by Norah Wilson
Chapter 4
Suzannah sighed and pushed away from her desk. For the last half hour, she’d been trying to concentrate on the corporate reorganization plan her client needed. Unfortunately, contemplating by-law amendments and share splits seemed to be beyond her right now. Okay, it wasn’t riveting stuff at the best of times, but after the events of the last twenty-four hours, she doubted anything could have kept her attention from wandering.
Lord, had she really agreed to a mock affair with John Quigley?
Just thinking about it sent a thrill through her. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. She’d had a very similar feeling one time, navigating her way out of Montreal during rush hour. And there was that time she’d been talked into riding a roller coaster at a carnival midway. It was a perfectly natural, perfectly intelligent response to the threat of impending chaos.
When her phone buzzed, a single ringburst signaling an internal communication, she jumped for it. Anything for a distraction. She checked the display. Her secretary.
“I know what you’re looking for, Mary Ann,” she said into the receiver, “but it’s not ready yet. I’m having trouble concentrating.”
“This probably won’t help matters, then. There’s a Detective Quigley here to see you.”
Suzannah sat bolt upright. “Is he, now? Well, you just tell Detective Quigley I’ll be ten minutes.”
“Whoops, too late. He’s already on his way back there.”
Damn! She hung up the phone just as he materialized in her door frame. She pushed up out of her chair. “John, what are you doing here?”
“I missed you.”
Before she could digest that astonishing assertion, he crossed the room, took her face in his hands and kissed her. Thoroughly. Shock held her frozen. By the time her brain caught up to what was happening, she’d already opened her mouth to his invasion. Heat licked through her limbs, her heart thundered, the room spun. Then he stepped back, a pleased smile on his face. Over his shoulder, she saw her secretary standing wide-eyed outside her door.
“I had to come up this way to interview an insurance adjuster,” he said, his hands still warm on her upper arms. “Now that I’m here, what do you say we go get a bit of lunch?”
Suzannah craned her neck to see what Mary Ann was making of this, but her secretary had evaporated. She strode to the door. The corridor was empty. Closing her door, she rounded on him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He shrugged, looking completely normal, as though he were unaffected by the kiss that had just rocked her. “I figured we shouldn’t waste any time getting the word out.”
“Did I not say I’d take care of dropping the word here?”
“You did,” he agreed, “but I couldn’t picture private-and-proper Suzannah Phelps just blurting something like that out to her co-workers.”
Private and proper? She bristled at the description, ignoring the fact that it was completely accurate. He might as well have called her boring and staid. “So you decided to help me out?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that should do the trick,” she snapped, brushing non-existent wrinkles out of her suit. Belatedly, she realized it was her composure she was trying to smooth, not the obedient fabric of her favorite St. John Knit. The realization just made her angrier. “And don’t expect me to reciprocate. I am not going to traipse into the Station and lay a lip-lock on you.”
“Pity,” he murmured. “It would do my reputation a world of good.”
“It’s not your reputation I’m concerned about.”
“It was a joke, Suzannah.” His voice hardened. “You already have my assurance that I won’t do or say anything to sully your reputation with the troops.”
“The mere fact of our association is going to change their perception of me.”
Now his jaw hardened to match the tone of his voice. “Relax, sweetheart. I’ll make sure they know you’re at the wheel of this relationship. And just think how your legend will grow when this is all over and you can dump me.”
“John –”
“Can we go eat now? Because I spent what should have been breakfast walking my dog who’d been cooped up alone all night, and I’m hungry enough to eat my way through the Chinese buffet down the road.”
Lunch turned out to be not nearly the nightmare she’d imagined. True to his word, John did eat his way through the buffet. She settled for the salad bar, knowing a heavy carb meal would put her to sleep when she went back to the office to tackle that corporate file again.
Not that she should be sleepy. She’d slept surprisingly well last night despite John Quigley’s presence on her couch downstairs. Sure she’d never get to sleep after that crazy proposition he’d put to her—a crazy proposition that she’d accepted, God help her—she’d fallen into the deepest sleep she’d managed in weeks. As angry as he frequently made her, as overbearing as he tended to be, she felt completely safe when he was there.
Okay, dammit, she’d slept surprisingly well because of John Quigley’s presence on her couch.
Which unnerved her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t need a man around to feel fulfilled. She didn’t need a man around to take care of her or shield her from the realities of life. Look where her mother had ended up, widowed at fifty-seven years of age and unable to balance her own checkbook. And all because she’d relied on a man. A good man, for sure. But not a good thing. She’d been ill-equipped to fend for herself...
“Something wrong?”
Lost in her thoughts, Suzannah jumped when John laid a hand on hers atop the table.
“Whoa,” he said. “Take it easy.”
“I’m not used to being touched.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“I mean, without an invitation.”
He grinned. “Better get used to it. Nobody is going to believe this relationship if I don’t lay hands on you as often as I can. At least, nobody who knows me.”
As if she needed a reminder of his physicality. As if she weren’t perfectly aware of the male vitality thrumming under that seemingly still, watchful exterior. As if she hadn’t felt that pure sexual energy brush her skin.
“Anyone who knows me knows how much I abhor public demonstrations.” Oh, God, was that her voice? So stiff and stilted. So disapproving. So repressed.
His grin broadened, spreading across his face like the sun dawning. “Honey, that’s exactly why they’re gonna believe this.” He lifted her hand and planted a kiss in her palm.
Her breath caught in her lungs at the brush of his lips. Then she felt his tongue stroke a path of fire across her sensitive palm. Just as quickly, he released her hand. She pulled it back as though it had been scorched, burying it in her lap.
“Just so you know, I’m gonna kiss you before I let you get in that obscenely expensive little car and drive away.”
Her pulse took another leap, but she forced herself to pick up her water goblet and take an unhurried sip. He was enjoying this altogether too much, the bastard. No doubt because he saw how much it discomfited her.
She could soon fix that, though.
Quickly, she lowered her gaze to her partially-eaten salad so he couldn’t read her eyes. “You know what they say, forewarned is forearmed.”
The rest of the meal passed uneventfully enough, but Suzannah had a hard time bringing her pulse rate back down into the normal range. She was too busy thinking about the kiss to come in the parking lot. John didn’t seem unduly stirred up about it, but of course he had no way of knowing what he was in for. She allowed herself a smile as she sipped her coffee.
