Why was he so attracted to her when she wasn’t his usual type?

She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her hair was tousled. She had circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and was dressed in a baggy sweater and old jeans.

But still he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. All he could think about was the tight, lithe body underneath her clothes and the way she had responded with such fire and heat in his arms three months ago.

Whenever he tried to concentrate at work, all he could think about was how different things could have been between him and Katie…if he’d known who she really was on that incredible night they’d shared.

Peter could think of at least a dozen ways to make love to her in every corner of this sprawling ranch house. The possibilities were limited only by his imagination and his stamina, and when it came to Katie Crosby, he had a feeling he would have more than enough of both to go around.

Maybe being snowbound together would work out in his favor, after all….

RAEANNE THAYNE

finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honors, including three RITA® Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews magazine. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers, and can be reached through her Web site at www.raeannethayne.com.

Intimate Surrender
RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Be a part of

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

Two rivals share a passionate night together. Would their love end a thirty-year-old family feud?

Katie Crosby: After a glorious makeover, she was the belle of the ball. She even shared a kiss with her enemy Peter Logan, which resulted in a steamy night of lovemaking. Now in hiding from the tabloids, Katie realized she had fallen in love.

Peter Logan: He was Mr. All-Work-And-No-Play until his night with Katie. But she’d disappeared and he had to find her. With luck and a well-timed blizzard, he was in Katie’s arms again…and ready to make her a lifetime proposition!

The Janitor: Charlie Prescott had demons he kept under wraps. And no one in the clinic had any idea just how invested he was in the black-market baby ring. Would the truth come out?

To Linda Kruger, for unwavering support and encouragement.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

One

“We shouldn’t go. It’s not right to leave you here alone. Not with a storm coming on.”

Margie Taylor’s sturdy features creased with worry, and her weathered, capable hand fretted with the handle of her suitcase. With his typical stoicism, her husband, Clint, took it from her and stowed it behind the seat in their king-cab Ford pickup.

Katie Crosby managed a patient smile, just as if she and Margie hadn’t just spent the last three hours circling this same argument more times than a green-broke horse at the end of a lead line. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ll be just fine. I can take care of myself for a few days and you said you’d made arrangements for Darwin Simmons to come over from the Bar S to feed and water the stock. I don’t foresee any problems.”

“Still, I don’t feel good about leaving you. You know we always try to be here when one of the family comes to Sweetwater.”

“I know how seriously you and Clint take your responsibilities as caretakers of the ranch. You do a wonderful job here but you are certainly entitled to a private life, too.”

Margie looked unconvinced and Katie squeezed her hand. “Your daughter needs you. It’s her first baby and she’s probably scared to death and needs her mother.”

The bitter irony of her words didn’t escape her, but Katie ignored the sudden pang in her chest. “You have to go to Idaho Falls,” she went on. “I would feel just horrible if you missed seeing your new grandchild enter the world because of me.”

“Weatherman says that storm is supposed to be a real doozy,” Clint spoke up.

“Then you’d better hurry and get on your way so you aren’t caught in it. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“But what if you’re stranded out here by yourself?” Margie asked, her forehead furrowed with worry.

“I won’t mind, I promise. I came out from Portland looking for a little peace and quiet. I have plenty of books to read and the kitchen is fully stocked. I don’t need anything else. As long as Darwin can take care of the stock, I’ll be cozy and warm and snug as can be in the ranch house.”

“I just don’t feel right about this.”

“Don’t give me another thought. Just focus on Carly and that new grandbaby of yours.”

Between her and Clint, they finally managed to herd Margie into the passenger seat of the truck, though she still looked worried.

Before they drove away, Clint rolled down the window. “If the power goes out, you’ll have to start up the generator,” he said gruffly. “Instructions are on the wall next to it.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. Through the open window she kissed him on the cheek, enjoying his blush. “Give the little darling a kiss for me, all right? Be safe.”

He finally put the truck in gear and the four-wheel drive tires spit gravel as he headed down the long drive. Katie stood and watched them go while an unusually harsh wind for early March dug icy knuckles into her ribs inside her open canvas ranch coat. Despite her fleece hat, her head was freezing.

She should be used to this half-naked feeling after nearly three months without the heavy mane of hair she had always worn, but she still felt exposed with her new short, wispy hairstyle.

A few fluttery snowflakes settled on her skin and the canvas of her coat with deceptive gentleness. They might look lovely now, tiny swirling specks against the pale lavender twilight, but she knew a Wyoming winter storm could turn deadly with warp speed, even in March.

She had a feeling the weatherman was right about the storm. The air had a heavy, expectant quality to it, and thick dark clouds already concealed the tops of the mountains.

Katie filled her lungs with cold air that smelled of snow and lifted her face to the gossamer flakes.

She had always found peace out here and usually loved the view from the sprawling log-and-stone ranch house with its wide front porch and four gables along the steeply pitched roof. Even in winter, she could gaze for hours at the harsh and wild ring of snow-covered mountains that loomed over the ranch, the neat split-rail fences on either side of the driveway, the long row of bushy pine trees that formed a barrier from the endless Wyoming wind.

Try as she might, she knew she would find little comfort in the view this time. She was afraid peace would become a rare and elusive commodity in the coming months.

With a deep sigh, she reached a hand inside her coat and touched the tiny, barely noticeable bulge at her abdomen.

Just when, exactly, does a woman decide her life has spun completely and irrevocably out of her control? she wondered grimly.

Katie liked to think she was a fairly together kind of person. Sure, she had her problems. Who didn’t? So what if her best friend Carrie compared her to a hermit crab with agoraphobia and her mother still thought she was a fat, homely thirteen-year-old with bad vision and a serious addiction to comfort food?

She might lack the grace and poise one might expect from an offspring of one of the Northwest’s wealthiest families. But besides thick, gooey macaroni and cheese, Katie had always comforted herself with the immutable knowledge that she had something far more important than charm and beauty and a twenty-inch waist.

She was smart. Off-the-charts smart. She wasn’t arrogant about it—it was just a fact of life, like her brown eyes, her streaky brown hair, the tiny heart-shaped mole just above her left eyebrow.

She might not have grace and poise, but she had graduated summa cum laude from Stanford and become the vice president of research and development of one of the most powerful computer companies in the world. She knew her brother Trent relied on her logic and judgment at Crosby Systems and used her often as a sounding board.

So how, she wondered now as she gazed at the charcoal clouds gathering force, did she find herself in this predicament? Pregnant and alone and deep in the grip of a major panic attack?

Two days ago when her OB had confirmed the suspicion she hadn’t even dared admit to herself, that panic had virtually paralyzed her. She had told herself the queasiness that had plagued her for several weeks must be some kind of lingering bug, had attributed her missed periods to stress and fatigue.

