“It’s time to make a deal.” About the Author Books by Kathleen O’Brien Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN Copyright

“It’s time to make a deal.”

Taylor continued. “An alliance, a partnership for the purpose of forming a family. Neither one of us can live with a joint-custody arrangement. Still, Justin must have a father and a mother.... So I’m suggesting that we take on the job together.”

“Do you mean....” Brooke opened her mouth, but nothing more would come out.

“Yes, this is a prenuptial agreement. I’m asking you to marry me.”

“I don’t know. I—I guess I always thought I would marry for love.”

His gaze was dark, hooded. “Well, isn’t that what we would be doing? We both love Justin, don’t we?”

FROM HERE TO PATERNITY—romances that feature fantastic men who eventually make fabulous fathers. Some seek paternity, some have it thrust upon them, all will make it—whether they like it, or not!

KATHLEEN O’BRIEN, who lives in Florida, started out as a newspaper feature writer, but after marriage and motherhood, she traded that in to work on a novel. She writes with intensity and emotional depth, and we know you’ll be gripped by her latest book, The Daddy Deal—it will make you laugh, make you cry, and you won’t want it to end!

Books by Kathleen O’Brien

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The Daddy Deal

Kathleen O'Brien

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Celie.

Thanks for the wings of your laughter,

the ballast of your wisdom.

And, most of all, for the friendship of a lifetime.

CHAPTER ONE

TAYLOR PRYCE cursed under his breath as he watched the freckled kid on the swing. Didn’t public playgrounds have any supervision? If that kid didn’t slow down, he was going to crack his head open like a watermelon.

Hooking his hands through the openings on the chainlink fence, Taylor fought the urge to yell at the boy, who was about five years old and, if he didn’t stop trying to turn himself upside down on that swing, probably wouldn’t live to be six.

But Taylor managed to control himself. It wasn’t his problem. The kid’s mother was sitting just ten feet away, placidly gossiping with the other moms. She clearly wasn’t worried about how centrifugal force worked, or about concussions and busted skulls. Taylor turned around, unable to bear the gut-twisting suspense of watching the swing lurch higher and higher. It wasn’t, he repeated to himself, his problem.

He adjusted the knot on his tie uncomfortably. God, it was going to be a hot day. Checking his watch, he cast a scowling gaze around the park, which was already crowded on this steamy June morning. Kids everywhere. Mothers and infants, fathers and sons, balls and Frisbees and jump ropes. Didn’t anyone have to work on a midweek morning anymore? Was everyone in Florida a tourist? And where the devil was McAllister?

The kids on the playground behind him were really turning up the volume, squealing and hollering at one another like wild animals. Again he controlled the urge to turn around and check on the preschool daredevil. It was ridiculous. When had Taylor Pryce, thirty-year-old professional bachelor, developed this sudden fidgety paternal streak?

But, of course, he knew when it had happened—he knew to the day, to the minute. It happened more than a year ago, when he had read an old love letter addressed to his dead brother, a letter that spoke of a baby on the way.

Somehow, ever since that moment, while his lawyers combed the country, searching for that baby, Taylor’s subconscious had been training him, getting him ready to be a father.

A father. He shut his eyes against the bright morning sun. God, that sounded strange. Until the letter had surfaced, he hadn’t even known he was an uncle. But the letter left no room for doubt. Jimmy, who died two years ago in some crazy, war-torn European country Taylor had hardly known existed, had left behind a child, a little boy, now almost two years old. A boy who should bear the Pryce name—but didn’t. A boy who had been... Taylor clenched his teeth. There was only one word for it. Stolen. His nephew had been stolen.

Taylor jerked his tie down an inch and pried his top button loose. It must be a hundred degrees out here. Where the hell was Charlie?

But just as Taylor pulled his keys out of his pocket, ready to head back to his car, Charlie McAllister’s pudgy, sweat-drenched face jogged into sight.

“It’s about time,” Taylor said as Charlie plopped on the bench in front of him, wiping his gleaming face with his terry wristband. “Weren’t we supposed to meet at eight?”

Charlie leaned his head back, dramatically out of breath. “Yeah, well, I don’t run as fast as I used to.” He mopped the sweat from his neck and arms. “And you don’t run at all; you lazy son of a gun. How the hell do you stay so fit?”

Taylor just raised his eyebrows—they’d been through this before, and Charlie knew full well that it had something to do with the half-dozen doughnuts he’d scarfed down before his run this morning. Besides, they hadn’t met out here to discuss exercise programs. Propping one foot up on the bench beside his friend, Taylor rotated his shoulders slightly, stretching out the tension while he waited for Charlie’s heaving chest to slow down.

His patience gave out quickly. Charlie was stalling, and that was a bad sign. “Well?”

Charlie hung his short white towel over his neck and gave Taylor a sorrowful look. “Nothing,” he said mournfully. “Zilch.”

“Nothing?” Taylor didn’t ordinarily waste time repeating the obvious, but he could hardly believe his ears. “Nothing?”

Charlie shrugged. “Well, nothing you can use anyway. Nothing that would seriously impeach her character, or the adoption itself. Apparently, Brooke Davenport adopted Justin in good faith—”

“Good faith?” Taylor leaned over and jammed his forefinger against his thigh angrily. “With my name forged on those adoption papers?”

“We’ve only your word for that, Taylor.” Before Taylor could let loose the oath that rose in his throat, Charlie put up a placating hand. “And don’t scowl at me like that. You know what I mean. I’m talking as your lawyer now, and legally it’s your word against theirs. It’s a damned good forgery—even the experts we hired can’t agree whether it’s a fake.”

“It is.” Taylor’s lips were tight, and the words sounded like a hiss.

“Well, we’re going to have to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt if we expect a judge to take Justin away from the only family he’s ever known.” Charlie met Taylor’s gaze steadily. “Away from what is, by all accounts, a damn good mother.”

Taylor narrowed his eyes. “Tell me.”

“Okay, but it’s really just a bunch of negatives.” Charlie took another unnecessary swipe at his upper lip with the towel. “No record, except for a couple of parking tickets. No drugs, no alcohol, no wild nights at the local saloon.”

“Boyfriends?”

Charlie shook his head. “Nope. She spends all day with Justin. She works in her garden. Grows a lot of roses. Then at night, she’s still working as a nurse, mostly nights, mostly private duty. Not much time for a love life, actually.”

“Who’s home with Justin all night, then?”

“A nurse friend of hers, older lady.”

“What about her?” Taylor knew he was grasping at straws, but damn it, there just had to be some chink in Brooke Davenport’s armor. “Any chance this other woman isn’t fit....?”

Charlie smiled, obviously following Taylor’s line of desperation logic. “You mean is there any chance the old lady is really Ma Barker? Any chance she slips out at night to rob convenience stores, leaving Justin all alone in his crib?” He shook his head. “Sorry. We’ve already checked her out. She’s just a nice, semiretired nurse who rents a room from Brooke in return for a little baby-sitting.”

Taylor expelled a frustrated breath and pulled on his left earlobe. “God, Charlie—”

“I know.” Charlie’s eyes were sympathetic, though his tone was determinedly light. “All the wickedness in this heathen world, and we have to stumble into a nest of saints.”

Taylor frowned. Something about all this didn’t make sense. “There aren’t very many single, twenty-six-year-old female saints around today, Charlie. Why no boyfriends? Is she hideous?”

“Hardly!” Charlie laughed as if the word were a joke, and Taylor wondered just how attractive Brooke Davenport really was. He should have asked to see a picture of her. Though he was considered a tough and astute lawyer, Charlie McAllister was a notorious pushover for a pretty lady, and Taylor had noticed a definite softening in Charlie’s attitude toward the whole situation since they had finally located Justin and his adoptive mother.

“So why no men in her life? Surely that’s odd in itself.”

