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Passions ignite for these gorgeous and wealthy bachelors!

The Millionaire’s
Club: Jacob,
Logan & Marc

Three arrogant and seductive heroes you’ll

never forget from three favourite authors!

In July 2010 Mills & Boon bring you four classic collections, each featuring three favourite romances by our bestselling authors

THE PRINCES’ BRIDES

by Sandra Marton

The Italian Prince’s Pregnant Bride

The Greek Prince’s Chosen Wife

The Spanish Prince’s Virgin Bride

TYCOON’S CHOICE

Kept by the Tycoon by Lee Wilkinson

Taken by the Tycoon by Kathryn Ross

The Tycoon’s Proposal by Leigh Michaels

THE MILLIONAIRE’S CLUB:
JACOB, LOGAN & MARC

Black-Tie Seduction by Cindy Gerard

Less-Than-Innocent Invitation by Shirley Rogers

Strictly Confidential Attraction by Brenda Jackson

SAYING ‘YES!’ TO THE BOSS

Having Her Boss’s Baby by Susan Mallery

Business or Pleasure? by Julie Hogan

Business Affairs by Shirley Rogers

The Millionaire’s
Club: Jacob,
Logan & Marc
Cindy Gerard
Shirley Rogers
Brenda Jackson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

First published in Great Britain 2010

Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

Black-Tie Seduction, Less-than-Innocent Invitation and Strictly Confidential Attraction were first published in Great Britain by Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited in separate, single volumes.

Black-Tie Seduction © Harlequin Books S.A. 2005 Less-than-Innocent Invitation © Harlequin Books S.A. 2005 Strictly Confidential Attraction © Harlequin Books S.A. 2005

Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Cindy Gerard, Shirley Rogers and Brenda Jackson for their contribution to THE MILLIONAI RE’S CLUB series.

ISBN: 978-1-408-92109-8

Version: 2019-01-18

Black-Tie Seduction

by

Cindy Gerard

Cindy Gerard has repeatedly made appearances on several bestseller lists, including USA TODAY.

With numerous industry awards to her credit – among them the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award and the National Reader’s Choice Award – this former Golden Heart finalist and repeat Romantic Times nominee is the real deal. As one book reviewer put it, “Cindy Gerard provides everything romance readers want in a love story, passion, gut-wrenching emotion, intriguing characters and a captivating plot. This storyteller extraordinaire delivers all of this and more!”

Cindy and her husband, Tom, live in the Midwest on a mini-farm with quarter horses, cats and two very spoiled dogs. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and spending time at their cabin in northern Minnesota unwinding with family and friends.

Cindy loves to hear from her readers and invites you to visit her website at www.cindygerard.com.

This book is dedicated to the fabulous women who worked so hard to make this new segment of THE MILLIONAIRE’S CLUB saga the best yet!

Shirley Rogers, Brenda Jackson, Michelle Celmer, Sara Orwig and Kristi Gold.

Ladies, it’s been my great pleasure!

Prologue

From the diary of Jessamine Golden July 4, 1905

Dear Diary,

Today my life changed. It came out of the blue. Like a lightning strike in the midst of a sunset storm or the fireworks lighting up the sky during tonight’s celebration of our country’s independence. I’m not sure how else to describe what happened to me when I first set eyes on Brad Webster—or how to describe the clash of wills when he drew me aside and told me how things were going to be.

“I run a clean town,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble from you.”

He looked stern and angry and so very serious when he talked to me. And yet he didn’t arrest me, this man who walks on the opposite path that fate has set for me.

Sheriff Brad Webster. Just writing his name makes my heart kick around inside my chest like a string of wild ponies. Saying it out loud makes my fingers tremble and my face flush hot and sends strange warm flames licking through my belly. You’d think I’d been smoking locoweed. And it is loco for me to be so obsessed by him.

But despite his anger at me, he is the most beautiful man…if a man can be called beautiful. I remember some years ago Daddy and I were riding strays and we came upon this herd of wild mustangs. The stallion was big and ink-black and, oh, he was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Sleek and muscled, tall and strong. One look in that big guy’s eyes and you knew he was proud and brave.

That’s what I thought when I saw the sheriff. Like that wild stallion, he is proud and brave. His hair is ink-black. His eyes are the most fascinating Texas-sky-blue. And tall. Lordy, is that man tall. But he’s no beanpole. Oh, no. He’s got the build of a working man. And he’s a man who believes in duty.

Duty. His duty is why I must stop carrying on about him so. Brad Webster wears a badge that says he’s the law. And everything about the way he carries himself says he is as loyal to the law as I am loyal to the cause that has taken me on the wrong side of it.

Dear, dear diary. Is there anything in life that is fair? Why does everything have to be so hard? I have met a man who makes me want to forget what drove me to a life of crime. But I can’t forget. I can’t. Just as I can’t forget that this amazing, beautiful man may be forced, by duty, to end my very life. Even worse, I may be forced to end his.

Chapter One

One man’s trash. Another man’s treasure.

The old cliché wound around inside Christine Travers’s head like a coil of barbwire as she stared, disbelieving, at the treasure she’d just discovered.

