Книга - Mystery Date

Mystery Date
Crystal Green


Mystery Date Stunning TV chef Leigh Vaughn has crafted a basket for auction that includes a home-cooked dinner for one lucky bidder.But there’s a very enigmatic, anonymous millionaire who won’t be outbid. His rich, sensual voice is tantalising – beckoning her into a world filled with erotic mystery and sweet, sinful taboo.







Another basket is up for auction!

This one is filled with sweets…and a whole lot of spice!

Stunner TV chef Leigh Vaughn has crafted a basket that includes a home-cooked dinner for one lucky bidder. Who could resist this sexy sauciere? It’ll be a dish—and an evening—to savor….

But there’s a very enigmatic millionaire who won’t be outbid on Leigh’s offering. He’s anonymous. He stays in the shadows, where no one can see his face. Yet his rich, sensual voice is tantalizing—and capable of seducing the clothes from a woman’s body, before beckoning her into a world filled with erotic mystery and sweet, sinful taboo.

Bon appétit….




Two Bridesmaids Two Provocative Baskets Endless Sensual Possibilities…


Bridesmaids Margot Walker and Leigh Vaughn have a wonderful idea to raise money for their friend’s wedding—putting a basket full of spicy date ideas up for auction. But who will bid? And what, exactly, will the highest bidder be getting?

Margot is hoping her college crush buys her basket. Too bad her arch-enemy, Clint Barrows, beats him to it…

Leigh doesn’t have a buyer in mind when she creates her auction offering. Good thing—because even after sharing her basket, she still has no idea who her admirer really is…

Who knew being in a wedding party came with these kinds of perks?

LEAD ME ON by Crystal Green

(July 2013)

and

MYSTERY DATE by Crystal Green

(September 2013)







Dear Reader,

Welcome to the second book in the Harlequin Blaze duet that started with Lead Me On!

In the first story, our heroine, Leigh Vaughn, created a sexy “date basket” for a charity auction—only, the highest bidder refused to reveal his identity. You’re about to find out who he is…and what kind of erotic games he has planned… Whew! Is it getting hot in here? :)

You’re also going to see if Dani and Riley, our wedding-bound lovebirds from Book One, make it to the altar. Does Dani have a case of cold feet that will stop them in their tracks? Read on.…

I hope you have a great time with this book and that you keep in contact with me at my site, www.crystal-green.com (http://www.crystal-green.com), and through Twitter (@CrystalGreenMe (https://twitter.com/CrystalGreenMe/))!

Happy endings to you all.

Crystal Green


Mystery Date

Crystal Green






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, where she writes for the Mills & Boon


Cherish


and Blaze


lines. She loves to read, overanalyze movies and TV programs, practice yoga and travel when she can. You can read more about her at www.crystal-green.com, where she has a blog and contests. Also, you can follow her on Twitter, @CrystalGreenMe.


To my good friend Nicole (aka Selena Illyria). From squees to geekasms, you are a wonderful nerd-buddy!


Contents

Chapter 1 (#u37f94f3d-cb03-50bf-976f-a6b4a3ed89b0)

Chapter 2 (#ua8c363dd-f436-56cd-9557-e8276fae5ca2)

Chapter 3 (#uf6d9b7e4-772b-5e8a-88f4-d824603f30ec)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)


1

LEIGH VAUGHN SAT in a car with one of her best friends, staring at the imposing beach-cliff house where her mystery date was supposed to take place tonight.

As she kept staring, she swallowed. Hard.

Margot spoke from the driver’s seat. “‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’”

Leigh pulled her gaze away from the house. “What?”

“That’s the first line from Rebecca.” Margot raised a well-manicured brow, turning her light green-blue gaze to Leigh. Her high cheekbones and tousled, layered dark hair gave her a look that fell somewhere between a pixie and a wild child, but her designer knit dress was all high-class. “Don’t you get a certain vibe from this place, just like the narrator in that book did after she found out her new husband’s first wife, Rebecca, pretty much haunted Manderley?”

Leigh wished she hadn’t brought Miss Cal-U English Major with her. Better yet, she just wished that Margot would lay off teasing her about tonight. Some moral support would be nice right about now.

“It’s only a date,” Leigh said, echoing the words that had been going through her head all day. She wasn’t sure if she was just trying to shut Margot up or calm herself down.

“A date,” Margot said, a sparkle in her gaze. “In a huge Gothic house. And with a man who won’t tell you who he is.”

“Why don’t you make this sound even more intimidating, Marg? Because I’m not nervous enough.”

“Maybe you should be very nervous.” Margot gave an “ooo, how scary” look to the mansion that loomed above them at the end of the gated driveway under the dusk-burnished November sky. “When Mystery Man bought your basket at the charity auction, I didn’t think you’d actually go through with this. But you’ve surprised me, Leigh. Maybe you’ve got a little adventure in you, after all.”

Adventure.

Good God—that was what she’d come here for, wasn’t it?

She followed Margot’s gaze toward that gray stone mansion again, with its imposing balconies and arches. The man who was waiting for Leigh in there had spent $5,000 to win her basket about a month ago during a reunion for her college sorority, Tau Epsilon Gamma, and its counterpart, the agricultural business–centered fraternity Phi Rho Mu.

Leigh took in a deep breath. Even back in college, smack in the middle of the rural San Joaquin Valley, she’d never done something this crazy—not during pledging, not during all their parties...never. True, she, Margot and their friend Dani had been good-time girls, best friends enjoying their youth, but that was when the silliness was supposed to end—after they graduated and became adults.

But no. She and Margot just had to go and put on that auction at the ten-year reunion. They’d just had to hold out for the highest bids on all those baskets that contained materials for a date with the women who’d created them. Margot had called her basket Around the Girl in Eighty Ways, and after her spicy encounters with the man who’d purchased the basket—her archenemy from college, of all people—she’d ended up getting engaged to him.

Leigh had taken a sweeter route. She’d stayed true to the wholesome country-girl Tau image and named her basket “A Taste of Honey”; she’d intended to give whoever won it a down-home dinner laced with the main ingredient—and maybe more, depending who bought the basket.

But she hadn’t expected what happened next—a fellow sorority sister, Beth Dahrling, had been the highest bidder, and she’d revealed that she was acting as a liaison for a man who refused to disclose his identity.

Leigh would’ve never guessed that she was eventually going to end up in front of a mansion that belonged in some kind of “It was a dark and stormy night” book.

She slid down in her seat. “I can’t believe you got me into this, Marg.”

“Me? How?”

As Margot waited for an answer, Leigh realized that she’d been plucking at the seam of her jeans, and she stopped. Her date had requested that she “dress casual,” just as she did on the country-cooking show she hosted on the Food Network—denim, boots, yee-haw blouses and all.

And what the hell? She’d gone along with it. But now her lacy flowered blouse seemed to show too much cleavage, and her jeans clung too tightly, reminding her of what she’d felt like over a year ago when she’d still been packing extra pounds.

Margot chuffed. “You’re not squirming out of an answer to this one, Leigh. How is it my fault that you ended up in this situation? You’re the one who said yes to the conditions after Beth bought the basket.”

Right or wrong, she was so on edge that she said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re the one who made up the baskets in the first place. When we heard that Dani was going to give up on her big wedding plans, you thought of the date auction to help her raise money for her extravaganza.”

“Not that it did much good since Dani refused the money and decided to go small.” Margot lasered a knowing look at her. “You’re only ticked off because I made my basket as sexy as hell, and you didn’t want to be outdone. Say it—I’m totally right, aren’t I?”

Leigh shot her an irritated glance, but it wasn’t exactly all about Margot. She was merely stalling by sitting here saying dumb stuff and creating an argument.

But she wasn’t sure just why she was so reluctant to get out of the car. There’d been a restless growl rolling through her ever since she had heard about Margot’s hot basket and what Leigh could put in hers, too. Hell, if she were telling the whole truth, she would even have to admit that the growl had started about a year ago, when she’d dropped the weight she’d carried since she was a kid.

The growl made her stay up most nights, running her hand over her belly, circling, then going lower, trying to give herself what she’d never gotten from all the ho-hum sex she’d had before with the lights off so that her few, steady partners wouldn’t see all her bulges and cellulite.

