Chapter 1
Temptation stood in her foyer.
His dark wavy hair grayed at the temples, his face sharp planes and angles shadowed by a late afternoon beard became more devastatingly handsome as he smiled. Jennifer Sumner’s heart did a slow roll as all the blood rushed out of her head, freezing her like a deer caught in the headlights.
She glanced at her brother, who had closed the door and now stood beside the man grinning like an idiot. She glanced back at the now infamous dead man uncertain who she really saw.
“Jennifer, I’d like you to meet, Kane McCormick.”
She squelched the urge to tuck her unruly hair back into its braid and straighten the wrinkled sweatshirt she wore. Instead she faced him and held out her hand, praying her voice sounded calm. “Mr. McCormick.”
“Miss Sumner.” He took her hand, turned it over and kissed her palm. His mouth was unexpectedly warm against her skin, sending shivers up her arm. He smelled of rich cologne and warm male. Jennifer had to work hard at keeping the drool off her chin. Contrary to the latest news reports, this man was definitely alive.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she blurted.
“Only to those who want me dead,” he replied. His inscrutable gaze connected with hers. “Do you want me dead, Miss Sumner?”
His voice caressed her and for the first time in her life, Jennifer recognized real danger. “I don’t know you well enough to want anything from you, Mr. McCormick.”
He lifted one eyebrow as if surprised by her answer. “I believe that’s about to change,” he drawled, then smiled a slow lazy grin. That look had to be well practiced. No man was naturally that heart stopping. Here he was Kansas City’s most eligible bachelor standing in her house, watching her with great expectation.
She sent him a bland smile. “Excuse us a moment, would you?” She took a step back, reclaiming her hand. “I need to borrow Jason to check out a leak under the kitchen sink.” She didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, she grabbed her brother by his starched shirt and dragged him down the hall.
She waited only long enough for the kitchen door to swing closed. “Just exactly what—“
“Now, Jennifer,” he began in a valiant effort to cut her off. It didn’t work. She could feel her temper boiling just below the surface, fueled by fear. Her life had been safe, average, even boring and she had worked hard to make it so. Her brother had just walked into her house and changed all that.
She jammed a finger into his wide muscular chest. “Don’t you even start with me, mister.” She glared up into blue/gray eyes so like her own. “You told me you needed to house a crime victim. You never said he was a dead billionaire playboy.”
“Well, now, how could I say that? The man’s not dead.” Her brother looked at her balefully.
“Don’t get smart with me.” She crowded him against her oak cabinets and continued to take her aggression out on his chest. “Kane McCormick is no simple crime victim.” She gestured toward the kitchen door. “That man’s life is a circus. If the press catches wind that he’s here, I won’t even be able to get out of my house.”
“Everyone thinks he’s dead, Jen, There’s no way the press will find him.” Jason gently but firmly pushed her hand away. “I promise it will be all right. Have you ever known me to steer you wrong?”
“What about the time you dragged me out to that party at your friend’s house.”
“It was O’Leary’s retirement party and you hadn’t been out in months.”
“It’ll be safe, you said. Trust me, you said.”
“Well, it was safe…mostly.”
“Everyone got drunk and O’Leary’s brother made a pass at me.”
“You’re a gorgeous woman, Jennifer,” Jason said. “The man couldn’t help himself.” Her brother’s grin widened. “You really shouldn’t have hurt him like that.”
“He was too drunk to feel a thing,” she replied. She crossed her arms to protect herself from her brother as if crossing her arms could fend off his boyish charm. “I can’t do this again. You know what the press did to me during the divorce. I won’t have it at my house.”
The nightmare of the tabloids had only now faded. The paparazzi hounded her, jumping out at her from odd corners, and printing lies that had destroyed her life. She’d sworn that she would never go through that again.
“It isn’t going to happen like that.”
“You can’t know that, Jason.”
“You said it would be okay.”
She rolled her eyes and threw out her hands. “I was in the middle of writing a column when you called. You know better than to ask me something while I’m working. All I heard was that you needed to stash someone here for a few days while you worked on their case. You said they wouldn’t be any trouble.”
“He won’t.”
“That man can’t help himself. He’s walking trouble.”
“How much trouble can he be? He’s dead.”
Jennifer absently rubbed the spot where Kane’s lips had brushed her palm. “Kane McCormick is far from dead.”
“So, you’re going to throw him out into the street?”
“He’s not homeless, Jace. What’s he got, five or six houses around the world?”
“Look, it’s just a couple of days, a week tops. The world thinks he’s dead. It works to our advantage to keep him that way.”
