The Tycoon's Proposal

by Leigh Michaels

  Lissa blinked in surprise. Then she realized what had happened—what must have happened—and tried to push down the bubble of laughter which was threatening to explode deep inside her.

  “There you are, Kurt,” Marian said. “I’ve been so eager for you to meet my young friend that I decided not to wait till tomorrow in case you couldn’t be here after all.” She pointed at the young man standing by the mantel. “This,” Marian went on proudly, “is Ray.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LISSA BIT HER tongue as hard as she could, trying to turn her gasp of amusement into a cough or a gulp. But nothing could stop the delight she’d felt when she saw the look on Kurt’s face as he caught sight of Ray.

  It was all she could do to get herself out of the room before she lost control completely. “I must go take my coat off,” she managed to babble. “It’s awfully warm in here.” She bent to set down the lights under the tree, but the boxes slipped and sprayed out of her hands. Lissa didn’t stop to pick them up; as it was, she barely made it to the foyer before she doubled over, clutching her tummy and trying to hold back a shriek of laughter.

  Kurt had made such a mighty effort to avoid being matched up with Marian’s little friend—and then Ray turned out to be a guy. No wonder Marian had made it sound as if she was promising a little boy a playmate!

  Lissa held onto the newel post and tried not to howl—there was, after all, only a pillar, a thin wall, and the crackle of the fire to block any sound she made from the guests’ ears.

  Kurt was only a few steps behind her. “What in the—?”

  “If you could see yourself,” Lissa gasped. She slid out of her overcoat and draped it over the bannister.

  “Would you stop?” Kurt said. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Well, it might not be from your perspective, but it’s pretty hilarious from where I’m sitting.” She suited the action to the words, sinking down on the lowest step. “All the effort you went to, trying to manipulate me into helping you, and not a bit of it was necessary!” She tried to gulp back another laugh, but the effort went wrong and she began to cough instead.

  Kurt dropped down beside her and slapped her lightly between the shoulders.

  Lissa pulled away. “Hey, you don’t have to beat on me.”

  “I’m just trying to keep you from choking to death now so I can have the joy of strangling you with my own hands later.” But he stopped patting her back.

  “You can’t possibly blame me for this,” Lissa argued. “I’m not the one with such a tremendous ego that I jumped to conclusions. You really should get over yourself, Kurt. The very idea that women are standing in line to be noticed, scheming to be introduced—”

  Kurt heaved a sigh and leaned back, elbows propped on a stair. “Enjoy yourself.”

  “Oh, I will. It never even occurred to you that Ray might be a guy, did it?”

  “I don’t recall you expressing doubts on the subject, either.”

  “The look on your face when you saw him—” This time she didn’t even try to swallow the peal of laughter which bubbled up inside her.

  Before it could quite reach the surface, however, Kurt’s arm closed around her shoulders and pulled her off balance toward him. Suddenly, before Lissa realized what he intended, his lips brushed hers lightly and then settled into a firm kiss which, along with robbing her of any desire to laugh, took away the little breath control she still maintained.

  His touch burned through her sweater, scorching her skin as easily as if she were wearing nothing at all. His mouth against hers was neither gentle nor soft. It was uncompromising, almost demanding—though not harsh.

  For an instant time seemed to fold in on itself, and she was back in his room at the fraternity house. She was curled up on his bed because there was no other place big enough to spread out textbook, notebooks, scratch paper, calculator, and all the tools of the mathematician’s trade. She was shifting around to get comfortable, trying to find a position that would support her back and still keep the books at an angle where both of them could see. Finally Kurt draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up next to him, propped against the pillows at the head of the narrow bed. She’d tensed at the idea of being so close to him, half-lying together on the single bed, and he’d joked about how rigid her muscles felt and then turned back to the problem she’d been demonstrating. He’d been so casual about it that he hadn’t seemed to even notice that his arm was still around her. And it hadn’t occurred to Lissa that he might have other plans….