And so that they wouldn’t call her “Cushions,” just as they had in college when she’d been pledging with Margot and Dani.

“Sorry,” Leigh finally said, absently toying with the seam on her jeans again. “I’m pretty nervous, and I’m saying things I don’t mean.”

Margot softened. “Are you sure it’s not excitement you’re feeling?”

That could’ve been it, too. “There’re just a bunch of second thoughts attacking me right now. I keep thinking that if you hadn’t been so adventurous with your basket, I probably wouldn’t have been so daring with mine. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Why didn’t I just offer an innocent little picnic at the reunion and leave it at that?”

Margot bit her lip, and Leigh could tell she was stifling a laugh. They’d always been competitive—when they were dorm roommates, when they’d lived together at the sorority house, even after college when Margot, the Girl Most Likely to Succeed, had shot to infamy with all the “single woman on the go” travel books she’d written. Margot had always made Leigh want to be better, to keep up with her, and the baskets had been no exception.

“I suppose you’re right,” Margot said. “This is all my fault. I’m an awful person for making you want to have some fun.”

A moment passed; then they both laughed and for a moment Leigh’s nerves actually mellowed.

But the sight of the mansion on the hill remained in her peripheral vision, and she didn’t laugh for long.

Seriously—what was she getting herself into?

That familiar growl gnawed through her belly, making her ache a little between her legs. Admit it, she thought. You want this.

She wanted to let go of all her chubby-girl neuroses, wanted to see what it would be like to come out of her modest closet in a big way. She wanted to go on a mystery date with her own sexy basket and the taste of honey it offered, literally with a humdinger of a meal, and figuratively with...

Oh, God, she had no idea what else was in store for her tonight.

Margot got out her smartphone, dialing it as she glanced at Leigh. “You need an extra push out of this car, sweetie.” Then she smiled brightly. “Dani? I’m putting you on speakerphone with me and Leigh.”

Dani, who rounded out their best-friend group, was laughing when she came on the line. Leigh could almost imagine her, with her curly bobbed red hair, her doe-gray eyes and her milk-pale skin. She tried not to think about the look on Dani’s face that she caught sometimes.... Was it disappointment that she wouldn’t have the grand nuptials she’d always dreamed of, ever since college when they’d nicknamed her “Hearts”? Or was it the cold feet Leigh and Margot suspected Dani might be suffering after an engagement that had lasted for years now?

“You haven’t gone into his place yet?” Dani asked Leigh.

Leigh rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be catering for someone?”

“I’m on a break at work, just like I was when I gave you a pep talk before you left the hotel. I wish I could’ve driven down there with Margot to meet you.”

Leigh shot the phone a disgruntled glance as Margot laughed and said, “You’ve got work, and I’ve got this covered, Dan. Except I wish you were here to help me kick Leigh’s butt up this long driveway. You should see what’s at the end of it. The mansion is straight out of Jane Eyre or—”

Leigh cut her off. “Margot is having a grand old time, Dani. She’s playing on my last nerve because it’s hilarious to her.”

Margot shrugged innocently. “You’re so easy to mess with, though.”

“Just don’t listen to Margot,” Dani said. “It’s not like you’re going into an unsafe place, Leigh. Beth Dahrling said she’d meet you there, right?”

Beth Dahrling, the woman who’d bid on Leigh’s basket in place of the Mystery Man.

“Right,” Leigh said. “But I doubt she’ll be chaperoning the whole night. She’s just a friend of this guy, and she set everything up.”

“She’s a fellow sister. Plus, she told you that Mystery Man was a brother in our very favorite fraternity, and a brother would never put you in a bad situation.”

True. Riley, Dani’s fiancé and a Phi Rho Mu brother to boot, had all but promised Leigh that one of his own would never harm her. Besides, Beth would be here. Still, Riley had no idea of Mystery Man’s identity, although he’d done enough online research to try and uncover it. Margot put a hand on Leigh’s arm, and it was a comforting touch. “It’ll be a good time, you’ll see. My bet is that he’s just one of the fraternity brothers—a San Joaquin cowboy whose ranch is making the big bucks—and he’s having some fun with you. He’ll ask the TV chef to cook him dinner, and while you’re eating, you’ll have a major laugh over this whole secrecy thing.”

Leigh locked gazes with Margot, her frenemy, the woman who’d always had everything come so easily to her. The person Leigh had wanted to emulate in college and beyond, even as they went toe-to-toe with each other.

It was as if Margot saw all of that in Leigh’s eyes, and for some reason she glanced away.

This wasn’t the first time Margot had acted like this recently, and Leigh had been wondering why. Her friend had started a new book about a city girl living the country life on Clint’s cutting-horse ranch, and she had a new blog that was drawing all kinds of interest. So why did she occasionally look as if she was hiding something?

Leigh wanted to ask what was going on, but Dani was already speaking on the phone.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you going to stay in that car all night or are you going to have an adventure?”

Leigh sent one last look to the mansion, her stomach in knots...

And that growl combing over every inch of her.

* * *

ADAM MORGAN LEANED against the wall near a barred window in the top story of the rented house. He was watching the Prius that was parked at the end of the long driveway, near the open iron gates that separated him from the eucalyptus-shrouded lane that led up here.

“She’s not coming in, is she?” he asked.

Next to him, his good friend Beth Dahrling was also peering out the window. “Well, Leigh’s here, at least. I don’t think she would come this far to turn around.”

She had to be right, because he had hired a small plane, in cash, to fly Leigh down here to the Pismo Beach area from her home up in Lodi. He’d decided to have this dinner away from Avila Grande, where they’d both attended Cal-U.

For a short time, in Adam’s case.

He glanced over his shoulder at Beth, whose long dark hair was swept back into a tortoiseshell barrette. In her chic printed silk wrap dress and with her rosy-brown skin, she seemed colorful and exotic, but the melancholy expression she wore gave him pause.

“You still think this is a bad idea,” he said, a trace of amusement in his voice.

“I think it’s an odd one.” She turned her liquid-brown gaze on him. “I think all you had to do was bid on Leigh’s basket and reveal who you were.”

“She wouldn’t remember me.” He hadn’t stuck around the university long enough for there to even be a picture of him on the walls of the fraternity house, where he’d pledged for only a short time before he’d had to drop out and return home.

But several months ago, when he’d seen Leigh on TV for the first time, he’d certainly remembered her. And when Beth had mentioned the basket auction that was being held at the reunion for their connected organizations, he’d thought of Leigh as she had been fourteen years ago, laughing all the time, taking a moment to smile at the shy freshman pledge who didn’t say much to girls—the kid who’d disappeared without ever becoming an official Phi Rho Mu brother.

Beth sighed and walked away from the window. Adam turned around, folding his arms over his chest while she spoke.

“Do you blame her for being cautious about this?” she asked. “For all she knows, you could be the Phantom of the Opera in this old house.”

He dodged her comment. “I didn’t want to use any of my own homes.” Not for a one-night basket date that had sparked his imagination.

“You know damned well that it’s not your homes I’m talking about,” Beth said. “Really, Adam, this is the strangest thing you’ve ever done. In fact...”

She didn’t have to say anything else. Ever since his wife, Carla, had withered away from breast cancer two years ago, he had become a recluse, uninterested in most things that happened outside the walls of his homes, except for the many property and business investments that he’d inherited from Carla, money that kept his bank accounts flush, thanks to the way he’d multiplied the investments.

“Hey,” he said, walking over to Beth and reaching out, chucking her under the chin with his finger. “This is going to turn out all right. No worries.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’ll turn out all right for you. This date will provide some temporary entertainment, and then you’ll move on to whatever comes next. I’ve seen it before with your women, but none of them have ever been one of my sisters.”

She was talking about the women he’d met online. Women he would talk to behind yet another wall—this one created by the computer. They provided mental fantasies for him, and that was all he’d needed for a couple of years now....

