The CEO's Dilemma ; Undeniable Passion Read online

  Roman glared at her. He had to separate these two devils, and fast. “Would you like to dance, Aisha?”

  “I’d love to, Roman.” Her grin told him she knew exactly what he was doing.

  “And that’s my cue to move on to the open bar.” Merrine waved at Aisha. “See you around, darling. And as for you—” she laughed at Roman some more “—talk with you later on tonight.” Then she was gone, slipping through the crowd of dancers that had started gathering on the dance floor.

  “Well, she’s nice,” Aisha said as she moved into the circle of Roman’s arms.

  His brain scrambled, Roman moved into position for a waltz, then flushed with embarrassment when he finally heard the tempo of the song. He was about to correct himself when Aisha slipped her hand in his, effortlessly matching his posture like it was the most natural thing. Then they were waltzing to Bootsy Collins.

  Roman was in trouble. So much trouble.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, she is. Or at least she was until tonight.”

  Aisha smiled and looked past his shoulder toward where Merrine disappeared. “The two of you act the way my brother and sister do with each other. You’re all growly and teasing, but it’s obvious there’s love between you.”

  “I do love her,” Roman admitted.

  A smile swam up from somewhere and took over his face. He felt it and tried to move it off to someplace more appropriate but it refused to budge. Completely out of step with the psychedelic funk, he and Aisha continued their traditional waltz. He shouldn’t date her. He couldn’t. But if he could, she was perfect. No other woman he’d ever been interested in had taken it at face value that he and Merrine were just friends.

  Before getting into anything serious, he always told his would-be lovers how he and Merrine met years ago—in kindergarten when they got into a shoving match after giving the same girl a valentine—and how she’d stood by him when he’d said he wanted nothing to do with the family business and instead wanted to make his own way.

  She was the epitome of platonic love to him. Although they didn’t share blood, she was his sister and he’d do just about anything for her. The jury was still out on killing for her, though. She was reckless enough that he could imagine one of her many enemies tempting him to do just that.

  The music changed to something faster and happier, but he and Aisha continued to move to their own shared rhythm.

  “So why are you really here?” Roman asked as they turned in a tight circle to avoid the flailing arms of someone doing the Dougie.

  “Well, I was honest with you earlier. I wasn’t stalking you, per se, but I’m only here to speak with you. I can dance and drink in my own living room. Or my brother’s since his living room is about the size of this place.” She briefly cast her gaze around them with a fond smile. The love she had for her brother, for her family, blazed as bright as the sun from her captivating eyes.

  “Is that right?” Roman murmured, unable to look away from them.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And so what do you want to talk to me about?”

  “The Sykes Prize, of course.”

  The disappointment that rolled through Roman took his breath away. He cleared his throat. “Okay, Miss Aisha Clark. What’s on your mind?”

  Chapter 7

  For Aisha, keeping focused on the reason she’d tracked Roman down to this fancy party in his honor was harder than she thought.

  Sure, she was more attracted to him than she’d ever been to any other man. Yes, he was gorgeous and lit up the world when he smiled. But she had a mission, dammit. Operation: Save Aisha’s Career. It was stupid to let an ill-advised attraction drain all the sense out of her brain.

  But, damn, he looked amazing in a tux.

  When she mentioned the reason she was there, his face shuttered, wiping away the traces of warmth and animation he’d had before Merrine had left them alone.

  Aisha licked her lips. “Well, I thought for a long time about the building your father wanted and also what you said about your mother.”

  “Yes?”

  The music was nostalgic. Songs she remembered her parents playing and dancing to when she was young. Even Dev and Ahmed loved this music. The energy was contagious but she didn’t want to move any faster and lose the palm-to-palm connection she had with Roman.

  “Yes. Um. I thought I’d change the focus of the design. Like you said, you don’t think she would’ve wanted to be trapped in a building in death like she’d been in life.”

  Through their connection, she felt him flinch. Whatever had happened between his parents affected him so strongly, so deeply. In that moment with the music around them, she still felt a little sadness radiating from him. Aisha pressed her lips together and moved closer to him, still waltzing with him but now close enough that he could feel the heat of her body. It felt like he needed warmth just then.

  “I’m listening,” he said softly.

  “Okay, good.” She suppressed the surge of optimism threatening to overwhelm her good sense. “Let me change my design to something you think your mother would’ve liked. I’ve read about her, but what the internet didn’t tell me was what made you love her, what made her the person you remember.”

  His face shuttered even more.

  She rushed to reassure him. “I don’t mean give me intimate details about your mother-son times or anything.” Ugh, could she be any more of an ass? “But special things about her that the public wouldn’t know. Things that would help me accurately imagine a space in her honor.” But Roman wasn’t having it. Through their skin-to-skin contact, she felt his reluctance. She plunged on. “Obviously if you don’t like it, you can torpedo the idea. But all I’m asking is for you to keep an open mind. I don’t want to do anything to tarnish her memory. You know I want to keep the prize and give my résumé the padding I need to—” she broke off; he didn’t need to know her situation at work “—to look better to potential employers.”

