His Forbidden Fiancée

Christie Ridgway

www.millsandboon.co.uk

How Not To Marry
A Millionaire:

1 Drive to his lodge in the middle of the night to break off your engagement.

2 Find yourself stranded at his place with nothing but the wet clothes on your back.

3 Resolve to tell him you’re through right then and there.

4 Lose your nerve.

5 Kiss him.

6 Ask him to make love to you.

7 Hate him for acting like a gentleman.

8 Break off your engagement.

9 Kiss him again.

10 Thank him for forgetting how to be a gentleman….

For Elizabeth Bevarly, Maureen Child,

Susan Crosby, Anna DePalo and Susan Mallery.

Thanks for making this project so much fun!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Coming Next Month

One

The only thing the first-class-all-the-way log house lacked was a sexy female in the master bedroom’s quilt-covered sleigh bed. Make that a naked sexy female. Blond. Curvy.

Make that lots of curves.

Coat hangers with legs didn’t interest Luke Barton. He liked his women built for pleasure. His pleasure.

“Did you say something, Mr. Barton?”

He started, then tore his gaze from the decadent bed to frown at the caretaker who was showing him through the home that was his for the next month. Had he been talking out loud? Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and tried out a noncommittal smile before trailing the woman toward the adjoining bathroom.

She was attractive enough, he supposed, and somewhere in her twenties as well as sort of blondish, but it wasn’t her who had sparked his imagination. It was that luxurious bed, he decided, glancing back at it over his shoulder. That quilt-covered bed with a mattress wide enough to rival the sizable slice of Lake Tahoe that he could see through the room’s tall windows.

There was a stone fireplace near the bed’s carved footboard with wood neatly laid inside and Luke could imagine the logs burning brightly, licking golden color along the naked, fair flesh of his fantasy woman. He’d follow suit with his tongue, tasting her warm—

“Mr. Barton?”

His attention jolted to the caretaker again and he realized he was standing, frozen, in the middle of the room. “Call me Luke,” he said.

“What?” The caretaker frowned. “We were expecting Matthias Barton this month.”

Perplexed, Luke stared at her for a moment. Matthias?

Oh. Matthias. Matt. That luxurious decadent bed was making him forget everything. It wasn’t often that Luke Barton forgot his bastard of a twin brother, Matt. And it was never that he did his bastard of a brother a favor.

Except for now.

Damn Matt.

When his assistant had called Luke’s assistant he’d wished like hell he could have turned the cheating, thieving SOB down flat. “Your brother has to take care of some unexpected business and he wants to know if you’ll switch months with him,” Elaine had imparted, as if it wasn’t damn strange that identical siblings refused to speak to each other.

But for once, Luke had been unable to refuse his brother’s request.

“I’m sorry. I meant to mention it right away,” Luke told the caretaker. Apparently she hadn’t noticed the cryptic note Nathan left behind had been addressed to him. “Something came up and my brother and I had to trade months.” The ol’ twin switcheroo.

“Oh, I suppose that’s all right,” the woman replied, then gestured him forward. “So, as I was saying, Luke, you must spend the next month in the lodge in order to fulfill the requirements of Hunter’s will. Your friend Nathan was here last month and your brother Matthias will then take your place in the fifth month.”

Luke knew all that. A while back, letters had been received by each of the remaining “Seven Samurai” as they’d called themselves in college. The six had lost touch after the death of Hunter Palmer and graduation, but with the arrival of those letters they’d been reminded of the promise they’d once made to one another as they closed in on getting their diplomas. Though they were from families of distinction and wealth, they’d been determined to each make their own mark on the world. In ten years, they’d vowed.

Over a table filled with empty beer bottles they’d pledged to build a lodge on the shores of Lake Tahoe and in ten years, each of them would take the place for a month. At the end of the seventh month, the plan had been that they’d all come together for a celebration of their friendship and the successes they’d achieved.

But after Hunter’s illness and subsequent death, that dream had died with him.

Though apparently not for Hunter. Even aware he wouldn’t be there to share it with them, he’d made arrangements for a lodge to be built at the lake. The letters he’d written to each of the friends said that he expected them to honor the vow they’d taken all those years ago.

The caretaker stepped aside as they reached another arched doorway. “And here’s the master bathroom.”

As Luke stepped inside, the fantasy blond popped back into his thoughts. The light of a fire was tracing her skin again, all that pretty, pretty skin, as she lowered herself into the deep porcelain tub that was surrounded by slate and butted up against yet another fireplace. The ends of her hair darkened as they swished against her wet shoulders. Bubbles played peekaboo with her rosy nipples.

“Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?”

Sidetracked again by his enticing little vision, Luke was jolted once more by the sound of the caretaker’s voice.

Damn! What was the matter with him? he wondered, firmly banishing the distracting beauty splashing in his suddenly sex-obsessed brain.

“I’ll be just fine here, thank you.” Even though he was going to be “just fine” three months early, all for the sake of his brother.

He must have been scowling at the thought, because the woman’s eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” There was no reason to expose the family laundry to a stranger. “I guess I’m just thinking of…of Hunter.”

The woman’s gaze dropped. “I’m sorry.” The toe of her sensible black shoe appeared to fascinate her. “I think…I think he intended this as a nice gesture.”

“Hunter Palmer was a very nice man.” The best of the seven of them. The very best. Luke let himself remember Hunter’s wide grin, his infectious laugh, the way he could rally their group to do anything from nailing all the furniture in the freshman-dorm rec room to the ceiling to organizing a charity three-man basketball tournament senior year.

Hunter had been part of Luke’s squad. They’d won the whole shebang, too. What a team they’d made, Hunter and Luke…and Matt.

In those days, like never before and never since, Luke and Matt had played on the same side.

But it was Hunter who Luke had been thinking of when he’d agreed to take his brother’s place for the next month. Their dead friend’s last request had been for the six other men to spend time at the lodge he’d built. If they fulfilled his request, then twenty million dollars and the lodge itself would be turned over to the town of Hunter’s Landing, here on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Luke wasn’t going to be the reason that didn’t happen, no matter how he felt about his brother.

