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Jenny Marshall poured herself a glass of white wine and sat down in an overstuffed chair, ordering herself to relax. But she didn’t take orders well, not even from herself. Curling her feet up under her, Jenny looked out the window at the neighbor kids playing basketball in the driveway across the street.
The duplex she rented was old and small. Built in the 1940s, it sat on a narrow street a few blocks from the beach. The rent was too high, but the place itself was cozy, close to work and less generic than some cramped apartment. Here, she could garden and go to block parties and buy Girl Scout cookies and football pizzas from the kids who lived on the street. Here, Jenny felt that she was...connected. A part of things. And for a woman alone, that feeling was priceless.
She took a sip of her wine and shifted her gaze to the front yard, where bare trees clattered in the wind. Twilight fell over the neighborhood in a soft lavender glow and lamplight began blooming in her neighbors’ windows. Relaxation still eluded her, but with everything she had on her mind that really wasn’t a surprise.
Between her work on the upcoming game from Celtic Knot and the designs she was working on for the River Haunt hotel, there was plenty to think about. She did love her job and was grateful for it. Especially since one of her bosses would like nothing better than to fire her—or to see her drop into a black hole and simply disappear.
She frowned into her glass and tried to ignore the pain of regret that clutched at her heart. It hadn’t been easy, working with Mike Ryan for the past several months. Every time they were in the same room together, she felt hostility coming off him in waves so thick it nearly choked her. The man was hard-hearted, stubborn, unreasonable and...still the one man who made her insides quiver.
She lifted her glass of wine in a toast to her own stupidity.
Seriously, hadn’t she learned her lesson more than a year ago? When they met that night in Phoenix, it had been magic, pure and simple. And, like any good fairy tale, the magic had lasted exactly one night. Then Prince Charming had turned into an ogre and Jenny’s proverbial glass slippers were flip-flops again.
It had all started out so well, too. The night before a big gaming convention in Phoenix, Jenny had met a tall, gorgeous man with a wicked smile and eyes as blue as a summer sky. They had a drink together in the bar, then had dinner, then took a walk and finally had ended up in her room at the convention hotel. She’d never done that before—gone to bed with a man she barely knew. But that night, everything had been...different. From the moment she met Mike, she’d felt as if she had somehow only been waiting for him to walk into her life. Which, she could admit now, was absolutely ridiculous. But that night... Jenny had allowed her heart to rule her head. She’d given in to the rush of attraction, that zing of something special that she’d only ever felt for him. And by morning, Jenny knew she’d made a huge mistake.
Sighing, she laid her head against the back of the chair, closed her eyes and drifted back to the moment when the floor had opened up beneath her feet. The morning after the best night of her life.
* * *
Mike pulled her close and Jenny laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. Her body was loose and languid from a long night of loving. Dawn streaked the morning sky with pale rose and gold and she was nowhere near wanting to get out of bed.
This was so unlike her, she thought, smiling to herself. She didn’t do one-night stands and never with a veritable stranger. But she couldn’t regret any of it. From the moment she’d met Mike, she’d felt as if she’d known him forever. She didn’t even know his last name, yet she felt closer to him at that moment than she had to anyone else.
“Really hate to move from this spot,” Mike said, “but I’ve got to get down to the convention floor early.”
“I know. Me, too.” Jenny cuddled in closer. “My uncle needs me to set up his booth. He can’t get here until tomorrow, so...”
Mike ran one hand up and down her back and his fingertips felt like tiny sparks of heat against her skin.
“Yeah?” Mike asked, his voice low and slow and lazy. “Who’s your uncle?”
“Hmm?” She was nearly hypnotized by the slide of his fingers and the deep rumble of his voice. “Oh. Hank Snyder,” she whispered. “He owns Snyder Arts.”
Mike suddenly went still. His hand dropped from her back and she felt a hard shift in the lovely little glow they’d been sharing. Then there was a physical shift as Mike pushed to a sitting position and rolled Jenny right off his chest.
She plopped onto the bed and stared up at him. “What?”
“Hank Snyder?” Mike jumped out of bed and stood staring down at her with a wild, dark gleam in his eyes, sharp as a knife blade. With the morning light streaming in through the window behind him, he looked like a naked avenging angel.
The haze in her mind was clearing and a cold, sinking sensation opened in the pit of her stomach. Slowly, she sat up and tugged the blankets over her breasts. Pushing one hand through her hair, she shoved blond curls out of her eyes and met his hard gaze with a look of confusion. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you know my uncle?”
