“Of course.” She opened the door wide, gesturing him inside.
The foyer was a muddle of sneakers. She made Jeremy remove his shoes when he came in, and he never seemed to wear the same pair until several were scattered about. To the right of the front hall, the dining room table held its usual clutter.
She caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Her hair was brushed, thank God, but she hadn’t put on a speck of makeup, and she’d dressed in leggings, an oversized green sweater that hung to her thighs, and very unsexy striped toe socks.
“Sorry, I was working,” she said to try to explain away the piles of folders and papers. “Can I get you some coffee?” Too late, after he nodded, she realized she couldn’t take him back there, with the overflowing laundry, the upended box of crayons, the untidy breakfast bar. And the full kitchen sink. “I’ll be back in a minute. Why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” It was the only neat room in the house because she and Jeremy never used it.
“You don’t have to bring it to me,” Will said. “I can pour.” And when he followed her down the hall, there was no way to stop him other than throwing herself at him again...a thought that was far too tempting.
“Sorry,” she felt compelled to say again as she spread her arms to encompass the whole misbegotten family room. “I’m not usually this messy.”
“I meant it when I said that you don’t have to keep apologizing to me. Not for anything.” He put a finger to her lips, zinging her with an electric jolt of awareness that stopped her breath right in her chest. “If you don’t stop apologizing soon, I promise I’m going to have to find another way to make you stop.”
She knew she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t push him to see if he meant it, shouldn’t do anything to encourage his interest in her...but just as she hadn’t been able to say no to a dinner with him, now she couldn’t keep the word “Sorry,” from leaving her lips.
Saying the word again was a dare, one he immediately rose to, as he pressed his mouth to hers for one perfect second. “Like I said, I always keep my promises.” She was still trying to find her breath when he asked, “Mugs?”
With her brain still muddled from the teeny, tiny little kiss he’d just given her, she somehow managed to send a signal to her hands to point to the cupboard. Will pulled down one flowered mug and one with black and white stripes.
He filled the flowery mug with coffee from the pot on her counter, then stared into the other one. “There’s something in this cup.”
“It’s a zebra.” By the time she came around him and reached into the cupboard, her synapses were firing again, thank God. Though she still didn’t understand why he’d kissed her if he was only here to discuss something that concerned her brother. “There’s also a giraffe, an elephant, and a tiger.” She pulled down the mugs to show him the ceramic creatures in each. “Jeremy likes the surprise at the bottom of the cup. I have to admit I like them, too.”
“I’d rather be the tiger,” Will said with complete seriousness, and poured into that mug instead.
She laughed, and when he grinned with her, a great deal of the tension she’d been feeling since she’d opened the door and found him standing there vanished. Especially when he said, “I like your brother a lot.”
“Me, too.” And I also like you, she couldn’t help but add silently.
Will leaned back against the counter. “So here’s what I propose. I finished the Cobra several months ago, and I’m ready to build a new car. I’m getting a Maserati kit, and I’d like Jeremy to help me with it, if that’s okay with you.”
Her mouth dropped open before she could stop it. “You mean a Birdcage Maserati? The one he’s been dying for?”
“That’s the one.”
“But you said they don’t make kits like that.”
He shrugged. “I found someone who can pull it all together for me.”
He made it sound so easy, but she knew it couldn’t be. “That must cost a fortune. I can’t let you spend that kind of money on my brother.”
“I don’t waste my money,” he told her, “but I do like knowing I have it to spend on things that are important to me. The fact that this kit car is important to Jeremy, too, makes it worth even more. I wanted to talk to you about it before I mentioned it to him, though.”
Harper knew how thrilled Jeremy was with this new friendship. Will was his first real male friend, not someone Harper had brought home. They didn’t just talk about cars, but sometimes veered off into other guy things, like sports and action movies. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard her brother invoke Will’s name over the last few days.
“Look, that’s very nice of you, but—” She put her mug down, stepped back, and forced herself to forget that she was talking to a powerful billionaire who was so sexy he made her knees weak. She needed to be totally honest right now. “My brother really likes you. And when you get tired of him, he’s going to be hurt.”
Will’s expression was unreadable as he repeated, “When I get tired of him?”
“Talking to him on Skype. Buying a car to work on together. That’s the kind of thing a father does. Or a brother. But you’re neither of those things. And I know there must be a thousand other important things that you could be doing instead of hanging out with him. So since I don’t understand your intentions, how can I not worry that he’ll end up hurt?”