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“I know enough. I want to know more.” His gaze was intense.
“You don’t look very happy about that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s about my past, not you.” He turned back to her clothes and pulled down several blouses and started folding them and putting them into her suitcase. “You like to keep people at arm’s length.”
She agreed. “I have a bad habit of expecting the worst from people.”
“I can understand why.” He took a step closer. “But you’re warming up to me.”
“You think so,” she teased, wondering how this had suddenly turned even more personal.
He nodded. “It’s not so easy to dismiss someone who’s genuinely interested in you, is it?”
He towered over her at six-two. His shoulders were wide, his hands big. Everything about him was strong and firm, even the set of his jaw. But it was that damn cocky smile he gave her that made her want to smile back at him. The man knew he was something to look at and had the intellect and personality to match it, and he enjoyed the attention. “I can honestly say you’re not a man anyone could easily dismiss.”
A teasing light came into his eyes. “And yet you tried.”
“Only because I thought my mother sent you. I’ll remind you, I apologized for my initial reaction.”
“I’ll take the compliment. I have a feeling that’s as close as you’ll come to giving one.” He held her gaze for a few seconds, that sexy grin on his handsome face, then turned and plucked her favorite sky blue cardigan from a shelf and put it in the suitcase.
She’d spent a lot of years pushing men away.
Just as she had that thought, Cody settled his hand over hers on the tabletop. “The sooner you realize I’m not like the men your mother’s been pushing on you, the sooner you and I can move on to getting to know each other.”
“I want to get to know my father,” she hedged, though he had her full attention and that of every nerve ending in her body with that simple touch.
“You will. If you’ll just uproot those pretty feet of yours and finish packing. That is, unless you want me pawing through your underwear.”
She blushed from her collarbones to her cheeks.
“God, you’re beautiful.” Surprise lit his eyes and shone on his face that he’d blurted that out. He turned back to her clothes and selected a few everyday dresses.
“Stay out of my panties.” A split second later, she heard her own words ring in her ears. The blush moved into the lobster realm as she felt the heat in her cheeks intensify.
Cody looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow as one side of his mouth crept up.
The laugh bubbled up from her belly and burst out her mouth. She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t say a word!”
He held up both hands and laughed himself. “You should do that more often.”
“What?” She tried to catch her breath.
“Smile. Laugh. It looks so good on you. And you don’t do it often enough.”
She found her composure. “How would you know?”
“Because in the dozens of pictures the private investigator took of you, there was only one photo of you smiling.” He saw her think about it. “Your dad thinks you’re unhappy. I know you are.”
She didn’t know what to say.
Was she unhappy? Maybe she was just bored with her life. She wasn’t sure. If someone asked her if she was happy, she’d probably say yes without thinking twice about it.
There certainly hadn’t been much to smile about lately. She’d watched her mother and Roger grow close over the last few months. Her mother’s happiness always seemed to make Summer sad. Probably because she knew her mother’s bliss meant Summer would be ignored until things hit a rough patch and declined from there, and Summer was meant to pick up the pieces and make her mother happy again.
Was that why she shied away from relationships? Was she too afraid to even try because she assumed they would end in disappointment? She had good reason to think that after her last disastrous relationship. But not all men were like the power-hungry men her mother pushed on her.
Cody wasn’t like them. He didn’t want to use her as an advantage, or a means to get to her grandfather.
