said coolly, ignoring his invitation.
He folded his arms. “You seem overly interested in Miss Georgia.”
Bethany flushed. “I’m interested in the fact you’re never here with Ben.”
“Right,” he said dryly. They both knew she wanted him here so she could spout kidney facts. “The fact is, I pay you to care for him.” Damn, he could sense another of her lectures coming. He said quickly, sympathetically, “You know, you wouldn’t be the first woman to be jealous of Miss Georgia.”
Her outraged gasp had him stifling a smile. “I’m about as jealous of Miss Georgia as I am of that table leg.” She waved at the nightstand.
“That’s a very shapely table leg,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t put yourself down.” He eyed her sweater again, noticed that it had worn perilously thin in places. “You have a great figure.”
She drew herself up, and her indignation had the interesting effect of swelling her bosom. “My figure has absolutely nothing to do with—”
“There’s every chance you’ll find a boyfriend one day,” he continued.
“I have a boyfriend,” she snapped.
That was unexpected. Even more out of left field was Tyler’s sudden urge to tear a telephone directory in half with his bare hands—he’d never indulged in primal-male competitive behavior. Finding Bethany curled on his bed asleep, one arm flung behind her head, her lips parted, must have struck a chord with some unconscious fantasy, and it had obviously unbalanced him. He forced himself to say lightly, “Is he deaf?”
“Of course he’s not deaf!”
“I just wondered how he puts up with you.” He dodged vengeful knitting needles. “What does he think about you living with me?”
“He’s not exactly a boyfriend,” she admitted. Tyler’s testosterone surge ebbed slightly. “Kevin is just…someone I see sometimes.”
“Ah.” Tyler put all the knowledge of a man who knew every nuance of dating into the syllable. “Someone convenient. I’ve had plenty of those.”
Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Convenient boyfriends?”
He grinned. “Plenty of convenient girlfriends.”
She sniffed. “Emphasis on the plenty.”
“Emphasis on the convenient,” he corrected. “Did it occur to you that you might get further convincing me about your funding if you were nice to me?”
“You have more than enough people being nice to you,” she said. “I plan to stand out from the crowd.”
No matter that even sitting on the bed she was discernibly shorter than him, she was giving him that superior look down her nose. He said, “I don’t have any trouble noticing you.”
No trouble at all.
His gaze locked with hers across the bed, and there was a connection that Tyler figured even Bethany couldn’t deny. It made no sense that he should find her so attractive—she dressed like a color-blind bag lady, she persisted in judging him according to her own overemotional standards and she was a pain in the backside.
But since when had sex and sense had anything in common, beyond the fact that they were both one-syllable words starting with S?
He leaned closer to her, which prompted her, gratifyingly, to lick her lips. His gaze zeroed in on that full mouth.
“Tyler,” she warned, “I am not sending out signals. Not now, not ever.”
He shook his head. “You are so deluded. One day you’re going to wake up to this attraction, and when you do, I’ll be here.”
“Never,” she insisted.
“You’re making this hard on yourself,” he chided her. “The longer you hold out, the more there’ll be egg all over your pretty face when you have to admit it.”
Bethany put a hand to her face involuntarily, then scowled when he laughed.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to make this easier on you.”
“You’re going to walk out that door and have dinner with your girlfriend?”
“Uh-uh,” he chided her. “Miss Georgia is fun, but she’s not my girlfriend. Now, Peaches, I’m going to figure out a signal you can give me so you don’t actually have to say out loud that you want me.” He added kindly, “I understand that might just about choke you.”
He took his time pretending to think, all the while enjoying the sight of her on his bed. Obviously sensing he planned a handson demonstration, she backed up against the headboard. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice held irritation, panic…doubt.
“Just this once,” he said, “so you’ll know what I mean.”
In one graceful movement, Tyler shifted so close to Bethany that she could see the gold flecks in his blue eyes. Just as plainly as she could read the amused condescension in them. He stretched a finger toward her, and Bethany forced herself not to flinch. Let him play his stupid game.
“This is what you need to do,” he said softly. His finger found the tender skin just below her left ear, traced the line of her jaw. He tilted her chin so she was looking directly into his eyes and smiled down at her. Appreciatively. Seductively. And Bethany, dammit, was only human. She smiled back. If more world leaders were women, she thought, the USA would have a secret weapon right here in Tyler Warrington.
“That’s all you have to do, Peaches, to tell me you want me.”
Reason found her again, and Bethany jerked away from his touch. “Never going to happen.” To her horror, she sounded breathless. And her jaw, where his finger had traced, felt tight, tingly.
Tyler laughed. “Never say never.” His mission of throwing her off her stride apparently accomplished, he got off the bed and said briskly, “By the way, if I don’t see you when I get in tonight, I need you to bring Ben to my office tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”
Now he was done toying with her, he was dismissing her.
“Tyler,” she said firmly, “I need to talk to you about my research. Now.”
“Go ahead,” he invited, surprising her. Then he unbuckled his belt. His hand hovered over the button of his pants. “You don’t mind if I get changed while we talk, do you?”
If she’d been braver, or at least less prone to blushing, she would have told him to go right ahead. But with her face in flames, Bethany scrambled off the bed and almost ran from the room.
AT THREE-THIRTY on Friday, Olivia was typing the latest batch of rejection letters Tyler had asked her to send out, when the door to her office opened. She looked up.
And thought, Call Security.
A hobo stood framed in her doorway. A giant hobo, more than six feet tall, enormous shoulders made broader by a grubby overcoat. His hair, an unkempt salt-and-pepper mix of brown and gray, grazed his collar, and Olivia judged the matching stubble on his chin to be at least three days’ growth.
She reached for the phone.
“I’m Silas Grant,” the hobo announced.
Two things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.
As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees,