Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

He watched with interest as she lifted the teacup in trembling hands to take a sip.

Her eyes closed and she took another sip and several deep breaths before carefully placing the cup down again. “Um...does that mean you’re expecting...uh...conjugal relations?”

Humor vied with a vicious spike of arousal at the thought of sharing a bed with Audrey and her reaction to the concept.

The prospect did not send most women into stuttering panic. He was surprised she was reacting so gauchely to the idea. Was it possible she did not feel the passion sparking a steadily building electric current between them?

Or was it that she felt it and was overwhelmed by it? She was twenty-seven years old, not some blushing virgin, though.

“Naturally I would expect to have sex with my wife.” He did not mention that he’d actually had no intention of any such thing until this very moment.

But he’d had a sudden and inescapable self-revelation. No way could he live in the same house as this woman and not act on the desire she evoked in him.

Shortsighted of him not to realize the efficiency of such an arrangement as well, regardless of who he chose for the role. Enzu wasn’t usually a shortsighted man.

“I didn’t realize. I’m not... Well, you probably already know.” She gave him an appealing look. “I’m sure it’s in that invasive report. Your top-notch investigators wouldn’t have left something like that out. Right?”

Enzu was unacquainted with the level of confusion he experienced at her disjointed words. “What exactly are you talking about?”

“My... That I’m a...” She didn’t finish her thought.

Enzu found himself more intrigued than confused. That she was a what?

An idea came to him. One he dismissed almost immediately as impossible. She was twenty-seven, had attended university, and raised her own brother for the past six years.

Still, considering how little information on that front there was in the report, he could not help wondering. He had thought she was simply more private in this area than anyone he’d ever come across. Even himself.

And Enzu made it a policy never to get his name splashed across the tabloids for his sexual liaisons.

There was no evidence of any kind of sex life in the report on Audrey, but that didn’t mean she did not have one. An investigator would find it difficult, if not impossible, to name Enzu’s sexual partners in the past year.

“Your discretion in that area bodes well for your ability to maintain my confidences.”

Enzu had no intention of telling his wife sensitive information, but living together in the same house for at least two decades risked her being exposed anyway.

Audrey was back to blushing and looking into her teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe. “I am a very private person.”

“I had surmised that.”

“But it’s not so much a matter of discretion as there being nothing to be discreet about,” she admitted, almost as if she was embarrassed by that fact.

He was glad to hear she wasn’t promiscuous, but he did not want her to think he expected her to have no past sexual experiences. He was not a Neanderthal.

“I find sex a satisfactory stress-reliever but, like you, I do not indulge as often as some might expect.” Enzu wasn’t celibate by any stretch, but he was not and never had been a player like his brother, either.

He worked sixty-hour weeks, rarely taking days off—even on the weekend; Enzu didn’t have time for a lover, or even frequent hook-ups.

Audrey winced, cherry-red washing over her cheeks. “I don’t indulge at all.”

“Not at all?” he asked with some measure of disbelief.

“Not ever,” she admitted, as if it was painful to do so. “I’ll understand if you want to end the interview right here. It was a reasonable assumption that I would have at least some experience.”

He wasn’t sure why she thought he’d want to cut short the interview, but he was a lot more interested in her claim of total inexperience than just why she thought he would see it as a strike against her.

Strangely, the urgency of his physical attraction to Audrey only increased at the knowledge of her innocence.

“You’re saying you are a virgin?”

“Yes.”

“But you were engaged.” The relationship had ended shortly after Toby moved in with his sister. A formal retraction had even been printed in the paper.

“We were waiting until our wedding night.”

“People still do that?” he asked, bemused.

“To hear my parents tell it, anyone with a conscience does.”

“They seem to be rather narrow-minded.”

“You think?” she asked with some sarcasm. “They’re also hypocrites. My oldest sister was born seven months after their wedding day. And she was not a preemie, no matter what my mom claimed later.”

Enzu laughed cynically. “While your virginity comes as a surprise, your parents’ double standard does not.”

Audrey nodded and then rose gracefully to her feet. “Right. I appreciate you considering me. I hope you find someone suited to both you and the children.”

He stood, too, coming around his desk and blocking an easy exit from his office. “This interview isn’t over.”

“It’s not?” Her forward momentum had taken her to within inches of him before she stopped.

Her scent, a soft floral fragrance, teased his senses. Arousal spiked through him and he had to control the urge to reach out and touch. “No. Surely you realize that it is my responsibility to determine when this interview is over?”

“Yes, of course.” She stepped back.

He followed her.

Chocolate-brown eyes widened, but she didn’t try moving back again. Perhaps she realized to do so might well trip her backward into her chair in a less than dignified manner.

“I have several more things to discuss with you.”

She swallowed, her gaze stuck on his mouth in a gratifying way. The attraction was not one-sided. He smiled.

She inhaled sharply and then shook her head, like she was trying to clear it. “But I thought...”

“It would take an insecure man to be intimidated by a lack of experience in his possible future sex partner.”

“Oh.”