THIS PERFECT KISS

by Christie Ridgway

  And, worst of all, had he noticed it?

  "I care what people think," Rory said, his voice tight.

  Jilly looked up. He paced away from the TV, striding across the mellow-toned Oriental carpet covering the floor.

  She bit her bottom lip. "It's not so bad. It's not as if we actually did anything."

  Rory sent her a look.

  Okay, so it had looked pretty much like they were about to do everything, but still… "We know what happened. Nothing. So what's the big deal?"

  "The big deal is there's a contingent of media types camping at my gates now. Before, they'd just drop by once or twice a week. But the big deal is, now I can guarantee they're going to make the next few weeks hell." He sent her another angry look. "All thanks to your Web cam, by the way. If I remember right, you called it a 'little piece of fluff.' Well, your fluff just seriously impacted my life, thank you very much."

  Guilt again rushed through Jilly. Then her eyes narrowed. The media types, he said. Wait just a minute. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Hey, I'm not the one who fanned the flames of speculation out there by kissing me."

  Still pacing, Rory shot her another glare. "Do me a favor," he said, his voice even tighter than before. "Don't bring up flames. That's where this whole thing started."

  She stared at him. It seemed he was blaming her. It seemed he thought something was her fault. Well, the kiss certainly wasn't. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He halted, standing in front of the library windows. "C'mon. You know you're hot, baby."

  Jilly's eyes widened. "I am?" She was? Rory Kincaid, above-the-title star of her wanton fantasies, thought she was hot? She bit back her smile, but the surprising idea thrilled her all the same. "I'm hot?"

  He started pacing again, as if he'd already answered her question. "So here's the deal. We have something special going. That's what that reporter asked—if it was 'special.' I like that. We'll stick to it."

  Her chin dropped in surprise, though the thrill was still running strong. "What?"

  He appeared not to have heard her, he was so lost in thought. "I'll issue a statement about your mistake with the Web cam. I'll say I thought I was alone with my special … friend."

  "Issue a statement? 'Special friend'? Is this an upgrade from the 'uh friend' I was to that political creep?" Jilly shook her head. "Really, Rory, who cares that much what people think?"

  "The Blue Party cares. The Blue Party cares what people think."

  Jilly froze, as suddenly everything he'd said, everything he'd done, came together. "'Dilemma,' you said!" Really mad now, she stomped over to him and halted his incessant pacing by standing directly in his path. "'Dilemma,' my behind!"

  His eyebrows rose.

  "You said we had a dilemma. A dilemma would be something the two of us needed to figure out together. But you'd already decided all by yourself, hadn't you? Before I even drove up, you knew what you were going to do. Statements, special friends … kisses!"

  He'd said she was hot. Hah. Now she knew that was as big a lie as their supposed "dilemma." It was something he'd said to put her off her guard, to control her. She recognized it from a childhood full of disapproval and demands to follow certain rules. Rory wanted to manipulate her into doing what would work best for him.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not going along with it."

  He stared down at her, his eyes a burning blue. "Yes, you are," he said quietly.

  She shook her head. "No. It doesn't matter to me if we cause the biggest scandal this side of Monica and Bill."

  Rory grabbed the end of the Gucci tie she had around her neck and hauled her closer to him. "There won't be another Kincaid scandal, do you understand?" he said through his teeth. "I don't want anything to screw with my Blue Party nomination. And you—do you want people to think you undress for any man who comes in off the street?"

  Jilly hesitated. There was one person who would surely think that of her. One person who had thought that about her mother and who had predicted that Jilly would follow in her footsteps if she didn't do as she was told.

  Follow the rules. Listen to the nuns. Live a gray-and-white life. Control. Control. Control. All under the guise of "loving" her.

  "I don't care," she said stubbornly. "So what if someone thinks that?"

  She wondered for a minute if Rory might use her tie to strangle her. But then he released Mr. Gucci's best silk and grabbed her shoulders instead.

  "Damn you," he said. "Damn you, Jilly. I care if someone thinks that. And I'm not going to let it happen to you."

