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“Have you finished talking, Micah?”
Her question brought his attention back to the present. “No, not by a long shot. But I can’t say it all tonight. I need to see you tomorrow. I know you’ll be in town for the next couple of days and so will I. Let’s do lunch. Even better, let’s spend that time together to clear things up between us.”
“Clear things up between us?” Kalina sneered in an angry whisper as red-hot fury tore through her. She was convinced that Micah had lost his ever-loving mind. Did he honestly think she would want to spend a single minute in his presence? Even being here now with him was stretching her to the limit. Where was a good glass of champagne when she wanted it? Nothing would make her happier right now than to toss a whole freakin’ glass full in his face.
“I think I need to explain a few things to you, Micah. There’s really nothing to clear up. Evidently you think I’m a woman that a man can treat any kind of way. Well, I have news for you. I won’t take it. I don’t need you any more than you need me. I don’t appreciate the way you and Dad manipulated things to satisfy your need to exert some kind of power over me. And I—”
“Power? Do you think that’s what I was trying to do, Kalina? Exert some kind of power over you? Just what kind of person do you honestly think I am?”
She ignored the tinge of disappointment she heard in his voice. It was probably just an act anyway. At the end of those two months, she’d discovered just what a great actor Micah could be. When she’d found out the truth, she had dubbed him the great pretender.
Kalina lifted her chin and straightened her spine. “I think you are just like all the other men my father tried throwing at me. He says jump and you all say how high. I thought you were different and was proven wrong. You see Dad as some sort of military hero, a legend, and whatever he says is gospel. And although Micah is a book in the Bible, last time I checked, my father’s name was not. I am twenty-seven and old enough to make my own decisions about what I want to do and where I want to go. And neither you nor my father have anything to say about it. Furthermore—”
The next thing she knew, she was swept off her feet and into Micah’s arms. His mouth came down hard, snatching air from her lungs and whatever words she was about to say from her lips.
She struggled against him, but only for a minute. That was all the time it took for those blasted memories of how good he tasted and just how well he kissed to come crashing over her, destroying her last shred of resistance. And then she settled down and gave in to what she knew had to be pleasure of the most intense kind.
God, he had missed this, Micah thought, pulling Kalina closer into his embrace while plundering her mouth with an intensity he felt in every part of his body. She had started shooting off her mouth, accusing him of things he hadn’t done. Suddenly, he’d been filled with an overwhelming urge to kiss her mouth shut. So he had.
And with the kiss came memories of how things had been between them their last time together, before anger had set in and destroyed their happiness. Had it really been two years since he’d tasted this, the most delectable tongue any woman could possess? And the body pressed against his was like none other. A perfect fit. The way she was returning the kiss was telling him she had missed this intimate connection as much as he had.
Her accusations bothered him immensely because there was no truth to what she’d said. He, of all people, was not—and never would be—a yes-man to her father, or to anyone. Her allegations showed just how little she knew him, and he intended to remedy that. But for now, he just wanted to enjoy this.
He deepened the kiss and felt the simmer sear his flesh, heat his skin and sizzle through to his bones. Then there was that surge of desire that flashed through his veins and set off a rumble of need in his chest. He’d found this kind of effect from mouth-to-mouth contact with a woman only happened with Kalina. She was building an ache within him, one only she had the ability to soothe.
Over the past two years he’d thought he was immune to this and to her, but the moment she had walked into the ballroom tonight, he’d known that Kalina was in his blood in a way no other woman could or would ever be. Even now, his heart was knocking against his ribs and he was inwardly chanting her name.
Lulled by the gentle breeze as well as the sweetness of her mouth, he wrapped his arms around her waist as something akin to molten liquid flowed over his senses. Damn, he was feeling the heat, and it was causing his pulse to quicken and his body to become aroused in a way it hadn’t in years. Two years, to be exact.
And now he wanted to make up for lost time. How could she think he had pretended the passion that always flowed through his veins whenever he held her, kissed her or made love to her? He couldn’t help tunneling his fingers through her hair. He’d noticed she was wearing it differently and liked the style on her. But there was very little about Kalina Daniels that he didn’t like. All of which he found hard to resist.
