“The answers are simple. I give a lot of my money away, and I give all my time away. But I still like having nice things. And I like to reward myself for hitting milestones in charitable fundraising. Like this car—it was a gift I gave myself after my first big event. And this dress I picked up when I started working with the children’s wing. Besides, I like dressing nice. Is that a crime?”
He shook his head. “Hell, no. You wear it all well. Do you like being pretty?”
She laughed lightly. “I’m glad you think that about me.”
“Answer the question,” he said firmly, since she’d just danced around what he considered an immutable truth of the universe—she was beautiful.
“Ryan,” she said, and he heard her embarrassment in her tone. He was having none of that.
“Sophie,” he said in a firm voice. “You’re gorgeous. Don’t deny it. Now tell me, do you like being so gorgeous?”
“To you—yes,” she said, managing once again not to answer completely. But her answer was completely satisfying.
Briefly, he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Stunning. You are fucking stunning.” He turned his eyes back to the road that curved up into the hills. “Even in that hoodie and hat picture you sent me.”
“I told you I was a nerd in college. I mean, total nerd,” she said, slicing her hands through the air for emphasis. “I had a weird haircut. I died my bangs blue. I was bent over a desk coding all the time.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing you bent over a desk.”
She shot him a naughty grin. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Did you like having blue hair?”
She shrugged. “I did it to fit in. There’s a certain geek culture, and I had to work hard to conform to it. Already I had a strike against me being a woman, so I tried to at least look the part of a computer nerd.”
If she hadn’t sent that photo he’d never have believed it. “And now that you’ve left that part of your life behind, you embrace this other side of yourself,” he said, gesturing to the pinup dress and high heels and the styled hair.
“Exactly,” she said, her eyes lighting up.
“Was that part of you untended to? The woman in you?”
She scoffed. “For many years,” she said, almost to herself. He was about to follow up and ask what she meant, but she kept talking. “But there are always parts of ourselves that we don’t take care of. I could ask you the same. Are you the same person you were when you were in the army?”
As he hugged the side of the road on a turn, he eyed his tailored pants, button-down shirt, and leather shoes. “Well, I don’t wear fatigues anymore,” he said drily.
“Did you wear fatigues then? Were you actually in battle?” she asked, worry in her tone.
“I did wear fatigues. But I wasn’t on the battlefront. I was in Germany. Stationed in Wiesbaden. Not far from Frankfurt.”
“I know where Wiesbaden is,” she said quickly, a flicker of excitement in her eyes. “I’m having some work done on a new car at a custom shop in Rüsselsheim, not far from there.”
“Yeah? What kind?” he asked, figuring she’d say Audi, BMW, or Mercedes—luxury autos with high-end options for the discerning buyer. Like Sophie.
“It’s a Bugatti,” she said breezily. “I’ve always wanted one.”
His jaw dropped. There was no hotter make or model of car to a Top Gear fan than a Bugatti. “Yeah, me too. You’re really getting a Bugatti? I thought they were made in France.”
“Mine was made there. But I’ve contracted with a specialty shop in Rüsselsheim to make it more eco-friendly. And the paint job they’re doing is divine. It’s going to be a lush green,” she said, stretching that last word out as if it tasted like honey. “It’s going to look like an emerald.”
“That’s pretty hot. Can’t wait to see it.”
“Me too. I should get it in a few weeks. I bought it when I hit another goal in money raised for charities. But enough about me. Tell me about Wiesbaden. What did you do at the base there?”
“Army intelligence. The 66tth Military Intelligence Brigade. Worked with Captain Jack Sullivan.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Should I know the name?”
He laughed. “No. But there’s a funny story behind that man. He’s a few years older than me so he left before I did, and for awhile after he became known as the soldier-turned-sex-toy-mogul.”
Her lips widened into a big smile. “Really?”
He nodded. “Left the army and started a company called Joy Delivered. Sold products like the Wild One and the Lola. Now he’s back in Europe with his wife.”
“And does the army advertise that career path?” she asked, a sly look in her eyes as she hummed the one-time slogan. “Be all that you can be, find your future…selling dildos?”
He cracked up as he drove. “No. But perhaps they should. He made a lot of people happy.”
“I imagine he did. Though I suspect your career path is the more typical one after working in army intelligence?”
“It is. Military to security. Natural fit.”
“So perhaps you aren’t that different now than in your previous job.”
“Maybe I’m not.”
“Maybe you’re not,” she echoed. “Or maybe you are. I don’t really know.”
“Do you want to know?”
“I want to know what makes you tick now,” she said, her gaze fixed firmly on him as he drove. She was so straightforward as they talked, and he couldn’t deny that he liked her directness in conversation as much as he liked her willingness to bend to him in the bedroom.
Besides, it was a good question, one he was rarely asked but one he could, reasonably, answer with the truth. “This car,” he said, tapping the dashboard. “My dog. My job. My family. Living the life I choose. Keeping people safe. See, I’m not that different than I was before.”
“You’re like my brother in some ways,” she said. Guilt burned through him at the mention of John, and he tried to shove it aside. There was no space tonight for the things he hadn’t told her about how they met. “He’s got the same focus,” she continued, then looked at him, and rested her hand briefly on his leg. “I admire it.”
He gritted his teeth. No, you don’t. You can’t admire me. I’m a fucking liar and you’re a truth teller, and I don’t deserve you. But I still want you. Desperately.
Sophie leaned back in the passenger seat, lowered the window, and let the wind whip through the car until he turned a corner at a lookout halfway up the mountain road and pulled the gleaming silver beast to a stop.
He cut the engine and stared at the windswept woman by his side. Maybe he wasn’t a liar. Maybe he was simply a man who hadn’t yet told the whole truth. There’d be time for that. When he needed to offer it up. Then it hit him — he was thinking about the next time with her, and maybe even the one after that. Which wasn’t like Ryan at all. He didn’t move beyond short-term, so why was his brain thinking differently?
He had no answers, only a stark certainty inside him that he wanted this woman all to himself.
“Do you like the way she handles the curves?” Sophie asked, patting the dashboard.
“So fucking much,” he said then nodded to her door. “Wait for me.”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, tilting her head, locking her eyes with his and saying everything in her gaze. His breath stopped short at the way she looked at him. So guileless.
He never thought he’d been waiting for anyone. Given the walls he’d erected and the foundation of privacy he built his life on, he never imagined he’d be captivated this quickly. But Sophie had him bewitched—from her beauty to her spirit to her wide-open heart.
Maybe he had been waiting for her.
His muscles tightened. Something that felt like fear raced through him—the fear of feeling something.