So he followed the caretaker through the rest of the rooms, keeping his mind off the fantasy blond by thinking of the twin switcheroo and how he was replacing Matt Barton, #1 bastard. He spent little time looking on the framed Samurai photos mounted in the second-floor hallway. If he were really playing the part of Matt, Luke thought, it would mean keeping his tie knotted tight, his smiles as cold as Sierra snow, and his mind open to how he could take advantage of any situation without regard to kith, kin or even common decency.

That was how his brother operated.

Finally the caretaker gave him the ornate keychain that contained the house key and departed, leaving Luke alone inside the big house with only his grim thoughts for company. The place was quiet and absent of any signs of Nathan Barrister—who had been staying here the month before—unless you counted the hastily written note Luke had found from him. But Nathan hadn’t gone far. He’d fallen for the mayor of Hunter’s Landing, Keira Sanders, and now they were flitting between the Tahoe town and sun-filled Barbados, where his old friend was presumably mixing business with pleasure.

Jacket and tie discarded, Luke found a beer in the overstocked fridge and settled himself by the window of the great room. Through the trees was another spectacular view of the lake. It wasn’t its famous clear-blue at the moment, not only because it was settling into evening, but also because gray clouds were gathering overhead.

Dark clouds that reflected Luke’s mood.

What the hell was he going to do with himself for a month?

Nathan had done okay here, apparently. His note said it wasn’t “exactly the black hole I thought” and he’d occupied himself by jumping into a full-on love affair. Luke didn’t wish that potential quagmire on himself, though a visit from that blond sweetheart of his imagination might make the month pass just a little bit faster. It was too damn bad she couldn’t stroll out of his fantasies and straight into this room.

Yes, that would make the thirty days more interesting.

Except it wasn’t going to happen unless Matt had invited someone to join him here. And even if that were the case, blond sweethearts just weren’t Matt’s type. Being identical twins didn’t mean they had identical taste when it came to women.

Luke hooked his heels around a nearby ottoman and dragged it closer as the first drops of what appeared to be a heavy spring rain started to hit the windows and roll down like tears. Yeah, he’d be crying, too, if the vision from his daydream showed up on his doorstep looking for Matt.

Though he shouldn’t rule that out, come to think of it. His brother might set up just such a thing to shake Luke’s cage. Matt ruined Luke’s life any chance he got.

To be fair—unlike his brother—Luke had to admit that it was their father, Samuel Sullivan Barton, who had sowed the seeds of their ugly rivalry. He’d run their childhood like an endless season of The Apprentice, with himself playing Donald Trump, constantly orchestrating cutthroat competitions between his two sons.

Their enmity had abated in college. But after Hunter had died, so had their father, and he’d left behind one last contest that rekindled his sons’ competitive fire. Whichever twin made a million dollars first would win the family holdings. Both of them had separately gone to work on developing wireless technology—Luke doing it hands-on, using his engineering degree, while Matt tapped into his undeniable business acumen to hire someone to work with him.

When it came to any kind of gadgetry, his brother was all thumbs. But when it came to building a successful team, Matt was a master.

Of course, that time he’d ensured his mastery by bribing a supplier and knocking Luke right out of the running. Matt had made the first mil and won all the family assets, to boot.

Luke hadn’t spoken to his brother since, though he’d gone on to do a damn fine job with his own company—a meaner and leaner version of what Matt continued to build upon with the Barton family wealth behind him. That was Luke in a nutshell these days: a leaner—okay, maybe by only a pound or two—but definitely meaner version of his brother Matt.

Working his ass off had a way of doing that to a man, Luke thought. And maybe bitterness, too. He couldn’t deny it.

The rain was really coming down now, and the house took on a chill. He got up and lit the fire laid in the great room’s massive fireplace—it took up one huge stone wall—and the flames set him thinking about his blond again.

When he got back to his own condo in the San Francisco Bay Area he was going to have to make a few phone calls, apparently. This fantasy woman was a new fixation for him. Work usually was his only obsession—work and finding some way to pay back his brother at some future date—so his sex life was more sporadic than people believed. It looked as if he needed to be paying more attention to his bodily needs, though.

Or maybe the blame rested on this house, he thought. Or the fireplaces. That bed.

The blond continued insinuating herself into his thoughts. He could practically smell her now. Her scent was like rain—clean, cool rain—and he’d sip the drops off her mouth, her neck, her collarbone.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the back of the chair. As his fantasy played on, his heart started to hammer.

Except that it wasn’t his heart.

His eyes popped open. He stared out the windows, trying to determine if the pouring rain or the waving trees were causing the loud drumming.

He decided it was neither one.

Luke set his beer down and rose, following the noise to the front door. Who the hell would be here now and in this spring deluge?

He jerked open the door. As he took in the dark shadow of a figure on the porch, a chilly blast of wind and a spray of rain wafted over him. Suppressing a shiver, he fumbled for the light switches. Brightness blazed over the porch and in the foyer.

The shadowy figure became a woman.

Her white blouse was plastered to her body. Wet denim clung to her thighs.

She raised a hand to her hair and tried fluffing the drenched stuff. A few locks gamely sprung from straight strands into bedraggled curls that hinted at gold.

Luke looked back at her clothes again.

More accurately, he looked at the curves cupped by all that wet cloth.

Her nipples were hard buds topping spectacular breasts.

Even from the front he could surmise she had a round backside, too, just the way he liked it.

She was exactly how he liked it.

Bemused, he continued to stare at her as he tried figuring out what combination of beer, rain and rampant fantasy had brought such a sight to his front door.

Could she possibly be real? And if so, whom did he have to thank for such a surprising gift?

She frowned at him. Her lips were generously pillowed, too. “Matthias, aren’t you going to invite your fiancée in?”

Fiancée? Matthias?