She hated logic. It was a bad habit of hers to see both sides of an argument. Mostly it got her into trouble. “I suppose he has no place else to go.”
“Well, he could stay at my place, but the landlord just put out a notice that they needed us to evacuate for a few days since they’re going to bomb for bugs. I can bunk at the station. You know that kind of thing doesn’t bother a cop like me, but a man like McCormick—“
“Will get bored hanging around here,” she argued. “I don’t have the time or inclination to entertain him.”
“I’ve explained that to him.”
“What if someone finds out he’s here and alive? Won’t his killers come here looking for him?”
“That’s the beauty of the plan, Sis,” Jason said, his eyes lighting up with pride at his own ingenuity. She had seen that look before and it always spelled trouble for her. “Who would look for Kane McCormick in suburbia?” He asked. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Yes it is. Look, it will be all right, cross my heart. Come on Jennifer, for me?”
She hated it when he did that. It reminded her of their childhood and how they swore to help each other out always and forever through thick and thin. She blew out a long, hard breath and formed the word no on her tongue. “Fine,” came out instead.
“Great!” He popped a kiss on her forehead. “You won’t regret it. Trust me, it’ll be over with in a week or two…three tops.”
“I’m so going to regret this.” She muttered as her brother opened the kitchen door and held it for her.
“You won’t even know he’s here.”
She shook her head at the absurdity in that statement and brushed passed her brother. McCormick stood on the other side of her living room and faced the artwork over her mantle. She had the awful feeling he hadn’t been standing there very long. She shrugged it off. If he’d overheard the conversation, then he’d know exactly where he stood with her. Jennifer had learned that honesty, no matter how brutal was always best.
“All set,” Jason said. He paused long enough to catch McCormick’s eyes. “I’ll be in touch. Make up that list of things you need and I’ll see that you get them.”
“Thanks.” McCormick’s voice was rich as brandy and slid down Jennifer’s skin, warming her from the inside out. She didn’t want it to affect her like that. She didn’t want to feel anything for this stranger. She had to remain calm, cool and completely unaffected if she wanted to keep the life she had so carefully built.
She ignored Kane and reached to kiss her brother goodbye. “You owe me big time,” she hissed in his ear before she laid a peck of a kiss on his cheek.
He grinned down at her. “No sweat, sweetheart.” Then he turned and walked out the door, leaving her alone in her house with a stranger, a crime victim, and a supposed dead man.
She had the strongest feeling she’d been set up.
“I take it he sprung me on you.” The man’s voice got better with every word.
Cool, calm and unaffected, she reminded herself. She prayed she was a good enough actress to pull it off, but she doubted it. Acting had never been her thing. “I’ll show you to the guest room.” She used her best no-nonsense tone. It was one she saved for particularly sticky situations.
He moved toward her like a large predator and she had the most uncomfortable feeling that he saw her as prey. She shook off the feeling and headed up the stairs. “While you are here, I would like to establish a few simple ground rules,” she said. “I work out of my home and my work is very important to me.” She turned when she realized that he wasn’t following her.
He leaned against her banister, duffle bag in hand and contemplated her. His dark gaze seemed to look right through her as if he knew her secret soul and just how lonely she really was. The man was definitely dangerous. She reacted the only way she knew how. She pretended that her heart wasn’t hammering in her chest. “You’re free to use any part of the house, but the basement.” Her voice squeaked and she cleared her throat. “That’s where my office is located. I facilitate a talk show on KSKS from 9 to noon. When I’m on the air, my attention is solely for my callers.”
She paused to take a deep breath to keep control over her voice. When his expression didn’t change, she pressed on. “I have daily deadlines and a six-year-old son, who is due home from school in about twenty minutes. To be blunt Mr. McCormick—“
“Kane.” He cut her off in mid sentence
“I beg your pardon?” His voice scattered her thoughts like so many marbles.
He straightened and advanced on her. She held her ground although her heartbeat accelerated with every step. He reached up and brushed a lock of hair away from her face. His warm seductive scent invaded her senses. “Call me, Kane,” he said, his voice as soft and gentle as a caress. “After all, we are living together now.”
She blinked and inhaled sharply. Something close to panic surged through her. “We are not living together.” She turned away. Calm. Cool, to heck with collected. “The guest room is at the top of the steps. If you follow me, I’ll show you to it.”
She moved up the wide staircase, then paused. Without looking back, she knew he watched her climb those steps. A small buried part of her wanted him to watch her climb the stairs. Wanted him to enjoy the view. She quickly squelched the feeling.
