“Too often. What can I…” Kayla caught her slip. “I mean, what can Charmed! do for you, Mr.…?”
“McDermott. Kane McDermott.”
“Are you here for the wine-tasting class, Mr. McDermott? Because it’s been canceled.”
He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “I can see why. It’s a damn furnace in here.”
“Actually it is the furnace.”
“Which explains why you’ve stripped for summer before the start of the season.” All traces of awkwardness gone, his smoky gaze fell on the silk shell that clung to her skin.
Embarrassment nearly suffocated her. She started to cross her arms and stopped, realizing she’d only made an uncomfortable situation worse. Bold admiration lit his chiseled features, the frank look at her breasts common to most men she came in contact with. Throughout her twenty-five years, she’d grown to both know and hate that stark, assessing look. Yet somehow, with his velvet stare now raised and boring into hers, she couldn’t take offense.
Even so, she couldn’t possibly be interested in a stranger with too many inconsistencies in his character. Awkward one minute, self-assured the next, Kayla couldn’t help but wonder who he was.
And what he wanted.
She brazenly looked him over. He might have been prepared to walk into a photo shoot instead of her place of business. His dark hair was full, the bottom curling around his collar. The cut was longer than most nine-to-fivers preferred and added a dangerous edge to his appearance. The hard look in his eyes seemed to verify that impression. The perfectly sculpted features were at odds with the man inside. Mr. Kane McDermott had been around life’s many corners more than a few times.
He wasn’t the ordinary man who frequented her aunt and uncle’s establishment. Her establishment, she reminded herself. The man was a paying customer, and that meant she had to quit dissecting him and get down to business.
“Can I get you a cold drink?” she asked. She had bottles of water in the office refrigerator.
He leaned against the wall, one shoulder propped against the scarred wooden paneling. His potent gaze never strayed from hers. “How about I buy you a drink?” he asked in that seductive voice. “I mean…oh, hell. I can’t pull this off.”
“Pull what off? What’s going on?”
“I can’t pretend I’m a guy who can’t get his own woman and needs lessons in how to approach a pretty female.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You think that’s the service we offer?”
“‘Let her be Charmed!’?” he asked, repeating her aunt’s company slogan. “It was on the website my friend directed me to.”
“I see. Well, we’ve advanced beyond those days. Not that we can’t offer basic etiquette lessons if you need them, but…” His words suddenly penetrated her brain. “What do you mean you can’t pull this off? That you can’t pretend you’re a geek in need of training?” she asked warily. She’d wondered about his agenda and it wasn’t like her to be sidetracked by a hot guy—which made this one all the more dangerous.
“A friend of mine sent me here. He attended one of your dance classes last year. Your name is too unique for me to be mistaken.”
She narrowed her gaze. “What’s your friend’s name?” Kayla asked.
“John Fredericks. Says he nearly flunked out of Ballroom Dancing.”
She remembered the lessons her aunt had insisted they offer and the man Kane had mentioned. “That’s because he had two left feet and was preoccupied with landing a date for New Year’s Eve.” She couldn’t see that good-natured but shy man as a friend of Kane McDermott’s, but apparently appearances were deceiving. If John and Kane were friends, Kane had just handed her a reference she could trust. “How is John?” she asked.
“His company sent him overseas. He said to ask your aunt for tips on dating French women,” Kane said with a grin. “For the next time he calls.”
Kayla felt a pang of regret. “She’d have been glad to give him advice. She liked John, too.”
“What happened?” Kane asked, his tone now soft. He’d obviously picked up on her past tense mention of her aunt.
“She and my uncle were killed a couple of months ago.”
“Together?” he asked, clearly surprised.
“Yes.” Tears stung behind her eyes, as they did each time she had to speak of the accident and the aunt with whom she’d had so much in common. They shared an above-average IQ as well as a special relationship, due in large part to the fact that her aunt understood the oddity of being too smart.
Kayla shook off the memories and focused on her visitor. “The police said they skidded in the rain and hit a tree.”
“I’m sorry, that must have been rough.”
She nodded. “I didn’t know my uncle well. They’d only been married a little over a year, but at least he made her happy before she—” Kayla stopped, realizing she was confiding in a total stranger.
“I’m really sorry.” He paused. “John will be sorry, too.”
“Thank you.” She lowered her gaze before meeting his stare once more. “But my aunt being gone doesn’t change the facts.”
He propped a hip against the nearby desk. “Which are?”
“You came in here pretending to be something you’re not.”
He flinched. “And that was wrong. But John…he thought we’d hit it off.” He glanced down at his hands.
“Why didn’t you just say that when you came in?” This man was full of contradictions.
“Because you can’t trust someone else’s opinion. Hell, that’s like accepting a blind date. So I…came in here to check you out,” he admitted, not meeting her gaze.
She thought about his reference to ballroom dancing classes and narrowed her gaze. “John must have told you about me a long time ago.” Why was he just walking in here now?
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Because Charmed! rarely gives classes for the dating impaired anymore and they aren’t listed on the website. We concentrate more on the international business arena now.”
He had the grace and manners to look embarrassed. “I knew the minute I saw you I couldn’t pretend