Luke spent a few more long moments staring at the wet blonde on his doorstep. When another cold blast of air and rain slapped him, he blinked and finally stepped back to let his brother’s fiancée inside.

As she moved forward, questions circled in his mind. Was this some joke? That trick he hadn’t put past his brother? Or could Matt really be engaged? If so, it was news to Luke. He’d thought his brother was the same kind of workaholic confirmed bachelor he was. And when had Matt’s taste turned to blondes?

Inside, with the door shut behind her, the young woman wrapped her arms around herself and licked her bottom lip in what seemed a nervous gesture. “I, um, know you weren’t expecting me. It was sort of an—an impulse.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I jumped in my car and before long I was almost here. Then it started pouring rain and now…” Her voice drifted off and she shrugged, her gaze going to her feet. “And now I’m dripping all over this beautiful carpet.”

She was right. She was as wet as his bathtub fantasy, and probably cold, too. He gestured up the stairs toward the great room and its crackling fire. “Let’s get you warmed up and dried off.”

He tried to be a gentleman and keep his gaze above her neck as she preceded him into the other room but, hell, he knew he was no gentleman. So he confirmed what he’d already suspected by running his gaze from her nape to her heels. She was just his type.

Except she was his brother’s fiancée. Or was she? It could still be a trick…

Stopping in front of the roaring fire, she faced him again. Another rush of words spilled out, giving him the idea that she chattered when she was anxious. “My mother would kill me if she knew I came up here. ‘Lauren,’ she’d say in that disapproving tone of hers, ‘is this another one of your Bad Ideas?’ That’s just how she says it, with capitals. Capital B, Bad. Capital I, Ideas. ‘Another one of Lauren’s Bad Ideas.’ ” A nervous laugh escaped before her hands came up to try to suppress it.

Lauren. Her name was Lauren. It didn’t ring any bells, but Luke didn’t keep tabs on Matt’s social life. Maybe he should, if his brother was really going around snatching up just the sort of women that Luke liked. For God’s sake, Matt shouldn’t be allowed to have everything Luke wanted.

She shivered and he spotted a wool throw draped over a nearby chair. He grabbed for it then brought it to her. As she took it from his hand, she looked up at him, all big, blue eyes. Her pink tongue darted out to wet that pouty lower lip.

“You’ve got to be wondering why I’m here, Matthias.”

“I’m not—” Matthias. But something made him hold that last word back. He ran his hand through his hair, buying himself some time. “I guess I am a little surprised to see you.”

She gave another small laugh and then turned toward the fire. “This whole engagement thing has been a little surprising, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah.” He could be honest about that, anyway. “I suppose so.”

She continued to study the fire. “I mean, we don’t know each other that well, right? You’ve worked with my father and Conover Industries for years, of course…”

Hell, Luke thought. She was Conover’s kid. Ralph Conover’s daughter. Ralph Conover, who’d been the first to cozy up to Matt after he’d cheated Luke out of his fair chance to win the Barton family holdings.

“…but there’s the fact that we haven’t talked that much or ever really been…um, alone together.”

What? Luke stared at the back of her head and the gold curls that were starting to spring up there. His brother was engaged to marry a woman he’d never been alone with? Luke had a guess to what that was code for and, if he was right, it meant Matt hadn’t suddenly developed a yen for cute curvy blondes.

Instead, it meant Matt had developed a yen to more tightly cement his relationship with Conover Industries. Luke’s mind raced ahead as he imagined all the implications this could have for Eagle Wireless, his own smaller company. With Conover Industries and Barton Limited “married,” Eagle could find its own perch in the wireless world very precarious.

God. Damn. It.

Lauren turned toward him again, clutching the throw at her chest. “You haven’t said what you think about that, Matthias.”

Because Luke hadn’t had enough time to think it through completely. He cleared his throat. “I suppose some people would find it a bit odd that we haven’t…” Since he didn’t know precisely what Matt and Lauren had or hadn’t, he let the sentence hang.

“Touched?” she conveniently supplied. “Even kissed, really?” Then color reddened her cheeks. “And we certainly haven’t made love.”

Staring into her big, blue eyes, suddenly Luke could picture—in vivid detail—doing just that very thing with her. He saw it on his mind’s high-def big screen, the two of them making love in that big bathtub upstairs, Lauren’s soft, wet thighs wrapped around his hips. Or on that quilt-covered bed, her blond curls spread out against the pillowcase.

Her eyes darkened and he heard a tiny gasp as her breath suddenly caught. Was she reading his thoughts?

Or did she feel that same sharp tug of attraction that he did?

Could she possibly share the images dealing out like X-rated playing cards in his mind?

Blond, curvy Lauren, and Luke, the mean twin.

The cheated twin.

He lifted his hand and trailed one knuckle along the downy softness of her cheek, wondering if she would taste as sweet as she looked. His fingertip touched the center of her bottom lip and he saw her eyes widen.

Oh, yeah, the message in them made it clear that she felt the attraction, too. And the bit of confusion he could read as well told him she hadn’t felt it for Matt.

Luke ran his thumb over her bottom lip this time, moving inside just a little so that he grazed the damp inner surface. She stood frozen before him, trapped between the fire and his touch. In the sudden heavy silence of the room he could hear the light, fast pants of her breath. Color ran high on her cheeks.

God, she was beautiful.

And we certainly haven’t made love.

She’d said that, and that’s where Luke’s brother had slipped up. If she were Luke’s, he wouldn’t have wasted any time before taking their engagement—even one motivated by business reasons—to a more serious level.

Okay, be honest. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.

The pulse along her throat was racing, begging him to touch it with his mouth. And now that her hair was starting to dry, he could smell her shampoo, something flowery, but not cloying. It was a fresh smell and he wanted to rub himself against it. He wanted to smell her on his own skin.

Really, it came down to one very simple thing. He wanted his brother’s bride-to-be.

“M-Matthias?” she whispered.

Luke didn’t flinch at the wrong name. Instead, he tucked a damp curl behind her ear. At the sight of the goose bumps that raced down her neck in response, he smiled, careful to keep the wolfishness out of it.

