by Tami Hoag
He was in love with her. It scared him more than a little bit, and he had a feeling she wouldn’t be too wild to hear the news herself. She had been drifting off to sleep when he’d slipped out of bed and gotten dressed. He’d left her with a kiss and a promise to call in the morning. Now she’d beaten him to it, and he still hadn’t figured out what to say or do.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, hoping he would come up with a strategy by the time she finished answering.
“Fine.”
Damn. He hadn’t counted on her being stingy with words; she was a lawyer, after all. He passed a hand over his tangled hair and cleared his throat. Alaina cut him off at the pass before he managed to form a thought.
“Listen, Dylan, the reason I called is—ah—I think it would be best if we called the deal off.”
All the air left his lungs in a rush. His jaw dropped. “What?”
“It’s not working out the way I thought it would, and—um—” Smooth, Alaina, real smooth. Where was that levelheaded woman she had faced in the mirror? Where was that calm, nerves-of-steel woman who had mowed down opposing attorneys and torn their witnesses’ testimony to shreds in the courtroom? Elsewhere.
While she hemmed and hawed and stuttered, she picked up a pen and quickly jotted down every reason she shouldn’t go on seeing Dylan, leaving off the only one that mattered—she was afraid of getting her heart broken. A huge lump swelled in her throat, and just as quickly, she crossed all the reasons off. She wasn’t going to get through them without choking on them, so what was the point?
“Alaina,” Dylan murmured, staring blankly at his plate of Oreos. “I don’t understand. I thought everything was going really well.”
“Right.” She gave a derisive half-laugh. “So far I’ve managed to make a fool of myself, alienate your friends and children, and inflate to twice my normal size. Things are going just peachy, Dylan.”
“Well, aside from those … minor incidents …” He winced. No woman considered swelling to twice her normal size a minor incident. New tack, Harrison. “After last night—”
“I don’t want to talk about last night,” Alaina said, panic slamming into her full force. “To borrow a phrase from you, last night was an accident.”
Lord, how it hurt to hear those words, even from her own lips. Making love with Dylan hadn’t been accidental. It had been wonderful. It had been special. Too special.
“Look,” she whispered because she didn’t trust her voice. “I just think it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.”
It took her a split second to realize the soft gasp she’d heard hadn’t come from Dylan. Her eyes rounded in horror then narrowed in fury.
“Dammit, Marlene, are you listening?” she demanded.
The silence that answered her question was absolute. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe she had made the sound herself. Maybe she was losing her marbles.
Dylan heaved a sigh. “Princess, don’t you think we should talk about this? So there were a few unforeseen glitches in the plan. We can work it out.”
He sounded so sincere, so sweet. She couldn’t help but think of how tender he had been last night, what a good friend, what a wonderful lover. But it had all been part of the deal for Dylan. No, they couldn’t work that out. “I don’t think so,” she said, just managing to get past the tears in her throat. “I’ve got a client coming. I have to go now. Good-bye, Dylan.”
Dylan stared at the dead receiver in his hand and swore under his breath. He couldn’t let her do this. Alaina Montgomery had stolen his heart. Now she was trying to give it back to him. He couldn’t let her get away with it.
So making love with him had been an accident? The hell it had. Her invitation the previous night had been very clear, as clear as the panic that had edged her voice throughout her call. She was running scared. From what? A relationship? A guy with a bar and bait shop? A ready-made family? Love? He wasn’t sure. He’d never be sure if he let Alaina end it here and now.
With questions and ideas swirling through his head like a Martian dust storm, he slid off his stool and headed down the hall in search of his pants.
“Let me get this straight, Mr. Perkins,” Alaina said, sitting back in her chair to level a cool stare at the man who sat on the other side of her desk. He was in his midforties with thinning brown hair, a thinner mustache, and a fat white brace around his neck. “You went onto your neighbor’s private property, climbed onto the roof of his porch to look through his telescope—which he had expressly forbidden you to touch—and you subsequently fell off the roof, injuring your neck.”
“That’s right.”
“And you think you should sue him for how much?”
“One point two million,” he said with a perfectly straight face. “What do you think?”
Alaina stared at him for a full half-minute before she could rein in her temper enough to trust her tongue. She rose from her chair and smoothed her hands over the skirt of her gray plaid suit. “I think, Mr. Perkins, that you are an insufferable little money-grubbing ferret.” She went on smoothly, calmly, ignoring the alarming color flushing Mr. Perkins’s face above his padded collar. “I think, Mr. Perkins, that you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. You willingly went onto your neighbors’ property and injured yourself while abusing their possessions to say nothing of their privacy.”
Perkins sputtered as if his neck brace were strangling him. He vaulted out of his chair and shook a finger at Alaina. “They—they—lured me over there, having that telescope on the roof and a ladder standing right there! This never would have happened if—”
“—you had minded your own business.”
The man gasped in outrage at the suggestion.
The look Alaina gave him was one of utter disdain. “There are few things more offensive to me than someone who chooses to abuse the legal system rather than face up to taking responsibility for their own actions.”
