Unguarded

Something dangerous flashed inside him, something he couldn’t name. Jealousy, maybe, that she’d been with some artistic type before him? But that was stupid—it wasn’t like there was anything between them. Yet. Still, he couldn’t resist asking, “Really? And how is it you’re so intimately acquainted with us artistic types?”

She paused at his tone, and he watched as her normal reserve came back. He could have kicked himself. “My whole family has an artistic bent of one type or another,” she said, all traces of levity gone. “My oldest brother’s an architect now, but when he was younger he had visions of being a great artiste. My mother was amazed he made it through adolescence without chopping off an ear.”

“His own or someone else’s?”

She inclined her head. “Either or. Matt was a handful when he was young.”

“Do you have any other siblings?” he asked, watching her look around his kitchen in admiration. It was stupid, but he felt his chest swell at the thought that she so obviously liked something that was such an intrinsic part of him.

“Twin sisters, who are also younger than I. One designs jewelry and the other designs clothes.”

“And you plan parties.”

Something flickered in her eyes. “Yes, not very artistic of me I must admit, but it pays the bills nicely. I figure that’s something.”

“It is,” he agreed, as he gestured for her to sit at the bar that ran along the center island of the kitchen.

“You’re cooking!” She stared at the stove as if she’d never seen one before. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“I figured you’d be hungry after going from one party to another today.” He poured some pasta into the pot of water boiling on the stove. “Have you already eaten?”

“Yes, I—” She shook her head at the skeptical look he shot her. “No, I haven’t. Not since my cup of yogurt this morning, anyway. I’d planned to grab something on the way here, but I was running late and didn’t want to be any later.”

“I could have waited a few more minutes, Rhiannon. But I’m glad you didn’t eat—it’s always nicer to cook for someone else.”

“It smells delicious.”

“It tastes even better. It’s an old family recipe.” He stirred the pasta sauce, then held the wooden spoon up to her lips. “Here, try.”

At first he thought she was going to refuse, but right before he lowered the spoon, she leaned forward and took a tentative lick, her eyes widening as she tasted the tangy mix of tomatoes, garlic and fresh herbs. “That’s really good.” She took another, bigger bite.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m not used to men who can cook that well.”

“You must be hanging out with the wrong kind of men.”

“You have no idea.” A shadow passed across her face, turning her already serious expression almost sad. Her brown eyes flickered and grew darker, and he couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her that had put that look on her face.

It set off an alarm deep inside him, had him thinking that maybe he should take a step back. Reserved was one thing, but the last thing he really needed was to get involved with another woman who was damaged. Surviving Cynthia had nearly killed him.

The first awkward silence of the night descended as he popped the garlic bread in the oven. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t, and the stillness stretched from awkward to downright uncomfortable.

“I’m no whiz, but I can follow my grandmother’s recipe pretty well,” he commented in an effort to get things back on track. “She’s a genius in the kitchen.”

“Evidently.” She grabbed on to the verbal life preserver with both hands. “But you’re obviously no slouch, if that sauce is any indication.”

“Thanks. Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes. Can I get you a drink while we wait?” He gestured to the bottle of red wine he had resting on the counter.

“Actually, a glass of water would be great. I’m parched from all the talking I had to do today.”

“Sure.” He filled a glass, handed it to her.

“I’d love to see your backyard—get a chance to look at the space.”

“Absolutely.” He led them through the family room toward the back door that would take them out to the large deck he and Robert had built the summer before last.

“Wow.” She glanced around the huge room, with its cinema-sized television and state-of-the-art sound system. “This is a great room for a party, too.” She wandered over to one of the arcade-sized pinball machines he had lined up against the side wall, ran a hand over it and took in the adventures of various famous superheroes painted on its sides.

“You really take this whole comic-book thing seriously, don’t you?”

