“Oh, my God.” Samira cried, as disgusted with herself as she was with Baptiste. Her heart should not leap like this. She should not be this unsettled—and this unreasonably happy—to see him again so soon. She looked to Melody. “Please do not tell me that this man is eavesdropping on yet another of our private conversations.”

“You should consider not having these discussions in public all the time.” The heavy amusement in his voice made Samira want to punch him right in his taut abs. “You know how small Journey’s End is. You know how good my hearing is. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to give me a minute alone to think.” Samira heard the tinge of hysteria in the last word as she tapped her temple with her index finger, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Is that too much to ask?”

She finally looked up at him, her nerves stretched taut, and their gazes connected. He was rumpled this morning, she saw at a glance, the overgrown five o’clock shadow and unruly wavy hair only intensifying his genetic blessings. Today he wore a T-shirt and knit shorts, and his unmitigated masculinity combined with his innate sexiness and sudden concern to produce a cocktail that drove her half out of her mind.

Worst of all?

The hollowed-out look from the sleepless night he’d forced her to share only enhanced the brightness of his eyes, which sparkled like the finest forest-green emeralds Harry Winston had to offer.

His amusement vanished immediately. “What’s wrong, Samira?”

His urgency level moved her. He acted as though he was ready to grab a torch and pitchfork, launch a congressional investigation or form a search party. Whatever it took to make it all better for her.

Samira all but swooned, alerting her to how dire this situation was becoming. If she spent another thirty seconds with this man, there’d be nothing left of her common sense or instincts for self-preservation. Little enough remained as it was.

“Did you pay my credit card bill for me?” she asked helplessly.

He blinked. Hesitated, a ruddy flush seeping up his neck and over the harsh planes of his cheekbones. Glanced at Melody as though he wanted her instructions on managing what was shaping up to be a tricky situation and received only an I can’t help you shrug in return. Finally looked back to Samira.

“Yes.”

Oh, God.

Samira slumped back in her seat, astonished.

The others exchanged an oh, shit look.

Stunned as she was, it took Samira a couple seconds to formulate her next move.

“Melody, can I have a minute with Baptiste, please?”

“Not again,” Melody grumbled, rolling her eyes as she stood and grabbed her bag. “If you two keep this up, I’m going to lose five pounds this week.” She looked at Baptiste and sadly shook her head. “You’re on your own this time, buddy.”

Baptiste nodded grimly, gave her a quick double-kiss as she left, then slid into her seat and faced Samira across the table. Only when he set a new bike helmet in a box down on his seat did she realize he’d had it with him.

“What’s that about?” she asked, pointing to it and buying time to get her act together before they had this conversation. She was in completely uncharted territory, and she needed all the help she could get.

A vague frown made his heavy brows contract.

“I, ah…Daniel and Sean wanted me to ride with them today.”

“Sean?”

“Sean Baldwin. Another of my buddies from Napa.”

He pointed. She saw Daniel and Sean sitting at another table, perusing menus.

“Oh.”

“Samira. What’s wrong?”

So much for trying to get her act together.

She opened her mouth with no real idea where to begin.

“That bill was nearly eleven thousand dollars, Baptiste.”

He nodded blankly. “Yes? So?”

“So?” She rubbed her temples, wishing she could get her mind around this man and this conversation. “What’re you doing? That’s not pocket change.”

He shrugged.

“But I’m forgetting. It is pocket change to you.”

Another shrug.

“That’s all you’re going to do? Shrug at me?”

“What would you like me to say?”

“Let’s start with how you did it. How about that? I’m assuming you found my statement in your hotel room?”

“Yes.”

“How about returning it?”

“I thought this was better.”

“How did you even manage it this quickly?”

“I called my banker. I’m a good customer, so…”

She could just imagine. When you were worth that kind of money—billions, the article had said! —bankers probably did everything from picking up your dry cleaning to popping open the champagne when you visited the local branch, to keep you happy.

