Surrender

But from the look of frustration on his face, Aimee wasn’t so sure that she would.

The woman was driving him crazy, Peter admitted silently. He shut the door to Gallagher’s and headed out into the summer heat. Despite the smoldering temperature and choking humidity, he strode at a clipped pace along the battered sidewalks of the French Quarter. A trickle of perspiration dotted his brow, and he loosened the tie at his neck.

How had his life gotten so out of hand? What had started out as a simple plan had turned into something a great deal more complicated. Any way he looked at it, Aimee Lawrence was tying him up in knots.

He didn’t like it. He liked even less the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.

The sun gleamed down, hot and punishing, and Peter slowed his steps. He glanced about the nearly empty streets and grimaced. Even the tourists who had been foolish enough to visit the city in the middle of June had enough sense to avoid the oppressive afternoon heat. Only idiots like himself were out roaming the streets in the sweltering sun.

And he did feel like an idiot, Peter acknowledged. He should be at Gallagher’s, uncrating the Matisse he had battled for so fiercely at the last auction. Instead, he was wandering through the streets of the French Quarter and thinking about Aimee.

Pausing, Peter wiped at his brow with his handkerchief and then glanced up. He frowned when he discovered he was standing in front of Aimee’s building. That in itself demonstrated just how completely she had been occupying his thoughts. He hadn’t planned to come here today. He had promised himself he was going to stay away from her until she came to her senses…until she came to him.

Only Aimee hadn’t come. She hadn’t bothered to call him either.

The frustration he had experienced that morning came back to him in a rush, along with the anger. He was still angry with her, he realized—not for leaving him when he’d asked her to stay, but for refusing his help.

It was one thing for Aimee to refuse to sell him the building. After all, he had been less than honest with her. She didn’t know that he was the unnamed buyer who had tried to purchase the place from her when she first inherited it.

She certainly hadn’t known then, and didn’t know even now, that the building had once belonged to him and he had sworn it would be his once again. Besides, he was sure she would be less than pleased to learn that the reason he had sought her out in the first place was to convince her to sell him the place. And he had no doubt that, if she ever learned that part of the reason he had asked her to marry him was to regain control of the building, she would be furious.

Still, his offers to help her with the repairs had been genuine and had had nothing to do with his interest in the building. He’d made the offers because he cared about her. He didn’t like seeing her work so hard to keep the place up. And he was getting damned tired of her throwing his offers to help back in his teeth.

Seeing his scowling reflection in the shop’s window, Peter tried to school his expression. He didn’t want to attempt to reason with Aimee while he was still angry.

But he was angry…and confused. Nothing about Aimee or his feelings for her fit in his orderly life or in his plans. And for an artist with a bohemian spirit, Aimee Lawrence was proving to be one of the most stubborn people he’d ever come up against. He didn’t understand her…and he certainly didn’t understand her refusing his offer of marriage and opting for an affair instead. It just didn’t make any sense.

Not for one minute did he believe she’d turned him down because he’d presented her with the prenuptial agreement. Everyone used the things these days. It was the smart way to do business. If he had had any sense, he would have insisted on one in his first marriage. If he had, the building would still be his and he never would have asked Aimee to marry him in the first place.

And if he had had a prenuptial agreement the first time around, he certainly wouldn’t be standing here in ninetyplus-degree heat, contemplating asking Aimee to marry him for the second time.

Because he was going to ask her again. He already knew that. In truth, he’d known it for some time. He was simply tired of waiting. He wanted to get on with his plans to expand Gallagher’s, and he needed her building to do it. There simply was no other piece of property that would do. He wanted that building, and he intended to have it.

Only somewhere along the way in the past few months, he’d discovered that he wanted Aimee, too.

The problem was, he wasn’t quite sure whether this need to bind her to him stemmed from his obsession with reclaiming the building or from his obsession with the woman herself.

Obsession.

He didn’t particularly like the word, but it aptly described the way she made him feel, the burning hunger to be with her that seemed to have become a part of him, the way she filled his thoughts and haunted his days when he wasn’t with her.

Yes, Aimee Lawrence had become an obsession for him…an obsession he didn’t understand…an obsession that rivaled his driving need to reclaim the building that had once belonged to him. That, in itself, made her dangerous. What was even more alarming was that he had yet to get a handle on Aimee or figure out what her angle was.

Because he was sure she had an angle. Everyone did. His ex-wife, Leslie, certainly had. She’d used him as her springboard to fame in the art world, then dumped him and taken most of his assets with her when she found someone who could take her to the next stage of stardom.