Until he’d seen Leigh on TV, wearing a red-and-white-checkered shirt that was unbuttoned down to here, her stomach bared because of the knot she’d tied above her waist, her long blond hair pinned away from her heart-shaped face and tumbling down her back as she worked in her Come-on Down Kitchen by candlelight, creating sensual country meals on her show.

She’d taken off a lot of weight since college, but he thought she’d looked just as beautiful with her curves and soft skin back then. He’d first seen her at a casual party populated mostly by his fraternity brothers and the Tau Epsilon Gamma sorority, and his heart had skipped a beat while she’d joked with her friends across the room. Her laugh had captured him in some physical way that he’d never been able to explain, but it had consumed him that night, and he’d never forgotten. And that smile she’d given him in passing—that dazzling, pure smile that had reached inside and grabbed him.... If he’d been less shy, he would’ve taken that as encouragement, but the fact that he’d never had the chance made Leigh Vaughn into a figment of his college imagination, made her into the ultimate “what could’ve been” girl.

Of course, that had been just before he was called home after his dad succumbed to a heart attack and Adam had taken up the mantle of “man of the house.”

He turned back around, moving to the window again. He could see that the car was still parked, and even now his heart flipped. But it wasn’t because of some old never-consummated crush. It was because of tonight’s scenario.

The basket.

He’d initiated all of this out of sheer curiosity. How had Leigh turned out so many years later? Did she still have the same warmth a man could feel even from across a room?

Adam gripped the window frame. He wasn’t someone who needed warmth—it was the curiosity that was driving him. That was all. And these days he could afford to appease it.

He could afford almost anything that broke up the boredom.

As he kept looking through the barred window, he could faintly see his reflection: dark hair and nearly gold eyes from his mom’s Spanish heritage, a mouth drawn tight. A man wearing a black shirt and jeans. Someone he barely recognized.

“This is only a harmless date, Beth,” he said. “For everyone involved.”

“I’ll bet Leigh’s ready to jump out of her skin. Does that turn you on or something?”

He paused. Did it turn him on to know that she was wondering who he was?

Yeah. Yeah, it did. And he liked that she would never know enough about him to contact him for another date if she got it in her head that she wanted more. He didn’t do attachments. Not anymore, not after Carla had taken his heart with her.

Beth walked away, her footsteps thudding on the polished wood floor.

“I’m going out there,” she said.

“To drag her inside?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, but this is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as being the executive assistant to a man who wants to stay in the shadows during his entire date.”

He laughed. His plan for dinner did sound demented. But he was in the mood for it. Besides, how was keeping a distance from his date any different from getting to know all those women online? There he could be anyone, just like tonight.

No attachments, no strings. This was the ultimate safe date...and a game, if he had to admit it. And the more he thought about tonight’s game, the more turned on he got.

Beth left the room, and Adam found himself holding his breath. He let it out, shaking his head. Carla would’ve thought he was going off-balance, too. She would’ve put her hands on her hips, asking him what the hell had happened to make him this way.

But Carla had always gotten straight to the point, even fourteen years ago after he’d returned to his family ranch, mourning his father, keeping his mother from shriveling into a depressed heap while helping her to run their cattle operation and raise his three younger siblings the best he could. Carla, seven years older and wiser, with a family so rich that they had already bequeathed her the gentleman’s ranch next door, had come calling the second day after he’d settled in.

Yes, even back then Carla had offered a neighborly hand to the eighteen-year-old who was so out of his depth that he could barely catch four hours of sleep per night. And as the years went by, friendship had turned into love, then into a happy marriage.

Then she was gone.

Through the window, Beth appeared on the driveway, her skirt swishing around her legs as she strode down to the open gate and the car beyond it.

Adam held his breath yet again, watching to see if Leigh was going to get out of that car and embark on this strange date.

Or if she was going to leave, just as everyone in his life seemed to do.

* * *

“OH MY GOD, here she comes,” Leigh said, sliding down in her car seat as she spied Beth walking down the driveway with purpose.

“Should we hide?”

The glee in Margot’s tone told Leigh that her friend was teasing her again. Too bad Dani had already gotten off the phone, because she could’ve joined in the chiding.

Beth reached the iron gate, then waved, and Margot obviously couldn’t resist one last gibe.

“‘“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly.’”

The joke was the last straw for Leigh, and with one defiant glance at Margot, she sucked it up, opened the door and got out of the damned car.

The salt-tinged coastal wind threaded through her hair as she shut the door and put on a smile for Beth as they hugged in greeting.

Margot had gotten out, too, and she embraced Beth, then held her at arm’s length.

“I always did admire your clothes,” Margot said, surveying Beth’s sleek multihued silk dress and her strappy gold sandals.

Beth smiled. “Even though you were a couple years behind me in college, I have to say that I looked up to your sense of style, too.” She turned to Leigh. “So what do you think?”

About fashion? Global politics? The Kardashians? Or about the blindest date ever?

Margot saved her from having to answer. “Sorry about the delay. Dani called about some wedding plans, and we were just going over them with her in the car.”

“Ah, yes. I hear Dani and Riley are having their ceremony on Clint’s ranch.” Beth laughed. “I mean, your ranch, Margot, now that you’re living together.”

Margot shrugged and actually blushed. Yeah, Margot, former queen of singletons, newly crowned empress of blushing.

“You heard right,” she said. “We’re hosting the wedding, and you’ll be invited.”

Then, as if she were a mom dropping off a child who didn’t want to attend a birthday party with evil clowns, Margot scooted around to her side of the car.

“And that’s my cue to scram.” She winked at Leigh. “Have fun, you.”

Beth took Leigh’s arm to lead her up to the open gates, and Margot used her hand as a fake telephone, putting it up to her ear and mouthing, Call me when you’re done!

Leigh widened her eyes at her friend, then turned around to walk with Beth up the driveway. Margot’s car motor revved, then faded as she drove away.

And that was when it became official. This was happening. Mystery date with Mystery Man.

Beth squeezed Leigh’s arm. “So Margot drove you over here?”

“She met me at the Sea Breeze Suites for a girls’ weekend, so yeah. I didn’t need the limo you offered.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Shoot. “You’re asking if she drove me here because I was cautious about this date?”

“Exactly.” Beth laughed. “But that’s smart, really, to bring along a friend. You can trust me, though.”

“I do trust you.” But the farther they got up the driveway, the more her stomach spun. And the more her body sang with an odd, almost warped thrill.

Her, Leigh Vaughn. She’d never, ever done anything like this before, and she was liking it. A lot.

Beth was clearly trying to put her at ease. “Your date got you everything you requested for dinner, from the ingredients to the cookware.”

All the auction basket had promised was a meal featuring honey. Like Margot, Leigh had been careful in phrasing the notes in her basket, making sure that if she didn’t want the date to go too far, she wouldn’t have to live up to any wickedly spelled-out promises. But if she liked what she saw in Mystery Man and she wanted to go beyond food and give him a real taste of honey...

Every inch of her pulsated.

“How do you know him?” Leigh asked as they got to the top of the driveway, where gnarled bushes lined the lawn and the wind whistled a soft, meandering tune.

Beth had probably been expecting this question, and she launched right into an answer.

“I’m friends with him but also professional associates. Out of pure happenstance, he found my résumé online after college, and now he pays me nicely to take care of his business affairs.”

“Didn’t you get a law degree?”

“Yes, but there are a lot of legal angles to what I do for him. Contracts, boring stuff like that.”

“And who exactly is ‘him’?”

Beth laughed again. “Good try, but that’s all you’re going to get out of me.”

As they arrived at the massive carved wood door, Leigh paused.

“Why is he taking such pains to be a mystery?” she asked, hoping that Beth would at least answer this.

Beth’s smile straightened out as she hesitated, then said, “Your basket was a game, Leigh, and he’s making a countermove, continuing the game. It’s all in fun.”

A game? What kind of man played this way? And what sort of guy could afford a place like this?

She ran her gaze over that door, noticing the iron lion’s-head knocker. “He’s rich. I can tell that much.”

“He’s got a few bucks to spare. Did you run this address through the internet?”

Leigh nodded. The house was owned by a rental property that had led her and her friends to dead ends. “We assumed the place isn’t his.”

“It isn’t. He’s only vacationing.” Beth reached out to open the door, but she hesitated again.

