“In my family it’s not one of those things you can take for granted.”
He laughed, and she felt a little stab of pride.
“Yeah. I could see that,” he said.
She aimed a smile at him and they sat in comfortable silence. After a while, he got up and put his bowl in the dishwasher. “Listen,” he said, “we should probably get some sleep. Frances is usually up and ready for guests by about ten. You can have my bedroom. I’ll take the couch.”
She felt more disappointed than she cared to admit that he wasn’t even going to try something. She was being foolish and she knew it, but, dammit, she was attracted to this man. And she knew he was attractedto her, too. And she really hated that he, apparently, had willpower. Because it was the middle of the night and she was tired, giddy and completely turned on. If she weren’t so afraid of making a complete fool out of herself, she’d be making a pass at him right now.
Then again, maybe all of that was for the best. This was a one-night stint, and she really didn’t need to wake up in the morning under a pile of morning-after regrets.
“I’m not going to kick you out of your bed,” she finally said. “I’ll stay on the couch. Besides, I really don’t plan on sleeping. I’ll just sit there and read.”
“Afraid I’ll skip out while you’re snoring?”
“I don’t snore,” she said, once again irritated that he’d read her mind. “But otherwise, yeah. Exactly.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.I’mgoing to sleep, so I’ll take the bed. And you should sleep, too.” He held up two fingers. “I promise I won’t leave without you.”
She wanted to trust him, really she did. But old habits and ingrained self-preservation instincts simply wouldn’t let her. So instead of sleeping, she sat on the couch, flipping through magazines and trying to concentrate on the articles and not on the fantasies of Kyle Radley that filtered through her head.
* * *
KYLE WOKE UP ALONEand immediately wondered why he’d been so stupid as to go to bed that way. He’d spent the night lost in an erotic dream involving Grace’s trim thighs and soft breasts, and he was absolutely certain that, had he simply made one move in her direction, he could have had the real thing instead of a dream.
No. That would have been a very bad idea. He’d called upon his willpower last night, and it had come through for him. He wasn’t about to start second-guessing his instincts now. The woman might turn him on completely, but he knew trouble when he saw it.Anywoman was trouble. A woman he’d caught breaking into Emily’s bedroom was big-time trouble.
He’d keep his pants zipped and his head on straight and everything would be just fine.
The clock next to his bed flashed 6:10, and he groaned, his head pounding as he sat up in bed. He’d only been asleep for four hours, but he knew he was up for the duration. Trying for quiet, he headed into the kitchen to start some coffee.
As soon as the machine began brewing, he filled two mugs and headed into the living room. She’d said she was going to stay awake, and in that case, she was going to need coffee even worse than he did.
When he reached the couch, though, he couldn’t help but smile. She was curled up on the sofa, half-buried under a maroon afghan he’d picked up in Tijuana one summer, hugging a throw pillow to her chest.
She looked completely at peace and absolutely beautiful, and he had to stifle the urge not to reach out and touch her, just to see if she was real.
He knew Frances wouldn’t be up yet, so he might as well let her sleep. Quietly he made his way back to the kitchen, then got his briefcase off the small pine table he kept near the back door. He slid the file folders onto the kitchen table, and sat down to review the files and crunch the numbers.
He started with the balance sheets and immediately wished he hadn’t. The business was okay for now, but unless they got some new clients soon, the company’s meager profit would disappear. A typical scenario for a start-up business, he knew, but in this case, there were more than just market factors at work. As soon as Driskell ran off his mouth about the break-in, Kyle was screwed.
Driskell was being reasonable so far, yes, but who knew how long that would last?
He finished off his coffee, the caffeine already working its magic. He stood and grabbed a thirdcup, and on the way back, he fished yesterday’s mail out of the side pocket of his briefcase.
A familiar logo caught his eye, and he plucked that envelope out of the pile. Modern Fidelity Life and Casualty. Driskell’s insurance carrier. Shit.
Kyle had no idea why simply holding the envelope brought such a sense of dread, but it did. He ripped the thing open and extracted the letter, his fingers clenching tighter and tighter as he read.
Bastards. Those sleazy insurance bastards were trying to nail his company with Driskell’s loss.
According to the letter, written by some smarmy company type withesquireafter his name, Modern Fidelity was going to file a lawsuit seeking indemnification from Integrated, Kyle’s company, on August 12. His eyes automatically drifted to the calendar. That gave him eight lousy days to figure out some way to save his company. Because once the lawsuit was filed, there was no turning back. The press would grab the story and Integrated and Kyle and his partner, Brent, would all be labeled incompetent.
The whole situation was a nightmare, and he balled the letter and tossed it across the room, then sat and stared at it until the businessman in him forced him to go recover it so he’d have it for the file.
He shoved it back into his briefcase and thenheaded into the living room. He just wanted to see her. Just one glance to erase the bad taste of insurance and liability.
She was still sleeping, though she’d shifted a little, and now the pillow was on the floor. He watched her, then realized he was smiling. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman in his house. And this woman both enticed and intrigued him.