Hoping she only needed time away from the high stress of her life, she had come to the ranch, her own personal refuge, to recharge her batteries. After several weeks of telecommuting, the fatigue and the nausea hadn’t abated. She returned to Portland for a meeting she couldn’t miss and finally decided to see her doctor, who delivered the stunning news.

She had somehow driven in a numb haze to her condo and had sat in her living room all night long with the curtains drawn and the lights off.

The next morning she could think of nothing but returning to this haven where she had always felt such safety and solace. Maybe the clean mountain air would help her figure out how to cope with the atomic bomb that had just detonated in her neatly ordered life.

In the last few days, she’d had more time to get used to the idea that she was going to be a mother in a little over six months but she still didn’t have the first idea how to chart out the rest of her life. She had always been one for blueprints and goals and lists, even as a little girl. So how was she supposed to pencil in an unplanned pregnancy at age twenty-eight, especially when her child’s father didn’t even know her real name?

She meant what she said to Margie. She was almost glad they had planned to leave for the birth of their new grandchild. As much as she loved the ranch caretakers, they tended to hover over her. Right now she desperately needed solitude—time to ponder and meditate and somehow shape an entirely new life plan for herself, one that included the tiny baby growing inside her.

One that certainly didn’t include the child’s father, no matter how much she might wish things could be different.

Kate shook off the foolish thought. A smart woman could never believe she and her baby’s father would ever have more than the one incredible night they had shared.

An hour later she had just added another log to the fire in the massive river-rock fireplace of the great room and was settling onto the comfy couch with a mug of hot cocoa and a book she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on when she heard the bass rumble of a vehicle approaching.

What had Margie and Clint forgotten? she wondered. At this rate, they would find themselves stuck out here in the middle of the approaching blizzard.

A blast of cold air hit her as soon as she hurried to open the door for them. She shivered and saw that in the short time since she had stood in the driveway watching them leave, a half-inch of snow had fallen. The sun had slid behind the mountains and in the pale lavender twilight, she could make out a late-model SUV approaching the house.

Not Clint and Margie, then. Odd. They hadn’t mentioned they were expecting anyone.

From the entryway, she watched a man climb out of the vehicle and had an impression of lean, muscular strength. She saw only dark wavy hair and a leather aviator jacket, then he turned to face her and the stoneware mug slipped from her clumsy fingers.

She reached for it just in time to keep the whole thing from gushing out all over the wood floor. Hot cocoa splashed her jeans but she barely registered it. She could focus on only one horrifying realization.

He had found her!

She couldn’t seem to draw enough breath into her lungs as Peter Logan slammed the door to the SUV and stalked up the porch stairs. The blood rushed away from her oxygen-starved brain and she swayed, fighting a panicked urge to slam the door and shove the heavy hall table across it as a barricade against his anger. It took every ounce of concentration to keep her hands clenched tightly at her sides, not covering the tiny, barely there life growing inside her.

“Hello, Celeste.” Her middle name came out more like a snarl.

Celeste. The name she’d used the night of the auction gala, when she’d kept her true identity a secret from him.

“Peter. Th-this is a surprise.” She hated the stammer but couldn’t seem to help it.

“I’ll just bet it is.”

She couldn’t think what to say, could only stare at him as wild memories crowded through her mind of how that tight, angry mouth had once been tender and sensual, had once explored every inch of her skin.

“Are you going to stand there staring at me all night like I’m the Abominable Snowman come to call, or do you think you might condescend to let me inside?”

Did she have a choice? If she did, her vote would have been for locking him out on the porch rather than face a confrontation with him. But since she had a pretty good idea that a man like Peter Logan wouldn’t let anything as inconsequential as a locked door keep him away, she had no choice but to surrender to the inevitable. She stepped aside.

“What are you doing here, Peter?”

“You mean how did I figure out who the hell you really were?”

Despite her best efforts at control, she shivered at the menace in his tone. “That, too.”

“Don’t you read the papers, sweetheart?”

She stared at him blankly. Across the vast room, she was oddly aware of a log breaking apart in the fireplace with a hiss and crackle. After a moment he yanked a folded newspaper from the inside pocket of his snow-flecked leather jacket and slapped it down on the narrow hall table next to her.

She eyed it like he’d just let loose a wolverine in the Sweetwater great room. Warily, her pulse skipping with sudden trepidation, Katie picked up the newspaper. It was a copy of the society page of Portland Weekly, the independent tabloid that delighted in poking fun at the city’s movers and shakers.

Her gaze went to the photo first and her already queasy stomach dipped. It was a photo of her and the man now standing before her, both of them in elegant evening wear. Her back—bared in a glittery emerald-colored designer gown she’d borrowed from her best friend—was to the camera, but anybody who saw the picture could clearly identify Peter Logan—and could see the two of them were locked in a passionate embrace.

She had seen it before. The newspaper had run the photo months ago as part of a feature spread of a bachelor auction and charity benefit for Children’s Connection, a Portland adoption agency and fertility clinic. The caption had said only something about Peter being photographed in a hot kiss with a mystery woman. When they ran it the first time, she had seen it and thanked her very lucky stars that she hadn’t been recognizable.

Apparently someone had figured it out. The headline above this photo read “Mystery Solved: Crosby, Logan scions put aside famous feud long enough for kiss.”

Oh, no. She drew in a shaky breath. This was bad. Seriously bad. She read on.

“We first brought you the juicy tidbit a few months ago that Logan Corporation CEO and oh-so-sexy bachelor Peter Logan was caught in a very heated embrace with a mysterious glamour-gal during a chi-chi gala for Children’s Connection, a cause the Logan family notably supports. The two of them disappeared together soon after.

At the time. Logan pointedly refused to answer questions about the object of his affections, but after some digging, Portland Weekly has since learned his snuggle-honey was none other than Katherine Crosby. That’s right, of those Crosbys—Logan rivals on and off the corporate battlefield.

Does their embrace signal an end to the famous feud? Are Portland’s own versions of the Hatfield and McCoy clans really ready to kiss and make up?

Apparently at least two of them are.

Neither Logan nor Ms. Crosby were available for comment but we’ll bring you more about this exciting development as soon as we find out more.”

Her already queasy stomach dipped. Her mother was bound to hear about this; Katie had no doubt whatsoever about that. And when she did, Katie knew Sheila Crosby would rage and carry on for days, accusing her of everything from disloyalty to outright treason.

Just thinking about the inevitable scene made her shoulders sag with the exhaustion that never seemed far away these days.

“Nothing to say?” Peter finally asked when her silence dragged on.

“I’ve never been called a glamour-gal before. I don’t believe it’s as gratifying as I would have imagined.”

His sculpted features darkened. “I dislike being made a fool of, Katherine.”

“Kate,” she murmured, regretting the glibness she tended to turn to during times of high stress. “Nearly everyone calls me Katie or Kate.”

