by Joanne Rock
But Amanda smiled back at him with her teenage fantasy grin and nary a hair out of place while one of New York’s finest limped around the dressing room, cursing up a blue streak.
For the first time in his whole life, he didn’t know what to say. Something about Amanda made his blood run hot, his mouth go dry, and his heart stick in his damn throat.
Good cop charm wasn’t even an option.
Amanda smoothed her dress and patted her styled hair, her hands suddenly a flurry of motion. “She started it,” she stated flatly, nodding toward Rhonda.
Relief flooded through him, soothing the nerves that had been wired from the moment he’d found out Amanda’s thieving bookkeeper was tied to a New York cop.
“I know who started it.” He didn’t have any intention of letting Rhonda or her sister escape tonight. Duke had already called Josh during the drive over, and his partner would be here any minute to help deal with the mess. “You let me worry about sorting out what happened.”
He suppressed the urge to hug her, to kiss her, to tell her how much he’d realized he loved her. Right now, she needed to hear something even more important.
Taking her shoulders, he guided her back toward the runway. Without saying a word, he marched her steadily forward, not daring to give into the desire to trail his hands all over her smooth skin and soak in the feel of her softness.
They passed some of Amanda’s models behind the curtains, models who quickly turned their skinny hides to hightail back to their positions.
Duke didn’t quit, didn’t let Amanda pause, until they hit the catwalk.
“They want to meet the real you,” he whispered in her ear, powerless to resist the compulsion to brush his lips over her warm skin for a fraction of a second.
Then he gave her a gentle shove, pushing her into the limelight to take all the credit she deserved.
AMANDA’S PHONE RANG off the hook the next day, but none of the calls delivered the voice she wanted to hear most.
All of New York wanted an Amanda Matthews original.
Half the city clamored for her clothes because her designs were being touted by every fashion magazine on the newsstands. The other half of the city wanted an Amanda Matthews outfit because of the notoriety she’d gained with the much-inflated tale of her triumph over an evil bookkeeper and a cop on the take.
She was the flavor of the minute in a city that would move on to something else by sundown.
But she was having a hard time enjoying her newfound cache while preoccupied with thoughts of Duke.
He’d walked into her nightmare in the nick of time, white stars blazing against the blue cotton of some sports team’s T-shirt.
Duke Rawlins—all the magnetism of John Wayne in a new and improved package.
Her hero had arrived.
She’d wanted to plaster herself all over him then and there. But for one frozen moment she hadn’t been sure if he would believe her story, if he’d trust a Matthews’s word over the lady cop’s.
Turned out he did.
The memory of his trust warmed her. Although he had already guessed Officer Patterson was up to no good by the time he’d arrived last night, Duke could have easily suspected Amanda or her family of having a hand in the criminal activity.
He hadn’t.
Duke had simply made his arrests and ridden into the sunset, a flurry of drooling models in his wake. He’d insisted Amanda stay at the convention center and reap the rewards of her new fame. A gesture which had touched her even though it robbed them of the opportunity to talk.
But it didn’t explain why he hadn’t called her today.
The buzzer on the back entrance to her father’s showroom went off, a momentary break in the monotony of the ringing telephone.
Hope leaped through her, the same ridiculous eagerness that had prodded her steps to the phone the first ten times it rang this morning. She refused to open the door and be disappointed, however, so she called her father away from his sketch pad in the corner of the showroom.
“Daddy, someone’s at the door,” she called, picking up the ringing phone so it wouldn’t look like she was being too lazy—or too anxious—to answer the buzzer for herself.
Frowning, her father tossed his pencil aside. “I’m not talking to any reporters,” he grumbled.
The newspapers had all been running stories on Clyde Matthews’s “break” with the mob, a fact which had brought him a few disgruntled phone calls from crime bosses worried they wouldn’t be able to buy their favorite suits anymore.
Amanda and her father had agreed the showroom could be open to anyone, but there wouldn’t be any more photos with gangsters, and that the Matthews’s design house would actively pursue more public-friendly clients.
