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“Chalk it up to my natural curiosity. You’re obviously an attractive woman. I can’t help wondering why you tried to disguise that fact last night.”
He thought she was attractive? Her ego soared before she shot it down with the reminder that this was a man accustomed to saying whatever a woman wanted to hear. She was smart enough not to fall for that. Right? She was also smart enough to get more clothes on ASAP. It was difficult to maintain one’s dignity wrapped in an afghan. “I am not having this conversation half-dressed.”
“You look fine to me.”
She glared at him. “And you’re the type of man to judge a woman by her appearance as to whether or not she’s worthy of your attention, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“You proved it by the way you reacted when I walked into Wanda’s kitchen yesterday evening. You dismissed me.”
“I had no idea they taught you to read minds in library school.”
“It was obvious.” She lifted her hand to her glasses, adjusting the frames before fixing him with a direct stare that dared him to fib.
“Okay, I admit I may not have been thrilled to see you,” Steve admitted, “but it had nothing to do with you or how you looked.”
“Right,” Chloe scoffed.
“Look, I was just feeling a little…aggravated with my matchmaking grandmother for her heavy-handed attempts to hook me up with the girl next door.”
“So you would have reacted the same way had a gorgeous lingerie model walked into your grandmother’s kitchen?”
She had him there. And she knew it. He hated when that happened.
That didn’t stop him from trying to defend himself. “I recognize your attack for what it is, an attempt to deflect attention from your own behavior.”
“I behaved perfectly fine.”
“By dressing up like a frumpy librarian?”
“I told you, I was wearing a costume—”
“You certainly were. And not just for that mystery thing last night. You didn’t want me to know how good-looking you really are. Why?”
Instead of answering his question, she said, “I need more coffee. And I need to get dressed. Coffee first.” She turned and headed for the kitchen.
“No need to do that on my account.” If he were a better man, Steve would have told her that the afghan still left a tantalizing display of her bare thighs for his appreciation. Instead he noted the way she managed to walk all uptight and offended and still be sexy.
She removed an extra mug from the cabinet and reluctantly nudged it across the counter toward him. “I suppose you could drink a cup while I get dressed. Or you could go home….”
“No chance of that.”
Chloe took her coffee mug filled with coffee into her bedroom with her, no easy feat given the fact that she was still holding the afghan around her body. Fifteen minutes later, the caffeine was finally hitting her system, giving her the energy to face the sexy but exasperating Marine in her kitchen.
She was dressed in a pair of tailored khakis and a white shirt, but she didn’t like the way she looked in the mirror above her cherry dresser. So she changed and put on a T-shirt. A plain navy one. She’d quickly run a brush through her shoulder-length hair and decided not to take the time to do more with it. Who knew what Steve might be up to in her kitchen?
He was up to the sports section of her newspaper, calmly sitting at her kitchen table, looking as comfortable as if he’d been there every morning for the past year.
He glanced up and then gave her a slow smile. “So you’re a Bears fan, huh?”
It took her a moment to realize that he was referring to the nightshirt she’d worn when he’d first arrived. That’s because she was thrown by his smile and the effect it had on her. His smile was entirely too disarming. Wicked and tantalizing at the same time. Very much like the man himself, she suspected.
She had to remind herself that this was a man accustomed to seducing women. Not that Wanda had exactly put it like that, but she’d said how “popular Steve is with the ladies.” Chloe could tell that much on her own. Steve possessed the same kind of inherent confidence that Brad had. And he was even better looking than Brad. Not a good mix.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your grandmother’s house?” she said.
“Not until I get some answers. You still haven’t told me why you deliberately tried to deceive me.”
“That’s rather egotistical of you. Assuming that everything revolves around you. That my behavior was a result of you.”
“Wasn’t it?”
His directness rattled her. So did the ease with which he made himself at home in her domain. He should have looked like a bull in a china shop. But he didn’t. He fit in.
No, stop that thought right there! Delete, delete, delete. Maybe if she answered his question, he’d leave. “Look, suffice it to say that you’re not the only one Wanda practices her matchmaking on.”
“Meaning?”
“Your grandmother is a sweetie, but she’s been raving about you for weeks. And when you suddenly decided to visit her during your leave, she was over the moon. She was also intent on my meeting you.”
“And your objection to that was…?”
“As I said earlier, I know your type.” She still stood, her hands gripping the back of the oak kitchen chair as if doing so would prevent her from something she might later regret. Grabbing him or tossing him out—she couldn’t be sure.