  Not until midway through her explanation, when she’d realized he wasn’t looking at the notebook any longer but at her. As she’d stumbled to a halt he’d kissed her, and then, eyes narrowing, said that since it was clearly her first kiss he’d be happy to give her some pointers. And he’d kissed her again, very slowly and sensually, just to demonstrate step by step how it was done.

  He’d been wrong and right, all at the same time. It had not been her first kiss, but it had been the first one that mattered. The first one that had warmed her, curled her toes, made her insides go mushy. The first one she hadn’t wanted to end….

  This time the kiss was different—not tentative, not exploratory. But it evoked the same rush of sensation in her, the same heat, the same intensity that had made her want, on that long-ago night, to learn just as much as he could teach her.

  Get a grip, Lissa, she told herself. Just because last time it ended up being a whole lot more than a kiss doesn’t mean you want it to this time, not after last time.

  Still, it took more effort than she liked to admit to protest. Fighting off attraction, she had to admit, took just as much attention as did wallowing in it. But first she had to get control of her body—how had she ended up lying sprawled across the stairs, anyway? She planted her hand against Kurt’s chest to push him away, and felt as if she’d succeeded only in welding them together with the heat he’d stirred deep within her.

  Which simply proved, she told herself, that she had the normal range of hormones. It sure didn’t have anything to do with Kurt himself, because she’d learned that lesson long ago.

  “Knock it off, Callahan.” Despite her best efforts she sounded breathless. “I thought I’d made myself clear that—”

  From a few steps above them, a sultry feminine voice said, “I do so hate to interrupt such a touching scene, but if you’d excuse me so I could get through….”

  Lissa’s head snapped back so sharply that she felt the crack as a muscle popped in her neck. A few steps above them stood a dark-haired beauty, looking impossibly tall from this angle.

  There hadn’t been anyone in the hall or on the stairs when Lissa had come out of the living room. Even though she’d been caught up in her amusement she remembered looking around to be certain it was safe to laugh. So how had this woman managed to come down without her hearing anything?

  Stupid question, Lissa told herself. You were a bit preoccupied just now.

  Lissa slid to one side of the stairs, and Kurt stood up. “Sorry to be in your way—Miss…?” he said.

  “Oh, I quite understand. Seizing the moment and all that.” The brunette slinked down the last few stairs and, once at floor level, smiled up at him and held out a languid hand. “I’m Mindy Meadows. Nice to meet you. I suppose you’ll be coming back to join the party sometime, so I’ll go in to sit with my mother now.” Without a glance at Lissa, she drifted off into the living room.

  “Mindy Meadows?” Kurt said slowly.

  “Marian’s daughter? Not her little friend.”

  “The precise relationship doesn’t make much difference. I will now accept your apology.”

  Lissa was aghast. “My apology? For what?”

  “For not taking all this seriously, for starters.”

  “Oh, come on, Kurt. Like you can’t avoid unwanted attention. If there are really so many women after you, why hasn’t one of them nailed you yet?”

  “And for assuming I was wrong about Ray—”

  “You
were wrong about Ray!”

  “I erred in details, not in substance.”

  “Gender’s a bit more than a detail. Stop trying to change the subject. Whatever you were trying to prove with that kiss, give it up. You’re not going to get anywhere.”

  He sat down beside her once more. “Really? I thought I’d gotten quite a long way.” His gaze roved over her with a warmth that made her want to slap him. “I certainly proved that it would be no great hardship for you to play along and pretend. But if it makes you uncomfortable….”

  Something warned her not to agree.

  “Then I’d have to wonder why.”

  “Because you don’t need protection.”

  He shot a look toward the living room, as if he could see Mindy through the wall.

  “You’re doing it again, Kurt—acting as if there couldn’t possibly be a woman in the world who’s indifferent to you.”

  “Mindy doesn’t fall into that category.”

