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perfect body
    to retrieve my bag from the overhead compartment. Once he hands it to
    me, I lift the handle and tell myself to make my escape, but for a moment I
    am frozen in regret over leaving him. Too soon, he jerks his bag free, and I
    am out of time. A man moves between myself and Liam and I take the
    opportunity to dart for the exit. I don’t look back. I want to look back.
    A few minutes later, I am outside in a cab line that stretches a good
    fifteen cab lengths long, with no actual cars in sight. Thanks to several
    conventions and some Hollywood event, it appears I have plenty of time to
    savor my regret over leaving Liam behind. And I do. I savor it like I would
    water in a desert.
    I’m busying contemplating how good he might have tasted when a
    black Town Car stops directly beside me. The door opens and to my shock
    Liam steps out and grabs my bag. “Come with me,” he orders, and he
    doesn’t give me time to argue.
    I haven’t moved yet and he’s already at the trunk where the driver
    lifts my bag to deposit it inside. I consider leaving it behind and running. I
    should leave it and run. I charge toward him and meet him at the back
    door.
    My chin lifts and he is taller than I realized, and his sleek goatee is
    impossibly sexy, nearly distracting me from my anger. “You can’t just take
    my bag and demand I come with you.”
    “And yet that’s exactly what I did. Get in the car, Amy.”
    I bristle at the command. “I don’t know you.”
    His piercing blue eyes darken. “I have every intention of remedying
    that.”
    A thrill shoots through me at the obvious promise that he will be my
    lover, and there is no denying that I am seduced by this man, drawn to his
    confidence and dark good looks. To the gentle lion I believe will take
    control of everything around him, including me. The man who will demand
    much of me, and perhaps take more than I should give. And yet, beyond all
    reason, I want to experience those things. I want to experience him. It
    almost feels…necessary.
    A cab honks at our driver and I have nothing to go on but instinct that
    tells me I can trust him, but it has never failed me. Not even when I took
    the job at the museum that I knew was a mistake. The horn blasts again
    and I go with my gut. I get in the car. Liam follows me inside and shuts the
    door.
    “Where are we going?” the driver calls over his shoulder, pulling
    away from the curb.
    I quickly slide my bag from my lap to the seat in between Liam and
    me, and I’m suddenly too nervous to look at him. He’s experienced in ways
    I can’t even pretend to be, in ways the few men I have dared to date have
    not been. Worldly in ways I once thought I’d be.
    And with the folder I’ve been given by my handler opened, I read out
    my new address, trusting him at a time when trust is the last thing I should
    be dishing out.
    “I approve,” Liam says as I seal the zipper up again.
    “Approve?” I ask, daring to look at him, aware of him on every level.
    His size. His spicy scent. The burn of his anger in the depth of his stare over
    my leaving him behind that hasn’t quite faded.
    “The location your new boss picked for you. It’s a safe area.”
    I seize the opportunity to know more about this man I am risking so
    much, perhaps too much, for. “You know Denver that well?”
    “Yes. I know Denver quite well.”
    “Did you design another building here?”
    “The tallest one downtown.”
    “I thought you weren’t into the whole ‘bigger is better’ thing?”
    “It was a notch on the proverbial bedpost of a young architect.”
    I can’t help but wonder if I’m setting myself up to be a notch on his
    proverbial bedpost as well. “You’re still young.”
    “I started young, so I seem younger than one would think a seasoned
    architect might be.”
    “When you say started young that means what?”
    “I was an apprentice to a very famous architect from the time I was
    thirteen until he died four years