The good folks of Royal, Texas, had dug deep into their basements and attics to come up with items to donate to tonight’s auction. There were antique crystal pieces. Complete china sets. Magazines that dated back to the early nineteenth century. Furniture and painstakingly hand-stitched quilts. And then there was this box.

Her breath stalled. Her heart beat so fast and so hard, she was afraid she might pass out. Right here. Right smack in the middle of this crowd of upper-crust resi dents, including a large contingent of Texas Cattleman’s Club members—the infamous and elite philanthropic organization that had staged tonight’s fund-raising auction to benefit Royal’s upcoming one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary celebration.

So, no. Passing out would not be good form any way you sliced it. And the last thing she would ever want to do was bring attention to herself—for any reason.

Okay, Christine. Settle down. Take a deep breath. Another.

Steadier now, with her fingers only marginally tingling, she glanced around the auction house to see if anyone was watching her with an odd expression—a sure sign she’d either screamed out loud, jumped up and down or done something equally ridiculous and brought unwanted attention to herself. And to her amazing find.

A relieved sigh eddied out when no one seemed to notice her excitement. Almost everyone who had turned out was busy browsing. Well, almost everyone.

Some of the Cattleman’s Club members, including Jacob Thorne, she’d noticed with dismay, were laughing and joking by the bar across the room.

Why did he have to be here?

Christine made it a point to avoid Jacob Thorne. If he spotted her tonight, she had no doubt that, true to form, he’d make it his personal mission to give her ten different kinds of grief. What she’d ever done to deserve his teasing and goading—other than help save his miserable life—was beyond her.

Well, she wasn’t going to think about him tonight. She had another meatier, much more exciting matter to attend to. Rows and rows of tables were filled with items that would soon be up for bid. Among those items Christine had found buried treasure—or the next best thing to it. The contents of this box, according to the notation, came from the late Jonathan Devlin’s attic.

Oh. My. God.

“Is it hot in here?” Christine asked her friend, Alison Lind, as she fussed with her plain white blouse that she’d buttoned all the way up to her neck.

“It’s Texas. It’s July,” Alison said, deadpan. Her dark eyes sparkled in her pretty chocolate-brown face. While Christine was usually cautious about opening herself up to someone, she’d sensed a kindred spirit in Alison. They’d met at a self-defense class a few months ago and had been fast friends since.

“Okay. Rhetorical question,” Christine conceded. “It just seemed extra warm there for a minute.”

Alison gave her friend a look and an “Uh-huh,” then walked on ahead of Christine toward a bolt of red satin.

“All right,” Christine whispered to herself and wiped damp palms on her tailored navy slacks. “Get a grip.”

Act cool. Don’t let on that you may have just discovered what must have appeared to be nothing more than an old, musty-smelling saddlebag to the late Jonathan Devlin’s family. Nothing more than a novelty item someone might want to bid on to decorate a bar or a tack room—instead of a major historical find.

Well, they could bid, she thought fiercely, but she was going to leave here with the contents of this box. That’s because she knew something no one else did. She was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain that she knew who the saddlebag had once belonged to.

“What’s got you so fidgety?” Alison asked, wandering back to Christine’s side. She tried to peek into the box.

Christine quickly flipped the lid shut.

“Can you keep a secret?” Christine whispered, cutting a covert glance around her.

Alison frowned. “If the secret is that you’re having a minor manic episode, no, I don’t think so. The paramedics who treat you will need details.”

Ignoring her friend’s sarcasm, Christine gripped Alison’s arm and pulled her close. She lifted the lid on the box. The smell of old leather and dust seeped into the air. “See this saddlebag?”

“Oh—I get to look inside now?”

Christine pulled a face. “Yes, you get to look inside.”

Still acting wary, Alison did.

“Notice the rose tooled on the cover flap?”

From Alison she got a slow, skeptical nod.

“The rose is what drew my attention. So I checked inside the bag,” Christine confided in a low voice, “and found a pair of six-shooters. Old six-shooters, with roses carved into the ivory handles.”

“And…” Alison said in a leading tone as Christine cast more worried looks around them.

“And there’s also a delicate little purse. Again—old. Rose-colored—with what appear to be rose petals inside. Plus—” she huddled up with Alison and whispered “—there’s a map.”

She snatched Alison’s hand back with an apologetic look when Alison started to reach inside the saddlebag. “A map with hearts and roses twining around the edge.”

“Okay. I’ll play along,” Alison said, still frowning as though she thought Christine had blown a circuit. “I’m guessing there’s some major significance to all these roses?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Christine said. “I’m positive these things once belonged to Jessamine Golden.”

When Alison made a “who?” face, Christine closed the box, then tugged Alison away from the table and hustled her into the line of people waiting to acquire bidding numbers.

“Jessamine Golden is a legend in Royal,” she explained in a low voice so no one would overhear. “She was an outlaw a hundred years ago who not only stole the heart of the town sheriff, Brad Webster, but legend has it that she also stole a huge gold shipment and hid the treasure somewhere in the Royal area. And she loved roses.