Meanwhile, all Leigh could hear was the sound of her heart boom-boom-booming through her.

Beth spoke, her hand still in midair. “It’ll be a harmless, fun night,” she repeated. “If you go inside with that in mind, you’ll walk away happy.”

Fear—or was it something else?—zinged through Leigh as Beth opened the door, revealing a foyer with a stone floor and a yawning staircase just beyond.

Adventure. That was what Margot would’ve said this was, and as Leigh’s pulse went wild, she craved it as she’d never craved anything else in her life.

She had a good figure now. She’d been told she was actually pretty after all that weight had come off.

It was time to make the most of what she’d never had.

She stepped across the threshold, breathing in, out, trying to keep her heart in her chest.

As Beth closed the door behind them, Leigh heard a voice just beyond the foyer, to the left.

“Good to see you here, Leigh.”

A deep, dark tone.

Leigh’s adrenaline pushed her forward. She wanted to see him. Wanted to know who had paid $5,000 for the pleasure of her company.

But when she rounded the corner, she came to a halt, surprised as hell at what she found.


2

LEIGH HAD EXPECTED to find him, Mystery Man, standing there with a saucy grin on his face.

But all she discovered was an antique table holding a small wire stand that propped up a smartphone. Next to it was her auction basket; it was open, exposing blue-and-white-gingham lining, plus the jars of honey she had labeled with each course idea for this date.

Looking at the inside of that basket, she felt as if this man had already undone part of her, like a button on her shirt.

She shivered, especially when he spoke again.

“You took a while to get up here, Leigh.”

When she answered him, she tried to control her voice. “Fashionably late, right?”

There had only been a bit of a quaver in her words. Not bad.

“Better you come late than never coming at all,” he parried.

Leigh didn’t know whether to laugh or melt into a stunned pool of sighs. Had he just tossed a sexual innuendo her way? And did he have any idea how twisted this was? How...

God, how kind of, sort of...okay...absolutely intriguing?

She sneaked a glance back at Beth, sending her a nonverbal message. Seriously? Talking to me through a speaker is part of the date?

Beth smiled. This is just the beginning. Then she walked toward the table and picked up the phone. “How about a quick tour of the place before we head to the kitchen?”

They were trying to get her settled. Not a bad idea, although Leigh wondered if she would ever feel relaxed tonight.

“Sounds good,” she said.

She followed Beth back through the foyer and past the grand staircase, all the while keeping her eye on that phone in Beth’s hand.

The parlor, or living room, or whatever superrich people called a place like this, was just as expansive as the staircase and foyer. It boasted a wall-wide view of the beach below, the waves rolling toward the shoreline as the sun kept descending. The furnishings reminded Leigh of a leather-, cherrywood-and brass-filled museum.

“How old is this house?” she asked just to make conversation since the phone had been silent.

Mystery Man’s voice answered. “It’s not as ancient as it seems. It was built to look like old money, but it hasn’t been around for more than thirty years.”

“I was hoping you’d tell me something like it’s been in your family since the Dark Ages. But among other things, I know you don’t live here.”

As the voice on the phone laughed, even Beth seemed tickled that Leigh was still attempting to unearth information.

Maybe Beth had been right: enjoy the night for what it was, because it sure seemed as if Mr. Millionaire had the means to give her a decadent date. And how many times had she been on one of those?

Sure, she was used to living a better lifestyle now with her show and all. But her date had flown her down here, then offered to put her up in a high-class hotel, which she had refused because it had seemed like too much. He seemed to be pretty free with his money.

As Leigh walked around the room, touching the grand piano by the window, then running her hand along the top of the long curved brass-backed sofa, she pictured a man who might go along with the voice. Secretive mogul? Billionaire cowboy?

“Does it bother you,” he asked, “that I might know more about you than you know about me?”

“I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t.” And she’d be lying if she said that it didn’t do something to her in a deep, shady place that she’d always repressed. This game he was playing was almost like voyeurism, where he could see her but she couldn’t see him.

There was some power in knowing that he was interested in her enough to have singled her out, wasn’t there? It was kinky, and made her feel a little audacious. Lord knows, she’d never been audacious with a man before.

She stopped at a vintage brass-trimmed minibar, inspecting it. “What exactly do you know about me?”

“We could start with the superficial,” he said. “You’ve got a cooking show, but before that you were a personal gourmet chef who spent some time in Nashville working for a few country-singing stars. One of them gave you enough clout to get that show of yours going.”

“You’ve done some homework on me.”

As they talked, Beth strolled out of the room, leading Leigh to the staircase. It was as if the woman was a butler or maid of sorts in an old black-and-white suspense movie—there but not quite there, silent as a shadow in candlelight.

“Believe it or not, Leigh,” he said, “your life is an open book.”

Right on Beth’s heels, Leigh climbed the stairs slowly, trailing her hand along the polished wood banister. “Why do you say that? What else do you know about me?”

Thud, went her boot on a stair. Thud, on another. Just like loud, body-shaking heartbeats.

“At Cal-U,” he said, “you were a home-economics major. You were on the board for Rodeo Days each year and on the dean’s list, among other honors.”

“And?”

His laugh traveled over the air, infiltrating her.

“And I know everything that’s on your biography page for the show’s website.”

Leigh almost missed a step as she came to the top of the stairs to a long hallway lit by iron wall sconces and lined with an Oriental rug.

How much did this man know about her? How deep had his research gone?

She tried not to think about painful things, like her struggle to love herself her entire life. Or...

Leigh took a breath. Or like her sister, Hannah, who’d died in a swimming accident before Leigh had even gotten out of high school. Hannah, who always was and would be the perfect child in the eyes of their parents.

Beth was waiting for her at the end of the hallway, which featured a huge circular stained-glass window. She had a concerned look on her face as she watched Leigh, probably wondering if she was so thrown off-balance by this setup that she was about to flee.

But Leigh merely gave her a grin, then kept walking toward the window, which depicted a blue rose surrounded by white panels that resembled shards of ice.

As she surveyed its beauty, she said, “It’s too bad you don’t actually live here, Mystery Man. The furnishings might’ve told me something about you.”

A drawn-out pause made her chest beat with an anxious rhythm. Was he thinking about telling her his name?

When his voice came back on the line, it was warmer, as if he did know her beyond a superficial biography.

“You can call me Callum,” he said. “That should do for now.”

Callum. Now it was easier to picture a face—a dark-haired man with wild locks and eyes as blue as the stained-glass rose. A guy who belonged in a Gothic mansion—one who matched this voice.

She went stiff between her legs, her pulse throbbing there. She was truly into this game now, and wondering what the night would bring only pumped her up more.

Beth had been staring at the blue rose, as if she felt uncomfortable being a part of this private discussion between her friend and her fellow sorority sister.

But all Leigh could think was Callum. Even if the name he’d given her was fake—which it probably was—she was genuinely hoping the rest of the date could begin now.

She took the phone from Beth, smiling at her with another clear message.

I can take it from here.

Beth didn’t show any emotion, just gave a polite smile and left Leigh alone with her Mystery Man.

When Beth had gone down the stairs, the front door shutting behind her, Leigh finally spoke.

“Callum,” she said, “can I start cooking now?”

* * *

ADAM DIDN’T GO near Leigh until she told him she was ensconced in the kitchen.

He was fairly certain she had no idea that he was nearby, in a darkened alcove that overlooked the cooking area from above. He wondered if she would be freaked out to realize he was within such close proximity of her...or if she would be just as stimulated as he was by this next move in the game that had started with her auction basket.

She had propped the disposable phone on a stand that had been waiting on one of the marble counters along with the high-end cooking accessories he’d had delivered. When Beth had arranged the date, Adam had insisted on stocking up on supplies instead of having Leigh do it, and he hoped he’d gotten everything she needed.

It looked as if he’d done well, though. She was smiling as she inspected the dry ingredients while standing at the kitchen island under the pots and pans hanging above it.