  “Potential employers? You’re already working at one of the best firms in the country. I know some seasoned architects who’d give just about anything to be where you are.”

  Aisha knew exactly how they felt. Before getting the job, she’d been in the same position. “Not everything is as it seems, Roman.”

  He hummed a noncommittal response. The music changed again and segued to a smooth R&B rhythm with a strong baseline. Now, this song she loved. Aisha threw her head back and swayed her shoulders to the beat, rocked her hips. Roman let go of her hands but stayed close, his hips moving against hers, keeping the same rhythm.

  They didn’t exchange any words, just a look that transformed their waltz into something more sensual, more earthy. His eyes dipped down her body and heat flared within them. Aisha bit her bottom lip and put her hands on his chest, just resting them there as their bodies moved together.

  So damn sexy.

  His arms slid around her waist and she tilted her head back to look up at him. Oh, his body was like a furnace against hers. All heat and strength and power. They moved together, their thighs brushing. His palms resting lightly against her lower back sent tiny shivers through her. He looked at her as if he wanted to devour everything he saw.

  It would take only the barest movement from both of them for their lips to join. All she had to do was to rise a couple of inches on her tiptoes. Or for him to lean down.

  Aisha’s whole body throbbed. Possibility made her lick her lips and tensed her belly. She felt her fingers curl into the soft fabric over his chest. Roman huffed a breath of surprise and she opened her mouth to apologize, inadvertently sucking in that breath of his.

  A low moan left her throat and his gaze locked on her mouth. She licked her lips again and saw him mimic the motion.

  They danced still, bodies rocking against each other. Aisha’s panties clung intimately to her and every movement against Roman rubbed her
just the right way. The breath shuddered in her throat and she clung more tightly to him. The proof of his desire was firm and hot against her belly through their layers of clothes.

  Aisha bit her lip and pressed back into him then, mapping the shape of his sex with her clenching stomach muscles. His moan vibrated against her palms and she melted at the sound.

  God, she wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted any other man.

  She just about gnashed her teeth when her more logical side asserted itself. It told her they shouldn’t be doing this here, not in such a public space, and especially not in front of people he worked with.

  A quick flick of her gaze reassured her that not many people were paying attention to them. Besides, what was there for anyone to see? Just a man and a woman dancing. Hell, they’d made more of a scene waltzing to the hip-hop song than they were now.

  Still, Aisha flattened her palms against his chest and forced herself to stop thinking about how his body would feel naked against hers.

  She cleared her throat. “About my idea, Roman. What do you think?”

  Eyes blinking, he looked like he was coming out of a trance. A deep breath shook his powerful frame. “All right. I think... Let’s try it. Design something else and we’ll see where we go from there.”

  The feeling of triumph she expected didn’t come. Only a sense of an anticlimax. Of something left dangling like temptingly ripe fruit on the vine.

  “Okay. Great. Thank you.” Because it seemed like the right thing to do, she dropped her head on his chest and heard the furious thumping of his heart. Startled, she eased back, but his expression was as neutral as ever with absolutely no sign of the fervor she felt in his chest.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “All I’m giving you is time to do more work than you planned.”

  Aisha didn’t mind more work. Although she grew up with a virtual silver spoon in her mouth thanks to her brother’s wealth and generosity, the things that meant the most to her—her credentials as an architect, the two other languages she spoke, the closeness she maintained with her family—she’d worked hard for. She drew in a breath of relief when she realized just what his agreement meant.

  “So when do you want to get together again?” She eased back even further until they were no longer touching. They became like two separate islands on the dance floor while the dancers moved around them. “To discuss the project, of course.”

  The look on Roman’s face—part surprise, part chagrin—said he hadn’t thought too much about what he’d agreed to before that moment. She bit the inside of her lower lip to stop herself from grinning. But because he was a man more than her equal, he didn’t back down.

  Eyebrow raised in that way she was becoming intimately familiar with, he gave her the smallest of smiles. “Let me look at my calendar and let you know,” he said. “It’ll be sometime soon.”

  “My, my. Are you arranging a hookup on company time, Roman?” A low and mocking voice came from over Aisha’s shoulder before a man moved into view.

  He was the man she’d almost bumped into that afternoon in Roman’s office a couple of days before.

  The man was more slender than Roman, younger, maybe her age, but with cynicism in his opaque eyes. Although he wasn’t as attractive as Roman, he was good-looking enough and carried himself like he knew it. The general shape of his face and his height told her he was related to Roman somehow.

  “This is party time, if anything,” Roman said, hands in his pockets. “The company doesn’t own me like that yet.” He nodded to Aisha, that small smile of his still intact. “Aisha, allow me to introduce you to my younger brother, Lance. Lance, this is Aisha Clark.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” his brother said and kissed the back of Aisha’s hand.

  Only the barest of good manners that her mother had drilled into her stopped her from dragging her hand away from him and wiping it off on the back of her dress. Weren’t these hand kisses supposed to be a dry, barely-there touch of mouth to hand? Whatever it was, she didn’t like him doing it. She bared her teeth in what she hoped passed for a smile.

