LITMIR.BIZ

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night air, the tremors from nerves, not cold.

      Before her, the downtown Dallas apartment she’d called home for the past two months oozed smoke out its balcony windows like a baby dragon throwing a hissy fit.

      Jessica felt a little like throwing a hissy fit herself, but realized it would do no good. Roll with the punches, her cousins always told her, stand proud and project a regal presence even if you don’t feel it.

      Easy for them to say. Her cousins, whom she’d been raised with, were indeed royalty. Bona fide sheikhs. All of them married now—thanks in part to Jessica’s matchmaking skills.

      She sniffed and wiped her nose on the scratchy blanket the firefighter had given her, her throat burning from the cloying smell of smoke. Destruction was always so painful to see. Especially destruction of a person’s home.

      Thankfully Jessica wasn’t emotionally attached to the apartment, didn’t have any keepsakes there—other than the photographs of her parents and cousins that she’d snatched up and shoved in her purse on her way out of the smoke-filled building. The rest of her belongings of any value to her were at home on the Desert Rose Ranch in Bridle, Texas, northwest of Austin.

      Except her clothes of course. Now that was a big loss.

      On the bright side, though, losing one’s entire wardrobe was a great excuse to go shopping.

      She glanced around at her neighbors and felt badly about her frivolous thought. My gosh, what was wrong with her? Was she on the verge of hysteria?

      Unlike her, she imagined these people had lost irreplaceable keepsakes and memories. A couple had nearly lost their lives. That thought made her shiver—especially as the image of little Timmy, her neighbor’s boy, sliding on his stomach toward an open flame replayed in her mind like a preview clip of a horror movie. He’d broken away from his parents, running back toward his apartment to search for his cat. The untied shoelaces on his sneakers had tripped him and sent him tumbling.

      Tugging her mass of red hair from beneath the blanket, she turned at the sound of tires screeching on asphalt. Her heart lurched into her throat.

      A black Mercedes sedan.

      Nick Grayson—her absentee boss.

      Well, sort of her boss. He was the son of the Grayson half of Coleman-Grayson Investment Company, and she was the daughter of the Coleman half. His handsome features made her knees weak, yet his bossiness left her spitting like a she-cat more often than not. She knew her parents had asked him to watch over her, teach her the ropes in the family business, but at twenty-five, she was well past needing a baby-sitter and resented his superior attitude.

      She sighed, watching him approach. His long stride and rigidly set shoulders beneath a black polo shirt didn’t bode well for harmony. At least not between the two of them.

      The subtle smell of sandalwood cologne surrounded her as he drew near, giving her a second’s respite from the acrid stench of smoke. Heat coursed through her. Her insides still trembled like soft-set pudding—nerves and something more now.

      Why in the world couldn’t she be her normal “catch me if you can, baby” self around this man? It was thoroughly disquieting, a failing she’d had since she was thirteen. You’d think she would’ve gotten over her adolescent crush.

      “Are you all right?” he asked, his deep voice concerned, edgy.

      Annoyed that she wanted to say no and turn into his wide chest for comfort, Jessica clutched the blanket more snugly around her shoulders. “Do you have spies? Had my phones tapped? What?” Why was it he always showed up when she needed him?

      She didn’t want to need him, even though the smell of his skin and the intensity of his dark-brown eyes made her heart do cartwheels in her chest.

      “Did you make a phone call?” he asked, his tone dripping with censure. “I don’t recall mine ringing.”

      When he cocked a dark brow in that sexy, annoying way of his, she didn’t know whether to hit him or jump his bones.

      “Obviously it must have rung sometime,” she said. “Otherwise, why would you show up like a thief with a posse on his tail?”

      “A thief?”

      She shrugged. “Black car, windows tinted black, dressed in all black. A person would think you’re a bad guy or something.”

      The long look he gave her did indeed telegraph danger. Sexual, rather than physical.

      “The color of the car isn’t readily changeable. The clothes were what I put my hands on first in the closet. I was understandably anxious to get out of the house.”

      “You had ESP or something that drew you out of bed and told you my apartment building was burning down?”

      “No. Guy Pirrazzo—he’s the head of personnel at the company—”

      “I know who Guy is,” she said. She’d found that out on her own. She’d come to Coleman-Grayson at her parents’ behest to learn the ins and outs of the business under Nick Grayson’s tutelage. He hadn’t done much tutoring so far. It was as though he was avoiding her, finding excuses to be out of the office or out of town altogether.

      Although he did have an uncanny knack for showing up every time she seemed to be at her worst.

      “Yes, well, Guy’s uncle lives in this building—”

      “Lived,” she corrected waving a hand at the water-and-soot-drenched grounds. She didn’t think she’d ever get the shrill scream of the smoke alarm out of her head. Emergency lights from the fire engines cast intermittent splashes of crimson across the wet asphalt, which had already been cordoned off with yellow tape.

      “Lived,” Nick repeated, his jaw flexing as though he was annoyed and holding on by a thread at being interrupted. “Guy recalled that you were in the same building and phoned to let me know about the fire.”

      He was looking at her as though he was disappointed that she hadn’t called him herself, as though he’d expected as much.

      Which was absurd of course. The man avoided her the way an Arabian horse shies around a Texas rattler.

      At the moment, though, his demeanor was far from shy. It set her nerves tingling.

      She cleared her throat, unsure what to say or do next. Suddenly she felt nervous and vulnerable. The adrenaline that had carried her out of the apartment building was ebbing. Despite the fact that Nick Grayson got on her nerves, a part of her was actually glad he was here.

      She shoved her tousled red hair off her forehead and sighed.

      Nick laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”

      His quiet voice and warm breath sent more shivers down her spine. At this rate, her bones were likely to rattle apart joint by joint. “Go where?”

      “My place, I’m thinking.”

      She looked up at him. “Obviously you’re not thinking to make a suggestion like that.”

      Astonished, she watched his teeth flash white as his lips canted into a slow grin.

      “Now, Jess. Are you insinuating the two of us can’t get along under the same roof?”

      “I’m not insinuating. I know.”

      He slung an arm around her shoulders, steered her toward his car. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and we’ll fight about it later.”

      She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. If there was one thing she and Nick were good at, it was fighting. Well, sparring was probably more accurate.

      He held the car door open for her and gallantly helped her into the plush leather seat as though she’d been harmed, not just her apartment.

      “You could drop me at the Embassy Suites or the Sheraton.”

      “Sit back

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