“No, no.” Charlie seemed irritable, as if he resented Taylor’s implications. “There’ve been men, naturally. She was engaged a couple of years ago to a lawyer named Westover. I checked him, too. Good-looking guy, but word is he’s a little short on ethics. Anyway, he didn’t approve of the adoption, didn’t want to be saddled with a damaged kid, I guess, so the relationship went sour.”

“Still—”

“And, of course, there was the teenage fiasco—” Charlie stopped himself abruptly, as if he had said something he hadn’t meant to say. He fussed with the laces on his jogging shoes. “Anyway, as I said, for our purposes there’s nothing. She’s normal, but temporarily celibate. She’s not a saint, I guess, but she’s darn close.”

But Taylor wasn’t so easily distracted. He straightened slowly. “What teenage fiasco?”

Charlie frowned. “Ancient history,” he equivocated, moving to his other shoe, grunting as he bent over farther than his paunch wanted to let him. “Irrelevant.”

Taylor frowned, too, glaring down at Charlie’s bald spot, which was pink with incipient sunburn. “Whose side are you on here, Charlie?” His voice was hard, even harder than he had intended it to be, and he took a deep breath of muggy air. This thing was really getting to him.

Charlie stopped pretending interest in the shoes. “Yours,” he said calmly, meeting Taylor’s eyes with the same guileless brown gaze Taylor remembered from childhood, the same straightforward honesty that had made Charlie the undisputed referee of all their crowd’s boyhood arguments. “Yours. You know that.”

“Then why are you holding back on me? If you’ve found out something we can use—”

“I haven’t.” Charlie leaned back with a sigh, wadding his towel up and tossing it roughly onto the bench beside him. “Look, Taylor, I’m telling you it’s old news. Ten years old, in fact. When Brooke Davenport was sixteen, she got pregnant. The boyfriend was only a little older—eighteen, I think. Parental apoplexy all around, as you can imagine. Turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy, though, and the poor kid damn near died of it. Lost the baby, of course, and it messed her up so badly there probably won’t be any more pregnancies, planned or otherwise.”

Taylor could hear the edge that had crept into Charlie’s voice, an edge of pity for Brooke Davenport and irritation toward Taylor for pushing the issue. But though he knew it was a sad story, and his heart tightened in spite of himself, Taylor wouldn’t allow himself to lose sight of the main point.

“Well, I’m sorry she can’t have kids, but that doesn’t give her the right to steal someone else’s child, does it?”

Charlie’s eyes hardened, and suddenly he looked more like the tough opponent other lawyers met in court. “Listen here, Taylor—”

But Taylor ignored the dangerous flash in his friend’s eyes. He had a feeling his own eyes looked pretty dangerous right now, too.

“And besides,” he went on ruthlessly, “who says we can’t use the information? Maybe she’s developed an obsession. Maybe being sterile has given her a fixation about adopting, so that she’d do anything to get a baby, even forge my name to those papers. If that could be proved—”

Charlie cursed, an expression of frustration he rarely allowed himself. “God, Taylor, do you hear yourself?”

“What? I’m just being practical. This is no time to get squeamish, Char—”

Before Taylor could finish, a clamor broke out on the playground behind them. Someone was hurt. Above the scuffling of bodies and the confused tumult of voices, Taylor could hear the wailing of a child in pain. He spun around, a foreboding settling in his gut. And he was right—the swing was empty now, twisting crazily back and forth. The freckled little boy was finally on the ground, screaming in fear as his mother knelt next to him, trying to inspect the rapidly reddening scrapes on his cheeks, hands and knees.

Taylor watched the woman fold the kid in her arms, comforting and scolding all at once. Damn! He had known it was going to happen. He should have said something—he should have done something. But he hadn’t had the right to get involved. The child wasn’t his.

He tried to hold back the sense of impotence that threatened to overwhelm him. Somewhere in this town, his brother’s child might be in need, too, and Taylor had no right to get involved in that, either. He cursed under his breath. It was unendurable.

He wheeled back toward Charlie. “I’m going to get him,” he said, his voice sounding as if it had been scoured with sandpaper. “I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what anybody thinks. That boy is my nephew. My flesh and blood. And, by God, I’m going to take him back from that woman if it’s the last thing I do.”

To his surprise, Charlie’s gaze was once again sympathetic, drifting from the scene on the playground to Taylor, then back to the crying boy again. Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll think of something.”

“I already have,” Taylor said curtly, pulling his pen out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “Give me the woman’s address.”

Charlie recoiled subtly, his eyes narrowing. “Why? I thought you didn’t want me to approach her. I thought you didn’t want me to let her know we were investigating.”

“I don’t.” Taylor held out the pen and a slim black notebook, pointing them at Charlie’s chest like weapons. “Just give me her address.”

The lawyer took the pen reluctantly. “What the devil are you planning?” He began, very slowly, to write, and Taylor waited silently while he scribbled a few words on the page.

Sighing deeply, he handed the notebook to Taylor, who gave it only one short glance before flipping it shut. One glance was all he needed. 909 Parker Lane—he’d remember that address until the day he died.

Turning his head away from Charlie’s disapproving frown, Taylor watched the little boy hobble off the playground, sobbing inconsolably into his mother’s skirt. He could feel Charlie standing behind him, his anxiety and annoyance almost as palpable as the heat around them.

“I asked you a question,” Charlie said slowly. “What are you planning to do?”

Taylor turned his head an inch. He could just see the other man out of the corner of his eye.

“Whatever it takes,” he said grimly, sliding the notebook back into his breast pocket. “Whatever it takes.”

Was it just that she was so tired, Brooke Davenport wondered, or was the Eberson Theater looking particularly surreal tonight?

Ordinarily, Brooke loved the exotic old movie palace, which dated from the Roaring Twenties. The auditorium walls were covered with sculpted facades to suggest an open-air Mediterranean courtyard; its ceiling was painted violet, like a twilight sky, and dotted with electric “stars”.

Tonight, though, as she followed Clarke Westover through the glittering throng of wealthy Floridians who had gathered to raise money for the theater’s ongoing restoration, Brooke suddenly found the atmosphere unnerving. She swept her tired gaze across the walls that climbed up toward the artificial twilight. Not one square inch had been left uncarved. Scrolls, vines, flowers, birds and cherubs all twisted together in nightmarish intimacies. It was almost suffocating.

Or perhaps the auditorium was just too crowded. She took a deep breath of the stuffy, overconditioned air and tried to ignore the champagne that splashed over her knuckles as yet another tuxedo bumped into her. The seats had been removed—the latest phase of the renovation—and replaced for the evening with a temporary floor and small wrought-iron tables and chairs. Brooke looked longingly at every empty chair they passed. She was so tired—she had barely slept for the past week. If only Clarke had agreed to meet her in his office. This whole ordeal could have been over by now.

Instead, it was just beginning. Climbing to the stage, the emcee tapped his microphone and announced that it was time to open the auction. An expectant murmur rode through the room like a wave, and the guests began gliding toward their seats, a psychedelic rainbow of silk swirling against a checkerboard of black-and-white tuxedos.

Brooke was just barely able to keep up with Clarke’s broad, black-clad back—he was moving fast, more accustomed than she to maneuvering through elegant party crushes. Without warning, the room dimmed as someone turned down the stars, and for a frightening second Brooke wondered if she were fainting.

“Clarke...”

She clutched at his hand for balance, a moment of weakness she regretted when she saw his surprised smile broaden into self-satisfaction. Ahhh, that smile said—now he had her precisely where he wanted her. After almost two years of keeping a strained distance, she had finally come crawling back to him, just as he had always predicted she would.

Except that it wasn’t true. When she had telephoned him this morning, she’d been scrupulously careful to explain that her call was strictly business. But she had known, from the minute he insisted on meeting her at this society function, that he was reading something more personal into it.

What a mess! She tried to extricate her hand unobtrusively, but his cold grip was proprietary and unyielding. Finally, just as she began to feel slightly claustrophobic, Clarke found the table assigned to them and pulled out her chair with a flourish.

