper would get.