“Now is always the time. Juliet—” He cupped her face in his hand. “It’s not me you’re fighting.”

He didn’t have to finish the thought. She was all too aware that the war was within herself. What she wanted, what was wise. What she needed, what was safe. The tug-of-war threatened to split her apart, and the two halves, put back together, would never equal the whole she understood.

“Carlo, we have a plane to catch.”

He said something soft and pungent in Italian. “You’ll talk to me.”

“No.” She lifted her hands to grip his forearms. “Not about this.”

“Then we’ll stay right here until you change your mind.”

They could both be stubborn, and with stubbornness, they could both get nowhere. “We have a schedule.”

“We have a great deal more than that.”

“No, we don’t.” His brow lifted. “All right then, we can’t. We have a plane to catch.”

“We’ll catch your plane, Juliet. But we’ll talk in Houston.”

“Carlo, don’t push me into a corner.”

“Who pushes?” he murmured. “Me or you?”

She didn’t have an easy answer. “What I’ll do is arrange for someone else to come out and finish the tour with you.”

He only shook his head. “No, you won’t. You’re too ambitious. Leaving a tour in the middle wouldn’t look good for you.”

She set her teeth. He knew her too well already. “I’ll get sick.”

This time he smiled. “You’re too proud. Running away isn’t possible for you.”

“It’s not a matter of running.” But of survival, she thought and quickly changed the phrase. “It’s a matter of priorities.”

He kissed her again, lightly. “Whose?”

“Carlo, we have business.”

“Yes, of different sorts. One has nothing to do with the other.”

“To me they do. Unlike you, I don’t go to bed with everyone I’m attracted to.”

Unoffended, he grinned. “You flatter me, cara.”

She could have sighed. How like him to make her want to laugh while she was still furious. “Purely unintentional.”

“I like you when you bare your teeth.”

“Then you’re going to enjoy the next couple of weeks.” She pushed his hands away. “It’s a long ride to the airport, Carlo. Let’s get going.”

Amiable as ever, he pulled his door open. “You’re the boss.”

A foolish woman might’ve thought she’d won a victory.

Chapter Seven

Juliet was an expert on budgeting time. It was her business every bit as much as promotion. So, if she could budget time, she could just as easily overbudget it when the circumstances warranted. If she did her job well enough, hustled fast enough, she could create a schedule so tight that there could be no time for talk that didn’t directly deal with business. She counted on Houston to cooperate.