  “I suppose your psychic powers tell you that? Well, I’m not going to indulge you.” She pushed herself up from the step. She was still a little wobbly, she noted. “I’m going back to the party. Since I’m not going to be playing the role of your girlfriend, I might as well get a closer look at Ray.”

  Lissa had less than no interest in Ray. All she really wanted to do was escape—or perhaps go jump off Kurt’s climbing wall at the mere idea that he could affect her so much with a kiss.

  But of course that hadn’t just been a kiss—not an ordinary kiss. It had brought back memories she’d tried for six years to suppress, of the kiss that had changed her life.

  It had not been her first kiss, but it had been the first one that mattered. The first one that had warmed her, curled her toes, made her insides go mushy. The first one she hadn’t wanted to end….

  So of course it hadn’t ended. Lissa took full responsibility for that fact, because she could have stopped him if she’d really wanted to. She could have swatted him across the chin and walked out.

  Instead, she had let the kiss go on, deeper and deeper, long past enjoyment and into hunger. Hunger that she had thought—if she’d been thinking at all by then—was shared. She’d let herself believe that it was as important to him as it had been to her.

  By then she’d had no control left at all. She not only couldn’t have stopped him, she couldn’t stop herself. And so for the first time in her life she had let her inhibitions be stroked away by a man’s touch on her body, and she had let Kurt Callahan make love to her.

  Ultimately, a long time later, she’d come back to her senses. She’d been embarrassed to find herself wrapped around him, clinging, almost begging. Mortified at the idea of being naked and exposed where his roommate might walk in. Ashamed by the depth of a passion she’d never suspected she possessed. Abashed to remember everything she’d done and everything she’d let him do. Disconcerted to realize that the thing she wanted most just then was to do it all over again.

  And horrified by the stunned expression on Kurt’s face. It had taken her a while to realize that he was just as dazed as she was, but for entirely different reasons. Like an idiot, she’d asked what he was thinking—and when he’d said something about her being a whole lot different than he’d expected, the shock in his voice had brought her back to earth with a bang.

  It had become apparent that he, too, had gotten much more than he’d bargained for—but in a whole different way. He was, she’d thought, clearly afraid that now he wouldn’t be able to get rid of her.

  “I guess I’d better be going,” she’d said, and when he hadn’t argued the point she’d pulled herself together and made her escape. She remembered being quite proud of the fact that her voice hadn’t even trembled as she’d stood in the doorway of his room and said she’d see him later.

  She’d gone to calculus class the next day, still sensitive about how much of herself she’d revealed to him, braced to greet him with cool civility, as if none of it had happened. If it hadn’t been important to him, then she’d make sure he understood that it hadn’t been important to her, either.

  But before she’d even made it to the lecture hall the whispers had started, and the truth had quickly become clear. He had placed a bet on her…and it was plain that his bet had paid off. So when she’d come face to face with him at the classroom door at the end of the lesson, she’d cut him dead and walked away.

  It had hurt for a while. Quite a while, if she was honest. But in the end she’d chalked it up to experience. She hadn’t just gotten a college credit for that calculus class, she’d earned the equivalent of a graduate degree in human relations.

  But it was long over. Not important anymore. And now—well, now she’d positively enjoy watching Kurt get caught in the same kind of manipulation he’d created for her.

  The innocence of the woman, Kurt fumed, not to see with a glance what Mindy Meadows was. Or perhaps Lissa had seen the woman quite clearly and was simply looking forward to the show.

  Kurt swore under his breath and reached for Lissa’s coat, still draped across the bannister, to hang it up. The wide oak boards at the foot of the stairs where their feet had rested were wet with the half-melted snow they’d tracked in. No—snow that he’d tracked in. Lissa had kicked off her shoes the instant they’d come in the door; he remembered thinking that she was acting as if she felt right at home in his grandmother’s house.

  At any rate, he’d better mop up the mess before Janet saw it, or there would be hell to pay. He took off his own shoes, hung up the coats, and went to the kitchen for paper towels.

