by Diana Palmer
“The color is perfect,” the older woman agreed. “Just perfect, with that light tan of yours.”
She led Kenna back out into the showroom and stood with hands folded, while her client moved forward toward the tall, dark man who was waiting for her. Regan was idly watching passersby when he heard Kenna’s step and turned.
He didn’t say anything. His eyes went up and down and up again, and his face hardened.
“Is—is it all right?” she asked, desperately wanting to be told that she looked stunning, that Denny would fall at her feet...anything.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said in a strange, husky tone, “it’s all right. Now see what you can find for the office. A tailored suit, some skirts and blouses that don’t look frumpy and a couple of ensembles for leisure.”
“But...but what for?” she asked.
“Going out with me one time isn’t going to give Denny any hints,” he said curtly. “Or did you expect him to take one look at you and drop to his knees to propose?”
She hated that cynical question. The dress had made her feel like a princess, and now he had spoiled it all. “No,” she admitted. “I didn’t expect that.” She turned, but he caught her bare arm and held her back, out of earshot of the saleslady.
“You look enchanting, is that what you want to hear?” he asked at her ear, his voice husky, his breath warm against her neck. “That dress makes a man want to smooth it away from your body and see what’s underneath.”
She caught her breath at the blatant seduction of his voice.
“Embarrassed?” He chuckled as he let her go. “Well, you wanted to know, didn’t you?”
She rushed off before he could manage anything worse and was surprised at the furious beat of her heart when she went to take off the dress.
It was the most wonderful shopping trip she’d ever been on. She bought a two-piece suit, pink with a plum feather pattern; it had a straight skirt and a long-sleeved V-neck jacket secured by a plum-colored rose at the peplum waist. She bought several skirts and revealing blouses that she wouldn’t have looked at if Regan hadn’t been with her, forcing her to buy them despite her own misgivings. She bought an expensive bra that added at least one size to her small breasts and some lacy lingerie. And as she mentally calculated the cost on the way out of the store, she sighed.
“I’ll be working for you for the rest of my life,” she murmured.
He glanced down at her from his superior height and smiled. “Would you mind? As long as I made the coffee once in a while?”
The tone of his deep voice surprised her into looking up. And when she did, she felt a warm surge of sensation that rippled down to her feet. His eyes, dark and quiet and intense, held hers until the jostling of passersby broke their strange exchanged look and brought them back to reality.
“Thank you for going with me,” she murmured, following him out to his gray Porsche.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, glancing sharply at her as he unlocked the door and helped her inside. “Left on your own, you’d have come back with the same clothes you thought looked great on you before.” He went around the car and eased his formidable bulk in beside her. She glared for all she was worth.
“I am not stupid about clothes,” she informed him.
“Your idea of fashion is a gunnysack with arm and neck holes,” he replied as he started the sleek car.
“Well, it’s better than looking like a prostitute,” she tossed back, “and that’s what I’ll look like in some of those things you made me buy! The neckline on one of those blouses is halfway to my knees!”
“Don’t exaggerate,” he said shortly. His dark eyes dropped to her T-shirt. “How many of those damned things do you have, anyway?”
“What things?” she demanded.
“Those shapeless things you hide your body in.”
“I like loose clothing,” she retorted.
“Obviously.” He threw a careless arm over the back of the seat as he turned to back the car out of the parking space. His face was much too close to hers. Involuntarily, her eyes went to his wide, chiseled mouth, and she wondered what it would feel like to kiss him.
He stopped the car to put it in gear, but he didn’t move. She sensed the sudden heavy beat of his heart, the warmth of his body.
“Look at me,” he growled.
She looked up and her eyes were held by his, possessed by his, so that the world was suddenly contained in a pair of intense brown eyes under thick, short lashes.
His gaze dropped to her soft, parted lips, and he moved fractionally, his own lips parting. She waited, and wanted, hardly breathing, and her eyes narrowed to slits as he came closer. She drank in the scent of his cologne, the warmth of his big body, the faintly smoky scent of his breath as she felt it against her lips. And she wanted to kiss him with a longing that had her spinning. She wanted to kiss him hungrily and hard and see if the touch of that chiseled mouth would be as maddening as she was imagining it would...
“Get going, will you!” The loud voice was followed by the equally loud blaring of a car horn.
The dark brown eyes blinked and Regan looked into the rearview mirror with vague curiosity, while Kenna felt herself trembling with hunger for a kiss she wouldn’t get. She wanted to jump out of the car and kick the driver behind them for interrupting. Why she should feel that way when she loved Denny was something she didn’t dare question. She cleared her throat.
Abruptly Regan put the car into Drive and eased down on the accelerator, glancing toward her as he left the irate driver behind them. “Would you mind telling me what that long, soulful look was all about?” he asked, a bite in his deep voice.
She swallowed. “I wasn’t looking at you. I was thinking,” she countered weakly.
“About what?” he asked as he pulled into traffic.