“Really, Celeste?” He asked in that same biting tone.

Oh, Katie. What a mess you’re in, she thought. Pregnant with this man’s baby, this overwhelming, powerful, gorgeous man who despised her and her family. If he hated her now, how would he react if he ever discovered the tiny secret she carried inside her?

The fragile threads of control seemed to slip a few more notches, but she flailed for them valiantly and faced him with what she hoped was cool aplomb.

Without waiting for the invitation she wasn’t sure she could issue, he yanked off his jacket and tossed it over the rack of entwined elk antlers in the hallway then claimed one of the plump armchairs near the fire. She really had no choice but to follow him and perched on the edge of the sofa, trying not to let him see her nervousness.

“Okay, let’s hear it. What’s your game?”

“Game?”

“What are you playing at? What were you trying to achieve by your little masquerade?”

Of course he would want explanations from her, some justification for her deception. How could she possibly find the words for something she didn’t even understand herself?

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

“I don’t know that I have a good answer to that.”

“Try.” His voice was silk-sheathed steel.

She scrambled for some kind of explanation and finally came up with something she hoped sounded reasonable. It was part of the truth, just not all of it. “Katie Crosby is a fairly boring person,” she said after a long moment. “All she ever thinks about is work. I suppose it was exciting being someone else for a few hours. Someone glamorous and adventurous and…and desirable. I got carried away by the magic of the evening. Then, after we…kissed, I was afraid to tell you who I was. I knew you would be angry and it just seemed easier all around not to say anything.”

Peter studied her. She chewed her bottom lip after she finished speaking, waiting for him to respond. He wondered how in the hell a woman could appear so sweet and innocent on the outside while inside she was nothing but a deceptive little snake.

He had never been so furious. It was taking every ounce of willpower he possessed not to rage and yell and throw a table or two through that huge wall of windows.

His blood should have had time to cool in the twenty-four hours since his assistant had warily shown him that damn newspaper and he’d finally learned the identity of the mystery lover who had obsessed him for months. It had taken him most of that time to use all his connections and finally run her to ground here at this Wyoming ranch in the middle of nowhere, another hour to have his plane readied and two more in the air between here and Portland.

The whole time he’d been behind the controls of his Gulfstream III, he had waited for his anger to fade, for the familiar cool reserve the world expected of him to take over. But throughout the flight, as now, his skin had been hot and itchy as this fury seethed through him.

This woman—this slender, delicate-looking woman with her short hair and big eyes, who looked like a teenager in stocking feet and faded jeans—had made a complete fool out of him. Every word out of her lush little lips had been a lie.

When he thought about how he had obsessed over her in the three months since she blew through his life, the energy he had wasted looking for her, he could barely think past his rage and self-disgust.

A Crosby.

Just the name left a sour taste in his mouth. What an idiot he had been to throw away years of family loyalty, of complete dedication to the Logan name and everything it stood for, all for a pretty face.

All right, more than pretty, he admitted. Even now, when she wore no makeup to set off those sculpted cheekbones and full lips and when she had dark circles under her eyes and her features were pale, his body instinctively reacted to her.

He wanted her, even knowing who she was, and the discovery infuriated him even more.

“This is about the super router we’re developing, isn’t it?” he asked.

She was a hell of an actress, he’d give her that much. If he didn’t know better, he would almost believe that shock on her face was genuine. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You went through my desk while I was asleep. Don’t try to deny it. Find out anything interesting about the project?”

Color flared high on those cheekbones. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right. Now you’re going to tell me you don’t have any idea Logan is close to revolutionizing computer networking with our nano-peripheral-interface-router. And of course Crosby Systems, which coincidentally just released its own router-controller software, would have absolutely no interest in stealing the technology that would create the fastest networking system in the world. Come on, Crosby. You really think I’m dumb enough to fall for your lies twice?”

She gaped at him. “You think I was spying on you that night? That I was some kind of—of corporate Mata Hari, out for a little industrial espionage after I screw you into oblivion?”

“At this point, sweetheart, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“Because I’m a Crosby, right?”

That wounded belligerence in her voice grated down his spine like metal on metal. “Not only because you’re a Crosby. Because you’re also a lying, deceitful little—” He bit off the derogatory word just in time.

He was such an idiot. He hated to think about how his family would react to his abysmal lapse in judgment when they learned he’d been willing to risk the company’s entire future for a roll in the sack. He had a feeling he would be lucky if his name was still on the door of the CEO’s office at Logan. Hell, he’d be lucky if they even let him keep the name he’d been given as a six-year-old.

He never forgot how much he owed Terrence and Leslie Logan, how very blessed he had been to be adopted into their family two years after their own son had been kidnapped. If they hadn’t rescued him from the Children’s Connection orphanage, he hated thinking where he might have ended up. On the streets like his mother, probably, or in prison.

He owed them everything. His heart, his blood, his soul. When they read that damn tabloid article, he could just picture the disappointment in Terrence’s eyes, the hurt in Leslie’s. The knot in his stomach kinked a little tighter.

No. He had worked too hard for too long proving to his parents he was capable of running the Fortune 500 company they had built from the ground up. He refused to let a Crosby ruin everything, especially not this particular Crosby.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid, Peter?” she said now. “I never touched your desk.”

Against his will, he had a vivid memory of her naked and flushed the second or third time they made love, her luscious skin glowing with perspiration and the soft little noises of arousal she made as he took her against the nearest surface, which at the time just happened to be the top of his antique walnut desk.

Throughout that incredible night of passion, there had scarcely been a corner of his loft they’d missed in their hunger for each other.

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He knew the instant her own memory clicked in. A rosy blush spilled over her cheeks and she dropped her gaze.

“Well, besides that time,” she mumbled, looking so charmingly disconcerted he wondered how she could possibly be so deceitful.

“I’ve tried to think about what I might have had lying around about our NPIR project but I’m coming up empty. Why don’t you refresh my memory? What did you find?”

“Nothing! I wasn’t thinking about NPIRs or anything else computer related. I didn’t go anywhere near your stupid desk, except that time with…you.”

“Yet the note you left was written on my own personal stationery, which I just happen to keep in the top drawer of that stupid desk.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then she drew a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice sounded weary. “What do you want, Peter? Why follow me out here to the middle of nowhere? You could have yelled at me over the phone.”

He refused to let himself be sidetracked by how fragile she suddenly looked. “I want some answers. What did you learn about our project?”

“I didn’t learn anything! I told you that. I never even gave work a thought that night. If you’ll remember, you didn’t give me time to think about much of anything but you.”

They stared at each other for a moment and he remembered again the wild passion they had shared. Or at least he thought they’d shared it. Had it all been feigned on her part? All those long kisses, her sighs and moans, the way she acted as if she couldn’t seem to get enough of him?

