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Into the Fire
Leslie Kelly
The only thing columnist Lacey Clark dislikes more than fellow columnist Nate Logan is her own boring existence. She wants to be spontaneous, spirited…sexy. So when she meets a gorgeous stranger at a party and falls in lust at first sight, she figures she'll never have a better chance to go for it. How could she guess that her first-class lover would turn out to be her number one enemy?Nate Logan can't believe it! How could he have had the best sex of his life with the woman who's made his job a living hell? And how can he want her again…and again? Worse, their publisher is suddenly insisting Nate and Lacey collaborate on a joint column. Which leaves Nate wondering if he's going to seduce Lacey into changing her mind–or give up and let the sexy blonde blow his….
“I need to know your name, so I know what to cry out next time.”
“And I need to know yours,” Nate replied, giving the beautiful woman beside him a light nip on the neck. “So I know who now owns me body and soul.”
She stretched out lethargically and kissed his jaw. Then, lifting a shoulder, she allowed the robe to fall completely off one arm. As he bent lower to taste that sweet, smooth skin, she whispered, “My name’s—”
Before she could finish, the door opened, and a light flashed on. “It’s J.T.,” Nate said. “Oh, boy.”
“Oh, boy is right,” the woman echoed, her horror undisguised.
Nate shifted slightly to the side, hiding her behind him, as J. T. Birmingham entered the room.
Taking stock of the situation—and not looking the least bit surprised—J. T. finally said, “Son, I think you’re wearing my robe.”
Nate groaned. He’d been caught by a millionaire, wearing the man’s robe during an important cocktail party at which he was the guest of honor. Caught fooling around with a gorgeous stranger on that man’s trampoline. “Can things get any worse?” he muttered.
“And,” J.T. continued, “you’re lying on top of my daughter….”
Dear Reader,
I love Broadway musicals. And I’ve always been fascinated by the thought of looking across a crowded room on “one enchanted evening” and finding a stranger who turns your world upside down. That’s exactly what happens to my heroine, columnist Lacey Clark, who falls instantly for a devastatingly attractive man during a crowded party. When she finds herself alone with him a few moments later—and they end up naked on top of a trampoline—she never imagines that she’s in the arms of her nemesis, Nate Logan.
Can two enemies-turned-lovers navigate the rocky road to romance in the sometimes outrageous world of magazine publishing? I sure had fun finding out while writing Into the Fire.
Those of you who read my first Temptation novel, Night Whispers, will recognize some characters in this book. I was so happy to find just the right story for Kelsey Logan’s older brother, and I got a kick out of writing more of those sexy radio show segments. For my readers who have written to me asking for a sequel…I hope this one lives up to your expectations.
I’d love to hear what you think. Please drop me a line at P.O. Box 410787, Melbourne, FL 32941–0787, or write to me through my Web site: www.lesliekelly.com.
Enjoy,
Leslie Kelly
Into the Fire
Leslie Kelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
With love to the Smith kids:
Lynn, Donna, Karen, Cheri and Lee.
I can’t think of five other people I’d rather have
grown up with—telephone poles and all.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
1
ALONE in a throng of elegantly dressed people, in the lavishly appointed reception room of a tasteful Baltimore mansion, Lacey Clark began to sweat. Not a ladylike beading of perspiration on her upper lip. Not a moistness at her temple. No. Her tight black cocktail dress was growing downright damp as each additional person oozed into the already overcrowded party. A few more minutes and there would be circles under her armpits and her makeup would run off her skin in great bisque streaks.
“Get me out of here,” she murmured, wondering if she could make it through the sea of people to the exit. Surely no one would notice if she slipped away. After all, she looked like practically every other woman in the place. Ninety percent of the females at the party wore the typical city social uniform—a little black cocktail dress, sheer black stockings, shiny, never seamed. Ridiculously high heels, useless tiny bag barely big enough to carry a tube of lipstick. Not to mention the confident expression disguising boredom.
Boredom always made Lacey Clark sweat. As did low-cut, skintight dresses and heels so high she wondered if she was going to fall on her fanny and humiliate herself in front of Baltimore society. Not that she really cared about Baltimore society. This was definitely not her crowd. Lacey would much rather have been at her favorite bar with her best friends.
