“Breathing is usually scheduled for just after lunch,” he replied, before he could think better of teasing her.

Her eyes widened for a moment before she began laughing. “I’ll make sure to pencil it in.”

Her scent and her nearness were destroying his restraint moment by moment. Boundaries. He needed to make sure the boundaries between them were clear—not just to Tatiana, but in his own head, as well.

But before he could lay down any ground rules, she said, “Like I said on Friday, not only do I not want to get in your way this week, but the best way for me to learn is to see you do whatever it is you would naturally do throughout the week. I truly intend to fade into the background, so please don’t give me another thought.”

She went to sit down on the couch, but he stopped her with one incredulous word: “How?” He made a sound of obvious disbelief. “You can’t even get away with a disguise outside. So how do you think you could ever fade into the background in my office?”

“Blending into the wallpaper is one of the first things you learn in acting class. And I’ll have you know,” she said with a confident smile, “that I can play a mean wallpaper.”

“I don’t care how good you are at acting like wallpaper, you’re a star.” A stunningly beautiful one, no less. “Hell, we both just saw the way people reacted to you outside.”

“You’re right that your colleagues will probably react at first because they’ve seen me in a movie or two, but it won’t take them long to realize that I’m just a person. And that I’m no different from anyone else.”

But couldn’t she see? She was different. So different that he’d been off his game from the first moment he’d met her.

His assistant knocked on the open door. “Good morning, Ian. Ms. Landon, it’s lovely to see you again.”

“Please, call me Tatiana, Bethany. And, actually, if it’s all right with you and Ian, I was hoping at some point this week that you and I could sit down together so that I can ask you some questions for my research?”

“Absolutely, Tatiana.”

Ian’s assistant had met plenty of famous and wealthy people over the years she’d been working with him, many of them from his own family. But he could see from the huge smile on Bethany’s face that she was especially excited about getting to spend some time this week with his beautiful, sparkling shadow.

“Mr. Thomas has just arrived and is waiting in reception, Ian. Would you like me to bring him in?”

“No, I’ll go greet him myself.” Before he did, he turned to Tatiana and explained, “Flynn Thomas is the founder of one of the most innovative cloud-based digital storage companies in the world. They’re not the biggest, but they’re the best, and poised for huge potential growth. I’ve been working to do a deal with him for nearly two years, and we’re nearly there.”

He held the door open for her, and when she headed down the hall in front of him, he was cursed with a view of Tatiana’s perfect hips covered in navy wool.

Wallpaper. Was she completely nuts?

“Flynn, thank you for taking the time to meet with me this morning. I’d like to introduce you to Tatiana Landon. Tatiana is doing some research for a role in an upcoming movie and has asked to sit in on my meetings today, if you don’t have an objection to her doing so. She’s signed a nondisclosure agreement, of course.”

In his late twenties, Flynn was a hell of a lot more self-possessed than most young tech entrepreneurs. In fact, it was precisely because he was nobody’s fool that he hadn’t yet taken an offer from anyone and still held the reins on a company that was increasing in worth by leaps and bounds.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Tatiana,” Flynn said, and as they shook hands, Ian could have sworn he held on to Tatiana’s just a little too long. “You were brilliant in Gravity.”

Tatiana flushed at his compliment. “Thank you. I hear you’re brilliant, too.”

What the hell? Were the two of them flirting?

Rationally, Ian knew it shouldn’t matter one bit who Tatiana flirted with, and yet he couldn’t quite bank his irritation as they made their way into the conference room where Bethany had set out an array of breakfast food and drinks.

Flynn didn’t normally care for small talk, so Ian didn’t offer any. But today, the other man was full of questions for Tatiana, particularly regarding some of the more technical aspects of moviemaking. She graciously answered his questions, and Ian’s irritation notched up another level at the certainty that this hugely important meeting was about to be completely derailed. But when Flynn pulled out a chair for her at the conference table, she simply smiled and said, “I’m going to grab a seat over there, thanks.” Taking a chair in the far corner of the room, she opened her notepad and began to write down some notes.

Flynn’s eyes remained on her for a few moments. He was clearly entranced, but when she didn’t so much as look up from her notebook and seemed as if she was totally in her own world, he finally turned his focus to the sheet of paper Ian had put on the table in front of him.

“This is my new offer.”

Flynn whistled low and long. “You got the board to agree to these terms?”

Ian nodded. He’d spent the entire weekend doing just that, as a matter of fact. “They’re as enthusiastic as I am about working with you and your company.”

Flynn looked down again at the enormous figures on the page, running one hand through his hair as if he couldn’t quite take it in. But even though nearly anyone else on the planet would have jumped at what Ian was offering, Flynn was not only one of the most independent-minded individuals Ian had ever met, but he’d also been jerked around by a couple of other investment firms the previous year. It had made him increasingly cautious about the idea of partnering with anyone.