She was cautious by nature. He was reckless by reputation. She would advise her clients not to touch him. His kind was only good for heartbreak. As a psychologist she had seen it time and again. She’d be darned if she let her hormones convince her it wouldn’t happen to her. “Are you coming?”
She thought she heard him mutter a reply. She whipped her head around and he looked at her, his expression as placid as a poker player’s. She narrowed her eyes and his mouth quivered slightly as if he restrained a grin. He was making fun of her.
She leaned against the railing and crossed her arms refusing to continue to entertain hem. “Your room is to the right. There’s a connecting guest bath. The kitchen is downstairs at the end of the hall. Feel free to help yourself.”
He strode up the stairs, stopping when his gaze was level with hers. “I intend to do just that.”
She swallowed hard and fought against the double entendre in his words. Something close to desire edged along her nerve endings. She clamped the door on her hormones shut. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t used to a beautiful man looking at her that way. She told herself that with constant exposure those feelings would go away.
But that didn’t stop her heartbeat from picking up when he reached for her again. She dodged his hand. The movement wasn’t subtle but it was effective.
“I’ve offended you.” He frowned slightly as if puzzled. “That wasn’t my intent.”
This was ridiculous. She contemplated him, her nerves on end. She felt like a cat that had its fur ruffled the wrong way. She ordered herself to calm down. “I’m not easily offended.” She managed to sound calm even if she didn’t feel that way. “I’m not used to allowing men I hardly know touch me.”
“Really?” He sounded perplexed.
“Really,” she said her tone even, her emotions under control. “I’m kind of old fashioned that way.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
He smiled than that slow, true grin that made her knees want to weaken. “My mother was a lady.”
She blinked. Great now she reminded him of his mother. She tried not to let her disappointment show. “Then she raised you to understand that my home is not a hotel. Dinner is usually at six if you don’t object to wholesome food. If you want gourmet you’ll have to go elsewhere. Your room is your own. I will not pick up after you. Thomas goes to bed at eight. Please keep the noise down after that.”
He raised an eyebrow at that comment. She ignored him and pressed on. “No calls. They can be traced. No press. No women.” She took a deep breath and waited for him to protest. He didn’t. She blew out her breathe. “I think these rules are simple enough. Follow them and you are welcome to stay as long as you need.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I won’t wait even one second before I call Jason to come pick you up and haul you off. You, see, I don’t believe in second chances.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“So we have an understanding?”
“Sure.”
“Fine I’ll leave you to settle in.” She turned and made it to the bottom of the steps.
“I appreciate you letting me stay, Jennifer.” The words were like a promise of romance whispered on a hot sultry night. She ignored then and scurried down to the relative safety of her office.
**
Kane watched her go. She was surprisingly lovely. The skin on her palm had been soft and smelled faintly of cookies. Kane knew instantly that there was nothing artificial about her and that alone was unusual in his world. He had gotten used to the blinding white of restored teeth, taut skin of reconstructed faces and mixing bowl shaped bosoms.
In contrast, this woman stunned him with her fresh face and real figure. Her hair was gold on gold, without the brightness of artificial colorants. She had bedroom eyes, hooded with blue-grey iris ringed in black. Yet they snapped with intelligence and were awash with emotion.
Her gaze interested him. When he spoke or touched her, those eyes softened with desire, then widened with shock and finally snapped with determination. It made him want to touch her again and again. She gave everything away in a glance. He hadn’t seen that in a very long time.
He pushed away from the banister and headed up the stairs. It had been a lifetime since he’d seen reality in a woman’s gaze. The room at the top of the steps was large and furnished with a queen-sized bed and rich cotton sheets striped in blue and green. The bed was safe, the colors unremarkable, average, suburban.
Kane entered, threw his duffel on the bed and strode to the windows. Outside the wind blew hard across the expanse of greening yard. It was cold for March, but a recent rainstorm left the air smelling of spring thaw.
He ran a hand over his face. His own life was in a bit of a thaw. He’d been restless lately looking for something he missed. What, he couldn’t say. Then suddenly his private plane had exploded and the world thought him dead. Death caused a man to rethink his life.
If he’d been in that plane with his friends, his life would be over and what had he left? Money? Shoot, they’d barely announced his death before his distant family had become locked in a bitter battle for his fortune. Power? The companies he’d forged were in the hands of their respective boards of directors. The CEO’s were all happy not to have to report to him. Yes, all was well with the world, except for one thing. Kane McCormick was alive and wanted more.