That was the part that he was finding most difficult to accept, he finally admitted to himself. He had been enthralled with her, completely entranced. He had wanted her with a fierce hunger unlike anything he’d ever known before.

While she had been as cold-blooded and calculating as an asp.

“Did your brother tell you to sleep with me?” he asked.

With a swift intake of breath, she stared at him, her brown eyes huge in her pale face. In any other woman, he might have almost believed she looked hurt. But he obviously couldn’t trust anything his instincts told him about Katherine Crosby.

“That’s insulting to Trent and to me. I shouldn’t even justify it with a response but I will tell you that he knows nothing about this, about the two of us and that night. If he did, he would be livid.”

Peter slapped the folded tabloid at her. “Hate to be the one to break it to you, sweetheart, but there’s not a person in Portland who doesn’t know by now.”

She gazed at the paper for a moment, nibbling her lip again. “Okay so everyone might know we kissed. As for the rest of it, no one else has to know anything about that. We were both carried away by the champagne and the night and the whole thing. Matters never should have gone so far. We should both just forget it ever happened.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” she murmured.

At her words, another wave of anger washed over him. The intensity of it had him jumping to his feet and stalking to the fireplace. He hated that she could just dismiss the night they had spent together. Forget it ever happened. Right. As if he could just forget the most erotic night of his life.

He turned back to her. “A smart man never forgets his mistakes. And, sweetheart, this was one hell of a mistake.”

“For both of us.”

“The difference is, you knew exactly what you were doing—and who you were doing it with.”

“That’s right. I set out to seduce you from the moment I walked into that ballroom. It was a brilliant strategy, wouldn’t you say? All I had to do was convince you to take me home with you, make love all night until you fell asleep, then comb through your office on the chance—slim to none though it was—that I might find some tiny snippet of information in your loft about your super-router that we could use at Crosby Systems. Right. You caught me. That’s me, Katie Crosby, corporate spy. Trent sends his little sister out to sleep with all his business rivals.”

“I wouldn’t put anything past the Crosbys.”

Something flashed in her dark eyes, something that looked like anger and hurt and maybe even a little sorrow. “Okay, that’s enough,” she snapped. “I would like you to leave now. I’m sure you don’t want to spend another moment in the belly of the beast.”

She rose as if to show him out but as soon as she stood, what little color remaining on her face drained out like wine spilling from a tipped glass and she swayed. Peter reached out instinctively to keep her from toppling over, then helped her back onto the couch.

“What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

Her chin lifted. “What do you care?”

“I don’t,” he snapped. “Maybe I just happen to be fond of these particular boots and don’t want you yakking all over them.”

She glared at him. “Your precious boots are safe. I’m not going to yak, as you so charmingly put it. I stood up a little too soon but I’m perfectly fine now.”

He only had to take one look at her to know she was lying, but then why should that surprise him? The woman wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit her in the behind. With hollow eyes, her skin three shades past white and her mouth pinched like a shriveled apple left in the bottom of the bushel, she sat there and expected him to believe everything was fine.

“I didn’t see signs of anybody else when I arrived. Who else is out here with you?”

She paused as if she didn’t want to answer him, then she finally shrugged. “Usually the ranch foreman and his wife live in quarters at the rear of the house, but they’re away for a few days.”

“You’re alone?”

“Not if you count two dogs, six barn cats, a dozen horses and two hundred head of cattle.”

He studied her pale features again, suddenly chagrined at himself for bursting in on her, guns blazing. She might be a lying Crosby but she didn’t look well at all.

Crosby or not, he didn’t like the idea of her being out here alone. A thousand things could happen to an ill woman on her own at an isolated Wyoming ranch, especially with the storm percolating out there.

“If you’re done yelling at me, I really would like you to leave now.” Somehow she managed to inject regal condescension into her words, even with her pale features.

“I really think I should stay,” he found himself saying.

Her eyes widened and he didn’t miss the way her hand clenched over her stomach, as if just the idea of spending another moment with him was enough to make her insides churn.

“No. No, you shouldn’t. The weather report said a nasty storm is heading this way. You’ll want to fly back to Portland before it hits.”

“It’s already here. Can’t you hear that wind? The reports I heard before I landed said this area was due for at least two feet of snow. I won’t be flying anywhere tonight.”

“If you heard the storm reports before you left, why fly out here in such a rush? Acting on a whim like that hardly seems like typical behavior for the cold, ruthless CEO of Logan Corporation.”

Nothing he had done since he’d seen her in that hotel ballroom had been typical behavior for him. He had seen the reports of an approaching storm in this area before he left Portland, but not even flying into the eye of a hurricane would have kept him grounded.

He had known he was foolish to leave but he had been so angry he hadn’t cared about anything but running her to ground, after three long months of searching.

“It doesn’t matter why I left,” he answered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not in the mood for your macho posturing, Peter. I don’t want or need you here.”

“Fickle little thing, aren’t you? Three months ago, you certainly wanted me around. If my memory serves—and believe me, it does—you couldn’t get enough.”

She glared at him, though he saw yet another blush heat those cheeks. “Which am I? Ruthless corporate spy or sex-crazed nymphomaniac?”

“Good question. One I would certainly like to know the answer to myself.”

Before she could give voice to the heated response he could see brewing, a powerful gust of wind rattled the windowpanes and moaned under the eaves of the log ranch house.

The two lamps burning in the room flickered in unison then went out, pitching the room into darkness lit only by the fire’s glow.

Two

“That settles it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Even though the only light in the room came from the snapping flames in the fireplace, Katie could see the determination in Peter’s eyes and she wanted to weep. Just when she thought she had hit absolute rock bottom in her life, somehow she managed to cartwheel down another few feet.

She suddenly wanted nothing in the world more than to curl up on that couch in front of the fireplace, wrap herself in her grandmother’s wedding-ring quilt and sob.

What had she done to deserve this? Okay, maybe she hadn’t been exactly forthcoming to Peter Logan three months earlier. In retrospect, she knew she should have told him her real name the moment he struck up a conversation with her, at the first sign of flirtation.

She wasn’t sure why she had kept that important little detail to herself—maybe because she had been so shocked that the gorgeous and sought-after Peter Logan could actually be flirting with someone like her—boring, quiet Katie Crosby.

Who could blame any woman for being caught up in the magic of the evening? With a glamorous makeover, a new hairstyle, the designer clothes, she had felt like someone else. A stranger alluring enough to catch the interest of one of Portland’s most wanted bachelors.

The champagne she had overindulged in hadn’t helped any. She hadn’t been thinking with a clear head but she did know she hadn’t wanted the night to end. She also knew that the moment Peter found out her last name that flattering desire in his eyes would have changed to contempt and coldness faster than she could blink.

Okay, so she had perpetuated a tiny deception on the man by keeping her identity concealed. Was that really such a hideous crime that someone felt the need to take her calm, organized world and shake the dickens out of it as if she was stuck in some nightmarish live snow globe?