“You mentioned that taking me out one time wouldn’t be enough,” she murmured, nervous with him all of a sudden. “What did you mean? You said we were just going to transform me...”
“It’s going to take more than a haircut and new clothes to do that,” he said flatly. He lit a cigarette while they stopped at a red light. “And going out with me is the best way I know to catch Denny’s attention. Or haven’t you noticed how competitive he is with me?”
“I don’t know if my ego can take more than one date with you,” she said matter-of-factly, glaring at him.
“It will have to, if you really want Denny,” he told her. “And I’m not going to pull my punches. I’m going to teach you how to dress, how to walk, how to flirt, the works. Because what you need most is confidence, and you’re sadly lacking in that commodity.”
“And you think having my appearance torn to pieces is going to give it to me,” she mused ironically.
“Ultimately,” he agreed. His eyes scanned her briefly. “I’d bet good money that you spent every high-school dance standing with your back to the wall, slouched, your arms folded across what bosom you’ve got, praying for some boy to ask you to dance.”
She gasped and blushed all at once, because he was dead right. She couldn’t even manage to look at him, and involuntarily her arms folded defensively across her breasts.
“How did you manage to get so repressed?” he asked. “Didn’t your mother spend any time showing you all those little tricks women use to hook men?”
“I didn’t have a mother,” she replied. “She and Dad were divorced when I was young. I lived with him and my stepmother until I grew up and went out on my own. My stepmother let me stay on sufferance, but we avoided each other whenever possible. Does that answer your question?”
Her tone would have cut a lesser man dead, but Regan only lifted an eyebrow. “Have you seen your mother since?”
She shook her head. “She died a few years ago. Look, can we talk about something else?”
<
br /> He took a long draw from the cigarette. “Have you ever been serious about a man?”
She laughed shortly, bitterly. “I’ve never had the chance,” she confessed coldly. “Men these days are only interested in sex. If you say no on the first date, they don’t come back.”
“And that’s a lot of bull,” he shot back. “You aren’t going to convince me that every man you dated tried to rape you the minute you climbed in a car with him.”
Startled, she glanced at him. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “I only meant...” She drew in a slow breath. “Oh, what’s the use? I’ve only been out with four men in my life, and two of them were blind dates. And of course they didn’t try to rape me, they couldn’t get me home fast enough.”
“Did it hurt to admit that to me?”
“Yes, if you want to know,” she said curtly. She fumbled in her pocketbook and fished out her glasses, unfolding them to perch them on her nose. “And I’m tired of seeing blurs instead of people. I’m half-blind without these.”
He laughed softly. “Then why weren’t you wearing them this morning?”
“I figured that if I could see how I looked in those things you made me buy, I wouldn’t buy them,” she grumbled.
“Ostrich,” he accused.
“That’s me. You were right about the dances, you know,” she added miserably. “I’ve always slouched because I hate being so tall. And now I’ll slouch because of those incredible necklines.”
“No, you won’t. Not when I get through with you.”
“I’m not at all sure I want to be what you’re going to make me into,” she murmured. “Denny may not like me that way.”
“He likes Margo that way,” he said with cruel emphasis and a cold smile. “And I hope you’re not naive enough to think they’re up at Lake Lanier playing checkers?”
She flushed to the roots of her dark hair. “Margo has a lot going for her.”
“So I hear,” he replied flatly. “But I’d guess it’s not so much what she’s got as what she does with it, honey. Like all attractive women, she probably makes the most of her assets.”
“How is it that you know so much about fashion and flair?” she asked curtly, glancing toward him.
He stared straight ahead with eyes that were momentarily blank. “Jessica was a top fashion model,” he said, his voice quiet and soft in memory.
“Oh.” She looked away from him, embarrassed by the emotion in his deep voice.
He crushed out the cigarette with faint violence. “Denny will notice you before we’re through, I promise you that.”
“I know why I don’t like Margo, but why don’t you? You haven’t even met her,” she noted when he was pulling up in front of her apartment.
He cut off the engine and leaned back against his door, studying her. “Because I sense that she’s more woman than Denny’s going to be able to handle. She’ll have him standing in the corner like a coatrack before she’s through. Besides that,” he added darkly, “I don’t know beans about her background, and that bothers me. Denny could be getting into something over his head.”
“You mean, she could be a secret agent or something?”
“My, what wide eyes,” he murmured. “I mean, Denny is wealthy and stands to be a lot wealthier. From what he’s told me, she’s the type of lady who wants to be well kept. It isn’t hard for a woman to want a rich man, Kenna,” he said with bitter humor. “Denny deserves more than that.”
She stared down at her folded hands. Yes, he did. She herself loved him, after all. She could give him love, if nothing else.
“I’ll pick you up at two tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “And we’ll start the lessons. You can wear one of your new outfits.”
She lifted her head and blinked, staring at him. “Tomorrow?”
“I assume you don’t have a heavy date lined up?”
She glowered. “Wouldn’t it shock you if I did?”