He deepened the kiss even more when it was obvious she was just as taken, just as aroused and just as needy as he was. She could deny some things, but she couldn’t deny this. Oh, she was mad at him and that was apparent. But it was also evident that all her anger had transformed to passion so thick that the need to make love to her was clawing at him, deep.
Conversation between an approaching couple had Kalina quickly pulling out of his arms. All it took was one look in her eyes beneath the softly lit lanterns to see the kiss had fired her up.
He leaned in, bringing his lips close to hers. “You are wrong about me, Kal. I never sold out to your father. I’m my own man. No one tells me what to do. If you believe otherwise, then you don’t really know me.”
He saw something flicker in her eyes. He also felt the tension surrounding them, the charged atmosphere, the electrified tingle making its way up his spine. Now more than ever, he was fully aware of her. Her scent. Her looks.
She was breathtaking in the sexy, one-shoulder, black cocktail dress that hugged her curves better than any race car could hug the curves at Indy. There was a sensuality about her that would make any man’s pulse rise. Other men had been leery of approaching her that night in D.C. when he’d first flirted with her. After all, she was General Daniels’s daughter and it was a known fact the man had placed her on a pedestal. But unlike the other men, Micah wasn’t military under her father’s command. He was civilian personnel who didn’t have to take orders from the general.
She surprised him out of his thoughts when she leaned forward. He reached out for her only to have his hands knocked out of the way. The eyes staring at him were again flaring in anger. “I’m only going to say this once more, Micah. Stay away from me. I don’t want to have anything else to do with you,” she hissed, her breath fanning across his lips.
He sighed heavily. “Obviously you weren’t listening, Kalina. I didn’t have an affair with you because your father ordered me to. I was with you because I wanted to be. And you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that you can still be upset with me after having shared a kiss like that.”
“Think what you want. It doesn’t matter anymore, Micah.”
He intended to make it matter. “Spend tomorrow with me. Give it some thought.”
“There’s nothing to think about. Go use someone else.”
Anger flashed through him. “I didn’t use you.” And then in a low husky tone, he added, “You meant a lot to me, Kalina.”
Kalina swallowed. There was a time when she would have given anything to hear him say that. Even now, she wished that she could believe him, but she could not forget the look of guilt on his face when she’d stumbled across him discussing her with her father. She had stood in the shadows and listened. It hadn’t been hard to put two and two together. She had fled from the party, caught a cab and returned to the hotel where she quickly packed her stuff and checked out.
Her father had been the first one she’d confronted, and he’d told her everything. How he had talked Micah into doing whatever it took to keep her in Sydney and away from Beijing. Her father claimed he’d done it for her own good, but he hadn’t thought Micah would go so far as to seduce her. An affair hadn’t been in their plan.
“You don’t believe you meant something to me,” he said again when she stood there and said nothing.
She lifted her chin. “No, I don’t believe you. How can I think I meant anything to you other than a good time in bed when you explicitly told me in the very beginning that what we were sharing was a no-strings affair? And other than in the bedroom, you’d never let me get close to you. There’s so much about you I don’t know. Like your family, for instance. So how can you expect me to believe that I meant anything to you, Micah?”
Then, without saying another word, she turned and walked back toward the ballroom. She hoped that would be the end of it. Micah had hurt her once, and she would not let him do so again.
Two
By the time Micah got to his hotel room he was madder than hell. He slammed the door behind him. When he had returned to the ballroom, Kalina was nowhere to be found. Considering his present mood, that had been a good thing.
Now he moved across the room to toss his car keys on a table while grinding his teeth together. If she thought she’d seen the last of him then he had news for her. She was sadly mistaken. There was no way he would let her wash him off. No way and no how.
That kiss they’d shared had pretty much sealed things, whether she admitted it or not. He had not only felt her passion, he’d tasted it. She was still upset with him, but that hadn’t stopped them from arousing each other. After the kiss, there had been fire in her eyes. However, the fire hadn’t just come from her anger.
He stopped at a window and looked out, breathing heavily from the anger consuming him. Even at this hour the nation’s capital was busy, if the number of cars on the road was anything to go by. But he didn’t want to think about what anyone else was doing at the moment.
Micah rubbed his hand down his face. Okay, so Kalina had told the truth about him not letting her get too close. Thanks to an affair he’d had while in college, he’d been cautious. As a student, he’d fallen in love with a woman only to find out she’d been sleeping with one of her professors to get a better grade. The crazy thing about the situation was that she’d honestly thought he should understand and forgive her for what she’d done. He hadn’t and had made up in his mind not to let another woman get close again. He hadn’t shared himself emotionally with another woman since then.
But during his affair with Kalina, he had begun to let his guard down. How could she not know when their relationship had begun to change from a strictly no-strings affair to something more? Granted, there hadn’t been any time for candlelight dinners, strolls in the park, flowers and such, but he had shared more with her than he had with any other woman … in the bedroom.
He drew in a deep breath and had to ask himself, “But what about outside the bedroom, man? Did you give her reason to think of anything beyond that?” He knew the answer immediately.
No, he hadn’t. And she was right, he hadn’t told her anything about his family and he knew why. He’d taken his college lover, Patrice, home and introduced her to the family as the woman he would one day marry. The woman who would one day have his children. She had gotten close to them. They had liked her and in the end she had betrayed them as much as she had betrayed him.
He lifted his head to stare up at the ceiling. Now he could see all his mistakes, and the first of many was letting two years go by without seeking out Kalina. He’d been well aware of what her father had told her. But he’d assumed she would eventually think things through and realize her dad hadn’t been completely truthful with her. Instead, she had believed the worst. Mainly because she truly hadn’t known Micah.
His BlackBerry suddenly went off. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw it was a call from home. His oldest brother, Dillon. There was only a two-year difference in their ages, and they’d always been close. Any other time he would have been excited about receiving a call from home, but not now and not tonight. However, Dillon was family, so Micah answered the call.
“Hello?”
“We haven’t heard from you in a while, and I thought I would check in,” Dillon said.
Micah leaned back against the wall. Because Dillon was the oldest, he had pretty much taken over things when their parents, aunt and uncle had died in a plane crash. There had been fifteen Westmorelands—nine of them under the age of sixteen—and Dillon had vowed to keep everyone together. And he had.
Micah had been in his second year of college and hadn’t been around to give Dillon a hand. But Ramsey, their cousin, who was just months younger than Dillon, had pitched in to help manage things.
“I’m fine,” Micah heard himself saying when in all honesty he was anything but. He drew in a deep breath and said, “I saw Kalina tonight.”
Although Dillon had never met Kalina he knew who she was. One night while home, Micah had told Dillon all about her and what had happened to tear them apart. Dillon had suggested that he contact Kalina and straighten things out, as well as admit how he felt about her. But a stubborn streak wouldn’t let Micah do so. Now he wished he would have acted on his brother’s advice.
“And how is she?”
Micah rubbed another hand down his face. “She still hates my guts, if that’s what you want to know. Go ahead and say I told you so.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
No, he wouldn’t. That wasn’t Dillon’s style, although saying so would have been justified.
“So what are you going to do, Micah?”
Micah figured the only reason Dillon was asking was because his brother knew how much Kalina meant to him … even if she didn’t know it. And her not knowing was no one’s fault but his.
“Not sure what I’m going to do because no matter what I say, she won’t believe me. A part of me just wants to say forget it, I don’t need the hassle, but I can’t, Dil. I just can’t walk away from her.”
“Then don’t. You’ve never been a quitter. The Micah Westmoreland I know goes after what he wants and has never let anyone or anything stand in his way. But if you don’t want her enough to fight for her and make her see the truth, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
Then, as if the subject of Kalina was a closed one, Dillon promptly began talking about something else. He told Micah how their sister-in-law, Bella, was coming along in her pregnancy, and that the doctors had verified twins, both girls.