The auction basket stood in the center of the island. Even so, everything seemed to revolve around Leigh, not the basket. She was more beautiful than she was on TV, her blond hair shiny and long as it trailed down her back, pinned away from her face with a simple barrette she’d pulled from her jeans pocket. And dressed in those sexy country clothes, she had his imagination running on all cylinders, pushing steam through him until he felt ready to burst in several key places.

But tonight didn’t feel like a tawdry encounter. It felt good just to look at her, be near her. Somehow, looking made the numbness he’d experienced for over two years go away, even just temporarily.

Looking at her brought back a time before his life had crashed down all around him, not just once with his dad’s death but twice with his wife’s.

Leigh seemed content to play along with his setup as she washed her hands, then dried them.

He spoke into his own disposable cell phone and leaned back against a wall, not moving, never giving himself away.

“How about you open up that honey wine that’s still in the fridge?”

She glanced at the phone, and for a moment he felt a little envious that it was getting all the attention, not “Callum,” the name he’d given her. It’d been his paternal grandfather’s name and safe enough that it wouldn’t provide a strong connection if she should pop it into a computer to do some research on him.

“That wine’s for after dinner,” she said, moving over to the fridge and taking out a bottle of Chardonnay. “But I like a nip or two of the drier stuff while I’m cooking, so don’t mind if I do.”

“You don’t drink on your show.”

“Producer’s choice. They don’t want to encourage reckless cooking.”

She smiled as she poured herself a glass, then lifted it in a toast.

“To you, wherever you are.”

She tipped her glass to all four corners of the room, and when she got to where he was hidden, he went even stiller than before, as if she had somehow discovered him.

But that was ridiculous. And it was heart-poundingly exciting to feel as if he’d almost gotten caught.

She took a sip, then set down the glass, reaching for one of her honey jars and unscrewing the lid. He knew that she was going to give him his money’s worth with some corn bread, a salad, balsamic honey–glazed lamb chops, spicy honey-roasted cauliflower and, ultimately, a honeycomb cake.

An impetuous thought kicked him: What would she do if he appeared down there by her side to eat dinner with her?

The notion made his chest feel as if it had closed right up. He wouldn’t be showing himself. He liked this so-called date as it was—flirting, seduction by shadow, no responsibilities in the end, just as if he were on the computer having yet another virtual encounter.

Maybe, as Beth said, he was warped.

Leigh had turned on the oven and was now greasing a pan for the bread.

“So what’s with you and Beth?” she said, a lilt in her voice.

She was flirting with him. He couldn’t be wrong about that, because little by little, as she had taken a tour of this house, he’d sensed her warming up to his voice.

“Beth is a friend—” he started to say.

“I know, I know.” She put the bread pan aside and cleaned her hands. “Friends and professional associates. But she’s a beautiful woman, too. Don’t you ever...?”

His shields went up at the mere suggestion of a romantic relationship with anyone. “No. Never.”

Leigh’s posture stiffened.

Recovering, he said, “First, Beth is like a big sister to me. Second, she’s not into my type.”

Leigh seized on that. “What type is that?”

He smiled at her perseverance. “Men.”

Leigh’s mouth formed an O. But then she went right back to cooking, measuring flour in a cup and dumping it into the bowl. “That’s funny, because when Beth showed up at the auction and bid on my basket, everyone thought...you know...that she was bidding on me.”

“Under any other circumstances, that could’ve been the case. But she considers herself unlucky in love and hasn’t been serious about anyone for a while. There’s just too much work to do for me, she says. Supposedly, the hours she puts in make it hard to find a meaningful relationship.”

“You sound like quite a taskmaster.”

“I’m not the one who keeps her at her desk overtime. She’s a workaholic.”

By now Leigh had poured the cornmeal into the bowl. “You met her back in college? When you were a Phi Rho Mu brother and she was a Tau Epsilon Gamma sister?”

Leigh sure wasn’t shy about digging for information, no matter how many brick walls she ran into.

“We crossed paths briefly at Cal-U.” He wasn’t going to tell Leigh that Beth had been born and raised in a town near his and that he’d met her only once at a party during pledging but had found her résumé online later.

That had been five years ago, just after he’d gotten married.

After adding sugar and baking powder to the bowl, Leigh asked, “What were you like in school?”

“You really think I’m going to answer that?”

“I had to give it a shot.” She laughed and made a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Every move captured his attention, enchanting him, especially with that country-girl blouse she was wearing—the one that gave him a tempting peek of cleavage and tanned stomach.

“Do you have black hair?” she asked. “Because that’s how I’m picturing you. A very Callum-like dark Irish guy, like Riley Donahue but a bit more roguish. Remember Riley? Nice guy, ag-business major?”

“I heard through the grapevine that he’s engaged to Danielle Hughes.”

“See, you were around the university when I was.”

He didn’t confirm or deny. “You’ve got the color of my hair right, at least. I’ll give you that much.”

“Good. Sounds like I’m finally getting somewhere.”

Her happiness made him want to give her more, but he would no doubt regret giving her too much.

She was on a roll, though. “What do you do for a living?”

“I invite women over to rental houses and watch them cook. It’s a fetish.”

She really laughed at that, and he realized that she was sincerely enjoying herself.

And him. And this date. She wasn’t afraid of either one. In fact, he was bringing joy to a woman when he hadn’t done so for a long, long time, and he was doing it with only his voice.

But, again, this whole thing was temporary, and he had to keep that in mind.

After her laugh trailed off, a seemingly endless pause reigned. Was it because she realized that he’d used the word fetish? She’d given him a similar hesitation earlier when he’d laid that opening line on her—a thinly veiled allusion to coming.

But he’d only been testing her when she’d entered the house, seeing how much she was going to take from him. He’d probably been doing the same thing just now, too. Hell, he’d even been doing it during the house tour when he had told her what he knew about her. He could’ve pushed her further by mentioning her deceased sister, but he hadn’t wanted to bring up any ghosts like Hannah. And certainly not his wife, Carla.

Was he trying to unnerve Leigh, getting her to leave before she could decide to do so on her own?

But she was still here, stirring heavy cream, vegetable oil, honey and eggs into that bowl.

She said, “You know what’s funny about this date?”

Besides everything? “What?”

“It’s not that you’re talking to me on a phone or that you’re playing around with me by not showing yourself. It’s a cat-and-mouse game, and believe it or not, I get that.”

“So what’s so funny?”

She poured the batter into the pan. “Do you ever think that it’s easier to talk to someone you can’t see?”

He narrowed his gaze, hoping she’d go on.

She didn’t disappoint. “A few years ago there was a vendor I used for my produce. We used to talk on the phone all the time for business. But then our talks started to get...”

“Suggestive?” It was almost a whisper.

“Yeah. But only mildly.” She stopped pouring and looked at the phone, as if it truly were him. “Our talking never went anywhere, and all I knew of him was his voice. But somehow I felt like he knew a part of me that no one else did, just because nobody else had ever made me feel like he did before, merely by chatting with me.”

“How did he make you feel?”

She thought about it for a moment, then said, “As if I might be able to suggest something to him that I would never say in person, if that makes any sense. I never did that, though. After he shut down his business, I never talked to him again.”

As she put the pan in the oven, he thought he saw a yearning on her face that was so acute he wanted to make it go away.

It was at that moment he knew there were a lot of stories Leigh could tell him, a lot of mysteries about her that he’d like to solve.

Had he fallen in love—or lust—at first sight with her back in college at that party? Or maybe he was a fool who could indulge that lost sentimental part of him only here, in the near darkness.

Either way, he wanted more.

“When do you need to leave town?” he asked without thinking.

She’d been wiping off the counter, and she stopped. “I’m on hiatus from my show....”

As she let the words hang, he got the feeling that she just might be open to coming back for a second date if the rest of the night went well...if he didn’t put any pressure on her and they merely had dinner, with him still at a distance, still playing the game.

And if he gave her something to come back for.

* * *

THIS WAS DEFINITELY a date that would go down in the Singlehood Hall of Fame.

After Leigh had finished preparing the rest of the dinner, she had expected Callum to come-out-come-out-wherever-he-was.

But...no.

He had asked her to set aside his meal in the oven for later and to fix a plate for herself so she could take it to the dining room, where a long mahogany table was already set.