Unable to refute the charge, Perkins glared at her as if she had somehow betrayed him. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of hotshot lawyer from Chicago.”
Alaina pulled off the black-rimmed glasses she wore mostly for effect and fixed her would-be client with her iciest stare. “I am some kind of hotshot lawyer, Mr. Perkins. And if I hear you’ve tried to pursue this intolerable suit, I will personally see to it that you’re found guilty of gross societal malfeasance and negligent hooliganism.”
Perkins paled to the color of chalk.
A nasty little smile lifted one corner of Alaina’s mouth as she motioned toward the door. “I think you can find your way out.”
She gave herself a mental pat on the back as she took her seat once again. How long had she been wanting to do that? A year, at least. She would never have been able to tell off a client when she’d been at Abercrombie. Either she would have taken the case or one of the junior sharks circling around her would have. The man’s claim of rights to damages appalled her, but she knew he could not only get the case to court, he could probably win it as well, and his poor neighbors would be paying him off for the rest of their lives.
She may have been short a client, but she had just gained a large dose of integrity. It felt good.
“Gross societal malfeasance?”
Alaina’s heart bounded against her ribs at the sound of that low, rich voice. She whirled her chair around to watch Dylan stroll into her office. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jeans, stretching the fabric across his groin. The faded denim shirt he wore was open at the throat, giving her a glimpse of his chest. He was tan, trim, and fit, with a brilliant symmetrical smile and several unruly chestnut curls trailing across his forehead. All in all, he looked too sexy for words. Alaina’s mouth went dry at the sight of him.
She’d missed him. It had been all of—what?—fifteen hours since they’d lain entwined in her bed, naked and warm, replete from making love. And she’d missed him. She literally ached now to have him hold her.
Tamping
down her emotions, she shuffled some papers in front of her and said, “It was the first thing that popped into my mind.”
“Is there such a charge?”
“No, but Mr. Perkins doesn’t know that.”
Dylan grinned. From the first he had believed Alaina to be a dyed-in-the-wool materialist. The BMW, the designer-label wardrobe, and all the other trappings of yuppiehood indicated a woman who valued a dollar, perhaps too much. But she had just turned down a chance at a sizable chunk of money, and her reasons had been clear—she had scruples. He had listened to the entire exchange from the other side of the door, which Marlene had conveniently left ajar. It made him feel a lot better knowing he had fallen in love with a woman of integrity.
He gave her office a casual look, taking in the leather-bound books, the diplomas, the handsome upholstered chairs and textured blinds, the Andrew Wyeth lithograph on the wall. Finally he turned back to Alaina. “Quietly pretentious,” he said in a teasing tone. “It’s you.”
Alaina frowned at him, in no mood for his little digs about her expensive tastes. “I happen to like nice things. I don’t think that’s a crime in this country.”
“Crime?” Dylan said with a snort. “It’s practically a religion.”
Alaina arched a brow. “Is that a fact, Mr. Thirty-foot-fishing-boat?”
Dylan opened his mouth to protest, then clamped it shut and scowled.
Her shot couldn’t have been more on target, but Alaina was too depressed to enjoy the victory. It hurt to see Dylan and know he was no longer going to be a part of her life. She told herself the best thing would simply be never to see him again. The very idea gave her a chill.
“If you came here for a reason,” she said in her clipped, businesslike manner as she slipped her glasses back in place, using them like a shield, “I suggest you get to it. I have appointments all day.”
“No, you don’t.” Dylan gave her a smug smile. “You don’t have another appointment until tomorrow. Marlene told me.”
“How accommodating of her.”
“She also told me to tell you she had to leave because she’s doing Arlis Cantmorth’s astrological charts today. She’ll be back at one. And, let’s see …” He dug several scraps of notepaper out of his pants pocket and held them at arm’s length because he hadn’t brought his reading glasses with him. “George Barlow wants to draw up a new will. He’s on the outs with his nephew again and wants to leave everything to his Welsh corgi. The copy machine repair people will be here Thursday—I couldn’t pin them down as to Thursday of what week of what month. They did, however, promise it would be this year. And the Myerson’s Cleaners called to say they can get mayonnaise stains out of linen.”
Alaina gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve been out there playing secretary?”
“Yep.” Dylan leaned across the table and waggled his eyebrows. “Want to chase me around the desk, boss?”
She scowled at him, but the look that had made lesser men turn tail and run merely bounced off Dylan.
“Oh, yeah,” he said cheerfully. “Jayne called. We had a nice chat. She canceled lunch, so I guess that means you’re free to go with me.”
His grin was too damn tempting. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to go with him—anywhere. But on that path lay heartache, and Alaina was not in the market for that. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Dylan perched a hip on the sturdy table and crossed his arms over his chest, settling in for the battle. “Why not?”
Alaina glanced away from the intensity of his dark gaze. “We discussed this already. I told you, I don’t think the plan is working.”
“And I repeat—why not? So things weren’t exactly smooth sailing our first time out. We’ll work the kinks out as we go. Unless, of course, you’re really partial to kinks.” That caught her attention. She gave him one of her imperious looks and he grinned unrepentantly. “Handcuffs are okay, but I draw the line at whips.” He leaned across the desk again and added in a hotly suggestive tone, “Unless they’re made of velvet.”
