Rylan’s jaw tightened.Why the hell wouldn’t she say something?Was it pride?Distrust?Or was she so used to handling things alone that she couldn’t see when she was in over her head?
Or had she simply not mentioned something important to him because she didn’t trust him yet?
“Check with your sources,” he ordered, his voice clipped, brooking no argument.
Tom nodded once and moved off, phone already in hand.
Left alone on the patio, Rylan stared out across the manicured lawn, his chest tight.He didn’t usually get tangled in the personal lives of women he wanted.That wasn’t his style.Keep it simple, keep it clean—nothing messy, nothing complicated.
But Natalie wasn’t simple.She was a contradiction—vulnerable yet fiercely self-reliant, sharp-tongued yet hiding something that made her eyes shadow in quiet moments.And that contradiction had hooked him deeper than he wanted to admit.
His fists curled, the memory of her fear slicing through him like a blade.Whoever had tried to scare her—whoever had put that shadow in her eyes—was going to regret it.
And Natalie?She was going to learn she didn’t have to fight this alone.
Chapter 16
Natalie walked into the office with a buoyancy she hadn’t felt in days.A real night’s sleep and a steaming shower had rinsed away the worst of the tension that had been knotted in her shoulders.Her head was clear.Her body no longer hummed with leftover adrenaline.
Today was going to be her day.
No client meetings meant she could lose herself in what she loved most—designing.Her desk was spotless, her coffee was hot, and her notebook was already open to a fresh page.She’d been sketching ideas for a sunroom—bold fabrics, unexpected textures—when her phone buzzed.
The unfamiliar number gave her pause, but she answered anyway.“Hello?”
“I’m hiring you,” a deep, gruff voice announced, uninvited and unmistakable.
Her lips twitched despite herself.She knew that voice.Rylan.Her heart gave an unruly little thump, but the humor quickly tangled with a surge of unwelcome memories—his mouth on hers, his arms locked around her…and the shock of Monica’s smug declaration.
She forced her tone into crisp professionalism.“And a good morning to you too, Your Highness.How may I be of service?”
Perfectly polite.Perfectly distant.She was absolutely not melting at the sound of his voice.She was absolutely not remembering the way it had dropped, low and heated, right before he’d kissed her.
“Good morning,” he replied, and there was a smile in his voice she could practically see.“I’m hiring you.”
“That’s a bold opener,” she said, swiveling her chair to look out the window so he couldn’t hear the grin threatening her lips.“Which rooms are you thinking about?”
“All of them.”The answer was casual, almost bored, as if commissioning an entire home redesign were the most obvious request in the world.“When can you come over to discuss the project?”
Her brows shot up.“Who says I’m accepting you as a client?”she countered, even as her pulse betrayed her by speeding up.“And will Monica be weighing in on these final decisions?”
“Monica and I are not engaged, Natalie,” he said firmly, the teasing gone in an instant.“We weren’t even dating.She decided—without my agreement—that we were going to marry.”
Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup.She wasn’t sure whether to scoff or… believe him.“Why would she come to that conclusion?”
He let out a slow sigh she could practically feel through the phone.She pictured him rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.“Because I didn’t take another lover after our one night together.She mistook my disinterest for loyalty.”
The words caught her off guard, and before she could stop herself, a laugh escaped.“That’s… a little unhinged.”
“I agree,” he said dryly.“But it’s the truth.I never proposed.Until that morning, she’d never even been inside my house.”
There was something in his voice—steady, direct—that slipped past her defenses.Against her better judgment, she believed him.
“Fine,” she conceded, swiveling her chair back toward her desk.“You weren’t engaged.But what makes you think I’ll take you on as a client?”
“Because you’ve seen my house,” he said without hesitation, “and I know you’ve already redesigned it in your head.You’re dying to fix it.”
Her jaw dropped slightly.Damn him.He wasn’t wrong.Shehadbeen mentally tearing apart his cold, minimalist space from the moment she’d walked through it.
