“Tatiana couldn’t be here today, but she says hello, and—” He paused before deciding to tell the other man, “she also hoped we’d be agreeing to a deal today. So do I.”

Flynn took his measure. “You look really tired, and with you missing our meeting yesterday because you had other meetings out of town that couldn’t wait, I’ve got to ask: Are you sure you’ve got the time to give to my company?”

Ian laughed, then, all pretense of holding it together gone. “You want to know the honest to God truth? No, I don’t have the time. I haven’t had the time in over a decade. Longer than that. But I’m going to make the time for your company. Not only because I gave you my word that I would, but also because I haven’t been this excited about working with someone else in a very long time.”

“Honesty.” Flynn looked surprised. “I haven’t seen much of that in boardrooms these past couple of years. Until right this second, frankly, I wasn’t sure that I could trust you. Look, I’m not asking you to give up having a wife and kids for me. Hell, I hope to have those myself one day. And I get that you might not always be the best person to work with in every area, that you’ve got a staff full of intelligent, enthusiastic people who know how to kick ass in their specific arenas. I just want to know that your interest in growing my company is serious.”

“It is.”

“In that case,” Flynn said with a wide grin and an outstretched hand, “we have a deal.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was a good thing, Tatiana thought the following afternoon, that filming had begun today. Even better that the director had wanted to start with the scene where Rose left Aiden. They hadn’t needed much extra makeup to create the shadows under her eyes or the powder to make her skin look pale.

And when they were done with their first day on set, both the director and her co-star had told her that they’d never seen her be better. Having just channeled all of her pain and the brittleness she was feeling into her character, she was struck by the irony that just when she’d managed to keep her career from going off the rails, her personal life had completely crashed and burned.

After leaving the set, she headed out on foot through town for home. And it was true, Seattle really did feel like home already.

She was starting to know the city fairly well after the past couple of weeks, but not so well that she wasn’t surprised when her route took her right past the restaurant where she and Ian had eaten on the first day she’d shadowed him. Her chest clenched as she stood outside and remembered how naïve she’d been, how easy she’d thought falling in love—and being loved back—would be.

All the previous night without Ian, she’d longed for him, had been so tempted to go knock on his door and beg him to forget everything she’d said about not trying. But Ian, she knew, had always protected everyone else.

Now, she needed to protect him from giving up everything he loved for her.

“Tatiana!”

She was surprised to see Mia stepping out onto the sidewalk. Looking up, she saw that the restaurant where she and Ian and his professor had eaten was just a couple of doors down from Sullivan Realty, Mia’s office.

“I was just going to call you about Friday night and here you are walking past.”

Oh God, Tatiana had forgotten all about the party at Mia and Ford’s house to celebrate her and Smith’s Oscar nominations. When Tatiana had first suggested it, the family celebration had seemed like a great way to make sure Ian wouldn’t be able to avoid her. But now, after she’d made him promise on the plane to keep his distance…

She sighed. Hadn’t she known there would be family parties? In fact, it was one of the reasons he’d been so hesitant to start anything with her in the first place, because of how awkward—and horrible—it would be to constantly see each other if things didn’t work out.

Somehow, she told herself, she’d have to figure out a way to deal with seeing him at Mia’s house tomorrow night.

Mia had been all smiles when she came out of her office, but her grin quickly fell away when Tatiana lifted her sunglasses and she got close enough to see Tatiana’s face.

“You know what,” Mia said, “let’s go into my office so that we don’t cause any more pandemonium out here on the sidewalk than Ford already did this morning when he decided to go out and pick up coffees for us.” Mia put an arm around Tatiana to direct her inside. “I know falling in love with a rock star is every woman’s fantasy, but let me tell you, the reality can be a little nuts sometimes. One woman actually stripped off her underwear in the middle of the sidewalk to give to him.” Mia made a face. “Can we say yuck?”

“Serious yuck.”

“People probably do weird stuff like that to you all the time, don’t they?”

“Not that weird, thankfully,” Tatiana said with a laugh. One that sounded so rusty she realized she hadn’t laughed since she’d been in Ian’s arms on the island and they’d been dancing around Legos on the floor of their perfect little barn room.

As soon as they stepped into Mia’s office, Ian’s sister closed the door and then the blinds to make the glass-walled space private. “What’s wrong?”

Yesterday, though Valentina had clearly been extremely worried about her, Tatiana’s sister had accepted that she wasn’t yet ready to say more. Since then, of course, Valentina had sent a half-dozen text messages checking in, and they were meeting in a little while at her place so that she could finally tell her sister everything.

But now that she was sitting with Ian’s sister, who loved him as much as she did, Tatiana knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it all from spilling out another second. And if she was going to tell it, she figured she might as well start from the beginning.

“When we were at your parents’ house for dinner and I was helping your mom in the kitchen, I told her I had fallen for Ian.”

“Wow.” Mia’s eyes were wide with surprise. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that my mom loved hearing that.”

