Page 14 of How To Tempt The Off-Limits Billionaire

Her life was far too complicated, and she wasn’t good at complicated. Hell, on good days, she could barely handle perplexing. Complicated and convoluted were steps too far.

Take the first step, O’Keefe, focus on the next task in front of you.

And that happened to be getting clean. She’d been bathing on her own since she was a little girl, so she was sure she could manage the task.

It would, however, bealotmore fun with Muzi for company.

CHAPTER FOUR

HELOVEDTHISTOWN, Muzi thought later that day, as he placed a hand on Ro’s back to direct her to turn right onto a side street of Franschhoek. Galleries and antiques shops filled the tree-lined streets, and vines brought over from France three hundred years ago cascaded down the slopes of the mountains overlooking the town. It was both quaint and sophisticated, laid-back and luxurious.

It was the heart of wine making in the country and the people, passionate about the land, the produce and wine, were warm and welcoming. Because Mimi was the town’s most illustrious citizen, he’d been the object of speculation since the day Mimi adopted him. The great and good of Franschhoek were insanely nosy and would be extremely interested to hear that someone, afemalesomeone, was staying with him and poking around St. Urban.

That wasn’t accurate. Ro was currentlystayingin his house but, unfortunately, not in his bed.

That was where he most wanted her.

Their kiss rocked him to his core and, had he not sneezed, God knows where they might have ended up. Rolling around naked on dust-covered drop cloths? He was embarrassed to admit that it was a distinct possibility.

Ro, like no other woman before, made him forget where he was, hell,whohe was.

She was beautiful, her deep blue eyes a gorgeous contrast to that deep brown hair, but he wasn’t a stranger to beautiful women and had slept with many of them. Nobody but Ro had made him lose his head, forget where he was, too wrapped up in her softness and her scent to care.

She was dangerous, she made him lose control and that was unacceptable.

And that was why, instead of them staying home tonight, he invited her to join him at a restaurant where he always had a standing reservation. Muzi knew that if they’d stayed home, they’d end up burning up the sheets.

And the bed.

And the whole damn house.

He’d feed her, ply her with some extraordinary wine and steer her to the guest bedroom while he locked himself in his master suite. He couldn’t, now that he was so close, jeopardize losing his chance to have access to the St. Urban vines for a temporary affair. Digby was his best friend and there was a bro code...Do not mess with your best friend’s sister.

He was not risking a lifelong friendship, losing one of the very few people he trusted for a roll in the hay.

If he was that desperate, he could scroll through his phone and arrange a hookup for when he returned to the city tomorrow evening.

Muzi released a long sigh, reluctantly accepting that he didn’t want sex, he wanted to make love to Ro.

Make love? What was wrong with him? He sounded like a sappy character from a cheesy rom-com.

“This is such a lovely little town,” Ro said, breaking the silence between them.

Muzi allowed himself the immense pleasure of looking at her. When she agreed to eat with him in town, she asked about the dress code and looked relieved when he told her that the restaurant was super casual. Her white jeans, gold lace-up sandals and a cute crop top, revealing a few inches of her board-flat stomach, were perfect for a casual dinner.

With her hair twisted into a messy knot, she looked amazing. Sexy. And far too beddable.

Needing to keep his hands off her, Muzi shoved them into the pockets of his gray chino shorts. The restaurant was just down the street and he needed a drink.

No, he needed a few drinks and another very cold shower. And to get his mind out of the bedroom. But as soon as he stopped thinking about Ro, his anxiety about his position at Clos Du Cadieux came roaring back.

If he found the C’Artegan vines, if he could get them to thrive and produce, he had a real shot at securing his position at the company. Hell, even if he only managed to secure the vines, getting them under Clos du Cadieux’s control would be a coup. And he was the closest he’d ever been to that happening. He had a good chance of being able to buy St. Urban or, at the very least, he was at the head of the queue.

It was the most progress he’d made in years. Years ago, he’d asked to lease the vineyard from Zia at an above premium rate. But, because she was fully aware of his long friendship with her estranged son Digby, she chose to lease the land to a competitor.

The lease ran out shortly before their deaths and the vines were in a sorry state. When he got his hands on the vines, and he would—hopefully soon—God knew how long it would be until he could expect a decent harvest from the Merlot.

As for the C’Artegan cultivar, there was a chance that the vines had withered and died—the cultivar was finicky and frail—so his offer to buy the farm without inspecting the land was at best, reckless, at worst, completely stupid.

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