But he felt wolfish.

Smug, satisfied and ready to eat Goldilocks up in one big bite.

And then he’d want to do it again, this time taking his time to savor every taste.

His hand lingered near her shell of an ear. He’d mixed up his fairy tales, hadn’t he? The wolf was Little Red Ridinghood’s nemesis, wasn’t he? But no matter. Lauren was most certainly Goldilocks and Luke hadn’t felt this predatory in a long, long while.

Catching her gaze with his, he grazed his thumb along her velvety cheek.

She released her grip on the wool throw. It fell at her feet as she circled his wrist to pull his hand away from her face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Goldilocks wasn’t quite so ready to test out feather mattresses as he’d thought. But that was okay. He needed some time to process all this himself. “Nothing you don’t want,” he reassured her, stepping back and trying on another smile.

She shivered again.

Frowning, he ran his gaze over her, noting that her wet clothes still clung. He shoved his hands in his pockets to disguise the effect her curves had on him and cleared his throat. “Why don’t you take a hot shower? Warm up.”

So he could cool down. Think things through. Decide what to do with all the sexual dynamite in the room, especially when they were standing so close to the fire.

Especially when the woman who had walked out of his fantasies was his brother’s bride-to-be.

“Take a shower here?” She was already shaking her head. “No, no, no. I only came to talk and then—”

“What?” Luke interrupted. “Go back out in that?” He gestured toward the windows and the full-on storm and wilderness-level darkness beyond them. “Now that would definitely be a Bad Idea, Lauren.”

She made a face. “Oh, thanks for reminding me.”

He allowed himself a little grin. “Fair warning, kid. Never show me your weakness. I’ll use it against you.”

“Kid.” She made the face again, though he could see the appellation relaxed her. “I’m twenty-six years old.”

“Be a grown-up then. Go upstairs and take a hot shower. Then we’ll put your clothes in the dryer, I’ll rustle us up some dinner and after that we’ll reassess.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Reassess what?”

She was a suspicious little thing, but God knows that was sensible of her. He shrugged. “We’ll reassess whatever occurs to us.” Like whether he should let her know who he really was. Like whether he could let her drive away from him tonight.

After another swift glance at the scene outside the windows, she appeared to make up her mind. “All right.” She bent to retrieve the throw.

As she handed it to him on her way toward the stairs, he used it to reel her closer.

“What?” she said, startled. Round blue eyes. Quivering curls.

“We haven’t had our hello kiss,” he murmured.

Then, curious as to what it might be like, he placed his mouth on top of hers.

At contact, his heart kicked hard inside his chest. Heat flashed across his flesh, burning from scalp to groin.

Lauren had the softest, most pillowy lips he’d ever encountered in thirty-one years of living. Eighteen years of kissing. His biceps were tight as he lifted his hands to cradle her face.

He took a breath in preparation, then touched the tip of his tongue to hers.

Pow.

They both leaped away from the sweet, hot explosion.

She regained her breath first. “I’ll…I’ll just take that shower,” she said, her gaze glued to his face as if she were afraid to turn her back on him.

“Sure, fine, go on up,” he managed to get out, when he should have said, “Run, Goldilocks. Run as far and as fast as you can.”

As if he wouldn’t run right after her if she tried.

Two

Lauren Conover stared at her bedraggled reflection in the bathroom mirror, looking for any evidence of the backbone she’d thought she’d found this morning before driving to Lake Tahoe. Instead, all she saw was a wet woman with reddened lips and a confused expression in her eyes.

“You were supposed to walk in and break it off with him immediately,” she whispered fiercely to that dazed-looking creature staring back at her. “Nowhere in the plan were you supposed to find him attractive.”

But she had! That was the crazy, spine-melting trouble. When the door to the magnificent log house had opened, there stood Matthias Barton, looking as he always had on those few occasions they’d been together. Dark hair, dark eyes, a lean face that she couldn’t deny was handsome—and yet, never before had it drawn her.

Then he’d invited her inside and when she’d been looking up at him with the fire at her back she’d felt fire at her front, too. A man-woman kind of fire that made her skin prickle and her heart beat fast.

The kind of fire that a woman might be persuaded to marry for.

And she’d come all this way to tell him it wasn’t going to happen.

And it wasn’t!

When her mother had plopped a stack of bridal magazines onto the breakfast table that morning, Lauren had looked at them and then at her thirteen-year-old sister’s face. Her tough-as-nails tomboy sister who had been giving Lauren grief since the engagement had been announced two weeks before.

“You’d better do something quick,” Kaitlyn had said, backing away from the glossy magazines as if they were a tangle of hissing snakes. “Or the next thing you know, Mom will have me in some horrid junior bridesmaid’s dress that I’ll never, ever forgive you for.”

Lauren had known Kaitlyn was right. Her mother’s steamroller qualities were exactly why she’d found herself engaged to a man she barely knew in the first place. That is, her mother’s steamroller qualities combined with her father’s heavy-handed hints about this marriage being good for the family business he always claimed was faltering. As well as Lauren’s own embarrassment over her three previous attempts to make it down the aisle.

She’d picked those men herself and the engagements had each ended in disaster.

So it had been hard to disagree with her mother and father that their choice couldn’t be any worse, despite Kaitlyn’s teenage disgust.

But the sight of those pages and pages of bridal gowns had woken Lauren from the stupor that she’d been suffering since returning home from Paris six months before. Hanging a third now-never-to-be-worn wedding dress in the back of her family’s cedar-lined luggage closet had sent her to a colorless, emotionless place where she’d slept too much, watched TV too much and responded almost robot-like to her parents’ commands.

Until glimpsing that tulled and tiara-ed bride on the front cover of Matrimonial, that is. The sight had hit her like a wake-up slap to the face. What was she thinking? She couldn’t marry Matthias Barton. She couldn’t marry a man for the same cold, cutthroat reasons her father picked a new business partner.