Low light from a chandelier toasted the room as she sat down with her plate and her glass of wine. She placed the phone on another stand that was waiting at a setting next to hers.

What was Callum’s agenda? Yeah, she knew he must have planned some sort of scenario, but surely it couldn’t last all night. Or maybe he was gauging how far he could take this. She’d seen that movie 9½ Weeks, and she knew that there were men out there who didn’t do paint-by-number relationships or dates.

Was he one of them?

Another delicious shiver danced over her skin. What did it say about her that she wanted to see how far he would push this thing? And why did she want to start pushing it herself?

She leaned back in her chair, holding the wine in front of her as the aroma of all her honeyed dishes tickled her senses. She glanced around the room, wondering where he was, feeling the voyeuristic thrill of this game once again. It wasn’t all that different from being on TV, knowing people would be watching you, never being able to see their expressions.

Let’s see.... There was a darkened second story mezzanine rimming the room. Was he up there? Somewhere?

“Is there a peephole or something that you’re using?” she asked.

“No.” His laugh filled the phone speaker. “You make me sound like a bad man in a horror movie, Leigh.”

“Bad in what way?”

Their conversations so far hadn’t crossed any boundaries, but she knew that she’d just put out an invitation to do some testing.

“I’m not sure I should answer that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not sure how much bad you can take. You were always a nice girl, weren’t you?”

“Isn’t that why you bid on my basket?”

He chuckled again, and she decided that it was really time to push back.

Putting down her wine, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table as she idly picked up a piece of bread. She’d set a bowl of honey nearby, and she dipped into it, letting the thick liquid drip.

“What kind of girl,” she said, her pulse tripping, “offers up the kind of basket I did to a total stranger?”

“Ah, but that was the genius of your basket. It was innocent, but...”

He trailed off when she took the bread and held it a few inches above her mouth, drizzling honey into it. Some of the liquid meandered over her lips, and she licked at it, then took a tiny nibble of bread.

Her chin was sticky with the stuff, too, but she let it stay there for now.

“You were saying?” she asked, barely recognizing her husky tone.

But she was delighting in the freedom of this night, being the only person in this room, with him far enough away that she wouldn’t have to see his face and know whether or not she was acting like a complete and utter fool.

Somehow she got the feeling that she didn’t look like an idiot at all—that he was enjoying the show.

She put down her bread, casually wiping off the stray honey from her chin, then sucking it from her finger. He’d stayed silent this entire time.

“You were talking about how innocent my basket was?” she asked.

His voice sounded gritty now. “It appeared that way at first.”

“And now?”

“Now,” he said, “I’m not sure what you’re about.”

She was actually good at seduction. Who knew?

She took it up another notch. “Turnabout is fair play, because I have no idea what you’re about, either.”

After rubbing her finger over her bottom lip, she used her tongue to coyly lick off more honey from that finger. He muttered something on the other end of the phone, and it sounded like an amused curse.

Good. Let him be just as thwarted as she’d been this whole time.

“You know,” she said, forgoing the rest of her meal and dipping her finger into the honey bowl this time, swirling the thick mass around, “I have to wonder why you won’t just come out here and sit with me. Is it because I do know who you are and you’re afraid I’m going to get turned off?”

“Why would you say that?”

“If you were someone I didn’t like in the fraternity, then it would make sense that you’d rather keep your distance and just play around with me from afar. It would be a sort of revenge for you.”

A pause, then, “You didn’t know me. No one really did.” His words sounded ominous until he followed them up with, “Besides, I don’t think you disliked anyone.”

She scooped out more honey, bringing it over to her plate, where she laved the bread with it just as if it were...well, not bread at all but a part of him.

As she smoothed the honey back and forth with sensual strokes, she smiled. “Is there something about you that’s unlikable?”

“I’m only a man who’s very happy with the way this date is going so far. That’s all.”

“And how is this date going?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, as if he was content with merely watching her play with the honey. As if he was imagining her finger on him, sliding back and forth, making him heat up.

Just the thought of getting a rise out of Callum sent prickles of desire through her, a wash of passion, coating her with thick dampness.

“This date is going perfectly,” he finally said.

“You like that I’m up for entertaining you?” Bold, she thought. And it feels awesome.

“I wouldn’t exactly reduce you to just being the entertainment.”

She took a different tack. “Why did you wonder when I’m going to be heading home, Callum?”

As she waited for a response, she pictured him as a lonely man. Or was he the opposite—someone who merely had a rich fantasy life that he didn’t want anyone to know about?

He spoke. “Beth might have mentioned to you that I’m vacationing here for the time being.”

“She did.” A tingle got her right in the belly. Did he have more plans for her? She laughed softly, helping him along. “Do you need a cook or something?”

“Not exactly, although you’re killing me with the smell of this meal.”

Good God—he was somewhere close. “Then come down here and eat it.”

“Later.”

Was he stringing her along, promising he was going to reveal himself if she came back another night? Lord help her, but she was so damned curious about him that she would return here again and again until she saw his face.

His voice was as smooth as the honey she’d been playing with when he came back on the phone. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

Nothing. But she wasn’t about to let him know that so easily. “I’ll have to look at my social calendar.”

“Then we’ll see if you’re free, and I’ll be in touch.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving her with a meal that she was too excited—and too calorie conscious—to eat.

Leaving her with the sense that, finally, after all these years, she could be as free as she wanted to be if she returned for some more playtime with her Mystery Man.


3

DANI COULDN’T WAIT a minute more to find out what was happening with Leigh, even if her friend might still be in the middle of her date.

Fifteen minutes ago she’d gotten off a catering job in Tulare, where she and Riley rented a house. The gig was for the same outfit she’d been with for years now—although she longed for the day when she could open her own small company. She’d headed directly for the lingerie shop nearby, browsing the massage oil and accessory section, but the whole time, she’d been obsessing about checking on Leigh. After all, what if the date was going badly? What if her friend needed an emergency call to end the night?

She decided to compromise with a text.

You good?

Dani didn’t get an answer right away, so she drove the short distance from the boutique to her little stucco home with its trimmed lawn, perennial flowers and bird fountain. Riley’s truck was in the drive, and she grasped her pink shopping bag and rushed into the house to see him.

Since he’d had the day off from his small-estate management job, he had prepped steaks for dinner, plus a salad, sautéed mushrooms and French bread. It all waited on the kitchen table for her. But when she saw her fiancé, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes bright as he smiled at her, she dropped her bag and ran into his arms.

“Dinner smells great,” she said, nestling her face in his neck as she stood on her tiptoes. He always smelled so good, too, like laundry detergent. Clean and fresh.

He kissed the top of her head and murmured, “I was just about to put the steaks on.”

“You sure they can’t wait?” She drew back from him and dangled the pink shopping bag.

At first Riley got a look on his face that she’d grown all too used to since she’d been doing a lot of lingerie shopping after their fraternity/sorority reunion. She wouldn’t say it was sadness, exactly. Maybe just a second of resignation, of thinking that he missed the sweet, docile girl she used to be before she’d had her epiphany about being stronger and more adventurous.

Just as Margot had been with her basket, and now Leigh.

And maybe Dani had gone a bit off the deep end. She had taken a good look at herself after her friends had arranged that basket auction to raise money for the big wedding she’d wanted ever since she was a child. The one she and Riley couldn’t afford these days.

It was just that her friends’ gesture had rubbed her the wrong way. Had everyone always looked at Dani as if she was helpless? And how much longer was she going to be able to live with that?

So she’d decided that it was high time to grow up—to become a success like Margot and Leigh, not the contented former home-ec major who worked for a catering company she didn’t even own. Although she still had to work for someone else for a while, she planned to open her own catering outfit soon.

Best of all, she had started jazzing up her sex life with Riley, inspired by Margot’s steamy basket and how much it had turned on Clint Barrows, who was now the love of her life.

Dani and Riley never looked at each other the way Margot and Clint did. Why not? Dani had wondered. Why couldn’t they have combustible chemistry like that?

When she had started nudging Riley into more exotic intimate situations, he’d been surprised at first, wondering if she was just suffering from cold feet before their upcoming wedding. Wondering if she was freaking out because her parents had gotten a terrible divorce several years ago and she feared turning out exactly like them.