She sat, her whole body sinking with relief, though the iron was stiff and unwelcoming. When Clarke draped his arm loosely around the back of her chair, Brooke pretended not to notice. She knew she had to tread very carefully. If she wounded his pride, he would find a way to make her pay.

Exhausted tears suddenly stung behind Brooke’s eyes. How high would the price be? Would he refuse to help her, to talk to Mr. Alston for her? Or would he go even further? He knew that Alston, the millionaire builder whose legal affairs he handled, was the one man in Tampa who actually desired Brooke’s little bungalow enough to pay three times its appraised value. Could Clarke possibly be capable of advising Mr. Alston not to buy?

“Seven hundred once, twice—” The gavel thumped, echoing in the microphone, and Brooke started slightly. “Sold to Mr. Westover, number twenty-three, for seven hundred dollars.”

She looked up, stunned. She hadn’t even realized that Clarke was bidding on anything, hadn’t, in truth, even realized the auction was under way. Seven hundred dollars? Good Lord, what was he buying? She glanced over at him, and even in the dim light she could see the flush of triumph on his features.

“Bastard thought he was going to take it away from me,” Clarke muttered to her out of the side of his mouth.

“Who?” She was confused, as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Take what away?”

“Number three-oh-four.” Clarke shifted his eyes subtly to the table on their immediate right, where a man sat, absently tapping his card on the arm of his chair while he chatted softly with a stunning brunette. “See him? Taylor Allen. Man’s a damn fool. It’s a good case of champagne, but not that good. It’s not worth more than six hundred.”

Brooke wasn’t sure which of the two men had been proved the bigger fool—Taylor What’s-his-name, who had lost the opportunity to overpay for the case of champagne, or Clarke, who seemed so smugly pleased to have done so—but she knew better than to voice any such thoughts. Clarke had caught Taylor’s eye, and the other man raised his glass with a small smile, as if saluting Clarke’s acumen. Clarke returned the gesture, bowing slightly, and Brooke inwardly flinched. Was she the only one who saw the mockery in Taylor’s eyes?

“Usher!” Clarke’s sudden whisper, spoken over his shoulder, was sharp and piercing. “We’ll have a bottle now.” The usher nodded and disappeared, and Clarke turned to Brooke. “To celebrate,” he said softly. “An important champagne for an important night.”

“Clarke...” She leaned forward, suddenly desperate to straighten things out now, before they went too far. “Clarke, I hope you understand that I just wanted to ask you—”

“Shhh...” The emcee had begun hawking a celebrity autograph. Clarke had returned his attention to the stage, though she could tell he was watching Taylor out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see whether the other man desired the item before he bid on it.

Clarke needn’t have bothered. Taylor couldn’t have been more disinterested. His brunette, whose preferred method of communication seemed to be through her fingertips, was talking to him, and their heads were bent together in a heart-shaped shadow. Brooke watched them for a moment, envying the brunette her utter sangfroid.

The woman was quite beautiful, and judging from the understated glamour of her dress, she had no money problems, no sick child at home. No, the brunette had nothing more troubling on her mind than whether she could make Taylor kiss her.

Even that didn’t seem to be much in question. As Brooke watched, too tired to subdue the demon of envy, the man smiled at some soft coquetry the brunette tossed his way. And what a smile... For a space no longer than the pulse of a heartbeat, something intensely female lurched inside Brooke, something warm and electric she hadn’t felt in years—something she certainly hadn’t expected to feel tonight.

The sensation disappeared as quickly as it came, though. Feeling foolish, Brooke averted her eyes and gulped down some of Clarke’s seven-hundred-dollar champagne, which the obedient usher had just poured into her glass.

She drank again, aware of growing slightly tipsy, blessedly numb. How depressing. How desperately depressing. It was proof of how exhausted she really was that, even after a glimpse of that smile, she still wanted more than anything to go home and sleep—alone—for a week.

Was she really a dried-up old woman at only twenty-six? Had the past two years of constant worry—worry about expensive doctors and painful operations and her little boy sobbing in bewildered pain—left her with a heart too withered to enjoy, even for a moment, a handsome man’s beautiful, sexy smile?

Finally, halfway through the second bottle, the auction was over. Though by now she could hardly feel her tongue, could hardly string her words together with anything approaching eloquence or diplomacy, she began trying to explain to Clarke why she had asked to see him.

She heard it all as if someone else were speaking. “The doctors say Justin’s new skin graft has to be done right away,” she said. “They think the old one, the one just above his rib cage, has healed awkwardly—and it might be restricting the use of his left arm.” She was proud of the matter-of-fact tone she achieved. The words might be slurred a little, but at least they weren’t spoken through tears. “So I have to find more money, and I have to find it soon.”

Clarke’s face seemed colder than before, more remote. “What about your inheritance from your grandmother? You told me you’d use that to finance Justin’s medical care.”

“It’s gone.” In her mind’s eye, Brooke could see the rapidly decreasing numbers marching across her bank statements. The inheritance had been small to begin with. Two years of expensive surgeries had been like an open drain, and the money had flowed through it in a flood. “I...” She tried to think of a way to put it. “I guess I underestimated the number of op—”

Clarke broke in with a bitter laugh. “I told you, didn’t I? I knew you had no idea what you were getting into. No idea at all.”

“No,” she agreed meekly. He was right. She hadn’t listened to him, hadn’t even wanted to know. You couldn’t put a price tag on love. She had been rescuing Justin, an orphan in a dangerous foreign country, from being sold to the highest bidder by two uncles who had no interest in taking responsibility for a badly burned, badly frightened infant. What did it matter, in such a case, how much the doctors were going to cost?

“You were right. I had no idea at all.” She leaned forward. “Anway, the bungalow is the only asset I have left.”

Clarke raised his brows. “It’s pretty small. Is it worth enough to pay for the operation?”

“No.” She bit her lower lip and folded her hands, white-knuckled, on the table in front of her. “That’s why I needed to see you. Your Richard Alston has always wanted to buy it, you know. A few years ago he offered me almost three times its appraised value.”

Clarke nodded warily. “Yes, but you turned him down. As I recall, he told you then he’d never make the offer again. He’s not a man who takes rejection well. He’s not accustomed to it.”

She drew in a deep breath and tried to sound sweet—the way Clarke liked her. “I know. That’s why I’m coming to you. I was hoping you might be able to coax him into reinstating the offer. Maybe not at the full price he offered before, but something—something that would help me cover the expenses...”

Halfway through the speech, she saw Clarke’s face was tightening. His lips seemed to be closing in on themselves, his eyes disappearing into the folds of their lids.

He was furious. Oh, God. She had so hoped that he could put their personal issues behind him long enough to see that the suggestion she was making him could benefit both of them. But the sight of his tense, offended features was far from reassuring, and she swallowed hard before finishing up in a rush of awkward words.

“So I was hoping that perhaps you could set something up.” She smiled ingratiatingly. “It could work to your advantage, too, earn you some goodwill if he realizes you’re the one making it possible. He might be grateful, and—”

“Wait a minute.” Clarke broke through Brooke’s stumbling explanations, waving his right hand, his diamond-studded signet ring glinting under the electric stars. “Are you telling me that all of this—your call, our date—this really is just about business?”

His color had risen along with his voice, and Brooke had to steel herself not to flinch. All around them, people who had been murmuring politely over their champagne glasses were casting curious, sidelong glances their way.

His scowl, though fierce, looked suddenly a lot like the approach of one of Justin’s two-year-old tantrums, and even through her anxiety, Brooke felt a surge of relief that she hadn’t actually married this man. She must have been mad, quite completely mad, ever to have considered it.

“I did say it was just business.” She defended herself mildly, trying not to inflame him any further, but her tone was firm. “I wanted to meet at your office, but you. insisted on bringing me here—”

“I didn’t have time at my office.” Clarke’s flush deepened. “You said it had to be today, and I was booked solid. I’m a damned busy man, Brooke.”

