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  A strong arm wrapped around her waist as the man ushered her out of the main hallway and toward a side door. She sniffed and then found a man’s white, silk handkerchief in front of her face.

  “Blow.” And she did. It was by far not a pretty sound and she cringed inwardly at the impression she must be making. She knew she shouldn’t be allowing a complete stranger to take control like this. But somehow she couldn’t find the strength to pull away. She was so weary of fighting, of trying to fix what apparently couldn’t be fixed.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m sorry. Really, you don’t have to do this.”

  “I realize that. But no self-respecting knight could leave a lady in distress. I take it something didn’t go right for you in the courtroom?”

  “Oh, you have no idea.” She shuddered at the memory.

  He led her toward the sidewalk and hailed down a cab, and before she realized what was happening he’d hustled her inside.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere quiet. I think you need some time before you face…whatever comes next for you.”

  She turned to look at him. He was gorgeous, just as she remembered. Green eyes and brown hair that together spoke of steamy sensuality. And had she ever seen such broad shoulders? Too attractive for her state of mind right now. Her gaze dropped and she couldn’t seem to stop staring at his mouth. She could only hope she didn’t look as hungry for him as she felt. He was striking in an unconventional sort of way. And he certainly knew how to take charge of a situation. She mentally shook herself. This was not like her. Not at all. She wanted him to kiss her. Oh no, she wanted him to do more than kiss her. What in the world was she thinking?

  “But I don’t know you.” She had to get her feet back on the ground.

  “Well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. No preconceived ideas or expectations, if you know what I mean.”

  “But I don’t even know your name. Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you, because I couldn’t resist helping such a beautiful lady who looked to be in dire distress. The name’s Logan Callahan, by the way. And you are?” He engulfed her hand into his much larger one. She knew she should resist, that she shouldn’t respond so powerfully to a man she knew nothing about. Who had literally swept her off her feet. So what was it about him that made her do so?

  “Kathryn Malone,” she found herself saying.

  “Well, Kathryn, I’m going to buy you some lunch. Somewhere quiet where you’ll have some time to get yourself together.”

  “With you.”

  The smile he gave her was definitely of the heart-stopping variety. “Most definitely with me.”

  The cab pulled up in front of The Remington and a doorman opened and held the cab door for Kate to get out. Logan paid the cabbie and then escorted her inside. He steered her away from the main dining room and toward a bank of elevators on the other side of the foyer.

  “Exactly where are you taking me? And why?”

  “I told you why.” He pressed the up button. “I have a private suite with a sitting room and I think the privacy will help.”

  “I’m not going to your room.” That’s the last place she should be going. Even she knew she was in a particularly vulnerable state right now and it was most certainly not the best move to go to a room with an attractive man like Logan Callahan.

  “I promise I’m not going to lay a hand on you. I do need to make a couple of business calls. And you can just relax in the sitting room while I do that.” As he spoke his fingers on her arm massaged her skin in a most enticing way. It felt much too good.

  “Do you coax all your lady friends up to your room this way?”

  He chuckled. She liked the sound of the deep-throated laugh. “Hardly. Contrary to what you might believe, I’m not in the habit of doing this at all. And I really haven’t many lady friends. Not in the sense you mean. I haven’t the time.”

  He had to be kidding. She could feel his magnetism, his blatant sexuality, and he might not be conventionally attractive, but he certainly was striking.

  The elevator doors slid open and Logan stepped inside, holding the doors apart.

  “Shall we?”

  She could just walk away. She certainly had a choice not to step into the elevator. She looked at him, at the intriguing slant of his moss-green eyes, the thick black lashes and small crinkle lines around his eyes. The lips that looked like they could drive a woman crazy pressed to every inch of her body. The look in his eyes seemed to say that’s exactly what he’d like to do to her.

  And then there was what she might want to do to him. This was definitely not a good idea, she thought as she walked into the elevator and the doors slid closed behind her. She’d never done anything like this before. But there was just something about the man.

  The thought that kept going through her mind was all the years she’d spent being responsible, never doing anything she shouldn’t. Always aware of playing bodyguard to her father. Of trying to protect him from the predatory females that always ran after him. Of the stepmothers that came and went. Of Nell, who had been the one to finally kill him. Oh, maybe not by her own hand, but she’d just as good as caused it. And in the process stripped him of everything he worked so hard to build.

  She was a witch, a chameleon, a siren who had destroyed her father. And no matter how Kate had tried to stop it, had done everything she could to protect him and his fortune from Nell’s greedy clutches, it hadn’t been good enough. And today was the last straw. The courts had upheld the will and the transfer of all the stock to the shady companies that Kate knew Nell had a hand in. Kate had failed her father in the worst fashion and she was helpless to fix it.

  Logan Callahan might just be the diversion she needed this afternoon. She didn’t want to be responsible anymore. She wanted the weight lifted from her shoulders. She wanted, just for one afternoon, to be free and forget about the nightmare of the last few months.

  Logan’s fingers twined with hers. She looked up. He smiled at her and his hand tightened. “I’m glad you decided to come with me, Kathryn.”

