What a Rich Woman Wants Read Free

skirt, even though she needed more meat on her bones. He couldn’t help but notice how rigidly she held herself. She pretended to relax but never actually did. He wondered why she seemed so ill at ease in her own home.
    She held the door open for him. “I’ll be in touch about setting up a presentation to the board.”
    â€œThank you.”
    The door closed decisively behind him. He breathed in the fresh air and let it out on a sigh. He reminded himself once again that he had no control over what happened next. He opened the back door of the Acura and laid his sports coat across the seat. At the same time he became aware of the sound of a ball bouncing off the rear bumper of his car. He looked around for the source of it but could see nothing through the landscaping. A soccer ball rolled away from the back of the vehicle. He took a couple of quick steps to stop its progress. A small boy appeared several feet away when Niko scooped up the ball.
    â€œHello.”
    The child regarded him silently. Niko figured he was five or six years old. Dark hair, dark eyes, slender build. Both wary and shy, ready to bolt at any moment.
    Niko hunkered down to make himself less threatening. “This must be yours.”
    The kid stared and nodded, but just barely.
    â€œAre you practicing your goal shots?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œWould you like to?”
    â€œI don’t have a net.”
    â€œOh. My name’s Niko. What’s yours?”
    The kid glanced over his shoulder as if expecting a reprimand from that vicinity. “Ricky,” he told Niko, keeping his voice down. “I didn’t mean to hit your car.”
    â€œIt’s okay. Is your name Ricky Robinson?”
    Surely that couldn’t be right. But Ricky nodded. Was he Lesley Robinson’s son?
    Lesley wrapped her arms tightly across her chest and made her way back to her office. Once there she closed the door and sank into the chair behind her desk. By force of will she relaxed her arms and shoulders, and rotated her head from one side to the other to ease the tension in her neck. She did her deep-breathing exercises, telling herself to relax, although she’d gone through some semblance of this routine less than half an hour ago in preparation for her meeting with Niko Morales.
    She didn’t like anyone to rattle her or for anyone to see that they’d done so. She had to be in control because if she wasn’t…if she wasn’t, well, what then? Nothing good. She couldn’t lose her head, her cool, her calm, her reason. She couldn’t listen to her heart and make decisions on what it wanted. She’d done that once before, and the consequences had been disastrous.
    Instead she kept everything on a tight leash. She’d been doing it for so long, holding herself, her family, her home, the foundation together, she’d forgotten how not to do it. She never let go, never relaxed. She had to be vigilant because she knew from past experience if she wasn’t, bad things would happen.
    After a few minutes she swiveled her chair to gaze out the window. The gurgling fountain just a few feet beyond the panes of glass and the view of the carefully tended landscaping never failed to soothe her. After closing the door behind Niko Morales, she needed to be soothed.
    Yes, she’d done her homework on him, but a cold, clinical background check hadn’t prepared her for his presence up close. She’d trained herself not to react to men, or at least not to give any sign of her reaction. Though to be honest, she met very few who caused her to react in any significant way anymore. Most of the men she met were her father’s age or older, his peers from the country club and the business community. They sat on the foundation’s board. Some were family attorneys or accountants or old cronies of her father’s or the husbands of her mother’s circle of friends.
    Lesley couldn’t recall the last