She blamed the entire thing on the shirt.

His shirt, to be precise.

Everything would have been fine, if he’d just kept it on.

But no. He had to go be the gentleman. He’d known she was soaked through. And with no electricity thanks to the ice storm that had blanketed Seattle with hardly any warning, she had also been freezing.

So he’d given her a towel, threadbare as it was, to dry off as best she could.

And then he’d given her his shirt.

Really, that’s when all the trouble started.

That’s when she’d obviously lost every bit of common sense that she’d ever possessed.

What else could possibly explain the fact that she was now lying on a pile of cushions on the floor of Merrick & Sullivan Yachting with Paxton Merrick’s sinewy arm over her waist as if he had every right to do so?

* * *

The Hunt for Cinderella:

Seeking Prince Charming

Once Upon a Valentine

Allison Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

There is a saying that you can never be too rich or too thin. Allison Leigh doesn’t believe that, but she does believe that you can never have enough books! When her stories find a way into the hearts—and bookshelves—of others, Allison says she feels she’s done something right. Making her home in Arizona with her husband, she enjoys hearing from her readers at Allison@allisonleigh.com or PO Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772, USA

For all of you Cinderellas-at-heart

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

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter One

December

She blamed the entire thing on the shirt.

His shirt, to be precise.

Everything would have been fine, if he’d just kept it on.

But no. He had to go be the gentleman. He’d known she was soaked through. And with no electricity thanks to the ice storm that had blanketed Seattle with hardly any warning, she also had been freezing.

So he’d given her a towel, threadbare as it was, to dry off as best she could.

And then he’d given her his shirt.

Really, that’s when all the trouble started.

That’s when she’d obviously lost every bit of common sense that she’d ever possessed.

What else could possibly explain the fact that she was now lying on a pile of cushions on the floor of Merrick & Sullivan Yachting with Paxton Merrick’s sinewy arm over her waist, his big palm cupping her breast as if he had every right to do so?

Shea Weatherby chewed the inside of her lip as she lay motionless in hopes that he wouldn’t wake up.

It was morning. Sunlight was filling the room. The wind that had howled and screamed and driven her into his office in the first place in search of shelter when her car wouldn’t start was now silent. She couldn’t see out the windows without turning over, though, and that was something she didn’t want to do.

Because it would mean turning toward Pax too.

Bad enough she could feel the heat of his body burning down every inch of her backside. Because she’d obviously lost her head after the whole shirt-offering incident, she clearly couldn’t be trusted to look at his infernally attractive face or other...body parts.

She closed her eyes against the sunshine, wondering how on earth she’d be able to salvage some dignity here.

She’d known Pax for well over two years. Had been regularly turning down his flirtatious overtures for just as long. But all it took was one night, stuck together because her bank account couldn’t extend itself yet to replace her old junker of a car once and for all, and she’d tumbled like a house of cards.

He’d loaned her his shirt to wear when she’d been soaked. He’d wrapped his arms around her and kept her warm when the electricity had gone out because of the storm. And when, heaven help her, she’d tasted the brush of his lips...

She wasn’t even sure who’d kissed who first, and Shea was more than a little afraid it had been her.

She curled her fingers into the cushion and blocked off the thoughts. Tried to, at least. It was hard, when her body still felt sated and warm and—might as well just admit it—more relaxed than it had been in years.

And more satisfied than ever, period.

Again, she shushed the voice inside her head.

She knew she should be grateful that Pax had been here at the leasing office at all. He spent a lot more time at the company’s actual boat works location farther up the shore near the bridge than he did here, at the office that overlooked the marina where the sailboats they leased out were moored. If he hadn’t been here, she’d have been stuck sitting inside her car that refused to start and riding out the ice storm because she’d had no way of getting back inside Cornelia’s building next door once she’d let herself out. Shea had just started working for the woman a week ago and hadn’t wanted the responsibility of an office key when she’d been offered one. By the time the storm had struck yesterday afternoon, everyone else in the office had already left before the roads became impassable, leaving Shea to fend for herself.

She squelched a sigh and opened her eyes again.

Pax had dragged the cushions they were lying on from the boxy, wooden chairs that were scattered around the airy office interior. They were thick and square and covered with a nautical stripe, and though they didn’t make an ideal bed, they were better than sleeping on the hardwood floor. It had been either the cushions, or curl up on a desktop. He’d also found a canvas tarp for them to use as a blanket and a few stubby candles that he’d stuck in mismatched coffee mugs to give them a little light.

Her gaze went from one of the de-cushioned chairs to the round table that sat in the center of the room. A showroom, she supposed it could be called, because—aside from the chairs—the only other piece of furniture was that round table, with a massive, wooden model of a sailing sloop displayed on top of it.

Pax and his partner, Erik Sullivan, built boats. Big, beautiful custom sailing yachts that looked like poetry in the water. Both men were single. Both numbingly good-looking. They were part of the yachting world and all that that entailed—money and the “beautiful people.” But they both had an interest in the welfare of their community, which was how Shea had come to meet Pax in the first place while covering a story for her newspaper, The Seattle Washtub.

It’d just been a human interest thing. Local boys made good—very good—by sharing their wealth with a group of kids. Didn’t hurt that those local boys were single, extremely attractive and millionaires.

She grimaced and shifted restlessly, and the second that she did, Pax’s thumb moved, brushing slowly over her nipple, which traitorously tightened and ached for more. She froze. Waited for another movement from him and wished that she could say that she dreaded one.

But that would be a monumental lie after what they’d already done. What her tightening nerves suggested would be a smashingly good thing to do again.

Shea prided herself on being practical. On being honest with herself. She knew perfectly well that nothing good ever came out of lying to herself.

Or out of weaving dreams from a slanted, sexy smile.

Been there. Done that. And had earned nothing but heartache as a result.

Pax’s thumb stroked her again. “You’re thinking too much.” His voice was deep and rumbling and ridiculously appealing as his fingers slid over her, moving with the delicate precision of a musician.

She slammed a lid over her romantic notions and focused hard on the base of the table a few feet away from her nose. “I’m not thinking anything at all.”

He shifted, bending his knee into the crook of hers. Every inch of her skin from knee to neck felt singed by him, and there was no mistaking the fact that he was well and truly awake. “I can feel you thinking,” he murmured. “And it’d be much more fun if we just settled on the feeling.”

If she really were thinking, she would have found some way to resist him. She wouldn’t be yearning, even now, to feel him moving possessively over her. Again.

She steeled herself against the seductive warmth sliding through her veins and rolled onto her back, looking up at him.

At the best of times, Pax was impossibly handsome.

At the worst of times, like now, he was even more so.

It was just something about that whole unshaven look, whiskers blurring the hewn angle of his long jaw and wavy brown hair tumbling down over his dark brown eyes.

She fought the urge to drool a little and ruthlessly slapped her palm against his chest, shoving him away as she scrambled from beneath the canvas. “This was a mistake.”

He propped his rumpled head on his hand, managing to look amused and sexier than ever in one fell swoop. As if he knew good and well that she was just as hot for him as he apparently was for her. Or maybe that was simply his usual state whenever he wakened on a cold office floor covered in nautical canvas.

“You weren’t saying that earlier.” His lips stretched into his familiar, lazy smile. “I definitely remember things like...more.” His voice dropped. “More.”

The problem was that she did want more.

Which was a bad thing. Capital B. Capital T.

“I’m not saying it now.” Goose bumps crawled over her skin as she moved around the model. She snatched her sweater off the boat’s bow where he’d hung it to dry and wondered if it had ever been draped with female items of clothing before.

Knowing Pax, it probably had. The man seemed to have his own set of groupies. Every time she’d done a story—and there had been eight of them now, featuring him or his partner, Erik—he’d been surrounded by beautiful women.

She dragged the damp knit over her head and was glad that it reached her thighs. She’d left her wet bra in the bathroom when she’d changed into Pax’s dry shirt, and she was pretty certain that her panties were bunched somewhere under that canvas with him and that darned shirt of his.

She was also pretty sure that now was not the time to go hunting for them.

Instead, she yanked her corduroy pants up her legs, wincing at their cold dampness, and headed to the windows that overlooked the deserted street fronting the ancient brick building.

Her traitorous little economy car was still parked in front. She could see the icicles dripping from the bumper like Christmas decorations. She hoped it wasn’t going to cost a fortune to fix whatever had gone wrong this time. Her bank account had just now stopped gasping for air thanks to starting her part-time gig next door for Cornelia.

“How does it look out there?”

“Frozen.” She didn’t let her gaze linger on him any longer than necessary when she turned away from the icy sight. She already knew he was the exact opposite of icy.

