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him,” he said, breaking the silence.
    “His mother was horrified. I was a little country girl from Georgia, and I looked it. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that after a week at his home, suffering his mother’s contempt and getting a look at his way of life, I broke the engagement myself and came home. I quit college. I couldn’t bear the memories. It took me a long time to get over it.”
    “He was a mama’s boy, I gather.”
    She nodded. “I heard later that he married the heiress to a cosmetic company. A nice little merger.”
    “Too bad it didn’t work out.”
    “On the contrary,” she said. “I was lucky. He drank like a fish and did everything his mother told him. Retrospect is a wonderful thing. I’d have had a horrendous life. After the newness had worn off, I’d have died of neglect. He wasn’t even much as a would-be lover,” she added with a shy laugh. “He grabbed.”
    “Men can be taught,” he said with a sideways glance. “None of us know without being told what pleases a woman. Despite the fiction that says we should.”
    “I’d never be able to do that,” she said. Her long legs crossed as she shifted to face him. It was uncanny how easy he was to talk to. She might have known him all her life.
    “Why not?”
    She leaned her head on the seat, adjusting her seat belt so that she had enough room. The leather seat was plush and comfortable, and the air-conditioning made the already formidable heat bearable. “Oh, I’d be too shy,” she said, smiling dreamily. “I can’t imagine taking my clothes off in front of a man.”
    His heavy eyebrows lifted. “How do you imagine people make love, in dark closets?”
    “At night, of course, with the lights out,” she said.
    He looked up toward the headliner. “My God!”
    “Well, don’t they?”
    “I am not licensed to teach sex.”
    She actually flushed and quickly turned back toward the window. She hadn’t realized how intimate the conversation was getting. Flustered, she searched around for a safe topic.
    “How much farther is it to your building site?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anything in the planning stages. Do you have blueprints or…?”
    “Stop floundering,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
    The gentleness was unexpected. And unwelcome. It made her vulnerable, and she couldn’t let that happen. Her chin lifted. “No harm done. What about the building?”
    He pulled up at another traffic light and stared at her. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “I can actually see the wall going up. I thought I was the only one who did that.”
    “Did what?” she asked tightly.
    “Never mind.” He reached out and touched her hair lightly, noticing the way she tensed and the panicky look in the blue eyes that searched his accusingly. “Why are you nervous?”
    “It’s disturbing to sit so close to the enemy,” she countered.
    He smiled faintly. “Is it?”
    “The light’s changing,” she remarked.
    “Evasive maneuvers?” he taunted. But he turned back to the steering wheel, and the tension was broken.
    The building site was only minutes further along. He’d turned on the news and they’d listened to that for the rest of the drive.
    Amelia wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find. A nice level lot, probably. But what they found was a deserted tenement, old and crumbling, on a corner lot.
    “Where are you going to put your condo,” she asked, “under it or on top?”
    He laughed at her expression. “We’re going to take this building down and clear off the lot first.”
    “Isn’t that expensive?”
    “Of course. Construction always is.” He parked the car at the curb and helped her out, his eyes narrow and keen as he studied the lay of the land.
    “Have you already bought this?” she asked.
    “If I had, why would I be here looking at it, for God’s sake?” he shot at her.
    She drew herself up to her full height, still much inferior