The Millionaire's Makeover

Ben hadn’t gone for his decorator’s initial suggestion of classic Southwestern earth tones, and the two of them had done some polite-yet-steely negotiation—“You’re the client, Mr. Radford”—and ended up choosing a mix of white and turquoise and gold.

“I love the coolness and silence,” Rowena finished.

“Because if you truly would prefer a motel…” he said, deliberately leaving the sentence hanging, just to see what she would say.

He could already tell that she wouldn’t prefer a motel, and without wanting to be, he was intrigued by the way her instinctive appreciation for beauty and history changed her face. Her eyes widened. Their deep, beautiful blue went even darker. Her mouth softened. Her lips parted.

She forgot the nervous tension and shyness that seemed to wrap around her like a cloak too often, tightening the angles in her limbs and stripping away their natural grace. The tension and shyness made him angry with her at times. There was no reason for her lack of confidence, and he had a low tolerance for people who let their own flaws hold them back.

Well, her flaws weren’t holding her back right now.

She wasn’t quite smiling, but the expression was better than a smile. Radiant he would have called her, if he wasn’t the cynical survivor of a recent divorce, who didn’t go anywhere near any word that had the slightest association with brides.

She gave a gasp of pleasure at the sight of the nineteenth-century mission-oak hall seat in the entranceway, trailing her fingertips lightly across its waxy patina on her way toward the bedroom. “Oh, this is gorgeous! And this!”

She looked at the painting on the wall—a splash of vibrant colors in a landscape by a modern Italian artist who didn’t really belong here, if you were going to be strict about it, but somehow the painting had seemed to fit. Ben refused to be a purist about such things.

On an impulse that he didn’t examine too closely, he said to Rowena, “Come to the exhibition opening at my gallery tomorrow night, if you like art.” She hesitated, and he added quickly, “I’m serious. You’d enjoy it.”

“But I’m here to work.”

“Not in the evenings. Anyway, your profession is so much about visual appreciation. You should go to galleries. You should gorge your senses whenever you can.” She looked alarmed at his prescription, but he ignored her, impatient with her again. “And don’t tell me you’ll be too tired. It’ll be easy. Just a hop in the helicopter, there and back.”

“Helicopter…”

“Yes. I charter them out here quite a lot. I don’t always feel like driving into town.”

“Oh. Nice not to have to deal with the traffic.” She was looking as if out of her depth again.

“So it’s a deal? Dinner afterward, if we’re hungry. You’ll need to be ready by five-thirty.”

“I…I… Okay.” She spread her hands and gave a helpless kind of laugh, as if she couldn’t believe he’d really been serious.

Ben wondered about the spontaneous invitation, too. What had he saddled himself with for tomorrow’s event? Serial awkwardness, or a really nice night? He had no idea.

The two of them put her bags down on the handwoven rug, and she paused for a moment to assess the queen-size bed, the adjoining bathroom and the other furnishings.

“Thank you,” she said. “I mean, for the suite. It’ll be perfect.”

“Your sitting room needs something, though,” Ben said. “My decorator tried a rolltop desk in there and it looked terrible, but you do need some more surface area to lay out your work. You can use my secretary’s office when she’s not around.” He had some loose arrangements with his staff these days, and people came and went between here and his large office suite in San Diego on an ad hoc basis. “And my conference room when you have something to show me, but I imagine you’ll be wanting to work in here quite often.”