  “You might as well call me Kate. That’s what my friends call me.” All except her father. He’d been the only one to call her Kathryn. He never used the shortened version. Hence, all his step wives and girlfriends had done the same. Maybe that’s why she hated it when anyone called her by her given name.

  “Kate it is.”

  Kate desperately wanted something to distract her from thinking about her father and how she’d failed him. Logan Callahan might just do the trick.

  Chapter Three

  Pouring out a glass of wine, Logan tried to figure out what had taken hold of his senses. He didn’t know why he’d invited Kate Malone back to his hotel. Did he really like playing with fire? He should have extricated himself immediately and walked away. A weak moment on his part was going to get him in a hell of a lot of trouble if he wasn’t careful.

  After his relationship with Nell, he’d pretty much steered clear of entanglements with women on most levels. But he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Kate. Alarna had told him little enough about her, but somehow, once he’d seen her in that courtroom, some connection had been made that didn’t want to let go. He watched Kate as she circled the room. Slender and curvy, blond waves that kissed her shoulders shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. It appeared she was having a problem settling, and she looked more like a sleek kitten prowling the room looking for a way out. This woman was going to make him break all his rules. It was going to get personal and that wasn’t good.

  He tried turning his thoughts to depreciation schedules and balance sheets in order to get his mind off the sexy number he invited up to his suite. He attempted to focus on the dangers of getting involved with a woman—any woman. There was a measure of safety and logic in his chosen profession. Of distance from human connection. Emotion didn’t enter into it. His talent with numbers was one of the reasons Nell had kept him around. And he was good at org
anizing. Nell had used him on more than one occasion to determine the viability of a mark and set up the sting operation.

  It had been Logan’s job to monitor the newspapers, scan the Internet, and then research the men, their backgrounds, and their companies. He stayed in the background, gathering information, eventually coordinating the efforts to provide one of Nell’s special teams to go out to fleece the unsuspecting mark. But it was so much more complicated than that. He was one of her men, but by far not the only one. Nell was too shrewd to not spread her targets around.

  There was another drone, much like Logan, who had a special knack for identifying vulnerable, well-to-do women. He had a nickname. “Heartbreak Kid.” Logan wasn’t into playing on the hearts of the women who needed their hard-earned savings to survive. He didn’t want to know what the other arms of Nell’s operations did. It was all very complicated. Low-key and very successful for a lot of years. Every set-up planned carefully and carried out precisely according to plan.

  It was when he’d begun to surmise that more than fleecing a few rich men and women was going on that he finally decided to get out while he still could.

  Since leaving Nell, he’d refined his profession and had moved into the field where his creativity, imagination, and adeptness in understanding numbers held him in good stead. It surprised him that in the last nine years no one had figured out who he was. Or maybe they hadn’t cared as long as he did a good job. Again, he stayed in the background, did the legwork, prepared the reports for someone else to sign off on. One thing he’d learned from Nell was how to stay out of the limelight, lurking in the shadows. And he usually stayed away from the courtrooms. Until today.

  It figured that his past would catch up with him one way or another. It was the insurance investigation, an investigator hoping to gain even better insight into what Nell was up to. Logan hadn’t wanted to get involved, but he’d agreed to at least look over the case. He knew Nell all too well, though, and how well she covered her tracks.

  Logan again shifted his thought. Every turn seemed to lead to another dangerous twist in his mind. He took one of the glasses of wine to Kate. “Why don’t you drink this, it may help to settle your nerves.”

  “I don’t think anything can do that.”

  His fingers brushed against Kate’s and he felt the electrical jolt that passed between them. She looked up at him and he saw a surprised glimmer in her eyes and surmised that she had felt the same spark. What was this connection he shared with her? It couldn’t be good. Maybe it was that sense of vulnerability, or maybe her scent that reminded him of fragrant summer nights. Before he and his father ever met Nell Dubrowski. Maybe it was her pretty long legs, or her defiant chin and flashing gray eyes. Or maybe it was just the whole damn package that made up Kate Malone.

  What he knew was that this was a dangerous game he was playing. And he’d thought he was done with games a long time ago.

  He tried to remember she was nothing like Nell Dubrowski. He tried to put the past back into the cage where it belonged. But in Kate Malone it seemed all bound together. And he sensed that within this woman standing in the room with him lay a destiny he should never, under any circumstances, attempt to follow. And what scared him was that he was planning to ignore all the warning flags that rose up.

  He returned to his chair on the other side of the room. Distance could lend him a hand in gaining a clear head. Standing close to her just made him want to kiss her. Spread her out over that moss green couch and find out exactly what lay beneath the prim, dove gray suit she wore.

  In that moment he knew if he took her, it wouldn’t be for a pleasant afternoon. It would be so much more. Something also told him she wasn’t leaving this suite anytime soon. And by the time she did, he would know every inch of her tantalizing skin. And he was going to taste those lips more than once. After all this time. And it had to be this woman—one who was indelibly tied to the secrets in his past. A past he had tried too hard to forget. A past this woman would probably never be able to forgive…or forget.