So what was Aimee’s angle? It certainly hadn’t made any sense for her to turn down the sure thing marriage to him had offered by refusing to sign the prenuptial agreement.

And it made even less sense for her to turn down his offers to help with the building’s repairs. Unless she thought that, when she refused his financial assistance and his offer of marriage, he would relent and agree to launch her career as an artist.

Peter steeled himself. The face that looked back at him from the window was cold, controlled once again. He might have broken one of his rules by considering marriage again, but launching Aimee as an artist and making her into a star was something he had no intention of ever doing. Never again would he put his livelihood at risk that way. And never again would he allow any woman to use him. No, if Aimee had any plans for him to be her starmaker, she was sadly mistaken.

If Aimee made it as an artist, she was going to have to do it without his help. In the meantime, he would marry her. As his wife, she would accept his help in refurbishing the building. With a little persuasion she would agree to his opening another branch of Gallagher’s here. He would compensate her fairly for the place. And when the chemistry between them had burned itself out, as he knew it would, he would settle with her fairly. Only this time, he intended to be the one who got the building.

Peter looked at the closed sign displayed in the shop’s window and frowned. It wouldn’t be the first time that Aimee had closed up the place on a whim. Whenever the urge to spend the day at the beach or play tourist struck her, she would shut down the shop and be off in a flash.

She was a lousy businesswoman, and everyone knew it…including her tenants. That was one of the reasons she was always short on cash. It was also the reason she had agreed to allow Liza to live in one of the building’s apartments rent-free in exchange for running the shop.

Arcing his hands around his eyes, Peter peered through the window. Although the lights were on, there was no sign of Aimee or Liza. He could see a ladder parked in the center of the room next to a display case. Water stains splattered the wall directly behind it.

Peter grimaced. Guilt pricked at him. Evidently the damage was worse than he had suspected. And, no doubt, Aimee would be trying to make the repairs herself, probably had been most of the day.

It was just one more reason for him to insist that Aimee marry him. Surely, as his wife, she would accept his help. He started to ring the bell, so that Aimee could release the locks on the building’s main door and allow him to enter, but decided to try the doorknob instead. It turned on the first try, giving him complete access to the building.

Swearing again at Aimee’s continued lack of caution, Peter started up the steep stairway leading to her apartment. The woman needed a keeper, he told himself. Yet another reason to insist she marry him. At least he would make sure she was safe-even if that only meant locking the doors.

He turned the corner and started down the hall to Aimee’s apartment. As usual, not only was the door to her apartment unlocked, it was open.

He stepped inside the living room, too occupied with his thoughts of Aimee to think about the memories and plans that this particular apartment held for him. He followed the haphazard trail of how-to manuals that led from the living room to the kitchen. Stooping down, he retrieved a worn red-covered volume entitled Save A Fortune—Do Your Own Plumbing Repairs. He shook his head, marveling at the strength of Aimee’s determination.

“Oh, Jacques, you’re a lifesaver.”

Peter paused at the sound of Aimee’s voice coming from the direction of her bedroom.

“Nonsense, mon amie. It was nothing.”

Peter went still at the distinctly male and decidedly French voice that responded.

“But it’s true. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Anger began to simmer inside him. Anger, and some inexplicable fear of what he was about to discover. Still holding the book, Peter moved purposefully toward the bedroom. The door was open, and the bed was piled high with an assortment of towels, soaps and toiletry items.

But there was no Aimee. And no Jacques.

“Ah, mon amie, something tells me you would have managed just fine without me. But if you wish to think of me as your hero, then who am I to argue?”

Aimee laughed, and Jacques joined in.

Peter gritted his teeth. He liked the man’s laughter even less than he liked his foreign accent, he decided. Crossing the room, he came to a stop at the doorway of Aimee’s bathroom, just in time to see her raise herself up on her toes and kiss the other man on the cheek.

“Am I interrupting?” Peter asked, in a voice that was a great deal more civil than he was feeling.

Aimee jumped. “Peter! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.” She rushed over and brushed her mouth against his.

“Obviously.” He slipped his arm around Aimee’s waist and anchored her to his side. Given the way the other man was looking at her, it would have provided him with a great deal of pleasure to wipe the smile off the Frenchman’s face.

“Peter, this is Jacques Gaston. He’s the new tenant I told you about.” Still smiling, Aimee continued, “Jacques, this is Peter—”

“Gallagher.” Peter finished the introduction for her. With a feral smile, he extended his hand. “Aimee’s fiancé.”