LITMIR.BIZ

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her time to see desire fade and a look of mischief take its place. “But we both enjoyed it, didn’t we, counselor?”

      The weak “hah!” Cassie mustered was almost as shaky as the two legs that were trying to keep her standing. “The only thing I’m going to enjoy, is taking a huge chunk of your bank account if Duchess ends up pregnant,” Cassie lied, tossing Nick a smirk of her own. “I’ll know the test results tomorrow,” she added, “and if Duchess is pregnant, then we’ll see if you don’t start taking life a little more seriously.”

      Before Nick could answer, she pushed past him and marched toward the outside stairway at the opposite end of the veranda.

      Within seconds, she disappeared into the darkness without looking back.

      CASSIE’S HANDS WERE still shaking when she accepted her keys from the uniformed parking attendant. She quickly handed the man a crumpled bill, then slid behind the wheel of her Lexus, trying to slow her thumping heart and regain her lost composure. Afraid her current rattled state of mind might result in destroying half of the luxury automobiles that lined both sides of the lot, she eased cautiously out of the parking lot, cursing the day she’d been stupid enough to stomp up Nick Hardin’s front steps.

      How the man had the ability to arouse her one second and make her capable of murder the next was totally beyond her comprehension. He was the most arrogant, the most insufferable, the most exasperating man she’d ever met in her entire life, yet he had the power to reduce her to a sniveling schoolgirl with one glance from those wicked eyes of his.

      Oh, he excited her, all right. He excited her more than she ever thought possible. But the type of raw desire he aroused inside her was pushing her into uncharted waters. Waters she knew could be extremely dangerous. To say her experience with the opposite sex had been limited was putting it mildly. Oh, she’d had her share of pimple-faced boyfriends in high school. She’d dated occasionally in college, and she’d even spent the past few months fighting off the unwanted attentions of a would-be senator. But the male persuasion had never been powerful enough to steer Cassie away from the personal goal she had set for herself the summer she turned sixteen.

      It had all started with a conversation she overheard between her father and her famous senator grandfather. The realization that the distinguished Senator Edward Collins resented her for not being a grandson had hurt Cassie deeply. Referring to her as “a silly female who would care more about her coming-out party than she would about the family law firm” had devastated her to the point that her mission in life had become her determination to prove the old man wrong.

      She had graduated at the top of her class both in college and in law school, and had surpassed any of the academic records either her father or her grandfather held. When Cassie proudly joined the family law firm, she had also brought with her enough expertise in contract and corporate law to add an impressive number of new clients to the firm roster. Until now, she had always believed that her professional accomplishments would be sufficient to sustain her throughout her safe, predictable life.

      But that had been before Nick Hardin had arrived on the scene and punched a gigantic hole in her silly facade.

      Leaving the Grove Park Inn far behind her, Cassie headed for the south end of town, preoccupied with the way Nick had made her dizzy the minute he took her in his arms. She let her fingers find the warm flesh of her throat and marveled that her skin still tingled from the ravishing kisses he’d placed along her neck. Just thinking of him now, in fact, made her pulse lurch again and sent even a warmer glow straight to the center of her stomach.

      Shuddering, Cassie tried not to think what might have happened if she hadn’t somehow found the strength to push him away. A few hasty kisses on her neck had rendered her defenseless. If his fiery mouth had captured her own…

      She snapped out of her fantasy when an oncoming car blasted its horn. Somehow, she managed to get the Lexus back into her own lane, but the quick movement slid the car sideways and promptly landed it in the ditch. Shaking now from fright, instead of her brief fantasy about Nick, Cassie gripped the steering wheel and took long measured breaths until she could force her heart back into her chest.

      “Dammit,” she said, pounding her fist against the steering wheel. “What else can possibly go wrong tonight?”

      After flipping on her emergency signal lights, Cassie launched herself from the Lexus and stomped to the back of the car. Glaring at the right back tire that was currently sitting in the deep rut by the side of the road, her first impulse was to take her frustration out on the car. Pretending it was Nick Hardin’s mocking face she was abusing, she gave the tire a swift kick and promptly broke the heel of her four-inch stiletto pump.

      “Would someone please tell me what I’ve done to deserve so much grief?” Cassie howled. “This was supposed to be my six weeks of fun-filled freedom. Remember?”

      When she didn’t get an answer, she jerked the shoe off her foot, then let out a loud yelp when the sharp gravel shredded her new panty hose and took a quick bite out of the bottom of her foot. “Just shoot me now and get it over with,” she mumbled, glaring at the shoe whose heel was now twisted at a silly angle and just as useless as Cassie felt standing by the side of the road, shoe in hand.

      After several cars passed without slowing down, Cassie was prepared to throw herself across the pavement when the next pair of headlights appeared in the distance. Fortunately, her sacrifice wasn’t necessary. What appeared to be a small sports car suddenly slowed down, then pulled off the road and stopped a few feet behind her.

      “There is a God,” she mumbled under her breath.

      Shielding her eyes against the bright headlights with her right hand, she saw the silhouette of a man get out of the car and start walking in her direction. “Hey, thanks for stopping,” she called out, putting on her brightest smile. But her smile quickly faded when she saw who it was.

      Sauntering up beside her, Nick leaned against the Lexus, then sent her a silly grin. “This must be your lucky night, counselor. You’ve had the pleasure of seeing me twice in one evening.”

      “Are you following me?” Cassie snapped.

      “Think about it, sweetheart,” Nick jeered. “We both live in the same neighborhood, remember? Or did you think this highway was for your exclusive use only?”

      Cassie’s only answer was a she-devil glare.

      Pushing himself off the car, Nick bent down and examined the tire. Glancing back over his shoulder, he grinned again. “What happened? Did you run off the road daydreaming about me?”

      The truth in Nick’s statement reddened Cassie’s cheeks faster than a blistering arctic wind. “The only dreams I have about you are of the nightmare variety,” she informed him.

      Nick chuckled, then stood up and held out his hand. “Give me your keys and I’ll see if I can get you out of this ditch.”

      “Don’t bother, I’d rather walk.”

      Nick’s eyes swept from the shoe in her hand to her one bare foot. “That should be amusing, since you seem to have only one workable shoe.”

      Cassie was tempted to take off her one workable shoe and make a neat hole in the center of Nick’s forehead with its knife-sharp heel. Instead, she nodded toward the car. “The keys are in the ignition.”

      Nick opened the car door and slid behind the wheel, then motioned for Cassie to step away from the car. He pulled the Lexus forward a few feet, then backed it up, and as if by magic, drove it safely up on the graveled shoulder beside the highway.

      Cassie waited until he opened the door and got out before she hobbled in his direction doing a perfect imitation of a peg-legged pirate with a sawed-off wooden leg.

      “Thanks,” she mumbled, choking on the word.

      “Hey, what are neighbors for?” Nick teased, but Cassie refused to look at him again.

      When he remained leaning against the driver’s side door blocking her escape, Cassie made a dramatic production

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