“Thanks,” she said absently when the clerk gave her a paddle with a number on it. She walked Alison to the row of seats lined up in front of the podium where the bidding was already under way.

“Anyway, the rest of the story is that the mayor of Royal back then was Edgar Halifax—”

“Halifax?” Alison interrupted. “Any relation to Gretchen Halifax, our illustrious city councilwoman?”

Gretchen Halifax wasn’t an illustrious anything except in her own mind, and both women knew it, but Christine didn’t want to get sidetracked with talk about Gretchen. She’d had to deal with Gretchen on the new Edgar Halifax display at the museum and that had been more than enough exposure to the woman. Christine always was willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case the stories about Gretchen appeared to be true. The councilwoman was pompous and self-important and on more than one occasion had been very condescending toward Christine.

“Yes, I think Gretchen is some distant relative, but the point is Edgar Halifax and his men were supposedly killed by Jessamine Golden over the stolen gold. There’s also speculation that Jessamine killed the sheriff, too, because when she disappeared, neither one of them was ever heard from again. And the gold was never found.”

Christine tugged Alison down on the chair beside her, facing the auctioneer. “I think the map in those saddlebags is a map to where Jess hid the gold!” she whispered fiercely.

Alison searched her friend’s face. “All right. Did you eat an entire bag of chocolate before you came here?”

The look on Alison’s face coupled with her silly question finally made Christine laugh. “No,” she assured her friend, “I did not eat any chocolate, and will you quit looking at me like I’m an alien? I’m serious. You know that I volunteer time at the Royal Historical Society when I’m not pulling double shifts at the hospital. I do a lot of research there, and Jess Golden’s story caught my attention. And, Alison, I swear those have to be Jess’s things in that box that came out of Jonathan Devlin’s attic.”

“Out of Jonathan Devlin’s attic?” Alison shook her head. “Boy, the Devlins didn’t waste any time clearing out old Jonathan’s house. He only died a few days ago—they haven’t even buried him yet, have they?”

“Not yet, no. But you know his sister Opal? A month ago, when Jonathan went into a coma, it was expected that he’d never recover. I guess from the start there was no brain activity. Anyway, Opal had been going through his house for weeks in anticipation of his death, setting aside things to put up for auction.”

“Gives me warm fuzzies all over thinking about her sorrow over the loss of her brother.”

Christine smiled. “Tell me about it. Opal’s a sentimental and sympathetic soul all right,” she said, matching Alison’s sarcasm. “But back to the topic at hand. One of the reasons I’m so convinced these are Jess Golden’s things is that for a very brief time—around 1910 or so—she lived in Jonathan Devlin’s house.”

“Okay,” Alison said carefully but looking as if she was a little more on board, “let’s say you’re right. Let’s say those are Jess Golden’s things because she left them in the house when she skedaddled out of town after she did her dastardly deed. What then?”

“Then I’m going to buy them,” Christine stated emphatically. “For the Historical Society to put on display in the museum. That box contains priceless historical artifacts—not to mention, it might lead to the gold. What a find it would be for the town.”

“Well, you’d better get your paddle ready, Miss Supersleuth. They just brought the box to the podium. It’s the next item up for bid.”

Jake Thorne wasn’t sure what it was about Chrissie Travers that lit his fire, but every time he showed up someplace and she was there, it was as though some kinetic energy source set all his senses on supercharge and he homed in on her like a bear scenting honey.

He propped an elbow on the bar where he stood at the side of the room and got comfortable. Then he just enjoyed the hell out of watching her in typical Prissy Chrissie mode, all stiff and proper and tense, while his mind—already shifting into autopilot—started hatching plots to irritate her. Just a little. Because, man, she was some fun when she was riled.

And he ought to know. He’d spent a month in the Royal hospital five years ago after an oil-well fire had knocked him on his ass. The burns hadn’t been the worst of his injuries. The smoke and fire inhalation and the resulting damage to his lungs had been. Chrissie had been his respiratory therapist, and once he’d felt human again, he’d found a hundred hot buttons to push on the uptight, serious and tolerate-no-nonsense Chrissie Trav ers. He was pleased to say that he’d personally pushed at least ninety-nine of them at some time or another.

Her bidding paddle shot up in the air. Whoa. What have we here? he wondered when she lifted it above her head. Straight up. No hesitation. As high as she could raise her arm.

Seemed the lady aimed to buy something. Judging by her body language, she meant to have it at any cost.

He watched both Chrissie and the bidding with interest. She cast a flurry of darting looks around her, those big hazel eyes warning off anyone who even looked as if they wanted to raise their paddle. Interesting. The bidding was slow and it looked as though she was going to get the box of, hell, box of rocks for all he knew, for a song.

Or is she? he asked himself and felt the beginnings of an ornery grin. Just as the auctioneer was about to start a “Going, going, gone,” with Chrissie as the high bidder, Jake’s paddle seemed to sort of pop up in the air, all of its own accord.

Hmm. Looked as though he was in the bidding now, too.

Chrissie’s head whipped around, her fine blond hair flying around her face, her big hazel eyes snapping with smoke and hellfire as she searched the room for the culprit who dared to enter the bidding at this late hour.

