With a small sigh she took a deep breath and started up the drive again, toward the house. Her heart beat hard in anticipation of seeing Elijah. She hadn’t really been close to him since that last dinner, when she was nineteen. Just as when she was fifteen, his gaze had rested on her more than once, making her heart pound just the way it was doing now. Given that her body seemed to be raging with runaway hormones, this wasn’t the best time to be alone with him.

She decided to put the wine on his front porch and obey Paolo’s rule of staying out of the house. It was the only safe thing to do to keep from making an absolute fool of herself. She wasn’t even certain she could talk to him. Say a word. Maybe she’d gotten lucky and it had been his security people who had allowed her inside the high gates.

She pulled into the circular drive and stared up at the house. It wasn’t a mansion like her family home, but it was beautiful. Perfect. Homey. Not in the least ostentatious. She loved the wraparound verandah with the huge columns holding up a sloping roof that shaded the wide, inviting porch.

Elijah stood waiting at his front door, wearing a tight-fitting pair of jeans that rode low on his hips and fit very lovingly around his extremely nice butt. The breath left her lungs in a long rush. His jeans were carelessly buttoned, the top two left undone. He wore no shirt, displaying a heavily muscled chest. His black, black hair was unruly and damp as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. She swallowed hard, trying not to stare. Her already soaring temperature went up a couple more notches. She had forgotten how good he looked. He was definitely a man—no soft edges to him at all. Right now, intimately barefoot, his anger seemed to simmer right below the surface.

She couldn’t understand his anger, unless she had interrupted him with another woman. She blushed. Of course there would be a woman there. She hadn’t called. Her grandfather never had her call, saying he wanted it to be a surprise when she delivered his best reserve for whatever the occasion. She could see how intruding on a date with a willing woman would make Elijah mad.