  And for some stupid, unexplainable reason, the rough note of concern in his voice made her sway toward him. Then a flash came through the window, like sunlight reflecting off metal or maybe glass. Startled, she tried drawing back.

  Rory wouldn't let her. He drew her closer, then up on her toes and toward his mouth. "Promise me you'll cooperate," he ordered roughly.

  Just like that, his eyes became the intense, burning eyes of her fantasy desert prince. A Sahara sun was heating her skin and she felt his belt buckle press against her stomach and his hard thighs graze hers.

  Maybe that was why she answered, "Promise," before his mouth came down, fierce and satisfying, against her mouth.

  But the kiss ended unsatisfyingly early when someone else entered the room.

  "Oops," Rory's brother said. As Rory and Jilly broke apart, Greg was turning to leave.

  "Don't go," Rory said abruptly. "It was just for the snoopy paparazzi. I saw the sun flash off a telephoto lens."

  For the second time, Jilly tried swiping away his kiss with the back of her hand. Just for the paparazzi. When was she going to learn?

  With a sympathetic smile in her direction, Greg handed some papers to Rory. "Faxes for you," he said.

  Jilly had seen the machine that sat in the housekeeper's alcove office adjacent to the kitchen. As Rory bent his head over the sheets, she edged back, thinking this was a good time to make her escape.

  But he instantly looked up. "Don't move a muscle."

  His commanding tone made her want to do jumping jacks or run in place. Perform a few handsprings, maybe. Something that moved every muscle she owned. She settled for crossing her arms over her chest once more and sighing.

  "Domineering devil, isn't he?" Greg grinned at her.

  Recognizing a kindred spirit, Jilly found herself grinning back. "Very Pattonesque."

  "How about Sherman?" Greg countered. "Like the tank."

  She pretended to consider it. "Or Schwarzkopf, maybe? But no, he seems too nice."

  "MacArthur, then."

  "Machiavelli."

  "Would you mind?"

  They both turned innocent faces toward Rory. "Yes?" Jilly asked sweetly.

  Rory raffled the faxes in his hand. "The special relationship is out."

  "Thank the Lord," Jilly said instantly. "Indeed, some prayers are answered."

  "Instead, we're going to be engaged."

  Jilly blinked, then looked at Greg. "He didn't say what I thought he said, right?"

  Greg looked like he was holding back another grin. "Depends on what you thought he said."

  Rory impatiently raffled the faxes again. "You two can practice your comedy-club routine some other time, okay? I'm serious. This is serious. The senator faxed me. Charlie Jax faxed me."

  Greg shot her a look. "You remember Charlie Jax, right? Campaign director Charlie Jax."

  The political creep. Jilly swallowed. Rory's political ambitions.

  Greg looked back at Rory and sighed. "I take it they already caught a glimpse of your Internet escapade?"

  Rory ran his free hand through his hair. "Jax did. The senator is taking his word for it. They advise that I do something about the situation right away. Something that makes it appear respectable." His voice lowered to a mumble. "They seem to assume I can."

  Jilly thought of her naked back and that look she'd recognized in her own eyes. Respectable didn't seem a real option. She tri
ed again. "This is your problem, Rory. Not mine."

  He glared at her. "Caused by your Web cam. Jilly, we've been over this before. It's our problem. Especially with this kind of B.S. already pouring forth." He shoved the topmost fax into her hand.

  Reluctantly, Jilly directed her gaze at the paper. It seemed to be a printout of a gossip column posted daily on the Web. The Kincaid name came up a lot, in bold print. And then there was hers, along with a lot of wild and almost creepy speculation about the kind of woman she was and the kind of relationship they had. "Ew," she said in disgust and quickly passed the fax back to Rory, who passed it on to Greg.

  "Convince her, Greg. Tell her how it will only get worse if I don't put a ring on her finger."

  "A ring!"

  "An engagement ring. And only temporarily. We can break it off when I leave L.A."

  Greg looked up from the fax and briefly met Rory's eyes. Something passed between them, an exchange of pain, or perhaps of remembered humiliation. "I'm with Rory on this one, Jilly. You both will be protected by calling yourselves engaged. Sorry."

