a cat clawing its way up his leg. Either she was ultraperceptive or it was the first sign of the gradual deterioration of her grip on reality.
Perhaps it was his slightly crooked tie that was softening his image. Hmm…the off-kilter tie was probably a sign of his stress. A man who took such obvious care with his appearance couldn’t quite get the details right.
He needed her.
Ty’s eyes narrowed and Cassie realized how thick and dark his eyelashes were. So sexy they nearly made her pass out.…Well, if she were the fainting type.
“Why are you here? It’s not about New Year’s Eve, is it? Because that didn’t mean anything. It was to make Drew suffer because he’s a jerk.”
Oh, wow. He thought she was stalking him. Super. What an excellent first impression for a stress management therapist. Hi, I’m your therapist. Let me suck on your tongue and then stalk you.
No problem. She could handle this, right? Of course right. It wasn’t as if she was an emotional wreck or anything from the wedding that never happened. She lifted her chin and smiled calmly, ignoring the swirling whirlpool in her belly. “Ty. Listen, I’m not here about the kiss.”
“You aren’t?” His eyebrows were raised in visible skepticism. “Then why are you here?”
“To do you. I mean to do your stress. I mean…” Oh, if only the porch would collapse under her right now and bury her beneath two-hundred-year-old boards. No such luck, as the house was apparently built much too solidly for her convenience. She cleared her throat. “Six weeks ago you hired me to de-stress you. I’m here. Therapy has begun.”
He stared at her.
The man was like a mountain. An immovable mass of heaving masculinity. Oh, great. There went her hormones again, dancing ‘round the campfire doing the “seduce me” dance. When she got home, she was going to have a little chat with them about behaving appropriately when in public places.
“I hired you.” He did not sound convinced.
“Yes.” She patted his shoulder, refusing to notice how hard his muscles were beneath her hand. Okay, fine, so she noticed a little. She was human, wasn’t she? “Ty, that’s a sure sign of stress, when you forget appointments.”
He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no way I forgot an appointment this morning.”
Ah, he had her there. “Well, that’s true. I was intending to surprise you this morning.” From the deepening of the scowl on his face, he didn’t appear to take kindly to surprises.
Probably still fretting that she was a stalker.
“Hang on.” Cassie whipped out her handheld PDA, called up the original e-mail Ty had sent her to request her services, then turned the screen toward him. “Read.”
He grabbed her hand to steady the screen, and Cassie’s stomach did a little jump. What was her problem? He was a client, not some man put on this earth to give her thrills.
She didn’t even like men anymore, remember? She certainly wasn’t about to be attracted to one of them, even if she could still feel the heat from his hand infusing hers with…
“Huh.” He released her hand suddenly, as if he’d just realized he was touching her. Jerk. Just because he thought she was a dangerous lunatic was no reason to treat her as if she had cooties. Or maybe he wanted her so badly he couldn’t risk touching her. Good to know her imagination was still functioning.
“Now are you convinced you hired me?” Cassie flipped the screen toward herself and glanced at his e-mail. “You’re having trouble sleeping, your fiancée insisted you contact me or else she wouldn’t come home.…”
Whoa! Fiancée! Cassie had forgotten about that! Since Ty was Malcolm Tyler Parker, her new client, he had a fiancée. That really sucked.
Or it would suck, if she were interested in dating ever again. Which she wasn’t. So she didn’t care. Professional interest only. The burning in her gut? The result of consuming only coffee for breakfast. Not the feeling of disappointment, misery, loneliness or anything stupid like that. “You’re engaged?”
His lips tightened and his eyes darkened. For a long minute, he said nothing.
And then Cassie realized it was the Moment.
The moment where she learned whether all men were like Drew, cheating on their fiancées when they thought they wouldn’t get caught.
Ty could lie to her.
His fiancée would never know.
Don’t lie, Ty!
Not that Cassie cared. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a hero or even believed they existed. And what if, by some fluke of nature, Ty actually was some moral, trustworthy guy who was loyal to his fiancée? Then he’d refuse to ravage Cassie’s body and she wouldn’t get him, anyway. And if he did offer to tear off her clothes and take her right there on the doorstep, then he’d be a cretin who cheated on his fiancée.
See how it worked? If he honored his commitment to his fiancée, then he’d be worth trusting, but then Cassie couldn’t have him.
Not that she actually cared about him. It was just a hypothetical exercise in strategic thinking.
Ty finally nodded. “Yes, I’m engaged.”
Relief and regret surged through her. He was worthy…and he was unavailable. A hero…belonging to someone else.
Or maybe he just didn’t find her remotely attractive and he would have claimed a cockroach for a fiancée if it meant he didn’t have to fend off another one of her attacks.
Not that she had self-esteem issues or anything like that.
She lifted her chin. “Well, that’s great you have a fiancée. Fiancées are great.” Yes, as long as they don’t rip your heart out of your chest and stomp all over it in a public forum. “So, I guess then I’m supposed to de-stress you to save your engagement, huh? Make you tolerable to be around?”
For eight days she’d dreamed about this man…and now she had to ready him for another woman? If she failed and his fiancée ran away screaming, then he’d be available. If she succeeded, then he’d marry another woman.
Not that any of that mattered if the cockroach theory proved to be true.
And even if it didn’t, she had a job to do.
Whoa. What was she thinking? She couldn’t take this job.
He wasn’t a client. He was a man whom she’d sexually assaulted only a week ago. And she could still taste him on her lips.
How could she ever maintain appropriate professionalism with this man, in this situation?
It was completely impossible.
She was tough, but she wasn’t impenetrable.
Not to mention she was still mortally embarrassed about attacking him.
“Cassie? Are you all right?” His brows were furrowed and he actually looked sort of cute when he wasn’t glaring at her and acting as if she was a psycho.
“I’m excellent.”
“You sure?”
Damn him. He looked so concerned that she wanted to plop down on his couch and tell him all about her miserable month. No, challenging month. “Of course I’m sure.”
He didn’t look as if he believed her, and her belly became warm with appreciation. No doubt he was the kind of man who would take care of his woman. He might even realize when she needed a hug without her having to ask.…
No. Don’t think like that.
Think of the cockroach theory. “So…we have some work to do,” she said.
“No, we don’t.”
Typical