He snorted. “Wow. That’s really good. The little hint of innocence in your voice? Nice touch.”
Completely confused now, she shook her head. People should not be expected to be coherent in the morning before several cups of coffee. “Innocence? What?”
“Oh, drop it,” Mike snapped and stalked across the room to snatch up his clothes. He dragged them on as he talked, flicking her quick, icy glances. “Gotta say, you were good.”
“What are you talking about?” The sheet where he’d been lying only a moment ago was rapidly cooling and she shivered in response. “Good at what? You’re not making sense.”
“Sure. You’re confused.” Mike nodded. “You know, I bought the whole act last night, but trying to keep it up now, when I know who you are, is only pissing me off.”
She didn’t have the first clue what he was so angry about, but her own temper was beginning to boil in self-defense. How could they have gone from lovemaking, to snuggling, to spitting ice at each other all in the blink of an eye?
“Will you just tell me what’s going on?”
“What I don’t get is how you knew I’d be in the bar last night.” He pulled his long-sleeved white shirt on and buttoned it with an almost eerie calm that belied the fury in his voice and eyes.
“I didn’t know—heck, I didn’t even know I was going to be in the bar last night until just before I went in.”
“Sure. Your uncle,” Mike said, nodding. “He had to have planned all this for you anyway.”
“What does Uncle Hank have to do with us?”
He laughed but there was no charm or humor in it. “Everything, sweetheart, and we both know it. Snyder Arts has been trying to get us to incorporate their programs into our games for the past year and a half.” His gaze dropped to her chest, then lifted to her eyes again. “Looks like Ol’ Hank finally decided to pull out the big guns.”
Every word Mike said echoed weirdly in her mind until at last, Jenny understood what he meant. What he was accusing her of. Anger leaped into a full boil in the pit of her stomach. Her heart pounded crazily and she felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. Her mind racing, Jenny practically leaped out of bed, preferring to meet her accuser on her feet. She held the blanket up in front of her like a shield that could somehow protect her from the ice in his eyes.
“You think my uncle sent me here to have sex with you?” God, she could barely force the words past her tight throat. “So I could convince you to use his arts program?”
“That about sums it up,” Mike said flatly.
Jenny’s brain burned. She was torn between insult, fury and complete humiliation. Instantly, images of the night before streamed through her mind like a movie on fast-forward. She saw him, over her, staring into her eyes as his body claimed hers. She saw herself, straddling him, taking him deep inside her. And she felt in that flash of heat the pleasure, the sense of completion his every touch caused. Then the mind movie ended abruptly, and she was here, in this sunlit room, staring at a stranger who now knew her body intimately, but her heart and soul not at all.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked, voice trembling.
“Mike Ryan.”
She staggered at the name. Mike Ryan. One of the owners of Celtic Knot. Jenny knew their work, knew the art and graphic design that went into every one of their games. She’d admired them for years, had hoped to one day work for them—which wouldn’t happen now. Not only did he clearly think she was a spy—and oh yes, a whore—but she couldn’t imagine herself working for a man who made snap decisions with zero thought behind them.
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding as if he’d just had every one of his suspicions verified. “So you do know me.”
“Now,” she said. “I didn’t last night. Not when I met you. Not when we...” She pushed one hand through her hair and kept clutching the blanket with the other. Best not to think about everything they’d done because she’d do something completely stupid like blush, for heaven’s sake. With her fair skin, the moment she was embarrassed, her cheeks lit up like a red light at an intersection.
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that,” he said.
Her gaze sharpened and narrowed on him. “It seems you don’t need anything but your own suspicions to make up your mind. You’ve already decided who and what I am, why should I argue with you over it?”
“You know, playing the outraged innocent isn’t nearly as convincing as the seductress I met last night.”
She sucked in a gulp of air and fed the flames burning in her belly. “You arrogant, conceited, smug bastard.”
One dark eyebrow winged up and a look of pure male amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Doing better now. The outrage almost looks real.”
Her heart pounded so hard in her chest it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. She half expected her heart to crash right through her rib cage. “This isn’t an act, you jackass. Think about it. I didn’t seduce you. You approached me in the bar. And nobody forced you into my bed. As I remember it you came willingly enough.”
“Several times,” he said, playing on her words just to irritate her further.
It worked.