The room was cold. Her clothes uncomfortably damp. But warming herself with him again was absolutely out of the question.

She didn’t have one-night stands. She didn’t have stands, period. Repeating that mistake was not going to happen.

She picked up the three coffee mugs and set them on the table next to the sloop. “I’d kill for a cup of hot coffee.” Better to focus on a craving for caffeine than a craving for him.

“The swill here is stone cold and gonna stay that way until the power is restored.” He was sitting up with the canvas wrapped around his shoulders. He ought to have looked silly. He didn’t. “We’ve got the rest of those saltines Ruth kept around, and that’s about it.”

Her mouth was watering. Unfortunately, it was not for the package of stale crackers that his secretary had left behind before going out on maternity leave.

She shoved her hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. It felt like a rat’s nest to her, but that hadn’t stopped him from twining his fingers through it earlier.

Her stomach gave an excited swoop and she swallowed hard, escaping to the restroom. Flipping the light switch in the small room yielded no results, but there was at least enough light from the high, narrow window to see by. The tiled room was clean and neat, and Shea wanted to hide out there as long as possible, but it was too cold. Her bra was just as damp as the rest of her clothes and she balled it up as best she could and shoved it in her pants pocket, unable to face adding yet another damp layer against her skin. She used the toilet, washed her hands in cold water, cringed at her bedraggled reflection in the mirror and reluctantly returned to the reception area.

Pax had shed the canvas blanket and pulled on his jeans. He’d left the top button unfastened.

Her gaze lollygagged over the hard ridges of his abdomen, and she felt her cheeks flushing when her eyes finally reached his.

Definitely, she blamed it all on his shirt.

He was grinning slightly, as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking, and then he leaned over to pick up the white button-down offender from the floor.

“I need to get home,” she announced, her voice abrupt and too loud. “My cat is sick.”

He straightened, smiling outright. “That’s an excuse I haven’t heard before.”

“Marsha-Marsha,” she prattled, hating the nervousness bubbling up inside her as much as she hated that weird feeling in her stomach whenever she looked at him. “She’s sixteen years old. I, um, I have to give her antibiotics right now.”

The amusement in his dark brown eyes turned to something else. Something softer. Something unexpected. He pulled on his shirt. “How long have you had her?”

She managed to look away from him and focused on the wooden model ship sitting on the table. She didn’t know much about boats, but the gleaming structure looked like it belonged in an art museum. “Since she was a kitten. My, um, my stepfather Ken gave her to me.” Ken had been number three in the line of her mother’s seven marriages. He was long gone now, but Marsha-Marsha was still here.

“Well then,” Pax said, as if the decision were easy. “You need to get home.”

Her car hadn’t started the day before. She doubted sitting in a storm gathering ice would have cured its ills. “You think the buses are running again?” Everything had ground to a halt the afternoon before.

His smile was immediate. “Doesn’t matter if they are or aren’t. As long as the roads are passable, I’ll get you home.”

Again with the swoop inside her.

She shook it off. “I live on the far side of Fremont,” she warned. Her apartment wasn’t exactly right around the corner.

“I know.”

She studied him for a moment. “I don’t remember telling you where I lived.” Their conversations, outside of any interviews he’d given her, were light-hearted in the extreme, usually ending with him suggesting that her life wouldn’t be complete if she didn’t go out with him. He’d invited her out for everything from coffee to a sail around the world.

She’d never once taken him seriously. It was simply part of his genetic makeup to flirt with women.

“Just because you get paid to ask questions doesn’t mean you’re the only person who ever does.” His voice was dry.

“Who’d you ask about me? Mrs. Hunt?” She couldn’t imagine the very elegant, über-wealthy Cornelia Hunt gossiping about anyone, even with the ridiculously charming Paxton Merrick. But then again, Shea could hardly imagine Cornelia’s unusual business venture either, despite having been a witness to its very birth. The woman had no need to ever work because she was married to one of the richest men in the country, yet she’d set up shop to help women succeed in business even when many of them didn’t realize they needed help. And now Shea was a minor contributor because Cornelia had hired her part-time to conduct background checks on her prospective clients. At least she took Shea’s investigative abilities seriously, whereas her boss at the Washtub didn’t.

“You’ve got an editor at the Tub,” Pax said, as if he’d been reading her mind.

“Harvey Hightower is an ornery old coot who doesn’t do anything for anyone unless he’s getting something out of it.” He called Shea “cupcake” and wouldn’t assign her to anything but puff pieces and gossip, no matter how hard or loudly she begged. Didn’t even matter that the twice-weekly independent operated on a shoestring budget. He’d rather pay a “serious” journalist for the “harder” stuff than let Shea stretch her wings. He’d decided she was good at human interest stories and that’s where she’d been stuck ever since she’d started working there after college. But Harvey did love anything to do with Pax and his boat-building partner because the readers loved anything to do with Pax and his boat-building partner. Who was to say that he wouldn’t have answered any question Pax asked?

She huffed. “You’re an irritating man.”

He laughed softly. “Glad to know I’m finally having some effect.”

She grimaced. “Last night wasn’t the response you’ve been going for these past few years?”

Amusement lit his dark eyes. “I figured it was an early Christmas present.”

“I don’t give Christmas presents like that.” Truth was, she didn’t give Christmas presents at all, except to her mother. And that was only a gift certificate to her favorite store because Shea knew there was no point in picking out something personal. Her mother thought Shea had abysmal taste.

“Well, then. Lucky me.” His dimple flashed again as he grabbed up the canvas and loosely folded it.

It was better to busy her hands than to keep watching him, so she picked up one of the cushions to return it to its rightful position on one of the square, wooden chairs. As soon as she moved it, she spotted her panties beneath, and she snatched them up and shoved them in her other pants pocket.

She was pretty sure she’d never carried around all of her undergarments in the front pockets of her pants. She was glad her sweater was long enough to cover it all up, and she pretended that Pax hadn’t observed the whole embarrassing thing while she put the cushion back in place. The mugs clanked together when he carried them to the break room. With nothing else to do, she sat down and pulled on her leather boots, zipping them over the legs of her damp pants, not because she wanted to, but because the legs were too narrow to fit over the boots. Then she headed to the windows again, peering out.

“Phone lines are still down.”

She glanced back to see Pax tucking his cell phone into his back pocket.

“I checked the landline too,” he added. “It’s as dead as my cell.”

“I’m not surprised.” She turned to the window again and pointed to the building across the street. A power pole, laden with ice, was leaning against the three-story warehouse. “There’s ice hanging on everything.” She chewed the inside of her lip. Neither the fact that Marsha-Marsha was waiting nor Shea’s desperation to escape would excuse another act of utter foolishness. “The roads are probably still iced over, too.”

He closed his hand over her shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll get out there and see,” he said calmly. “If it’s not safe to drive, we won’t.”

She didn’t look at him. It took too much effort trying to ignore the warmth spreading from his hand through her shoulder. “I’m not worried.”

“Of course you’re not.” His tone was desert-dry.

Her lips tightened and she shifted. His hand fell away and it frustrated her no end that she missed his comforting touch. He would forget her the second his gaze fell on another female above the age of consent. It would do her well to remember that.

“I can probably get a weather report on the car radio. Which is more than we can get staying cooped up in here.” He headed toward the back of the office again, and she quickly followed, stopping long enough to grab her purse and her fake-suede blazer from where she’d dumped them. They both were still damp, too.

She joined him at the door on the side of the building that opened onto a covered area between his building and Cornelia’s. His red sports car was parked there, protected somewhat from the elements. Beyond the car, she spotted the boats harbored in the marina, swaying in the water. No Merrick & Sullivan boats, though. He’d told her they’d pulled their rental fleet out of the water for maintenance.

“Stay inside while I get it started.”

She was glad to. One hint of the cold air outside was enough to make goose bumps sprout on her eyelashes. So she pulled the door closed and waited until she heard the engine running and he gave a quick honk. Then, even though it was his engine, it was still the sound of escape, so she pulled the door closed behind her and ran out to the car. “What about the door? Does it lock automatically?”

“Yeah.” Air was blowing from the heater vents with a promising hint of warmth and he was fiddling with the high-tech-looking radio. His profile was sharp and clear and more mesmerizing than she wanted to admit. “Seat belt.”

She jumped a little when he glanced at her, then felt her face flush. She fastened the belt. “Cornelia’s door locks automatically, too,” she blathered. “That’s, uh, that’s why I couldn’t get back in her building yesterday.”

His gaze slid over her again. “You mentioned.”

