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“Carly, remember that black dress I was looking at?”
Carly’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “The one that looked as if it would suit your grandmother?”
“Yes, that one,” Brianna said firmly. “Get it for me, please.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“Just get it, okay? No lectures.”
“You’re going to regret this,” her assistant warned.
“No,” she said with a determined shake of her head. “No, I won’t.”
The black dress, with its long sleeves and white satin cuffs and collar, was sophisticated, too, she told herself. Even if she did look a little like a nun in it, she conceded, studying her reflection in the dressing room mirror. It was perfect for an evening with a man known far and wide as a scoundrel. It would send a very definite message that she wasn’t available, that this evening was all about business. Dignified and prim, it was the perfect solution.
She marched out to buy it, feeling reassured that there would be no contradictory messages being sent later that evening. But even as she stood at the counter to pay for it, her gaze kept straying around the consignment shop for one last glimpse of that spectacular bronze dress.
“Looking for something?” Carly inquired innocently.
“No,” she insisted.
“Well, it’s gone,” her assistant said. “In case you were interested, after all.”
Brianna felt some vague little spark inside her die. For a few minutes in that dress, she had felt like a sexy, totally alive female again, instead of a responsible professional, a single mom with no illusions about the lack of romance in her life. She’d had no idea a dress could transform the way a person felt about herself.
“Somebody bought it?” she asked, trying to mask her disappointment.
“Obviously somebody recognized a knockout dress when they saw one,” Carly declared pointedly. “Snatched it right up without even trying it on.”
“Good for them,” Brianna said without much enthusiasm. She signed the credit card receipt for her basic black dress, accepted the package and left the store without a backward glance. “Let’s get back to the office. We have a lot of work to do. And Mrs. Hanover will be wondering what on earth happened to us.”
“Work?” Carly echoed incredulously. “You should be at home pampering yourself, taking a nice long bubble bath. I’m sure your secretary will cover for you, if anyone calls. And I can handle any emergencies that crop up. Not that there are a lot of emergencies with rocks that have been around forever.”
“Indulging in bubble baths is for people who don’t have a mountain of paperwork on their desks.”
“You really are going to give women a bad name,” her assistant grumbled when they arrived back at the office. “Mr. Delacourt is used to going out with society women who have nothing but time on their hands. You’re not even going for a manicure, am I right?”
Brianna grinned at her despondent tone. “You’re right.”
Carly shook her head. “Pitiful.” A moment later her expression brightened. “I know. I’ll give you a manicure, while you’re doing that all-important paperwork.”
“Manicures are not in your job description,” Brianna protested as she tossed her new dress onto the couch in her office and settled behind her desk.
“I’ll do it on my coffee break.”
“You don’t get a coffee break.”
“I do now.” She bounced out of Brianna’s office, then returned with three shades of nail polish. She held them up for Brianna’s inspection. “Which one?”
“Carly—”
Ignoring her, Carly pulled up a chair, chose the shade herself and began shaking the bottle. “This one, I think. Hold out your hand.”
Despite her very strong instinct to refuse, Brianna couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing as Carly instructed. She watched in fascination as the dark polish with its hint of bronze was applied. The younger woman glanced up and caught her expression.
“Haven’t you ever had a manicure before?”
“Not really. When you spend your life playing with rocks and digging around for soil samples, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m lucky I even have nails.”
“Pitiful,” Carly decreed for the second time that day.
A few minutes later, when all the nails had been painted, she leaned back and studied them with satisfaction. “Perfect.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Brianna said wryly, but she couldn’t tear her own gaze away, either. Her hands no longer looked like a workman’s. In fact, they looked almost as if they might belong to a lady.
“Maybe I will go home and take that bubble bath after all,” she said.
Carly grinned. “All right! Remember to take notes tonight. I’ll want to hear every last detail on Monday.”
“I’m not going on this date for your vicarious enjoyment,” Brianna pointed out.
“I thought you said that it wasn’t a date, it was business. I am your assistant, aren’t I? If it’s business, we should have something on record.”
“You have a very twisted mind,” Brianna proclaimed.
“Will I get the details or not?”
A faint stirring of excitement fluttered in Brianna’s stomach. It had been a long time since she’d felt anything like it. Because she owed at least some of that to her assistant, she nodded.
