Isabella’s hand is shaking in mine, and the sensation has me harder than steel. My own anticipation is getting difficult to contain, but at least we’re in my territory. For the first time since we met, I’m calling all the shots.

It’s a welcome opportunity, at least for the moment, to keep her on her toes.

We step into the living area. “Wow.” The word is a whisper, her eyebrows raised. “That’s an incredible view.”

I shrug playfully. “It’s not bad. I prefer the view out of my villa in France.” Villa hardly does justice to the property, which I only get to a few times a year, but it’s true—the Mediterranean sparkling below a summer sunrise beats Manhattan any day.

Isabella rolls her eyes, a flick of her gaze toward the ceiling. “I would have given anything to even visit a place like this when I was growing up.” 

It’s such a genuine statement, not a hint of a double meaning, that I take a second to look at her. She’s still looking toward the windows, the last of the sunset reflected in her face. Isabella catches me watching. Her green eyes go serious again. It was probably a way for her to buy some time, let her racing heart slow a little bit. The pulse fluttering in her neckline isn’t quite so hard now.

At least it wasn’t until she looked at me.

Isabella Gabriel might be the most audacious woman ever to shove past my secretary and demand a meeting with me—if I’m honest, she’s the only woman who’s ever done that—but this cannot possibly be what she thought she was getting into. Hell, I’m not sure I even realized what we’d be getting into. It’s a sheer delight watching her cheeks heat up.

“Now your dream has come true.” 

Isabella laughs, but there’s an element of her nervousness there that she can’t hide.

“Moving along.” She hasn’t pulled her hand away from mine, so it’s a simple matter of tugging her in the direction we’re going—through the sunken living room, to the left, and up another two steps into the hallway there. Isabella takes a big breath in and lets it out slowly as we move down the hallway. Energy is radiating off of her, heating up the corridor, and it’s like she’s dying to ask me where this leads.

The hallway opens into...

...my dining room.

Isabella hesitates for the first time as we cross the threshold. She does more than hesitate, in fact. She stops dead, two steps in, her eyes flicking suspiciously across the space.

Because the dining room isn’t exactly empty. 

My massive dining table, which can seat twelve, has been replaced with a smaller one in front of a window boasting another spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. The rest of the space has been converted into a kind of sitting area, a sofa and a wingback chair arranged around a glass-top coffee table reflecting the light of the gas fireplace, turned on low.

If she was expecting the master bedroom, or some kind of playroom, this is not it.

The final touch is the uniformed waiter bending over the table, pouring white wine into our respective glasses.

Isabella presses her lips together like she’s trying not to smile, but her eyes are narrowed as she takes it all in with another sweep of her gaze. It’s all I can do not to keep from laughing. The arrangement we made was not for a private meal, although I never said it wouldn’t include one. This has to be the final straw, the thing that pushes her into full-blown confusion. There’s no way she was expecting this.

She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, then steps closer to me. What is this? I’d bet a thousand dollars that those will be the next words out of her mouth.

“So,” she says, her tone soft and sensual, like she’s still kneeling on the carpet in the entryway, looking up at me from the floor. “Where do you want me? On the table, or on the sofa? Oh—or the chair?”

Is she completely unshakeable?

“Seated. At the table, not on it.” I lean in so that I’m murmuring right into her ear. “You can keep your clothes on…for now.”

That puts a little more blush in her cheeks, but she lets me escort her over to the table without another word. “Mr. Pace.” The waiter, Conrad, straightens as we approach. “Ms. Gabriel. Are you ready for the first course?”

The first course is my personal chef Lucas’s favorite salad—something involving candied pears—and I can’t wait to watch Isabella eat them, the shining fruit against her perfect lips. “Yes,” I tell him. “Bring it out.” He moves smoothly away while I pull Isabella’s chair out from under the table so she can sit. I’ve taken my seat when Conrad comes back, the small plates balanced in his hands.

Isabella looks over the delicate arrangement. “Impressive.”

“Not as impressive as you,” I say, not missing a beat.

She smiles at me across the table. “I haven’t done anything impressive yet.”

“I disagree. You barged into my office without an appointment.”

Her shoulders relax a little, and a fraction of the tension goes out of the air. “So this is a date?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Oh…office talk. A dinner in your private dining room. It doesn’t seem like—” She breaks off, as if searching for the right word.

“The kind of arrangement where I possess you for an entire month?”

She picks up her fork, looking up at me with fire in her eyes. “No. It doesn’t seem like that.” I’m guessing this is as close as she’ll get to admitting her surprise.

“An arrangement like that can’t include dinner?” I grin at her, picking up my own fork and spearing a section of candied pear. “My goodness, Isabella. We hardly know each other. Shouldn’t we get that out of the way first?”

Isabella cocks her head to the side. “I’m not the kind of woman you can get to know over the course of one meal.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She laughs. “What about you, Jasper Pace? Are you the kind of man who can be summarized in a single dinner?”

“Depends on what you want to know.”

“I want to know what makes you so relentless. I checked up on you during our…time apart. You’re terrorizing all of New York City with your insistence on gutting all the best buildings.”

“If by best you mean in most need of improvement.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

“What’s your lullaby, Isabella? Is it the sound of all the cash you’re raking in from Gabriel Luxe?”

She narrows her eyes with a smile. “You did your research, too.”

“Of course I did. What I couldn’t find was why.”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so hell-bent on expansion? How did you get into fashion, anyway?”

Isabella purses her lips. “I’m not only into fashion. I’m into…fitness. And business. And utility. I think clothes should be simpler, and higher quality.”

“Was that always a passion of yours?”

“No. Paying the bills was.” She slips a section of candied pear between her lips and swallows. “That’s good. Anyway, my mother had practically no money when I was growing up. I had to do something.”

“And that something was fashion?”

She shrugs. “She had a sewing machine.”

It’s a good thing she didn’t have a collection of tanks, because Isabella Gabriel would have taken over the world. 

“Okay. I’ll admit it. I was wrong,” I say.

Isabella laughs. “About what?”

“This is going to take more than one dinner.”