She flushed even harder. Right. She’d been full of excuses when he’d pulled her inside his office the evening before. Including the mistakes she’d made in not taking her car to the mechanic when it had started making a new symphony of noises and not really believing the weather reports when they warned everyone to take immediate shelter.

She’d just made one mistake after another.

Her gaze strayed to the way his thigh bulged against his faded jeans.

Followed by the biggest mistake of all.

He put the car into gear and slowly nudged out from beneath the overhang, turning onto the street lined with red brick buildings similar to his and Cornelia’s.

They drove for three blocks heading inland from the Ballard waterfront before they spotted another occupied vehicle. The heater was doing its job very well now; she imagined her clothes were starting to put off steam. It was a better excuse than thinking she was overheating just from sitting inches away from him inside his hot rod of a car, watching his long fingers, deft and easy on the gear shaft.

She dragged her eyes away and looked out at the icy city, trying to empty her mind.

“You’re thinking too much again.”

How did he do that? “I’m thinking about how I’m going to get to work tomorrow,” she lied.

He snorted softly. “I’ll bet you Honey Girl that you’re not.”

She knew that Honey Girl was his 65-foot sailboat. That he’d built her by hand. That he’d received offers from around the world to buy her, and that women all over the city jumped at the opportunity to be invited aboard.

“Even if you were thinking about work—which you’re not—” he shot her a grin “—I’m pretty certain there won’t be anyone working at the Tub tomorrow. Listen.” He tapped the car radio. “They’re still advising everyone to stay off the roads unless it’s an emergency.”

“Driving me home to my apartment probably doesn’t qualify.”

“Sure it does.” His dimple appeared. “Medical emergency.”

“A feline one.”

“Doesn’t make it unimportant.” He stopped at an intersection where the traffic lights were all flashing red and, even as slowly as he was going, the car eased sideways a little. But there were no other cars present. “If my dog Hooch needed medicine every day, you can take it to the bank that I’d find a way to get it to him.”

She’d written eight articles about Pax. She knew he’d grown up in the little town of Port Orchard across the sound, where he and his business partner had first started out building boats, that he now lived on the top floor of a luxury building in trendy Belltown, and that he had a well-known weakness for anything chocolate. “You never said you had a dog.”

“Would you have said yes the first time I asked you out if I had? Or the second time or the third?”

Her ex-fiancé, Bruce, had had a dog. He’d dumped her two days before their wedding.

“No.”

Pax watched her for a moment, then continued through the empty intersection. “And what about now?”

“I told you. This was a—”

“—mistake. Yeah. I remember. Why?”

She stifled a sigh. “Because!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Figured a journalist like you would be better in a war of words than that, sweetheart.”

“Even if I believed in relationships—which I do not—I wouldn’t be foolish enough to expect anything from you. And I don’t have time in my life to play around.” She was busy enough trying to keep her head above water between the Washtub and her gig with Cornelia.

His lips twisted. “You always have been hard on my ego.”

“Please.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Flirting is as second nature to you as breathing. Nothing I could say or do would dent your ego.”

“Why don’t you believe in relationships?”

She exhaled and looked out the side window again. Thankfully, her apartment was only a block away now. “Who in their right mind does? Just drop me at the top of the hill. If my street is icy, you won’t make it back up again because I’m pretty sure this little toy of yours isn’t sporting four-wheel drive.”

“I’ll have to let my parents know they’re not in their right minds.” His voice was mild. “Believing in relationships as they tend to do.”

“They’re the exception rather than the rule.”

“You’re what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”

“Twenty-eight.” And he was ten years her senior. His birthday had been in August, and Harvey’d had her camping outside the nightclub across from his apartment building with her camera to get photos of any gossip-worthy patrons coming in and out. He’d been practically gleeful when she’d shown him the ones of Pax and his dates. As in plural. He’d had three women clinging to him when he’d finally left the club in the wee hours of the morning. It’d been obvious they weren’t done celebrating when they’d crossed the street and headed inside his apartment building dragging a bobbing trio of “Happy Birthday” balloons behind them.

“That’s still too young to be so jaded,” he was saying.

She lifted her shoulder. “I learned early. Wait—” He’d turned onto her street and was creeping down the steep hill. “I said just let me off at the top!”

“And I ignored you.” The wheels crunched over the road, finally coming to a stop in front of her aging apartment building. He rested his wrist on top of the steering wheel and looked at her. “I do that whenever I hear nonsense.”

“Whenever you hear something you don’t want to hear, you mean.”

His lips twitched. “That, too.”

Her stomach swayed when his gaze dropped to her lips. She pressed them together and tried not to squirm in her seat. “Whether you want to hear it or not, we shouldn’t have, um, you know. Last night. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Slept together? Got busy? Had sex?” His brown eyes were filled with devilish mirth. “Made love?”

She barely kept from clapping her hands over her ears. “We shouldn’t have had sex,” she managed sternly. “It doesn’t change anything.”

He reached out and twined a tangled lock of her hair around his finger. “Don’t be so sure about that, sweetheart.”

“I am sure.” She pulled her hair free, unsnapped her seat belt and shoved open the car door. Icy air swept in, overriding the car heater’s efforts, though it didn’t do diddly to douse the heat inside her. “Thanks for the ride home, Pax, but save yourself some time and look elsewhere for your next conquest. Lord knows there are plenty of women waiting to jump at the chance.” She grabbed her purse and leaped out of the car, shoving the door closed again before he could say anything else.

She hadn’t even begun picking her way across the icy sidewalk to the building entrance when she heard the whirr of the electric window going down behind her. “My parents are having a Christmas party on Christmas Eve. You should come with me. We can start off at my place with a drink.”

Exasperated, she looked back at him. “Pax—”

“I told you I ignored nonsense when I hear it. I’ll call you.” Then he gave her that trademark half-smile of his, rolled up the window with another whirr and drove back up the street that, by all rights, a car like that should have never been able to climb.

She blew out a shaky breath. “Darned shirt.”

Chapter Two

February

“She’s there.”

Pax looked up from the contract he was reading. His secretary, Ruth, was standing in the doorway to his office. “Excuse me?”

Ruth raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Shea Weatherby,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I just saw her head into Mrs. Hunt’s building next door. Don’t pretend you haven’t been waiting for her. You’d be over at the boat works if you weren’t.”

Pax’s fingers tightened around his pen, but he still looked down at the latest contract that Erik had landed as if he had all the time in the world. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Ruth let out a sound, half disbelief, half annoyance, and all Ruth. “Play hard to get if you want. It’s Valentine’s Day, so my mother is babysitting the kids and I’m leaving early to have dinner with my husband. I’ll come in tomorrow to finish up that schedule for the sailing camp this summer.”

He wasn’t worried about the schedule. He knew that she would cross every T and dot every I the same as she always did. “Just don’t go getting so romantic tonight you end up needing another maternity leave.”

Ruth laughed and walked away.

He waited until she closed things up for the day and locked the front door on her way out. Then he dropped his pen and turned away from the contract that he hadn’t been able to read a word of and shoved his hands through his hair.

It was like this nearly every Tuesday and Friday because those were the days that Shea went by Cornelia Hunt’s office to pick up or drop off her latest assignment. The fact that this Friday also happened to be Valentine’s Day was moot.

Also moot was trying to pretend that he wasn’t going to go next door and bum a cup of coffee off of them. Pretty damn pathetic that it was the only time he had a hope in hell of exchanging a few words with Shea Weatherby.

Sleeping with her during that ice storm before Christmas hadn’t changed a single thing where she was concerned. She still gave him the brush-off. It hadn’t changed a thing where he was concerned, either, except to cement even more firmly what he’d already known.

That he wanted her like crazy.

He had from the very first time she’d approached him with her notepad and pen, looked up at him with her enormous blue eyes and her long blond hair blowing around her shoulders in the breeze, and asked if he minded if she recorded their interview.

He’d looked into those eyes and felt the world stop. He’d thought that the heavens were really smiling on him when he’d learned that she’d be regularly doing some work for Cornelia Hunt next door. And then that his chances with her were looking up after that ice storm. He was a man used to getting what he went after and one night wasn’t enough.

But she had remained stubbornly resistant. She’d slept with him, yes. But she’d refused to see him again. Period.

He knew it wasn’t because she was uninterested.

So much of her was a mystery, but that wasn’t. It wasn’t arrogance or conceit that made him believe it, either. They’d been pussyfooting around their attraction for a good two and a half years, but the night of the ice storm, he’d hoped that they’d finally stopped playing.

