When Sidney had started her temp agency, an effort Philip hinted had taken all the courage Sidney had left, Max had again placed private phone calls. His business associates had suddenly found themselves in desperate need of temporary staff. Sidney had charmed them all with her skill and poise, and he still received Christmas cards thanking him for recommending her to them.

Philip had never asked why Max had taken such a personal interest in his niece, and Max hadn’t offered an explanation. If he had his way, neither Philip nor Sidney would ever know that those few seconds in the library, when she’d looked at him with those sad, sympathetic eyes and earnestly asked who took care of him, had opened an aching chasm in his soul that had never healed. No one he cared about, he’d vowed, as long as he had power to stop it, would ever feel as alone as he had at that moment.

Now, she barely resembled the slightly bedraggled, self-conscious girl in his father’s library. Her dark hair, thick and luxuriant, framed an expressive face dominated by a pair of intelligent hazel eyes. He’d always liked the way she looked at him. No one else looked at him quite that way—as if she understood some secret part of him that remained hidden to the rest of the world.

And, if he were honest, his thoughts generally ran a more primitive course. With little or no effort, he found himself imagining just how Sidney’s eyes would look if he were making love to her. They’d grow misty, he knew, and the color would darken. Emerald green and intense, full of fire and need, they’d steal his breath.

He hadn’t bothered to question why he’d insisted she stay for the weekend. There were dozens of practical reasons for the decision, but Max knew none of them explained the knot of hunger that had been steadily growing in his gut since he’d found her in his kitchen that afternoon. His desire to have her on his property had little, if anything, to do with keeping her off the road at a late hour, or his worries about his guests.

He wanted her.

Like a blow to the head, the knowledge had hit him squarely when he’d seen her standing there in the midst of well-ordered chaos. He wanted her.

Hell, he’d probably wanted her for years. Why he hadn’t recognized it before, he had no idea. Maybe it was the impossibility of the whole thing. Sidney Grant, and everything she deserved in life, was as out of reach to him as a normal family in a little house with a dog, a picket fence and a two-car garage. So far out of reach, in fact, that he’d never even allowed himself to contemplate what it would be like to have her in his life.

Until today. Until he’d seen her wearing a ridiculously seductive tuxedo and commanding a small army. A surge of adrenaline had raked him, and he recognized it instantly. It was the same feeling he got when he looked at a stock report and saw the future; the same feeling that overcame him when he analyzed a financial statement and knew the hidden potential of a buried asset or an underutilized resource; the same feeling, he mused, that drove him to gamble millions of dollars on what seemed like bad odds. And with customary dispatch, he’d listened to his gut feeling and not to his head.

With a carefully executed strategy, he’d ensured that he’d have her undivided attention for the next several days. He had her safely in his sphere, where he could watch and listen. He could examine the tension in his gut and sift through the messages screaming through his brain. For three days, he could concentrate on nothing but the hungry need he felt each time he looked at Sidney Grant.

The thought brought a wry smile to his lips. If the heaviness he’d felt in his lower body since earlier that day was any indication, he didn’t even need to look at her to feel the effects of her sway over him. He’d retreated here, to his third-story office, to clear his head. It hadn’t worked. Evidently, thinking about Sidney worked just as well as watching her. If he survived this weekend, he decided, he’d satisfy several of his more pressing curiosities, and see if this feeling had the kind of payoff he expected.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

At the sound of Sidney’s voice, Max felt need pour through his veins like lava. He turned from the window to find her watching him with the same quiet intensity she’d had long ago in his parent’s library. His fingers flexed at his sides as he struggled for equilibrium. Easy, he warned himself. Don’t overwhelm her. “Hello, Sidney. What brings you up here?”

She held a bottle and two glasses in her hand. “Philip mentioned that if you disappeared up here during the party, you’d probably want this.” She set the bottle on his desk.

“Philip thinks of everything,” he said quietly, wondering if Philip had thought of the consequences of sending Sidney to him.

“He does.” She hesitated. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just wanted to deliver this. If there’s nothing else you want, I need to get back downstairs.”

“Do you?” He glanced at the terrace again. “Your staff certainly seem to have everything under control.”

She offered him that slight smile, the one that drew his attention straight to her mouth and kept it there. “They do. But it’s a large party. Someone has to see to the details.”

He wasn’t ready for her to leave yet. He was never, he’d long ago admitted, ready for Sidney to leave him. “Do they know where to find you?”

She searched his expression. “Yes.”

With a wave of his hand, he indicated the leather chair across from his desk. “Then sit. You’ve been on your feet all afternoon.” At her surprised look, he managed a slight smile. “And don’t ask me how I know.”

“You’re omniscient?” she quipped.

He shook his head at that. “Hardly. But Philip tells me you’re maniacal about quality service. I understand what that means. If I were in your place, I’d have checked everything twice, then checked it again.”

Surprise flickered in her gaze, but she eased into the chair. “I can spare a few minutes, I guess.”

“Thank you.” Max studied her for several tension-filled seconds. Her eyes, he admitted with some chagrin, weren’t the only things about her that had him struggling for breath. The tailored lines of her uniform did nothing to disguise a lithe figure and the kind of curves designed to catch a man’s attention. It skimmed her body in all kinds of interesting ways, yet managed through some tailoring miracle to still appear subdued. After fifteen seconds in her presence, he’d felt his fingers tingling with the urge to thrust one hand into her hair, and snake the other around her waist so he could feel the imprint of her curves against his body.

Sidney began to fidget under his intense stare. She cleared her throat. “I wanted to thank you again for sending Gertie to take care of Philip,” she finally said.

“Don’t mention it. I was glad to.”

“He’ll like having her there.”

“I hope so.” He watched the uneasiness that played across her face. She looked nervous, and, unless he missed his guess, a little heated. It made him feel better to think she was as aware as he of the strange electricity between them.

She shifted uncertainly. “Was there something you wanted?”

You, he wanted to say, just to gauge her reaction. “Philip,” he said instead. “I wanted to ask you how much Philip told you about the guest list for this weekend.”

A slight smile played at her full lips. “You wanted to strangle him, you mean?”

“Maybe.”

She nodded. “I think yes. He suggested that you might be feeling a bit, ah, perturbed by now.”

“So he knew that Raymond Lort was bringing Alice Northrup-Bowles as his guest?”

“Yes.”

“But he didn’t care to enlighten me.”

“I suppose not.”

“Why the hell not?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t care to speculate.”

He narrowed his gaze. “But you knew.”

“I knew she’d be here.”