  “So, what’s upset you? Why were you in court today?”

  “What?” She looked distracted and then she turned to look at him. “Oh. It was a family matter having to do with the probate of my father’s will.”

  “I’m sorry about your father. I take it you weren’t happy with the outcome?”

  She practically choked on her wine. “Hardly. His bitch of a trophy wife took him for every penny.”

  “And you thought it should have gone to you?” He wanted her to be a gold digger. He wanted to dislike her. It would be so much easier.

  She flashed an angry glare at him. “I didn’t care about the money. The majority of his estate was supposed to go to charity anyway. She made him change his will. I just didn’t want her to have it. The only thing she wanted was his money. Well, now she’s got it and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” Her gaze narrowed as she looked at him. “And why were you at the courthouse?”

  “I’m an accountant and I was checking on a case that I’d been asked to look into.”

  She looked around the room. “An accountant? This doesn’t look like you’re an accountant.”

  He smiled his most charming smile. Nell had always said his smile could melt a glacier in the Arctic. “I’ve made a few sound investments. You might say I’m a specialist. I was called in for a consultation.” Something held him back from revealing too much of his hand just yet. For one, he didn’t want to get her hopes up about her case against Nell. Nor did he want her to think she could use him to get what she wanted. His sense was that she was honest, but his years of living with Nell told him no one was to be trusted. Not even this pretty young woman whom he wanted to take to bed in the worst way.

  Looking at her made him feel old beyond his years. A lot older than he was. She seemed so innocent, her anger and frustration so…real. In fact, his gut said so real that he wanted to help her, but he also knew that doing so could destroy him—strip him of everything he’d achieved over the last few years. Was he ready to take that chance? For a woman?

  “My attorney says I should let it go. That she’s won. But it’s just not that easy. I know her—she’s worse than any of the other wives he’d had over the years. And in the end I know she’s the one who killed him.”

  Logan’s breath caught in his chest. “You think she killed him?”

  She spun away and walked toward the window. “Maybe not physically, but I do think she’s responsible for the heart attack he had. She’s a mean, spiteful bitch. According to her she has plenty of money and doesn’t need his, so why did she do it?”

  “There are women who are like that. They never have enough.”

  “Yeah, well she’s one of them. I have to find a way to stop her before she does it to someone else.”

  “Kate, why don’t you come over here and sit down? Are you sure you’re seeing things clearly? After all, your father recently passed away.”

  She spun around. “How do you know that? I didn’t say it was recent.”

  Misstep on his part. She made him forget himself. “I guess I just assumed.”

  There was a long silence and then she set her glass aside. “I don’t want to think about court or what happened today.” She slowly walked toward him and sat down next to him. “I want to forget it, for just a little while, if you don’t mind.” The look in her eyes said things to him—things he didn’t want to misinterpret.

  He didn’t want to take advantage of her. For once—maybe for the first time in his life—he found himself in the odd position of wanting to be somebody’s knight. He wanted to be Kate’s.

  He moved closer to her, looking into her silvery eyes, watching them darken as his head dipped toward hers.

  “I can understand that. Sometimes gaining some distance from the whole atmosphere can help to change your attitude.” He was such a fool. And then his lips grazed hers and fireworks shot off inside his head. The light kiss wasn’t enough. He needed more. When she
didn’t draw away, he kissed her again, deeper, probing her moist inner recesses with his tongue. Her hands rose to cup his face and the kiss flared with passionate need as he fed from her lips. His arms went around her, drawing her close. He felt the soft, feminine curves and his cock surged thick and hard.

  She pulled away and rose to her feet. His hungry gaze watched her movements as she slipped off her suit jacket and he noted the thinness of her expensive white silk blouse beneath. When had a business suit ever looked as sexy on a woman as it did right now? She leaned down and kissed him again, placing her hands on his chest, curling into his shirt. Her charcoal gaze met his. “I want you to make love to me.”

  His mind couldn’t quite wrap around what she’d just said. “You want what?”

  Her hands slid up his chest to drape around his neck. “I think you heard me. Make me forget, Logan.”

  Chapter Four

  It didn’t make sense. She’d only just met him. But it didn’t seem to matter. The moment she’d gotten into that elevator she knew why she’d done it. Yes, he was a stranger, but he didn’t seem like a stranger. It felt like she’d known him forever. And she was as certain as she ever could be that there was no one on this planet who could drown her so completely in passion as this man.

  She reached around to unhook her skirt and let it drop to the floor. She stepped out of her black pumps. Slowly she rolled her pantyhose down her legs and stepped out of them. She lifted her hands to undo the buttons on her blouse, but a pair of larger hands stopped her.

  Her eyes turned to his face. The expression there was almost inscrutable. But his eyes were alive, burning her as his gaze stroked over her.

  “Let me,” he said. His voice had turned deeper, a rasp of sensation over her nerve endings. He unfastened the first button. A fingertip stroked at her throat and she closed her eyes, wanting to drown in his touch. Her head dropped back as his splayed fingers brushed down the column of her throat. So warm and sure. So exactly right.