  She bit her lip. "It can't be that big a deal."

  "Yeah. It can," Greg said. He glanced toward Rory again. "It can get really, really ugly."

  Jilly thought of the decadent parties rumored to have taken place at the Caidwater mansion. Of the eleven wives in the Kincaid family. Of the fact that Rory apparently wanted something different for himself. Finally, she had to be honest and admit it was her fault they'd been caught on camera.

  "No," she said one more time anyway.

  "For God's sake. It's not like it's really going to change anything between us. And don't forget, you promised," Rory said. Then his face set and he crossed his arms over his chest. "The bottom line is that I won't let this happen to you, Jilly. I refuse to let you be hurt by what the media can do with this."

  Jilly toyed with the end of her Gucci tie. It was such a nice, heroic sentiment, wanting to protect her. But she knew it came with a price. Her grandmother had said she wanted to protect Jilly, too. And that protection had meant she'd never known her mother. That she never could look at love the same way again.

  But the implacable I'm-the-general-here expression on Rory's face told her she didn't have much choice. Which made it just that much harder to comply.

  The only good side to the whole mess was the possibility that if she cooperated, Rory might feel like he owed her something. Once she thought of how best to bring up Kim and Iris, that is. After witnessing Kim's anguished reaction when Jilly had told her of Rory's intention to take the little girl away from southern California altogether, she was only more committed to reuniting mother and daughter. Maybe agreeing would make him look more kindly upon her plea.

  Rory's eyes suddenly narrowed. "There's not something else I should know, is there?"

  Jilly flinched guiltily. "What do you mean?" There was no way she could come clean about why she was here now, not when he blamed this entire headache on her and her Web cam.

  "You're not already married? Or hiding some skeleton in your closet that might come out to haunt us?"

  Choking off a laugh, Jilly shook her head. "No husband. And the Jilly Skye closet is quite empty, I promise you." It was a fairly new closet, too, since Jilly Skye had lived as Gillian Skye Baxter until she was twenty-one. There wasn't any way to connect the two, not even through Things Past. She'd made that clean a break from her grandmother.

  "Then you'll agree," he said, as if it were a given.

  And she supposed, after all, it was. "Oh, fine," she said grudgingly.

  Rory's expression didn't flicker. Instead, he immediately headed toward the far wall of the library. He pressed something in the paneled woodwork and a section slid back to reveal a safe.

  Still without looking at her, he pressed some numbers on the keypad. "So. What do you like when it comes to engagement rings? Roderick kept an assortment of women's jewelry on hand. Rubies? Diamonds? Or my personal favorite, emeralds?"

  * * *

  Greg watched his brother shut the safe door and slide the wood panel closed. Jilly had left the room, heading to the east wing and Roderick's stash of clothes, uneasily twisting on her finger the emerald ring Rory had insisted she choose.

  "Do you know what you're doing?" he asked.

  Rory shrugged, then turned to meet his gaze. "What has to be done. You saw what was written. You and I both know it will only get worse unless Jilly and I make our relationship dully respectable."

  Greg shook his head, but decided to keep from wondering aloud if "Jilly" and "dully respectable" should be uttered in the same breath. "It's getting kind of complicated, though, isn't it? This whole thing with the Blue Party?"

  Rory stiffened defensively. "This kind of attention isn't just because I'm a potential candidate. It's because I'm a Kincaid."

  Greg couldn't disagree. The legacy of their name, of their grandfather's and father's actions, had taken a toll on them both. It had made Rory obsessed with redefining the family name as something straitlaced and squeaky-clean. Thinking back to Rory's concern that Jilly might be hiding something, Greg realized that Rory also still couldn't shake his deep wariness when it came to women. He was constantly at watch for any ulterior motives.

  As for himself, what Greg couldn't shake was…

  The memory of Kim. The pain of seeing her again. The agonizing question of where she'd been and what she'd been doing the past four years.