“You’ll get details. I’ll make it a point to remember what everyone is wearing and what food was served.”
“Forget all that. I just want to know what kind of a kisser Mr. Delacourt is.”
Brianna gulped. “Forget it. No kissing. No telling.”
Maybe if she repeated that often enough between now and six-thirty, she wouldn’t even be tempted. But something told her it was going to be a wasted effort, especially if Jeb Delacourt had other ideas.
Chapter Three
Brianna soaked in her hyacinth-scented bubble bath for a half hour, which was more feminine self-indulgence than she’d experienced in years. She fiddled with her hair and managed to coax a little curl into the short style, then added one of those fancy rhinestone-studded hair clips shaped like a butterfly. Emma had given it to her last Christmas. She’d had one of the nurses at the rehab center pick it out, then had wrapped it in paper she’d colored herself with swirls of holiday red and green.
At six o’clock Brianna slipped on the black dress and lost a little of the sparkle in her eyes. It was a lovely gown, but compared to the one she hadn’t bought, it was boring. It did nothing for her figure or her coloring. It just covered her body—most of her body, she noted glumly.
Which was exactly what she’d wanted, she reminded herself. She might want to make an impression on Max Coleman, but she needed to keep Jeb Delacourt’s mind strictly on business.
She turned away from the mirror just as the doorbell rang. Since it was barely six-ten, she doubted it was Jeb. She padded to the door in her stockinged feet and found a stranger on the doorstep.
“Yes?”
The man glanced down at a slip. “Brianna O’Ryan? That you?”
“Yes.”
He held out a large box and a form.
Brianna noted despondently that he didn’t even give her a second glance in her boring black gown. “Yes, but I’m not expecting—”
“Your name and address are on here. That’s what I go by,” he countered, and waited for her to sign.
She signed his form, accepted the box and went to get him a tip. When he had left, she stared at the box, then recognized the name of the consignment shop in discreet gold letters in the lower corner.
“What on earth?” she murmured, pulling off the lid, then unfolding layers of tissue paper. Her eyes widened when she saw the bronze dress nestled inside, along with a note.
Clutching the dress, she ripped open the note.
“I figured you’d be suffering pangs of regret about now and, if you aren’t, you should be,” Carly had written. “Enjoy.”
“I’m going to fire her,” Brianna muttered, even as she raced back to her room and changed into the killer dress. She sighed as she twirled in front of her mirror. “Then again, anyone who dares to defy the boss when she’s wrong ought to get a raise.” She took another excited survey of her image. “A really big raise.”
The charity ball turned out to be a masterstroke, Jeb concluded as he held Brianna in his arms and whirled her around the dance floor. She was concentrating so hard on looking for her ex-boss, she was paying little attention to the questions Jeb was asking. Her responses, for once, were uncensored, if not particularly illuminating.
Unfortunately, he was having an equally difficult time concentrating. He had been ever since he’d arrived on her doorstep and caught his first glimpse of her in a dress that even Cinderella would have envied. His mouth had gone dry, and he’d been having difficulty swallowing ever since. Why had he never suspected that the beautiful Brianna was capable of bringing a man’s heart slamming to a halt? Because of his taunt, he’d fully expected her to be covered from head to toe in black, something discreet, something that wouldn’t have every male head in the room swiveling for another, longer look. Unless he was very careful, he was going to forget what this evening was all about.
In fact, he’d been so dumbstruck when she opened her door that he hadn’t even taken note of what little he could see of the interior of her small townhouse. His surprise at the modest community in which she lived had vanished in a sea of purely masculine appreciation.
Now he caught the speculative glances of some of his oldest and dearest bachelor friends and tightened his grip on Brianna possessively. This reaction was a very bad sign, he noted, forcing himself to take a step back and look Brianna directly in the eyes. Another mistake, he realized, when his throat went dry again.
“Having fun?” he managed to ask finally.
“I didn’t come to have fun,” she murmured, avoiding his gaze.
“What the heck,” he countered. “Have some anyway. It’s free.”
Her gaze swept the room again. “Where is Max Coleman? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”
“There are a thousand people crushed into this ballroom. I’m sure he’s here somewhere. If we keep dancing, we’re bound to bump into him.”