Like police detectives, maybe, Amanda had secretly thought.
She could see Duke in a Clyde Matthews suit. With the appropriate celestial accoutrements, of course. Would he ever wear something her father designed? Or would he opt to keep his distance from Amanda’s world?
She strained her ears to hear who was at the back door. The caller on the other end of the phone wanted to order the aqua dress Amanda had worn the previous night, along with the same dress in other prints.
Amanda took the woman’s name and number, unwilling to lose important sales because all she could think about was Duke.
“Amanda,” her father called from the back. “I’ve got a customer who wants the white cowboy hat in the window. I don’t even make a cowboy hat, do I?”
A tiny thrill zinged through her despite her best effort to suppress the hope, the excitement.
How many residents of the Big Apple would honestly walk into Clyde Matthews’s upscale showroom requesting a cowboy hat?
She replaced the telephone receiver and hopped off the stool where she’d been sitting. A butterfly battalion fluttered through her belly.
“It’s really more of a decoration,” she started, stepping tentatively onto the showroom floor just as her father and his customer rounded the tie rack.
A very broad-shouldered customer with drop-dead blue eyes.
Duke.
“It’s not for me,” Duke protested, holding up his hands in the surrender position while her father relegated himself to the background. “But I’d like to give one to a friend of mine.”
Amanda’s pulse hammered into overtime, aggravated by the butterflies and the hope that Duke Rawlins might be in her life again for good this time. “A gift?”
Duke shrugged, accentuating the sinews beneath the perfectly tailored lines of his surprisingly conservative suit. His silver tiepin winked from the smooth silk banner of a yellow-striped tie. “Yeah. Sort of as a gag to let her know she’s one of the good guys.”
The lump in Amanda’s throat prevented her from talking.
Acceptance radiated from Duke as he laid gentle hands on her shoulders. What surprised her was the worry lurking in his blue eyes.
A fear she wouldn’t accept him in return?
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Amanda.” The tone of his voice conveyed sincerity, the volume said he wanted this message to be overheard by any eccentric designers who happened to be humming in their vicinity.
“Maybe the Matthews’s image—my image—needed a little polishing,” she admitted.
“No.” He clutched her shoulders just a little tighter, impressing his message with his touch. “I should have seen beyond the trappings to the woman underneath. I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t look beyond Rhonda’s uniform to trust her, and I didn’t look beyond your family reputation to not trust you.” He shook his head. “Big mistake on both counts.”
She liked the direction of this conversation.
Folding her arms over her chest, she nodded. “A very big mistake.”
His hands slid down her shoulders, igniting a wave of pleasing shivers all over her body. His grin unfurled, bringing a healthy dose of signature Duke charm along with it. “Lucky for me, I’ve thought of a way to make up f
or it.”
“Oh really?” Anticipation danced through her veins.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lovely length of creamy antique lace tied in a knot. “I’m going to ply you with gifts.”
Confused, Amanda reached for his odd offering. “It’s a pretty scarf,” she started, not sure what else to say about a piece of lace tied in a knot.
“The best Canal Street had to offer this morning,” he continued. If he noticed her awkward response, he didn’t remark on it. “But that’s just the wrapper for the other gift.”
The butterflies in her stomach went into action again.
She squinted at the knot, trying to see what secrets it might contain. She didn’t dare to look at him for fear her hopes would be written too plainly in her eyes. “Must be a pretty small gift considering it was such a big mistake.”
Her hands trembled as she picked at the knot until Duke’s big fingers took over the task.
She couldn’t breathe as she slid the ends of the fabric apart and found a sturdy golden band woven with Celtic knots.
A ring.
Tears sprang to her eyes.
“It’s another Canal Street special. I got it for you until you can help me shop for the real thing.”
She blinked back the tears, wanting to be sure she understood before she lost her heart to this man forever. With what little bit of voice she could scavenge in the midst of a huge well of emotion, she asked, “What real thing?”
