CHAPTER 12 (2)

What’s more, he didn’t want any of them to remind him that he had no business romancing a nice girl like her. Not when he was already well aware of that fact. And not when he’d already spent sleepless nights torn between wanting to do the right thing...and just plain wanting her. “Nice meeting both of you,” Ares said, his voice low and powerful, a Baddrick through and through. “What do you need?” Darius knew he was being abrupt, but his friend had just caused Nathalie to jump out of his arms, and he hadn’t yet forgiven Ares for it. “I brought the Link contract for your signature.” 





While each of the Baddricks had their own enterprises, they often entered joint ventures. This new agreement would fund Link Labs, a startup for a state-of-the-art, and affordable, personal robot. Hector, being the robotics guy in their group, saw huge potential in the field, and they’d all bought into it. “Thanks, but you didn’t need to bring it by personally.” Ares shrugged. “I felt like a drive.” Figuring there was trouble in paradise, but that his friend wouldn’t want to talk about it around Nathalie and Zion, Darius headed to the workbench and pulled out the document to scan it quickly before initialing the changes. 





He knew Ares was meticulous and didn’t make mistakes. Not with business matters, anyway. “So what’s going on here?” Ares gestured toward the frame. “Darius and I are building a Maserati Alfieri 1960.” Zion skittered across the floor to the front end, his enthusiasm back, the incident with the camera thankfully forgotten. “It was my idea, and Darius agreed.” “And you’re supervising?” Ares asked Nathalie. Obviously catching the way his friend’s eyes moved between her and Darius, her mouth tightened slightly. She put her arm around Zion, who quickly squirmed away as if it was too childish. “Zion recently wrote Mr. Spencer asking if he could see the car collection.” Mr. Spencer? What was up with that? “





And Mr. Spencer was gracious enough to invite us to participate in his car project.” If she said Mr. a third time, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. She was obviously trying to act like the only thing between them was a business arrangement. Anything but a relationship. But as much as he didn’t want Ares' questions right now—and as much as he was trying to be careful not to push her too fast—Darius sure as hell wasn’t going back to being Mr. Spencer. He scrawled his signature and shoved the agreement back into the envelope, then stalked the few paces to Nathalie’s side, where he draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her into him. “Here you go.” He handed the envelope to Ares with one hand and played with the ends of Nathalie’s hair with the other. “We’re going to start punching holes in the sheet metal.





Want to help?” He was sure Ares would rather watch the endless loop of a ticker tape. Cars didn’t interest his friend. Ares drove a luxury vehicle for the roominess and the comfort—and because Keira liked to travel in style—but otherwise, he couldn’t care less. True to form, he said, “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got to drop in on Perseus for the last signature. Nice to meet both of you. I hope I’ll see you again.” “’Bye, Ares.” Zion waved big, his whole body getting into the action. Just as Ares was engulfed by the bright sunshine, Nathalie elbowed Darius in the ribs. Oh yeah, there’d be hell to pay for his little stunt. 





But as long as it was Nathalie dishing it out, he’d look forward to every second. What was that about? Nathalie glared at Darius. He’d deliberately made it appear as though they were a lot more than acquaintances in front of his friend and fellow Baddrick. Ares was a very good-looking man, but even so, Nathalie thought he didn’t hold a candle to Darius. “I think you’d better start punching your holes,” she said flatly. Or she might punch him. He was barely stifling a grin and she knew for sure that he’d been showing off to his friend. Or staking a claim. And she’d felt… “All right, Zion, time to get started.” Darius reached into a large wooden crate set against the wall. “We’ll work on the firewall first. That’s the panel protecting the cockpit.” “I remember, Darius.” Zion followed him back to the workbench, where the long piece of metal was laid out, its top curved. What had she felt? Nathalie thought of Darius' teasing and the feel of his body against her back. 





Every hard inch of it. His nearness had turned her insides to liquid. The final photo Zion snapped had exposed a woman flushed with desire. She’d looked—and felt—wanton. Sexual. Wild. And very willing. Way too willing, especially since she hadn’t even decided yet whether to let him make good on any of his wicked intentions. The possessive arm Darius had put around her after he’d signed the contract had clearly stated that he knew how tempted she was. And he’d had no qualms about letting his friend know it, too—as if she were some sort of conquest. God. She must seem so easy to him. 





To both of them. Take her to dinner, flash around a little money, throw out a few sexy caresses—and she was about to cave. “This is a fan spacer.” Darius laid the accordion-style metal tool against the edge of a ruler he’d placed along the sheet’s edge. “We use it to make sure the rivet holes are equally spaced.” He fanned the spacer, a series of crisscrossed metal strips that could be adjusted, with a small hole at the end of each piece. As Darius pulled, the spacers widened. “That measures one inch. Now we use a spring-loaded punch to mark where we’re going to drill. Like this.” Zion craned to watch as Darius punched a small, sharp tool through each of the equidistant spacers. Still fuming, Nathalie clicked off a shot of the work in progress as Zion happily wrote it down in his journal. 





Even though her brother was with them, she pulled a stool away from the wall near the workbench, and asked, “Did your friend Ares get whatever message you were trying to send him?” Fortunately, Zion was too interested in what he was doing to pay attention. Darius looked up at her, his eyes far more guileless than they deserved to be. She and Darius had seen each other only a handful of times, yet she already knew that look. His lips curved up slightly, and he had a knowing spark in his eye.  




“What message was that?” Before she could answer, he handed Zion the sharp tool, which resembled a skinny screwdriver. “You try now.” Zion bit his lip, concentrating hard as he took over the task. “Yeah, just like that, you’ve got it,” Darius praised him. “All we’re doing right now is marking with a little hole. Then we’ll drill.” She took another picture, determined not to let Darius off the hook just because he was so sweet with her brother. “When you put your arm around me and started playing with my hair.” 





Darius didn’t look at all apologetic as he said, “He wasn’t the one I was trying to send a message to.” His bold words—words that all but screamed how much he wanted her—shouldn’t have sent heat rushing through her. But they did. Crazy heat. Just the way all of his bold intentions had in her kitchen. She could feel herself flushing as Darius focused on the car again and said to her brother, “We’re going to move the spacer along now and make our marks all the way to the end.”





A short while later, Zion held the press tool high in the air like an athlete who’d just run a marathon, and said, “I’m done.” Darius inspected the work. “A perfect job. I couldn’t have done better myself.” Zion did a happy dance and emotion blossomed in her heart. No matter how conflicted Darius might make her feel, he was good for Zion. Her brother suddenly said, “I gotta pee.”