“I know you are.” She forced herself to soothe him.

“I’m grateful, really I am, that you’re making the time to talk to me now. And of course I’m pleased to get the chance to be part of such a lovely evening....”

She rattled on, not allowing herself to feel humiliated by hand-feeding this petty man’s ego. It was for Justin, she reminded herself desperately.

She gave it her best, but Clarke was clearly only marginally mollified. Finishing his drink with a sharp, backward toss of his head, he drummed his fingers on the small wrought-iron table between them and let his eyes roam the room, checking out the other guests, refusing to meet Brooke’s gaze.

“So what do you think?” She was losing patience with his petulance. Though she knew it was suicidal, the champagne was playing havoc with her self-control. “Do you think Mr. Alston is still interested? I really need to sell the house soon, Clarke.”

Clarke swiveled in his chair. “Jennifer!” he cried in patently feigned surprise. “Look, there’s Jennifer Hanlon!” He stood, excusing himself curtly with a wave of his hand and, with a deliberate discourtesy, pushed his way through the crush of bodies toward a lovely blonde swathed in mink.

At-first, Brooke was too stunned to be angry. Her gaze followed him numbly, watching his slow, self-important progress through the crowd. The dancing was just about to begin, the orchestra already in the pit, tuning up, and the floor was dense with people, all of whom seemed to know Clarke. He stopped every few feet, eager to slap another back, shake another hand.

She tilted her head down, trying to compose herself. What a fool she had been to think that Clarke would help her. He didn’t understand anything. He still thought life was just a power play, where you lived for the chance to one-up your enemies.

He didn’t have any idea how far she had traveled beyond that pinched world of his. He had no idea what it was like to be a parent, to love someone more than you loved yourself. And he didn’t know real grief—didn’t know what it felt like to hear your child crying, begging you to make his pain go away, every syllable falling onto your raw nerves like the lash of a whip, maddening you, making you choke on your own impotent rage and fear, making you offer fate any Faustian bargain you can imagine.

But fate was deaf and didn’t answer.

She drew a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe she should call home. It was only nine, and maybe Justin hadn’t fallen asleep yet. Gretchen let him stay up late, and Brooke couldn’t really blame her for it. When he begged for one more story, it was terribly hard to say no. They were spoiling him, Brooke knew. But he had been through so much....

Yes. She’d call home. She dug blindly through her purse. Hearing Justin’s voice would chase these stupid tears back where they belonged. Justin was her focus. She would just call to say good-night one more time—

“Are you all right?”

At the sound of a strange masculine voice, Brooke looked up guiltily, her hands frozen knuckle-deep in her purse as if she had been caught burrowing through someone else’s wallet instead of her own. To her shock, the man who had battled Clarke over the case of champagne—Clarke had said his name was Taylor, Taylor something, what was his last name?—was standing next to her. Alone. His brunette had vanished.

A stray tear dribbled onto the corner of her mouth, and Brooke felt herself flushing. He was watching her quietly, studying her with the dispassionate curiosity he might have given an intriguing but perplexing painting. She knew what he was thinking. He was probably wondering why she sat here alone downing champagne in the wake of a date who was conspicuously ignoring her. Wondering why she was pale and on the verge of a crying jag. Wondering, perhaps, whether that meant she was an easy mark...

She tried to lick the tear from her lip unobtrusively. Strange. He didn’t look like the kind of man who had to prey on other men’s rejects. In this dim light, some of the details were unclear-eye color, for instance—but he projected the confidence of a man accustomed to finding a welcome wherever he went. Now that he had unfolded himself from the chair, she saw that he was at least six foot two. He wore that tuxedo as if he’d been born in it.

And that smile...

He was holding out a snowy, softly folded handkerchief, smiling at her over his outstretched hand. It was a slow smile, and when it reached his eyes it lit them from within, revealing green sparks that were at once strangely new and amazingly familiar.

“Thank you.” She forced herself to smile back as she accepted the handkerchief. His expression was calmly neutral, but somehow it seemed to impart strength to her. “To tell you the truth, though,” she said, blotting her eyes carefully, then returning the slightly soggy white square with an apologetic grimace, “I was actually digging around in here looking for a quarter.”

He tilted his head, silently speculating, but without a word he extracted a silver coin from his pocket and held it out.

Brooke’s face burned—she must have sounded as if she were panhandling the man—but there was nothing to do but take the quarter. “Thank you,” she said again stiffly, closing her band around it, feeling its hard, cool edges grow warm in her palm.

“The pay phones are in the lobby,” he said conversationally, as if he handed money to crying ladies every day. “But I’m sure one of the ushers will call a taxi for you if you need a ride home.”

“A taxi?” She was momentarily confused, but she followed his gaze across the room and saw that he was looking at Clarke, who was still clutching the blonde, his fingers buried deep in the mink that caressed her shoulders. “Oh...” She shook her head. “No, I just need to call home to check on my son. I’m not leaving.”

“Really?” He raised one brow. “Why not?”

Such unexpected bluntness confused her, and she stared stupidly. for a moment, as if she hadn’t understood him. “Why not?” she echoed hollowly. Oh, God, why had she drunk so many glasses of champagne? She must sound like an idiot. “Well, because Clarke is coming right back. We were in the middle of a rather important discussion, you see, so he’ll have to come right back....”

But even as she spoke, she saw that Clarke was now at the far side of the auditorium, his cellular telephone held self-importantly to his ear, and the blonde still clinging to his arm. He stopped for a moment at the door, saying something to the usher without even lowering the flip phone.

The usher nodded uncertainly, looking uncomfortable, but Clarke spoke sharply to the younger man, who nodded again and began picking his way hurriedly back toward Brooke’s table. She watched his approach helplessly, a dread certainty settling like a weight in her chest.

“Mr. Westover says he regrets he’s been called away,” the usher said when he finally made it across the room. He looked a bit confused himself. “An emergency. He asked me to tell you.”

Brooke nodded. Fury and humiliation warred within her, and the result was a strange, passive paralysis. “Thanks,” she said, as if he had brought her a present. And then, nonsensically, again. “Yes, well. Thank you.”

“Ummm...” The young man shifted from one foot to the other and bit his lip. “Um, the thing is, someone needs to settle Mr. Westover’s bill.”

Brooke slowly turned and stared at the young man blankly. “His bill?” The word had no meaning, really. It was just a collection of sounds. How could Clarke have left her here? If she had imagined a hundred cruel paybacks, she could never have thought of this one. She didn’t know another soul in this room. Struggling single-mom nurses didn’t exactly hobnob with Tampa’s social royalty.

“Well, yes, you see... Mr. Westover bought some champagne at the auction, remember?” He looked pointedly at the glass she held in her trembling hand. “You’re drinking it now. But no one paid for it, you see, and now Mr. Westover seems to have left, and well, I wondered if maybe he had left his credit card with you....”

Brooke whirled, horrified. She set her champagne glass on the table as if it had been poisoned. Seven hundred dollars? Was Clarke insane? Where on earth was she going to get seven hundred dollars? Just five minutes ago she would have considered herself wealthy if she’d been able to dredge up a quarter. She dropped onto the chair, trying to make the suddenly tilting room stand still.

Brooke was hardly a socialite, but even she understood that people who bid at fund-raisers were as honor bound as poker players to make good their debts. She half expected someone to call the manager, to call the police, to tie an apron around her blatantly inferior party dress and send her in to wash the dishes.

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming, irrational urge to laugh. Seven hundred dollars was a whole lot of dishes.

“No, no, he didn’t give me any instructions,” she managed to say. Somehow she forced herself to look at the man beside her, who had been a nonchalant spectator through the whole embarrassing scene. To her shock, he was smiling composedly down at the perspiring usher. And he was holding out a silver credit card between two long, perfectly shaped fingers.