He hadn’t even intended to do anything that night but keep her safe. The storm had stopped the city cold. Bridges and roads had been closed. Erik had been stuck out in Port Orchard and Pax had been at the office to take care of some paperwork. He’d seen Shea’s car parked in front of Cornelia’s building and so he’d waited around. Then, when the storm descended in earnest and her car hadn’t started...

Of course he’d given her shelter.

Only she’d kissed him. And given him hope.

After all this time of being shot down by her, she’d opened the door wide and he wasn’t the kind of man who ignored opportunities.

He shoved back from the desk, grabbed a coffee mug from the break room and went out the side door, crossing from the alleyway between his building and Cornelia’s to her front entrance. He went inside, passing by the discreet plaque affixed outside the door that said FGI.

He hadn’t known what the initials stood for until his partner had told him it stood for Fairy Godmothers, Inc. Erik had laughed wryly over it because he’d met his new fiancée through the business and it wasn’t a dating service at all, despite the sound of it.

As long as Erik was finally happy having fallen in love with Rory, Pax didn’t care if FGI was a dating service. But he knew Cornelia’s new business was about business—namely, helping give young women a start that they might not have otherwise been able to have.

It was one of the things Pax liked about the older woman. She cared about helping people. And she was surprisingly self-effacing and low-key for a woman who’d recently married one of the wealthiest men in the country, Harrison Hunt. He—and the computer company he’d founded, HuntCom—were household names.

What wasn’t low-key, though, was the interior of the building she’d bought several months ago. It had been in a constant state of renovation ever since, but it was clear that the place wasn’t going to be your ordinary office building. Now, the entryway was complete with a marble floor with inlaid medallions in the center, spurring a sense of guilt whenever he crossed it wearing his work boots. The space looked more like it needed to be hosting art exhibits.

Not that there was a lack of art in the space. Paintings were hung above the split, curving staircase that led to the upper landing where scaffolding was clearly visible. Pax was no expert on art, but he figured the impressionist paintings were likely originals given Harrison Hunt’s insistence that his new wife have nothing but the best.

“Good afternoon, Pax!” An attractive woman wearing glasses was descending the one side of the staircase that wasn’t cordoned off with heavy, milky white plastic. “Come for some coffee, did you?”

He lifted the mug in his hand in answer. “Hey, Phil.” Then he gestured at the plethora of red roses that were sitting in vases on every available surface, including some of the stairs. “This going to be part of the regular décor for FGI or just a comment on it being Valentine’s Day?”

Felicity Granger laughed lightly and plucked a rose from one of the staircase bouquets as she finished descending. She deftly broke off most of the stem, then reached out and tucked the tightly furled flower through a buttonhole near his collar. “Valentine’s Day, of course.” She looked around at the overwhelming floral display. “Mr. Hunt’s doing, naturally.” She smiled. “Cornelia tossed up her hands when they were delivered. I guess she figures if she can’t control her husband’s grandiose interference with the renovations here, she’s not going to be able to stop him from buying out half of the floral shops in Seattle.” Phil walked with Pax back to the fancy little break room that was better equipped than most kitchens. “I put on a fresh pot to brew when Shea arrived.” She gave Pax a sideways look. “I figured you wouldn’t be far behind.”

He grabbed the pot and dumped some in his mug. “I just came for the java.”

Phil nudged up her glasses and shrugged. “Twice a week now for how long? Month? Month and a half? When you have three minutes or so alone with her if you’re lucky? How’s that approach working for you?”

His neck felt hot. He was thirty-eight damn years old. Had been voted most eligible bachelor in Seattle three different times. Even before he and Erik hit the big time a decade ago after designing a sloop for one of Harrison’s sons, J.T., Pax had never had problems finding a date. But he couldn’t seem to get a particular short, curvy blonde to take him seriously at all. “FGI isn’t supposed to be a dating service,” he muttered. If it was, maybe he should consider hiring them to improve his chances.

Phil just laughed again. “Shea’s upstairs in Cornelia’s office but I’m pretty sure they’re nearly finished,” she said as she headed out of the break room. “In case you decide you want to try a more direct approach.”

Pax had visited the offices at the top of the stairs only once when Cornelia had given him a tour of the ongoing renovations. He damn sure wasn’t going to go up there now to hunt down Shea. Instead, he leaned back against the granite-topped counter and leisurely sipped his coffee.

It really was a helluva cup of coffee. And he knew Shea wasn’t likely to leave the place without first filling up the travel mug that she always had with her.

He knew the second she was heading down the staircase, not just because he could hear her voice as she spoke with Cornelia, but because his nerves twitched the way they always did whenever she was in the vicinity.

“Good afternoon, Pax,” Cornelia greeted when she walked into the small room, her softly lined face looking amused. “What a surprise to see you.”

Shea snorted softly. But instead of reaching for the coffeepot, she moved past Pax without looking at him and filled her travel mug with water from the dispenser sitting next to a built-in gas range. “Hardly a surprise when he seems to spend more time here than he does at his own office. Nearly every time I come by, he’s here.”

Pax saw the way Cornelia pressed her lips together and looked away, trying not to laugh.

Fortunately, Shea didn’t notice.

Her honey-gold hair was loose, streaming nearly to her waist. Her short jacket was the same chocolate color as his dog, Hooch. She often wore jeans and boots, but today she was wearing flat-heeled loafers, brown tights and a pleated orange skirt that ended just above her shapely knees.

When she straightened, he quickly looked up from her legs, and her wide eyes collided with his.

She had dark circles under eyes as if she were short of sleep, but she was still the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. “No coffee today?”

“Not today.” Her lashes dropped and she looked toward Cornelia. “I’ll get that background report to you right away.”

Cornelia smiled, her expression under control again. “I appreciate you putting a rush on this one. Phil found her for us, and we’re just waiting on your report to pair her with a mentor.” Her gaze took in Pax. “If she turns out to be our next client, I have an ideal match in mind. My son-in-law Gabe is in construction and one of his partners has been looking for a new challenge. I think her business plan might be right up his alley.”

Shea nodded, her eyes still avoiding Pax’s. She patted the oversized purse hanging from her shoulder and he guessed she probably had an email or a letter regarding Cornelia’s latest project inside. “I’ll get on it tonight.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Cornelia tsked. “It’s Valentine’s Day. You should be out enjoying the evening. Your research can wait until morning.”

“I don’t have any plans.” Shea didn’t seem upset at that fact, either. “I’ll leave Valentine’s Day for the people who believe in all that—” she waved her hand slightly “—stuff.”

“Like my so-subtle Harrison?” Cornelia smiled. “He’s taken Valentine’s Day to a new level, as we all can see. The man has no sense of moderation.” She patted Shea’s shoulder and turned toward the doorway. “Take one of the bouquets on your way out,” she invited. “You, too, Pax. You can give it to Ruth or something.” She sailed out of the break room.

Shea’s gaze flicked up to his, then away again. She moistened her lips. Looked as if she were going to say something, only to shake her head once and tuck her hair behind her ear. “Enjoy the coffee,” she muttered and followed Cornelia out of the room.

Pax grimaced, left the coffee mug on the granite counter and went after her. “Shea. Wait.”

She stopped, spinning on her heel in the center of the marble foyer. “Pax, don’t. Please. I don’t have the energy right now.”

“Energy for what? I just wanted to say Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Her lips twisted. “Right.” She reached out and touched the rose Phil had stuck in his shirt. “Never figured you for the type who’d get excited over a Hallmark holiday.”

He wondered what she’d have to say when she got home and saw the delivery he’d arranged for her. “Valentine’s Day predates greeting card companies. What’s got you so tired? Your editor over at the Tub putting you on more stories or something?”

“Always plenty of silly stories and gossip.” Her foot edged toward the doorway as if she couldn’t wait to escape. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

There was no mistaking her surprise. “No!” Her gaze darted toward the empty staircase. “No,” she said more calmly. “I’ve told you before. I’m not interested in dating anyone.”

Pax didn’t particularly care if they were overheard by Cornelia or one of her employees. It wasn’t like it’d be news to them that he was pursuing Shea. “So I shouldn’t take it personally that you’ve been avoiding me even more than usual.”

She looked pained. “I’m not...avoiding you.”

He had ample evidence otherwise, but debating with her was pointless. “I know you decided somewhere along the way that I’m a player. That I’m not really serious where you—or anyone else—are concerned. But I’m still curious why you’re so opposed to—”

“—sexual hookups?” She looked around the foyer that was literally coming up roses. “Please don’t say romance.”

“I was going to say relationships,” he corrected blandly.