But he had decided that they should get to know each other all over again. He wanted to “court” her. It was a fairly sweet word for what they’d been doing.

Just as Riley was about to say something in response to her pink shopping bag, her phone rang.

“It’s got to be Leigh,” she said, dropping her purchases.

Riley merely smiled at her, then went to the patio door, no doubt to get their steaks going.

Dani watched him leave, her heart fisting in her chest as the phone rang again. She was going to make him happy tonight—and for the rest of their lives. She just had to figure out how to feel happy herself.

When he was gone, she grabbed her phone, looked at the ID screen, then put the call on speakerphone. “Are you alive?” she asked.

Leigh laughed. “No, I’m coming at you from the Other Side. Boo!”

“Stop it. I was just worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t have been. I’m outside Mystery Man’s house by the gate, waiting for Margot to pick me up.”

“And...?”

Leigh’s voice lowered. “It was...different.”

“How?”

“First off, he never showed himself to me.”

Why did Dani’s thoughts immediately go to somewhere horny? Probably because of what was in her pink bag.

“Do you mean that he kept being Mystery Man?” she asked. “The whole night?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Dani started to hum the Twilight Zone theme until Leigh shushed her.

“The situation really wasn’t as oddball as it sounds.” Leigh skipped a beat. “I think.”

“You sound as confused as I am.”

“It’s just that I got used to the way he was running things. After Beth brought me up to the house, I did meet him. Sort of. He was on a phone.”

Dani frowned. “That’s how it stayed the entire time? With him talking to you on an electronic device?”

“It was fun. Like...phone sex. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You guys had phone sex?”

“No.” Leigh laughed again. “He watched me cook dinner as we chatted—”

“Did he have a TV to watch you on? Is that how he was keeping an eye on you?” This was getting kookier by the second.

“I’m not sure how he was watching me. Anyway, after I cooked, I ate the dinner.”

“By yourself.”

“Right. Actually, I didn’t eat. I wasn’t very hungry.”

It was probably a rich meal anyway, and Dani knew that Leigh was always watching her intake. “Did he eat?”

“Not with me. A good way to put it is that while I was at the table, I ate the most of the honey and some bread while he watched me from wherever he was.”

Dani sucked in a breath, then whispered, “You did food sex?”

“I won’t get into details, but it actually was fun. And I think it was the first time I ever had any real fun on a date. Usually, you just go through the motions with a guy, trying to impress him, trying to be polite and not get food between your teeth or look like a pig at dinner. Boring as hell, right? Until now.”

Dani sat in a nearby chair. “You liked it. You’re into some kink and you never even knew it.”

Leigh got a teasing tone to her voice. “Maybe you’re right. Because I’m going back there.”

“You’re what?”

“I said I’m going back. I think. He pretty much invited me to the house again at the end of dinner.”

Riley ambled into the room with a plate of steaks in hand. Dani took in the aroma, along with the smell of mushrooms that already permeated the kitchen.

He nodded toward the phone. “Hey, Leigh, are you still alive or did the boogeyman get you?”

“Hah-hah,” Leigh said. “You two must share thoughts as well as everything else.”

He set the steaks down and began to put them on two plates. “I’m just checking up on you. We’d kind of like to have you around, in one piece.”

“That’s sweet, Riley.” Leigh changed topic. “Oh—here’s Margot. Talk to you all soon, okay?”

Dani shook a finger at the phone. “You be careful when you go back there.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

They signed off, leaving Dani and Riley at the table, alone at last.

He glanced at the pink bag on the floor but didn’t say anything about it as he sat, opening a bottle of beer for her, then one for him.

“I’m not even going to ask what happened on that date,” he said.

Even though she and Riley shared everything—as Leigh had pointed out—Dani hesitated to tell him the details of the night. They were just too...

She was about to say “insane,” but then she got that flippy-floppy turn of the stomach, telling her that Leigh’s date had actually captured her imagination.

Phone sex. A dark stranger.

Dani bypassed her steak and beer, pulling her chair closer to Riley’s and grabbing her pink bag on the way.

“Do you think we could hold off on the steak and take a little break before dinner?” she asked.

This time, instead of that sadness in his gaze, she detected a spark. And when she brought out the pair of blue fuzzy handcuffs she’d purchased, he put down his beer.

She got out of her chair and went to an odds-and-ends drawer near the oven, taking out a length of blue fabric she occasionally used to decorate the center of the table. She showed it to him.

“I wonder,” she said, “how it felt when Leigh realized that her date wasn’t going to show her who he was tonight.”

Riley cocked a brow. “He did what?”

“Long story.” She went over to him, then trailed the material over his shoulder. “I want to know what it feels like to have some mystery going on with us, Riley.”

He grabbed the material, wrapping it around his hand, and she knew that they’d started some courting.

Not long ago, when she had told Riley that she wanted to push their boundaries in the bedroom, he had asked her if she was unhappy in their relationship. She wasn’t. Hadn’t ever been.

But there were so many things she hadn’t enjoyed in life yet. Would she regret never exploring those things before they got married and then realize years down the road that it was too late?

She sat on his lap, snuggling her butt toward his groin, which was already straining against his button fly.

“Blindfold me,” she said.

He looked at the steaks, as practical a man as ever, until she cupped his chin with a hand and made him focus on her.

“Those can wait,” she said, already sounding like the type of woman who would go into a dark house to meet a dark man.

He grinned, and it wasn’t a carefree Riley grin, either. It was a hungry one, and it shocked her deep in her groin.

As he slid a hand up her ribs, over her breast, on his way to grab the material, she gasped. Then, almost roughly, he turned her around on his lap.

He wrapped the material to cover her eyes, tying it securely. “This is what you want?” he asked in a gruff voice.

He didn’t sound like himself, either, and her blood pushed through her veins as she tried to match the voice with her image of him. But even blindfolded, she still saw Riley.

She pointed toward the cuffs on the table. “You’ll want to make sure I can’t take off this blindfold.”

“Why?”

“Because even though you don’t want me to know your identity, I’m dying to see who you are.” Or who he was going to play at being.

She’d meant it teasingly, but was he thinking that she should know who he was by now? It felt as if a piece of her heart had crumbled because she wasn’t sure just how invested he was in all these games she was introducing.

Was she seeing how far he would go before he left her? Would she be getting a divorce from him before they were married thirty-seven years just like her parents had been, saving them the time and heartache?

As she felt Riley reach for the handcuffs, she remembered the first time she had seen him, during a party. He’d been leaning against the outside wall of the fraternity house by the pool with some friends, smiling and drinking a soda, and she had thought what a nice guy he probably was. She’d been a freshman who didn’t know much about boys, and she and Riley had ended up friends. It’d only been after college that she had met up with him again and the fireworks had started.

It had been smooth sailing ever since...until now, when she felt the handcuffs close around her wrists.

She turned her face to him, forgetting for a moment that she couldn’t see him from under the blindfold.

“This is how you want it?” he asked again.

She nodded, and he stood, taking her by the waist at the same time, then putting her on the chair and raising her hands above her head. She rested her palms on her head, feeling vulnerable, her breasts pushing against her sweater.

As her pulse flailed, he pulled up her skirt, and her first instinct was to close her legs. But he guided them back open.

Heat sang through her, but so did a little bit of fear, as her clit throbbed in anticipation.

“Do you like not being able to see me, Dani?” he asked. “Is this dangerous for you?”

“It’s safe enough.” Always safe with Riley.

At least, that was what she thought until he slipped his hand between her legs, touching her at her most sensitive point.

She made a desperate sound, and he tugged her panties away from her body. Air tickled her.

“Who am I tonight?” he asked, and she detected a trace of that sadness in him again. “Who do you want me to be?”

“I...”

She wanted to say “Riley,” but that didn’t go along with the dark-man fantasy.

When he eased his fingers between her legs and strummed her, she breathed in and clamped her arms around her head. He put his mouth close to her ear, and when he spoke, she startled.

“You need to think about who you really want, Dani,” he said softly.

