faded; her veins were blue against her creamy skin, her wrist bones fragile. She said raggedly, “Please go away—I’ll clean this up.”
Jerkily she reached for a splinter of glass. Blood blossomed from her fingertip; she gave a gasp of pain. Luke said urgently, “Katrin, leave this. Here, stand up.”
He seized her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet. Then he gently rested her fingers on his sleeve, probing at the wound. She said breathlessly, “Stop, you’re hurting.”
“There’s glass in it, hold still,” he ordered, and as carefully as he could extracted a small shard of glass from the cut. “There, that’s better. Is there a first-aid kit in the kitchen?”
A male voice said authoritatively, “What’s the trouble here, sir?”
The ubiquitous maître d’, thought Luke, and wished the man a hundred miles away. “She’s cut her finger,” he said with equal authority. “Will you please show me where the first-aid kit is?”
“I’ll look after—”
“Now,” said Luke, transferring his gaze from Katrin’s finger to the young man’s face. As Luke had known he would, the young man backed off.
“Certainly, sir. This way, please.”
The kitchen was in a state of controlled chaos from having produced gourmet meals for two hundred people. The maître d’, whose name tag said Olaf, led Luke to a square box in a secluded corner of the kitchen. “Thanks,” Luke said briefly, “I can manage now. Perhaps you could see that the remainder of the glass gets picked up.”
Without another word, Olaf left. Katrin tried to tug her hand free, saying with suppressed fury, “Who do you think you are, throwing your weight around like this? Giving everybody orders as if you owned the place. It’s only a cut, for heaven’s sake—I’m perfectly capable of looking after it myself.”
Luke rummaged in the kit. “Here, I’m going to douse it with disinfectant, hold still.”
“I don’t—ouch!”
“I did warn you,” Luke said, giving her a crooked grin as he ripped open a pad of sterile gauze. “There, that’s better.”
Under the black uniform her chest was rising and falling; her eyes, very close to his, were a brilliant blue. On impulse, Luke reached up and snatched the glasses from her nose, putting them down beside the first-aid kit. His heart skipped a beat, then started a slow, heavy thudding in his chest. She had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.
He’d always thought of blue eyes as being open, unguarded, not potentially secretive as gray eyes could be, or his own dark brown. Once again, he’d been wrong, for Katrin’s eyes were so deep a blue he’d never be able to fathom them. Her brows were arched; her cheekbones, which had been hidden by the plastic frames, were exquisite. Even as Luke watched, color mounted in her cheeks, subtle as a rosebud unfolding in summer.
He was still holding her by the hand. As he let his finger drift to rest on the pulse at her wrist, it speeded up, fluttering like a frightened bird’s. Had he ever in his life felt anything so intimate as those tiny thrusts against his skin? Had he ever allowed himself to?
He wasn’t into intimacy; he’d sworn off it years ago. But right now it was as though a chunk of lead had found a flaw in the bulletproof vest he was wearing and had gone straight for the heart. Hitting him where it hurt the most.
Scarcely knowing what he was saying, Luke muttered, “So you feel it, too.”
Her lashes flickered. Yanking her hand free, she cried, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—I don’t feel anything! Please…just go away and leave me alone.”
Luke made a huge effort to regain control. A control he was famous—or infamous—for maintaining in any situation and at any cost. His voice sounding almost normal, he said, “I’m going to tape your cut. Then I’ll go.”
“I can do it!”
She sounded desperate. Desperate to be rid of him. And he was no nearer to pinning her down in his memory than he had been at the dining table. “It’ll take ten seconds,” he said in a hard voice. “Quit arguing.”
“You’re sure used to having people do what you say.” She raised her chin. “I’m not going to cause a scene in the place where I work, you’re not worth it. But get on with it—and then get out.”
He stripped the paper lining from a plaster. “You don’t sound very grateful.”
“I don’t feel grateful.”
“You’ve made that plain from the start.”
“I can look after myself,” she snapped. “I don’t need some high-powered business type fancying himself as a knight in shining armor and then trotting up five minutes later to claim his reward. Thanks but no thanks.”
Luke felt his own temper rise. “You think I did this so we could have a quickie in the corner of the kitchen?”
“You bet.”
“That’s not the way I operate!”
“You could have fooled me.”
Using every bit of his restraint, Luke taped the bandage over her cut. Then he took three steps backward and said with intentional crudity, “No feeling you up, no kisses behind the refrigerator. And—by the looks of you—no thanks, either.”
Scarlet flags of fury stained her cheeks. She reached for her glasses and thrust them back on her nose. “You got that right. I don’t thank people who insult me.”
Making a very determined effort to get his heart rate and his temper back to normal, Luke said dryly, “I’ve noticed that already. I’ll see you at breakfast, Katrin.”
“I can wait.”
Suddenly he laughed. “How would I ever have guessed?” Then, before she could respond, he turned on his heel and strode along the narrow aisle between ranks of stainless steel refrigerators. The kitchen door swung shut behind him. He crossed the deserted dining room, took the four flights of stairs to his suite, and slammed the door behind him.
For a man who’d made it a mission in life to keep his distance and his cool, especially with regard to the female portion of the population, he’d made a total fool of himself.
Well done, Luke. Tomorrow, at the breakfast table, you’d better concentrate on eating your cereal and minding your own business. So a waitress has gorgeous eyes. So what?
Gorgeous eyes, obvious intelligence and a fiery temper. As well as a healthy dose of independence.
And who in the world did she remind him of?
CHAPTER THREE
AT 3:00 a.m. Luke woke to the black silence of his bedroom punctuated by the pounding of his heart in his ears. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, breathing hard. He’d had his usual nightmare about Teal Lake, the one where his dad had him slammed against a wall and was brandishing a broken beer bottle in his fist. His mother, as always
