Travis took a step closer, and she backed into the pile of rug samples. “I’m not making fun of you, Lily,”

he said, his voice quiet, his tone intense.

Willing herself to be strong in the face of such undeniable maleness, she burst out with, “Yes you are.

You have been either making fun of me or just flat out ignoring me since we were kids, and I am sick to death of it!” She pointed a finger at him and took a step in his direction, deciding not to run from him for once. “Either you respect me as a business partner or I’m going to have to walk.”

Lily thought she saw a flicker of admiration in Travis’s eyes as he studied her for a long moment. All I needed to do was stick up for myself all these years? she thought, with no small measure of surprise.

Lily was unable to believe that it could have possibly been as simple as that.

But when Travis grabbed her outstretched finger and pulled her close to him, she knew that it wasn’t going to be quite so simple at all.

“Nobody is going to walk,” he growled. “I’m taking you to Italy on a buying trip. It’s business,” he added, but even he didn’t look one hundred percent convinced.

“Oh,” she said, upset that she couldn’t come up with a more interesting response. She felt herself melting into Travis’s gaze, and she knew his lips would be coming down on hers any second. But before she let herself fall under Travis’s spell again Luke’s words sounded loudly inside her skull.

“Women make it too easy for Travis to have them. And dump them. Whatever you do, Lily, you need to make him work to be with you. But first you’d better decide if that’s even what you want.”

Travis had pulled her close enough that she could feel his erection straining toward her. She had certainly proved that she could make his penis hard. But, she mused, perhaps that was the easy part? The only problem was, she could only think of one way to make life difficult for Travis.

And while she knew it was exactly what Travis needed to knock him down a peg or two, Lily hated the impact it was going to have on her on sexual satisfaction.

Deciding she either had to bite the bullet, or she’d lose her nerve, Lily pressed the full length of her body against Travis. She smiled at his swift intake of breath, working hard to ignore the tremors of lust that filled her. Leaning into him, she whispered into his ear, “On second thought, Travis, the trip sounds fine.”

She felt his spine stiffen at the word “fine” and fought back a giggle. Were men really and truly so easy to control?

“I do have one condition, however.”

Travis’s hand came around to caress the curve of her hips. “Anything,” he said, and she knew he was never going to see the blow coming.

Pulling back to stare deeply into his incredible sea-green eyes, she said, “I want our relationship to be purely…” She let her words drift off and licked her lips.

Travis leaned in to kiss her.

“Professional.”

He leapt back as if she were on fire.

“Excuse me?”

“If you have a problem with my stipulation, I’d be happy to forgo the trip,” she bluffed.

Travis looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Fine with me.” he said, clearly disgruntled by the turn of events. “If you want purely professional, you’ll get purely professional. The airport limo will be picking you up at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

He threw her cell phone to her, and she barely caught it as he turned and walked out of the showroom without another word. Lily wasn’t stupid. She knew there would be hell to pay for her making Travis feel like a fool. She was shaking after their showdown, but the truth was, after besting Travis like that she felt so good she wanted to scream with joy.

Italy. With Travis. It was incredible how every one of her dreams was coming true.

Travis drove to his loft in a blaze of frustration. He hadn’t felt this out of control since he was a kid, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

He let himself into his sparsely decorated living quarters and went into the kitchen to pour himself a drink.

Lord knew he badly needed one. But for some reason he was drawn to the framed pictures resting atop the grand piano. He picked up his favorite and blew off a patch of dust that the housekeeper had missed during her weekly cleaning.

In it, he and his brother were standing in the shade of a large oak tree with their mother, who was kneeling to hold on-to both of them. They were in their Little League outfits, streaked with dirt from a game. His mother was wearing a billowy dress, as she usually did, and she looked just like a mother should: round and comforting. He could still remember their conversation that day by the tree.

“Mom, did you see my home run?”

“Oh, honey,” she rubbed his back, “you were wonderful out there.”

Luke butted in, “Did you see me get the guy out on first?”

“Sure did. I was the proudest mom in the whole world up there in the stands.”

Travis rubbed his eyes and put the picture down. His father must have snapped the picture right before they ran off to celebrate with the other kids. They didn’t know it then, but the cancer was already growing inside of her. Travis wished, for the millionth time, that he had known how little time they had left with her. He would have curled up with her warm, soft body more often, instead of spending hour upon hour playing video games with his friends.

She had been gone a long time, nearly twenty years, and he didn’t know why he was being so maudlin out of the blue.

She would have loved Lily.

The voice in his head shocked him. So what if it was true? What did it matter what his mother would have thought about the grown-up Lily? It was his life. And she wasn’t his type at all.

He was glad she had clarified what they were to each other. Purely professional was exactly what he wanted. He must have been crazy to even consider touching Lily again. But now that he’d given in to his idiotic impulse, he was going to be stuck with her for five days in Italy. He consoled himself with the thought of ditching her as soon as they landed. He’d find plenty of lusty Italian women to take to bed.

A knock sounded at the door. He yelled, “It’s open,” and Luke came strolling in with a six-pack. “What are you doing here?”

“Twin ESP. Thought you could use a drink,” Luke said as he plopped the beer on the kitchen island and handed a cold one over. Travis scowled at Luke, but tilted his head back and drank.

“So, I hear you’re taking Lily to Italy tomorrow,” Luke said as he plopped his large frame onto Travis’s black leather sofa.