Samira thought of her parents, who had saved and scraped all her life, and for whom eleven thousand dollars was an enormous fortune, and of her friends, many of whom were still up to their eyeballs in student loan debt, and of her own savings account, which was woefully short in the messy wake of her non-wedding.

“So…it’s a loan?” she asked.

He looked vaguely insulted, his expression darkening.

“Of course not. I’m not a bank.”

This dizzying answer only deepened her consternation.

What was the protocol for this? What the hell was she supposed to do now?

Yell at him? Write him a thank-you note? Offer him a blow job and a home-cooked meal?

“Why would you spend that kind of money on a woman you barely know?”

He cocked his head, watching her closely, and she sensed his puzzlement and frustration as well as his desire to get things right.

They both wanted to communicate with each other, but it suddenly didn’t seem that easy. It felt as though she only spoke a few words of French and he only spoke a few words of English, but she’d asked for directions to the Eiffel Tower and he was determined to get her there.

“You needed the money,” he finally said. “I had the money. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big—? Of course it’s a big deal! I’m not a charity case.”

“I know you’re not,” he said quickly, looking stricken. “That never crossed my mind.”

“I work hard for everything I have. I pay my own bills the way my parents raised me to. I’ve paid my own bills since I graduated from college.”

“Yes, I understand. I’ve gotten this all wrong. I didn’t mean—”

“Other than my engagement ring, the most extravagant gift I’ve ever received is a five-hundred-dollar leather jacket my ex-fiancé gave me for Christmas.”

He blinked. Hesitated. “I see.”

“I don’t think you do see. I mean…” Geez. She couldn’t even get her thoughts together enough to form a coherent sentence. Was this how things worked in the world of billionaires? Was this how the other half lived? If she accepted the gift, did that make her a prostitute? If she stood on principle and didn’t accept the gift, did that make her too stupid to live? “Thank you, but what’s this supposed to mean? Why would you do this for me? You barely know me.”

He rested his elbows on the table, put his palms together and pressed his lips against his index fingers, studying her as he thought long and hard. She got the impression that, while he wanted to make his position clear, he also didn’t want to reveal too much about something.

At last, he put his hands down and took a deep breath.

“You told me how much you need your job, especially right now, and about your expenses from the almost-wedding. I saw the bill.” He paused. “I like you. Very much. I don’t want you to struggle—”

The S-word, predictably, made her hackles stand on end.

“I just told you I’m not struggling.”

“Forgive me. My words are very clumsy today. I want you to have carefree days of happiness and rainbows. I want your eyes to sparkle. All the time. And no one’s eyes can sparkle when they have a nasty bill hanging over their head. There you have it.”

“Great. And what do you expect from me in return?”

“Nothing.”

She didn’t bother trying to stifle a disbelieving laugh before she lowered her voice.

“Nothing. Right. But if my gratitude made me want to take you back to my place for a blow job, you wouldn’t mind…?”

If she’d expected her crudeness to offend him, she was mistaken. Another of those measured looks followed, but this time a gleam of admiration lit his eyes.

“I plan to do any and everything I can do to get this relationship back on track. On track means we’re in the same bed at night. Don’t look so surprised. Did you expect me to deny it? We’re doing a mating dance, you and I, aren’t we? I’m like the male peacock. I’ve already shown you my feathers.” He gave her a pointed look. “Maybe you’d like to see what else I can do for you.”

She gaped at him, sudden hot outrage making her face and ears burn and gluing her words to her tongue.

So that was what he thought of her.

But she had no one to blame but herself, did she? She was the genius who’d laid on her back and spread her legs within an hour of meeting him.

“I see. Well, thanks for your gift. But no thanks.” Sudden bafflement made her shrill. “I mean, you knew I was coming off a tough breakup. You knew I needed a minute to think things through. Would it really have been that hard for you to be patient and wait, oh, I don’t know, a full week before you went around making grand gestures?”

“Samira. It’s not that I can’t be patient.”

“Well, what the hell is it, then?”

He looked away with an irritable shrug, and she once again had the feeling that he was editing out far more than he was revealing.

“It’s that things between us feel…different.”