“The way you dress,” he said derisively, “it would.”
“If you have your way, I’ll be walking the streets naked,” she burst out.
“That,” he returned shortly, “would be worse than what you’re wearing.”
She could have thrown her purse at him. She couldn’t remember ever in her life feeling this kind of maniacal rage toward a man—the same rage that had made her fling that file folder at his proud head. But it seemed to get worse every time she was with him.
He was already out of the car with the shopping bags before she could find her voice, and she led him stoically up to her small apartment.
“How did you find my apartment building?” she asked, as he opened the door and let her go in first.
“I asked Denny where you lived. He looked it up.” He glanced at her as he dumped the packages on her colorful sofa. “Obviously, he’s never been here.”
She shook her head sadly, and then she laughed. “Nobody’s been here, except family and an occasional girlfriend.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked around him. “Too bad you don’t dress like you decorate,” he said finally. “The room has personality.”
“And I haven’t?” she murmured defensively, bristling again.
“I don’t know,” he replied. His dark eyes went over her withdrawn face. “I’ve never paid much attention to you.”
“That’s not surprising.” She sighed. “I’ve seen photographs of the women you go around with.”
His eyebrows went straight up. “Meaning?”
She laughed self-consciously. “Some of them make even Margo look ugly by comparison.”
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, studying her curiously. “I get lonely. Don’t you?”
Her eyes widened with something like shock. She was beginning to realize that he was human, after all, not the ogre of her imagination. Perhaps he missed his late wife. It didn’t make her like him any better, but it helped her to understand him better.
“Everyone gets lonely, I expect,” she hedged, turning away. Some more than others, she added silently, like me, wanting a man I can’t have.
“And that’s your whole problem, Kenna,” he growled. “You walk around hunched over with your head hanging, feeling sorry for yourself. My God, no wonder you’re twenty-five and living alone!”
She whirled gracefully, like a ballerina, her eyes reckless with challenge. Anger made her whole face come alive.
“I like living alone!” she tossed back.
“Like hell you do,” he countered. “How much television can you watch before you get sick of it and your own company?”
She felt her lower lip trembling with indignation. He was hitting too close to home. “Don’t you have someplace to go?” she asked coldly.
“As a matter of fact, I have a date tonight,” he said cruelly, smiling at her involuntary grimace. “I won’t be sitting home alone hoping for the phone to ring.”
Her eyes clouded with mingled fury and hurt. “She must have been desperate, to go out with you!” she flung at him, even though she was positive it was the other way around.
He only smiled with quiet confidence. He had the look of a man who knew everything there was to know about women, and his gaze was so frankly sensual that she was shocked. She hadn’t realized before just how sexy he was. She didn’t want to think about it now, either; it disturbed her.
She turned away. “I have things to do.”
“So have I. I’ll pick you up at two tomorrow.” He opened the door and went out without a backward glance, leaving her to fume silently and alone.
Chapter Four
Kenna spent a sleepless night, full of dreams in which she took Denny away from Margo and he carried her off to a castle to live happily ever after. But she woke up to a lonely apartment and a day she dreaded. It was
hard enough putting up with Regan Cole at the office. How in the world was she going to stand hours of forced companionship with the man without murdering him?
She got dressed an hour before he came to pick her up, defiantly choosing a pair of designer jeans and a white turtleneck. That ought to burn him up, she thought, grinning at her reflection in the mirror. She’d done her face as the cosmetics expert had taught her, and the difference, even with her glasses on, was something to write home about. She couldn’t wait for Denny to see her tomorrow.
The doorbell rang at two-thirty sharp, and she opened the door reluctantly.
Regan, dressed in tan slacks and an open-throated black-and-tan shirt, glared at her. “Why didn’t you just wear the sack you brought that home in?” he demanded.
She glared up at him. It was a long way, because this afternoon she was wearing ballerina shoes with flat heels. She’d never been more conscious of the sheer size of him.
“I’m only spending the afternoon with you,” she tossed back. “I didn’t see any reason to try looking seductive.”
His eyebrows arched. “I thought the whole idea of this exercise was to teach you to be exactly that— seductive. Not,” he added coldly, “for my benefit, you needn’t worry about that. We’ve already agreed that you’re not my type.”
“Thank goodness,” she muttered with a sarcastic smile. She turned. “In that case, I’ll put on one of those slit-to-the-navel numbers you made me buy.”
“Don’t wear long johns under it,” he called after her. “And put on a bra!”
She slammed her bedroom door as hard as she could.
Ten minutes later, she slunk back into the living room, feeling self-conscious and about as seductive as a hunk of cheese.
He turned from a brooding contemplation of the photos she kept on her coffee table and stared at her. The new blouse was a pale olive. It had cap sleeves and a neckline that ended just between her breasts, hinting at their soft curves. The bra she’d bought to wear with it gave her the appearance of grander assets than she possessed, and the color of the blouse brought out the deep green of her eyes.