Billionaire Bosses Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

had pointed out.

      “He’s very good at what he does,” Neely had said absolutely truthfully. “He just figured you’d trust him to get it right.”

      “Well, I do. Now,” Roger said. “I trust you and your interpretation.”

      It was nice, Neely thought bitterly, that somebody did.

      Before she thought anything else though, hard footsteps came pounding up behind her. A hand reached out and grabbed her arm.

      “Stop!” And she did because Sebastian hauled her up short. He was as out of breath as she was. His tie was askew and his hair looked as if he’d thrust his fingers through it.

      “What?” Neely said coldly.

      “I’m sorry.” The words seemed dragged up from the depths of his being.

      But Neely just stared at him unspeaking, frankly doubting.

      Even if Sebastian was sorry, she seriously doubted that he was sorry about what he ought to be sorry about.

      “Look—” he dragged in a breath “—I was wrong. I apologize. I thought—” he stopped abruptly and dropped his hand from her arm, then just stood there staring down at her as he said heavily, “Well, you know what I thought.”

      “Yes, I do.”

      He raked fingers through his hair again. “You said…before…I never imagined—”

      “No,” Neely replied, her voice clipped. “You wouldn’t.” She turned away and began to walk again. She supposed that somewhere inside she was glad he at least acknowledged his mistake. But it still hurt.

      In the past few weeks she had come to understand him—maybe not totally, but at least she didn’t dismiss him out of hand anymore. She didn’t assume he was The Iceman, the workaholic, the impersonal distant automaton she’d originally thought he was. She understood now that he was self-contained, that he didn’t give of himself easily, but that he was loyal, dependable, and that he could—and did—love.

      But he still apparently didn’t understand—or trust—her at all.

      He caught up with her and kept pace. “Forgive me?” It really was a question. It wasn’t a demand. She had to give him that.

      She kept walking, but raised a shoulder. “Sure. Fine.”

      “Come back and have dinner with me?”

      She didn’t reply. She continued up the pavement, but her pace slowed. “Why?” she demanded at last, stopping in her tracks and turning to face him. “So we can pretend that you understand? That you trust me? That everything is hunky-dory?”

      A corner of his mouth lifted just a little. “How about because I’m starving, you probably are, too. I’m embarrassed to have misjudged you, and I wish you’d come back so I can say again how sorry I am. So we don’t miss a good meal. And so you can tell me how you convinced Roger of what I couldn’t seem to make him understand?”

      Neely shifted from one foot to the other. She gnawed on her bottom lip. It was a far handsomer apology than she’d ever imagined Sebastian Savas would make her. Maybe she, too, had a ways to go in learning about him.

      “All right,” she said, and started back toward the houseboat. “Come on.”

      “Have you got a minute?”

      Neely looked up from her sketch book to see Vangie poking her head around the corner of the door. “Oh, hi. Sure. Come on in. How’re things going?”

      It was a dangerous question, to be sure, even early on the Tuesday afternoon before the wedding because the big event was now only four days away.

      Sebastian had stopped calling it “the wedding that ate Seattle” and had begun calling it “the wedding that ended the world.”

      Judging from some of the things he’d reported over the past three days, Neely thought he wasn’t exaggerating much.

      Over the weekend Vangie had called him in tears half a dozen times at least.

      He’d forbidden her to come by and cry in person. He was still annoyed that she’d managed to track him down in the first place.

      “If you have to cry, you can cry on the phone,” he’d told her Saturday morning. Neely had actually heard his end of the conversation, so she knew that much was true.

      The rest he reported as it came to pass—one bridesmaid dress was too long, one was too short. One wasn’t silver—“it’s grey,” he’d said with a flash of an exasperated grin. And the other wasn’t the right shade of pink.

      “Rose,” Neely had corrected, because she knew all about the color scheme now.

      Sebastian had mimed banging his head on the wall. “Don’t worry about it,” he’d advised. “No one will be looking at the bridesmaids, Vange. You’re the bride. They’ll all be looking at you.”

      It was an inspired comment as far as Neely could tell. Vangie had rung off. But she’d called back again later. And Sebastian shared the details of those conversations, too.

      After the wary, tentative meal they’d shared on Friday evening, he seemed to be making an effort to communicate with her. He’d made her tell him exactly how she’d explained his designs to Roger Carmody, and he’d stared at her in amazement when she’d told him.

      “He couldn’t see that?” he’d demanded.

      “Not everyone can read your mind,” she’d told him with some asperity.

      He’d grinned. “I don’t need everyone to as long as you can.”

      It shouldn’t have made her quite as happy as it had. She was asking for it, Neely warned herself. Sebastian might be making an effort, but it was only because she’d made a difference to him at work. It had nothing to do with the rest of their lives.

      Except now Vangie came in and shut the door and said, “He’s done it!”

      Neely finished the last few strokes to the bit she was working on in her sketchbook and looked up. “Who’s done it? Done what?”

      “Sebastian! He’s seeing Daddy.”

      Neely felt her breath catch in her throat. “Is he?” she asked cautiously.

      Vangie plopped down into the chair opposite Neely’s and nodded eagerly. “This evening.”

      “You’re sure?”

      “Of course I’m sure. He told me. Said they were going out for a drink. I always knew he would,” she confided. “I know he said he wouldn’t, but you can count on him. We always have,” she added simply.

      “That’s—” Neely took a shaky breath “—wonderful.” She managed a smile. It felt fake because she was too stunned to muster up a real one. But as she kept it pasted on her mouth, she processed the notion and found that the smile came more easily.

      “He’s doing it for you,” Vangie said.

      “What?” That brought Neely up short. “What on earth are you talking about? Did he say that?”

      “Oh, no. Of course not. But I know you’re the one who talked him into it.”

      “I didn’t! I never said a word.”

      “Really?” Vangie looked astonished. “I was sure you must have.”

      Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

      Because of course Neely realized that she had said something. That day after Vangie had first come to see Seb they had discussed it, and she had told Sebastian he shouldn’t resist trying to speak with his father. He should make the effort, she’d said, because his father, like hers, might have changed.

      That would have been bad enough, but she