a bit husky. “Maybe that I’m into the dominatrix scene?”
“Not something I’ve been interested in, myself.” She nuzzled lightly just beneath his ear. “But with you, I just might enjoy wielding the whip.”
He took her completely off guard by planting a firm kiss directly on her mouth. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said when he finally released her.
He caught her fist an inch from his stomach and, lifting it to his lips, drew her into an empty elevator. He made his moves so swiftly that she was sure no one realized he’d just missed having the breath knocked out of him. But they’d certainly put on a show, anyway, she thought with a stifled sigh.
The moment the elevator doors closed completely, she broke away from Bryan and moved across the small car. Since she couldn’t physically injure him—the darned male was just too fast for her—she contented herself with stabbing him with angry glares.
“Must you look at me that way?” he inquired. “I feel my eyebrows starting to singe.”
“That kiss was completely unnecessary.”
“I thought it added a nice touch.” He actually looked smug as he brushed a nonexistent smudge from his jacket. “I imagine we gave the gossips enough fodder to chew on for a few days.”
“Good. Can we go home now?”
“You wound me with your eagerness to be rid of my company.”
She gave a low growl of exasperation. “And would you please stop talking like a character in a Regency romance novel?”
He laughed and motioned toward the opening elevator doors. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away with the role of devoted suitor.”
“You think?” Holding her chin high—and her shoes tightly—she swept ahead of him out of the elevator. The overall effect was probably diminished somewhat when she stumbled over her long skirt, but she righted herself almost immediately, ignoring the steadying hand Bryan held out to her.
Bryan had booked a two-bedroom suite. Grace would have insisted on that, of course, but he had done so without asking. She didn’t particularly care what the gossips made of their arrangements, and neither did Bryan, apparently. She turned immediately toward the bedroom she had claimed earlier. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“No good-night kiss?”
She threw a shoe at him.
Catching the strappy sandal in one hand, he grinned. “Sleep well, Grace.”
Sleep well? Fat chance.
More as a defiant gesture than a belief that the precaution was necessary, she locked her bedroom door after closing it in Bryan’s face.
Only after changing into an oversized T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, her face scrubbed clean and every trace of hairspray brushed from her hair, did Grace feel more like herself. Now if only she were home…
Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, she noted that it was past midnight. Yet it was an hour earlier back home. Maybe Chloe would still be awake. She was suddenly almost overcome with the urge to hear her sister’s voice—if for no other reason than to remind herself why she was here.
Sounding wide-awake, Chloe answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Grace. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I’ve been going over some paperwork from the store. Donovan’s helping me.”
Grace imagined that Donovan’s “help” had only made the task take twice as long, but she kept that opinion to herself. “We’ve just gotten back from that charity opera thing.”
“How was it?”
Dozens of complaints hovered on her tongue, but she settled for just one. “People kept staring at us.”
“Get used to it. Whenever you’re with Bryan Falcon, people will stare. Even when you’re in a place where no one recognizes him—rare as those places are—there’s something about him that somehow commands attention.”
Grace was well aware of that, of course. She’d often wondered if people stared at Bryan because of his extraordinary good looks, or that air of quiet power that surrounded him like a royal mantle. Whatever the reason, it was still unnerving.
“How was the evening other than that? Did you see lots of celebrities in beautiful dresses? Did you enjoy the program?”
Because the whole point of this charade was to make Chloe happy, Grace had vowed not to complain to her sister. She would save all her gripes for Bryan, who deserved them because this whole crazy scheme had been his idea—and just because he was Bryan. “It was fine. And yes, I saw tons of celebrities. I’m sure you would have enjoyed the evening—though I’m not so certain Donovan would have.”
“Probably not. Though he would have gone if he thought I really wanted to be there.”
Grace had no doubt of that. Donovan Chance spoiled her sister shamelessly. A battered warrior who didn’t express his feelings easily, Donovan seemed determined to make a success of this relationship—the first that had truly mattered to him, apparently. Donovan was almost fanatically loyal to those he cared most about—a very short list topped by Chloe and Bryan, his employer and best friend since high school.
Since Chloe’s happiness was paramount to her, too, Grace fully approved of her sister’s choice of a mate. This time, at least. She hadn’t felt at all the same way when Chloe had been considering marriage to Bryan Falcon.
The sisters talked a few more minutes and then Grace brought the call to an end. Wandering to a window to gaze out at the colorfully lit city so far and so different from her hometown, she thought about the quiet contentment that was always present in Chloe’s voice these days. Knowing that she was contributing to that happiness, if only in a minor way, gave her mixed feelings. She was glad to be able to help, but now she felt even more trapped in this ridiculous scam.
“Trapped” was a feeling she had grown to know all too well during the past couple of years.
So maybe it hadn’t been the brightest idea he’d ever had. Convincing Grace to pretend to be romantically involved with him had been difficult enough—following through with the improbable scheme was proving to be even more complicated. It didn’t help, of course, that Grace couldn’t stand him.
Sprawled on his hotel-room bed with the TV remote in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other, Bryan mentally replayed the number of close calls he had averted that evening—most notably, the moment when he’d narrowly avoided being drilled in the stomach by her fist. She’d packed quite a punch, too. If he hadn’t managed to catch her hand and pull it away, she’d have doubled him over. And wouldn’t that have caught some attention in tomorrow’s gossip columns?
He probably shouldn’t have given in to that impulse to kiss her. But he hadn’t tried very hard to resist. Kissing Grace Pennington was something he’d been tempted to do for several weeks now, to his own surprise and her obvious dismay.
After knowing her for nearly six months, he still wasn’t quite sure what it was about him that