When her gaze finally landed on him and he acknowledged with a grin and a friendly wave of his paddle that, yeah, he was the one who’d jumped in and spoiled her party, he swore to God lightning zapped out of her ears and shot twin puffs of smoke in its wake.

And when after a fierce flurry of bidding action between them ended with a gavel rap and a resounding, “Sold!” and Jake was the lucky owner of a cardboard box containing he had no idea what, the look she sent him could have set a forest ablaze.

He touched his fingertips to the brim of his tan Resistol, smiled sweetly and swore he heard a word come out of her mouth that he figured prissy Miss Chrissie had never even heard before, let alone used.

Oh, boy. We’re gonna have some fun now.

Christine glared at the man sauntering toward her. Jacob Thorne was wearing what he probably thought was an aren’t-I-just-as-sexy-as-sin rogue grin that tugged up one corner of his full, mobile lips and dented his incredible dimples. He thought he was something—looking at her as if he was God’s greatest gift. As if her heart ought to go pit-a-pat and she ought to get hot all over basking in the glow of his company, as half the women in town did every time he sliced one of his poster-boy smiles their way.

Well, she was hot all right. Bonfire hot. And her heart was pounding. Not some loopy, goofy stutter step but a jackhammer, piston-pumping, so-mad-she-could-hear-each-staccato-beat-in-her-ears-and-feel-it-pulse-all-the-way-to-her-toes pounding. And in that moment she understood why it sometimes became part of the human condition to react to anger with physical violence.

Not that she’d ever stoop that low. She’d experienced enough physical violence in her life. But it didn’t hurt to think about exactly how deep she could bury the tip of her boot into Jacob Thorne-in-her-side’s shin. And to imagine his grunt of pain, the swelling and the black-and-blue marks when she did.

“Hey, Chrissie,” he said, all sweet and sugary, with that sexy, sandpapery voice of his. “You’re looking mighty fine tonight. Got a little color in your cheeks for a change. Did you finally take some time for yourself and get out in the sun a bit?”

She tilted her head to the side and glared at him. And he had the nerve to try to be cute. Again.

“Oh. Not sun.” He made a big show of acting surprised. “You’re miffed at me, right? That’s what put that pretty pink in your cheeks.”

For whatever reason, ever since she’d been his respiratory therapist, he seemed to make it his personal mission to tease her unmercifully. Like a big, overgrown bully. He needed to grow up, that’s what he needed to do. In the meantime she’d treat him like the kid he was.

“You are so not funny. And you are so not charming.”

She reached out and grabbed Alison’s arm, holding her still when she sensed that her friend was about to slink away and avoid certain fireworks.

“Now, how much do you want for it?” she asked with a clipped nod toward the box he’d tucked under his arm. The box that contained Jessamine Golden’s saddlebag and its treasure trove of goodies. The box that had almost been hers for fifty-five bucks until he’d chimed in with his big money and stolen it from her.

He glanced from her to the box. “What’s in here that’s got you so excited?”

She blinked. Then, outraged, blinked again. “You didn’t even know what you were bidding on?”

“Well, no,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “I was just trying to make some extra money for the benefit.”

“You know what?” Alison said, squirming uneasily and apparently sensing a major showdown. “I think I’ll just be going now.”

Christine wrapped her fingers tighter around Alison’s upper arm and held her where she was. “So why didn’t you bid against Ralph Schindler when he was bidding on an antique typewriter? Or Mel Grazier when he bid on a boom box? They’ve got buckets of moldy money. Why did you have to bid against me?”

“Well,” he said, then paused and absently scratched his jaw. “Maybe I figured if you wanted it, it must be something worth having.”

She snorted. “Try again.”

“No, really. I’ve always known you to have excellent taste.”

“So…that’s supposed to be an explanation?”

“More like a compliment.”

“More like a crock. You did it just to tick me off.”

“Well—” his dark eyes danced in a tan, handsome face “—there is that.”

The sound that came out of her could only be described as a growl.

“I’ve really got to go,” Alison said, making another break for it.

This time Christine let her go. It wasn’t fair to Alison to make her a party to what could in all probability turn out to be a homicide.

“How much do you want for it?” she repeated only after she was certain she could talk without screeching.

“You want it bad, don’t you, Chrissie?”

Oh, he’d just love to see her rise to that bait. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging the sexual innuendo he’d managed to thread through his seemingly innocent question punctuated with a wicked smile.

“How much?”

“Tell you what,” he said, looking if not smug, at least pleased by whatever idea was brewing in his thick head. “How about we cut us a little deal?”

Cut a deal? She’d trust any deal he made about as far as she could shot-put his beefy carcass after she killed him but before they hauled her off to jail. Justifiable homicide would be the worst possible charge they could level.

“I can just about imagine any deal you’d initiate. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

“Aw, Chrissie. You don’t still hold a grudge after all this time, do you?”

Oh, yeah. She held a grudge all right. He made it easy.

“Tell you what, just to show you I’m not so awful,” he said, working hard at sounding wounded, “since you want this stuff that badly, I’ll just give it to you.”