“We have a relationship—journalist and frequent subject.” She looked ready to say more, but all she did was rock on her heels a few times and tuck her hands inside the pockets of her short jacket. He couldn’t see any evidence that she wore a blouse beneath it, which had him fondly recalling the lacy bra she’d worn the night of the ice storm.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. Her image still filled his head right along with her soft, slightly powdery scent. “Relationships with anyone outside of your work,” he clarified.

She was silent for so long, he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. “Because there’s no point,” she finally said. “They never work out.”

He opened his eyes, studying her for a moment. Wondering. And suddenly wanting more things than he wanted to admit. “You remind me of Erik.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Your partner?” She stretched her arm above her head until it was straight. “About this tall. Dark hair. Gray eyes. Male. I remind you of him?”

Shea was short, blonde and beautifully female. “Until Erik met Rory in December, he was pretty jaded about relationships. Earned it from a bad marriage. You have one of those in your past, too?”

She didn’t look away from him, but it seemed like a curtain dropped down inside her eyes, hiding her thoughts. “Never been married,” she said evenly.

But there had been someone. Or something. He’d bet on it. “I’ve never been married, either.”

“I’ve interviewed you eight times. The subject has been covered to death.”

He grinned, wanting to lighten the tension in her expression. “So. You’ve been counting.”

She rolled her eyes, though he noticed the twitch of her lips. Which she swiftly controlled, naturally, being the jaded, tough nut that she claimed to be. Then she exhaled. “Pax, I—” She broke off when the front door opened and Belle St. John, one of Cornelia’s newer employees, came in, pushing a cart with several bulging bags of mail on it.

Pax had seen the sight more than once now, so he was no longer surprised by the quantity of mail sent to FGI’s post office box.

“Crazy, isn’t it,” Shea murmured while Belle rolled the cart through the arching doorway beneath the split staircases and into the conference room. “I wrote one article back in October where Joanna Spinelli called Cornelia her fairy godmother for helping finance her break into fashion designing. And out of the clear blue sky, people thinking they deserved a handout began coming out of the woodwork asking her for money. And not just for starting up legitimate businesses, either.”

Pax had read every one of Shea’s articles in The Seattle Washtub since they’d met, even the ones that were nothing more than who was doing what around town, and he remembered exactly the article in question. “Cornelia hadn’t even started up FGI at that point, had she?”

Shea shook her head and her hair slid over her shoulders, making his fingers tingle. He knew exactly how silky her hair was. How it felt sliding through his fingers. Draping over his chest.

She was still talking, thankfully oblivious to his thoughts. “Joanna’s a friend of one of her daughters. The article in the Tub went viral, though, and the next thing we knew, we were getting tons of mail for Cornelia at the paper.” She shrugged. “And the amount of emails that poured in for her was even higher. The volume actually knocked out our computer server for nearly a week. The response was just as heavy over at HuntCom, too.”

“Doubt the computers over there failed,” he said dryly. The international juggernaut was computers.

“Right?” She gave him a dry look. “Anyway, Cornelia was already thinking that she wanted to help more people the way she’d helped Joanna, and all that public response sealed the deal.”

“FGI was born.”

“Pretty much.” She looked around at the lavish foyer. “Helps when you’re married to a man who gives you sixty million or so as a wedding gift that you can invest right out of the gate. Cornelia’s already helped nearly three hundred women start their own small businesses. Everything from yarn shops to B&Bs to law firms.” She hitched her purse up on her shoulder. “It’s pretty impressive, actually.” Belle had reappeared again sans cart and Shea waited until she’d gone back upstairs. “Of course, Cornelia and the others have to read through a lot of ridiculous requests before they find a valid one.”

“Others being the fairy godmothers,” he added. “It wasn’t just a term of Joanna’s. That’s what they call themselves, isn’t it? And the women they select for their projects are called Cindys.” Erik and Rory had told him that.

She made a reluctant sound. “Cornelia values the anonymity of the women she helps even more than she values her own. So, yes. They’re...Cindys. As in Cinderella project.”

“But you’ve never called them that. Not in anything you’ve written about Cornelia’s business, anyway.”

“Because the terms are silly!” Her voice rose again and she jumped guiltily when a voice spoke her name from above them. They both looked up to see Phil standing at the top of the stairs.

“I’m glad you’re still inside.” Phil held up a colorful, woven key chain. “You forgot your keys again.”

Shea grimaced and met the other woman halfway up the stairs. “Thanks. Wouldn’t have gotten very far without them. Think I need to wear them around my neck or something.” She skipped back down the stairs and headed straight for the door. “See you all later,” she called out to nobody in particular before seeming to bolt out the door.

“Another successful effort, I see,” Phil told Pax after the door softly closed. “Have you ever thought about just asking Shea out?”

Pax exhaled. Before they’d slept together, he’d asked Shea out dozens of times and she’d always refused. Usually with a laugh that said she didn’t take him seriously at all. He folded his arms over the fancy, curving banister. “And what are you doing tonight, Phil?”

The woman nudged up her glasses and grinned. “I have an evening planned with my favorite salted caramels. Unlike a real date, they never fail to disappoint.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Shea.”

She descended the rest of the stairs until she was at his level. “Don’t give up on her.”

Phil was attractive. Single. Somewhere in her early thirties, he’d guess. He’d known her for four months, but he’d never once looked at her that way. Never once wondered how his parents would like her or what their kids would look like. Annoyingly, those thoughts always seemed reserved for the elusive Shea.

“I hadn’t planned to.” He wouldn’t mind another dose of encouragement from Shea, though. That ice storm had been nearly two months ago.

With a smile, Phil headed past him toward the conference room. “That’s what I like about you, Pax. You’re a long-haul kind of guy.”

He didn’t know about that, but he wished Shea weren’t so convinced he was only one-night stand material. He picked up one of the bouquets and carried it back to his building to leave on Ruth’s desk. She’d be in the office for a few hours the next day, so she’d still have a chance to enjoy the flowers over the weekend.

He packed up the paperwork that he still needed to review, locked up the building and drove home. Hooch greeted him at the door of his apartment with slathering kisses and then immediately tried to eat the rose. He got the bloom away from the dog, tossed it in the trash, changed into running gear and took the dog out for a run.

Everywhere they passed, he saw the signs of Valentine’s Day. Which just reminded him of Shea.

He’d finally had enough, and turned Hooch around for home. “Pretty pathetic, eh, buddy?”

Hooch just wagged his tail and trotted alongside Pax. The dog didn’t care where they were or what they did as long as he was with his owner.

Back in the apartment once more, Pax turned on a basketball game, fed and watered Hooch and hit the shower.

His cell phone was ringing when he shut off the water, and he stepped out onto the rug, grabbing it. But it was just the realtor he’d asked to look into some properties for him, and he let it go to voice mail while he wrapped the towel around his hips and wandered into the kitchen to stare into the refrigerator as if it would magically produce something edible. Last time he’d been out to his parents’ place in Port Orchard, his mom had sent him home with a bag full of leftovers, but they were long gone now.

His cell phone rang again, and he snatched it up again, checking the display.

Smiling broadly, he grabbed a beer with his other hand as he answered casually. “If it isn’t my favorite prickly journalist. Have you been saving my number all this time, or did you dig it up from one of those secret sources of yours?”

She ignored him. “Thank you for the bouquet.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You knew I’d have to respond somehow,” she continued. “That’s why you did it.”

He twisted off the bottle cap and sat down at the stainless steel counter in his kitchen that had an unobstructed view overlooking the city. Instead of the lights, though, all he saw in his head was Shea. “I did it because I thought it might make you smile,” he said truthfully.

“It did,” she admitted after a moment. “It’s the first bouquet of cat treats I’ve ever received. Marsha-Marsha thanks you, too.”

“My pleasure.”

He could hear her soft breathing through the phone line. “Well. I just wanted to say thanks. And happy...happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Shea.”

A moment later, he was listening to the dial tone.

Hooch propped his chin on Pax’s knee and looked up at him.

“Whadya think, Hooch? Any chance of winning the race if she won’t even get out of the starting gate?”

The dog flopped his tail a few times on the floor.

It was as much of an answer as Pax had.

* * *

In her apartment, Shea set her cell phone on the ancient steamer trunk she used as a coffee table and pulled Marsha-Marsha carefully onto her lap. The calico tabby had become increasingly frail over the past year, but she’d still gleefully gone after one of the cat toys from the “bouquet” that had been sitting in front of Shea’s doorway when she’d gotten home.

She pressed her cheek to the cat’s head and listened to her throaty purr. “How am I going to tell him?” she asked. “I had an opportunity earlier today. I tried then. But I just couldn’t.” No more than she had been able to tell him just now on the cell phone.

Marsha-Marsha just circled around on her lap a few times before settling down.