“They’re the first on our side,” he said. Their parents had had all boys. Seven of them.
“I know, and everyone is excited and ready for her to be born,” Dillon replied. “But I don’t think anyone is as ready as Jason,” he said of their brother and the expectant father.
The rest of the conversation was spent with Dillon bringing Micah up to date on what was going down on the home front. His brother Jason had settled into wedded bliss and so had his cousin Derringer. Micah shook his head. He could see Jason with a wife, but for the life of him, considering how Derringer used to play the field and enjoy it immensely, the thought of him settled down with one woman was still taking some getting used to. Dillon also mentioned that Ramsey and Chloe’s son would be born in a few months.
“Do you think you’ll be able to be here for li’l Callum’s christening?”
Micah shook his head. Now, that was another one it was hard to believe had settled down. His cousin Gemma had a husband. She used to be a real pistol where men were concerned, but it seemed that Callum Austell had changed all that. She was now living in Australia with him and their two-month-old son.
“I plan to be there,” Micah heard himself saying. “In a few weeks, I’ll have thirty days to kill. I leave for Bajadad the day after tomorrow and I will be there for two weeks. I’ll fly home from there.” Bajadad was a small and beautiful city in northern India near the Himalayan foothills.
“It will be good seeing you again.”
Micah couldn’t help chuckling. “You make it sound like I haven’t been home in years, Dil. I was just there seven months ago for Jason’s wedding reception.”
“I know, but anytime you come home and we can get everyone together is good.”
Micah nodded. He would agree to that, and for Gemma’s baby’s christening, all the Westmorelands would be there, including their cousins from Atlanta, Texas and Montana.
Moments later, Micah ended his phone conversation with Dillon. He headed for the bedroom to undress and take a shower. The question Dillon asked him rang through his head. What was he going to do about Kalina?
Just like that, he remembered the proposition she’d made to Major Rose. And as he’d told her, he had no intention of letting the man go anywhere with her.
And just how are you going to stop her? His mind taunted. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. Thanks to her daddy’s lie, you lost her. Get over it.
He drew in a deep breath, knowing that was the kicker. He couldn’t get over it. Dillon was right. Micah was not a quitter, and it was about time he made Kalina aware of that very fact.
Micah was pulled from his thoughts when his cell phone rang again. Pulling it from his pants pocket, he saw it was an official call from the Department of Health and Human Services. “Yes, Major Harris?”
“Dr. Westmoreland, first I want to apologize for calling you so late. And secondly, I’m calling to report changes in the assignment to India.”
“And what are the changes, Major?”
“You will leave tomorrow instead of Monday. And Dr. Moore’s wife went into labor earlier today so he has to be pulled off the team. We’re going to have to send in a replacement.”
Micah headed the U.S. epidemic response team consisting of over thirty epidemiologists, so calling to let him know of any changes was the norm. “That’s fine.”
He was about to thank her for calling and hang up when she said, “Now I need to call Dr. Daniels. Unfortunately, her vacation has to be canceled so she can take Dr. Moore’s place.”
Micah’s pulse rate shot up and there was a deep thumping in his chest, close to his heart. “What did you say?” he asked, to make sure he’d heard her correctly.
“I said Dr. Daniels will be Dr. Moore’s replacement since she’s next in line on the on-call list. Unfortunately, her vacation was supposed to start tomorrow.”
“What a pity,” he said, not really feeling such sympathy. What others would see as Kalina’s misfortune, he saw as his blessing. This change couldn’t be any better if he’d planned it himself, and he intended to make sure Kalina’s canceled vacation worked to his advantage.
Of course, when she found out she would automatically think the worst. She would assume the schedule change was his idea and that he was responsible for ruining her vacation. But it wouldn’t be the first time she’d falsely accused him of something.
“Good night, Dr. Westmoreland.”
He couldn’t help smiling, feeling as if he had a new lease on life. “Good night, Major Harris.”