She eyed him with unconcealed suspicion. All six-plus lean feet of him. She couldn’t help but notice the way his long brown hair curled slightly at the edges, giving him a sexy boyish appeal. Couldn’t help but try to read the thoughts going on behind those summer-blue eyes that were always laughing, always teasing, always making her wonder what made him tick.

Well. Not always because she didn’t spend that much time thinking about him. At least, she didn’t do it intentionally. He sort of sneaked into her thoughts sometimes when she least expected it and caught her off guard.

Like now. Damn, all those wonder-boy good looks had sidetracked her again. Made her forget—if only for a second there—that she was mad and he was the reason.

“Okay. What’s the catch?” Skepticism oozed in each word.

“What makes you think there’s a catch?”

“Because I wasn’t born yesterday?”

“There ya go. You’re just as smart as you are pretty.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, save the sugar for someone with a sweet tooth.”

He considered her for a moment as if he were thinking about how badly he wanted to embarrass her. Then he very coolly said, “You can have the box of stuff on one condition. Be my date for the anniversary ball.”

It took a moment for Christine to process his words. When she finally realized what he was suggesting, her mouth dropped open. Nothing came out.

If he’d told her the condition was to strip and then run through the streets proclaiming she was madly in love with him, she would have been less surprised than she was right now.

And the chances of her agreeing to either condition were exactly the same.

“Boy, that got you thinking,” he said, his lean cheeks dimpling. “So, what do you say? How about it?”

He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be. Never in a million years would Jake Thorne—Texas Cattleman’s Club member and one of the most sought-after bachelors in Royal—waste his time with her, not at something as big as the anniversary ball. Not when all the eligible socialites and darlings of society were lined up like Miss America candidates waiting for him to select one of them as his date for the biggest social event in recent Royal history. Beautiful, wealthy, socially adept women who ran in his circle and would look good on his arm—unlike her, who would look more like a lump of coal than a diamond.

Even though she didn’t want it to, it stung that he’d play with her this way when they both knew good and well that, unless he thought he could find some perverse pleasure humiliating her, he’d never in a million years include her on his list of possible dates.

This was just too cruel. And she’d had enough of his goading for one night.

“How about you take your condition and put it where the sun don’t shine?”

Then, hating herself for letting him get to her, she turned on her heel and stomped away while his highly amused “Was it something I said?” trailed her across the room.

Chapter Two

“I don’t get it,” Alison said the night after the auction as they waited at the back of the room for their self-defense class to start. “What’s the problem with going to the anniversary ball with Jake Thorne? It’s not like you already have a date. And good grief, girl, the man is a hottie of the major-flame variety. No pun intended.”

But it was a pun regardless since Jacob Thorne’s stock-in-trade was fighting oil-well fires. Or at least, it used to be his stock-in-trade to fight them until the accident. Everything had changed for him then. He still ran his own company, but from a desk now instead of on the actual site of the fires.

Christine sat down on the mat and fussed with the laces of her tennis shoes, shoving thoughts of the trauma he’d gone through from her mind.

“He’s a hottie all right. Of the inflammatory variety.”

“Well, he sure seems to have incited a riot in you.”

“We have a history,” Christine finally admitted in a weak moment as she pulled her straight shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and clipped it at her nape.

“No. I never would have guessed,” Alison said, clearly having guessed exactly that.

Christine grinned at her friend’s staged surprise.

“What did he do, dump you?”

“No,” she said sobering. “He did not dump me. We’ve never even dated.”

“Ah. So that’s the problem. You want to date him.”

“Yeah, right,” Christine said maybe a little too emphatically.

This time Alison didn’t say a word. She just raised an eyebrow and waited.

Christine expelled a weary sigh and rose to her feet. “Okay. The problem,” she sputtered, using Alison’s words, “is that he’s just making fun of me by inviting me to the dance. He’s always making fun of me. He taunts and teases and plays on the fact that I had a little crush on him once—a looonnnggg time ago—and he keeps exploiting it. You saw how he was at the auction. He didn’t want that box for any reason other than because I wanted it. And he didn’t ask me to the ball for any other reason than to mock me.”

She tugged down her T-shirt, then forked her fingers through her ponytail, getting mad all over again just thinking about it. “He just loves to push my buttons. I’m getting tired of it.”

“I think it’s kind of cute,” Alison said, then laughed when Christine threw her a disbelieving look. “Well, I do. Because it’s all in fun and what it really means is that he has a thing for you.”

Christine grunted. “It means that he’s childish and sophomoric. And he doesn’t have a thing for me. I mean, look at me—I’m as far from his type as a male stripper is from mine. He’s just…ornery. The man doesn’t have a sincere bone in his body. Everything’s a joke with him.”

“Everything?”

She thought for a moment. “Okay. For instance—he got hurt badly in an oil-well fire five years ago. Smoke and fire inhalation did some heavy-duty damage to his lungs and he spent over a month in the hospital. I was the unlucky one on duty the night they brought him in and I ended up spending a lot of time with him over the course of his recovery.”