“It’s no. problem at all,” he was saying soothingly.

“I’m sure it was just an oversight on Mr. Westover’s part. I’ll get him to reimburse me tomorrow.”

“Oh, no!” She couldn’t let this happen. Brooke reached up and clutched the man’s arm. “No, you mustn’t!”

But it was too late. The usher, not fool enough to let such a simple solution slip through his fingers, had already whisked the credit card out of the man’s dark hand. She stared at him, sinking back against the stiff iron of her chair.

“Mr....” she began miserably, wishing she at least could remember his name.

He smiled. “Call me Taylor,” he said graciously. “Taylor,” she repeated weakly. “You mustn’t do that. It’s not up to you to—”

“But I already did.” He pulled out the chair that Clarke had vacated and, settling himself comfortably in it, turned his beautiful smile toward Brooke.

“But you can’t be sure that Clarke will—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He held up the half-empty bottle that still perched in its nest of ice. “I was bidding on it anyway. I’ll be perfectly happy to own the case myself, if it comes to that. It will be reward enough if you’ll invite me to share a glass with you. I think I’d like to make a toast.”

She frowned. She must have had too much champagne. She couldn’t catch up somehow, couldn’t follow the dizzying turn of events. Catch up? Good heavens—when he smiled at her like that, she couldn’t even catch her breath.

“A toast?”

“Yes,” he said, pouring each of them half a glass, then lifting his. “To Clarke Westover, wherever he is right now.”

Her frown deepened. “Do you know Clarke?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. I know him.” His voice had undertones she couldn’t decipher, but he didn’t give her time to dwell on them. “Let’s toast him, then, for being such a busy man. For leaving this chair empty.” He grinned disarmingly. “You see, I’ve been wanting to meet you all night.”

She knew her cheeks pinkened at the compliment, which pleased her inordinately. He was a very handsome man after all, and the room was ripe with beautiful women. The wriggle of sensual warmth, that delicious female awareness she had felt when she first saw this man, had returned. In spite of the awkward circumstances, she felt strangely exhilarated, triumphant, as if she had proved something. Proved, perhaps, that she wasn’t quite an old, dried-up woman yet.

After all, it wasn’t quite so terrible, not if he really knew Clarke. Clarke would reimburse him tomorrow, as Taylor had said. Still, a dim note of caution sounded. Something in all this didn’t make sense.

“But if you know Clarke,” she said, trying to verbalize that hazy uncertainty, “then why didn’t you come over when he was still here?”

He smiled again, and in that moment she almost felt as if he were an old, trusted friend. His eyes were so familiar somehow, so warm and full of intelligence, full of sympathy. And yet she knew she’d never met him before. If she had, she never could have forgotten it.

Already, though, her nerves were relaxing, and she picked up her glass slowly. Logic be damned. She liked this man, whoever he was. She liked him very much. Now if only he could answer the question, could still her suspicions, and let her give in to the pleasurable glow that was stealing through her.

“If you know Clarke,” she repeated, “why didn’t you join us when he was here?”

“That should be obvious, I’d think,” he answered, clinking the rim of his glass against hers. “Because I simply cannot stand the man.”

CHAPTER TWO

AT FIRST, she was speechless. He’d uttered the words casually, in the offhand way he might have expressed a dislike for broccoli, and she wasn’t at all sure how she should respond. Stalling, she brought her glass to her lips and drank, studying him over the rim, looking for a cue.

To her surprise, his green eyes were alight with an irreverent sparkle. It was infectious, and in spite of herself she felt a smile tickling at her lips. As she began to grin, she felt something odd happening inside her. It was as if a logjam of oppression burst loose with an almost audible pop, and she was washed by a sudden, delicious sensation of freedom.

“Now that you mention it,” she said, still grinning, “I can’t stand Clarke, either.”

“Oh?” He raised one brow.

Nodding, she took another sip, wondering whether this last glass might have pushed her judgment over the edge. Perhaps instead of being forthright and bold, she was merely being drunk. But did it really make any difference? She felt freer than she had in months. She felt good.

“Absolutely cannot stand him. So that makes two of us. Good thing we didn’t marry him, isn’t it?”

“Very.” The creases at the corner of his eyes grew more pronounced. “I for one am deeply relieved.”

“Me, too.” She stared into her champagne, then sipped again thoughtfully. “The bottom line,” she confided, “is that Mr. Clarke Westover is an assous pomp.”

But that hadn’t come out quite right. “A passous...” She frowned and gave up. “A jerk.”

She punctuated her pronouncement by swigging an emphatic mouthful of bubbles, but just as she did so, she glimpsed the smile quirking Taylor’s lips. Immediately, a dangerous spasm of answering laughter tightened her chest. She swallowed quickly and lowered her glass, trying not to spill the champagne as she began to giggle. But the table was small, and her aim was faulty. She knocked her glass against the edge of his, and the stern rocked dangerously. It finally righted itself, but not before spraying a fine mist of liquid across the outer edge of her hand and onto the tabletop.

“Hey,” he said, leaning over to dab the moisture from her knuckles with the handkerchief he bad once again magically produced. “Careful. We’re never going to get our money’s worth out of this champagne if you keep flinging it around like that.”

Our money’s worth. She noticed how instinctively thoughtful he was, how even his pronouns were chosen to minimize her self-consciousness. His touch was very deft, almost impersonal—it held no hint of sleazy opportunism. Over his ministering hand, they smiled at each other in a companionable harmony.

She knew she should feel like a fool. And yet somehow she wasn’t at all embarrassed. He had a gift for making people comfortable, she realized, though perhaps it was merely a lucky by-product of his own sublime self-confidence.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly, shoving her glass to one side. “A friend of mine once had a great word for this. Spiff—” she struggled to get her lips around the syllables correctly “—spifSicated.” She smiled. “I’m afraid I’m getting spifflicated.”

“No, you’re not.” He picked up her hand and swabbed champagne efficiently from the underside. “In fact, in some counties they use that as a legal test. If you can actually pronounce ‘spifflicated’, you’re not.”

“Still,” she said, eying the last two inches of golden bubbles in her glass and shuddering. “That’s it for me.”

She knew, even as she said it, that he might interpret her words as the excuse he needed to get up and say goodbye. His chivalrous mission was accomplished—he had rescued her from Clarke’s petty cruelties. He had loaned her a quarter, paid the astronomical auction bill and wiped her fingers. He had even salvaged her pride—letting everyone in the room see that, though Clarke had abandoned her, she was not entirely friendless. Best of all, he had made her laugh.

It was more unselfish generosity than she had ever received from anyone, much less from a total stranger. She had no right to expect more. Or even to wish for it. She had to let him leave now, if he wanted to.

But he made no move to stand. Instead, he poured himself another glass of champagne and leaned back, stretching his shoulders against the iron rim of the chair, getting comfortable. Her hopes shot up like a kite in a gusting wind, and she suddenly realized how much, how very much, she had hoped he would stay.

“You were with someone earlier,” she began hesitantly, strangely reluctant to broach the subject, but knowing she had to. There was no point in letting herself dream if that slinky brunette was going to return from the ladies’ room any minute and reclaim her white knight. “Is she still here?”

“No,” he said, meeting her gaze directly, without a trace of self-consciousness. “She wasn’t my date. I met her only a couple of hours ago. In fact, I don’t really know most of the people here. I don’t live in Florida. I’m from Massachusetts, from a little town in the Berkshires.”

Not from Tampa, then—not even a Floridian. She couldn’t have been more surprised. He had certainly looked right at home with this crowd. She supposed that being very, very rich was like belonging to an exclusive fraternity—no matter where you traveled, you could always look up the local chapter and be assured of fitting right in.