  And he couldn't shake his lingering shame either. It was what made him guess and second-guess his decision to battle Rory over Iris.

  Mrs. Mack entered the library. "Mr. Rory, I know you didn't want to take any calls today, but this one's from Michael Riles. It's about the community tech—"

  "I'll take it." Rory hurried toward the desk and the phone there, eagerness and relief written all over his face.

  Greg shook his head. "See how quickly you dive into that, Rory? Community technology centers in low-income housing areas. There's your next project. Not Washington, D.C."

  Rory paused, his hand on the phone. "Go away, Greg."

  "You can't really want to be a senator."

  "Go away, Greg."

  Greg smiled at his brother. Rory hadn't denied it, had he? But then his smile died. Jilly had denied that there was anything more Rory should know about her, but Greg couldn't believe coincidence had brought the proprietor of the shop where Kim worked to Caidwater.

  He sighed. More than four years ago he'd moved into Caidwater—just temporarily, he'd thought—after his Malibu house had been demolished in a mud slide. He'd met his grandfather's newest wife. In less than a year she'd been gone from his life, yet he'd been trying to forget about her and their history every day since. There were a few things he couldn't deny either.

  And one of them was this sudden, compelling urge to head for the FreeWest district and the shop called—it seemed a strangely ironic name now—Things Past.

  * * *

  Kim stood in one corner of the shop, her gaze glued out the right window. A camera crew was filming outside and she held herself motionless behind a concealing rack of 1940s housedresses, ready to disappear up the back stairs if necessary.

  There were no public records to connect her to the business—her agreement with Jilly was verbal as a way to protect them both from Roderick's vindictiveness—but she couldn't afford to take chances. Not even when she didn't think she much resembled the too-young woman who had married so long ago.

  Kim was so engrossed in watching the media bustle that she didn't notice anyone approach until the air beside her stirred.

  She jumped. "Wha—"

  Greg. He must have slipped like smoke through the front door. Her skin turned cold and her leg muscles tightened, coiling for flight. But, gritting her teeth, she forced herself to remain still.

  Even though Greg was here again.

  They stood there silently, just staring at each other, and she prayed her gaze wasn't hungry. It felt hungry, she felt hungry, as she abso
rbed what changes four years had wrought.

  It wasn't that he'd been a total stranger to her since she'd left Caidwater. During that time she'd been to every one of his movies. It was one of her most intimate secrets, that she saw those particular films, and it was one of the very few secrets she kept from Jilly.

  But it was different, seeing Greg in person. Different, and so heartachingly the same. They were eye to eye, both of them being five-foot-eleven, but his shoulders were wider, his body more muscular than it had been when they both lived at Caidwater. His features were even, All-American really, different from the exotic cast of the other men in his family. But if Greg didn't exude the legendary, compelling sexuality of his grandfather and father, he possessed something Kim valued much more—decency.

  His medium-brown hair still had that boyish cowlick at the front, even though his hair was cut very short. That Christmas, the only Christmas she'd been married, she had teased him about that uncontrollable wave by gift wrapping a huge box stuffed with dozens and dozens of hair gels and tress tamers. In a ratty pair of sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt the color of his Kincaid-blue eyes, he'd sat on the floor beside the tree and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

  Maybe that was when her husband, his grandfather, had first begun to suspect.

  Her legs tightened again, all her instincts commanding them to run. But she controlled herself once more, ruthlessly ignoring her screaming nerves. Running would be the easy way, and the easy way was something she'd vowed to give up.

  "What do you want?" she asked him. It was only a whisper, but she considered even finding her voice a victory.

  His mouth kicked up in a ghost of his sweet, crooked smile. Kim bit the inside of her mouth to mask the pain in her heart.

  "I don't know," he said. One corner of his mouth lifted again, but there wasn't anything close to a smile in his eyes. "I'm not sure."

  Kim briefly looked away, steeling herself. If he didn't know, then it was up to her. She had to be sure. She had to be sure he never came here again. That she never saw him again, except for those secret matinees and late-night showings when she sat alone in a movie theater and pretended all his good-guy smiles were just for her.