Monday morning, at a few minutes past nine, I stood in front of the glass and steel skyscraper that housed the office of my nemesis. Why had he chosen that building to run a match making business in? Did his average client feel a greater amount of confidence in such a building as opposed to the office space I was able to afford the rent on that wasn’t downtown?

Who knew?

Who cared?

I tried to tell myself I didn’t, but I did. Slightly disgusted with myself, I shook my head and walked up the remaining steps. Once inside, I moved out of the flow of traffic headed to the elevator in order to check the directory. Bachelor International shared the twentieth floor with three other companies.

Mama and I had only moved into our current office about three years ago, so I had a general idea of what rental costs were around the Boston area. Bachelor International did extremely well based upon what I knew Tenor had to be shelling out per month for the prestigious address.

After I found my way to the twentieth floor and made my way inside to the reception area, I was pleasantly surprised. The decor was more traditional than sleek contemporary, and instead of the cold and clinical feeling I’d prepared for, the warm woods and muted neutral colors gave off a comforting vibe. All that was lost on me, though. I would never feel comfortable in this place.

An attractive blonde sat at the front desk and gave me a quizzical smile. “Hi, can I help you?”

I walked closer to the desk. “Mia Matthews for Tenor Butler. He’s not expecting me. I was hoping he could make some time to see me regardless.”

Both her eyebrows went up and her spine went ramrod straight. “Mia Matthews, oh yes.” She stood up. “Please excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

Deciding against sitting down, I remained where I was.

She wasn’t gone long at all.

“Mr. Butler said for you to go right on in.” She pointed to the door behind her that she’d used seconds before. “He’s the last office to your right, at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling somewhat surprised that he’d agreed to see me and also very curious about exactly how many offices were behind the door. I’d assumed he only had a handful of people working for him.

The inner offices of Bachelor International were just as richly appointed as the waiting area and I saw at least five other employees before I made it to the last office on the right.

His door was slightly open and his low, “Come on in, Mia,” when I knocked, sent shivers of awareness through my body.

He stood as I entered.

Now, I’d never seen Tenor in person, I’d only seen a few old photographs of him. Mostly back when Mama and I were starting out and we’d researched our competition. I knew he was fine looking, but—damn—I didn’t expect him to be that fine looking.

His messy-yet-still-somehow-beyond-hot hair was a shade somewhere between dark brown and black, and contrasted sharply with the blue in his eyes. His bone structure looked as if he’d been sculpted by a Renaissance master, and the slight scruff at his chin gave him a disheveled appearance that only made him hotter. And his lips? God help me, I wanted those lips all over me. I felt warm all over like he’d turned the heat on and I was actually aware that it had been almost a year since I’d had a man’s lips on me.

The lip in question quirked up on one end like it knew I was thinking about it. I lifted my head a little higher and saw his knowing eyes.

Ass.

Unfortunately, my traitorous body didn’t care. It still wanted his lips.

He waved to a small sitting area to his right and moved that way to join me. I took a seat in one of the plush leather chairs and he sat down in an identical one next to me.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, all the while looking at me with those captivating eyes. “I can only imagine how tough it’s been on you. Your mom and a friend.”

“Thank you,” I said, pleasantly surprised at how nice he was and that he knew Opa was also a friend of I mine. Why had I always pictured him as a mean, cold-hearted bastard? “Opa was something special. She lived in an assisted living facility. One or both of us would take her to lunch on Wednesdays.”

Opa had always looked so forward to our lunches and said they were the highlight of her week. She didn’t have any family left. I’d combined her funeral with Mama’s. I took a deep breath, not wanting to get upset in front of him.

He tightened his hand into a fist on his knee. “There was a chance you could have also been in that car?”

I shivered. Not for the first time, realizing how close I came to being in the car with them. “Yes and if not for a client who had been running late, I would have been.”

“Jesus,” he mumbled under his breath.

“I lost my dad ten years ago, and I was an only child, so it’s just me now,” I blurted out and seconds later I all but clamped my lips shut. I was an emotional train wreck.

Or maybe it was just him.

He nodded. “I’m an only child as well, but I’m very lucky to still have my parents living.”

“Are they in Boston?” Did he know how lucky he was?

“Outside New Haven.”

“Close enough,” I said. The trip to New Haven to where we were took less than three hours.

“And yet, not too close,” he said with a sexy, devilish grin that made my heart skip a beat.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I bet those lips felt incredible. His tongue, too.

I told myself to get a grip and to stop staring at his mouth. I wasn’t here to find out anything personal about him, to become his friend, or to learn what he did that he didn’t want his parents too close for. I most certainly wasn’t here for anything having to do with lips. I was here because he loaned my mother a ton of money. Which meant, I now owed him a quarter of a million dollars.

Shit.

That was enough to wipe the smile off my face and to stop my fantasy of seeing what type of underwear he favored. My gaze dropped to his crotch and then snapped back to his face. I straightened my shoulders. “I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

And just like that the Tenor I’d first met disappeared and was replaced by what I knew had to be the hard-ass businessman. “Yes.” He straightened his shoulders and his expression became masked. “I was planning to stop by and see you sometime later this week.”

