in the dark. He’d made her feel as if she were somebody else entirely—a hot, wanton, reckless woman who never met a sexual position she didn’t like, a woman who would throw modesty and respectability and good behavior to the four winds and engage in a hedonistic sexfest that would have made a Roman emperor blush.
And it had scared the hell out of her.
She remembered with painful clarity how she’d felt when she woke before dawn and realized what she’d done. Fortunately she’d had the good sense to walk out of that hotel and leave temptation behind. Just thinking about that night made her cheeks flush with embarrassment. What kind of woman has wild, breathless sex with a man she doesn’t even know? Repeatedly?
A woman who can’t resist a handsome face and a gorgeous body. A woman who lives in a fantasy world instead of reality. A woman who’s not in complete control of her life.
She’d tried to tell herself that she’d felt some kind of connection with Jack after the day they’d spent together, a meeting of minds and not just bodies. Finally, though, she came to her senses and realized she was just deluding herself. Such self-deception was nothing more than an excuse to justify her outlandish behavior.
What she couldn’t figure out, then, was why she’d spent a good portion of every day since wondering what it might be like to see him again.
She had to stop this. She had her career to think about. The last thing she needed was to get waylaid by thoughts of a man who had undoubtedly put another notch in his bedpost before she’d even left the hotel. And seeing him again was a moot point, anyway. It wasn’t going to happen. He was a thousand miles away in San Antonio. He could be her imaginary husband as long as she needed him to be, and nobody would be any the wiser.
And she would never have to be tempted by him again.
BY TWELVE-THIRTY, JACK HAD checked out four of the five architectural firms and come up empty. He’d found a few women named Rachel, but none that he recalled seeing naked in San Antonio.
The elevator doors opened on the thirty-eighth floor, and Jack stepped out. This was his last chance. If she didn’t work for Davidson Design, he didn’t know where to look next. He took a deep breath, opened the brass-trimmed glass doors and strode to the front desk. The receptionist, a bright, bubbly redhead with short, shaggy hair, held up her finger without glancing at him, asking him to wait as she answered one call after another.
Jack gazed around the room. Typical corporate look, with beige walls, modern art, leather furniture, track lighting. He decided he’d rather die and go to hell than be surrounded by this frigid atmosphere. At least hell would be warm.
And right in the middle of the ice box sat a leather-clad guy, his shirt open almost to his navel, with a neckful of silver chains and a couple of random piercings and tattoos. A boom box sat on the chair next to him. He leaned over and checked out his reflection in the coffee-table glass, patting a stray strand of blond hair back into place. He flipped his wrist and glanced at his watch, then tap, tap, tapped his fingertips against the arm of his chair.
“Hey, lady!” he called out to the receptionist. “I got a schedule to keep!”
The receptionist covered her mouthpiece and responded in a heavy stage whisper. “I told you it’ll be just a minute! Will you keep your shirt on? At least until I tell you to take it off?”
With a disgusted shake of her head that made her short red hair flutter, she tapped a button on her console, then finally turned her gaze up to Jack.
“May I help—”
Her mouth dropped open. She froze in that position, staring at him, her eyes as big and bright as a pair of flashlight beams.
“Dr. Kellerman?”
Doctor?
“I can’t believe it! You made it back!”
Made it back?
“Oh! Oh! You must be here to surprise Rachel!”
“Did you say Rachel?” His heart leaped with hope. “Late twenties, straight dark hair, blue eyes—”
“Well, of course!”
The woman yanked off her headset, tossed it aside and leaped to her feet, scurrying around the desk. “She’s not going to believe this. She’s simply not going to believe it. Oooh! What a wonderful surprise!”
She spun around and pointed to the kid in the waiting area. “You! Never mind! I don’t need you after all!”
The guy leaped to his feet, his silver chains jangling. “Hey! I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes, and now you’re telling me—”
“I’ll send you a check!”
Before leather boy could protest further, the receptionist grabbed Jack by the arm and dragged him down a short hall, then stopped suddenly and pushed him up against the wall, her eyes wide with excitement.
“Okay. You stand here. Just wait here until I give you the word, okay?”
“I don’t get this. What are you—”
She put her fingers to her lips and shushed him, then held up her palm. “Just wait here. This is going to be so cool!”
This place was a loony bin. Or, at least, this woman was loony. And he was pretty sure the guy in the waiting room had a screw loose, too. What in the world had he walked into?
The receptionist pushed the door open and strolled into the office, downshifting her voice into a soft, professional tone.
“Excuse me, Rachel. Do you have a moment?”
“I’m really busy, Megan. Can it wait?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Megan said, her voice edged with excitement. “It can’t wait. Your real birthday present is here.”
Jack heard a gasp.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah. And you’re gonna love it.”
“No, Megan. I’m warning you. The cupcake was plenty. Don’t you dare do something weird. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare—”
Megan’s hand snaked around the doorway, found Jack’s arm, and yanked him into the office. The moment his eyes met Rachel’s, she leaped up out of her chair so suddenly that it rolled backward and smacked against her credenza.
Looking at her up close now, he knew. It was Rachel. No question about it.
Not that he would have recognized her by the clothes she wore. After the weekend they’d spent together, he would have expected to see her in something significantly more daring than the drab wool suit and buttoned-up white silk blouse she had on right now. Something brighter. Slinkier. Cut down to here and up to there. Something bold and carefree. Something that said, Come here, if you dare, instead of Don’t touch me if you value your life.
But there was a part of her she couldn’t hide behind those yards and yards of wool. Her eyes. He’d never forget those eyes as long as he lived, gorgeous ice-blue eyes that had kept him enthralled for hours on end.
But now they seemed to hold another quality. Surprise. No, not just surprise. Something more like…
Panic.
Megan patted Jack’s arm. “I’d have put a big red bow on him, but I was fresh out of ribbon. Happy birthday, Rachel.”
3
RACHEL’S BRAIN WAS TELLING her mouth that it really ought to close itself, but the message simply wasn’t getting through.
Jack Kellerman. Her imaginary husband, in the flesh.
Oh. My. God.
“Hello, Rachel.”
That voice. Rich. Resonant. A voice just made for seduction. Only