She thought things were bleak before when she was just pregnant and alone. Now she had the delightful added bonus of facing the reality that she was pregnant and alone and heartily despised by her baby’s father.

The real hell of it was, seeing him again like this only served to remind her vividly of the heat and astonishing wonder of that night. Of kissing his hard mouth and touching those muscles underneath his clothes and burning only for him.

He hated her, she knew he did, but still she couldn’t control the way her insides trembled and sighed just seeing the firelight wash across those gorgeous, masculine features.

“Looks like we’re in for a long night,” he said abruptly and rose to his feet. “While you round up a flashlight and some candles, I’ll go bring in some extra firewood.”

Of course he would take charge, she thought. As Logan Corporation CEO, he was no doubt used to giving orders and having his minions obey without question. She should have been offended by his whole master-and-commander routine but she had to admit a tiny part of her wanted to let him throw his weight around a little, to let someone else carry the burdens of her worries for a while.

She sternly squashed the tempting impulse, ashamed of her weakness for even entertaining it for a second. “You don’t need to do that. Clint loaded several days worth of wood on the back porch for me before he left. There’s also a gas-fired generator out back that will juice up the appliances until the power kicks back on.”

“You act as if you’ve been through this before.”

“A few times. The power can be unreliable at best out here, especially during winter storms. I’ve had enough experience with outages that I should be perfectly fine. Believe me, you can head into town for the night with a completely clear conscience.”

She might as well have been talking to the river rocks on the fireplace. His only answer was a raised eyebrow and a challenging stare.

Katie sighed. It was worth a try. The idea of spending even one night in such close quarters with Peter Logan was enough to send her into major panic mode.

He was staying, though, and she realized grimly that no amount of arguing would change his mind. The same man who had the kindness as an eighteen-year-old college student to rescue a fat, awkward adolescent from the ugliness of her peers more than a decade earlier would never leave a woman alone out here in the middle of a blizzard.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about generators, do you?” she asked. “I’ve seen Clint start it but never done it myself.”

“Between the two of us, we should be able to figure it out, don’t you think?”

Relieved that he seemed willing to put aside his animosity, even temporarily, she nodded. “Sure.”

He cocked his head. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You’re still looking a little green around the edges. Maybe you should just take it easy and lie down here by the fire. I’m sure I can handle starting up a generator on my own.”

She refused to let him see how very much she would like to do exactly that, just curl up on this couch and let him handle everything. Trying her best to conceal the greasy nausea writhing around in her stomach, she mustered a small smile.

“Don’t worry about me.” Using the fire’s glow for illumination, she crossed the vast room to the hall storage closet. On the shelf near the door, just where she expected it, she found a large battery-powered lantern Clint and Margie kept available for exactly these kinds of emergencies. Wouldn’t she love it if the engineers on her R & D team were half as efficient as the Sweetwater caretakers? she thought.

“This should help,” she said to Peter. She led the way toward the utility porch off the kitchen. It seemed as if in just the few moments since the power had gone out, the temperature in the rooms away from the fireplace had dropped significantly. The Mexican tile floor in the kitchen was freezing, even through her thick wool socks.

All she could see outside the greenhouse window above the sink was thick blackness, but she could hear snow hurling against the logs and the wind moaning under the eaves.

It sounded lonely, mournful, and she shivered despite the sweater Ivy had sent her for Christmas from her new husband’s country of Lantanya, where Max was king.

The lantern gave off enough light that Peter must have seen her reaction. “Everything okay? Do you need to sit down?”

She knew the concern in his voice was just the courtesy he would show anyone but she couldn’t help being warmed by it. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be so solicitous if he knew the secret she carried under that sweater, though.

“No. The cold just took me by surprise, that’s all. The generator is this way.”

With the lantern held out in front of her, she carefully navigated through the mudroom to the utility porch that housed the home’s utilities—the furnace, water heater and the backup generator. The large room was vented with outside air for safety reasons and Katie found it even colder here than in the kitchen, so cold she could see her breath in the dim light she held in her hand.

“Any idea where to start?” Peter asked.

“Clint told me he left instructions.” She held the lantern up higher and scanned the room.

“This what you were looking for?” Peter asked, plucking a clipboard from a nail near the generator. He handed it to her and she saw several laminated cards secured neatly to it.

“I’ll say this for the man—he doesn’t have much to say but he’s an absolute genius at organization.” Katie leafed through the cards until she found guidelines for the gas-fired generator, beneath a page detailing how to relight the pilot on the furnace and one for checking the heating oil level on the outside tank.

“Here we go.” She studied the instructions, smiling a little at Clint’s meticulousness. “This doesn’t look bad.”

She reached to replace the clipboard on the nail but misjudged the distance in the dim light and stumbled a little against the wall. The back of her hand scraped across the nail, hard enough to break the skin, and Katie couldn’t contain a quick intake of breath.

“What’s wrong?”

It was silly, she knew, but she suddenly didn’t want Peter to know she was the world’s biggest klutz. She might have been blessed with brains by some genetic quirk, but she had definitely been passed over when it came to grace and poise.

She had always been the most accident-prone of her siblings. If there was one thing worse than being fat and ugly in a family of beautiful people, it was being fat and ugly and clumsy.

Peter already thought she had some deadly disease. He didn’t need to know about this.

“Um, nothing,” she murmured, tucking her hand against her side. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.” He sounded more resigned than angry, as if he expected nothing else. “You might as well tell me what happened.”

Her hand throbbed wickedly and she could feel blood beginning to drip from it. She wouldn’t be able to hide it from him for long and she suddenly felt foolish for trying. “Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see.”

She recognized the CEO in his voice, that unmistakable note of command. Her father had it and now Trent shared it in spades. She had spent her entire life surrounded by powerful men, she suddenly realized. With all that experience, why wasn’t she better at dealing with them?

With a weary sigh, she thrust out her hand. Peter took the lantern from her and set it on top of the furnace, then gripped her hand and tugged it under the circle of light.

“It doesn’t look very deep,” he decided after studying it for a few moments.

“I told you it was just a scratch.”

“Still, you’ll need to put something on it.”

“Can it wait until we’re finished here, Dr. Logan?”

“I hope your tetanus shot is up to date. That nail looked a little rusty.”

Someone with her inherent klutziness would be foolish not to keep current with her shots. Her last tetanus booster had been the previous summer after an unfortunate encounter with a conch shell on her brother Danny’s Hawaii retreat.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be trapped in the middle of a blizzard with someone suffering from lockjaw.”

“Well, at least I’ve got that much going for me. I guess things really could be worse.”

His dry tone surprised a laugh from her. Not much of one, she had to admit, but a laugh nonetheless.

He smiled in automatic response, his teeth gleaming in the artificial light. They stood close together under the pool of light spilling from the lantern. He still held her hand, and his fingers were warm and hard on her skin.