  “Hi there.” She wasn’t polite enough to lie and say it was nice to meet him. There was something about him she didn’t like. Maybe it was because he seemed like every other entitled rich man she’d ever met.

  Lance’s gaze volleyed between her and Roman. “Sorry to break up your make-out session but I just wanted a few words with my brother.”

  “You can have as many as you want,” Aisha said. “I’m heading out anyway. I have a date with my sibs and a pint of rum-raisin ice cream.” She touched Roman’s arm through the sumptuous tuxedo jacket. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”

  He gave her a brief nod although his gaze said he wanted to say more to her but not in front of his brother. “I’ll be in touch,” Roman said.

  She wondered if the brother had the same thoughts about the Sykes Prize and the decision their father had made. Not that it mattered since Roman was the one she had to deal with.

  “I hope it wasn’t something I said.” Lance Sykes looked amused. “I wouldn’t want to break up—” he waved an arm, encompassing both Roman and Aisha “—whatever you two have going on here.”

  “You didn’t,” Aisha assured him. He didn’t matter enough to her. Although from the look of concern on Roman’s face as he looked at Lance, what he thought and did mattered a lot to his older brother.

  With a careless wave, Aisha turned and left them to it.

  “Who’s that woman?” she heard Lance ask as she walked away. “I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

  “Who she is, is none of your business, little brother,” Roman answered but with a hint of fondness.

  Hmm. Did that mean he wanted to keep her to himself for a little while? The thought made her smile.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey, is anybody home?” Aisha dropped her purse and her keys on the table in her brother’s entryway.

  It was a rhetorical question since she knew he was home, along with his wife and maybe with Dev, too. It was their planned “night in.” She’d been too keyed up after leaving Roman’s party to call either of her siblings. The short drive from midtown had been filled with nothing but her own thoughts. All in a conflicted jumble over Roman Sykes’s hot, complicated, yoga-toned ass.

  “Come on through,” her brother called out. “We’re in the living room watching a movie.”

  When she got to the living room, though, whatever they were watching on the ridiculously large TV screen had been paused. Her brother and his wife sat together on the couch, Ahmed’s arm draped around Elle, who leaned into him looking as entranced by her husband as she had been the first time Aisha had seen her and Ahmed together. They were disgustingly in love.

  Devyn sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning into the couch opposite her brother and digging into a bowl of popcorn. Their mother sat, queenlike, in the hunter-green armchair nearby, a glass of wine in hand.

  “Hey, y’all,” Aisha greeted. “What are you doing? Because I don’t see a movie on.”

  “We were watching something—” Devyn looked briefly at the TV screen “—but that was just an excuse to wait for you. How did the party go? Did he agree to everything you asked for?”

  Aisha had told them all about the ridiculousness of the Sykes Prize and how much she wanted it, and that it wasn’t hers anymore.

  “It went okay, I guess. Roman did agree to look at some alternative designs of mine.”

  Her brother gave a whoop of triumph. “If anybody could convince that guy, I knew it would be you.”

  She dropped down into the sofa Dev leaned against and gave her sister’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Nothing’s certain. He’s just not outright saying no to me right now.”

  “You’ll impress him. I know you will.” So very ladylike, Dev plucked a few kernels of popcorn from the bowl and popped t
hem in her mouth one by one.

  Reaching down, Aisha dug her entire hand into the bowl and pulled out a fistful of popcorn to shove into her mouth. “We’ll see. The best part was getting to see him again.” Around mouthfuls of popcorn, she told them all about her brief evening with Roman. Then she sighed. “I can’t believe he’s the same Hot Yoga Daddy from the bakery. What are the odds?”

  “Interesting.” Dev pursed her lips and gave Aisha an encouraging look, not that she needed any encouragement to chase after what she wanted.

  “It sounds like you’re about to get yourself into trouble,” Ahmed said. “Don’t mix business with pleasure, Aisha. Things can go left real quick.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy mix,” his wife said with a teasing smile. “It might make things more interesting for Aisha.” Elle was the co-owner of some sort of romance-facilitating service. Aisha wasn’t clear on the details but she knew whatever it was, her sister-in-law was good at it and her business made enough money to satisfy her.

  “Nope. Too messy,” Ahmed said.

  Dev waved off their brother’s concern. “She met him before she knew he was the guy in charge of the Sykes Prize. Plus, he’s sexy.”

  “Well then, never mind.” Ahmed rolled his eyes and got an elbow in the ribs from Elle for his trouble.

  Aisha knew what she wanted to do. It may have been stupid, but when she’d walked into that office and seen another version of Hot Yoga Daddy, she’d been so thankful to get another chance with him that she’d nearly forgot what she’d gone to his office for.

  She was a natural flirt. She loved dating and she loved men. But there was something special about Roman. She couldn’t ignore her attraction to him even if she tried. Yes, she wanted the Sykes Prize. It would make the business moves she had planned so much easier. But...

  Biting her lip, she looked up at her mother. “Mom, what do you think I should do?”