want a nice cup of tea. How about you?”
“Oolong?”
She grimaced. “Green. I ran out of oolong and forgot to ask Mary to put it on the grocery list this week.”
“Green’s fine, then, I guess.”
“Better than coffee,” she teased, and made a face. “I won’t be a minute.”
He watched her dart off to the kitchen, a pretty picture in jeans and a blue T-shirt, with her long hair in a neat ponytail. She didn’t look old enough to date, much less marry.
She was starry-eyed, thinking of a home and children and hardly considering the reality of life with a man like King. He wouldn’t want children straight off the bat, even if she thought she did. She was far too young for instant responsibility. Besides that, King wouldn’t be happy with an impulsive child who wasn’t mature enough to handle business luncheons and the loneliness of a home where King spent time only infrequently. Tiffany would expect constant love and attention, and King couldn’t give her that. He sighed, thinking that he was going to go gray-headed worrying about his only child’s upcoming broken heart. There seemed no way to avoid it, no way at all.
Tiffany wasn’t thinking about business lunches or having King home only once in a blue moon. She was weaving dreams of little boys and girls playing around her skirts on summer days, and King holding hands with her while they watched television at night. Over and above that, she was plotting how to bring about his downfall. First things first, she considered, and now that she’d caught his eye, she had to keep it focused on herself.
She phoned his office to find out when he was coming back, and wrangled the information that he had a meeting with her father the following Monday just before lunch about a stock transfer.
She spent the weekend planning every move of her campaign. She was going to land that sexy fighting fish, one way or another.
She found an excuse to go into Jacobsville on Monday morning, having spent her entire allowance on a new sultry jade silk dress that clung to her slender curves as if it were a second skin. Her hair was put up neatly in an intricate hairdo, with a jade clip holding a wave in place. With black high heels and a matching bag, she looked elegant and expensive and frankly seductive as she walked into her father’s office just as he and King were coming out the door on their way to lunch.
“Tiffany,” her father exclaimed, his eyes widening at the sight of her. He’d never seen her appear quite so poised and elegant.
King was doing his share of looking, as well. His dark eyebrows dove together over glittering pale eyes and his head moved just a fraction to the side as his gaze went over her like seeking hands.
“I don’t have a penny left for lunch,” she told her father on a pitiful breath. “I spent everything in my purse on this new dress. Do you like it?” She turned around, her body exquisitely posed for King’s benefit. His jaw clenched and she had to repress a wicked smile.
“It’s very nice, sweetheart,” Harrison agreed. “But why can’t you use your credit card for lunch?”
“Because I’m going to get some things for an impromptu picnic,” she replied. Her eyes lowered demurely.
“You could come to lunch with us,” Harrison began.
King looked hunted.
Tiffany saw his expression and smiled gently. “That’s sweet of you, Dad, but I really haven’t time. Actually, I’m meeting someone. I hope he likes the dress,” she added, lowering her head demurely. She was lying her head off, but they didn’t know it. “Can I have a ten-dollar bill, please?”
Harrison swept out his wallet. “Take two,” he said, handing them to her. He glared at her. “It isn’t Wyatt, I hope,” he muttered. “He’s too easily led.”
“No. It’s not Wyatt. Thanks, Dad. See you, King.”
“Who is it?”
King’s deep, half-angry voice stopped her at the doorway. She turned, her eyebrows lifted as if he’d shocked her with the question. “Nobody you know,” she said honestly. “I’ll be in by bedtime, Dad.”
“How can you go on a picnic in that dress?” King asked shortly.
She smoothed her hand down one shapely hip. “It’s not that sort of picnic,” she murmured demurely. “We’re going to have it on the carpet in his living room. He has gas logs in his fireplace. It’s going to be so romantic!”
“It’s May,” King ground out. “Too hot for fires in the fireplace.”
“We won’t sit too close to it,” she said. “Ta, ta.”
She went out the door and dived into the elevator, barely able to contain her glee. She’d shaken King. Let him stew over that lie for the rest of the day, she told herself, and maybe he’d feel as uncomfortable as she’d felt when he took his secretary to Nassau!
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