Still, she knew the tickets to this fund-raiser had been exorbitant. Surely there were places back home in the Berkshires with more legitimate claim on his charity. “So why are you here?” She waved her hand toward the stage. Then she worried—had that sounded rude? She seemed to have dropped her tact down the bottom of that last champagne bottle. “I mean, this is just a little local theater. Why would you come here... ?”

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and took another slow swallow of champagne. He held her gaze so long she began to wish she hadn’t asked. Perhaps he thought she was overstepping the bounds of their extremely short acquaintance. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t even know, that she felt strangely as if she’d known him a long, long time. She couldn’t even really understand it herself.

Finally he smiled. “If I said I came here to see you, you probably wouldn’t believe it; would you?”

She grinned and shook her head. “I think that line only works after three bottles.”

“I was afraid of that.” He spread his hands, palms up, surrendering the notion. “Actually, I’m in Tampa because—” he paused “—because I have family here.”

“Not a wife, though?” She could hardly believe her audacity. But it seemed, in her champagne logic, to be better dealt with now than later.

He shook his head. “Not a wife.”

“Or a girlfriend?”

He shook his head again, and a reluctant smile crooked his mouth appealingly. “Not even female.”

“Good.” She relaxed as if she had settled a question of major philosophical importance. “Then you don’t have to leave.”

“No. I’m free to indulge my own pleasure tonight.” He picked up his glass and swirled the liquid in it, as if admiring the way the bubbles burst golden under the electric starlight. “And it would please me very much to spend the evening with you.” He glanced up. “Assuming, of course, that you’re equally free.”

She waved her hand toward the exit through which Clarke had so recently slipped. “Well, as you can see, I have no date—”

“And no one waiting at home, wondering where you are?”

She shook her head. “The only male at my house is two years old, and he’d better not be wondering anything. He’d better be sound asleep.” She raised her chin slightly. “Justin is my son.”

This, too, seemed like something she needed to make clear from the outset. A lot of men remembered they had urgent appointments elsewhere the minute they learned she had a child. She watched Taylor’s handsome face carefully, looking for the familiar signs of shock, disappointment or disapproval. A son, but no husband...

His expression was hard to read. He didn’t look threatened, and he certainly didn’t exhibit any moral indignation. But he did look intensely interested, thoughtful, somehow, as if he were trying to assemble a picture that wouldn’t quite come together for him. That was all right, she decided. A little mystery did more to enhance a woman’s appeal than a boatload of diamonds. And she did want to appeal to him. She wanted it with a raw intensity that was growing stronger by the minute.

“Tell me,” he said finally, his green eyes quizzical, “when you said you were glad you hadn’t married Westover, was that just an academic observation? Or had you really considered it?”

“Considered it?” She shook her head again, as if she could hardly believe the truth herself. “I was his fiancée for almost two years.” Looking down at her now-unadorned left hand, she sighed. “Of course, I was out of the country for one of those years, so it’s only half as stupid as it sounds.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, really. I’ve asked myself that a hundred times.” She gazed toward the door, where she had last seen Clarke. “I guess it’s because, though you’d never know it from tonight’s performance, he can charm the petals off a rose when he wants to. And because I was lonely—”

She stopped, something in his expression suddenly warning her that she was answering the wrong question. She flushed. “Oh...you mean why was I out of the country for a year?”

He nodded. “You have to admit it’s...different. Your average, hot-blooded American woman, upon becoming engaged, doesn’t just grab her passport and emigrate.”

“Well, I was already committed to going overseas before Clarke asked me to marry him,” she explained rather heatedly, as if he had accused her of possessing a tepid nature. Of being passionless. “People were counting on me. I’m a nurse, and I was part of a volunteer medical team our hospital sponsored. The country we were sent to was being torn apart by civil war.”

She leaned forward, squeezing her hands together, trying to make him feel the urgency of her obligation. It wasn’t fair for him to judge her. She wasn’t a cold woman, though Clarke had used that argument against her frequently. She wasn’t. “People were dying.”

“Well, then, of course you had to go,” he said, running his fingers lightly over her whitened knuckles, his smile reassuring. “And if Clarke Westover had been half a man, he would have packed up his fax machine and gone with you.”

She tried to smile back, but foolish tears were pooling along her bottom lids, and she had to look away, afraid that he would see them. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt like crying. Perhaps the memories of that desperate, blood-soaked year were too close. Or perhaps it was because no one had looked at her like that in a long time, with sympathy and understanding and... amazingly, there was admiration, too.... No, not in a very long time.

Or maybe it was just the champagne. Get a grip, she told herself. If you turn into one of those dismal, weepy drunks, this white knight of yours will disappear faster than you can say spifflicated.

“What’s wrong?” Taylor’s hand settled over hers, cupping her tense fingers in his cool, soothing palm. “Is it about Clarke?”

“No. No, I’m glad he’s gone.” Without looking at him, she shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to try to explain. She had forgotten how drinking lowered her defenses—or perhaps she had just forgotten how completely she had begun to rely on those defenses to get her through.

“Then what is it?” His voice was low and warm. She could just barely hear it over the sound of violins as the conductor waved the orchestra into a plaintive version of “For All We Know”. “Tell me.”

Again she shook her head, appalled at how tempting it was to think about giving in, breaking down, handing her too-heavy heart to this man who seemed so strong, so thoroughly capable of taking care of it. She felt him stroking the back of her hand, his fingers sensitive and sure, and she had to bite her lips together, for fear the words would come tumbling out—private, mortifying little words that could only shame her. Words like lonely. Empty. Frightened.

“Nothing,” she said tightly. “It’s nothing.”

For a moment he was silent. And then she sensed him rising.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

She finally looked up slowly, from the lean, ridged pads of his palm up to where the golden-tanned skin of his wrist disappeared into the snowy cuff of his dress shirt. “Where?”

“We’re going to dance,” he said, curving his fingers to beckon her toward him. “I think they’re playing our song.”

At first, she didn’t move. She looked up the long creases of the black tuxedo sleeve, up to where he towered over her. And she realized, with a sudden shivering heat at the base of her spine, that she found Taylor so attractive it terrified her. She hadn’t thought about men that way in a long, long time. Not even Clarke—although she had certainly tried to. When Clarke had kissed her, she’d found it difficult to keep her mind off other things, like the laundry or how she was going to pay the electricity bill next month. Ironic, wasn’t it? Her fiancé’s kisses had left her completely unmoved, yet the thought of dancing with this stranger made her knees go hopelessly warm and mushy.

She couldn’t stop studying him, though she wondered if she was taking too long to answer. She suspected that, in her muzzy mental state, time had begun to lose its firm contours like an overused rubber band.

What was it about him that melted her from the inside out? Oh, he was gorgeous. No question about that, even though she supposed that, strictly speaking, his nose was too strong, rinsing too arrogantly from high between his brows. But the strong lines of those dark brows were so perfectly aligned with his dramatic cheekbones and sculpted jaw that the effect was both beautiful and noble, as if he were an illustration in some elegant magazine.

But she had known plenty of handsome men. Perhaps, she thought, her gaze drifting down, it was that strange sense of familiarity in his green-flecked eyes. That haunting sense of déjà vu...

“You know,” Taylor said mildly, glancing pointedly at his still-outstretched hand, “I’m beginning to look like a fool.”

Blushing, Brooke rose quickly. Too quickly. Her blood swooped to her feet, leaving her head empty and dizzy. She swayed toward him, and he caught her in one strong arm.

“That’s better,” he said, his lips close to her ear. Putting his arm around her shoulder, he tucked her up against him and led her to the stage, where dozens of couples were already jammed together. There didn’t seem to be a free inch, but somehow Taylor found a niche near the edge of the proscenium arch, where a statue of Neptune, backlit with an eerie violet glow, stared at them through blind white eyes.

Taylor slid his arm around her waist, pulling her in to face him, and for several minutes they shifted slowly to the music, each holding away from the other a bit stiffly, as if neither wanted to be the first to make a move toward a deeper intimacy. But the poignant song was wrapping itself around them, and before she knew it her hand was nestled between his fingers and his heart, and her head had dropped against the cool black lapel of his tuxedo.

