delivery boy at the service entrance held the door for me.” She smiled thinly. “He was very courteous. Then I used the fire stairs.”
“If you’re Kay’s sister, why didn’t you simply ask the doorman to announce you?”
“I waited all this time to hear from you but nothing happened. Telling your doorman I wanted to see you didn’t strike me as useful.”
“Let me see some ID.”
“What?”
“Identification. Something that says you’re who you claim to be.”
“I don’t know why Kay loved you,” Ivy said bitterly.
Damian decided it was the better part of valor not to answer that. Instead he watched in silence as she dug through the bag slung over one shoulder, took out a wallet and opened it. “Here. My driver’s license. Satisfied?”
Not satisfied, just more puzzled. The license said she was Ivy Madison, age twenty-seven, with an address in Chelsea. And the photo checked out. It was the woman standing before him. Not even the bored Motor Vehicle clerks and their soulless machines had been able to snap a picture that dimmed her looks.
Damian looked up.
“This doesn’t make you Kay’s sister.”
Without a word, she dug into her purse again, took out a business-card size folder and flipped it open. The photo inside was obviously years old but there was no mistaking the faces of the two women looking at the camera.
“All right. What if you are Kay’s sister. Why are you here?”
Ivy stared at him. “You can’t be serious!”
He was…and then, with breathtaking speed, things started to fall into place.
The sisters didn’t resemble each other, but that didn’t mean the apple had fallen far from the tree.
“Let me save you some time,” Damian said coolly. “Your sister didn’t leave any money.”
Those bright green eyes flashed with defiance. “I’m not here for money.”
“There’s no jewelry, either. No spoils of war. I donated everything I’d given her to charity.”
“I don’t care about that, either.”
“Really?” He folded his arms. “You mean, I haven’t ruined your hopes for a big score?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Indeed, Damian thought grimly, that was exactly what he’d done.
“You—you egotistical, self-aggrandizing, aristocratic pig,” she hissed, her voice shaking. “You haven’t spoiled anything except for yourself. And believe me, Prince or Mr. or whatever name you want, you’ll never, ever know what you missed!”
It was an emotional little speech and he could see she was determined to end it on a high note by shoving past him and striding to the door.
There was every reason to let her go.
If she was willing to give up so easily and disappear from his life as quickly as she’d entered it, who was he to stop her?
Logic told him to move aside.
To hell with logic.
Damian shifted his weight to keep her trapped in the corner. She called him another name, not nearly as creative as the last, put her arms out straight and tried to push him away.
He laughed, caught both her wrists and trapped her hands against the hard wall of his chest. Anger and defiance stained her cheeks with crimson.
“Damn it, let go!”
“Why, sweetheart,” he purred, “I don’t understand. How come you’re so eager to leave when you were so eager to see me?”
She kicked him in the shin with one of her high heeled boots. It hurt, but he’d be damned if he let her know that. Instead he dragged her closer until she was pressed against him.
He told himself it was only to keep her from gouging his shin to the bone.
And that there was no reason, either, for the hot fist of lust that knotted in his groin as he looked down into her flushed face.
Her eyes were wild. Her hair was a torrent of spun gold. Her lips were trembling. Trembling, and full, and delicately parted, and all at once, all at once, Damian understood why she was here.
What a thickheaded idiot he was!
Kay had obviously told Ivy about him. That he had money, a title, an eye for beautiful women.
And now Kay was gone but Ivy—Ivy was very much alive.
Incredibly alive.
His gaze dropped to her mouth again. “What a fool you must think me,” he said softly. “Of course I know why you’re here.”
Her eyes lit. Her mouth curved in a smile. “Thank God,” she said shakily. “For a while there, I thought—”
Damian silenced her in midsentence. He thrust his hands into her hair, lifted her face to his and kissed her.
She cried out against his mouth. Slammed her fists against his chest. A nice touch, he thought with a coldness that belied his rising libido. She’d come to audition as her sister’s replacement. Well, he’d give her a tryout, all right. Kiss her, show her she had no effect on him and then send her packing.
Except, it wasn’t happening that way.
Maybe he really had been without a woman for too long.
Maybe his emotions were out of control.
Sex, desire—neither asks for reason, only satiation and completion. He wanted this. The heat building inside him like a flash-fire in dry brush. The deep, hungry kiss.
The woman struggling for freedom in his arms.
She was pretending. He knew that. It was all part of the act. He nipped at her bottom lip; she gave a little cry and he slid his tongue into her mouth, tasted her sweetness, caught the little sound she made and kissed her again and again until she whimpered, lifted herself to him, flattened her hands against his chest…
Thee mou!
Damian jerked away. The woman stumbled back. Her eyes flew open, the pupils so enormous they’d all but consumed the green of her irises.
What the hell was he doing? She was just like Kay. A siren, luring a man with sex—
Her hand flew through the air and slammed against his jaw.
“You bastard,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You evil, horrible son of a bitch!”
“Don’t bother with the theatrics,”
