He reached into her bag and handed her the phone. “Here,” he said with a grin, “you can call them all now to fill them in.”

She took it from him, laughing. “If it makes sense down the road for me to give my cousins news about us, I promise to block out an entire afternoon to call each and every one of them.”

Maybe it had been a crazy thing to say, but suddenly the chance of a future with Ford didn’t seem completely out of bounds. After all, he’d just bought this house in Seattle, and he was actually telling her important things about his life.

She knew that it was easier for him to focus on her than himself. But for all the anger she’d nurtured over the past five years, now that she’d spent the past few days with him, she couldn’t deny that she cared again. Back then, whenever she’d had questions for him about his past, it had always been easy for him to pull her back into bed and make love to her until she’d completely forgotten all about them. And there was a big difference between begging Ford to share his life with her and his offering it up to her unprompted, wasn’t there?

Or, was that just her pride talking again? Because if she was really considering a relationship with Ford going forward, then could she keep locking her heart in a cage like this?

She dropped the phone back into her bag and looked into his dark eyes. “I don’t think we were done talking about you and your family, were we?”

Ford was silent for a few long moments before he finally said, “That week with you here in Seattle was the closest I’ve ever let myself get to anyone. I’d been so used to standing on my own, making my own way, everyone else be damned. And then, there you were. Not just breathtakingly beautiful, not only the sexiest thing I’d ever seen or touched, but you simply opened your arms and heart and let me in. It scared the hell out of me, Mia.”

She could understand everything he’d said up until the admission that he’d been frightened. “Why would my caring about you scare you?”

“For so long, I’d told myself that I didn’t need anyone else, that I didn’t care if no one ever really loved the real me, that it was enough for the fans who screamed I love you from the audience to only love my music instead of the man behind the guitar and microphone. But then, from the very first moment you came into my life, it was so easy, too easy, to need you...and to want you with me all the time. I felt like I couldn’t breathe without you, could no longer picture living the rest of my life as a man on an island. And it was even worse, because I knew you were too independent and loved your friends and family and career too much to say yes to my ultimatum.”

“Are you saying that you were already gone before you even asked me to drop everything for you?”

“I didn’t know how to stay.”

She needed to know. “And now you think you do?”

He let out a long breath. “I sure as hell hope so. Because if I hurt you again, it wouldn’t be your brothers coming after me to tear me to pieces. I would beat them to it.”

No one could ever call Ford Vincent fragile. But for the first time, Mia saw the vulnerability he’d worked so hard his entire life to hide from everyone else.

Including her, until now.

“When I saw you again out of the blue on Friday,” she said carefully, “I assumed you hadn’t given me a single thought in five years. But even though I now know I was wrong, you’ve got to understand that I really tried not to think about you at all. At least, until the past few days. I mean, I obviously can’t resist you whenever we kiss, but—”

“Friends,” he reminded her. “I want us to be friends first.” As if to make his point, he picked up the champagne bottle and poured two glasses. Handing her one, he said, “Here’s to a beautiful friendship.”

He’d promised not to push her too fast again, and while a part of her was relieved that it looked like he was going to make good on his promise, before she could clink her glass against his, another part of her couldn’t resist asking, “Do you always make out with your friends?”

“Not usually,” he said with a slow grin as he obviously understood where her question was coming from, “but I’m pretty big on change lately, so I say, why not throw making out into the friend bucket?”

Her lips were tingling even though it had been quite a few minutes since they’d last kissed. Heck, her entire body was tingling just being near him like this.

“You know, since there’s a pretty big spread between kissing and having sex, maybe I should make a list of everything in between,” she suggested, “and you can show me the line that you’re not going to cross.”

His eyes quickly darkened with desire. “Lord, the way you tempt me, Mia.” But instead of reaching for her the way she wished he would, he said, “Even if you make a list that you know damn well will make me crazy, you and I are going to be friends first before I make love to you again. It’s a promise I’m making to both of us, and one I’m not going to break.”

Mia knew a lot of powerful, rich men. The ones she was related to were great, but the rest of them usually took whatever they wanted without worrying about what anyone else needed or wanted. Ford could have already had her back in his bed by now. But, instead, he seemed truly committed to gunning for something more than a couple of great rolls in the hay.

Who would ever have thought this was possible?

Certainly not her.

Still, whether or not this whole no-sex-until-friendship plan made sense, she didn’t particularly care for living by a set of rules she hadn’t had any part in making. Which was why she couldn’t resist messing with him a little bit more.

“I actually do think you may be right about friendship being what we were missing before, but—”

“Why do I have a feeling your but is going to push me right to the edge of reason?”

She lifted her lips in a smile, loving that he knew her so well already, even though they were just at the beginning of their road to friendship. “But I just can’t see how a few orgasms here or there would be breaking your no-sex-until-we’re-friends rule.”

“I’ll never know how to love you the right way if I don’t also know how to be your friend, Mia.” His dark eyes were intense as he asked, “If an orgasm will get me there, you know I’d die to give you one right now. Tell me, will making you come make us better friends?”