Was he saying that she needed to name an identity for him so that the fantasy would work? Or was there something more important he wanted her to think about?

She bit her lip as he worked her with his fingers, pushing her toward a place where, hopefully, she was going to see the light.

* * *

DURING THE CAR ride to the Sea Breeze Suites where Margot and Leigh were staying for a couple of nights, Leigh answered every question Margot had about the date. Even when they’d gotten back to their room, camped out on their beds while hardly able to even think about getting to sleep yet, Margot didn’t stop her inquisition.

“Really?” she asked for about the twentieth time. “You’re going on another date with him?”

The more Margot disbelieved her, the more determined Leigh was to have her next encounter with Callum.

Leigh Vaughn, with her skinny jeans and a whole new attitude. She hadn’t realized how boring her life was until tonight, when she’d experienced a little bit of adventure.

And craved more.

“You bet I’m going back,” she said. “And you know what? If he can play a game with me, I can play just as well. You should’ve seen me at dinner with the honey. You would’ve been proud.”

Seemingly persuaded, Margot leaned back against the pillows she’d propped against the headboard. Then she smiled like a well-fed cat. “Leigh has arrived.”

Was that a blush she felt creeping up her face?

Nah. Women who flirted with unknown men didn’t blush.

After kicking off her hand-tooled red boots and putting her feet on the mattress, she leaned back against the headboard, too.

“I’ve been asking myself one question since I left,” she said. “What kind of man invites over a well-known cook he somehow knew from college and cuts out of the date as if his house is on fire?”

“You really want me to answer that?” In the car, Margot had compared Callum to everyone from Count Dracula to the Marquis de Sade. You just never knew, she said. But now she sighed. “I was on the computer while you were gone, conducting another search of Phi Rho Mu. But there’re no millionaires who matched the name Callum.”

“Whoever he is, I think he’s kind of shy.”

“Shy? Some of the things he said to you—especially that opening line about coming—aren’t the stuff shy men say.”

“Playing a game can make a person brassier than they usually are.” Leigh thought about the moment she’d licked the honey off her fingers and when she’d spread it over the bread with suggestive slowness. “I know that having him in the shadows did something to me. It gave me some...”

“Power?”

“Yeah.” Leigh turned her head so she could look at Margot. “I’ve never had power before.”

“Yes, you have. You’ve got a TV show. You’re a rising star, Leigh. That’s some power.”

“Business is different.”

They were both quiet for a moment. In fact, Margot seemed too quiet. And she had that expression on her face that she got whenever she and Leigh talked about their jobs.

Enough was enough. “What’s going on with you, Marg?”

It must’ve been the compassionate tone of her voice, because Margot closed her eyes, then put on an embarrassed smile.

“I was going to tell you sometime or another. Might as well be now.”

“Is everything okay?”

“More than okay. In most ways.” She tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you know why I’m not writing the ‘single woman on the go’ books anymore?”

Something was already sinking inside Leigh’s chest. “No.”

Margot shrugged. “My publisher canceled my last contract. Sales were declining, they said.”

“Oh, Margot.” Leigh sat away from the headboard.

She held up a hand. “No pity, please. Don’t they say that when a door closes on you, a window opens? Well, that’s what happened with this new blog and the ‘city girl goes country’ book I’m working on. You know the blog’s getting a lot of hits, and maybe that could lead to another publisher buying a book or two. And then there’s Clint.” Margot got a dreamy look in her eyes. “He’s the best opened window of all.”

“So life is good?”

“How can it not be with him around? Everything’s great, including the fact that his brothers, who were about to sue the pants off of him because he didn’t want to sell the cutting-horse ranch, have backed down now that we’ve got a bulldog lawyer on our side.”

Leigh leaned against the headboard again, smiling at her friend.

Margot returned the gesture. “Know what the worst part of all this was, though?”

“What?”

“Telling you that I’d failed.”

Leigh knit her brows, about to argue, but Margot went on.

“We’ve had this competitive thing going on since college. Last month you even told me that you’ve always wanted to be just like me, and that everything came so easily to me.”

Leigh remembered. They’d been in a bridal shop, perusing gowns for Dani. She had gotten a pang that day—the sense that she would probably never get married because her inner chubby girl kept telling her no man would want her in the long run, after she inevitably gained all her weight back. She’d told Margot that she more or less envied her because Margot had always been the perfect one, but then her friend had gotten that expression on her face....

Now Leigh understood the reason.

“In my eyes,” she said to Margot, “you’re always going to be a winner. Look at how you’ve bounced back already.”

Margot smiled, and she was just about to say something when Leigh’s cell phone rang.

They looked at each other, gazes wide.

“Well?” Margot said, nearly bursting. “Are you going to get that or what?”

Leigh promised to talk to Margot later as she grabbed the phone and peered at the ID screen.

“It’s Beth Dahrling,” she said, her pulse whipping into a frenzy again, just before she pushed the answer button.

* * *

WHEN ADAM RECEIVED Beth’s Skype call on his computer that night, he was in his bedroom near the attic of the mansion, a room that hadn’t been included in Leigh’s tour.

He pushed aside the quarterly projections for one of the biofuel companies he’d invested in and focused on Beth instead.

She was wearing a silk dressing gown, her hair in a bun at her nape, as she sat at a desk in the guest cottage on the mansion’s property. “I just thought you might want to know that Leigh officially said yes to tomorrow.”

Adam sat back in his chair, smiling. He’d been trying to steady his heartbeat for the past couple of hours while wondering if Leigh would sincerely want to have a second encounter with “Callum.” He’d ended the date so abruptly that he thought he might’ve made a mistake in trying to leave her with her curiosity about him intact.

“You’ll make arrangements for a limousine to pick her up at her hotel tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes, and I told her where to wait on the beach below the mansion after she’s dropped off. After your date, it’ll be taking her back to her hotel, too.”

“She’ll be here just in time to enjoy the sunset.”

He had a little something planned—slow seduction, heated suggestion, sweet words on a phone as she strolled down the shoreline much as she’d strolled through his rented mansion tonight, flirting with him.... He wasn’t sure what would come after that, though.

All he knew was that he had to see her again. Hear her voice, her laugh.

Beth reached for the keyboard as if to terminate the connection.

“Wait,” he said. “You’re not still angry with me.”

“Angry isn’t the word.” She looked away from the computer, offscreen.

“Then what’s going on with you?”

Her jaw tightened, and he could tell he was in for it.

“We’ve known each other a fairly long time, Adam,” she said, still unwilling to meet his computer gaze. “I didn’t know you in college—you weren’t there long enough for that—but you were still young when you and Carla hired me to manage your business affairs.”

“My late twenties wasn’t that young. Especially after what I’d gone through when Dad died.” And a few years later, he’d felt even older after watching how much Carla had suffered with the damned cancer.

“Believe it or not,” Beth said, finally looking into the computer’s eye, “you were different back then. You were...normal.”

The word struck him. “Normal?”

“You actually had the capacity to feel. You wouldn’t have shut yourself away and screwed with a woman’s head like you did tonight...and like you’re probably going to do tomorrow. Unless I’m wrong and you’re going to be Adam Morgan with her.”

A short laugh escaped him. “What’s normal anyway?”

Was it setting yourself up like a target and waiting for life to shoot bullets at you? Was it taking those bullets and pretending that they hadn’t ripped you apart? Or was “normal” the opposite—putting on layers and layers of protection just so you could make sure you never got hit again?

Beth was shaking her head. “Don’t ever ask me what normal is, Adam. I might not have the definition, but I know it’s not this. And I don’t think for a minute that this Callum act is going to make you happy in the end. As I told you earlier, someone’s going to get burned in your little game, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be you.”

He bristled. “Overly concerned for Leigh, are we?”

“She was one of my sorority sisters and in general she’s a nice person. I don’t like to see people hurt.” She tilted her head. “I don’t like to see you hurting, either.”

At that moment, he wished he could be different, if only for Beth’s sake. But he liked being this way, didn’t he? Or maybe he just had to be this way to tolerate what life dealt out.

“Truthfully,” Beth said, drawing her robe around her tighter, “I’m surprised Leigh is going for this.”





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