His gaze met hers for a moment and suddenly she could think of nothing except their night together, how they had laughed at nothing and kissed and laughed some more.

Everything inside her seemed to clench at the memory, a long, slow tightening of muscle and nerves. She saw something kindle in his eyes, something hot and wild and dangerous.

Before she realized it, she swayed a little toward him, then caught herself just in time. Horrified at her response, she wrenched her hand out of his grasp and stepped back so quickly she nearly stumbled again.

“We’d better get this thing fired up.”

For a moment, he only stared at her with an odd look in his dark eyes—a combination of awareness and a baffled sort of anger. “Right,” he finally muttered. “The wind sounds like it’s kicking up a notch.”

To her vast relief, he turned his attention to the generator. It was a little trickier than Clint’s instructions had led her to believe, but soon they had it going and switched the power current over to the generator.

Despite the tension simmering through the room and the pain still throbbing from her finger, she felt like Benjamin Franklin with his kite and his key when the lights flickered back on.

She grinned. “Bingo.”

He gazed at her for a charged moment, that strange expression in his eyes again. She waited for him to say something but he continued to watch her, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out.

She cleared her throat. “Would you like something to eat? Margie left a pot of beef stew on the stove for me that’s probably still hot and she made fresh rolls this morning. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but she’s a wonderful cook.”

“Let’s take care of that cut of yours first.”

She absolutely did not want him touching her again, not when she couldn’t stop remembering how his body had felt inside her, how his mouth had explored her skin.

“I’ve got it. You could add another log to the fire, though, and turn off any lights and nonessential electronics throughout the house. We’ll need to conserve what generator power we have. Here, take the lantern. I’ve got another one in my bedroom.”

He nodded and held out his hand. Their fingers brushed as they exchanged the light, and tiny sparks jumped between them. Just static electricity, she told herself.

They returned to the kitchen together, then split up as she headed for her bedroom suite. She left the overhead light on long enough to locate another battery-powered emergency lantern in her closet, switched it off and carried the lantern to the bathroom to get first-aid supplies.

While she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for a bandage and antibiotic ointment and washed the blood off her hand, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked horrendous. Her hair was spiky and windblown from her time outside earlier and she hadn’t bothered with makeup. Her eyes looked unnaturally huge in her pale face and her mouth had a pinched, sickly look to it.

No wonder Peter looked at her like he couldn’t quite believe Katie Crosby and the glamorous Celeste could be the same person.

She could scarcely believe it herself. She had been playing a part that night, a thrilling masquerade. Stuck alone here with her, Peter would see the real her. The boring, sensible Kate who wore long underwear and read dry technical manuals and who would never dream of going home with a handsome man and making love all night long.

Well, okay, she dreamed about it, she admitted to herself with a long, honest look in the mirror. She dreamed about it every night and remembered in exquisitely painful detail how she had come alive for the first time in her life that night.

Perhaps it was best that he see her for the person she really was. Not glamorous, not glitzy. Just Katie. That night she had been Cinderella at the ball, dressed up in borrowed finery. It had been wonderful and magical dancing the night away with Prince Charming, but midnight had come and gone. There would be no glass slipper for her—but she had been left with a magical, wondrous gift.

She touched her abdomen. Could she keep the baby a secret from him in such close quarters? It was only for one night and then he would be gone again. She was only thirteen weeks along and wasn’t really showing unless someone knew her well enough to recognize that the tiny swelling at her stomach hadn’t been there a few weeks ago.

She would just have to make sure she stayed in baggy clothes so he wouldn’t have that close a look.

The pesky morning sickness could be explained away by a lingering stomach bug, she hoped.

It would be a little tricky to pull it off, but what other choice did she have? She couldn’t tell him. This was her baby. He might have unwittingly donated the sperm but that didn’t make him a father. Bad enough that she deceived him by not telling him her name—she couldn’t bind him forever to a Crosby because of a quirk of fate.

Besides, Peter Logan was not the father she wanted for her baby. He was far too much like her own father—completely consumed by his work. She knew what it was like to wait in vain for a few crumbs her busy, important father might scatter her way. She wouldn’t do that to her own child. Better for her baby never to know a father than to suffer from inattention and indifference.

She could carry off the deception for one night, then they would go their separate ways and Peter would never have to know about the baby. She would invent an imaginary lover for the inevitable questions from her family and friends about her child’s paternity—a man she had fallen hard for but who had been unattainable.

Not so very far from the truth, she thought grimly. In fact, too close for her own comfort.

With a weary sigh, she quickly brushed her hair and debated touching up her face with some of the makeup tricks Carrie Summers had shown her. In the end she decided against doing anything more than a quick brush of lipstick and a little blush on her cheeks so she didn’t look so ghastly pale.

She returned to the gathering room to find that Peter had pulled a small table and two chairs near the fireplace and had set out two place settings. She nibbled her lip, fighting the urge to turn back around and hide out in her room for the rest of the night.

Dinner for two in a dimly lit room in front of a crackling fire looked entirely too romantic, too intimate.

He stood by one of the chairs waiting for her with a challenging kind of look in his eyes and she knew she couldn’t be cowardly enough to run away. She squared her shoulders and sat down.

“I hope you don’t mind me moving the furniture around a little,” he said. “I figured this would be more comfortable than eating in a cold dining room.”

“The dining room is rarely used anyway. When I stay here, I usually eat in the kitchen with the Taylors.”

“Those are the caretakers?”

She nodded. “Their daughter is having her first baby. They’ve gone for moral support.”

“I hope they made it through the storm.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. Clint’s used to driving in this weather.”

She returned to stirring her stew and the Herculean effort of swallowing the occasional bite.

“This is quite a place you’ve got here,” Peter said. “Somehow I never would have figured the Crosbys to go for rustic and isolated.”

The faint note of derision in his voice raised her hackles. She wasn’t sure if it was aimed at her family or at the ranch, both of which she loved dearly. Either way she didn’t like it. A sharp retort formed in her throat but she squashed it. In the interest of peace, she should probably do her best to avoid needless bickering.

“My father bought it as a retreat several years ago when it seemed like everybody was moving west.”

Like many of Jack Crosby’s actions, Sweetwater had been purchased to please one of his many girlfriends, then had been forgotten as soon as her father moved on to more nubile pastures. But she decided that was old family business she didn’t particularly need to share with Peter Logan.

“Does your family spend much time here together?” he asked.

She tried to remember when the Crosbys had last done anything together.

“We all came out for Christmas once right after Jack bought it,” she remembered. “Trent and Ivy have been out to ski occasionally. Sweetwater is only about an hour from the Jackson Hole ski resorts.”

He broke a roll in half and liberally spread some of Margie’s strawberry preserves on it. “Is that why you’re here? To ski?”