“What type would that be?”
“A player. And having just been through a bad experience with a man who informs me that it isn’t natural for a man to settle for just one woman, I wasn’t interested in being played, okay?”
To her surprise, his expression turned serious. “Okay. I can understand that. I just came off a bad experience myself. Which is why I got so upset about you conning me.”
“That’s not the way I’d describe it.”
“That’s how I viewed it. You wore those clothes to keep me at bay.”
“You’re only interested in me now because you think I look prettier than I did last night.” There, she’d said it.
“I tried to get to know you last night, but you weren’t cooperating.”
“You were just taking pity on the frumpy girl,” Chloe retorted. “You didn’t really mean it.” This was a sore point for her. “I’ve already been dumped by a guy who I thought was interested in me, only to find that he was merely biding his time until a prettier woman came along.”
“Ah, betrayal. That’s something we have in common,” Steve said. “Bad luck in the romance department.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve got bad luck that way.”
“Believe it.”
“That’s not what your grandmother thinks. She never mentioned anything about bad luck.”
“She doesn’t know everything, although she’d like me to think she does.”
The devil on her right shoulder warned her that Steve could be conning her, trying to gain her sympathy. “Your grandmother is a wise woman.”
“And a stubborn one. She’s not going to give up on getting us together, you know.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it.”
“Trust me, my grandmother has a way of wearing you down,” Steve noted.
“And I suppose you have a plan to counter that?”
“Of course.”
“First tell me about the woman who betrayed you.”
It was a test. She half expected him to toss off her request with some slick response. When he hesitated, she added, “I told you what went wrong with my relationship.”
“Yeah, you were going with a jerk.”
That stung, indicating that her judgment where men were concerned was faulty. Which might be true, but she sure didn’t appreciate him pointing out that fact. “Don’t you have someplace else you need to be right now?”
“No. You asked me a question, and I’m going to answer it. Want some more coffee?”
“I can get it myself.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“And I suppose you’d like me to pour you some more coffee while I’m at it?”
“If you do, I’ll share these with you….” He held up a bag from a local bakery.
“Where did those come from?”
He read the side of the bag. “The Busy Bee Bakery.”
“I meant how did they get here?”
“I brought them.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“You’re telling me you went to the bakery in the fifteen minutes I took to get dressed?”
“No.”
She tried not to grit her teeth in frustration. “Are you always this exasperating?”
“No, I can be much worse.”
“That’s great to hear.”
He held up the bag and waggled it. “So, do you want some or not?”
“What’s in the bag?”
If he’d said a chocolate éclair, she could have resisted the temptation. But when he said, “Brownies,” she knew she was a goner.
“Are you interested?” he said.
“An even trade. A refill on your coffee for a brownie.”
“Works for me.”
She loosened her grip on the chair and busied herself getting plates out of the kitchen cupboard before taking the coffeepot over to the table to refill his mug. “I still don’t know how you got these here.” She pointed to the bag of brownies.
“I carried them.”
“When? And don’t tell me this morning unless you’re ready to suffer the consequences.”
“I had them in my hand when I first arrived, but when you reached for me…”
“I was reaching for the paper!” she corrected him.
“I dropped them on your front porch.” He peered inside the bag. “Luckily they didn’t suffer from that little mishap.”
“And you retrieved them from my porch while I was getting dressed?”
“That’s right. Are you always this intent on solving mysteries?”
“I like things to be in order.”
“Marines like order, too. See, that’s something else we have in common.”
Chloe wasn’t so easily convinced. “Before you distracted me with decadent baked goods, you were going to tell me about this romantic bad luck you had.”
Steve wasn’t sure what to say, which wasn’t unusual for him. Confiding had never been his thing. And telling her about Gina meant telling her about his inheritance.
Who was he kidding here? His grandmother had probably already told Chloe about the money.
Was that why Chloe had acted the way she had? Was this all an elaborate hoax to get his attention by pretending to avoid it?
He couldn’t help being suspicious, given his recent track record where females were concerned.
Then his logical side reminded him that he had no intention of falling for Chloe. There was no danger of that. Sure he was a bit intrigued by her, but he was only here in Chicago for a short period of time during his leave.
Not telling her would mean he was afraid to. So he bit the bullet and started talking. Reluctantly. In his own way and in his own time. “Well, you’ve probably heard the sad story before—poor guy inherits money and a beautiful woman cons him into thinking she’s in love with him when all she really wants is access to his bank account.”