“Looks like I beat you to it,” I said, matching my posture to his.

“That you did.” He smiled, but it wasn’t the same as the smile he’d given me before. This one looked cunning. More like what I’d imagined.

“Unfortunately,” I said. “I’m not able to pay you back at the moment for what my mother owed you.”

The fact was, after spending all weekend studying the books, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to repay him. There was no way on God’s green Earth I would admit that to him, though.

This obviously didn’t come as a surprise to him as he merely nodded at my statement and of course, he already knew. Hell, he probably knew down to the last penny exactly what I had in my bank account. He was a smart businessman and I felt for certain he’d looked into Mom’s finances before loaning her the money. Odds were likely he’d looked into mine as well.

Suddenly I felt very exposed sitting next to him. Sort of the way I’d expect to feel if I stood beside him completely naked while he wore all of his clothes. I started feeling all hot and bothered. But thoughts like that were dangerous for many reasons and getting naked in front of Tenor Butler wasn’t going to happen.

I turned my head back to him, thankful that he couldn’t read minds and hoping that if my cheeks were flushed, he wouldn’t ascertain why. It was then I realized he hadn’t said anything in response to my statement about not being able to pay him back.

“I mean,” I hastened to add, “Don’t get me wrong. I will pay you back. I just don’t know when.”

“I’m not worried about the money,” he said, leaning ever so slightly toward me and I couldn’t imagine what it was like to not worry about that. “I actually want something very different from money from you.”

My head jerked up. Surely he wasn’t suggesting…. I tried to look at it subjectively, but could come up nothing other than he wanted sex as payment for the loan. Rage engulfed me and I shot to my feet. “You have some nerve to suggest that.”

He remained seated and he wrinkled his brows. “Suggest what?”

Seriously? I placed my hands on my hips. “What you were getting ready to suggest.”

“What I was getting ready to suggest?” he asked, and he truly looked confused, but then his eyes widened in understanding before narrowing in anger. “Did you think I was going tell you I would forgive the loan if I could fuck you?” he asked as if it was the most ridiculous thought ever.

I crossed my arms. “What else could you possibly mean when you said, ‘I want something different from money from you’?”

“That I meant anything other than that.” He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Somehow the end result made him look even hotter and I hated him in the place of every man who didn’t have perfect hair. “I realize I can’t simply say you know me better because you don’t know me at all.”

I raised an eyebrow, still suspicious but feeling a little better.

“However, let me be very clear, I have never traded sexual favors for work, required sex from any of my employees, or dropped the slightest hint of impropriety. And I’m damn well not going to start now. I’ve worked too hard and too long.”

I didn’t say anything. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to apologize, because men pulled shit like that all the time. Of course, I may have been jaded thanks to the advertising nightmare Mama and I had dealt with.

“Will you at least sit back down?” His voice calm once more as he gestured toward the chair I’d vacated.

I sat, but sent him a sharp glance to let him know I wasn’t thrilled to be doing so and I didn’t have a problem in the world hopping back up if I thought for a second he was heading somewhere I didn’t want to go.

“Let me begin a different way,” he suggested and I nodded. “We are a large agency and I admit, we don’t have the personal touch of other agencies, including your own. In addition, we’ve received a lot of interest in our international division lately. That in and of itself isn’t a problem; we’ve been promoting it heavily and it is in our name. However, in order for it to be as successful as I think it can be, we need to revise our plan. And that’s where you come in.”

I had been totally with him up to that point, but as soon as he said that was where I came in, I got lost, yet strangely intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“I want you to come work for me.”

Tenor Butler wanted me to work for him? I tilted my head and ran his words through my head several times to really let it sink and for me to come up with a halfway intelligent thing to say in response. And as I did, I believed I understood exactly what he was saying. “You want me to close Cross My Heart.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t ask it as one. I merely stated a fact.

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes, told myself to think objectively about it. That I couldn’t see it as a personal issue, but rather to address it as a business opportunity. This had nothing to do with closing what Mom and I had worked on for so many years. This had everything to do with me looking good and hard at the numbers and realizing he could destroy me with a word.

I raised an eyebrow, still curious in spite of everything. “What’s in it for me?”

He gave me a smile that indicated he’d known all along what I’d be asking. He stood and walked over to his desk, took a folder from the top and handed it to me as soon as he returned. “This is a package I created for you. It contains my offer and a few ideas on how I envision you fitting in here. Take some time and look over it. Have your attorneys look over everything.” He tapped the folder once with his finger. “Call me if you have any questions. I put my personal number on the top page.”

It was a ton of information and obviously not something he did quickly, but rather something he’d given a lot of thought. I didn’t quite know what to make of that. How long had he had his eye on me and my agency? I felt uneasy.

I had a lot of reading and thinking ahead of me, but before I could move on, I needed to let him know one thing. “I don’t believe in asking my clients multiple choice questions.”

“I’m well aware of that, Mia,” he said and the hint of playfulness in his tone made me wonder what else he knew about me.