Her heart thudded. “Different from what?”

He stared at her again, answering reluctantly.

“Different from the way things have felt in the past. Things between us feel far too important to leave to chance. I won’t sit on my hands and hope things work out in my favor. That’s not who I am. If there’s information I can provide to help you decide to be with me, then I want you to have it.”

“Yeah?” She laughed bitterly. “Well, I know this probably wasn’t your intention, but the information you gave me today was that you’re controlling and you think I’m greedy and materialistic. If a richer man came along and gave me a bigger check, do you think I’d take off with him? And why would you want money to play a role between us, anyway? Don’t you want the woman you’re with to want you for you? Don’t you think you deserve that?”

He flinched.

She waited a couple seconds, but he seemed beyond speech.

“Okay, well, I don’t know what’s going on in your mind right now, but I’m not a gold digger.”

He blinked. Frowned. “I never said that. But my mother always—”

“Your mother?” Wow. Just when she’d thought he couldn’t lob a bigger insult her way. The hits just kept on coming and coming. “The woman you talked about so lovingly last night? Do I look like your mother?”

“No,” he said grimly. “You do not.”

“But you think that little of me.”

“No.”

“Whatever you say. I’ll write you a check,” she said, reaching for her purse.

“What? I don’t want your check.”

“And I don’t want your money,” she snapped.

He ran his hands through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead until it seemed likely he’d rip it out by the roots. Then he dropped his hands and attempted a smile, evidently trying a different tactic with the insane woman.

“Samira,” he said soothingly. “Why not pretend you won the lottery and enjoy the money? It’s my pleasure to give it.”

Yeah, she’d been asking herself that same question for the last several minutes. The money could really help her. She could pay off the bill and start saving again. Sleep easier at night. Stop praying so hard for her used car’s long life and happiness.

Yet her pride wouldn’t let her do any of that.

Her pride demanded that she and Baptiste be on absolutely equal footing. She didn’t need the drama sure to follow when you let the man have all the control. How could she keep an objective view of their relationship, whatever it was, if he controlled the unholy trio—

Her thoughts, her body and her finances?

Oh, hell no.

“You may have way more money than me, but I don’t want you to have the upper hand,” she said flatly. “That’s why.”

“What?”

“If I accept this money from you, you’re in charge. I owe you. And if I wanted to tell you to go to hell if you didn’t treat me right, I’d have to think twice about it because we’d no longer be equal. I’d be beholden to you. Dependent on you.”

There was an excruciating pause.

And then a disbelieving laugh from him, capped off by a lingering once-over that was just this side of a leer. He leaned in. Lowered his voice.

“As long as you have me lying awake at night with a knot in my belly, a rock-hard queue and thoughts of your smile and your sweet pussy in my head, ma reine, then you have the upper hand. Trust me.”

Much as his vulgarity made her long to smack the smirk off his face, it also made her entire body respond, from her tightening sex and aching nipples to her ragged breath.

But she could pretend otherwise.

“Wow. I’m all atingle,” she said coolly, reaching into her purse and withdrawing her checkbook with a shaky hand. “I’m not sure about the exchange rates at the moment, but I can look them up…”

“Exchange rates?” His raised voice and startled laugh drew the attention of a couple people at the next table, so he hunkered over the table and lowered his volume again. “Samira, what are you talking about? Are you insane? Keep the money! It’s nothing to me! I spend more on clothes and shoes every month!”

“Yeah, well, the money is everything to me, and my self-respect isn’t up for sale. I’m going to do what’s best for me, for a change. I’m going to listen to my own instincts.”

He slumped back in his seat, watching her in slack-jawed astonishment.

“What kind of woman are you?”

Just when she’d thought she couldn’t get any angrier, he had to go and prove her wrong.

“I’ll tell you what kind of woman I’m not,” she said despite her clenched jaw and the searing burn in her throat. “I’m not the kind of woman who’s going to lounge around with you on some yacht, sunbathing topless and having threesomes.”