When some other class members walked in, Christine lowered her voice because she didn’t want them to overhear her. And she really didn’t want to relive those days in a play-by-play for Alison.

That didn’t stop her from thinking about it, though. Jacob Thorne had been one sick puppy. She’d been so worried for him, while he’d been brave and determined to recover and joked his way through the pain and the fear of his prognosis. She’d admired him for it…then formed that unfortunate crush.

She did not admire him for it now. Neither did she have a crush on him. Not anymore.

“Anyway, a couple of weeks into his treatment his twin brother, Connor, came to visit him. His identical twin,” she added to make sure Alison understood. “Long story short, they pulled a switch on me so Jacob—the evil twin—could sneak out of the hospital and go down to the Cattleman’s Club for a beer. The end result was that I actually gave a respiratory therapy session to the wrong man!”

She got angry all over again just thinking about it. “He could have caused himself a serious setback pulling a reckless stunt like that.”

Alison looked at her as if she was waiting for the punch line. Finally she said, “That’s it? That’s why you don’t like him? The poor guy had been stuck in a hospital bed, sick as a dog. A cold beer and some male company sounded good to him so he pulled a fast one on you to indulge in a tiny little creature comfort?”

“I don’t like him,” Christine restated, not liking that she felt defensive again, “because he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it that life is not one big lark. Life is serious. Life is real. It’s not a game, and you can’t just play your way through it the way he does.”

For the first time Alison looked at her with no trace of humor. And it was then that Christine realized tears had pooled in her eyes. Embarrassed, she quickly blinked them back.

“Oh, sweetie.” Alison reached out, touched her hand. “What happened to you?”

Instantly on edge, Christine pulled her hand away. She wasn’t comfortable with touching, even though Alison’s touch held compassion and concern—something entirely different than the hard hands that had touched her in anger when she was a child. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, what happened to you that made you decide life had to be all about work and duty with no room for fun?” Alison pressed gently.

Fortunately for Christina, Mark Hartman, Alison’s boss—who was also the self-defense class’s instructor and another Texas Cattleman’s Club member like Jacob—entered the room at that very moment.

His appearance and the necessity to get down to business saved Christine from opening up like a faucet and spilling out her sordid history to this woman whose insight and empathy had almost broken through defenses she’d kept shored up her entire life.

Christine was appalled with herself when she realized her eyes still stung with tears. She blinked them back and, giving Alison an apologetic look, moved away from her and onto her spot on the practice mat. Christine wished she could talk to her friend about her past. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

For the rest of the class she went through the self-defense positions like an automaton, knowing the moves as well as she knew the secret she’d kept from anyone who had ever gotten too close.

She had good reason to know that life was not fun and games. Life was a father who had beaten her and her mother and a mother who drank to escape the pain. Christine hadn’t had any escape—only fear—until she’d turned eighteen and finally had been able to run. She’d run as far away as she could from that horrible existence and the memories that sometimes still woke her, trembling, in the night.

That’s what had happened to her, she thought as she showered in the locker room later. That’s why she sometimes worked double shifts at the hospital, why she took her job as a respiratory therapist so seriously and why she also volunteered to work for the Historical Society. She never wanted to have to depend on anyone but herself. Her work at the hospital gave her that self-sufficiency. Her volunteer work at the Historical Society gave her a sense of community.

Both also gave her something else—something she hadn’t expected and hadn’t known she’d needed—respectability. Acceptance. A place to belong.

She protected those hard-earned parts of her life. Held them close—held herself aloof to make sure no one got close enough to discover that inside her, there were still strong echoes of a lost and helpless little girl who had always thought she wasn’t good enough for her own father to love her. For her own mother to protect her.

She never wanted to feel that sense of helplessness or hopelessness again. Respectability, security and safety. She’d needed them most as a child but had never received them. As an adult, she’d earned them and she never took them for granted.

Life was work. Life was hard. How many times had her father driven that point home? Often enough that she’d absorbed it along with the blows from the back of his hand.

Yeah, she thought pragmatically. Life was hard. But life was also precious.

And that’s why she didn’t like Jake Thorne, with his life-is-a-lark attitude and his damn-the-torpedoes grin. He took everything for granted. So much so that it puzzled her how someone like him had gotten invited to join the Cattleman’s Club—a club that was about duty and honor and public service. And if some of the rumors were to be believed, it was also a club where the members were covertly active in thwarting any number of horrible situations. In fact, she’d heard specific rumors that the club had been instrumental in breaking up a blackmarket baby network and once had prevented a bloody overthrow of a small European principality. Jacob Thorne just didn’t seem to fit the Cattleman’s profile.

Fun and games. That seemed to be as deep as he got. She didn’t know how to react around someone who was always smiling and joking. The way he’d joked with her the other night.

“Him and his condition,” she sputtered under her breath, remembering how he’d told her she could have the saddlebags if she met his condition.

Nothing had changed there, she admitted, as with a brief hug she begged off Alison’s offer to stop at the Royal Diner for a diet soda that was really a ruse to get her to talk. Christine wasn’t ready to confide that part of her life with Alison, although she’d come as close to telling her as she had anyone.

