Ain’t Misbehaving

He was so beautiful. His dark hair and dark eyes and the way he moved, his breadth of shoulder and lean, taut thighs and the soul of him, so rich when he opened up. Humor, gentleness, the tender, special touch of his hands… She didn’t know all of his mysteries yet, but she trusted him all the same. It wasn’t sane, but it was instinctive. This man she could love.

“Mitch?”

His fingertip traced the tremble of his name on her lips. He traced it once, then a second time, then roughly started shoving her hair under her hat. “This time,” he murmured, “you’re going home. You don’t even know me, dark eyes.”

“Whose fault is that?” Kay said softly.

Mitch hesitated, and then offered a very slow smile. “Mine?”

Kay planted her hands on her hips. “You’re getting smarter, handsome. I’ll give you that.”

Chapter Seven

Kay tapped her foot in front of her open closet door. “Appear, ravishing outfit,” she commanded.

At least a dozen skirts and dresses mutely confronted her. Nothing was strictly wrong with any of them. At least nothing had seemed wrong with them yesterday.

Mitch had said it was to be a business dinner. With a man they would pick up at the Spokane airport. Stanley Hemerling. They would meet his flight, wine him and dine him, and put him back on the 10:45 plane to Los Angeles.

Very odd.

But she’d jumped at the chance to learn more about Mitch, to be included in his life. The only problem was what to wear. Formal? Casual? Was she supposed to impress or understate? Exactly what do you wear for two men who collect rocks for a living?

Rocks, she muttered dourly. Something was rotten in Denmark. But what can you expect from a man who interrupts an incredibly successful seduction to play football?

She tugged a violet-striped shirtdress from the closet, studied it and shoved it abruptly back in place. Boring. The red frock was dressy enough, but didn’t seem appropriate. Black made her skin look like a washed-out dust cloth; she hated the thing. The pink was just a little on the bright side.

At 6:25, she rapidly tugged on an Oriental number her mother had given her the Christmas before. Her mother had the same love for wild colors that Kay did. The dress was a blend of violets and pinks and orchids, with black piping at the mandarin collar and long sleeves. Viewing her image in the mirror, she grimaced. Conservative it wasn’t. Actually, expensive it wasn’t either; she just loved the crazy dress.

In the four minutes she had left to put on makeup, she played up her eyes with shadow and mascara. She was about to swing her hair up in a coil when the doorbell rang.

In the next life, of course, she was going to be punctual. She slipped on black heels as she pumped the perfume atomizer at her throat and wrists, and with a hairbrush in her hand raced for the door.

She took one look at Mitch and muttered a despairing “oh, God” before racing back to the bedroom.

“I know. We’re meeting a plane,” she called back. “Just give me five minutes, Mitch, no more, I promise-”

Thoroughly rattled, she fumbled with the frogs at the front of her dress while simultaneously glancing through her closet again. Oriental would not do. The dress slipped to the floor, ignored, as she fumbled with hangers.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Kay ducked instantly behind the closet door, still fumbling with hangers. When she had tugged on a black knit skirt, she ventured a quick glance around the door. Mitch was still standing there, looking totally intimidating in a stark navy Savile Row suit-he’d never bought that in Moscow-and a crisply starched white linen Oxford shirt.

The dark suit and his dark coloring brought out the dramatic intensity of his looks, but it wasn’t that. She could suddenly picture him in a boardroom, quelling people with a look, commanding respect with total authority. Nice, she thought wryly. Why did she keep telling herself he needed someone to pull him out of his shell? The man dripped assurance.

The only thing familiar about him at all was his eyes. They looked exceedingly wicked, and very familiar.

“Could you at least give me a small hint why you’re changing a perfectly good dress at this particular time?”

She could hear the distinct note of Patient Male in his voice. Ducking her head back inside the closet, she burrowed into the black knit top. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I can’t hear you.”

She finished tugging the top over her head and peered over at him with a sudden grin. Men could occasionally be ridiculously stupid. There was no point explaining that if he was dressed in a five-hundred-dollar suit, she could hardly pair up with him looking as if she’d just stepped out of a bargain basement. “Since you’re here you can make yourself useful.” She backed up.

He zipped. And then he watched her rapidly fuss with her hair, piling it all up into some kind of topknot. Her cheeks were flushed; he understood that she was embarrassed because he was in her bedroom while she was dressing, but he couldn’t move.

He stared at her, mesmerized. The black outfit was classically styled, and the knit clung faithfully to her figure, and he recognized the rope of pearls she slipped around her neck as very old and very good, probably an heirloom. She’d achieved the sophistication she had apparently been aiming for. And Mitch was fascinated with watching the transformation, the way she fussed with bottles and brushes and riffled through the tiny jewelry box on her bureau.

She was beautiful…but black was not her color, and he knew instinctively that she wasn’t going to be his Kay for the entire evening. Her eyes were overbright, and when she confronted him in the doorway with the finished product, her posture was a little stiff-not at all Kay. And her hands didn’t quite know what to do with themselves.

That hint of vulnerability was supposed to be hidden under the sophisticated veneer. Kay wanted him to see her as a woman he would be proud to have on his arm, a woman he could easily take to a business dinner. Popcorn and football games and fire towers were fine, but she was a long way from childhood and so was he.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

She relaxed, a little. “This is better, isn’t it?” she asked, but the question was rhetorical.

“There was absolutely nothing wrong with the dress you had on,” he told her.

She flicked imaginary lint from his shoulder and inhaled the faint scent of his aftershave. “It wasn’t right. I could tell the minute you walked in the door.”

“Kay, there’s no need to worry about this dinner. If I’d thought you’d be nervous, I would have told you-”

“I’m not in the least nervous,” she assured him instantly.

“You’re in an argumentative mood,” he murmured dryly.

“I am not.”

Mitch chuckled, steering her out of the bedroom. “Have I really caused all this trouble simply by showing up at your door in a suit? Most men do own suits, you know.”

Most men owned suits, but they didn’t look as sexy as he did in them. On the way to the airport she was aware that Mitch was making an effort to relax her, and thought wryly that the shoe was definitely on the other foot tonight. Up till now, she was the one who had made massive efforts to help him feel comfortable.

Not being the nervous type, she wasn’t exactly sure why she was all but trembling with nerves. The well was deeper than she’d thought; that was part of it. Mitch was not a simple man. And his wealth and assurance suddenly stood out like neon lights in darkness; she wasn’t at all sure what was expected of her at this dinner.

It didn’t help when he suddenly reached behind him to the backseat and brought up a small white box. Dropping it in her lap, he took his eyes off the road only long enough to wink at her. “Present,” he said lightly.

Her fingers opened the white tissue paper, while Mitch reached up to switch on the car’s overhead light. Giving him a startled glance, she gently fingered the exquisite carving. It was a fig tree, five inches high, its leaves