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“This is Mr. Skalas’s private waiting area,” the woman told her. “Please make yourself comfortable. If you require assistance, you may step across the hall, where the secretarial staff will be happy to help in any way they can.”
Then she was gone.
Leaving Kendra alone with her mounting panic.
She couldn’t bear to sit, afraid she might come out of her own skin. She stood and stared out the windows instead.
“There’s nothing to fear,” she told herself firmly, if under her breath. “He won’t remember anything about you.”
The real trouble was thatsheremembered all too well.
She didn’t recall what charity event her mother had used as an excuse that summer.Kendra hadonlyjust graduated fromMount Holyoke, certain it would be a matter ofmonths before she could take her rightful place in the family company.She’d figured it was her job, then, to act the part of the businessperson she intended to become.She might not have taken naturally to the world of business—far preferring a good book and a quiet place to read it to the endless rounds of deals and drinks and men in their golf togs—but who ever said life was about whatfeltgood? Surely it was about what a person did, not what they dreamed about.Accordingly, she’d been putting herself out there. She might not havefeltsparkling and effervescent, the way her mother always told her she ought to, but she could pretend.
And so she had, waving a cocktail around as she’d laughed and mingled and exhausted herself so thoroughly that after dinner, she’d sneaked off for a few moments’ break. The dancing was about to begin beneath the grand tent that sprawled over the part of her parents’ lawn that offered the best views of Long Island Sound.
She paid no mind to the distraught woman who passed her in a rush of tears and silk on the trellis path that led to her favorite gazebo, set up above the rocky shoreline. It was a pretty evening and the air was warm with scents of salt, grass, and flowers. She could hear the band playing behind her as she walked, and she welcomed the dim light of the evenly spaced lanterns along her way because they were far less intrusive than the brightness inside the tent. She could drop her smile. She could breathe.
It was only when she climbed the steps to the gazebo that she saw him standing against the far rail, almost lost in the shadows.
And then wondered how she could possibly not havefelthis presence, so intense was he. Thepunchof him.
Kendra had felt winded.
He wore a dark suit that should have made him indistinguishable from every other manat that party. But instead she found herself stunned by the width of his shoulders, his offhanded athletic grace.His mouth was a stern line, his eyes deep setand thunderous. His hair was thick and dark and looked as if he had been running his fingers through it—thoughit occurred to her, with a jolt, that it had probably not beenhisfingers.
It had been a clear, bright evening, but she suddenly felt as if a summer storm had rolled in off the Sound. As if the clouds were thick and low. Threatening.
And all he did was lift a brow, arrogant and ruthless at once. “I don’t believe I sent for a replacement.”
It had made no sense. Later, she would tell herself it was something about the way he’d gazed at her as if he’d brought her into being. She’d never seen anything like it before. All that fire. All that warning. And other things she couldn’t define.
He’d lifted two fingers and beckoned her near.
It hadn’t occurred to her to disobey. Kendra drifted closer, aware of herself in a way she never had been before. Her breasts felt thick and heavy in the bodice of her dress when she usually forgot they were there. Her thighs seemed to brush against each other, rich whispers. And between her legs, she felt herself heat, then melt.
But this spellbinding man gazed at her in stark command, and she could do nothing at all but go to him.
“So eager,” he murmured when she drew near.
Kendra hadn’t known what that meant, either. His words didn’t make any sense, and yet the sound of them soared inside of her. She felt as if she was a fluttering, desperate, small thing that he could easily hold in the palm of his hand—
Then he did.
He wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and hauled her those last few, thrilling inches toward him. She found her hands on his chest and the sheer heat of him seemed to wallop her, making her knees go weak.
“Very well,” he’d said. “You’ll do.”
Then he’d set his mouth to her neck.
And Kendra had died.
There was no other explanation for what happened to her. His mouth against her skin, toying with her, tasting her. She felt her mouth open wide as if on a silent scream, but all she did was let her head fall back in delicious, delirious surrender.
The hand that gripped her neck dropped like a band of steel around her hips, drawing her even harder against him.
It was too much. She couldhear the sound ofthe party in the distance, laughter and the clinking of glasses,but she wason fire.
And then she felt his hand move beneath the hem of her dress, volcanic and impossible.