He clicked off the phone thinking someone upstairs had to like him, and he definitely appreciated it. Now he would have to come up with a plan to make sure he didn’t screw things up with Kalina this time.
Kalina paced her hotel room. What was she going to do about Micah?
She came to a stop long enough to touch her lips. She’d known letting him kiss her had been a bad move, but she hadn’t been able to resist the feel of his mouth on hers. She should have been prepared for it. She’d seen the telltale signs in his eyes. He hadn’t taken her off to a secluded place to talk about the weather. She’d been prepared for them to face off, have it out. And they’d done that. Then they’d ended up kissing each other senseless.
As much as she would like to do so, she couldn’t place the blame solely at his feet. She had gone after his mouth just as greedily as he’d gone after hers. A rush of heat had consumed her the moment he’d stuck his tongue inside her mouth. So, okay, they were still attracted to each other. No big deal.
Kalina frowned. It was a big deal, especially when, even now, whirling sensations had taken over her stomach. She knew with absolute certainty that she didn’t want to be attracted to Micah Westmoreland. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him, period.
She glanced over at the clock and saw it was just past midnight. She was still wearing her cocktail dress, since she hadn’t changed out of her clothes. She had begun pacing the moment she’d returned to her hotel room. Why was she letting him do this to her? And why was he lying, claiming he had not been in cahoots with her father when she knew differently?
Moving to the sofa, she sat down, still not ready to get undressed, because once she got in bed all she would do was dream about Micah. She leaned back in her seat, remembering the first time they’d worked together. She had arrived in Sydney, and he had been the one to pick her up from the airport. They had met a year earlier and their attraction to each other had been hot and instantaneous. It had taken less than five minutes in his presence that day to see that the heat hadn’t waned any.
She would give them both credit for trying to ignore it. After all, they’d had an important job to do. And they’d made it through the first week, managing to keep their hands off each other. But the beginning of the next week had been the end of that. It had happened when they’d worked late one night, sorting out samples, dissecting birds, trying to make sure the bird flu didn’t spread to the continent of Australia.
Technically, he had been her boss, since he headed the government’s epidemic response team. But he’d never exerted the power of that position over her or anyone. He had treated everyone as a vital and important part of the team. Micah was a born leader and everyone easily gave him the respect he deserved.
And on that particular night, she’d given him something else. He had walked her to her hotel room, and she had invited him in. It hadn’t been a smart move, but she had gotten tired of playing games. Tired of lusting after him and trying to keep her distance. They were adults and that night she’d figured they deserved to finally let go and do what adults did when they had the hots for each other.
Until that night, she’d thought the whole sex act was overrated. Micah had proven her wrong so many times that first night that she still got a tingling sensation just remembering it. She’d assumed it was a one nightstand, but that hadn’t been the case. He had invited her out to dinner the following night and provided her with the terms of a no-strings affair, if she was interested. She had been more than interested. She was dedicated to her career and hadn’t wanted to get involved in a serious relationship any more than he did.
That night they had reached a mutual agreement, and from then on they’d been exclusively involved during the two months they’d remained in Sydney. She was so content with their affair that when her earlier request for an assignment to Beijing had been denied, it really hadn’t bothered her.
That contentment had lasted until she’d returned to the States and discovered the truth. Not only had her father manipulated her orders, but he’d solicited Micah’s help in doing whatever he had to do to make sure she was kept happy in Sydney. She had been the one left looking like a complete fool, and she doubted she would forgive either of them for what they’d done.
Thinking she’d had enough of strolling down memory lane where the hurt was too much to bear, Kalina got up from the sofa and was headed toward the bedroom to change and finally attempt to sleep, when her cell phone rang. She picked it up off the table and saw it was Major Sally Harris, the administrative coordinator responsible for Kalina’s assignments. She wondered why the woman would be calling her so late at night.
Kalina flipped on the phone. “Yes, Major Harris?”
“Dr. Daniels, I regret calling you so late and I want to apologize, because I have to deliver bad news.”