Brianna regarded him suspiciously. “He is going to be here, though, right? You’re sure of it.”
“That’s what I was told. Maybe we should take a break, get some champagne and you can tell me why he fired you.”
Even as she studied the crowd, she waved off his inquiry. “I’m sure you’ve seen the personnel records. It’s no big secret,” she said dismissively.
Actually Jeb had read the personnel file. It was almost as vague as Brianna herself was being now. “It wasn’t working out. I believe that’s what the file states. Was that it?”
She shrugged. “That about sums it up.”
“Max Coleman doesn’t strike me as a man prone to whims.”
For a fleeting moment her attention returned to him. “You’d have to ask him about that. One day I was working there, the next day, I wasn’t.”
“If your firing was that capricious, why didn’t you sue him?”
“Not my nature,” she said. “All I cared about was getting another job.” Her attention drifted yet again.
Jeb struggled to accept her response. It was so deliberately disingenuous, he almost wondered if Max hadn’t staged the firing just so she could be hired by his competitor, making her a well-placed spy for her old boss. So far, though, Coleman hadn’t been involved in any of the soured deals.
Besides which, Brianna genuinely seemed to despise the man. She might not have wanted to waste time and money taking him to court for wrongful dismissal, but she resented his actions just the same. That much was clear from the venom in her voice whenever she mentioned his name. Unless she was a better actress than Jeb imagined, her hatred was sincere.
“How about a little fresh air?” Jeb suggested when they had their champagne.
She cast one last, disappointed look around the room, then nodded. “Fine.”
Outside on the terrace, there was a soft breeze. The sky was brilliant with stars, competing with the lights of downtown Houston. But none of the scenery could hold a candle to the woman beside him. Jeb found himself wishing for the hundredth time that this were a real date, that he could take her in his arms and kiss her the way he’d been wanting to ever since he’d picked her up. Aware of just how inappropriate that would be on any number of levels, he held back. For a man reputed to have no scruples, now was a fine time for his to be kicking in.
He leaned back against the railing and sipped his champagne. “Tell me about your marriage,” he suggested idly.
Without the distraction of looking for Max, she was instantly suspicious. “Why?” she asked bluntly.
“Just making small talk, sweetheart. That’s what men and women do at these things.”
She shrugged off the explanation. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t spend a lot of time at charity balls.”
“Well, let me explain the rules, then. We eat a little, drink a little, dance when the mood strikes us, exchange pleasantries with people we know, chitchat with those we’d like to know better, gossip about the bad guys, network with business associates. Then we go home and crash, so we can do it all again tomorrow.”
“Two balls in one weekend?”
“Downright decadent, isn’t it?”
“Tedious.”
“Depends on your companion. Now something tells me you could relieve the tedium, if you’d just relax a little.”
“I am relaxed,” she protested.
She didn’t look it. She’d started looking uptight the instant he mentioned her ex-husband. In fact, she looked so thoroughly uncomfortable, so totally wary, that he couldn’t help himself. He forgot all about his resolve of moments ago and leaned forward and kissed her.
It was meant to be no more than a quick peck, something to startle her, maybe put a little color in her cheeks. But when she gasped softly, when her lips seemed to heat instantaneously, Jeb was lost. He dipped his head and kissed her again, longer this time, deeper, savoring the taste of cool champagne and hot Brianna. He lifted his hand, curved his fingers around her neck and felt the wild beating of her pulse beneath his thumb.
When he leaned back at last, she looked dazed. He felt as if he’d been sucker punched. The kiss wasn’t supposed to happen, but he’d kissed plenty of women without having his insides turn to mush. His reaction told him that this informal, unauthorized investigation of his had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.
Distance, that’s what he needed. Not physical, but emotional. He knew a surefire way to get it, too.
“Let’s try that again,” he suggested innocently, and caught the flare of color in her cheeks. Before her protest could form, he grinned. “Tell me about your marriage.”
Just as he’d anticipated, her expression closed down. “It didn’t work out,” she said evasively.
“Sort of like the job,” he countered, deliberately trying to provoke her with innuendo. “Are there a lot of things in your life that just don’t work out?”
