Her Alpha CEO

His name, spoken in her voice, a voice so rife with concern, made him push the thoughts out of his head completely. “What?” he asked.

She eyed him curiously. “Is everything…okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, fine,” he said with some distraction. “I was reading when you rang the bell, and I guess my mind just hasn’t caught up with the rest of me.”

Actually, that wasn’t true, he knew. His mind had not only caught up, it had raced right past him and was now in an entirely different time zone. The Navel Zone. Where time moved at a totally different pace than it did in the rest of the world.

“So is it okay if I crash here for a couple of days?” she asked again. “I had to contact my insurance to find out about an assessment and quote and they can’t get one out until Monday. I tried to find a room at another hotel, but all the good ones are booked solid, and—”

“It’s fine, Nina,” he interrupted her. “Of course you can stay here. There’s plenty of

room.”

Though the minute he said that, somehow, for some reason, the huge house suddenly felt very crowded.

“Thanks,” she said, breathing a sigh of unmistakable relief.

She bent to retrieve her bags, but Brian intercepted her, scooping up all three before she had the chance. When he looked at her again, he could tell she was surprised by the gesture.

Or maybe it was just that she was usually the one doing things for him, not the other way around.

It hit Brian then, like a two-by-four to the back of the head, how very true that was. In the short time that he’d known her, Nina had done so many things for him to keep him on track. Granted, he hadn’t asked her to do any of it but still. What had he ever done for her in return, other than take her out for dinner and buy her a book stand? Yeah, there hadn’t been time to do the things he’d wanted to spoil her with, like chocolates for her birthday every year and the gourmet food baskets every Christmas. But those would likely have been things he’d have his secretary order for her — and he wouldn’t even have picked them out himself.

Then again, Nina had never seemed to expect anything more, he told himself. But that was no excuse for not showing his appreciation more often.

Note to self, Guidice. Show Nina a little appreciation this time around. As a reluctant

afterthought, he made himself add, and appreciate something besides her navel.

It would be a tough job, but he was pretty sure he could do it.

She followed him up to the second floor where Brian had a choice of guest rooms in

which to house her. Not asking himself why he did it, he made his way immediately to one near the master bedroom, where he was sleeping himself. The room was furnished in varying shades of green and gold, the stout four-poster covered with a lightweight patchwork quilt, the hardwood floors broken up here and there with rag rugs. It was what Brian had come to think of as the Rustic Room. Though it was every bit as luxurious as the rest of the house. The wide windows opened onto a thick patch of pine trees, beyond which was a spectacular view with a finger of lake on one side. At night, he thought, she could do what he’d been doing — lie in bed and listen to the wind gliding through the trees, and wait for the

melancholy hoot-hoot-hoot of a solitary owl.

Hey, it wasn’t as if there was much else to do around the house at night. At least, there hadn’t been before.

“Why don’t you stay more than a couple of days?” he asked impulsively as he tossed

Nina’s bags onto the bed.

When he turned, he saw that she had stopped in the doorway, and she didn’t look as if she planned on coming in anytime soon.

“I mean, you don’t have any obligations at the moment,” he pointed out unnecessarily, “and I’m not going to be coming back to the office for a few more weeks. I don’t expect you to report to the office before I get back myself. When was the last time you took a vacation?”

She threw him a funny look. “I just had one. Two weeks between finding my sister and learning about Michael’s attempts to get into Guidice Gaming.”

“Oh. Right. Well, what did you do during those two weeks?” he asked. “I bet you didn’t spend them out of town, did you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I did some work around my house that I’d been putting off for a while.”

“Well, there you go,” Brian said. “You need a vacation. I have a vacation home. At least it would be a vacation home for you.”

She crossed her arms over her midsection and dropped her weight to one foot. “And besides,” she said, “you brought a lot of work with you from the office, and you could use someone to help out with it while you’re here. Right?”

He gaped at her, shocked that she could think such a thing of him. What shocked him even more was that what she’d just accused him of had never once crossed his mind. “Of course not,” he denied. “Yeah, I brought work with me, but I’m getting it done just fine by myself.”

Well, except for the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Nina, and what she did to him, and how worried he was that she might decide to break things off because of his past with her sister. Jen had told him he was being silly, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was somehow important to her. It didn’t make sense, and it left him an insecure mess that was contrary to everything he’d ever felt about a woman before.

She smiled at him in a way that made him think she knew exactly what kind of problems he was having. Then she surprised him by saying, “Okay, I’ll stay a couple more days. It is a beautiful place. And I could use some downtime.”

Brian wasn’t sure what to make of the ripple of pleasure that wound through him at her acceptance of his invitation. So he decided not to question it. In fact, he decided not to think about it at all. Because Nina’s smile grew broader then, and she crossed her arms in a way that made her little T-shirt ride up on her torso again, giving him another delicious glimpse at that navel. The ripple of pleasure turned into a raging tsunami at that, and he was suddenly overcome by the absolute conviction that his life would never get better than it was in that moment, standing in the same room with Nina and her navel, knowing she would be around for a few more days.

But he was wrong. Because what she said to him after that multiplied his pleasure tenfold and nearly sent his body into paroxysms of ecstasy.

Because what she said then was, “You know, I need to run into town to pick up a few things.

Why don’t we see if we can find the ingredients for a strawberry chocolate cake, and I’ll bake one for you?”

That was when Brian knew, without doubt, that Nina Jacobs was the only woman

in the world who would ever be able to make him happy.

“But, Brian,” she added, more soberly this time, “you have to promise me you won’t do anything with the cake except eat it the way I ask you to.”

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What way will that be?”

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

Strangely, he realized he already did. Implicitly. Though, thinking back on their history together, maybe that wasn’t so strange after all. What was strange was that, suddenly, for some reason, he realized he also trusted Nina in ways that went beyond just lust. But what was strangest of all was that he found himself wanting her to trust him, too. In ways that had nothing to do with the bedroom.

“C’mon,” she said. “You’ll have to drive. Let’s pick up some groceries, too. I’m tired of restaurant food and carryout. Let’s cook tonight.”