For the hundredth time, she wished she’d been able to find a way out of this evening’s event. As if it wasn’t bad enough that her dress was uncomfortably tight, her stockings scratchy and her makeup oozy, her entire life was about to change course. Lacey didn’t like feeling cornered nor having her personal affairs made very, very public. And tonight, in her boss’s home, at a cocktail party where she was about to be honored for her job, she was also about to be set up for some major intrusion into her personal life. Her family. Her history. Her nice, orderly world.
“Dammit,” she whispered, knowing things were completely beyond her control and not liking it one bit.
Nearby, two senior staff members from the magazine where she worked beckoned her closer. She smiled and pointed over her shoulder, implying she was waiting for someone. She didn’t want to engage in small talk. Lacey just wanted to escape.
It might be possible to slip away for a few minutes, but she couldn’t get away entirely, not when she was scheduled to receive a very public award for a job well done. Besides, even if she did disappear, J.T. Birmingham, millionaire publisher and owner of For Her Eyes Only, the magazine Lacey worked for, would make his second announcement anyway. The big one. The personal one. The one that would reveal beyond a doubt the intimate connection between them that she’d struggled to keep quiet.
Nothing she’d said in the past six weeks had dissuaded him. He was bursting at the seams, and he wanted the world in on his jubilation. Never mind that Lacey didn’t.
No, a dash for the door was out. But she could at least hide for a while. She tried to sidle toward the exit but hadn’t gone three steps when a voice stopped her.
“Did you see his new column?”
Lacey didn’t even have to turn around. She knew who was speaking—her good friend Raul Santos. She certainly knew who he was speaking about. Nate Logan. Yuck.
The open door still taunted her from across the room. She stared at it longingly, knowing it offered an avenue of escape, a minute of peace and quiet, a chance to find a hidden corner and wipe the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. Stopping meant frustration. No question about it.
She muttered a curse and turned. “I don’t read his column.” Lacey stepped closer to Raul, who had worked with her at For Her Eyes Only magazine until a few months before. “Besides, I can count on you to tell me what was in it, right?”
A wide white smile creased Raul’s darkly tanned face, enhancing his sharply attractive features. “Of course. You know, if I’d realized I was going to have this much fun being a double agent, reporting back and forth between the two of you, I would have taken the job at Men’s World for much less money!”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she retorted with a smirk. “You need the money to keep up with the women.”
“I would have forgone even that if I’d thought you really wanted me to stay.” Raul smiled again, a glitter in his dark brown eyes. “You look exceptionally beautiful tonight, Lacey.”
“Knock it off. We’re way past that,” she snarled.
No question, Raul was definitely hot, in a lean and lanky Latin lover way. But since they’d first met as lowly grunts at the magazine, they’d recognized they were destined to be friends, particularly since Raul was three years younger than Lacey. She looked at him like he was one of her little brothers, which he claimed wounded his male ego nearly beyond repair. Still, Raul couldn’t help flirting. It was his modus operandi.
“So, you didn’t see it?”
“No. Are you going to tell me?”
He paused as if debating it. A definite act since she knew he got a kick out of the fiery feud between Lacey and her nemesis, columnist Nate Logan who wrote for Men’s World. “Well, he does expect me to,” he finally said.
Lacey frowned. “Most double agents don’t go around bragging about playing from both sides of the deck.”
“Oh, I’m lousy at keeping secrets. Remind me to tell you what he said when I told him you called him a pimply prepubescent boy trapped in a man’s body.”
She groaned. “Raul…”
“Okay. In the column this month, he talks about a certain unnamed female magazine columnist who’s either a man-hating femi-Nazi or a frigid virgin.”
“What?” she shrieked, drawing the attention of those nearby. She immediately lowered her voice. “That son of a…”
“Well, Lacey, you did take a serious shot in your last column. Come on, saying all men who go to nightclubs are cheats looking to score?”
“Aren’t they?”
“They’re not all cheats.”
“But they’re all looking to score!”
“Then you went on to mention certain men who enjoy being photographed in such clubs surrounded by brainless bimbos.”
“I didn’t mention him by name.”
“You didn’t have to, darling, the whole country, let alone the city of Baltimore, knows the two of you have a private war going on.”