  Janet was rolling out pastry, muttering under her breath. “‘Just make a few snacks for the guests,’ she says. If I’d known she was going to have a party I’d have laid in supplies. I’m the one who’ll look bad if I can’t come up with something fancy.”

  “Don’t try. Put out stale pretzels and maybe they’ll go home early and give us all a break.” He pulled a wad of paper towels off the roll.

  Janet glowered. “Live Christmas trees, spur-of-the-moment decorating parties…. Mrs. Wilder never did this sort of thing before that woman came. She’s bewitched, your grandmother is—that’s what’s going on. She’s not acting like her normal self at all.”

  Bewitched….

  That was putting it a little strongly, of course. But there was no denying that Lissa had a strange effect on people. Even Kurt himself.

  Not that he was completely crazy where Lissa was concerned. He had good reason for proposing a truce and a mock courtship. A mild flirtation, the occasional longing look, perhaps a meaningful clasp of the hands—that would be enough to ward off approaches by the Mindys of the world. Lissa had proved it, in the store just this morning.

  But then she’d laughed at the whole idea—a laugh which was no less musical and infectious even when she’d been practically choking herself to hold it in—and he’d lost all sense of proportion. He’d certainly never intended to do anything like what had actually happened in the front hall just now. Stretching her out on the staircase as if it were a bed…as if he were still a randy frat boy with a girl in his room and a necktie on the doorknob….

  Janet was looking at him keenly. “What’s she been doing to you?”

  “Nothing at all,” Kurt said airily.

  You’re a liar, his conscience whispered. Ever since you saw her again, you’ve been wondering whether she really did kiss like an angel all those years ago. And now that you know, what are you going to do about it? Start trying to find out if she still makes love that way, too? Hardly.

  “Well, you’d better keep your head, or you’ll wake up one morning and not know what hit you. I’m talking about things like lawyers.”

  The change of direction was so unexpected that Kurt started to laugh. “How did lawyers get into this?”

  “I don’t know,” Janet said primly. “I just heard that woman suggest to your grandmother that the next step she needed to take was to talk to her lawyer.”

  Well, he’d always
suspected that Janet listened at keyholes. Nevertheless, the whole idea sobered him. What the hell did his grandmother need to discuss with a lawyer, anyway? And even if she did, why would Lissa be the one suggesting it? She was a juvenile accountant, not a budding attorney.

  Janet slapped the pastry down on a baking sheet and waved it at him. “You’re between me and the oven.”

  Kurt wiped up the puddle at the foot of the stairs, tossed the paper towels into the nearest wastebasket, and headed for the living room.

  Though he was walking as he did when in the woods—trying not to make a sound because it startled the animals—it was apparent that Mindy had been watching for him. The instant he saw her face she was already starting to smile in his direction. He wondered if she had a crick in her neck from keeping her head turned toward the doorway all the time he’d been gone. And, as far as that went, how could he possibly have thought that the way Lissa had looked at him that night at the cloakroom counter had been a predatory gaze? Here was the real thing, and there was no comparison.

  Mindy was on one side of the tree, holding up a glossy ornament and looking past it toward him. She was probably checking out her reflection from the corner of her eye, Kurt thought. Making sure there wasn’t a crumb stuck to her upper lip.

  But it was the tableau on the other side of the tree which captured his attention. Ray was holding two bright red bricks in each hand, displaying them triumphantly like a weightlifter. The guy was posing for Lissa, and, sure enough, she was soaking it up. He wondered if she was really attracted or if she was doing it just to get his goat—to pay Kurt back for that kiss in the hallway.

  “They’re for the stockings, dear,” his grandmother was saying.

  “Bricks?” Lissa sounded doubtful. “I thought that was coal.”

  “Not to put in the stockings. The bricks are to weigh the tops on the mantel, so the stockings won’t come tumbling down when Santa fills them.”