“Graphic novels, and yeah, I do. Seeing as how it’s my job, I figure I’d better take it seriously.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not that easy to offend.” He smiled at her, then changed the subject back to the party. “Most of the downstairs can be used—it’s a giant circle, so all the rooms pretty much flow into one another.”

He flipped on the outdoor lights as he opened the door, gestured for her to precede him, then waited for her reaction. He didn’t have long to wait.

“Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. When you said you had two acres up here, I figured most of it would be wild and unusable. But this—” She held her arms out wide. “This is perfect. You could have twice as many people as we planned out here and still not be crowded.”

“You want to go explore?” He nodded toward the well-lit path that curved from the deck through the entire yard.

“Try and stop me.”

RHIANNON FELT A LITTLE like Alice in Wonderland as she combed through Shawn’s yard. Everywhere she looked there was something else to see—a tall, intricately carved gazebo that would comfortably seat twelve. An abundant rose garden with benches scattered throughout. Hidden alcove after hidden alcove, each perfect for a food station or intimate seating arrangement. And then there was the gigantic pool, hot tub and basketball court that took up a significant portion of the backyard near the wrought-iron fence, not to mention the view of the lake, which, even at night, was breathtaking.

When Logan had talked about Shawn having money, she’d assumed he meant normal money. Reasonable money. Not holy-cow-he-lives-like-a-pasha-on-his-own-estate money. All this before the movies for his superhero had even come out? Obviously, she’d severely underestimated the graphic-novel market.

It was disconcerting on a personal level, especially considering the fact that he’d called this their second date and had made her dinner. After talking to him at the restaurant and finding out what he did for a living, she’d managed to convince herself that he was just a little boy in a man’s body. She’d actually been happy about that—her unwitting attraction would die quickly under such circumstances.

She looked around the grounds. While all the toys and other things he’d had built made it obvious he liked to play, it was also becoming very clear that there was a lot more to Shawn than she’d originally thought. He had a beautiful, thoughtfully designed house, a career that he was obviously brilliant at and, despite it all, he was completely un-self-absorbed.

Most of the men she knew would have spent the whole time showing off the house, bragging about every little thing. But Shawn seemed more interested in learning about her than he did about impressing her. It was a little frightening, particularly since she found herself intrigued by his restraint.

It had been a long time since she’d been this interested in a man, and she didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know how to act. Didn’t know, even, if she wanted to be interested. It was an odd conundrum to be in.

He wasn’t the first man to show interest in her since the attack, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. Normally she was overwhelmed by panic at the thought of a man’s attention and did her best to ignore them until they went away. She didn’t like the way they made her feel—afraid, helpless, hopeless and overwhelmed by doubts that she would ever be normal again.

She didn’t want to ignore Shawn. She didn’t have a clue what she did want to do with him, but she knew that she didn’t want to do that. Which was a problem in and of itself. Her old therapist would probably tell her that she’d chosen to be interested in him because he was safe. Unattainable.

Besides being way too young for her, he was also a client—at least, for the next six weeks. And the last thing she wanted was to get involved with a client. If she froze up, turned down his advances because she couldn’t handle them, it would be awful to still have to show up and do his party. Of course, it would be even more awful if he took his business somewhere else.

No, it was better if she kept these odd little twinges of interest to herself. The thought of disappointing Logan by screwing this up was bad enough, but she really couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing herself yet again.

Shoving her weird response to Shawn down deep inside of herself where she could forget it ever existed, Rhiannon did her best to focus on doing her job. Looking around the backyard, her ideas for the party exploded as she doubled—okay, tripled—the budget she’d had in mind. With a space like this, she practically had carte blanche as to what she could do. The challenge now would be to convince Shawn to let her run with her ideas—and his wallet.

The way the backyard was set up precluded one of her original ideas for a huge outdoor buffet—the seating was so sprawling it would be a huge trek to get back to the buffet table. But she could set up a bunch of small food stations, one in each of the alcoves… She began jotting a long list of notes as she wandered the grounds.