She couldn’t deny that. It was entirely true. Somehow, she, Lacey Clark, had gotten caught up in a battle of the sexes with a man she’d never met, never even laid eyes on, except for one grainy photo in a social rag. Even then she hadn’t been able to see much of him since he’d been photographed wearing a Panama hat, dark glasses and holding a big, ugly cigar between his teeth.
Besides, she hadn’t been able to look too closely at the photo considering all the breasts. The man had been photographed framed on all sides by women’s breasts. Proudly. He’d been sitting in a chair while buxom beauties all around him showed just why they’d been finalists in the bar’s wet T-shirt contest, which he’d judged. Sexist pig.
She shook her head, forcing thoughts of Nate Logan out of her mind. Tonight, as strange as it seemed considering he had been driving her nuts for months, he was the absolute least of her problems. If it meant keeping J.T. from revealing the truth about Lacey to the entire world, heck, she’d get up on stage and dance the tango with the man! It wouldn’t, though. J.T. was determined. So she got to deal with the two biggest anxieties in her life on the very same night. J.T. And Nate Logan.
Resigned, she asked, “Is Logan here yet?”
Raul grinned, obviously knowing she couldn’t restrain her curiosity. It was hell never having seen your publicly sworn enemy! “Holding court outside, last time I checked,” Raul said.
“Great. Maybe we’ll get lucky and one of his bimbos will drag him off to a frat party.”
“Probably be more fun than here.”
Lacey grinned reluctantly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Ah, for the simple days. Games of quarters until you passed out, staggering into class for an exam after an all-nighter.”
Raul raised a brow. “Lacey Clark, Miss In-Control, playing quarters at a frat house? People’d pay money to see that.”
She shrugged, then sighed. No, most people wouldn’t be able to grasp that mental image. Not with the Lacey they knew now. The Lacey most people knew now.
Raul obviously noticed the smile fade from her lips. “My car’s out back. Wanna run away and find the nearest bar?”
“You know I can’t.”
“I know,” he admitted. “J.T.’s still going to do it?”
Lacey nodded.
“Okay, then, we’re stuck. But I know you’re bored outta your skull. If we have to stay, we can at least stir up some trouble. You know you’re just dying inside to go up to Norm Spencer’s wife and tell her everyone in the room can see the line of her girdle because her dress is too small.”
“She either needs a better girdle or a dress two sizes bigger,” Lacey admitted.
“That’s my girl.”
Lacey shook her head. “You’re so bad.”
“Maybe that’s why we get along so well.” Raul’s eyes glittered. “Birds of a feather…”
“Get shot down together? No, I have to behave myself.”
Raul gave her a gentle squeeze on one shoulder. “That’s the problem, doll face. You keep trying so hard to be good, one day you’re gonna just explode.”
Before Lacey could toss off a reply—feeling the need to assure him that being good was more effort than instinct—her attention was drawn to the bar where one man in a sea of black tuxedos stood out. Around her, conversations continued to drone on, but the voices and high-pitched laughter faded to an indistinguishable buzz. Lacey suddenly found herself tense and aware for the first time this evening.
“Who’s he?” she wondered aloud, not really directing the question at Raul, though he stood beside her.
“Who?”
Lacey didn’t reply, still studying the man. She didn’t stare because he was gorgeous, though he was. He didn’t catch her eye because he filled out his tux better than any other man in the room, though he did. No, it was his obvious boredom that caught her attention. His looks merely kept it.
He was taller than average, long and lean. His dark blond hair was thick and wavy, and she imagined his wife or girlfriend would be unable to keep her fingers out of it. The way he held his body screamed self-confidence.
She wasn’t the only one who noticed him. Lacey watched a curvy redhead approach the bar, try to strike up a conversation, then walk away in a pique. The man shrugged and kept talking to the bartender. His boredom radiated toward her from across the room. He barely looked at the crowd surrounding him, instead giving all his attention to the guy making drinks.
The lean, strong line of his jaw made her wonder, suddenly, what color his eyes were. And whether his mouth was really as impossibly gorgeous as it appeared to be from over here. When he laughed in response to something the bartender said, Lacey sucked in a breath. Yes, the man had one heck of a mouth.