Shea chewed the inside of her lip and stared at the coffee table.

Next to her cell phone and the basket that had contained Pax’s wholly unexpected “bouquet” sat a blue and pink box.

It was the third home pregnancy test kit that she had bought that day. The results for the third test had been the same as the first two.

Positive.

She’d interviewed Pax a lot of times. Slept with him once. He was outrageous and larger-than-life. She didn’t want to like him. But she did. She certainly didn’t want to want him. But she did.

And now she was pregnant with his baby, and sooner or later she was going to have to tell him.

He’d either run for the hills.

Or he wouldn’t.

She wasn’t sure which possibility scared her more.

Chapter Three

“Cupcake!”

Shea looked up from her computer when she heard her editor bellow from his glass-walled office. She saved the article she was writing—a light-hearted piece about a duck that was making his home in an elementary school fountain—and went into his office just as Stu, the most senior member of their team, was coming out.

It was Saturday and half the crew was there working because their computers had crashed yet again the day before.

“Got an event I want you to cover,” Harvey said.

“Political scandal? Corporate malfeasance?” She smiled facetiously because the man never put her on any such hot topics. “Since Cooper’s been out sick, I could do the background at least on that helicopter crash—”

“No.” He looked at her over his glasses. “It’s a fundraiser for some place called Fresh Grounds.” He was obviously hunting for something on his messy desk. “A nonprofit located downtown. Merrick & Sullivan are sponsoring the shindig.”

Shea’s stomach tightened. She should have known she wouldn’t get a break just because she’d come in to work on what was supposed to be her day off. She was being punished for not telling Pax her secret the night before. “When is it?”

“Tonight.”

“What if I had plans for tonight? I do have a life, you know.”

“No, you don’t. No more ’n I do.” Harvey finally unearthed the paper he’d been hunting and pushed it across his cluttered desk toward her. “Dressy, so see if you can’t beg, borrow or steal something appropriate.”

She flushed and picked up the press release. The dress code around the Tub’s offices was decidedly casual, and her usual jacket and jeans was more professional than some. “How dressy?” If it was black tie, she’d be in trouble.

“I don’t know. Just don’t embarrass me, all right?” He looked even more cranky than usual, his bristle-brush gray hair standing out from his head.

“Maybe you should send someone else,” Shea suggested tartly. “Someone you pay enough to actually own a wardrobe that wouldn’t embarrass you.”

“Social scene and human interest,” he snapped. “Take it or walk, cupcake.”

Since she wasn’t entirely sure he was joking, she sighed and took the press release with her back to her desk.

“And get plenty of shots this time,” he yelled after her. “Readers love the photos.”

She just waved her hand in response. He was always complaining that she didn’t get enough photographs when she went out. She wanted to remind him that she was a writer, not a photographer. But considering their meager budget, everyone pulled dual duty.

According to the release, the fundraiser was a silent auction, with the proceeds benefiting Fresh Grounds, an agency that provided affordable housing for low-income families. And it was, indeed, being sponsored by Merrick & Sullivan Yachting.

She traced her fingertip over the edge of the page. The kinds of photos that Harvey would want, she knew, would heavily feature Pax or his partner, Erik. Every time they printed either one’s image in the Tub, the free paper’s advertising spiked and their Internet traffic doubled. For Harvey, the two men behind Merrick & Sullivan were golden.

But just thinking about seeing Pax again made Shea break out in a cold sweat. And wouldn’t that be an attractive look?

She quickly finished the duck article and submitted it, then shut down her computer and gathered up her belongings. The auction was being held at the Olympic Hotel, and that alone was enough to tell her that the dress was definitely more black-tie than not. Which meant she had to go see her mother.

No way could Shea afford a fancy gown. She was still paying off the repairs to her car from December.

Her mother, however, was presently married to a cosmetic surgeon and had a closet full of fancy clothing.

“Get those shots,” Harvey barked as she walked past his office on her way out.

If there’d only been a shot to ward off Pax’s appeal, Shea wouldn’t be in the fix that she was in now.

She dumped her stuff in the passenger seat of her car and drove out to Magnolia, the neighborhood where her mother lived with Jonathan Jones, hubby number seven. The sporty little BMW that Jon had given Gloria for her forty-eighth birthday was parked in the four-car driveway, telling Shea there was no hope of her being able to sneak in and raid her mother’s closet without having to actually see her.

She blew out a breath, wondering if it was worth chancing her job and showing up at the event wearing her one and only black dress and deciding that it wasn’t. She went to the front door and rang the bell, nervously tapping the toe of her boot in time to the chiming she could hear from inside the house.

Two more rings and the door swung open and Gloria Weatherby Garcia Monroe Nelson Garcia Frasier Jones stood there. Surprise filled her blue eyes, though there was no hope of it showing otherwise in her expression because Botox had been her best friend since Shea was sixteen.

“Shea!” Gloria stepped back, pulling the door wide. “You know you don’t have to ring the bell,” she chided.

Shea stepped inside and gave her mother a quick kiss on her perfectly smooth cheek. “Last time I didn’t ring the bell, I walked in on you and the pool boy doing it on the living room rug,” she reminded.

Gloria waved her bejeweled hand in dismissal. “That was years ago. Jonathan keeps me interested enough that I don’t need a pool boy anymore.” She pushed the door shut and padded barefoot into the living room, leaving Shea to follow. “You just missed your brother.” She grabbed two empty glasses from an ornate marble-topped cocktail table and carried them into the kitchen. “He stopped by to get my signature on a few things.”

“I don’t have a brother.” But she knew her mother was referring to her former stepbrother Marco Garcia, who still acted as Gloria’s attorney even though she and his father, Ruben, hadn’t been together for more than a decade. In fact, they’d been married and divorced twice, but Marco hadn’t lived with them during either marriage period. Shea’s contact with Marco had been limited to a handful of holidays that had always been short on celebration and long on awkwardness. It was the same with the rest of her stepsiblings, too. Seventeen of them in all, and that was just from her mother’s revolving door of husbands. “You’re not even married to Ruben anymore.”

Gloria huffed. “Details,” she dismissed. Then she narrowed her eyes and studied Shea. “You look terrible,” she said bluntly. “Jonathan could take care of those lines you’re getting around the eyes. All you have to do is say the word.”

Shea ignored her and dumped her purse on the overstuffed white couch. Her mother loved all things white because it left her to provide the only color around. “I came to borrow a dress. I’m covering a deal at the Olympic tonight. It’s black tie.”

“Work?” Gloria pouted her bee-stung lips. “That’s disappointing. You’re never going to find yourself a husband if you’re always working. Didn’t you learn anything from that mess with Bruce?”

“I’m not looking for a husband!” She clamped down on the pang inside her chest. “Just a dress suitable for tonight,” she managed in a reasonable tone.

Gloria sighed dramatically. “Fine.” She led the way out of the kitchen and up the carpeted stairs to the master bedroom that she’d remodeled just as soon as she and Jonathan had moved into the house a year ago. She crossed the white carpet and threw open the double doors to a walk-in closet that was bigger than Shea’s living room. “You can thank your lucky stars that we’re still the same size,” Gloria was saying as she disappeared into the closet. “Although if your boobs get any bigger you’re going to pop out of anything of mine. Be glad I’m married to Jon. He’ll be able to keep those girls looking good for you.”

Shea dropped her arms, which she’d folded self-consciously over her chest. “I don’t want anything that sparkles,” she warned, stepping to the closet doorway.

Gloria pouted again and placed two of the plastic-protected hangers back on the rack. “Here.” She thrust three choices at Shea. “Try those.”

Shea took the gowns into the en suite bathroom and closed the door. She rapidly undressed, avoiding her own reflection in the mirrors that surrounded the room until she’d pulled on the first of the gowns. It was scarlet, cut up to here and down to there, and Shea couldn’t even get the zipper under her arm all the way up thanks to the tight fit across her bust. She quickly tried the second, a brilliant pink strapless satin that clung revealingly like a second skin, making her wonder what on earth her mother was able to wear underneath it. The third was a slight improvement, but only because it had narrow straps and was a simple black. The skirt had a deep slit up the back, but Shea could zip it up and her chest didn’t pop out of the top, so she figured it would do for the hour or so that she’d have to spend at the fundraiser getting what she needed to satisfy Harvey.

She pulled it off, put on her jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt again and carried the dresses out of the bathroom.

Her mother was sitting on the wide bed, studying her nails. “I thought you’d at least show me,” she scolded without much conviction.

Shea hung the rejects on their hangers and slid them back into their plastic sheaths.

