building, mentally placing each piece of furniture and equipment and seeing the décor unfold in her mind. She had to make it happen. “Your enthusiasm is contagious,” he commented as he served her a plate packed to capacity. “I am actually seeing this place with your eyes.” She looked at him as he filled his plate. “I am glad.” She started eating and her eyes widened in appreciation. “This is good stuff.” “Glad you like it,” he grinned. “Actually made it myself.” “A handsome rich man who cooks,” she murmured. “What is such a treasure like you being single?” “I could ask the same about you,” he passed her a glass of wine. “Unlike you I am not rich, I am just a working class girl who wants to find a way to fulfill her dreams,” she told him with a shrug. “I was actually kinda intimidated by you. I said to myself: he’s rich and handsome and has been out with his share of beautiful rich woman so what would he see in me?” she gave him a direct look. “It’s actually a question: What could you possibly want with me?” He replaced the glass on the rug and gave her his full attention. “I have been out with lots of women and I have even had sex with quite a few but I am looking for something that’s missing; someone who is not into me for my parents’ money or what they think I can do for them.” He told her honestly. “And you think that person is me?” she asked him arching one perfectly shaped brow. “I am willing to find out,” he told her softly; holding her gaze with his. Rosa felt it again; that insistent pull of attraction. She had chalked it down to the fact that she had not been with a man in so long that her body was responding to being starved of lovemaking. He changed the subject, diffusing the tension that was spreading in the room. “How long have you had this dream of yours?” She told him about her first easy bake oven and watching her mother in the kitchen and how from a very early age and how through high school that dream had remained. “What’s your dream?” she asked him curiously as he listened to her in silence. “My parents’ dream is for me to take over from them when they retire.” He said cynically. “What’s your dream?” “To become independent like you,” he smiled at her crookedly. “We all need to have a dream John,” Rosa pushed aside the empty plate. “Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream and we as people need to have a dream and to follow through with it. I grew up on the side of town that drug dealers and pimps hang out. I was determined to be a sister who was different and I needed to make my parents proud and most importantly to make something for myself.” “Are you always this passionate?” he asked her huskily and Rosa did not miss the double entendre as his eyes went to her full red lips slightly parted, revealing her white teeth. “What are you doing?” she asked him, her hands trembling slightly as she rubbed her palms on her jeans. “You are the most alive person I have ever met,” he told her; gaze holding hers in a mesmerizing stare. “I love the way you express yourself and the way your face lights up when you talk about something close to your heart. I have grown jaded and cynical Rosa and I don’t like it. I want what you have; a zest for life.” “What are you saying?” she asked him. Her throat was closing up and she could barely get the words through the blockage. He was crowding her and he was not sitting too close to her. “I want to see you again,” he picked up a slim hand and raised it to his lips, lightly touching his mouth to her skin. But that light touch triggered something so potent that Rosa felt it deep inside her gut and she wanted to pull her hand away. “I don’t know,” her flesh was tingling where his mouth had touched her and even though he had let go of her hand, she still felt his touch burning through her skin. “I am very busy and I don’t know when I