So she’d grabbed her keys and gathered her self-confidence and driven straight to where Matthias had mentioned he’d be staying for the next month, determined to get him out of her life.

Now she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Sighing, she turned away from the mirror and adjusted the spray in the shower. She’d found the master bedroom right off—my God, that luxurious bed had almost made her swoon!—but spun a quick about-face and entered a smaller guest bed and bath instead.

The hot water felt heavenly and some of her uneasiness went down the drain with it. All she had to do was walk back out there and tell that gorgeous hunk of a man that she wasn’t marrying him. He’d probably be as relieved as she was. After that she’d drive home, face the certain-to-be-discordant music chez Conover and get on with the rest of her life.

The rest of her life that wouldn’t include any more engagements to wrong men.

A few minutes later, wrapped in an oversized terry robe she’d found hanging on the bathroom door and carrying her damp clothes in hand, Lauren made her way to the staircase. Some framed photos lined the walls but she didn’t give them but a cursory glance as she was more concerned with getting away from the house than anything. She could tell it was still raining and even from the second-floor landing the downstairs fire looked cozy and inviting, but she straightened her shoulders and mentally fused her vertebrae together.

Break it off, Lauren, she ordered herself as she descended the steps. At once. Then get in your car and drive home. Who cared about not waiting to dry the wet clothes? The robe covered her up just fine.

She could see Matthias standing by the fireplace now. He looked up…and somehow made her feel as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

A flush heated all the skin under the suddenly scratchy terry cloth. Lauren’s nipples hardened—though she wasn’t the least bit cold, oh no sir—and she knew they were poking at the thick fabric. Would he notice? Could he tell?

Would he care?

Trying to pretend nothing was the least amiss, she made herself continue downward. But, man-oh-man, was he something to look at. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and unfastened a second button at the throat. The vee of undershirt she could see was blinding white and contrasted with the dark, past-five-o’clock stubble on his chin and around his mouth.

His mouth made her think of his kiss again. It was just a regular man’s mouth, she supposed, but she liked the wideness of it and the deep etch of his upper lip. She really liked how it had felt on hers and, then, when his tongue had touched—

“Don’t look at me like that,” he suddenly said.

She was two steps from the bottom and the rasp in his voice made her grab for the railing. “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to move, hardly able to speak. “What?”

“You look at me like that and I forget all about my intentions.”

Her mouth went dry. “What intentions?” Maybe they were bad intentions…yet why did the idea of that sound so very good?

Matthias glanced over his shoulder. “My intention to feed you before anything else. Didn’t I promise to rustle up dinner?”

Behind him she could see he’d set two places on the coffee table pulled up before a wide, soft-cushioned couch. Something was steaming—she could smell it, beef bourguignonne?—on two plates and ruby-colored liquid filled two wineglasses. Candles flickered in low votives.

Had she mentioned she was a sucker for candlelight?

She took another whiff of that delicious-smelling food. “Are you a good cook?”

He smiled and she liked that, too. His teeth were as white as his undershirt and they sent another wave of hot prickles across her flesh. “Maybe. Probably. But I’ve never tried.”

She had to laugh at that. “Are you usually so confident? Even if you haven’t attempted something you just expect you’ll excel at it?”

“Of course. ‘Assume success, deny failure.’ My father taught us that.”

“Yikes.” And Lauren thought her cold-blooded père knew how to apply the screws. “That’s a little harsh.”

“You think so?” Matthias walked over to take her wet clothes in one hand and her free hand in the other.

He insinuated his long fingers between hers and the heat of his palm against hers shot toward her shoulder. “I think…I think…” Lauren couldn’t remember what she was about to say. “Never mind.”

He was smiling at her again, as if he understood her distraction. He led her toward the couch. “Let me put your clothes in the dryer, then we’ll eat.”

She stared after his retreating form for a moment, then started back to awareness. She was supposed to take the wet clothes home! Right after she told him the engagement was over! Right before walking out the door without dinner, without anything but her car keys and the comforting thought that she’d done the right thing.

But now he was coming toward her again, that small smile on his face and that appreciative light in his eyes. He brought that attraction between them back into the room, too—all that twitching, pulsing heat that drew her heart to her throat and her blood to several lower locations.

Tell him it’s over! Her good sense shouted.

Tell him later, her sexuality purred, with a languid little stretch.

“Sit down,” Matthias said, reaching out to touch her cheek.

Her knees gave way.

Merely postponing the inevitable. Lauren assured herself that she’d take care of what she came for and leave. Soon.

Except, an excellent dinner later, she was feeling a bit fuzzy from more merlot than she was used to. As well as a lot charmed by the man who had taken their dishes into the kitchen and was now sitting back on the cushions beside her, dangling the stem of his wine-glass between his fingers.

Over the meal he’d entertained her with stories that all revolved around his adventures in take-out dining. If she needed any further evidence that he was a business-obsessed workaholic like her father—and why else would Papa Conover have pushed so hard for her to marry Matthias?—now she had it. The man couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten food prepared in a home.

“Even this doesn’t qualify, I’m afraid,” he said, gesturing to where their plates had been. “The cartons were printed with the name of some gourmet catering place in town.”

“Hunter’s Landing, right?” Lauren asked. “Though it’s not named after your friend from college? The one who built this house?”

Matthias shook his head. “No. Just a little joke on his part, I guess. He had a wild sense of humor.”

The suddenly hoarse note in his voice made her throat tighten. He missed his friend, that was certain. Swallowing a sigh, she closed her eyes. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to be. She didn’t want her parent-picked fiancé to be sexy or charming or vulnerable and, for God’s sake, certainly not all three. It only made it that much harder to break it off with him.

She was always such a nitwit when it came to men. There was a reason she’d been engaged three times before now. There was a reason she’d picked the wrong men and then stuck with them until the humiliating end—until they walked out on her.

“So,” Matthias said, breaking into her morose thoughts. “Enough about me. Tell me all about Lauren.”

