LITMIR.BIZ

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Furious with herself for not thinking of that possibility sooner, she hit speed dial.

      To her infinite relief, the duchess had heard nothing about the incident. Sarah tried to downplay it by making the kidnappers sound like bungling amateurs. Charlotte was neither amused nor fooled.

      “Were you the target,” she asked sharply, “or Devon?”

      “Devon, of course. Or rather his billions.”

      “Are you sure? There may still be some fanatics left in the old country. Not many after all this time, I would guess. But your grandfather... Those murderous death squads...” Her voice fluttered. “They hated everything our family stood for.”

      “These men wanted money,” Sarah said gently, “and Dev made them extremely sorry they went after it the way they did. One of them is going to need a whole new face.”

      “Good!”

      The duchess had regained her bite, and her granddaughter breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon, it turned out.

      “Bring Devon home with you, Sarah. I want to thank him personally. And tell him I see no need for a long engagement,” Charlotte added briskly. “Too many brides today spend months, even years, planning their weddings. I thank God neither of my granddaughters are prone to such dithering.”

      “Grandmama...”

      “Gina tends to leap before she looks. You, my darling, are more cautious. More deliberate. But when you choose, you choose wisely. In this instance, I believe you made an excellent choice.”

      Sarah couldn’t confess that she hadn’t precisely chosen Dev. Nor was she up to explaining that their relationship was based on a lie. All she could do was try to rein in the duchess.

      “I’m not to the point of even thinking about wedding plans, Grandmama. I just got engaged.”

      And unengaged, although Dev appeared to have a different take on the matter.

      “You don’t have to concern yourself with the details, dearest. I’ll call the Plaza and have Andrew take care of everything.”

      “Good grief!” Momentarily distracted, Sarah gasped. “Is Andrew still at the Plaza?”

      Her exclamation earned an icy retort. “The younger generation may choose to consign seniors to the dustbin,” the duchess returned frigidly. “Some of us are not quite ready to be swept out with the garbage.”

      Uh-oh. Before Sarah could apologize for the unintended slight, Charlotte abandoned her lofty perch and got down to business.

      “How about the first weekend in May? That’s such a lovely month for a wedding.”

      “Grandmama! It’s mid-April now!”

      “Didn’t you hear me a moment ago? Long engagements are a bore.”

      “But...but...” Scrambling, Sarah grabbed at the most likely out. “I’m sure the Plaza is booked every weekend in May for the next three years.”

      Her grandmother heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Sarah, dearest, did I never tell you about the reception I hosted for the Sultan of Oman?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “It was in July...no, August of 1962. Quite magnificent, if I do say so myself. President Kennedy and his wife attended, of course, as did the Rockefellers. Andrew was a very new, very junior waiter at the time. But the letter I sent to his supervisor commending his handling of an embarrassingly inebriated presidential aide helped catapult him to his present exalted position.”

      How could Sarah possibly respond to that? Swept along on a relentless tidal wave, she gripped the phone as the duchess issued final instructions. “Talk to Devon, dearest. Make sure the first weekend in May is satisfactory for him. And tell him I’ll take care of everything.”

      Feeling almost as dazed as she had when Elise Girault’s smarmy ex-lover manhandled her into that white van, Sarah said goodbye. Her meal forgotten, she sat with her phone in hand for long moments. The call to her grandmother had left her more confused, more torn.

      Dev had risked his life for her. And that was after he’d confronted the photographer from Beguile. As angry as he’d been about her magazine stalking him, he’d still raced to her rescue. Then, of course, he’d accused her of being party to the ruse. As much as she wanted to, Sarah couldn’t quite get past the disgust she’d seen in his face at that moment.

      Yet he’d also shown her moments of incredible tenderness in their short time together. Moments of thoughtfulness and laughter and incredible passion. She couldn’t get past those, either.

      Or the fact that she’d responded to him so eagerly. So damned joyously. However they’d met, whatever odd circumstances had thrown them together, Dev Hunter stirred—and satisfied—a deep, almost primal feminine hunger she’d never experienced before.

      The problem, Sarah mused as she paid her check and walked out into the deepening dusk, was that everything had happened so quickly. Dev’s surprise appearance at her office. His bold-faced offer of a deal. Their fake engagement. This trip to Paris. She’d been caught up in the whirlwind since the day Dev had showed up at her office and tilted her world off its axis. The speed of it, the intensity of it, had magnified emotions and minimized any chance to catch her breath.

      What they needed, she decided as she keyed the door to her room, was time and some distance from each other. A cooling-off period, after which they could start over. Assuming Dev wanted to start over, of course. Bracing herself for what she suspected would be an uncomfortable discussion, she picked up the house phone and called his room.

      He answered on the second ring. “Hunter.”

      “It’s Sarah.”

      “I got your message. Did you have a good dinner?”

      She couldn’t miss the steel under the too-polite query. He wasn’t happy that she’d gone to eat without him.

      “I did, thank you. Can you come down to my room? Or I’ll come to yours, if that’s more convenient.”

      “More convenient for what?”

      All right. She understood he was still angry. As Grandmama would say, however, that was no excuse for boorishness.

      “We need to finish the conversation we started earlier,” she said coolly.

      He answered with a brief silence, followed by a terse agreement. “I’ll come to your room.”

      * * *

      Dev thought he’d done a damned good job of conquering his fury over that business with the photographer. Yes, he’d let it get the better of him when he’d accused Sarah’s magazine of staging her own abduction. And yes, he’d come on a little strong earlier this evening when she’d questioned whether he’d hold to his end of their agreement.

      He’d had plenty of time to regret both lapses. She’d seen to that by slipping out of the hotel without him. The brief message she’d left while he was in the shower had pissed him off all over again.

      Now she’d issued a summons in that aristocratic lady-of-the-manor tone. She’d better not try to shove the emerald at him again. Or deliver any more crap about their “arrangement” being over. They were long past the arrangement stage, and she knew it. She was just too stubborn to admit it.

      She’d just have to accept that he wasn’t perfect. He’d screwed up this afternoon by throwing that accusation at her. He’d apologize again. Crawl if he had to. Whatever it took, he intended to make it clear she wasn’t rid of him. Not by a long shot.

      That was the plan, anyway, right up until she opened the door. The mottled purple on her cheek tore the heart and the heat right out of him. Curling a knuckle, he brushed it gently across the skin below the bruise.

      “Does this hurt as bad as it looks?”

      “Not

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