She had the brass to laugh. "I gotta admit, not being regarded for once as the Slut of Golddigger Gulch is a nice change of pace."
Grasping her upper arms, he backed her against the nearest wall. "Just who the hell are you, lady?"
She didn't pretend confusion. Palms pressed flat against the wainscoting at her back, she tilted her chin up and looked him straight in the eye. "Exactly who I claimed to be right from the start, Soldier Boy. Glynnis's friend."
"Right. And you just ditched your career out of the goodness of your heart so you could come along and keep me from wrecking the so-called love match of the century?"
"I'm not ditching anything. I'm a chef for a corporate yacht, and my next trip doesn't leave port until the last week in May. But, yes." She shrugged. "That's precisely why I came along. I tried to tell you David was different, but you refused to listen."
The firm feel of her shoulders shifting beneath his hands reminded him that touching her—especially right now when his feelings were so screwed up—wasn't the wisest idea in the world, and he released her like a hot spud. "I might have been more inclined to pay attention if you'd bothered to let me know you actually worked for a living." Then he mentally winced. This is your big apology ? As bad-tempered and burdened as he felt this morning, it didn't escape him that he was being unreasonable. And the real pisser was, his mood didn't even have all that much to do with the revelation that Lily wasn't the little money grubber he'd accused her of being. Discovering he'd been acting like a jerk toward her was merely the sprinkles on his cupcake.
Somehow Lily seemed to know it, too. "I don't feel a burning need to justify myself to people who make idiotic assumptions," she said with a commendable lack of rancor for someone who had every right to be dancing around taking pokes at him and singing na-na-na-na-na . "I have a feeling that's not your biggest beef, anyhow," she said, staring up at him. "What is this really all about, Zach?"
Gut churning, he stepped back. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do. You were already tense when I came down to breakfast. Does it have anything to do with Mrs. Beaumont?" She reached out and touched his arm, a sudden anxiety scudding across her eyes. "Did she say something? Discover something about Glynnis and David's situation?"
The ire that had been eating him alive all morning came boiling to the surface, and he slapped his hand down on the wall next to her shoulder. "Finally. Someone who acknowledges that Glynnie, too, is at risk."
Her eyes widened. "Well, of course she is."
"No one else around here seems to think so! They're all so friggin' worried about their precious David —but I have yet to hear a single word of concern for my sister. Jesus, Lily. It's as if she doesn't exist."
"I'm sure it's just because they don't know her, Zach."
Incensed, he leaned into her. "I don't know Darling David either, but at least I have the decency to pretend I care."
Lily's lips twitched, but she merely said, "No, what I mean is, I imagine Glynnis probably doesn't seem quite real to them, since none of them has ever actually met her."
"I don't want to hear any lame excuses—there's no justification for their behavior!" Bracing both forearms on the wall on either side of her head, he bent his knees and leaned into her so closely they only escaped a full body press by a hair's-breadth. Such close proximity had him sucking in the warm, lemony-sugary scent of her, and suddenly all his pent-up agitation veered off in a brand new direction. Or maybe not so new. Either way, feeling jumpy and restless and in need of a safe outlet to blow off some steam, he found himself dipping his nose until it almost touched the contour of her neck, where he inhaled deeply. Her fragrance seemed to emanate from her skin rather than any one particular pulse point, but he wasn't fussy about the source. He merely breathed her in, then had to slick his tongue across lips suddenly gone dry. "Ah, man. I want to kiss you."
She froze. "What?"
He pulled his head back far enough to look down at her, aware of the heavy drumming of his heart against his ribs. "I want to kiss you. Have wanted to kiss you since practically the first minute I laid eyes on you."
"Yeah, right," she scoffed. "My tush , you have."
"Hey, it's no lie. But since I have this ironclad rule about never making time with women out to steal my sister's inherit—" He trailed off. Oh, good going, Romeo. Be sure to remind her of all the insults you've hurled at her — that oughtta put her in a lather to jump your bones . "What I mean to say is, I couldn't act on it."
"Uh-huh," she said neutrally. "So, I've officially been cleared, then, of only wanting to be friends with Glynnis for her money?"
"Yes. I guess I owe you a pretty big apology for some of the things I've said."
"Gee, ya think?" She regarded him with those brilliant blue eyes. "Have I been cleared of the slut charges, too? Or, wait. Maybe it's the fact you do still think I'm one that's fueling this sudden desire to kiss me."
"No—I mean, yes. Shit." He looked down at her and shrugged helplessly. It was exactly this sort of female doublespeak that drove him up the wall, and by rights, having to deal with it now on top of everything else going on ought to banish his hard-on right into soprano country.
But it didn't seem to be working that way. "Let me try this in English. No, that's not the reason I want to kiss you," he clarified. "And yes, you've been cleared of that charge." As if getting to kiss her was a likely prospect, anyway. Why the hell was he giving her the opportunity to get her rocks off by rejecting him? The smart money said he should just turn and walk away.
Lately, however, smart wasn't exactly the first word he'd use to describe himself—so why start now? He stayed where he was, staring down at her in frustration.
"So let me see if I've got this straight." She drew a slow, deep breath, and the action brushed her breasts against his diaphragm, sending him sucking for a breath of his own.
Then she ticked off the points on her fingers. "I'm off the hook for the charge of trying to lead Glynnis astray in order to get my mitts on her moolah. I apparently no longer top the Ten Tawdriest Sluts list. And you have a sudden urge to kiss me." A small, crooked smile tugged at her lips as she looked up at him.
He lowered his head until his mouth was a fraction of an inch from hers. "There's nothing sudden about it, Lil. But, affirmative. That about covers it."
"Well, I've only got one thing to say to that, bud." Her tongue stole out to moisten her bottom lip.
Watching the movement, he had to rein in the impulse to simply take what he wanted, and political correctness be damned. He dragged his gaze up to meet her eyes. "Let me guess. Get bent?"
"That's two words, Taylor, and I only need one. It's short; it's sweet. It's—" " "No.Iget it ."
"—Okay."
"The only damn service I provided your sister," Christopher said, tugging Jessica into their suite, "was offering to jump-start the battery in her car."
"Yes, so you said downstairs." Jessica watched him as he set her loose and began pacing their bedroom. God, he was handsome. With his sculpted cheekbones, gold-streaked brown hair, and leaf-green eyes, he could have been a model, and she knew perfectly well what people thought whenever they saw the two of them together—how on earth had such a Greek God ever ended up with someone as plain and dowdy as she? Not that Jessica blamed them. She often wondered the same thing herself… and very much feared she knew the answer, that he'd married her for her connections.
They'd met two years ago at a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser, the decorations of which had been designed by her committee. It was a night she'd never forget, because she'd never realized until then that a person could meet someone and feel such instant recognition, as if their souls spoke to one another. After just one conversation with the tall, unbelievably handsome guy in the perfectly fitted tux, she'd known he was the man for her.