“That’s it. I don’t have to listen to any more of your paranoid ramblings. Get out of my room.” She swung one hand toward the door and stabbed the air with her index finger.
He grabbed his black jacket off a nearby chair and shrugged it on. “Oh, I’m going. No worries there. I wouldn’t stay if you begged me to.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
He snorted again, a particularly annoying, insulting sound. Striding across the room to the door, he stopped before he opened it and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Tell your uncle I said nice try, but no cigar. Celtic Knot won’t be doing a deal with him no matter how many attractive nieces he tosses into my bed.”
Jenny picked up a wineglass from the room service tray they’d shared the night before and hurled it at him. He was through the door and out before the glass shattered against the wood to lie in splinters on the floor.
* * *
Jenny sighed and took another sip of her wine. She hadn’t thought to even see Mike Ryan again, but then six months later, his brother, Sean, had offered her a job that was simply too good to pass up. The chance to work on the kind of art she loved was worth the risk of being around Mike every day. And frankly, by being on-site every day, she was silently telling Mike Ryan that what he’d done hadn’t hurt her. Hadn’t crushed her. Of course that was a big, fat lie, but he didn’t have to know that. Working at Celtic Knot was a dream that only occasionally became a nightmare when she was forced to deal with Mike.
Of course now, the nightmare would be a 24/7 thing for the next few months. Yes, she was excited about being the artist to design the murals for the River Haunt hotel. But having to work one-on-one with Mike was going to make it all so much more grueling than it should have been. Still, she wouldn’t back off. Oh, Jenny knew that Mike wanted her off the project, but this was too big an opportunity for her to turn tail and run. Especially, she reminded herself, since she’d done nothing wrong.
He was the one who had plenty to apologize for. He was the one who’d insulted her, humiliated her and then stomped off without so much as listening to her side of the story.
So why should she be the one to pay a price?
The knock on her door interrupted her thoughts and she told herself, if it was a salesman, she’d buy whatever he was selling out of simple gratitude.
She opened the door and stared up into Mike Ryan’s blazing blue eyes. Without waiting to be invited in, he pushed his way past her and marched into her apartment with all the determination of Grant taking Richmond.
With little else to do but accept the inevitable, Jenny closed the door. “Well, do come in,” she said, every word dripping with sarcasm. “Make yourself at home.”
Features grim, eyes the color of a lake frozen over, he said, “We need to talk.”
Two (#ulink_69305903-5c8d-5948-8e2e-f646e7167d4a)
Mike stopped in the middle of the room, turned and just looked at her. She wore a pale green T-shirt and faded, curve-hugging jeans with a hole at the knee. Her small, narrow feet were bare but for the pale pink nail polish. Her hair was a rumpled mass of tumbling blond curls and her wide blue eyes were fixed on him warily. She looked good. Too damned good, and that was part of the problem.
Stuffing both hands into his pockets, just to keep from reaching for her, Mike deliberately looked away from Jenny and glanced around the small living room. His gaze picked out the details even as his brain reminded him not to let her distract him. Great body, beautiful eyes and kissable lips notwithstanding, he had come here for a reason and he had to keep his focus.
The duplex was old, probably one of the original beach cottages built in the late 1930s. Jenny’s home was well kept, casual and welcoming. There were overstuffed chairs covered in a flowery fabric and a love seat boasting yellow and blue stripes. Several small tables and standing brass lamps were scattered about the room, shining puddles of golden light onto the scarred but polished wood floors and the few rugs that broke up the space. The walls were painted a soft green that reminded him of spring. There were framed paintings and photographs clustered together in no discernible pattern and on one wall, there was a mural.
His gaze caught it and held. Obviously, Jenny had painted it herself and Mike had to admit that whatever else she was, the woman was also immensely talented. The mural was a scene straight out of a fairy tale—or an Irish legend. A forest, just waking up to daylight. Fog drifted across the landscape in thin gray wisps, sunlight speared through the trees to lie in a dappled pattern on the leaf-strewn ground. There was a hint of a flower-laden meadow in the distance and in the towering trees were fairies, delicate wings looking as if they would flutter any minute.
Damn it. He hated that she was this good.
“Why are you here, Mike?” Her voice was soft, but the glint in her eye was anything but.
Good question. Mike knew he probably shouldn’t have come here—they hadn’t been alone together since that night in Phoenix—but he had run out of options. He couldn’t tell Sean why working with Jenny was a mistake—because damned if he’d let his little brother know that he’d once been taken for a ride. In more ways than one.