The song ended, but they didn’t move, waiting until the violinists’ bows began the dip and thrust of another love song. As the wistful strains of “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago filled the air, Taylor’s hand tightened on the small of her back, massaging softly, nudging her into motion.

After that, Brooke didn’t even try to fight the slow fusion that brought their bodies ever closer together—her cheek rubbing against his shoulder, her breast brushing his chest, and their thighs braiding rhythmically, together, then apart. Shutting her eyes, she breathed deeply, learning the crisp, lime-fresh scent of him that rose subtly under her nostrils, stirred by her touch—a scent that was both reassuringly wholesome and surprisingly sexual.

He was far more intoxicating than champagne, Brooke thought dreamily, and she felt something flickering to life inside her, like a small, buried flame suddenly brought into the air. She turned her focus inward, visualizing the Name—once a pale and helplessly guttering flutter—as it grew into a steady, red-hot tongue of fire. It was almost painful to feel so alive, so awake to her emotions, and yet she wanted more. She inhaled jaggedly as the fire crept along her veins, into her lungs, stealing her breath, as well.

She wasn’t sure how long they danced. As suited the occasion, the orchestra was playing only movie themes, and the conductor, apparently aware that the late hour imparted a haze of sensuality to the room, offered one love song after another. Harps rippled; saxophones moaned; violins wept and sang. It was, Brooke thought as Taylor’s chin drifted across her temple, almost too beautiful to bear.

Gradually, though, the dance floor began to clear, the other couples slipping away like sand emptying through an hourglass. Brooke shut her eyes again, turning her head into Taylor’s jacket and tightening her arm on his shoulder, as if she could close the two of them inside a magic circle and make the evening last forever. She didn’t want to go home, back to reality, back to all the problems that were waiting for her. She didn’t think she could face being alone tonight.

With a sigh, she tucked their clasped hands under her cheek, letting her lips graze the back of his knuckles. His fingers tightened in response, and she felt oddly secure, here with his heart beating against her cheek. Strange, she mused. She’d been alone for years, but now, after spending less than an hour in this man’s arms, she felt as if she had completely lost the knack.

He kissed the top of her head softly, and the flame inside her spread like a blossoming bud of heat. No, she didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

“I think the orchestra is winding down,” Taylor said, lifting his head and scanning the nearly empty stage. “It’s getting late.”

Without taking her cheek from his chest, she made a small, dismayed sound. But she didn’t speak, afraid that her intense disappointment might sound fretful, as childish as Justin when he fussed about being sent to bed.

“You probably don’t have a car here—do you want a taxi?” He feathered her hair back from her face and ducked his head lower, as if he were trying to get a glimpse of her expression. “Or would you like me to take you home?”

“Oh,” she said, relief bringing a wide smile to her face as she lifted it toward him. “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

He smiled, then, too, as if amused by her breathless eagerness, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. What did it really matter if he could see how happy she was? What harm if he guessed how his embrace had made her feel?

Besides, even if she had wanted to, she wasn’t sure she could have hidden her emotions. From the minute he’d put his arms around her, she had felt as if she’d been plugged into some vibrant life source.Illogically—especially considering that her problems were still unsolved,and Clarke, to whom she had looked for help, was long gone—she felt great. Better than great. She felt deliciously young and alive. Hot-blooded. And rapturously female.

So why not smile? If she was dwelling in a fool’s paradise, then at least she would make the most of every minute. She’d been cautious every day of her life for the past ten years—and she’d have to be equally circumspect every day for the next ten.

Starting tomorrow.

She straightened, tugging lightly, eagerly, on his hand. “Yes,” she said again, swiveling as she spoke. “Let’s go home.” After the warm cocoon of his arms, the cool air seemed to go straight to her head, and she felt the room tip slightly.

He chuckled, a low rumble that was more vibration than noise, and, pulling her safely back against his chest, kissed the tip of her nose. “Slowly,” he said, steering her gently toward the stairs. “There’s no need to rush.”

But there was. There was. Couldn’t he feel it, too? He kept his hands on her shoulders to steady her, and she tried to walk calmly, but a sense of urgency had suddenly overtaken her, like Cinderella as the clock began to strike midnight. If they didn’t hurry, something could go wrong. The magic could run out. He could change his mind—or, even worse, she could change hers.

A crowd of late leavers clustered around the valet stand, and Brooke could hardly contain a sound of frustration. But Taylor’s hands were still on her shoulders, pressing her back against the wall of his hard-muscled torso, and she leaned against him gratefully, glad that he was so strong, glad that he stood between her and the pushing, chattering crowd. She shut her eyes again, and she let herself imagine what it would be like to have such an ally in life, a partner whose strength and loyalty would be a seawall against the crashing waves of misfortune.

Time blipped erratically, and suddenly the car was there in front of them. It was a sleek steel gray model that she couldn’t put a name to, though she could have made a pretty good guess at the price, which probably was approximately what she was asking for her bungalow. The irony of that struck her as rather funny, and she patted the hood of the car with a smile before letting Taylor guide her into the front seat.

Her cinnamon brown silk skirt made a sound like a sigh as it slid across the leather. Brooke sighed, too, as the air-conditioning blew sweet, cool air onto her cheeks, and when Taylor got in, she smiled at him. He smiled back, but his expression seemed strangely questioning.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly realizing what he needed. “Sorry. I live at 909 Parker Lane.” She peered through the window, trying to get her bearings. She knew downtown Tampa as well as she knew her own reflection in the mirror, but tonight things looked strangely unfamiliar. “Do you know where it is, by any chance?” She knew she sounded dubious, but where exactly were they? She didn’t recognize that huge building. “I can navigate, I suppose, as long as you don’t drive too fast—”

“You rest,” he said, touching her face. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but it sounded somehow as if the smile was tucked inside his voice. He sounded sexy, affectionate... and kind. “I’m sure I can find it.”

“That’s good,” she murmured, shutting her eyes against the bright blur of streetlights as they swept down the nearly deserted boulevard. “I’m a little tired. Look for roses. I have a lot of roses in the front....”

He put his arm across the back of the seat and, closing his palm over her shoulder, nudged her gently.

“Rest,” he said again, and she felt no urge to protest as he eased her toward him. She let herself drift downward slowly, her head seeming to seek the crook of his arm as if it were her own special spot, her assigned place in the universe. She put her hand on his thigh, registering the lean, solid strength of it somewhere in the back of her mind before she closed her eyes again and kept drifting, but this time father and farther, until she was so far away—

“Taylor,” she said suddenly, though she didn’t open her eyes, “we’ve never met before, have we?”

His voice was right next to her ear. Strange, when she’d thought she had floated so very far away. “No,” he said huskily, “we’ve never met before.”

“Are you sure? You feel so... familiar.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did she heard a smile in his voice. “I have a rather nutty friend who would say that means our auras are in harmony. Maybe he’s right.”

She smiled, too, still without opening her eyes. “That’s silly.”

He stroked her arm gently. “I always used to think so.”

“Very silly.” She shook her head—or at least she thought she did. Her voice sounded thick, half-asleep. “Still, you’re not really a stranger, Taylor. I know you’re not a stranger.”

CHAPTER THREE

SHE came to consciousness achingly aware of him, of his hand stroking along her temple, into her hair, all the way behind her ear. They were home—she could smell the thick scent of roses in her own, beloved front garden. She had been asleep, but the short reprieve into unconsciousness hadn’t helped to clear her head. She was still racked with a shivering desire for this man who sat beside her.

His hand kept moving, and her skin prickled with tiny bumps, from the ear he traced, down her neck and deep into the core of her. Heat was shifting inside her, pulsing and coiling and demanding things she had forgotten were possible.