Instead she went home. She still wanted the box with Jess Golden’s things for the Historical Society. And because this was serious business, she knew what she’d known from the beginning and simply hadn’t wanted to admit.

She’d have to give in to Thorne’s condition. Eat some crow and call him. Tell him she’d reconsidered. She’d go to his damn ball—so he could have some fun at her expense.

She undressed, brushed and flossed, then slipped into a white cotton nightie. She plopped down on her back in bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark.

First thing tomorrow she’d call him.

Oh, joy. Something to look forward to. A conference with the evil twin.

Two days after the auction, Jake waded through a dozen voice mails at his office at Hellfire, International, hating it that he wasn’t on-site with his men.

“You get caught up in another fire,” his doctor had warned him before he’d released him from the hospital after his accident, “and the next time you won’t walk away. The damage to your lungs is just too extensive to risk it. They can’t take another hit.”

Sidelined. Jake hated it. To take his mind off the reality that ate at him every day, he started thinking about the auction again. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Not just that he’d gotten ornery and outbid Chrissie Travers for the box of junk, but why he’d told her he’d give her the stuff if she’d go with him to the ball.

Now, where in the name of anything sane had that come from? Okay. Sanity probably hadn’t had anything to do with it. Sheer impulse had.

Still, that didn’t explain why he’d asked her. Probably because he’d figured she’d do exactly what she’d done—stick that little nose of hers high in the air and turn him down flat.

He glanced at the box he’d brought to work and set on the floor in the corner. It was as closed up and secretive as the prickly Ms. Travers.

“Let’s just call it a testosterone moment,” he muttered grimly and leaned back in his leather chair. For some inexplicable reason, the woman was always messing with his hormones. And that in itself was a major puzzle.

She was so not his type. Uppity little tight-ass. That’s what she was. He’d always gone more for the party girls who wanted to have a good time, knew how to have a good time and didn’t beat themselves up the next morning after they’d had a good time. Prissy Chrissie wouldn’t know a good time if it sneaked up and bit her on her cute, curvy butt.

So why did he find himself grinning at the prospect of seeing her again? And why did he have this recurring fantasy of biting the cute little butt in question?

Uncomfortable with his turn of thoughts, he sobered and stood abruptly, tucking the tips of his fingers into the back pockets of his jeans. He walked to the window of his fourth-floor office and stared down at the street.

Well, well, well, he thought, feeling a little too much pleasure when he saw who was walking down the street. Speak of the devil—or in this case, the saint. There she was. Little Miss Priss, in all her starched-panties glory.

He leaned a shoulder against the window frame, crossed his arms over his chest and looked his fill as she marched down the sidewalk toward his building. All she needed was a uniform and she could be captain of a drill team.

What made a woman, he wondered and reached up to scratch his jaw, who was put together in a package like a sweet little china doll think she had to go through life like a caricature of a turn-of-the-century, stiffbacked, prim and proper suffragette?

Hell, he bet she did starch her panties. And they were probably white. Most likely cotton. With days of the week that she always wore on the proper day.

Why that image made him hot, he had no idea.

She was within a block now and he couldn’t help but appreciate the view. She was barely five-four. Her pale blond hair and large hazel eyes gave her a cute, fragile, elfin look that in his weaker moments made him want to protect her as much as provoke her. Since he was fairly certain she’d never let anyone protect her—regardless that she looked as delicate as the petals on a yellow rose—provoking her was a much better bet.

And again, she was not his type. She was the exact opposite of Rea, who’d been svelte, sexy and as predatory as a jungle cat. Thoughts of his ex made him shiver. Too bad he’d been so blinded by the svelte, sexy parts that he’d missed the other characteristic until it was too late.

Whoa, what’s this, he wondered when he saw Chrissie cross the street. Without a doubt she was on her way up to see him.

Fine. He walked away from the window, picked up the box and set it on his desk. He’d been about to have his secretary call a courier to pick it up and deliver it to Chrissie anyway. This would save him a buck or two. He’d had his fun. Now she could have her precious box. And the musty-smelling saddlebag that was in it.

His secretary, Janice Smith, who had been with him from the beginning seven years ago, buzzed him on the intercom as he settled in behind his desk.

“Yes, Janice.”

“Christine Travers is here to see you, Mr. Thorne.”

“Send her in.”

He rocked back in his chair. Propping his elbows on the arms and steepling his fingers beneath his chin, he prepared to be magnanimous. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as being obnoxious, but, hey, if nothing else, it would be a kick to throw her off guard by being nice.

She should have called, Christine realized when she found herself standing outside Jacob Thorne’s office door. Her palms began to sweat. She should have saved herself the stress of a face-to-face meeting.

But that was the coward’s way out and she’d never been that. She wasn’t starting now. Not for someone like him.

She turned the handle and stepped inside, expecting…well, not really knowing what to expect when she entered his inner sanctum. He did, however, manage to surprise her.