But Jenny knew why this wouldn’t work. All he had to do was get her to tell Sean she didn’t want the job of designing the art for the new hotel. And if Jenny herself requested that she be let out of the project, Sean wouldn’t object.
Time to get to the point so Mike could get the hell out of this too-small house where her scent seemed to hover in the air for the express purpose of tormenting him. “I want you to back out of the hotel job.”
She didn’t even blink. “Interesting. Well, I want to be three inches taller and have smaller boobs. Looks like we’re both doomed to disappointment.”
Why the hell she would want smaller breasts was beyond him, but not the point. “We both know that working together for months is a bad idea.”
“Agreed.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts higher. “Maybe you’re the one who should quit. Switch hotels with Sean. I like Sean.”
“Leave Sean alone,” Mike ground out.
Her oh-so-casual pose evaporated and she threw her hands high in frustration. “Please. Now you’re afraid I’m going to be paid to seduce Sean?”
“I didn’t say that.” Thought it, maybe. Said it, no. All right, he admitted silently, he hadn’t even thought it. Not really.
“What exactly are you saying, Mike?” She plopped both hands on her hips and the movement tightened the fabric of her shirt against the aforementioned breasts. Distractions, Mike told himself. Pay no attention.
“I’m saying leave Sean out of this,” he said. “It’s between you and me.”
“Fine. Then you tell Sean he should take over the River Haunt and you do the Wyoming place.”
“No.” He wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet. He could still find a way to convince Jenny that this was an impossible situation and that it was up to her to back off.
She shrugged again, and walked past him slowly enough that the scent of her vanilla perfume flavored the breath he took and held as she made for the chair by the wide window.
“So, since neither one of us is willing to drop out of this project, I guess we’re done here,” she said, plopping into the chair and lifting her wineglass for a sip.
“We are far from done.” Through the window behind her, he saw the street was dark, with the dim glow of lamplight shining through a neighbor’s drapes.
January nights at the beach could be cold, but here in this tiny duplex, Mike felt only the heat of being near her again. Her hair shone, her eyes glittered and her mouth curved up at one corner when she spoke. She was enjoying this, he thought, and a part of him liked that about her.
Jenny Marshall didn’t back down for anyone. He’d seen her go head-to-head with older, more experienced artists, defending her designs and techniques. She held her own in meetings and wasn’t afraid to fight for her vision of things. But as much as he admired those traits, he wished she wasn’t currently turning her admirable qualities on him.
“Mike, you don’t want to work with me and I don’t want to work with you. But we’re stuck with each other.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “We’ll have to make the best of it.”
“Unacceptable.” Shaking his head, he looked away from her because the damn lamplight made her hair shine like burnished gold. He never should have come here. It had been a bad idea and if he were smart, he’d leave right now since their argument was getting them exactly nowhere.
As he sifted through dozens of pretty much useless thoughts, his gaze fixed on the magical forest mural. It was dark, mysterious, but with the fairies in the limbs of the trees, there was a sense of playfulness amid the darkness and the longer he looked at it, the more fairies he spotted. Hiding behind leaves, beside rocks, in the water of a fast-moving stream. It was hypnotic, mystical.
He shifted to look at her. “Damn good work,” he blurted, before he could stop himself.
“Thanks.” Surprise flitted across her face, then vanished. “But if you’re wondering, I didn’t steal that scene from any of Celtic Knot’s games.”
He fired a look at her that had been known to make stone-hearted business rivals quake. Jenny wasn’t fazed. “I didn’t say you stole it.”
“Not yet,” she told him, pausing for another sip of wine. “I’m sure you’ll get to it. I know very well what you think of me.”
“Do you blame me?” he countered. Mike pushed one hand through his hair, then scrubbed that hand across the back of his neck. Ever since he met her, this woman had had the ability to tangle him up into knots. Even knowing she was a damn liar hadn’t taken away the rush he’d felt every time he thought of her.
At work, he kept his distance, knowing it was best for everyone. Coming here, into her place, being alone with her in the lamp-lit dark was dangerous. He knew it, and still he didn’t leave. Instead, he took a single step toward her and stopped because her scent clouded his mind and he couldn’t afford to addle his brain any more than it already was.
“That’s not a fair question,” she answered. “You made up your mind about me in an instant and never once listened to any side but your own.”
“What other side was there?” he countered. “Hell, your uncle is still running Snyder Arts.”