She wasn’t sure quite how to answer that. She certainly couldn’t tell him she had escaped to Sweetwater first because she’d been ill and then because she had been desperately in need of a safe haven, a sanctuary where she could come to terms with her pregnancy and figure out how she was going to map out the rest of her life after this unexpected detour.

“I’m not much of a skier,” she finally said.

She would have preferred to leave it at that but he pressed on. “So why are you here?”

Katie fought the urge to gnash her teeth at what was beginning to feel like an interrogation. “I like it here. Of all my siblings, I probably spend the most time here. This is where I come when I need to relax and recharge. I love the mountains, even in the winter. I like the solitude of it and the slow, easy pace. I guess I just needed a break from the rain.”

“So you decided howling winds and three feet of snow would be more to your liking?”

“It doesn’t snow all the time,” she muttered. She frowned suddenly, remembering something that had been puzzling her since he arrived. “How did you know how to find me, anyway? Only a few people knew I was coming.”

“You know, it’s amazing. The truth can open all kinds of doors. Maybe you ought to try it sometime.”

Before she could control it, her breath caught as the jab poked under her skin. She deserved it, she acknowledged, especially with the secret she still kept from him, the one she knew she could never tell him. Knowing his contempt was warranted didn’t make it any easier to take.

“Who told you?”

“I phoned your office. Once I gave your assistant my name and told her I needed to speak with you on an urgent matter, she was eager to help. She said you were staying at the family ranch and gave me the number here. From there, it was easy to connect the phone number to a location.”

She should have known. If Peter hadn’t been there, Katie would have groaned and banged her head against the back of her chair a few times. She loved her sixty-year-old assistant dearly but Lila Fitzgerald had a romantic streak as wide as the Columbia Gorge. She read the Weekly faithfully and must have seen the picture of them together at the bachelor auction.

Katie could just guess at the wild speculation that must have been running amok through Lila’s feverish imagination when Peter had called looking for her.

What kind of gossip was raging around the water coolers at Crosby Systems about her and Peter Logan because of that blasted picture? There were already some on her team who thought she didn’t have the experience or the know-how to lead the R & D division. What would her co-workers think when they saw a picture of her consorting with the man many considered to be the enemy?

What would her family think?

She already knew Sheila would be livid. She could only be grateful her mother was in Europe and wouldn’t be returning for several weeks. What about Trent and Ivy and Danny? They wouldn’t care so much that Peter was a Logan, but they would worry whether he had hurt her. And when she turned up pregnant, she knew they would wonder at the timing. She just had to hope she could brazen it out.

“I’m still not sure why you went to all the trouble to come out here. If you had the number, why couldn’t we have had this delightful little reunion over the phone?”

Peter didn’t have a rational answer to that. He only knew that the moment he found out where she was, he’d known he would come after her. He’d used the excuse of finding out what she had learned about the super-router project, but the truth was he’d been consumed with the need to see her again, corporate spy or not.

He’d be damned before he told her that, though, and he opted to change the subject. “Are you going to eat this delicious stew or just push it around in the bowl?”

Color crept along her cheekbones but she still looked far too pale for him. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Still feeling sick?”

Her gaze flashed to his, then back to the bowl of stew. “No. I’m fine.”

He didn’t want to worry about her. He wanted to wrap himself up in his well-deserved fury.

She had deceived him, had possibly stolen Logan secrets from him, jeopardizing a project that had been in the works for years. Maybe even jeopardizing his own future at Logan.

She was a Crosby, for hell’s sake. That alone should have been enough to squash any softness he might be tempted to feel.

So why was he fighting the completely inappropriate urge to take care of her?

“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked abruptly.

That color spread until even her nose was pink. “It’s just a—a bug. Nothing to worry about.”

“Is it contagious?”

A corner of her lush mouth lifted at that, then settled back into solemn lines. “No. I can guarantee you won’t catch this particular bug.”

A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the big window, but the merry little fire put out plenty of heat.

Peter couldn’t help wondering what they would be doing right now if circumstances had been different. If she wasn’t ill, certainly, but also if he had never learned her true identity.

Two days ago he would have given everything he had to be right here with the woman who had haunted his dreams for three months. To be alone with Celeste in an isolated ranch house, snug and warm and enchanted, would have been a fantasy come true. They would have snuggled under a blanket and listened to the wind howl outside while they kissed and touched and made love a dozen times.

The reality of their situation was so far removed from that fantasy that he gave a humorless laugh.

“What?”

“Just wondering what your brother would say if he knew I was here,” he improvised quickly.

“I’m old enough that I don’t need to ask my brother’s permission for much these days.”

The depressing reality of their situation here made his voice sharper than he intended. “Do you bother to ask him which unwitting business rivals to seduce, or do you figure that out all on your own?”

He regretted the words and the end to their temporary détente as soon as they escaped, especially when he saw hurt flare in her brown eyes. Was the emotion real, he wondered, or was she just a damn good actress? Whatever the answer, he didn’t like seeing her wounded.

Her chair scraped the wood floor and she pushed it back and rose, her expression now veiled. “I’m tired and I don’t have the energy to trade barbs with you, so what do you say we call it a night?”

He opened his mouth to apologize for his cruelty then stopped himself just in time. He didn’t have a damn thing to be sorry about. She was the one who had screwed him over.

“Sweetwater has six bedrooms suites,” she went on. “Two on this floor and five upstairs. Each has clean linens and a wood stove or fireplace for warmth. I’m sure you’re capable of starting your own fire, or you can sleep here on the couch if you would rather.”

“Kate—” He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Not an apology, damn it. She cut him off anyway before he could form any kind of coherent sentence.

“Good night, Peter,” she murmured in a voice every bit as cold as that bitch of a wind, then she picked up her bowl with its untouched stew and carried it to the kitchen.

Three

After her grand exit, Katie knew she had no choice but to hide here in her bedroom for the rest of the night.

It was too early to sleep, only about eight-thirty or so. She was tired enough, certainly—she was always tired these days—but even if she could manage to close her eyes, she had no doubt her mind would continue its wild race. She had a whole assortment of books to read, but none of them grabbed her interest. Why bother when she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on it anyway?

Surrendering to the inevitable, she pulled the quilt up to her chin and gazed into the flames and let her mind replay the night of the Children’s Connection bachelor auction, one small slice of time that had altered the course of her life forever.

Stand up straight and smile. If you feel beautiful, the world will see you that way. Her best friend Carrie’s advice rang in her ears as Katie stood outside the ballroom at the Portland Hilton.

Trouble was, she didn’t feel beautiful. The borrowed dress was gorgeous and she liked the wispy supershort new haircut Carrie’s stylist had given her, but she couldn’t help feeling like a fraud.

This was a crazy idea, thinking a new look would change who she was inside, would somehow instantly transform her into someone glamorous and desirable.