“Taylor.” She turned her face into his jacket, nuzzling for a deeper connection, and moved her hand on his thigh, letting her fingers tell him what she didn’t know how to say. She wanted him. Oh, God help her, how she wanted him!

The long muscle in his leg tensed, and his fingers tunneled into her hair. “Hi, sleepyhead.” His voice was husky, as if he had been sitting out here in the night air a long time. “Ready to go in?”

She nodded, her pulse beating so hard against her throat that she wasn’t sure she could speak.

He lifted his arm, giving her the freedom to rise, but she didn’t move away, reluctant to surrender the warmth of him. She tilted her face toward his, searching his rugged, elegant features, gilded now by the soft light of her front pillar lanterns. He had angled his head to face her, and his eyes shimmered, bottomless green-and-gold depths rimmed in thick, dusky black fringe. Their gazes held silently for a long moment, during which her lips parted, and even his breathing took on a subtly rougher cant.

“Brooke,” he said slowly, letting his arm drop across her again. His fingers massaged the sensitive skin above her collarbone. “Do you know how beautiful you are right now?”

“Am I?” Though she knew it wasn’t true, for tonight—for him—she wanted to be. She wanted to possess the kind of beauty that could hypnotize a man, could throw a silken net around him and hold him captive. “Am I?”

For answer, his hand tightened, his thumb rubbing against her neck. His eyes were heavy with sensuality, but she could still see the gold flecks that sparked like tiny fires beneath his lowered lids. “Yes, you are,” he murmured. “Dangerously beautiful.”

She watched his full lips form the words, and without conscious thought she lifted her mouth, which tingled with anticipation. But, to her disappointment, he simply dragged in a deep breath, and moving with a stiffness that spoke of rigid determination, he moved away, got out of the car and held open the door for her.

She slid out with a sudden numbness, wondering what his abrupt withdrawal could mean. She couldn’t think how to ask, so she busied herself digging out the key from her evening bag as they made their way up to the house. He seemed to sense that her balance was still rocky—he walked close, close enough to reassure her as they climbed the four steep steps to her front porch.

Once there, her mind raced in circles. If she didn’t think of something quickly, it was going to be too late. Helplessly, she twisted the key in the lock, and then she turned to him.

“Taylor—” she put her hand on his arm “—don’t you want to come in? Just for a little while?” What was the polite euphemism? She didn’t do this kind of thing, didn’t know what the rules were. “For a cup of coffee?”

The muscle in his forearm shifted and grew brick hard under her fingers. She looked up at him, confused. The look in his green eyes was equally hard. “If I come in, Brooke,” he said with a flat monotone, “it won’t be for coffee. We both know that.”

“I...” She licked her dry lips and tried to think of the right answer. But her mind wasn’t working. He was going to leave her here with this empty loneliness that had suddenly become unbearable—that was all she knew clearly. “I just don’t want to be alone,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word stupidly, pitifully. She felt a flare of embarrassment at the sound. What must he think? If he didn’t want to come in, then she was making herself ridiculous.

But suddenly, in spite of her efforts, her eyes were full of tears, and he was just a blurred outline in the lantern light. Mortified, she pulled her hand from his arm and pressed her fingers on either side of her nose, trying to hold the tears back. Oh, what a fool she was! What had she thought? That just because he had been kind to her, because she had absurdly imagined some sense of inexplicable familiarity, because she found him, his body, his face, his touch, somehow deeply moving... Had she really believed that he felt the same way?

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning away. She fumbled for the living-room light, but everything was wet and glimmering, and she gave up quickly. “Thank you for all your help—”

“Damn it—Brooke...” He grabbed her arm, his voice a harsh, urgent whisper. With two rough steps he was beside her in the darkness, pulling her against him, his hands hard on her back. The door swung shut behind them, and everything went black. “Brooke,” he said again, more gently, and he kissed the edge of her lips. She felt herself softening, sinking into him, like rain disappearing into the earth. His mouth slanted over hers, poised and warm, grazing her as he whispered, “Brooke, why are you crying? Don’t you know how much I want you?”

She shook her head once, a half movement that barely stirred the darkness. But he must have seen, because suddenly, with a low groan, he dragged her up against him and kissed her again, but deeply this time, as if he could pour into her his proof, as if she could drink understanding from his lips.

And she did. She did. With a half-smothered cry of joy, she lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. Though the room was dark, she shut her eyes so that nothing was real except his kiss. It was sweet, but with a burning, like an exotic liqueur. It spread through her limbs, hot and potent, washing her, melting her, until she was limp and clinging, liquid in his arms.

Finally, Taylor drew back, but only an inch. His breath was still sweet and warm on her cheeks. “Where is your son?”

The question was clear, and she didn’t pretend she didn’t understand. “He sleeps upstairs, next to his nurse.” She swallowed. “My room is downstairs. I’m not usually...not usually home at night.”

He didn’t answer. Suddenly, the darkness spun, shadows moving on shadows, as he scooped her up and carried her through the living room, deeper into the house. It was a small home, with few options for privacy. He paused at the only shut door, the door to her bedroom, and somehow she knew this silent hesitation would be his last question. Her heart pounding in her throat, she minutely nodded her head, trying not to think of the implications of that tiny movement. She felt his pectoral muscles shift under her cheek as he shouldered the door open with the smooth assurance of a man who didn’t give a damn for implications.

The room smelled of roses as it always did—she kept cut blooms in a vase by her bed. But never before had the fragrance seemed so heavy, red and sensual. Still without speaking, he laid her on the cool satin tufts of her quilted bedspread, and she could feel herself sinking, sinking endlessly into its perfumed softness. Opening her eyes, she focused on the dark, featureless silhouette of his head, clutching the edges of his jacket in trembling fingers, afraid that she might lose him in this slow, bottomless descent.

Kneeling in front of her, he kissed her again, and again and again, his mouth moving on hers with infinite variety—soft, then harder, angling from corner to corner, then coming full center, feathering lightly, then plundering deeply. It was, in some wonderful way, like talking—he was telling her things she’d never guessed, promising her things she’d always wanted. But it was better than words because she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to struggle to find the right reply. She could simply give herself over to feeling. It was so beautifully simple. She opened her lips and met his urgent questions with equally primal answers.

When he lifted her, reaching beneath her shoulders to slide open the zipper of her dress, that seemed simple, too. She nuzzled the hollow of his shoulder, kissing the pulse that beat there, and then lay back obediently as he slipped the cool silk down her arms, dragging a trail of goose bumps along her skin. When she was free, he touched her naked breasts with his lips, and she moaned softly, a low, quavering sound that purled through the darkness like the ripple of a harp.

He suckled her, the act so intimate, so powerful that she cried out at the piercing beauty of it and pressed his head to her with trembling fingers, needing more, begging for more.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered as he took her deeper. It felt so miraculously natural, his teeth grazing her nipple, his quick breath warm against her breast, his hair a silken tickle against her skin. He seemed to pull some mysterious female essence from her soul.

Strangely, she felt no shame, though it had been such a long, frozen time since any man had touched her. Ten years... And it hadn’t been a man, not back then. It had been a boy. A sweet boy, who would have liked to please her, who had tried for long, awkward minutes to coax out of her untutored body even a hint of this melting pleasure.

And she had been only a girl, a lonely, ignorant girl. Working so hard, tense and straining, wanting to make it easy for him, knowing there should be more but unable to find the key that would unlock the magic. She thought she would cry now, thinking of that girl who had never felt like this.

It was so sublimely different here, in this swirling darkness that smelled of her bedside roses, with this sensual man whose presence in her bedroom was so inexplicably right. No effort was needed, no clumsy straining. It was as if she were floating on some hot, bucking current, swept forcefully along toward a final, shattering perfection that waited just beyond the darkness. Taylor’s mouth was everywhere, rising to claim her tingling lips again, then back down to her swollen, aching breasts, feathering kisses along the path of sensitive skin between. And his hands, his hands...

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