The office was large but not ostentatious. The furniture was top-of-the-line but functional, all stylish black lacquer and shining chrome. There wasn’t a dead animal in sight—either on the floor made into a rug or on the wall in the guise of a hat rack or displayed as a trophy. She grudgingly gave him points for that. And for the stunning collection of photographs adorning the walls.

Each dramatically framed photo was of a different oil fire site. And each photo captured all the fury, the danger and the unyielding hunger of the flames shooting into the air like geysers and of the courageous men who risked their lives putting them out.

“Impressive, aren’t they?”

She jerked her attention from the photographs to the man lounging idly behind a desk that was far from empty yet neat and uncluttered. He was watching her with a look that made her think of a lion lounging lazily in the sun, overseeing the lioness doing all the work. Clearly, though, he was a hands-on boss if the stacks of paperwork were any indication. Okay. So he got another point for being involved.

“Very,” she agreed belatedly with a nod back to the photos, because what was really impressive was the way he looked behind that desk and she didn’t want him to see how he had affected her. Since her cheeks were hot, she figured they were also pink. It was a curse of her fair complexion.

In the meantime she’d never seen him in business mode. She’d seen him at death’s door, as pale as the hospital sheets beneath him. She’d seen him all sexy swagger and irritating indolence, as he’d been the other night at the auction. This man-in-charge persona was disconcerting—and unexpectedly appealing.

His shirt was white. The top button was undone and his cuffs were rolled up on his strong forearms. His brown suit jacket and a truly stunning silk tie hung on the coatrack behind him. Style. He had it. In spades.

“That one was taken in Kuwait,” he said when she averted her attention to a print that, once she was able to study it without being hyperaware of him, gave her chills just thinking about the fierceness of the blaze.

“I’ll go to the ball with you,” she said without turning back to him.

Okay. It was out. She hadn’t intended to just blurt it out that way but now that she was here, now that she was suddenly aware of him as an entity other than the proverbial Thorne-in-her-side, she wanted to get this over with and get away from him as quickly as possible. And away from this unbelievable resurgence of attraction that not only blindsided her but also shook her composure. The sooner they cut this deal, the sooner she could go on about her business.

When she was met with nothing but silence, she drew a bracing breath and turned toward him.

He was frowning. Not a gloating or even an angry frown, but more as though he was in deep thought or contemplating something heavy.

“I said I’d go to the ball with you,” she repeated, and he finally rocked forward in his chair and came to attention behind his desk.

“So you did.”

And still he scowled.

Perplexed, she eyed him with wary suspicion. “Wasn’t that the condition?”

“Of me turning over the box?”

Her exasperation at the way he was drawing this out came in the form of an impatient breath. “I believe it was.”

“Ah. Well, you just said the magic word. Was. That was my condition. Two days ago. But now, we’re dealing with today.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There was a time limit?”

“It seems so, yeah.”

Sure. Now he was smiling.

Because this was still a joke to him. He had never intended for her to go to the dance with him. Just as she’d thought. He’d merely been playing with her, and when she’d called him on it, he’d figured a way to weasel out of the invitation. It shouldn’t have hurt so much.

“Why is this stuff so important to you anyway?” he asked, standing. He walked around the desk and settled a hip on its corner.

“Historic value,” she said truthfully.

He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Musty saddlebags? Old guns? A lady’s purse? What else? Oh, yeah. A faded map.”

Her heart jumped over itself. “You looked?”

“You may have heard. It’s my box. I’m pretty sure that means I’m entitled to look.”

This was going nowhere. And she’d had enough of his fun and games. She’d figure out another way to get the box of Jess Golden’s things to the Historical Society. Maybe she could get some of the city matriarch types to put a little heat on him or something.

“Sorry to have taken your time,” she said and headed for the door.

“Wait. Wait. You haven’t heard the new condition.”

She stopped, her hand on the door handle, and let out a deep breath. Knowing she was going to regret this, she turned and met his smug smile. “New condition?”

He pushed off the desk. “Tell you what. Let’s talk about it over lunch.”

“Lunch?”

He reached around her to open the door. “You know. The light meal between breakfast and dinner?”

“But—”

“I’ll be back in an hour or so, Janice,” he said, herding Christine out of his office and into the reception area with a hand at the small of her back. “Anybody calls, tell ’em I’ll get back to them—unless it’s Ray. If Ray calls, tell him to phone my cell.”

Christine was far too aware of his hand touching her there, ever so lightly at the small of her back. “I’m not going to lunch with you.”

“Oh, lighten up, Chrissie, would you? It’s noon. I’m hungry. I figure you’re hungry, too. It’s that simple. It’s not like it’s a date or anything.”

She told herself his last statement didn’t sting. And it wouldn’t have—at least not so badly—if Janice, stylish and chic in her tailored white blouse and short red skirt, hadn’t glanced up and cast Christine a sympathetic look when they passed the desk.

He’d just made it clear to anyone within earshot that Jacob Thorne didn’t consider Christine Travers datable.

Which was perfectly fine. She lifted her chin. She didn’t want to date him anyway. And she didn’t want to go to lunch with him. What she wanted was to get as far away from the reproachable evil twin as she could, considering they lived in the same city.

And that was the truth.