Remy wasn’t sipping his champagne and discussing in elaborate detail his latest performance in the operating room.
Rose wanted to return to that unforgettable instant when the stranger had been kissing her with such desperate need, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. As if with one kiss, he had found something golden and fleeting inside her. Romance—that was what they called it.
The people, the crowds, the fear. Everything had been a black, paralyzing blur—except for the feel of that strong body holding her tight. Not to punish, no, it was protection.
On a normal day, Rose knew exactly when she wanted to be touched, when people expected it and how she was supposed to react. That blood-pounding, swept-away sensation should have terrified her. But it was tempered by something new. Something almost…warm.
Quickly she shook off the weakness. Control. Always in control.
Now, sitting in the lobby of the Four Seasons with New York’s crème de la crème, her blood was neatly congealing back to its more reserved state. Her date for the night, world-renown pediatric cardiology surgeon Dr. Remy Sinclair, was cheerfully describing his day. The rest of the universe was planning a celebration, and Remy was slaving over the operating table, saving the lives of small children. Heroic, handsome, charming and rich. The man had zero flaws.
So, why was Rose merely nodding at suitable intervals with a polite bob of her head, while her mind clicked back to that dazzling feeling inspired by one exquisitely hard, hungry mouth? No, she thought, pushing the dazzle aside. More hocus-pocus that had no basis in anything real.
Idly, she shuttered her lashes, an indication of perhaps not actually listening, but a sincere pretense of it.
It was a look she’d perfected by the age of six, when Rose had been primped, painted, powdered and coiffed, and then ordered to skip down the charm school runway with bubbly poise and a lollipop smile. Her parents had had big dreams for her—beauty pageants, charm school, marrying well. Rose Hilde-brande’s heart-shaped little face was their ticket to a better life, and Rose had quickly learned to fall in line. There was no little girl better at perfection, a concrete diamond mined from the worst of hell.
The suffocating blackness filled her, but she took a long, purging breath. This was safe. This was good, and Remy was everything she had always dreamed of. He was a fourth-generation Sinclair, heir to the Sinclair fortune, in case being a heart surgeon wasn’t secure enough. And there was something princely about him—a chiseled profile, the Roman nose. His dark hair was carelessly brushed back from his face. The dove-gray suit was tailored perfectly to show sculpted shoulders and a tapered torso.
Best of all, the man was on the wrong side of thirty and trolling for a wife. A beautiful blonde to hang up on his wall along with his summa cum laude diploma from Columbia, his medical license from the State of New York and the live-action photo of the impala he’d seen on his last safari in Tanzania.
“Have you thought about the auction?” she asked, shifting the conversation from surgery toward a more stomach-surviving topic. She had promised the countess she’d deliver, and it was a promise Rose intended to keep. Sylvia was her boss and her friend; Rose owed her a lot more than a charity auction.
“Yes, I’ve thought. The answer is no.”
“Please,” she asked, not blaming him for saying no, but still determined to change his mind. It was demeaning, it was embarrassing, but truly, there was no more perfect bachelor in the entire tri-state region.
“No.” Those princelike eyes were firm, but Rose was undeterred.
“Think of the puppies, those little fluff balls that need a good home. You can’t be that heartless.”
“I’m a heart surgeon. I replace hearts on a daily basis. I don’t fear heartlessness like ordinary mortals without a god complex.”
They were more alike than he would ever suspect. He saw her as the ideal, the perfect woman, and she never let him see behind the flawless mask to the person that was missing both a heart and a soul. Very rarely did she dwell on that loss, except on a starry night like this one. When a sexy stranger had appeared like magic, a Prince Charming coming to sweep her away to someplace quiet and glorious and decadently warm. Oh, yeah, right, next thing you know, you’re flossing your teeth with a diamond-studded tiara perched on your head. Rose lifted a hand to her hair, just to check. All clear. No, if Rose wanted her happy ending, she was going to have to work for it.
“Would you do it for me?” she asked in her best, most earnest voice. This was only their fourth date, so really it was too soon to ask things from him. Still…Their relationship was a battle plan, carefully executed, plotted, and to date, proceeding exactly on schedule, with the countess cheering on from the sideline. Very few people saw similarities between relationships and battle, but Rose had read and memorized The Art of War. Those similarities were all Rose had ever known.
“You’re going to make me, aren’t you?” he said, affectionate resignation in his voice. It was why she liked him so much. He never asked anything of her, never told her what to say or what to wear, all she had to do was sit prettily at his side and listen. Piece of cake.
“Make you? Me?” She fluttered her lashes and he laughed.
“You can say all the heartless jokes you want, but I’m on to you.”
“Do you always get your way?”
“Yes. You should have figured that out by now.”
She waited, fingers crossed under the table, until finally he nodded, and she remembered to breathe. “I’ll do it.”
Rose was so excited she nearly kissed him, except for the hot hunger that still lingered on her lips. She wanted to keep that taste there, just for a little longer.
“You’re sure? I mean, if you really don’t want to…”
“You’d let me off the hook that easily?”
“Not really, but I’m trying to show some pretense of sensitivity. Humor me, here.” Because she owed him, she endured three more blow-by-blow surgical descriptions without even a visible quiver of nausea.
Before he moved to number four, he glanced down at his watch. “It’s late. You look tired.”
A secret peek at her watch said it was nearly one, and all Rose wanted to do was go home and fall into bed. Alone.
She’d had exactly zero lovers. When you were groomed for matrimony as a blood sport, virginity was highly prized, right up there with a clean complexion and a coming-out dress. Her parents hadn’t had the money for white satin and richelieu lace, so the Hildebrandes had over-compensated with endless lectures on virtue and a lifetime supply of Neutrogena. Rose—being a bright girl and not one to rebel—had taken the hint.
Now she yawned, not exactly faked. “I’m exhausted, and with your day—honestly, I don’t know how you do it.”
“Good drugs,” he answered with an easy laugh.
And the stamina of a camel. Mentally, she slapped herself, feeling tired, punchy, and the bubbles in her blood were starting to die down. A master of efficiency, he helped her into her coat, always the gentleman, and she took a last sweep of the patrons in the lobby. Everything was so beautiful here, the polished marble, the gleaming silver, the people with their gentle laughter and placid
