Heat—and senselessly desperate desire—shot through her before she could stop it. “If you want me to be your Realtor,” she informed him, “you’re going to have to agree with it.”
His eyes were dark and as mysterious now as they’d always been. “I won’t promise anything about the future, Mia, but for today, I’ll try.”
It wasn’t much of a concession to the rules she was setting up between them, nor anything close to a promise. She shouldn’t have accepted it, should simply have turned and left. Instead, she found it impossible to walk away from him. Telling herself she was just doing her job, she asked, “Have you spent much time in this house apart from the tower?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t we start with the ground floor?” Reminding herself to treat him just as she would any other client, as they moved from the kitchen into the large formal living room, she began to ask the questions she would normally already know the answers to if her client hadn’t insisted on remaining anonymous until the first showing. “Will this be a primary residence or a vacation home?”
They were standing side by side in the elegant room that looked out on the exceptional water views when he answered, “Primary.”
She only barely stopped herself from whirling to face him in surprise, and quickly had to clarify, “But since you’re on the road all the time, I’m assuming you’ll probably use it about as much as you would a vacation home.”
“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “I’m not going to tour anymore.”
This time she couldn’t hold back her surprise. “Wait a minute. You aren’t going to tour anymore?” When he shook his head again, she had to ask, “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’ve finally figured out some things are more important than being on the road.” His gaze intensified as he turned from the water to look her in the eyes. “Much more important. So as soon as this tour ends next week, I’m done.”
Keeping her voice scrupulously professional even as she reeled at the thought of Ford giving up the touring that was clearly his life’s blood, she asked, “And how many people will be in full-time residence?”
“Just me, at first. Though I’m hoping it won’t remain like that for too long.”
Odds were, she suddenly decided, this whole home-buying thing had come up because he had a gorgeous—and annoyingly insipid—girlfriend who was dying to play house with him and redecorate down to the last inch of trim along the floorboards of the laundry room. Even though the house and the furnishings that came with it were already perfect as they were.
But what kind of woman would claim to care about Ford and then ask him to give up everything that mattered to him for her?
Telling herself it was none of her business, and that it shouldn’t matter to her what he did with the rest of his life, Mia pointedly didn’t ask any more questions about his personal life as they walked through the rest of the ground-floor rooms. Instead, she pointed out the many features of the beautifully built house. And all the while, she did her very best to ignore the way Ford always seemed to stand a little too close to her, or worse, brush up against her as he went to take a closer look at something.
Finally, they reached the master suite, and Ford’s mouth curved up as he walked over to the large bed. Running a hand over the plush cover, he said, “Nice bedroom, isn’t it?”
Professional. She needed to remain professional even when he was purposely trying to push every single one of her buttons. Mia was self-aware enough to know that with her passionate temperament, she had quite a few...
“Yes,” she agreed, “the architect did a fabulous job of giving Alana and her husband a great view of the lake while keeping the room extremely private, both from the rest of the house and the grounds outside.”
Of course, Ford had to get on the bed, cross his hands beneath his head on the pillow, and settle in as if he’d already bought the place. “You’re right, the view is just as good even when you’re lying down.” He turned his dark gaze from the stunning water view back to her. “Any chance you know how well soundproofed the room is?”
She’d expected him to hit her with something blatantly sexual in the bedroom, so despite the fact that her body instantly responded to the implication of loud, crazy sex, she was able to sound unruffled as she replied, “You’ll probably need to do some extra soundproofing for playing your electric guitar if you don’t want the sound to get out through the rest of the house.” Or whatever else it was he was actually going to do in here with his beautiful, brainless girlfriend whom Mia couldn’t help but hate. She pointed toward the bathroom. “There is a large his-and-hers bathroom and two big walk-in closets. If you’d like to take a look at those, we can go check out the second floor next.”
Though Ford slid his long legs over the edge of the bed, walked over to poke his head into the bathroom and the closets, and said, “Looks good,” she couldn’t escape the feeling that he was barely holding himself in check...or that his testing-out-the-bed escapade wasn’t even close to the full extent of how far he was going to try to push her today.
Extremely glad to get out of the master suite, she took him up the stairs to the second floor, and when they reached the landing, she said, “In addition to the master suite on the ground floor, there are three other bedrooms upstairs.”