Incredulous silence from Baptiste, whose skin paled beneath his tan.

She took the opportunity to flip to a blank page in her checkbook and try scrawling the information in the blanks with her unsteady hand. Unfortunately, it took her several clicks to get the pen going.

“Is that what this is about?” he asked.

Oh, God, he was back to urgent concern. She heard it in his voice as she signed the check with an angry flourish.

“You looked me up online?” he continued. “You saw my colorful past and now you want nothing to do with me?”

“This is about me letting you know who you’re dealing with.” She ripped the check from the book and held it across the table for him. “And who you’re not dealing with.”

He didn’t move a muscle.

“I knew you were different from other women.” The gleam in his eyes intensified. His jaw hardened with what looked like grim resolve. “I didn’t appreciate how different. I’ll never make that mistake again. I assure you.”

“See that you don’t. Here’s your money.”

“It’s my pleasure to give you the money with no strings attached. Please.”

“What is going on here?” Samira asked, looking up at the ceiling with a disbelieving and humorless laugh. It wasn’t enough that God had to tempt her with the most intriguing man in the world who was also, by the way, the most unsuitable. Well, no. Baptiste could also be a cannibal. Then he’d be more unsuitable. It wasn’t enough that Samira was trying to do the right thing, was it, God? Oh, noooo. Why not also give the intriguing and unsuitable man a billion-dollar fortune and a willingness to spend it on her? “Am I being filmed for some horrible new reality TV show? Is this a test?”

“I think it is a test,” he said darkly. “But maybe I’m the one being tested.”

“Take it,” she snapped. “So we can both move on with our lives.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I do have to do this.”

“Samira…”

A lightbulb belatedly went off over her head.

“Oh, okay. I get it. You think I don’t have the money to cover it, but I do. Well, as long as you give me a few days for the money to clear.” She flapped the check. “I sold my engagement ring to a jeweler down the street this morning, which was my plan all along. Take it.”

He still didn’t move. He seemed beyond speech.

She shrugged, silently awarding herself game, set and match. Then she dropped the check on the table in front of him, grabbed her bag and got up.

Energized, he quickly caught her wrist to keep her from sweeping off in the grand exit she’d envisioned.

She stiffened.

Wished he’d let her go.

Wished she were a little more determined to leave.

You don’t need him anyway, girl. You don’t need the drama. Screw him.

Yet she stood there, waiting.

“Are you trying to say good-bye to me again?” he asked quietly, his searching gaze covering every inch of her face.

Anger felt so much easier—and infinitely safer—than hurt or disappointment, so that was what she clung to.

You don’t need him or anyone, Samira.

“We’re not a good fit for a million reasons, Baptiste,” she said quietly, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “That’s the bottom line. Why not cut our losses? Like I said, it’s better to remember our perfect night together and leave it at that.”

“I see.” His eyes narrowed as two vivid patches of color resolved over his cheekbones. He seemed angry as he released her arm. Possibly even hurt, if she didn’t know any better. “You don’t wish to be bothered with me. I’m not worth the effort.”

Wait, what?

“No,” she said, dismayed that he’d reached such a hurtful conclusion. “That’s not what I said. Where did you even get that from?”

“Please,” he said coolly. “Enlighten me.”

“I mean…”

She looked wildly around the room and took a deep breath as she dropped back into her seat, trying to get her thoughts together and her mind right. Why did she need to say it aloud? Couldn’t he see that this thing between them had pending disaster written all over it?

And through it all throbbed a relentless baseline that she could not get out of her head.

What is it about this one man?

Who gave him the right to waltz into my life and turn it upside down like this?

“I mean…You like partying with topless women on yachts in Cannes. I like neighborhood bonfires in Journey’s End. You want free and easy. I want to get married and have a family. If someone drew a Venn diagram of our lives, they’d have no intersecting points because we have nothing in common. Why are we wasting each other’s time? Where can this possibly go between us?”

He stared at her, a muscle working in his jaw.

“I don’t know, ma reine, but we’d better figure it out before we drive each other insane,” he said grimly.