She knew he was going to kiss her. What she didn't know was whether or not she wanted him to. "Why—why are you doing this?"
"Damned if I know," he said, then took her mouth.
His kiss was gentle and seductive, a practiced perfection. Addy trembled, her own lips responding, surrendering to a power she'd never known, an enticement she was unable to resist. She sighed, longing for more. Placing his hand on her hip, he stroked her through her cotton gown as he deepened the kiss.
Addy eased her hands upward, twining them around his neck. The minute his tongue entered her mouth, he felt himself spiraling out of control. It had been a long time since he'd gotten aroused so quickly, so thoroughly. If he didn't stop things immediately, he'd be flinging her down on her bed and ripping off that little-girl gown she wore. He'd be finding out how many freckles she had on her body and exactly where they were located.
He broke away from her, releasing her, gently pulling her arms from around his neck. "You're wearing a disguise, Addy McConnell. You wrap yourself up in your Plain-Jane clothes and pretend you're an iceberg, that you dislike sex."
"It—it isn't a disguise." Her words came out choppy, on quick, heated little breaths. Nick had kissed her more thoroughly than she'd ever been kissed in her life, and she was still reeling from the aftereffects. "I am a Plain Jane who dislikes chest-beating Neanderthal men. And I am an iceberg. Just ask my ex-husband."
Nick walked away from her, then turned when he reached the door. "Why should I ask that bastard anything, when I got all the proof I needed, first hand, that you're hot as a firecracker?"
"I am not!"
Nick grinned. "That was a compliment, Red. I like my women hot."
"I am not one of your women."
Nick opened the door, paused briefly, then looked back at Addy. "But you will be." Before she could reply, be walked out and closed the door behind him.
She stood, speechless, her mouth agape, her gaze focused on the door. A riot of emotions exploded inside her. Desire. Anger. Passion. Outrage. She wanted to hit something, preferably Nick Romero. "Of all the overconfident, strutting peacocks! He's insufferable! If he thinks for one minute that—that…" Addy couldn't finish her sentence. Visions of Nick Romero's big body filled her mind. Nick, pressing down onto her, into her, his dark eyes devouring her as he took her. Addy shook her head, trying to erase her erotic thoughts.
In a few hours, after she'd pacified her father by having breakfast with him, she would go home. She had no intention of being around Nick Romero one minute longer than she had to. After today, she'd never have to see him again.
Chapter 3
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Addy had delayed going downstairs for breakfast as long as she possibly could. Her father had already sent Mrs. Hargett upstairs twice, the last time relaying a command that she join the others at once.
Glancing out the windows onto the front lawn of her father's estate, located about ten miles outside of Huntsville, Addy thought again how much the rich green lawns and towering old trees reminded her of her mother's ancestral estate where they'd lived until Madeline's death. Wanting to escape all the agonizing memories of his son's kidnapping and subsequent murder and his wife's suicide four years later, Rusty McConnell had taken Addy away, moved her into a sparkling new mansion, pure and untainted by any reminders of a past too painful to remember. She had missed Elm Hill, the vast acres of rolling pastures and thickly wooded forests. Even now, she dreamed of someday returning and living out the rest of her life in the house where five generations of Delacourts had been born and raised. Someday … when she had laid all her fears to rest.
Her mother and Janice's mother had been the last of the line, both women now dead, leaving only the two cousins as heirs to family pride and genteel breeding. And Elm Hill had stood vacant for twenty-five years, Janice having neither the desire nor the money to renovate the old place and Addy, with more than enough money, but not enough courage to fight the demons from her childhood.
Instead, she'd bought a house in Huntsville's historic district, Twickenham.
A sharp, loud knock at her bedroom door snapped Addy out of her rambling thoughts. "Yes?"
The door opened. Mrs. Hargett stood outside in the hallway. "I'm terribly sorry to keep bothering you like this, but—"
"Is he threatening to come and drag me downstairs kicking and screaming?" Addy laughed, remembering how many times during her difficult adolescent years her father had issued similar warnings. Having a daughter with her mother's old-fashioned breeding but none of her delicate blond beauty had often confused Rusty McConnell. But not nearly as much as the mixture of personality traits she had inherited from Madeline and himself. Cool, calm and ever the lady. Rusty liked that. What he didn't like was her stubbornness, which was one of his own most prominent qualities.
"Yes, ma'am. That's what he said." Mrs. Hargett, small and skinny, with round black eyes that were the only bright spot in her pale colorless face, smiled, crinkling the feathery wrinkles that lined her eyes and mouth. "He ordered me to give you that message, but then he told me to wait. He looked over at that Mr. Romero, you know, Mrs. Lunden's brother-in-law."
Agitating circles formed in the pit of Addy's stomach. "You don't have to tell me. He said to let me know that if I didn't come down, posthaste, he'd send Ni—Mr. Romero up to fetch me."
"Mr. McConnell can be outrageous sometimes, can't he?" Mrs. Hargett shook her head, not disturbing one curl of her neatly permed short gray hair that was coated with a hair spray with the sealing powers of a good lacquer.
"There'll be no need for a return message." Addy picked up her purse from the nightstand. "I might as well get this over with."
Together, she and Mrs. Hargett descended the staircase, but once in the foyer the housekeeper turned toward the kitchen while Addy squared her broad shoulders and marched into the dining room.
Rusty McConnell disliked antique furniture. Elm Hill had been filled with five generations of acquisition. Every stick of furniture in this mansion was expensive and new. Rusty sat at the head of the dark oak dining table, a traditional-style buffet at his back, an enormous matching china cabinet at the opposite end of the room, directly behind Dina, who turned and glared at Addy, a look of resentment in her cool blue eyes. Addy wondered what had prompted that look. Something was going on. More than she'd bargained for, she feared.
"About time you got down here." Rusty flicked the ashes from the tip of his cigar into a small brass tray. "We've all finished with breakfast."
"I'm not hungry." Addy, her steps quick and unfaltering, sailed past Dina, not even acknowledging her presence. She stopped briefly to touch Brett on the back. He turned his bright smile on her. "Good morning."
"Why the hell did you put on that dirty, ripped dress you were wearing last night?" Rusty asked, scooting his chair backward, preparing to stand. "You've got a closet full of clothes in your room."
Standing by her father's chair, Addy placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Don't get up, Daddy." She bent down, kissing him on the cheek. "You really should have given those clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army years ago."
Rusty grunted, then gave his daughter a quick kiss on her forehead. "Sit down. We've got a lot to discuss."
"Make it quick." Addy didn't sit down. Picking up a cup filled with hot, black coffee, she brought it to her lips. "I'm going home, so don't try to stop me."
"I knew you wouldn't want to stay here," Rusty said. "So I've made arrangements to keep you safe in your own home."
Addy sipped the strong, eye-opening coffee. Suspiciously glaring at her father, she tried to figure out why he was being so agreeable. She'd been sure she'd have a battle royal on her hands this morning, certain he'd insist she move back into the mansion and be kept under lock and key twenty-four hours a day. "What's the catch?"