LITMIR.BIZ

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clenched teeth.

      She’d meant to insult him, but instead he laughed good-naturedly at her rebuff, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for wanting at least one dance with the sexiest lady in the room, can you?”

      “Of all the nerve…” gasped Evelyn Van Arbor.

      Cassie ignored the old snob’s outburst and sent Nick a lethal look that said “go away.” It was bad enough that everyone in the room was already buzzing about Mark throwing her over for Dianna Nugent. But if the elite of Asheville caught her conversing with the devil himself, she knew the rumors would take on a whole new life of their own.

      When she sent him another frosty glare, it seemed to do the trick. Nick smiled, made a cordial little bow, then said, “Since it’s obvious I can’t interest you in a dance, then I’ll do the honorable thing and clear the way for someone you might find more suitable.”

      When Cassie refused to comment, Nick sent her another mocking grin. “Have a nice evening, ladies.”

      He turned and walked away, leaving Cassie feeling extremely guilty. Especially since he’d been so gracious when she’d purposely tried to embarrass him. Normally, she wouldn’t have acted so rude, but her gut instinct told her it was safer if Nick Hardin thought she was a kindred spirit to the mass of insufferable snobs who were gathered together for the evening. The taunting look in his sultry black eyes told Cassie he already knew she found him attractive. And she did. Even though they were complete opposites.

      She almost smiled, thinking that referring to her and Nick Hardin as opposites was certainly the understatement of the century. They were like oil and water. Like fire and ice. They were the most unlikely match Cassie could possibly imagine. And for her own sake, she knew it was better to keep it that way.

      Still reeling from the close encounter, she motioned for the bartender again. The man quickly refilled her glass, but as Cassie brought the glass to her lips, Evelyn Van Arbor leaned forward and said loud enough for the entire room to hear, “You did the right thing, Cassandra. It’s time a derelict like Nick Hardin realizes that he’ll never be accepted at a social gathering in this city.”

      Cassie sputtered in her champagne and jerked her head around in time to see that the woman’s rude comment had brought Nick to a mid-stride stop. Turning slowly back to face them again, he wore the same cocky grin she remembered from the morning she first found Nick swimming naked in his pool. She shivered.

      “Oh, by the way, counselor,” Nick called across a room that was now so quiet Cassie could hear her own breathing. “You never did telephone me with the results of that pregnancy test.”

      “Dear Heavenly Father…” Evelyn Van Arbor wailed, and dropped the champagne glass she was holding in her wrinkled, diamond-laden hand.

      Cassie instantly sprang forward and grabbed Nick by the arm before he could slither off into the sea of people, who were all now staring in their direction. Pulling him toward the exit door, she managed to push Nick outside onto the large veranda that ran along the back side of the inn. But by the time she hurried out the door behind him, Cassie could already hear the excited whispers skipping across the crowd.

      “Yeah, I like this much better,” Nick announced when Cassie stomped up beside him. “Excellent choice, counselor. And it’s such a beautiful night, too. Much too pleasant to waste inside with all those stuffy friends of yours.”

      “How dare you say something like that in front of that old gossip.” Cassie fumed.

      “What? Did I say something wrong?”

      “You know perfectly well you said something wrong,” Cassie snapped. “And by the time Evelyn Van Arbor spices up the story, it’ll be all over Asheville tomorrow that I’m pregnant with your illegitimate child.”

      “But that’s how I prefer my women, remember? Barefoot and pregnant.”

      “You’re impossible,” Cassie said, resisting the urge to reach out and strangle him. “How did you get invited to this benefit in the first place? You know these people despise you.”

      Nick winked, unruffled by her comment. “You’d be surprised what the right amount of money can buy in this world, Miss Collins.”

      Cassie sent him a murderous glare. “I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Hardin, but all the money in the world can never buy you class.”

      “My sentiments exactly,” Nick assured her. “Take that rich old bat you’re so worried about now. If she had one ounce of class, she wouldn’t dream of repeating any gossip about you.”

      The truth in Nick’s statement kept Cassie silent for a moment. Knitting her perfectly arched eyebrows together in a deep frown, she leaned back against the old stone wall that surrounded the veranda, wondering how long it would take her mother to hear through the grapevine that Nick Hardin had sired her first grandchild.

      Cassie feared that, with that kind of news, Lenora Collins really would have the coronary she’d been threatening all these years.

      “You know what you need?” Nick asked, studying Cassie’s grave expression.

      “A submachine gun might come in handy at the moment,” Cassie shot back, but her caustic wit didn’t discourage Nick from lending his advice.

      “You need to lighten up a little, counselor. Don’t take life so seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive, anyway.”

      Cassie rolled her eyes. “Spoken like the true scholar you aren’t,” she chided.

      “I might not be a scholar,” Nick agreed, taking several steps closer than Cassie felt was necessary. “But I’m smart enough to know that old biddy will believe you over a…what did she call me?”

      “I believe it was ‘derelict,”’ Cassie provided gladly.

      Nick grinned. “Yes, I’m sure she’ll believe you over a derelict like me the minute you go back inside and tell her I was only talking about your prissy dog.”

      Cassie didn’t bother to tell Nick she only wished it were that simple. She would rather have the entire city of Asheville think she was pregnant than have her mother find out that her precious dog with the award-winning genes had accepted a bad seed under Cassie’s supervision.

      Ignoring the splendid full moon that was shining above them and the dreamy music that was now floating out to the veranda, Cassie glared at the incorrigible man who was directly blocking her path. “For your information, I’d rather face a firing squad than walk back through that room,” Cassie told him. “And since you’ve already done enough damage to my reputation for one evening, if you’ll move your obnoxious self out of my way, I plan to get out of here before you pull another stunt that makes us both the topic of conversation for the night.”

      To her surprise, Nick’s ink-black eyes instantly flickered with anger. “Now, wait a minute, counselor. Don’t try to blame me for making you the topic of conversation in that room this evening. Your boyfriend, old Markie, did that all by himself when he showed up with a different lady on his arm.”

      Cassie reached out to slap him, but her heel caught in a crack in the flagstone porch and landed her face-first against Nick’s massive, rock-hard chest. Angry looks flashed between them as he gripped her bare shoulders with his powerful hands to steady her fall. Entwined in an awkward embrace, neither of them expected the wave of passion that erupted between them.

      But it did.

      And it carried both of them along like a fast-moving train.

      Before Cassie knew what was happening, Nick crushed her even closer to him and sent a tingling explosion rippling through her body. When he brushed his lips against the sensitive hollows of her throat, he left her defenseless, lost in a magical place that Cassie never knew existed. Helpless, she surrendered, but only momentarily. When his hungry mouth inched closer, threatening to claim her own, she finally came to her senses.

      “I can’t do this,”

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