“Ah. The black,” Gloria deduced. “Boring and safe but presentable.” She rose and went to a full-length mirror that she pulled back to reveal a hidden jewelry case. “You’ll need earrings.”

The thought of wearing a pair of her mother’s heavy earrings all evening was vaguely nauseating.

Earrings aren’t what’s making your stomach queasy.

Shea ignored the annoying voice of her conscience.

“Here.” Gloria turned and held out a pair of sparkling earrings on her outstretched palm. “I hope you’ll take time for once to put on some blush, too. You need the color. Honestly, Shea. You’d be a pretty girl if you’d just put a little effort into it.”

“Ever helpful, Mom.” Shea took the dress and the chandelier earrings even though she knew she’d never wear them. It was easier to go along than argue. “I’d stay for more motherly advice, but I’ve got things I need to take care of.” She had to admit that her mom was generous with her clothing when the situation called for it. “Thanks for the dress. I’ll have it cleaned before I bring it back.”

“Don’t go covering yourself up with a sweater, either.” Gloria followed her down the staircase. “The one thing you’ve got going for you is your figure.”

“It’s February,” Shea reminded. “It’s cold.”

“A coat!” Gloria turned on her heel and ran back up the stairs.

Shea wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

A moment later, Gloria returned with a long black coat. “Here.” She pushed it into Shea’s hands. “Just promise you won’t wear it once you’re at your little event. If you’re going to insist on working all the time, you might as well show yourself off while you’re walking through the hotel lobby. Maybe you’ll catch someone’s eye.”

“Mom! What do you want me to do? Advertise that I’m open for business?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Gloria put her hand on her trim hip. “I’m not suggesting you’re a prostitute. A smart woman gets a ring on her finger before she starts giving away her favors. I learned that the hard way with your father, didn’t I? But do you think I would have ever gotten Jonathan’s attention if I’d have been covered from head to toe in black wool?”

“Jonathan was the cosmetic surgeon who did your butt lift,” Shea reminded dryly. “And I’m not looking to give away any favors to earn husband number one, much less number seven.” She knew the conversation had nowhere to go but down, and it was already low enough. She could only imagine what Gloria would have to say once Shea told her she was pregnant after what was essentially a one-night stand.

Her mother had had a lot of husbands for the simple reason that she claimed not to sleep with anyone before marriage—aside from Shea’s dad. That, and the fact that she bored easily. Jonathan had lasted eighteen months now, but Shea figured his time was probably not as limited as it might otherwise have been, considering her mother’s avid pursuit of plastic surgery to stave off any sort of natural aging process.

“I don’t know how you ended up so judgmental,” Gloria lamented. “You’re just like your father.”

Shea’s father lived in Europe with his fourth wife, who was younger than Shea. Last she’d heard, Number Four was trying to get pregnant. If she succeeded, the baby would be Shea’s only sibling actually related by blood. The news had come in her only communication from her father in a year—a Christmas postcard. Written and signed only by Number Four, yet she supposed it could have been worse: no postcard at all.

“Not being judgmental, Mom, just stating facts.” Her temples pounded and she’d been with her mother for less than thirty minutes. A new record. “Thanks again for the dress.”

Gloria brushed her lips in the air near Shea’s cheek. “You’re welcome.” Her gaze went past her to the expensive car that was pulling into the driveway next to Shea’s four-wheeled heap, and her smile widened. “Jonathan’s back from his tennis game.” As if Shea were already gone, Gloria jogged out to greet the dark-haired man who was only five years older than her daughter with a long kiss.

Neither one of them noticed when Shea hastily got into her car and drove away.

If Pax ever met her mother, he’d understand why she wasn’t a believer in enduring relationships.

Right on cue, her stomach rolled.

Groaning, she rolled down her window, hoping the cold air would blow away her nausea and wishing that everything else in her life could have such a simple solution.

* * *

“That’s her, isn’t it?”

Pax glanced down at his sister, Beatrice, as she tucked her arm through his. Her gaze was focused where his had been—on the entryway to the hotel ballroom where the fundraiser was being held.

Shea had arrived and was standing there, surveying the room through her digital camera.

“I suppose this is your doing.”

His sister shrugged, too innocent for belief. “I sent out a press release or two,” she allowed. “But I’m right, aren’t I? That’s her. The reporter you’ve been mooning over.”

He’d hoped that, with the distraction of the auction, he could get through a few hours without thinking about Shea. Yet there she was. In the flesh and looking like a million bucks. “I’m not mooning.” Laughter cackled inside his head.

His sister’s eyebrows were situated halfway up her forehead in disbelief. “When’s the last time you had a date?”

He’d been on plenty of dates over the past few years. Casual ones that hadn’t tied him in knots at all. But he hadn’t been out with anyone since the ice storm.

He wasn’t sure what bugged him more: Shea’s continued elusiveness, or his unaccountable unwillingness to move on from what even his own common sense told him was a losing proposition.

“Don’t you have things you’re supposed to be attending to here?” As the event planner, Beatrice had put together the high-brow auction.

She gave him a look. “Please. I’m good at what I do, Brother dear. An event by Beatrice runs as smoothly as a Merrick & Sullivan Yacht cuts through the water.”

“Cute.”

“I try.” She smiled brightly, and he was glad to see it. She hadn’t been doing a lot of that since the scumbag she’d been planning to marry had called it off. It was one of the reasons he’d been willing to fork over the sponsorship for this particular event. It was her first project since coming back to Seattle after her fiancé and partner in their San Francisco event-planning business had become an ex in every way.

“Not that I’m surprised,” Beatrice mused, “but you never said she was so pretty.” She poked him in the side. “What are you standing here for? Go talk to her.”

“Did you send a press release to the Washtub to matchmake or to get publicity for Fresh Grounds?”

She lifted her shoulder. “Why not both?” She reached up and planted a kiss on his cheek, then sauntered away, leaving Pax’s attention to return, way too easily, to the door.

Shea had lowered the camera; it was hanging off her bare shoulder by a long strap. The black dress she was wearing just made her hair look more golden and her skin creamier. And even from across the room, he could see the expression on her face directed his way, as if she’d tasted something sour.

Because she’d been tasked with another story like this, or because he was there?

“Yo.” Erik walked up and shoved a squat glass into Pax’s hand. “Get a grip, man. You’re drooling on yourself.”

“Like you haven’t drooled over your fiancée?”

Erik grinned. He was solo tonight for his brief appearance because Rory had stayed home with her little boy who had a cold. “Difference is,” the other man pointed out, “I’m getting Rory to the altar. Where have you gotten Shea?”

Pax hadn’t admitted even to his partner and best friend what had happened between him and Shea during the ice storm.

“Look sharp,” Erik murmured. “She’s heading this way.”

As if Pax didn’t know.

He watched her walk toward them. The gown she was wearing was blessedly simple in comparison to some of the overdone getups that night, but it was still sexy as hell, subtly molding her figure. Her hair streamed down her back, held away from her face by a narrow black band. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry; her only accessory was the small notepad she was carrying in addition to the camera.

He lifted the drink Erik had given him and drank down half of it. Probably a good thing that it was only water and not alcohol. Judging by the look on Shea’s face, he was going to need all of his wits about him.

“Mr. Sullivan,” she greeted Erik first. “Congratulations. I heard you’re getting married very soon.”

He nodded. “Next week. And I’ve told you before. It’s Erik.”

“Will I be lucky enough to get a photo of you and your fiancée this evening?”

“Not this time. Rory’s home with our son, Tyler.”

Pax heard the pride in his partner’s voice. Tyler wasn’t Erik’s by blood, but that didn’t stop him from loving the kid with everything he had.

“A son.” Shea’s gaze flicked to Pax so briefly he almost missed it. Her smile looked a little stiff. “How old is he?”

“Five.”

“And will he be going into the yacht-building business some day?”

Erik laughed. “That’ll be up to him.” He clapped Pax on the shoulder. “You’ll have to excuse me for now. I need to talk with someone.”

Shea’s eyes followed Erik as he walked away. “He seems different,” she murmured.

“He’s getting married soon. He’s happy.”

She finally looked up at him. Her long lashes were darker than usual, but it was the only hint of cosmetics that he could see. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is.” He shifted, touching her elbow to guide her out of the way of a waiter bearing a tray loaded with cocktails. He snagged a slender flute of champagne. “With Rory and Tyler in his life, Erik’s finally found what he’s always wanted.” Even though his partner had shunned anything approaching romance since a bitter divorce, he now couldn’t wait until the day he and Rory exchanged their vows. He handed Shea the glass and their fingers brushed.

