him.” Alex sneered. “But I guess once you found out about his trust fund, a few years difference in age wasn’t such a big problem anymore.”
Desiree lost it. She pushed to her feet and smacked her hands down on the desk. She leaned in, brought her face close to his, employing the same intimidation tactic he’d tried to use on her. Glaring at him, she said, “You fool, I didn’t even know Kevin had a trust fund. But if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered a lick to me if I’d wanted to marry him. But I didn’t. And I still don’t. Kevin and I are friends. That’s it. Just friends.”
“Then you don’t deny that Kevin asked you to marry him?”
“No.” Why should she? Kevin was a born flirt. He’d proposed to her and half of the females in the cast on a regular basis. No one took him seriously. No on except Alex, evidently.
The look Alex shot her could have withered a rock. “Tell me, Ms. Mason, do all of your ‘friends’ go around asking you to marry them?”
She straightened her spine, tipped up her chin and did her best to look down her nose at him. “No, not all of them,” she replied sweetly, marveling at how she managed to sound so calm when inside she was spitting mad. She took pleasure in seeing the wariness creep into his eyes. “Usually the only ones who propose marriage are the men.”
Three
Alex gritted his teeth. The woman was baiting him, and he knew it. He didn’t doubt for a second that she had any number of men after her. Trouble was, he was hard-pressed not to join their ranks, because right now he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss that sassy mouth of hers himself.
“But don’t worry, Alex. If I ever decide to take Kevin up on his marriage proposal, you’ll be among the first to know—right after we say ‘I do.’” Tipping her chin up a notch, she gave him a chilly smile. “Now, you really will have to excuse me. I’ve got a dinner theater opening in just over a month, and I’m still short one cast member.” She reached for the stack of business cards she’d been playing with a few minutes earlier. Sitting down in the chair behind the desk, she swiveled around and gave him her back.
Maybe it was several days of too little sleep. Maybe it was the frustration of the morning’s discoveries and being unable to locate Kevin. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that he’d been suffering with a bad case of lust from the moment he’d walked into that ballroom and seen this green-eyed siren about to marry a man he’d thought was his brother. Whatever the reason, her cool dismissal had done what few people, and certainly no woman, had had the power to do before. She’d destroyed the last of his control.
He didn’t stop to think about how out of character his reactions to this woman were. He didn’t stop to think how heavy-handed he was being. He didn’t think period. Instead, he reacted.
In the space of a heartbeat, Alex was behind the desk, spinning her chair around so that she faced him. Grabbing the arms of the chair, he shoved it backward until the wheels hit the wall.
“Alex!”
He leaned forward, bringing his face so close to hers that he could see the black centers of her eyes widen in surprise, smell that damn flowered scent on her skin. “Maybe that duchess-to-peasant routine works on those college boys you’re used to dealing with, but it doesn’t work on me.”
He heard her breath catch, watched the shock in her eyes fade and darken with awareness. The air hummed between them like an electrical wire that had snapped and was dangling dangerously during a storm. Her tongue slipped out to moisten her bottom lip. Alex’s body hardened; blood rushed to his groin as he followed the movement.
“Tell me, Alexander Stone. Just what does work on you?”
Her husky, honeyed drawl set off images in his head of satin sheets, soft skin and hot sex. His brain shut down as his body tightened with renewed desire. He stared at her slightly parted lips and gripped the arms of the chair even tighter. The need to taste that luscious mouth again hit him with the force of a prizefighter’s fist As though she could read his thoughts, her breath hitched. Her eyes fluttered closed.
Alex gave up and stopped fighting himself. He leaned a fraction closer, already anticipating the feel of her mouth beneath his, when suddenly something brushed against the back of his legs. He jerked away, nearly tumbled to the floor as he felt that “something” wind itself around his feet and legs. “What the—”
“Meow.”
Alex glanced down at his feet where a black ball of fur was rubbing itself against his ankles, weaving its body in and out of his legs.
“Meow.” The cat looked up at him and gave him another rub. Then it started to purr.
Alex wasn’t sure whether he should curse the fur ball or thank it. He didn’t have time to do either because his eyes began to water. Damn, he thought, blinking in reaction to the animal fur. But his allergy kicking in was a small price to pay, Alex told himself. If not for the cat’s intervention, in another five seconds he would have been kissing Desiree.
That realization brought him up short. Alex scrubbed a hand over his face and shifted uncomfortably at the ache still present in his lower body. Lord, he’d been only a breath away from kissing her—a breath away from betraying his brother.
He winced at that sobering fact. Desiree Mason was by no means the first woman he’d ever wanted physically. There’d been several in his thirty-four years, and he’d enjoyed a number of satisfying sexual relationships with several of those women. But not one of those women had ever made him forget rhyme or reason. Not one of them had ever made him forget to put his brother’s interests first.
Guilt slapped at him. What in heaven’s name had he been thinking of? She was Kevin’s girlfriend for Pete’s sake! The woman Kevin thought he loved and wanted to marry.
And he wanted her for himself.
Disgusted with himself, Alex cut a glance to Desiree. He took in the sight of those tempting lips. She’d wanted him to kiss her, still wanted him to kiss her, judging by the dazed heat that lingered in her eyes. And heaven help him, he’d almost given in to the urge to do so, and would have, in fact, had it not been for the cat.
Alex clenched his jaw. For both his sake and Kevin’s, he couldn’t let his brother marry this woman, he told himself again. To do so would be a disaster. Somehow he had to find a way to prevent that from happening, because, despite her denials, he suspected her sights were set on his brother.
He could use himself as bait, a voice inside him whispered. He was rich, decent looking and wasn’t without charm when the occasion called for it. Over the years he’d become adept at engaging in mutually satisfying relationships with women that never led to marriage. Why not do the same with Desiree? If he did, surely Kevin would see how wrong the woman was for him.
Alex frowned. The danger was he hadn’t been thinking of Kevin or of saving his brother from Desiree’s clutches when he’d almost kissed her. The truth was he hadn’t been thinking at all.
The cat abandoned her dance around his legs and jumped up to the credenza beside him, where it proceeded to nuzzle his arm, leaving a trail of black fur along the sleeve of his gray suit jacket. “Friend of yours?” Alex asked as he returned the cat to the floor only to have it promptly resume its perch beside him. Giving up, Alex moved out of the creature’s path as his eyes started to fill again.
“That’s Maggie,” Desiree told him. Abandoning the chair, she walked over to the credenza and stooped down to face the cat. “Where have you been, you naughty girl? I was worried about you. I looked everywhere for you last night.”
The cat meowed in response and licked at Desiree’s outstretched fingers a moment before jumping down to the floor and heading straight for him. Alex’s nose started to twitch as she brushed against his pant leg again.
“Maggie, what a shameless little flirt you are. Leave Alex alone and come back here.”
The cat ignored