LITMIR.BIZ

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      Rafe rubbed his fist. “No touching,” he growled. Then he grabbed Charlotte’s hand and towed her out of there.

      Two

      “Have you lost your mind?” she shrieked as he dragged her out the door. “You just punched out my boss!”

      “Something tells me he isn’t your boss anymore.”

      It was fully dark now—as dark as this corner of the city ever got, at least. The air was cold, the night punctuated with horns and headlights. Neon draped its tawdry glitter over buildings, cars and faces. Those faces were fewer than before and their owners moved more slowly, the ones in groups laughing too loudly, those alone wary and watchful. Or simply empty. The women’s skirts were shorter, their lips brighter red. And none of the night people crowding the sidewalk seemed inclined to take exception to the man in a black leather trench coat who bullied his way through them, or the way he dragged his unwilling victim along.

      She tried again to reason with Rafe. “It’s cold. My coat…my things…you have to let me get my things.” Her backpack, especially. She couldn’t lose it.

      “My car’s just up the block. The heater works.”

      “You can’t just drag me off this way! It—it’s illegal.”

      “Yeah?” He stopped and turned so abruptly she plowed into him.

      She landed with her free hand bracing her against his chest, preventing her from falling up against him, body to body. The leather coat was cool and supple beneath her hand. His chest was hard. So were his eyes, and the sarcastic curl of his lips wasn’t a smile. She remembered the feel of that mouth on her and hastily pulled back.

      “If you think I’m doing something illegal, you should yell for a cop.” The curl grew into a sneer when she remained silent. “That’s what I thought. Come on.”

      How Rafe had managed to find a parking spot right where he needed one, she didn’t know. It was typical of the man, though. Luck, skill, karma—whatever force you credited, Rafe had more of it than any one man should. He had everything, from wealth and good looks to a successful career and a loving family. He should have been spoiled, shallow, dull. He wasn’t. He was fascinating. Unaffected, unconventional, outgoing, generous.

      The man’s sheer perfection was the most irritating thing about him.

      The hubcaps were still on his car, she noted as he shifted his grip to her arm and unlocked the door. But the car itself was not what Rafe Connelly was supposed to drive. He ought to have a dangerous, low-slung sports car, not a dark blue domestic sedan.

      That was the second most irritating thing about Rafe—he never did what you expected him to do.

      “Get in,” he ordered as he swung the door open.

      She sighed and did it. There was no point in arguing. He’d already gotten her fired, so she had little left to lose. They might as well get this over with. It wasn’t going to be pleasant. She knew that. But she’d made it through a lot of life’s unpleasant moments. She’d get through this one, too.

      His car might not be the sports car that fit her image of him, but it was new and expensive. And familiar. She passed a hand over the cool leather of the seat and tried not to think about the only other time she’d ridden in Rafe’s car.

      He slid behind the steering wheel, slammed his door and started the engine. Sound poured from the speakers—some kind of rock with screaming guitars, lots of bass and a pounding beat. Cold air poured from the vents. No doubt his car did have a great heater, but the engine wasn’t warm yet. She shivered and hugged herself for warmth.

      With a flick of his wrist, he cut the stereo off. Silence fell. He glanced at her, grimaced, flung his door open again in defiance of the traffic, got out and shrugged off his coat. He tossed it at her and climbed back in without saying a word.

      Charlotte drew the coat over her like a blanket. The lining held the heat from his body, and the warmth released scents that drifted up to tease her. Leather and man and memories… How unpredictable he was. First he dragged her along willy-nilly, then he gave her the coat off his back.

      His voice was quiet. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

      He wasn’t talking about the coat. Charlotte closed her eyes, but that petty escape didn’t help. He was here, he was asking, and she had to face both him and the facts. “Yes.”

      He smacked the steering wheel with his fist. Hard.

      She jumped.

      “Did it at any point occur to you that I’d want to know? That I had the right to know?”

      “I was going to tell you. When—when I could.”

      “And when would that have been? When my son graduated from high school, were you going to send me an announcement? Maybe hit me up for college tuition?”

      She looked down. Beneath the enveloping coat, her hands were clasped tightly together. “It might be a girl,” she muttered.

      “What?”

      Her head came up. She scowled at him. “It might be your daughter who graduates, not your son.”

      “Girl, boy, what does it matter? The point is, you’re carrying my child. So of course you ran off and took a job at a dive so you could live hand-to-mouth, stay on your feet for hours, then walk home late at night. In this neighborhood.”

      Her mouth twisted in bitter humor. She’d grown up in neighborhoods like this one. “I can take care of myself.”

      “And one helluva job you’ve done of it, too. Considering that the mob is gunning for you.”

      She swallowed and didn’t reply.

      “Damn shame the way things worked out for you.” He turned in his seat, leaning against the door so he could survey her. His hand tapped the back of the seat in a quick, restless rhythm. “Selling out my father should have netted you a nice chunk of change, but you’ve ended up on the bottom of the food chain, haven’t you?” He shook his head in mocking sympathy. “You should be more selective about your business partners in the future.”

      “It wasn’t like that,” she said, low-voiced.

      “No? You want to tell me what it was like, then?”

      Her lips felt stiff, numb. She’d known this would be unpleasant, but she hadn’t realized how bad it would be. She hadn’t known he would assume she’d done it for money.

      But why wouldn’t he? It was absurd for her to believe he should have known better. Illogical. “I told the police. That’s why there’s a contract on my life.”

      He sighed and his hand stopped its restless tapping. For a long moment he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.

      She tilted her chin up and looked right back at him. And found herself caught, trapped in the fascinating topography of his face.

      His eyes were so deep-set the lids hardly showed. In this light his eyes looked black, as dark as the thick slash of his eyebrows, which were much darker than the medium brown of his shaggy hair. His beard, too, grew in dark, and there was a rakish trace of stubble on his cheeks tonight. His nose was straight and perfect, with that fascinating little dip beneath that inevitably led her eyes to his mouth. Oh, that mouth…it was a mouth made for smiles and kisses, the upper lip a perfect match for the lower. But it was entirely too sensual for the aristocratic nose, too wide for his narrow face, too frivolous for those dark eyes.

      Rafe was composed of too many unmatched pieces. His parts shouldn’t have added up to such an enticing whole, and she resented mightily that they did.

      One corner of that enticing mouth kicked up. “You’d stare down a cat, wouldn’t you?” He ran a hand over his head, further messing his hair. “Dix said someone nearly ran you down this evening.”

      Dix?

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