Those lashes of hers quickly lowered, shielding her strikingly blue eyes. She started to lift the glass to her lips, but stopped and looked back up at him. “With him being married soon, will that put a greater load on your shoulders at Merrick & Sullivan?”

“Is that an official question, or are you personally curious?”

She pursed her soft, pink lips. He figured if she had any clue how he wanted to kiss her every time she did that, she’d want to drag a bag over her head.

“Both, I guess,” she finally allowed, and he wondered who was more surprised by the admission.

“Our partnership is like any good partnership,” he said. “Nothing’s exactly fifty-fifty all the time. It ebbs and flows on each side.”

Amusement suddenly glinted in her eyes. “That’s not quite a direct answer.”

“Sometimes Erik takes more of a load and sometimes I do. It always works out because we trust each other and we’re equally committed to our business.”

“You’ve been partners for a long time now.”

“Twenty years.” He smiled slightly. “Some relationships do last.”

The glint went out as abruptly as a candle flame doused with water. “So you’ve claimed.” She set the untouched glass on the table next to them, lifted her notepad and slid a pen right out of the top of her dress.

He couldn’t help but grin. “That’s better than a magician pulling roses from his sleeve. Anything else interesting down there?” From his height, he had a stellar view of the top curves of her breasts contained within the square-cut dress. His memory all too easily filled in the details of blush-colored nipples that tasted sweeter than summer strawberries.

Her cheeks had turned pink and she grimaced. “I forgot to borrow an appropriate purse along with the rest of this getup.”

He dragged his mind out of their memories with an effort. “You borrowed the dress?”

She looked like she regretted the admission. “From my mother.” She clicked her pen once. “What was it about Fresh Grounds that inspired you and your partner to sponsor the auction here tonight?”

“That dress belongs to your mother?” It was a helluva dress on Shea. But he couldn’t imagine someone old enough to be her mother wearing it.

“Yes.” She clicked her pen again. “The sponsorship?”

“How many times have I told you that all work and no play is no fun at all?”

She just looked at him.

He relented. “Fresh Grounds does good work.” The gig might have been Beatrice’s first since coming back to town, but he and Erik wouldn’t have footed the bill for the event if the cause behind it hadn’t had significant merit. “Regardless of whose dress it is, you look beautiful.”

Her jaw looked tighter than ever. She clicked her pen again and looked pointedly at Beatrice, who was standing a few tables away having an animated discussion with one of the guests. “Shouldn’t you be saving comments like that for your date if you expect to get anywhere with her? She’s the one who is beautiful.”

His dark-haired sister was wearing red and did look beautiful. But what interested him a whole lot more was the look in Shea’s eyes.

She was jealous.

He managed not to smile. “You think she’s my date?”

Her chin angled, challenging. “Isn’t she?”

If she only knew.

“You should meet her.” He raised his voice enough for his sister to hear and called her name.

Shea gave an annoyed little hiss but greeted Beatrice with a polite smile when she immediately came over.

Pax put his arm fondly around his sister’s shoulders. Knowing he shouldn’t be enjoying Shea’s obvious annoyance didn’t stop him from doing so. “Beatrice, this is Shea Weatherby.” He looked into her blue eyes. “Shea,” he drawled, slowly, “this is Beatrice Merrick.”

He saw the quick dilation of her pupils. The accusation. “You got married?”

His enjoyment screeched to a standstill and face-planted right there on the busily patterned ballroom carpet. So much for briefly thinking he was gaining some ground.

“Beatrice is my sister,” he corrected flatly.

The relief that filled her eyes might have been comical if he didn’t know just how low her opinion of him really was.

“Bad enough being his sister,” Beatrice laughed quickly, brave enough to ignore the sudden tension. She grabbed Shea’s hand between hers and pumped it. “I feel like I’ve known you for ages. After that first article you wrote about Pax and Erik a few years ago, I’ve followed your work in the Tub. You have a wonderful gift with words.”

* * *

Shea barely heard a word of what the other woman was saying.

His sister.

Beatrice might well be Pax’s date for the night, but the tall, stunning brunette was his sister.

And while the beautiful woman was all smiles, Pax’s expression had turned to stone.

Some portion of her mind recognized that she needed to respond to Beatrice, but she couldn’t seem to look away from Pax. “Your brother mentioned he had a sister once,” she managed, “but I...I had the impression you lived in San Francisco.”

Pax finally looked away from her, staring down into his glass, and Shea swallowed, glancing quickly at his sister.

Beatrice’s eyes were the same shade of brown as her brother’s. “I moved back about six months ago.” She lifted her shoulder. “Decided that I didn’t want to go back to working for someone else, so I opened up my own shop here.”

Pax suddenly shifted. “Beatrice is the event planner who put this auction together. She’s the one you want to talk to tonight.” With a faint nod that was clearly directed only at his sister, he turned and strode across the room toward his partner.

Shea had to fight the urge to go after him.

What could she possibly say right there in the middle of the crowded ballroom?

She was sorry she’d misjudged him?

And, oh, by the way, she was pregnant?

“So how long have you been writing for the Washtub?”

Shea moistened her lips. It was an effort to look away from Pax, resplendent in his black suit and pale gray tie. But like it or not, she still had a job to do.

“Six years.” It was almost a surprise to realize she was still holding her notepad and pen. “And I should be asking you the questions.”

“Not really.” As if they were long-time friends, Beatrice looped her arm through Shea’s and steered her toward the front of the room, where a head table was set on a dais. “George Summers is the director of Fresh Grounds. He’s the one you want to talk to.”

From the corner of her eye, Shea saw Pax heading for the ballroom doors. The intention in his stride was unmistakable.

Sponsor or not, he was leaving, and she guiltily knew that she was the reason.

“I will,” she said abruptly. “I just need to take care of something first.” She pulled away from Beatrice and followed him.

Catching him was easier said than done. He was long-legged and didn’t have high heels and a tightly fitted gown to hinder him. Only the fact that he was waylaid by an older couple he obviously knew just outside the ballroom doors allowed her to reach him at all.

Since she’d known him, he’d always had a smile in his eyes. Usually a wicked one. But when he glanced at her this time, acknowledging her presence before finishing his conversation with the couple, there was nothing in his eyes at all.

Regret swamped her and she hovered awkwardly nearby until the couple moved off. Only then did Pax turn her way. His face was hard, and her nerves flagged.

“You just going to stand there clicking that pen of yours?”

She flushed and realized she had been nervously clicking the pen. “I, um, I need to talk to you about something.”

His expression didn’t change. “Like the fact that you actually thought Bea was my wife?”

She opened her mouth to deny it but couldn’t. “I don’t know what I thought!” She stuck the pen behind her ear and moistened her dry lips. “I haven’t been able to think straight where you’re concerned since—” She broke off and took a deep breath.

“I just told you yesterday that I’d never been married.” His voice was low, but that didn’t mask his anger.

“Yes, well, people say things all the time that aren’t true.”

“What do you think I did? Stopped by a wedding chapel between then and now? Or that I’ve been married all along and been lying about it every time the subject came up? That for the past few years, I’ve been hiding her locked in a closet?” His lips thinned. “There’s nothing about me you don’t know.”

“I don’t know everything about you!”

He waved one hand. “Then do that digging Cornelia keeps telling me you’re so good at.”

How many times had she fought the temptation to use her sources to learn more about him? He’d never let her forget it if he knew. “Invading your privacy wouldn’t be right. And I’m doing a job for Cornelia, vetting the requests she gets for accuracy. Because people lie. All the time. They exaggerate, they omit and they twist the facts to suit their situations and their wants.” She was guilty herself, still omitting that teensy detail that she was pregnant.

“I don’t,” he repeated flatly.

She was breathless and felt dizzy, so badly did she want to believe him. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” She drew in a shaky breath. Cowardly or not, she couldn’t make herself tell him the truth then and there while just feet away strangers dressed in fancy clothes bid on everything from free haircuts to a season of sailboat rentals from Merrick & Sullivan.

She leaned against the nearby wall and tried to compose herself. Making a scene in the fancy hotel would infuriate Harvey beyond hope. “I have to go back to my editor with some quotes from you and a few photographs, or he’s going to be very unhappy with me.”

His lips twisted and he yanked at his tie as if it were suddenly strangling him. “The story tonight isn’t about me or Erik. It’s about Fresh Grounds.”

He’d never refused to cooperate for a story before, and she was desperately afraid he’d choose now to start. She’d have only herself to blame, too. “If you want more people to read about the agency’s work, it’s going to be because you and your partner’s names are attached to the story. And—” she admitted huskily “—I’d sort of like to keep my job. I have rent to pay and all that.”

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