Alaina blushed burgundy and gasped. “You’re outrageous!”
“Thoroughly,” he agreed. “But am I out in the cold? What do you say, Princess? Is the deal still on?”
She backed away from the issue, literally, pushing her chair back from the desk. “I told you, Dylan. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You thought it was a good idea to begin with.”
“That was different. That was before—” She cut herself off, trying to escape the issue further by standing and pacing back and forth behind the table.
“Before we made love?” Dylan suggested softly.
Before I fell in love with you, she corrected him mentally, but wild horses couldn’t have dragged the words from her mouth. She stalked back and forth behind the table, her arms crossed before her in symbolic defense. How had she gotten into this mess? she wondered. With one notable exception she had managed to avoid this kind of emotional entanglement for most of her adult life. She’d been right all along in thinking it brought more pain than it was worth. She really had to wonder how her mother did it, leaping from one relationship to the next with barely a pause to catch her breath.
Dylan watched her pace. He watched the emotions that chased across her face. He was right. Alaina was afraid of something. She would no doubt deny it to the death, but she was afraid. He couldn’t blame her. He was having his share of nerves too. They had gone into this little game knowing exactly what to expect, but the rules had changed abruptly. He felt as though the ground were shifting beneath his feet. The only thing he was really sure of was that he needed to tread carefully. He needed time with Alaina to find out just where their hearts were headed. He wouldn’t get that time if she bolted and ran now.
He circled around behind the table, trapping Alaina in the corner. “This is about last night, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “This is about us making love.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Alaina said automatically. The warm timbre of his voice caressed her as surely as his hands had while he’d shared her bed. The memory made her knees sway. She gave him a defiant look, but her trembling chin ruined the effect.
Dylan resisted the urge to take her in his arms. She looked so valiant and vulnerable, trying to be tough and not quite pulling it off. He couldn’t keep from reaching out a hand to cup that stubborn chin of hers. “That’s got everything to do with it,” he murmured. “Alaina, last night we shared something really wonderful, something we both wanted. There’s no reason to run away from that.”
“I’m not running away!” She denied the charge vehemently, thinking she could be a damn good liar when the need arose.
“Then the deal’s still on,” he said, leaning closer, the scent of her perfume luring him like a siren’s song. “The terms have changed a little, that’s all. Our pseudorelationship is turning out to be more realistic than we’d planned on. Do you have the guts to see where it takes us, or are you going to be a typical lawyer and try to wriggle out through a loophole?”
Alaina’s eyes flashed at the insult. Her heart pounded at the promise in his eyes. She swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the knot of indecision that was wedged in her throat.
Dylan gave her a devilish grin, effectively hiding his own fears. “Come on, Princess. Have you really got anything better to do?”
“I’m teaching myself to play the pan flute,” she said dryly. “That takes up a lot of my spare time.”
“Oh, yeah? Are you taking some lawyer friend to the big wingding in San Francisco? Or are you going to let Marlene set you up with some guy with a foot fetish and extra toes?”
Alaina shot him a scowl. “How did you know about that?”
“Marlene told me.”
“Marlene has a big mouth.”
“Whales are diminutive by comparison.”
Alaina smiled at that, and Dylan brought his thumb up to brush against the corner of her mouth, suddenly wanting her
more than he wanted his next breath. They both sobered as awareness wrapped its silken threads around them.
“What do you say, Princess?”
She stared up at him, her heart fluttering in her throat. He was asking her to take a chance, but he was admitting he was taking one as well. They were both well aware of the pitfalls. Knowing all that, what could go wrong? I could get my heart broken, she thought. But as she gazed up into Dylan’s eyes and remembered all his tenderness of the night before, she couldn’t help but think it would be worth the risk to have him hold her again. Hell, she was already in love with him. How could it get any worse?
“I say it’s a deal,” she said, her voice soft and low.
All the vital organs that had stilled inside Dylan as he had awaited her answer began functioning again. The smile that lit his eyes and canted the corners of his mouth was light with relief as he leaned a little closer. “Good,” he whispered, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “In the absence of a notary, we’ll seal it with a kiss.”
Alaina lifted her mouth to meet his, welcoming the touch and taste of him greedily. It was like taking the first drink after a long period of abstinence. Dylan was no less enthusiastic. He had meant for the kiss to be short and sweet, but the instant he tasted her, his control went up in a blaze of passion. He kissed her rapaciously, his mouth plundering as he pulled her into his arms and molded her feminine form to the hard lines of his own body.
Alaina pressed her hands to his lean cheeks, purring her approval at the day’s growth of beard that rubbed against her palms. She might have fussed about his lack of concern for appearances, but the truth was she liked him a little rough and rumpled; it only added to his sexiness. As if he didn’t have enough to begin with, she thought as she arched her body into his, coming into delicious contact with the hard ridge of his manhood. To think she had been ready to deprive herself of the wonderful pleasure she’d found in this man’s arms. What an idiot, she thought as her hormones took charge of her brain.