All about Lauren? Her eyes popped open and her spirits picked up. Was this the answer? If she told Mr. Assume-Success-Deny-Failure Barton all about Lauren, he might break it off between them himself! Because the truth was, when it came to romance, she was all about failure. And obviously more accustomed to getting dumped than the other way around.

Drawing her legs onto the couch, she turned on her side to face him.

Except his face was directed at her legs, bared by the edges of the terry robe that had opened with her movement. Heat rushing over her face, she yanked the fabric over her pale skin. She wasn’t trying to come on to him. She was trying to get him to see that a marriage between the two of them would never work.

When she cleared her throat, he looked up, without a hint of shame on his face. “Great legs.”

The compliment only served to discombobulate her further. The heat found its way to the back of her neck and she blurted out, “You know, you’re fiancé number four.”

He stared. “Number four?”

Ha. That had him. Now he’d turn off the charm and dam up that oozing sex appeal. She nodded. “I’ve been engaged before. Three other times.”

He gave a small smile. “Optimistic little thing, aren’t you?”

She frowned, bothered that he seemed more amused than appalled by her confession. Maybe he didn’t believe her. Maybe he thought she was joking. Holding up her hand, she ticked them off. “Trevor, Joe and Jean-Paul.”

“All right.” He drained the remainder of his wine and set the glass on the table, as if ready for business. “Give me the down and dirty.”

He still seemed amused. And charming. And sexy.

Blast him.

Lauren took a breath. “I almost married Trevor when we were nineteen. It was going to be a sunset ceremony on the beach, followed by a honeymoon—one that I’d planned and paid for—that would hit all the best surfing spots in Costa Rica. On my wedding day, I was supposed to wear a white bandeau top, a grass skirt I found in a secondhand shop in Santa Cruz, and a crown of plumeria blossoms straight from Hawaii.”

“Sounds fetching,” he said, “though I don’t see you as a surfer.”

“That’s probably the biggest reason Trevor ran off without me. He cashed in our first class tickets for coach ones and took his best surfing buddy to Central America instead. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Lauren experienced a little pang thinking of the bleached-blond she would always consider her first love. He’d driven her parents nuts, she recalled with a reminiscent smile. He’d been the perfect anti-Conover.

“Okay. That’s number one. But why aren’t you now Mrs. Joe…?”

“Rutkowski. His name is Joe Rutkowski.”

Matthias bit his lip. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Joe Rutkowski was—well, is—my father’s mechanic. If you find a good car-man, you don’t break up with him—even if he breaks up with your daughter. That’s what my father says, anyway.”

“So what gave good ol’ Joe second thoughts?”

“His pregnant other girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“Little Jolene was born on my birthday, which also happened to be our proposed wedding date.”

“Tell me you sent a baby gift. Little coveralls? A tiny timing light?”

Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t seem to be getting her point. “My heart was broken. My mother sent a certificate for a month of diaper service and signed my name.” It still annoyed her that she’d lost the opportunity to watch her hoity-toity parents introduce the town’s best Mercedes mechanic as their new son-in-law.

“But your broken heart recovered enough to find yourself in the arms of—what did you say his name was?—Jacques Cousteau?”

“Very funny. Jean-Paul Gagnon.” Her father hated Frenchmen. “I met him in Paris. We were going to get married on top of the Eiffel Tower. I had a tailored white linen suit with a long skirt that went to my ankles and was so tight that I couldn’t run after the nasty little urchin who stole my purse on the way to the ceremony.”

“I hope you’re going to tell me that Jean-Paul took after the urchin himself.”

“He did. But when he came back with my purse he told me that it had given him time to think about what he was doing. And marrying me was not what he wanted to do, after all.” She gazed off into the distance, remembering her disappointment at not being able to shock her parents with the groom she brought home from Europe. “I really liked Jean-Paul.”

“In the morning, I’ll find some place that will feed you crepes.”

In the morning? Lauren jerked her head toward him. “Have you been listening to a thing I said?”

“Of course I have.” He moved closer and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “I just haven’t figured out what the hell it has to do with you and me.”

Lauren swallowed. Here was the opening she’d been waiting for. Now was the time to say, “There is no you and me, Matthias. There never really was.”

Except the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in her tight throat—and all it could handle was breathing, a task that seemed to be so much more complex when he was touching her.

“This is a lot harder than I thought,” she whispered.

A ghost of a smile quirked one corner of his handsome mouth as he slid his fingers between hers. “You’re telling me.”

Despite her breathlessness, she found she could still laugh. “Are you being bad?”

“Not yet. But the night’s still young.”

Night? Good Lord, she’d completely lost track of time. It had been early evening just a minute ago. She checked her watch. “I’ve got to leave.” Scooting back, she tried yanking her hands from his.

He merely held her tighter. “Not now, honey.”

“But Matthias was…”

Something flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t let go. “I may be an SOB, but I’m not completely black-hearted. It’s too late, too dark, too stormy for me to let you leave tonight. It wouldn’t be safe.”

She looked out the windows and could tell he was right. The rain hadn’t let up in the hours she’d been at the house and it was still coming down in torrents. Oh, great. She was stuck with the man she couldn’t bring herself to break up with and her heart was thrumming so fast and he was so gorgeous she worried that if she didn’t get away from him soon she’d…“I’m not so sure it’s safe here, either.”

“Will anyone be worrying about you? Do you need to make a call?”

Registering that he hadn’t addressed the safety issue, she shook her head. “I had planned to stay with a friend in San Francisco for a few days on my way back. She said she’d expect me when she saw me.”

“So here we are.” He dropped her right hand so he could toy with one of her curls instead. “All alone on a dark and stormy night.”

“So here we are,” she echoed. “All alone.” Oh, but her mother definitely could have called this one. Coming up here was truly another of Lauren’s Bad Ideas.

“How do you propose we entertain ourselves?” Matthias asked, twining a lock of her hair around his forefinger.

Lauren pretended not to notice. “Swap ghost stories? That sounds appropriate.”

