Page 42 of How To Tempt The Off-Limits Billionaire

All righty, then.

Muzi stood in Digby’s office at The Vane and scowled at his two best friends. He should be back in his office, putting out fires, but here he was, arguing with the Tempest-Vane brothers, trying to convince them to tell Ro the truth about why she was adopted.

Earlier in the day, he’d taken a break between meetings and frowned when he saw a couple of missed calls from Ro. When he picked up his voice messages, she told him that Mimi—his gossipy, garrulous grandmother—told her Gil and Zia had been compensated for having children. Was Mimi right, she’d demanded to know. She was also, she told him, going to call her brothers to get to the bottom of Mimi’s bizarre claim.

“It will hurt her, Muzi,” Digby said, after slamming his fist against his desk. “How do you think she’s going to feel hearing that our parents gave her up for adoption because they weren’t going to get paid the millions they did when they produced a boy?”

He understood their concern. But what Ro’s brothers didn’t realize was that she could handle it. That she was strong. Oh, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t make her buckle or bend.

Ro was tougher than that. She was...

She was amazing. Strong and sexy and sensible and...lovely. She was everything he’d ever want in a woman. Intelligent, empathetic, hardworking and independent.

Sweet and so heart-stoppingly sexy. And stubborn...

And because she was stubborn, she would hound them, and him, until she had an answer to the question of Gil and Zia being paid to have kids.

Bloody Mimi and her big mouth.

Muzi ran his hand over his jaw, recalling the puzzled looks Mimi sent Ro when they dined with her earlier in the week. She looked at Ro as if she couldn’t place her and had mentioned, on at least two occasions, that she looked familiar.

To him, she looked like a feminine version of her brothers but no one had yet, as far as he knew, commented on the similarities between Ro and the Tempest-Vane siblings. Muzi had also seen pictures of a young Zia and Ro looked like a carbon copy of her birth mother.

Mimi would eventually make the connection, would figure out that she was a Tempest-Vane but he knew that if he asked Mimi to keep her identity a secret, she would.

Mimi could be a vault when she needed to be.

But that was a problem for the future. They had to resolve the one in front of them first.

“I’m heading up there tomorrow and she is going to bug me for an explanation,” Muzi said, slapping his hands against his hips and scowling. He knew that he looked big and intimidating but he didn’t, sadly, scare the Tempest-Vane brothers.

“I’m not lying to her, guys,” Muzi said, annoyed at the desperate tone in his voice. “Please don’t ask me to do that.”

Digby placed his palms flat on his desk and glared at Muzi, his expression thunderous. “What is going on between you?” he demanded.

God only knew.

They talked, a lot. They discussed movies and books and covered all the subjects couples talked about when they wanted to get to know each other. But they also ventured into deeper territory and shared their fears and childhood memories, both good and bad. He told her about how he saved every penny he was gifted or earned, how terrified he was of Susan’s threat coming true, of him being alone. And poor.

She told him that she often felt on the outside of her parents’ marriage, that they were so into each other and seemed to, occasionally, forget about her.

He told her about his travels, his daredevil adventures with Digby, and she told him how much she missed teaching and her students.

He couldn’t define what they were, but they were more than friends. Ro had crawled under his skin, into his heart. He’d told her more than he’d told all his friends, and Mimi, combined. She knew his fears and his failures and his insecurities, the jagged pieces he never revealed to anyone. The thought, and realization, terrified him.

She was not only his lover, but she was also his best friend. Yet she was supposed to be returning to the States soon, leaving him behind.

He wanted to ask her to stay but couldn’t give her a good enough reason to do that. He wouldn’t, couldn’t commit to her—he was not prepared to throw himself off that cliff and not have her catch him—yet it wasn’t fair to ask her to stay if they were going to simply continue their sex-based friendship. She deserved more...

She deservedeverything.

But he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He wasn’t brave enough to ask her to be his family, to have his kids...not without an unbreakable guarantee and, as far as he knew, relationships didn’t come with warranties.

“Well?” Radd demanded, pulling Muzi back to their conversation.

He and Ro were adults, they didn’t owe anyone an explanation. Not even her siblings, the men he considered to behisbrothers too. This was, and always would be, between them.

“None of your business,” Muzi ground out, heading toward the door before turning and raising his index finger to point it at Digby, then Radd. “Tell her. I’m not going to lie to her.”

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