Ian sat back in his chair to make sure Flynn knew the pressure was off, even though the full truth was that Ian would do pretty much anything to make sure this deal didn’t fall through. He knew it was crazy to feel this way after all these years of success and the huge sum of money in his bank account, but Ian had never been able to completely bury his fear over not having enough money during those years in college when his family had been in dire straits. An enormous deal like this one would go a long way to buffering that sense of security that he’d been chasing ever since.

Finally, Flynn said, “I like you, Ian. Your track record is great, and the numbers you’re talking now aren’t bad, either. But how do I know you’re not just in it now for the hard sell, and then when we do the deal, you’ll pass me off to someone lower down the chain?”

“I’m committed to you and your company, Flynn. And you’re right, I am a straight-up guy, so I’m going to give you my word that if you agree to partner with Sullivan Investments, I will personally continue to work with you.” It would be a hell of a lot of extra work on top of a schedule that was already packed, but Ian frankly relished the challenge and the opportunity to work with someone as innovative as Flynn Thomas.

The other man took his measure in silence. Ian didn’t have any problem with that. On the contrary, he appreciated working with someone who thought first and acted only after weighing all of the pros and cons of the situation.

“I’ll be out of town until next Tuesday,” Flynn said. “Let’s meet again then, at which point I’ll give you my final decision.”

“Sounds good.” Especially since between now and next Tuesday, Ian planned to find a good half-dozen more ways to sweeten the deal so that Flynn wouldn’t be able to say no. “If you’ve got a few more minutes, any chance you can take me through that new technology you mentioned yesterday?”

Flynn’s face lit at the chance to switch from business to technology, and though he had finally seemed to completely forget Tatiana’s presence as he pulled out his tablet and started talking Ian through his newest innovation, Ian hadn’t.

Not for one single second.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I thought I worked hard,” Tatiana said five hours later when they were in the back of his town car on the way to a lunch meeting, “but I’m starting to feel like being on a movie set is closer to hanging out at the spa compared to what you do every day.” She didn’t need to refer to the schedule Ian’s assistant had given her, because she’d memorized it. “I assumed all you did was play with money and keep your eye on changing market conditions, but so far today you’ve already had meetings about a major tech acquisition, expanding your office further into Asia, a huge fundraising event that you’ve been spearheading, and now we’re heading to lunch to discuss chemistry with a professor from the University of Washington.”

It was the first chance she’d had to talk privately with Ian since his first meeting of the day, and though she’d done nothing more than sit in on his meetings to take notes, she felt worn out simply from observing his pace, his intensity, his drive. Slipping off her heels for a few precious moments, she unbuttoned her blue blazer, loosened her hair from its twist, and slid her feet beneath her on the leather seat.

She felt good about how well she’d blended in this morning. Even Ian had seemed to forget all about her. Not that she had stopped reacting to him, however. All morning in his presence she’d felt overly warm, as though her body was constantly on alert for something.

No, not just something. For a look. For a touch. And, in her most hopeful moments, for a kiss. One stolen in a deserted hallway as he pressed her up against the wall, his muscles hard against hers, his lips hot as they devoured hers.

Heat swamped her again as she fumbled for the button that would lower the window. Finally, it let in the cool, damp air. She lifted her hair off her neck and let it blow over her.

“How,” she asked him as the heat of his gaze on her kept her warm despite the cold rushing through the window, “do you do it?”

“How do I do what, exactly?”

Tatiana wanted to know so many things about him that, honestly, even she wasn’t sure which question she was asking in that moment. She wanted to know how he made her feel so much, so quickly, and with so little effort. She wanted to know what had put the darkness into his eyes, and the hard edges around his mouth where smile lines should be. She wanted to know how he could sit at a dining table with a family who wanted nothing more than to love him, but still hold himself just far enough away from them so that they couldn’t get all the way past his walls.

But since she also wanted to understand the businessman she’d observed during the past five hours, she asked, “How do you run at this pace, hour after hour, day after day, without getting even the slightest bit winded?”

“It’s my job.”

She held in an irritated sigh. She’d known he was going to be a tough nut to crack, hadn’t she? Heck, his mother had all but held up flashing neon signs of the words struggle and determination while they were making dinner.

“Yes, but it’s a job you no longer need to work at half as hard as you do, especially when you’ve already had more success than most people could ever dream of. Take Flynn Thomas and his company. I know you’re excited about the chance to work with him and he’s clearly brilliant at what he does, but I’m sure you could get him to take the deal without offering to give up so much of your own time and energy. And yet, you didn’t hesitate to give him your word that you wouldn’t hand him or his company off to anyone else.”

“The same thing could be said of you and acting—that you no longer need to work at it half as hard as you do when you’ve already had so much success. But that isn’t stopping you from taking on new roles, is it?”

Tatiana understood this was Ian’s way of trying to deflect her question away from himself. All morning she’d watched as he talked with employees and colleagues, and while he remembered the details of all their lives, he made absolutely certain that the personal conversations he had with people never circled back around to him. And she’d also noticed how careful all of those people were to stay perfectly within the boundaries he set for them.