she was that same pale gold tone everywhere.
But she wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t the kind to poach.
* * *
He was watching you, Mei-li Moore thought to herself as her breath caught in her throat and her body responded in ways it hadn’t since...since Sean, her brain insisted. Just the expression in his eyes had made her nipples tighten beneath the red silk she wore. Had made her pulse race.
She recognized him—of course she did. Dirk DeWinter probably couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. She was tempted to turn around and see if he was still watching her, but then she told herself not to be silly. She was long past the age of crushing on movie stars...even if he had been watching her with that certain something in his eyes.
She kept her gaze steadfastly on the stage, forcing herself to concentrate on the jazz music she loved. That’s the reason you’re here, she reminded herself firmly. But her racing pulse made the blood thrum in her ears so she could barely hear the music for the beat of her heart.
* * *
The set ended with enthusiastic applause from the crowd—the club was packed and the jazz pianist was more than good. The woman in red turned toward the bar for the first time since their eyes had initially met, and Dirk could tell by her expression she was surprised to find him still standing there, still watching her.
He smiled slightly, then raised his beer bottle in a silent toast. Even in the dim light he could see her reaction. I’ll be damned, he thought. As beautiful as she is, she’s honestly flustered by my attention. And that intrigued him even more.
She said something to the man she was sitting with—Dirk couldn’t hear what, and her lips moved too quickly for him to read—then the man turned around for the first time, spotted Dirk and broke out in a huge grin.
Dirk received another shock. He knew the man professionally—famed English producer/director Sir Joshua Moore was the main reason Dirk was here in Hong Kong, shooting the action-adventure flick he was currently working on. Dirk had jumped at the chance to work with Josh, even though it had meant packing up his household, including his toddler twin daughters, and moving to Hong Kong for three months. He’d always wanted to do a project with Josh, but the opportunity had never arisen before.
Isn’t Josh married? he asked himself, remembering what little he knew of the other man’s private life. Dirk tried not to judge, but a pang went through him as he momentarily pondered the unfairness of life. He’d give anything to have his wife alive, would gladly have sacrificed even his stardom to have her back. And here was a man who cheated on the wife he did have.
Josh was enthusiastically signaling for Dirk to come over to their table, but he hesitated. Not only did he not want to intrude—especially after the thoughts he’d been having about Josh’s date for the evening—but he really didn’t want to know any more about their illicit relationship. Professionally he admired Josh tremendously—his body of work was impressive. Dirk didn’t want that admiration tarnished by knowledge of the man’s personal shortcomings.
Eventually, though, Dirk picked his beer bottle up off the bar and made his way through the crowd. The closer he got, the more his body reacted to the woman in red, despite firmly telling it to stand down. No poaching, he reminded himself. Especially not on the preserves of a man he had to work with over the next few months. His body refused to listen. Which meant he was hard and aching by the time he arrived at the table, and he was glad for the dim lights in the club that would make his arousal less obvious.
“Dirk!” Josh said with enthusiasm, rising to his feet and shaking his hand. “I didn’t know you were a jazz lover, or I’d have told you about this place myself. How’d you hear about it?”
“I asked my limo driver,” Dirk explained. “The one you arranged for me, remember? Patrick Chan? He brought me here.” He’d politely kept his attention on the older man during the exchange, but despite himself his gaze soon wandered back to the woman still seated at the small table, watching the interchange between the two men with interest.
“Mei-li,” Josh said, his clipped British accent very obvious, “let me introduce you to one of the best screen actors in the business today—and a true professional—Dirk DeWinter. Dirk, this is my daughter, Mei-li.”
Dirk had already extended his hand, but he shot a sharp glance at Josh at his last words. “Your daughter?” The question slipped out before Dirk could prevent it, and Josh laughed as if this wasn’t the first time someone had misconstrued his relationship with her.
Before Josh could say anything, Mei-li shook Dirk’s hand and said, “Some women might take umbrage at your erroneous assumption, Mr. DeWinter.” Her voice was rich, cultured and bore the same British accent as her father. “I’ll just say if you ever meet my mother you’ll understand why I’m merely amused.” Her dark eyes didn’t hold amusement, however. He wasn’t sure what expression was reflected there. Disdain came swiftly to mind, as if she’d judged him and found him wanting—the same way he’d mistakenly judged her. “My mother is the most beautiful woman in the world in my father’s estimation...and in mine.”
Dirk resisted the urge to raise Mei-li’s hand to his lips. Instead he said, “Then you must take after your mother, Miss Moore.” The compliment rolled glibly off his tongue, but she didn’t react as most women would have.
“M’goy,” she murmured in Cantonese as she withdrew her hand—one of the few Cantonese phrases Dirk knew, which meant “thank you”—but he knew she was only saying it to be polite. She really didn’t appreciate the compliment, and he sensed her inner withdrawal.
Once again Dirk was intrigued. She’s not impressed with her own beauty, and she doesn’t care for men who are, either, he thought. But asking a man not to notice a beautiful and sexy woman was asking the impossible, especially when it came in a classy package. But that didn’t mean a man had to act on it. Circumstances and Bree had turned him into a gentleman, and Dirk wasn’t about to forget those hard-learned lessons. But Mei-li didn’t know it. Didn’t know him.
Despite the signals she was sending out that clearly indicated she wasn’t interested in him and was only being polite to an acquaintance of her father’s, he wanted to know more about her. “Are you in the movie industry, too, Miss Moore?”
She shook her head with vehemence. “One in the business is enough, don’t you think? And who could compete with a talent like his?” she added with a flash of a smile in her father’s direction that indicated nothing but daughterly pride. “No, I’m a pr—”
What she’d been about to say was cut off by a gaggle of young and not-so-young women who came up to their table. “May I have your autograph, Mr. DeWinter?” the first woman gushed, thrusting a pen and a piece of paper at Dirk.
Dirk had an unbreakable rule when it came to autographs. As long as he was standing—which he was now—he would sign. If he was seated at a table, either as someone’s guest or with guests of his own, he would politely decline, feeling it would be rude to the people he was with.
He glanced at Josh and Mei-li. “Excuse me for a moment,” he murmured, stepping a little away from them before scrawling his name on the seemingly endless supply of menus and scraps of paper offered for his autograph. But when one young woman with more gall than sense asked him to sign her bra and began tugging down the neckline of her dress, Dirk shook his head in refusal.
“Sorry,” he told her as gently as he could, even though he was disgusted that any woman would be so lacking in decency as to ask this of him in a public place. “That’s where I draw the line.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had requested something similar from him. Women had even asked him right in front of Bree, as if her feelings at having her husband accosted were unimportant, as if those women held his wife in contempt. As if their blatant sexual advances would be welcomed by a man in love with his wife.
And that reminder of his wife, more than anything else, was what made Dirk decide not to pursue this...whatever it