“I think she did,” Tatiana said with a small smile. “She gave me a big hug...and then told me to stay determined and not to give up on him.”

Emotion swamped Mia’s face. “We all love him so much.”

“I know you do. How could you not when I fell in love with him the first time I met him in Napa at Marcus and Nicola’s wedding? Partly,” she admitted, “because he’s gorgeous, but mostly because of how much he obviously loves you and wanted to make sure you were safe and happy.”

“Love at first sight,” Mia said with a sigh. “That’s so romantic. Only you don’t look happy, and I’m guessing that if I went to see my brother right now, he wouldn’t look happy, either.”

Knowing her voice would break on any words she tried to say, Tatiana simply shook her head.

“I was so sure things would turn out differently with you,” Mia said. “Hoping, praying that he’d finally open up with you, even though he’s isolated himself more and more from all of us over the years.”

“Me too,” Tatiana confessed in a hollow voice. “I kept thinking that if I didn’t back down or give up or go away, if I was just there for him, if I could just smash through all of his boundaries, he’d let me in. And when we were on the island, for a while...”

“Island?”

Realizing no one but her sister and Smith knew about their aborted trip to Alaska, she explained, “We were headed to Alaska for one of his meetings, but when that bad storm hit, we had to land way on the north end of Vancouver Island. While we were grounded there for three days without cell phones or Internet connections, I got to see another side of your brother when he actually let down his walls for a little while.” Tatiana didn’t realize she’d put one hand over her heart until it was already there. “Far enough that he started talking about wanting to try with me. He even said he’d give up the big deal he’s been working on for the past two years so that we could have more time together.”

Mia looked shocked. “He’s been obsessed with investing in that company.”

“He should be. I met the founder and the guy’s a genius. And that’s just the problem. If I let Ian give that up for me because he thinks there’s some sort of rule about how much time and focus you can give to someone you love versus your company—”

“He’d be miserable.”

Tatiana nodded.

“But if he didn’t walk away from it all,” Mia said, “if he still worked crazy hours, would that ever be enough for you?”

“After spending the past week and a half with him, and seeing how well he juggles it all—better than anyone I’ve ever seen—I know it would be. I don’t want him to change. I don’t need him to change. He’s perfect just the way he is. But—”

“He doesn’t see that, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t. And if we were together, he would live in constant fear of hurting me, and feel guilty every time he thought he was letting me down.”

“Ugh.”

Tatiana nodded. “Double ugh.”

Mia reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a box of Brooke’s chocolates. “This definitely calls for my emergency stash.” Once both of them had popped truffles into their mouths, Mia asked, “So, are you going to be okay with seeing him on Friday night?”

Tatiana figured there was no point in lying. “It’s going to be really hard to see your brother.” She sighed before admitting, “But—and I know this probably doesn’t make any sense—it would be worse not to see him.”

Mia’s lips had moved up into a little smile as she held out the box of chocolates. “Want another?”

Tatiana shook her head. “No, thanks. And I’d better get going or else I’m going to be late to meet up with Valentina. She’s already worried enough about me.”

Mia gave her a warm hug. “See you tomorrow night. And if you need to talk again before then, you know you can call or come by the house anytime, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“I wish my brother knew it.”

“He does, Mia.”

“Then why has he been shutting me out for so many years?”

“I don’t know. But maybe,” Tatiana said with a small smile that she knew wouldn’t make any sense to anyone but Ian, “it’s finally time for you to ask him.”

* * *

It had taken years of work, of focus, of dedication for Ian and his executive team to close the eAirBox deal. They’d celebrated last night, all of them, including Flynn and his team. But, for the very first time ever, Ian’s professional triumph wasn’t enough to make up for his personal loss.

There wasn’t a moment when he had stopped thinking of her during the past twenty-four hours. Hell, during the past several months since the wedding, if he was being honest with himself. Again and again he replayed every one of her beautiful smiles, the sweet sound of her laughter, the softness of her mouth on his, the bliss of feeling her skin heat and dampen as she came apart in his arms...and the honest emotion that he’d seen in her eyes every time she looked at him.

He’d gone around and around in his head trying to figure out a way that they could make things work, what he could do to convince her to give him another chance, but every time he was stopped by Tatiana’s voice in his head: It’s exactly what you did with your ex-wife. You tried to make a relationship work around your job and what she wanted from you. But it didn’t work. And I love you too much to let you make those mistakes again.

Ian was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize his sister had walked into his office until she threw her arms around him and said, “I love you, big brother. You were gone so long that I didn’t get to tell you nearly enough. Now that you’re finally back home, I’ve got lots of lost time to make up for.” After a long while, she finally drew back to sit on the edge of his desk. “But before we get to the heavier stuff, I need to remind you about the party at our house tomorrow night. You’re in charge of the bubbly, so you’d better not be late or we won’t be able to toast Smith and Tatiana.”