Because You Are Mine (Because You Are Mine #1)(52)
Author: Beth Kery

Was that why she’d instinctively ducked back behind the barrier of the chair?

Ian reached into the handsome sport jacket he was wearing and handed the woman an envelope. She accepted it with a smile and went up on her toes, kissing his cheek. Francesca’s heart leapt and then slowed to a sluggish throb as she watched Ian put his hands on the attractive woman’s shoulders and kiss both of her cheeks in return.

They gave each other a smile that struck Francesca as poignant . . . sad. The woman nodded once, as if to silently reassure him everything would be all right, before ducking her head and turning to walk across the shining white marble floor of the lobby, tucking the envelope Ian had given her into the leather briefcase she carried. Ian just stood there for a moment watching the woman depart, an expression she’d never seen before on his bold, masculine features.

He looked a little lost.

Francesca leaned back in the chair, blindly staring at the extravagant fresh flower arrangement on the table before her. Her heart seemed to shrivel in her chest. It felt like she’d just walked in on him in the midst of a very personal act. She didn’t understand completely what she’d just seen, but somehow she just knew it’d been something important to Ian . . . something charged.

Something he wouldn’t have wanted her to see.

When she spied him walking into a jewelry shop housed in the hotel lobby a moment later, she sprang up from the chair and charged toward the elevator bank.

“Hi. I thought I’d wait for you in the lobby,” she said to him a few minutes later with false cheerfulness. They’d met in front of the elevators, Francesca acting as if she’d just arrived on the lobby level.

He blinked at her unexpected appearance. “I thought I’d asked you to meet me in the suite,” he said, looking a little nonplussed . . . and amazingly gorgeous. Would his dark, intense male beauty ever cease to hit her like a physical blow?

“Yes. I saw your note.” She noticed his near-black brows rise in a silent challenge. “I left a note, too, telling you I’d meet you down here.”

His full lips twitched, but she wasn’t sure if it was in irritation or amusement.

“I owe you an apology for my lateness. I had an important appointment with a close family friend who happened to be in town, at a conference. I’ll just go up and get my things and join you in the lobby.”

“Okay,” she said, wondering all the while about the identity of this beautiful, close family friend who had the ability to pierce Ian’s seemingly impenetrable emotional armor.

Had he bought something in the jewelry store for that mysterious woman?

Knowing she couldn’t ask that question, she started to walk past him. She halted when he put his hand on her upper arm.

“I’m sorry about last night.”

She just stared at him, mute with surprise at his admission and what seemed to be genuine regret in his tone.

“Which part?”

“I think you know which part,” he said quietly after a moment. “I was a million miles away last night. I fear you felt abandoned.”

“Wasn’t I?”

“No. I’m still right here, Francesca—for whatever that’s worth,” he added grimly. He leaned down and seized her mouth in a kiss that was both tender and passionate. Was it her imagination or did that kiss seem to tell her something Ian couldn’t say?

Francesca just stared at his broad retreating back a moment later, experiencing her typical bewilderment when it came to Ian, her heart still throbbing all the way to her clenched sex from his kiss.

* * *

Despite his earlier apology, she still sensed Ian’s preoccupation as Jacob drove them to the airport and they boarded his private jet. She was torn between feeling concern for him—compassion for that lost-looking Ian she’d glimpsed in the hotel lobby—and lingering irritation at his apparent ability to shut his awareness of her out like a light.

“What’s this important acquisition you said you had coming up later this week?” Francesca asked once she was seated across from him on the plane and he bent to retrieve his computer from his briefcase.

“I’ve been wooing a particularly coy—well, actually, annoying-as-hell, to be honest—owner of a company for over a year now, and it appears that we’re finally getting to a compromise,” he said, opening his computer. “I’m not that interested in the company itself, but the deal includes a patent on a piece of software I absolutely require for this new social-media gaming venture I’m starting.” He glanced up at her and then apologetically at his computer. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course not,” Francesca said, meaning it. He may confuse and vex her, but she wasn’t so clingy that she constantly required his attention. He immediately plunged into work when they arrived on the plane, reading files, typing fleetly, and occasionally making a terse phone call.

Francesca learned from a message on her cell phone that Lin Soong had e-mailed her the “Illinois Rules of the Road” manual. When had Ian made the request of his assistant? Last night, while he’d been ignoring her after their romantic dinner?

Didn’t that mean he’d thought about her . . . even a bit?

And weren’t those precisely the kind of slavish thoughts a supposed submissive had, constantly gauging her world by whether or not her master was thinking about her, whether or not he was pleased by her?

Disgusted by the mere idea, Francesca determinedly turned her attention away from the compelling man who sat across from her. She e-mailed a warm thank-you message to Lin, then briskly asked Ian if she could borrow his tablet.

“Why?”

“To read something.”

“The ‘Rules of the Road’ that I had Lin send you?”

“No,” she lied without blinking. “A trashy novel.”

She gave a small smile at his dry glance. He handed her the tablet without hesitation or further comment.

Fortunately, Francesca could be nearly as focused on a task when she wanted to be as Ian. She diligently memorized each rule of the road on the flight home, oddly determined to get her driver’s license now that Ian had brought the issue to the forefront. The experience of being in control behind the wheel had exhilarated her. After a while, she forgot her irritation at Ian, feeling comfortable with his presence as they both attended to their separate concerns.

She napped for a while and used the restroom. In her absence, Ian had brought both of them a refreshment from the wet bar. She sipped on her chilled club soda and watched him for a moment as he worked. He really was a force of nature. If he could patent that intense focus of his, he’d be the wealthiest man on the planet.