“But then we might be too scared to sleep.”

Oh God. Her heart jumped and her gaze locked on his face. He was wearing that little smile again, as if he knew that mentioning the words we and sleep in the same sentence had her thinking of the two of them together, in a bed, doing everything but sleeping.

What the heck was going on? In the last few months, she’d chitchatted with Matthias at parties, danced with him a couple of times at charity events, pretended to be interested during family dinners while he talked shop with her father. Not once had she felt the slightest shiver of sexual attraction and now it was all she could do not to squirm in her seat.

Or squirm all over him.

“How come you weren’t like this before?” she demanded.

His teeth flashed white. “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Seriously. Matthias—”

He put his hand over her mouth. “Shh. Don’t talk.”

She reached up to pull his fingers away. “If I don’t talk I’m afraid I’ll—”

And then he stopped that sentence, too, by swooping forward to kiss her for a second time. “Sorry,” he said against her mouth. “I just can’t help myself.”

But she was helping him already by spearing her fingers through the crisp hair at the back of his head. He angled one way, she angled another and then they were really kissing, lips opening, tongues touching, tasting, their breaths and the sweet tang of merlot mingling.

Goose bumps rolled in a wave from the top of her scalp to the tickly skin behind her knees. She scooted closer to him, bumping the outside of his legs. Without breaking the connection of their mouths, he gathered her and the voluminous terry cloth onto his lap. In the move, the robe’s hem rode up and she found herself settling onto him with nothing between her bare behind and his hard slacks-covered thighs.

Yanking her mouth from his, she glanced down, relieved to see that her front was covered decently enough and that the robe was draping her legs modestly, too. Still…“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, taking her hands from his hair.

“What?” His voice was hoarse.

Where to start? The engagement? The kiss? The lap? Or the bare skin which only felt barer because it was against the soft fabric that was clothing all those male muscles? “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

His eyelashes were spiky and dark, as masculine as the rest of him. “So you’re holding out for the wedding night?”

The edge in his voice didn’t surprise her. She felt edgy, too, torn between what her head was advising and what her body was demanding.

“We hardly know each other,” she said. “So all this…this…”

“Hankering for hanky-panky?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “…is a product of the rain, the wine, the—”

“The stone cold truth that we turn each other on hard and fast, Goldilocks, no explanations, no apologies. And to be honest, I’m as floored by it as you are.”

“You are?” Not that she figured he considered her an ogre or anything, but the idea that this kind of “hankering for hanky-panky” wasn’t standard for him, either, was a fascinating notion.

He laughed. “You look awfully pleased with yourself about it.”

“Hey, in the past few years, I’ve been rejected on a regular basis, so forgive my dented ego for giving a little cheer.” The merlot had seriously loosened her tongue.

“Fiancés one through four were idiots.”

“You’re number four,” she reminded him.

“I’m trying to forget that.” At the frown on her face, he shook his head and pinched her chin. “Goldilocks, I’m suggesting we try to forget everything but the fact that it’s a dark and stormy night and we’re alone together with our hankering. What do you say? Why not see where it takes us?”

She stared at him. “That’s male reasoning.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Cogent? To the point?”

“Shortsighted and all about sex.”

“And your point is?”

Oh, he was making her laugh again. And that made her wiggle against his lap. And that made him groan and she was so…well, captivated by the powerful feeling the sound gave her that she leaned in to buss him on the mouth.

Which he turned into a real kiss.

Next thing she knew their tongues were twining and her hands were buried in his hair again. Heat was pouring off of him and his skin tasted a tiny bit salty as she kissed the corner of his mouth. “I want to bottle up this feeling,” she told him, awed by its strength. Sexual chemistry, who knew? “We could market it and make a kabillion dollars.”

“A kabillion is a lot,” he murmured, then turned his attention to her left ear.

Goose bumps sprinted across every inch of her skin as his tongue feathered over the rim to tickle the lobe. “A kabillion-ten,” she corrected herself. “In the first year.”

He traveled back to her mouth, then took his time there, leisurely playing with all the surfaces. Her breath backed up in her lungs when he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. Her fingers tightened on his scalp when he slid the tip of his tongue along the damp skin inside her upper lip. She moaned when he thrust inside her mouth, filling her with his purpose and male demand.

And all the while she was excruciatingly aware of her nakedness under the robe. Of her bareness resting against his pant legs. The soft wool scratched at her skin now, sensitized as it was by the kisses that never let up and the hands that never wandered beyond her hair and her face.

She was fast losing all the reasons why she should be happy about that. In the face of this “hankering” as he called it, she’d been unable to stand up against the kissing. It wasn’t such a bad thing, though, was it? For goodness sake, she was engaged to the man.

Still.

A little voice somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind reminded her she was here to put an end to that engagement, but she shushed the crabby killjoy. Because this man could kiss, and there was no reason to deny herself the pleasure.

Except that kissing was quickly becoming not quite enough.

To ease the growing ache, she squeezed her thighs together and wiggled her naked behind. Matthias tore his lips from hers to gaze at her with serious eyes. “You’re making me crazy.” His mouth was wet.

She dried it with the edge of her thumb. “What’d you say?” She stroked her thumb the other way and he caught it between his teeth. Nipped.

Lauren shivered once and then again when his tongue swiped over her fingertip. The inside of his mouth was hot and wet and she leaned forward to taste it again.

He caught her shoulders, keeping her a breath away. “Lauren, maybe you were right…”

“Just one more.” She pushed at his hands and, as they fell, they took the robe with them. It dropped to her waist.

Leaving her naked from her belly button up.

And frozen between caution and desire.

His gaze stayed on her face, but when she made no move to cover herself, he let it wander southward. Slowly.

Like a caress, she felt it move across her features, from her nose, to her mouth, over her chin and then down the column of her neck.

It traced the edges of her collarbone and her breath caught, held, as he finally stared at her breasts. Under the weight of his gaze, her nipples went from tight to tighter. She glanced down, noticing how hard and darker they looked against the pale skin of her swollen breasts.