Inside she still felt fat and dowdy and shy.

She would have been content to stay forever in the background. But then she received an e-mail from Stacy Cartier, an old friend at boarding school, who happened to mention she’d heard through the grapevine that another of their classmates Angelina Larson had come back to Portland for a visit and would be attending with her husband, Steve—who just happened to be Katie’s ex-fiancé.

She hadn’t seen Steve in years, not since she threw his ring at his head after she overheard him at a party laughing and joking with one of his friends about the little cash cow he was marrying.

She had been forty pounds overweight but she thought he loved her despite the extra weight and her propensity to feel most comfortable with her nose in a book. The realization that he was marrying her only for her family’s money and connections had been a bitter betrayal she wasn’t sure she had ever recovered from.

Though she never wanted to see him again, she was committed to attend this benefit auction. She had to be there but she suddenly couldn’t bear to have Steve—or his wife, Angelina, who had tormented her mercilessly through their childhood—think she hadn’t changed at all in the six years since she’d broken off the engagement. Hence the makeover, the haircut, the borrowed designer gown.

You look good, she reminded herself. Better than you’ve ever looked in your life. Pretend you’re beautiful and the world will see you that way.

With one more deep breath for courage, Katie walked into the ballroom, festooned with magical twinkling lights and holiday greenery.

Maybe this was all for nothing, she thought. In this press of people, she likely wouldn’t even run into Steve and Angelina. For a moment she stood there feeling lost, then she caught sight of her brother Trent talking to a group of people she didn’t know.

She approached him, grabbing another flute of champagne from a passing waiter as she moved through the crowd. She stood behind him for a moment until he finished speaking, then tapped him on the shoulder when the group started to break up.

“What time do they start the bidding?” she asked. Trent was one of the bachelors up for bid; she had agreed to come in the first place only to give him moral support.

He turned at her words, a ready smile on his handsome features that slid away when he saw her. If she hadn’t been so nervous about his reaction she would have laughed at the way his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

“Katie?” he exclaimed. “What have you done to yourself? Where did you get that dress?”

The momentary delight she had taken at his stunned expression gave way to a flicker of annoyance. She hadn’t expected him to put on his overprotective big brother act. Usually he reserved that for Ivy, since Katie seldom gave him any reason to worry.

“Carrie Summers. She has a whole closet full of designer clothes from her modeling days. Why? What’s wrong with it?” she asked, when he continued to stare.

“Nothing, other than there isn’t nearly enough of it.” He cocked his head and took in all the changes she had made in the last few days. “You look incredible! You cut off all your hair. And where are your glasses? After all the years of Sheila’s nagging, I can’t believe you finally broke down and went for contacts.”

Here’s where things might get a little tricky, she thought. “I, um, had laser correction surgery earlier in the week. That’s why I haven’t been into the office. It was my Christmas present to myself.”

Just as she feared, his commanding features tightened. “Surgery? You had surgery and you didn’t bother to tell me? Why not? If you’d told me, I could have checked out the doctors and the facility, even researched the procedure. Hell, at the very least, I would have at least come with you to hold your hand.”

That was exactly why she hadn’t told him. He would take over like he always did and she would let him. She knew she relied too much on Trent. All of them did. Trent had basically raised all the Crosby children while Sheila was busy with her affairs and her position in society and Jack was busy building a business and carrying on plenty of affairs of his own.

She loved Trent deeply but after Ivy married a few months earlier, Katie realized perhaps she relied on him too much. She needed to stand on her own as Ivy had done, to find her own strength. The surgery was something she’d been thinking about for a long time and she wanted to do it alone. She didn’t regret it for a second; she could see better now than she ever dreamed possible.

“I didn’t want to bother you since I know how busy you’ve been with the super-router project.”

He opened his mouth to argue—probably something about how he was never too busy for his little sister—but before he could utter a word, his name came over the loudspeaker.

“Will Mr. Trent Crosby approach the podium, please? Trent Crosby.”

Katie turned and saw a woman she knew casually, Jenny Hall, giving the announcement.

Trent made a face. “Maybe I’ll luck out and they’re going to tell me they don’t need to put me on the auction block after all.”

She laughed. “You volunteered, buster. I think you’re stuck.”

He studied her for a moment. “You look good, Katie. If you can manage to fight off all the men who are going to be clamoring around you, save me a dance, okay?”

“Of course. Good luck.”

She watched him go to the dais, then scanned the room looking for someone else she knew. The panic that had abated somewhat in Trent’s presence bubbled back. This had to be the craziest idea she’d ever had, she thought again, nabbing her second—or was it third?—glass of champagne off a tray.

Whatever possessed her to think a little window dressing would cover her basic inadequacies? Her shyness, her social fumbling? She was one of those people who faded into the background and usually that was just the way she liked it.

It hadn’t taken therapy for her to figure out it was a learned behavior, developed early when she discovered that if she could manage to avoid attention, Sheila’s mercurial moods and sudden rages would rarely be aimed in her direction.

Trent wanted her here but she wished for once she could have said no to him. As much as she loved him, sometimes her older brother could be as forceful in his way as their father. She should have told him she couldn’t come and stayed home in her little condo in Lake Oswego, where she was comfortable and boring and safe.

She should leave, she thought. Really, her obligation here was done. Trent needed moral support and she had given it. This whole idea was ridiculous. Childish. Even if she saw Steve Larson, he probably wouldn’t care about any of this—the vision surgery, the blond highlights in her hair, the designer dress. He had the beautiful, though poisonous, Angelina on his arm.

She was about to set her glass on yet another tray carried by one of the ubiquitous waiters and make her escape when a tall man in an elegant black tuxedo approached her.

She recognized him instantly. Of course she knew who he was, since his younger self had starred in most of her adolescent fantasies—Peter Logan, oldest son of Terrence and Leslie Logan, and CEO of Crosby Systems’s biggest competitor, Logan Corporation.

She waited for a spark of recognition, then the inevitable cold disdain once he realized she was one of the despised Crosbys. But all she could see in his eyes was frank male appreciation.

For her! Peter Logan was looking at shy, dowdy, plump Katie Crosby like he wanted to devour her from top to bottom.

No, not plump anymore, she reminded herself. After the debacle of her short-lived engagement, she had worked fiendishly hard to whip herself into shape. Instead of the comfort foods she had survived on since her lonely boarding school days, she began to eat a healthier diet and to exercise obsessively.

It took her three years of hard work but she hadn’t been Steve Larson’s cash cow for a long time, even if she still preferred dressing in baggy clothes and hiding behind thick glasses and long hair.

He smiled at her, then, before she realized what was happening, he gripped her arm and maneuvered her onto the dance floor. Despite her shock at his high-handedness, she couldn’t help laughing. “Smooth. Very smooth. I see your reputation is not unfounded, Mr. Logan.”

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