“A wedding ring.” Duke curled his hand around hers, effectively closing her hand around the scarf and the ring. “That’s my most important gift, honey.” He pulled her against him, crushing her in an embrace that promised more than a lifetime of toe-curling sex. “What I really want to give you is me.” He tipped her chin with one finger. “If you’ll have me?”
The nervous butterflies turned into a joy so sweet, so hot, she wanted to melt right into him.
“Yes,” she breathed the word against his mouth as he lowered his lips to hers for a kiss.
He sealed their bodies together, ran possessive hands over her back and around her waist.
Amanda threaded her fingers through his spiky hair, dragging him even closer.
The upbeat cadence of a happy tune whistled through her spinning consciousness.
A none-too-subtle sign of her father’s approval.
Duke peeled himself away from her, probably following those frustrating gentlemanly instincts again.
Much to her satisfaction, however, his blue gaze sizzled in spite of his restrained hands.
While she was in the middle of returning every one of his hot, wait-until-I-get-you-alone looks, Amanda suddenly became aware of an oversize hat being stuffed unceremoniously onto her head.
Her father stepped in between her and Duke to tip up the brim of the white cowboy hat Duke had been looking for.
“She looks good in white, no?” her father remarked, studying Amanda critically.
Subtlety had never been Clyde Matthews’s strong suit.
Come to think of it, Duke and her father had something in common after all.
Duke cleared his throat. “If that’s a hint, Mr. Matthews, don’t worry. I was just in the middle of proposing.”
Her father harrumphed. “What I just saw didn’t look like a proposal. But if there’s a wedding on the way—”
“There is,” Duke and Amanda answered in perfect time.
“Excellent.” Her father beamed. He plucked the hat from Amanda’s head and plopped it on his own. “I can be one of the good guys again now that my daughter has a detective to watch over her.” He winked at Amanda. “You have to admit having a father with connections has kept the riffraff away for the last few years.”
Amanda groaned, but she thought she spied a hint of male understanding in Duke’s eyes. “Daddy you promised—”
The designer nodded. “No more gangsters.” He held out his arms to Amanda and hugged her. “And no more chaperones, because I’m on my way out. Congratulations, princess.”
Embarrassment heated her cheeks, but she squeezed her father right back. “Thank you, Daddy.”
After a quick shake of Duke’s hand and an announcement that he was leaving for an early dinner, Clyde Matthews left them alone, singing “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” as he ambled out onto the streets of New York.
Leaving them alone.
Anticipation made her every nerve tingle along with the small bell tied to the closing showroom door.
She watched Duke walk over to the entrance and pull the blinds with slow deliberation. The sound of the bolt sliding into the lock had the hair on her neck standing on end.
“I want you, Amanda.” The smoky timbre of his voice told her he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him. “Too much to wait for the wedding, no matter what your father says.”
Opening her fist, Amanda withdrew the gift she’d been holding.
“That’s okay. I’ve got a ring that says you aren’t going anywhere.” She slid the gold band on one finger, then wriggled another in a distinct invitation to come closer.
Duke moved nearer until their bodies brushed, teased against one another. “I’m all yours.”
“All mine?” Deliberately, she walked her fingers down the length of his tie, pausing near his belt.
“Completely.” He reached for her, but she manacled his wrists with her hands.
“Good. Because I’ve got some ideas for a new video I’d like to make.” She danced backward, toward the stairs to her loft.
He followed her, his long stride closing the space between them as fast as her narrow skirt would allow her to escape.
“I’d love to hear all about your ideas, Amanda.”
And she was going to love teasing this man for the rest of her life.
“Really?” She cast a heated look over her shoulder. “I keep thinking about an interrogation scene between a bold detective and a half-naked woman. Or maybe a strip search….”
His low growl drowned out anything else she might have suggested. He caught her before she hit the stairs and threatened her with a sensual reenactment of her every wish.
Amanda couldn’t wait to let the games begin.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8234-0
SILK, LACE & VIDEOTAPE
Copyright © 2002 by Joanne Rock.
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