Without thinking, she moved her arms up to cover herself.

“Don’t.” He caught her wrists. “Don’t keep them from me.”

Hot chills tumbled down her naked spine. She didn’t want to keep them from him. She didn’t want to keep any part of herself from him.

In a blur of movement, he stood, lifting her in his arms. “Wh—?” she began.

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t talk.” He strode for the staircase, rushing up the steps as if she weighed nothing.

She felt weightless, too, as if she were floating on a cloud of desire. And a cloud of impossible dreams. Good God, could her parents have been right? Had they picked the right man for her after all?

He didn’t hesitate at the top of the stairs, but headed straight for the master bedroom. At the foot of the enormous sleigh bed, he hesitated.

Lauren rested her head against his chest, his heart beating hard and fast in her ear. There was nothing she wanted more than to get naked, completely naked, with him. She smiled up at his face, seductively, she thought. “Matthias? Aren’t you going to make love to me?”

Three

Lauren stirred, stretched, came awake to the knowledge that she was in a strange bed in a strange room, wearing a near-stranger’s T-shirt and nothing else. A trio of emotions washed through her. Relief. Embarrassment. Annoyance that her parent-picked fiancé proved to be more cautious and in control of his libido than she was of hers.

Last night, when she’d said, “Matthias? Aren’t you going to make love to me?” he’d gone still and silent. Further prodding, “Matthias? Matthias?” had caused him to close his eyes as if in pain. Then he’d taken a long deep breath and replied, “No.”

In less than forty-five seconds he’d left her in the guest bedroom with one of his shirts and a kiss on the nose.

You had to hate that kind of self-control in a man.

But now it was morning and from the quiet sound of it, the rain had stopped, so she was free to take herself and her humiliation out of his house. She’d give herself a pass on breaking off the engagement in person. When she got a safe one-hundred miles or so away, she’d give him a call. Better yet, she’d send an e-mail from an anonymous account. Or perhaps a note by slow-flying carrier pigeon.

She wasn’t going to face him again, even if it meant driving home in a knee-length T-shirt and nothing else.

A woman who wasn’t yet thirty and yet who’d been rejected at both the altar and in the bedroom didn’t need to eat any more humble pie, thank you very much.

However, she wasn’t destined for near-naked driving that day. When she inched open the bedroom door, she found a neat pile of her dried clothing. Once she’d pulled it on, she crossed to the door again, listened to the quiet for a moment, then tiptoed along the hall and down the stairs on the first leg of her furtive escape.

Only to find her host was watching her take those exaggerated silent footsteps over the rim of a coffee cup.

“Oh, uh, hi.” She tried tacking on a casual expression to convince him that strutting like a soundless rooster was one of her normal morning activities. “I didn’t, um, see you there.”

Seeing him was the problem! Seeing him reminded her of what he’d looked like last night, smiling at her, touching her hair, her face, coming close-up for kisses that were burned into her mind. Crossing her arms over her chest, she tried banishing the memories of his dark gaze on her naked breasts.

How much she’d wanted him to touch her.

In an abrupt move, he half turned away, the liquid in his cup sloshing dangerously close to the edge. “Are you ready for that breakfast I promised?”

“Breakfast?” She sounded stupid, but she felt stupid that even sans merlot, cozy firelight and distant drumming of the rain, her attraction to him was alive and quite, quite well.

Her attraction to the man who’d been able to deny everything she’d offered him last night.

“I said I’d feed you.” He turned back. “And if I don’t get some decent caffeine I might start gnawing on table legs. I freely admit to being a coffee snob and this stuff isn’t up to my usual standards. This stuff is instant. There isn’t anything else in the house.”

“Oh. Well. Then.” She would have liked nothing better than to grab her keys and get out of there, but she was suddenly rediscovering that spine of hers. And her pride. Instead of running off like a cowardly ninny, she’d spend another hour with him.

Then she’d hide off someplace where she could rent a pigeon.

An hour without making a further fool of herself. That shouldn’t be so hard, should it?

She chalked up the silence of the car ride into the tiny town of Hunter’s Landing to his need for quality caffeine. For herself, she managed to clamp down on her usual nervous babble by digging her fingernails into her palms whenever she felt compelled to volley a conversational gambit.

She was afraid a neutral comment intended to sound like “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” might come out as a plaintive “Why didn’t you go to bed with me last night?”

So she created some half-moon marks in her hands and applied herself to observing the view outside his SUV’s windows. It was a beautiful morning. The road was narrow and windy, taking them through heavy woods with pine boughs that still held raindrops winking like crystals in the sunlight. Every once in a while she’d catch a glimpse of the lake, its deep blue a match of the spring sky overhead.

As they neared the town, there was a slow-moving parade of “traffic”—actually a short line of cars in both directions that were pulling into or out of parking lots of small stores and cafés. Matthias glanced over at her. “Have you been to the lake before?”

She nodded. “But only during ski season.”

“You downhill? Cross-country? Snowboard?”

“Truth? I’m best at hot chocolate and stoking the fire.”

He grinned. “A woman after my own heart.”

Ha. After last night, they both knew that wasn’t true. “What, you don’t like snow activities that much either?”

“No, I like all sorts of snow activities. But when I’m done playing, I like a warm beverage, a warm fire and a warm woman waiting.”

She curled her lip at him. “That’s an incredibly sexist thing to say.”

He steered the car into a parking space outside a restaurant called Clearwater’s. “Hey, I didn’t say I expected it to be that way, only that I liked it. Since you do, too, I don’t see the problem.”

What did he mean by that? Did he mean he didn’t see the problem that she had with his comment or that, given their natural proclivities, he didn’t think they’d have a problem with their marriage during ski season?

Except they weren’t getting married. And she wasn’t going to bother making that point in case he really was only referring to the comment and he’d think her assumption about thinking he was referring to their marriage incredibly presumptuous. Oh, God. Now she was babbling to herself.

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