“Good. Can I get you some water or juice or—”
“Here you are, sir.” Ron appeared, carrying a tray from the kitchen filled with glasses of ice and sparkling water, each with a lemon wedge on the rim.
“Thank you, Ron.” I took a glass, then handed one to both Aria and Clara. August received a juice box.
“Cheers.” Clara raised her glass. “To a new adventure.”
“Cheers.” Aria clinked glasses with her sister, then with mine before taking a long drink. If she felt uncomfortable about being here, it didn’t show. This was the woman who’d waltzed into a wedding full of strangers and held her chin high the entire time.
“The crew will be here in fifteen minutes,” Ron said.
“Excellent. I—”
“Crew. What crew?” Aria asked.
“The crew to unpack.”
“Oh, we don’t need a crew. I don’t have much. You can just cancel them.”
“But—” One pointed look from Clara and I cut myself off. Control. Aria needed control. It went against my nature, but I could let this one go. “All right. Cancel them, Ron.”
“Yes, sir.” He tucked his now-empty tray under an arm and disappeared.
“Let me show you around.” I gestured for them to follow me deeper into the house, toward the wing that would become Aria’s. “I don’t spend much time in these rooms. I stick to my office, bedroom and the gym, so I won’t bother you. You’ve got complete run of the place. Please make this your home.”
“I don’t need much space.”
She’d have it regardless.
We walked down a hallway that led toward the back of the house. Windows made up the exterior walls, as they did in the entire place. She’d have a view of the desert property that surrounded us on all sides.
This side of the house had five bedrooms. There was an office for her on the second floor as well as a sitting room with a fireplace. I escorted her to the largest bedroom first, opening the door to the room. Along one wall was a king-sized bed with a white canopy and ivory quilt. I’d had the gossamer draping added just last week.
The walls, once midnight blue, had been repainted a soft cream. The hardwood floors had been refinished and restained from the pale gray she’d objected to the night of the wedding. Their honey-colored grains emitted a warm glow in the space. The fawn and mushroom area rug beneath the bed was so plush that even I’d tried it beneath my bare feet—then I’d ordered one for my own bedroom.
At Christmas, we hadn’t broached the topic of where she’d live. That vacation had been awkward at best. Aria and Clara had invited me over for Christmas dinner, and the moment the meal had finished, I’d retreated to my office. The evening had been pleasant, but Aria had left me unsettled. Her stare from across the table had been unnerving, like she’d seen my fears about the pregnancy.
Like she’d seen the restraint it had taken to keep from touching her shiny hair and caressing her pretty skin.
Insecurity wasn’t in the Carmichael gene pool. At least, I hadn’t thought so until Aria and this baby had proved me wrong.
After Christmas, she’d returned to Oregon and I’d hired a designer to rework the bedrooms. They now had the light, bright and airy feel that I’d seen in her condo. The only things missing were the plants.
No doubt those were in the U-Haul.
“Um . . . this is not what I expected.” Aria blinked, her eyes wide as she stepped into the space. She had her own walk-in closet. An en suite bathroom. And a pair of french doors that opened to the pool outside.
“Brody had it redesigned,” Clara announced.
Aria looked all around the room, her eyes landing on me. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“It was no trouble. I want you to be comfortable. If you don’t like it, we can—”
“I love it.” She smiled, and if I’d thought the room was bright before, I’d been entirely mistaken. Her smile was luminescent.
A flutter rippled through my chest, odd and unfamiliar. Must be heartburn. “If you need anything at all, there’s a call system in each room that rings directly to Ron.”
“I’m fairly self-sufficient,” she said.
“Just in case.” I nodded toward the door. “Let me show you the rest, then we’ll get the truck unloaded.”
The tour took another twenty minutes. We didn’t linger in the other bedrooms, one of which I’d earmarked for a nursery. Aria had instantly agreed since it was adjacent to hers. She’d taken one look at the gym and told me she wouldn’t be spending much time there. Then she claimed the theater room as her own.
“I’ll get changed,” I said. “Meet you outside.”
Aria and Clara were too busy picking out lounge chairs in front of the massive projector screen to notice when I disappeared to the opposite end of the house to change out of the navy slacks and starched white shirt I’d pulled on this morning.
When I went outside to find them, Clara met me on the sidewalk carrying a box. August trailed behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around a potted fern twice the size of his face.
Aria was in the back of the U-Haul, loosening a strap she’d used to secure boxes.
“This is it?” I counted twenty, maybe thirty boxes in total. They were all stacked to one side while the rest of the floor had plants. “What about furniture?”
“I made an agreement with my landlord to leave it furnished for a free month’s rent.” She shrugged, rolling the strap into a coil. “I didn’t think there’d be much point trying to load up furniture myself and haul it down here when I assumed you had everything here already.”
“That’s why you refused a moving company.”
She grinned, walking to the end of the box, towering over me. “The heaviest thing in here is a box of books. Those are marked and waiting just for you.”
“Here.” I held out my hands to help her down.
She grabbed them, jumping to the ground. Then she cocked her head to the side, looking me up and down.
“What?”
“You’re in jeans.”
I dropped my gaze to my dark-wash jeans and simple white thermal. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve just never seen you in anything but a suit.”
“You’ve seen me naked.”
“This is true.” Her cheeks flushed and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
Why the hell had I brought up being naked? Now all I could picture was her flawless skin when I’d stripped her of that green gown.
Aria had perfect skin, smooth and supple. It had been like silk against my palms. Her hair had threaded through my fingers like strands of the finest satin.
I raised a hand, ready to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, then realized I’d almost touched her and froze.
Her gaze darted to my hand, stuck in midair.
An impulse. When it came to Aria, I seemed to have them constantly, like that kiss at the greenhouse. I’d never in my life kissed a woman so blindly. It hadn’t been sexual or foreplay. She’d made me so happy that I’d just . . . kissed her.
Maybe I’d kiss her again. The idea should have scared the hell out of me, enough to have me racing into the house and telling Ron he had book box duty. Instead, I inched closer.