This time she couldn’t hold back her surprise. “Wait a minute. You aren’t going to tour anymore?” When he shook his head again, she had to ask, “Why would you do that?”

“Because I’ve finally figured out some things are more important than being on the road.” His gaze intensified as he turned from the water to look her in the eyes. “Much more important. So as soon as this tour ends next week, I’m done.”

Keeping her voice scrupulously professional even as she reeled at the thought of Ford giving up the touring that was clearly his life’s blood, she asked, “And how many people will be in full-time residence?”

“Just me, at first. Though I’m hoping it won’t remain like that for too long.”

Odds were, she suddenly decided, this whole home-buying thing had come up because he had a gorgeous—and annoyingly insipid—girlfriend who was dying to play house with him and redecorate down to the last inch of trim along the floorboards of the laundry room. Even though the house and the furnishings that came with it were already perfect as they were.

But what kind of woman would claim to care about Ford and then ask him to give up everything that mattered to him for her?

Telling herself it was none of her business, and that it shouldn’t matter to her what he did with the rest of his life, Mia pointedly didn’t ask any more questions about his personal life as they walked through the rest of the ground-floor rooms. Instead, she pointed out the many features of the beautifully built house. And all the while, she did her very best to ignore the way Ford always seemed to stand a little too close to her, or worse, brush up against her as he went to take a closer look at something.

Finally, they reached the master suite, and Ford’s mouth curved up as he walked over to the large bed. Running a hand over the plush cover, he said, “Nice bedroom, isn’t it?”

Professional. She needed to remain professional even when he was purposely trying to push every single one of her buttons. Mia was self-aware enough to know that with her passionate temperament, she had quite a few...

“Yes,” she agreed, “the architect did a fabulous job of giving Alana and her husband a great view of the lake while keeping the room extremely private, both from the rest of the house and the grounds outside.”

Of course, Ford had to get on the bed, cross his hands beneath his head on the pillow, and settle in as if he’d already bought the place. “You’re right, the view is just as good even when you’re lying down.” He turned his dark gaze from the stunning water view back to her. “Any chance you know how well soundproofed the room is?”

She’d expected him to hit her with something blatantly sexual in the bedroom, so despite the fact that her body instantly responded to the implication of loud, crazy sex, she was able to sound unruffled as she replied, “You’ll probably need to do some extra soundproofing for playing your electric guitar if you don’t want the sound to get out through the rest of the house.” Or whatever else it was he was actually going to do in here with his beautiful, brainless girlfriend whom Mia couldn’t help but hate. She pointed toward the bathroom. “There is a large his-and-hers bathroom and two big walk-in closets. If you’d like to take a look at those, we can go check out the second floor next.”

Though Ford slid his long legs over the edge of the bed, walked over to poke his head into the bathroom and the closets, and said, “Looks good,” she couldn’t escape the feeling that he was barely holding himself in check...or that his testing-out-the-bed escapade wasn’t even close to the full extent of how far he was going to try to push her today.

Extremely glad to get out of the master suite, she took him up the stairs to the second floor, and when they reached the landing, she said, “In addition to the master suite on the ground floor, there are three other bedrooms upstairs.”

“Only three, huh?” He went into one of the smaller bedrooms and picked up a soccer trophy that the home stager had put out on a boy’s desk. “Well, I guess the kids could share rooms.”

“Kids? Sharing rooms?” She shook her head, wondering how on earth he could possibly have kids she didn’t know about. Because no matter how much she’d wanted to keep her head buried in the sand whenever his name came up on TV, on the radio, or in a magazine over the years, it had simply been impossible. He was too famous. “Whose kids are going to live here?”

“Hopefully, mine, one day. You had five in your family, right?” Still reeling from the brand-new information that he was clearly planning on having a big family, she couldn’t manage anything more than a nod. And when he asked, “Didn’t you say one of your uncles had six?” she immediately corrected him with, “Eight.”

“Wow, eight kids.” He grinned at the thought of it. “Must have been a pretty fun house for them, growing up with all those kids in it.”

“It was,” she agreed, before she realized just how strange a direction their conversation had taken.

“Your uncle and his wife must have really been into each other, given all those kids they couldn’t help but make.”

“My uncle died when I was little, but from what my mother and father say about Uncle Jack and Aunt Mary, they were crazy in love with each other.”

“Crazy in love,” he said in a low voice that sent warmth rolling through her, head to toe. “I know just how that feels.”

Wait...what was she doing telling him all this personal stuff? And why on earth would she ever have been stupid enough to bring up love in his presence, when he was the last person who could possibly understand what real love was?

“Let’s head out to the grounds.” It would be good to get out of the house. Because even as big as it was, standing in the same room with Ford had been way too close.

Directly off the back patio was an incredible rose garden. Between the tower, the roses, and the water view, this property always felt close to heaven. Even when she was doing a showing, she couldn’t resist stopping to smell the roses. But the last thing she expected was for Ford to do the very same thing.

“I’ve only seen this October Moon rose in a handful of places outside of Seattle.” He inhaled their sweet scent, then said, “It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

During their week together, they hadn’t often emerged from his luxurious hotel suite—particularly the king bed—but on one of their few spontaneous outings, he’d asked her to take him to her favorite place in Seattle. She’d brought him to the Rose Garden at Woodland Park Zoo and together they’d smelled every rose in the garden. By the time they’d returned to his hotel, ravenous for each other again after less than two hours out of each other’s arms, she’d learned that when Ford had stepped away in the garden to make a quick phone call, it hadn’t been to discuss business. He’d ordered buckets of roses to be delivered to his hotel room while they were out.