My Fair Gentleman. Jan Freed

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      Joe couldn’t contain his slow grin. “I’m not buyin’.” His thumb jerked toward Pretty Boy at the bar. “He is.”

      CATHERINE GLARED across the small round table at Joe’s casual sprawl and straightened her spine. He’d insisted on waiting for their beers to arrive before listening to her proposal. The delay gave her too much time to think. Too much time to analyze.

      She, Catherine Eliza Hamilton, who could trace her paternal ancestry back to English royalty, had threatened a man’s family jewels with her cue stick. She’d used her Ph.D. in psychology to rattle Earl’s composure and win a game of billiards. And as if that wasn’t enough, she’d enjoyed herself tremendously during both activities.

      Thank heavens her father was away, lecturing at Oxford University. She wouldn’t have to hear him rant about her appalling lack of decorum—the product of her mother’s working-class genes of course. He’d blamed Mary Lou Hamilton for his daughter’s every fall from grace since Catherine was three years old.

      Mary Lou had been a waitress before marrying Lawrence Hamilton, of the impoverished but socially prominent Connecticut Hamiltons. He’d divulged that tidbit the year Catherine had turned sixteen and begged to work at a movie theater with her friends. Instead of serving popcorn, she’d spent the summer serving up research for his latest Psychology Journal article.

      Although she now cowrote those articles, her father had never gotten around to adding her name to the byline.

      Sighing, she watched a miniskirted blonde approach their table carrying a tray. Joe’s teeth flashed white against his dark stubble as he drew in his long legs. The woman’s faux-leather hips swayed harder. Her breasts jiggled in the aftershock. Disgusting. Why, she looked old enough to be his…older sister. And that smile was positively incestuous.

      Bending low, the buxom waitress set two frosty bottles on the turquoise Formica. “Here they are, Joe, nice’n cold.”

      He wiggled his brows at the plump cleavage six inches from his nose. “Want me to warm ‘em up for ya, Tammy?”

      She bopped him on the head with her plastic tray, ignoring his indignant yelp. “Behave yourself, Joe Tucker, or I’ll tell Allie you dropped your pants for the whole bar.” Splaying hot-pink fingernails on one hip, she turned toward Catherine. “You watch yourself, hon. Allie’s the only one who can control her dad. Always clownin’ around, he is. Either that, or breakin’ hearts. He’s a real smooth talker.”

      An unintelligible grunt sounded from behind her back.

      “See what I mean?” Tammy’s blue eyes twinkled as she turned. “That’ll be three bucks for your beer, Joe.” She winked to take the sting out of her demand.

      Frowning, he fumbled in his back pocket. “What about the lady?”

      “Are you kiddin’? Any woman who can shut Gary up and kick Earl’s butt in the same night deserves a reward. Her beer’s on me.”

      Meeting Tammy’s admiring gaze, Catherine took back her snide thought about silicone implants.

      Joe flipped open his worn wallet and extracted a five-dollar bill. Catherine couldn’t help seeing it was the last of his cash. She glanced toward the bar where Carl sat brooding over his American Express receipt. Before tonight, she’d never seen her fiancé forced to do anything he hadn’t planned.

      “Wait,” she said, halting Tammy’s outstretched hand. “Put them both on Mr. Wilson’s tab, please. And be sure to give yourself a big tip.”

      Tammy glanced over her shoulder at Carl and looked back grinning. “Anything you say, hon. The customer’s always right.” Tucking the tray under her. arm, she swished off toward the bar.

      Joe twisted the cap off one beer, wiped the glass lip with his sleeve and offered it to Catherine. No quaint mug in sight. Repressing a shudder, she accepted the bottle and told herself his jersey was cleaner than it looked.

      He opened the second bottle for himself and cocked his head. “Okay, Catherine, I’m all ears. What’s so all-fired important you wanted to talk to me about?”

      At last. “My future counseling practice.”

      “Your future…Are you a shrink?” He spat the word out as if it were castor oil.

      “I’m a psychologist,” she corrected. “Up until now I’ve acted as research assistant to my father. I’m sure you’ve seen him interviewed on TV—Dr. Lawrence Hamilton? He heads up the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Richmond College?”

      Joe looked remarkably unimpressed.

      “He wrote The Five-Minute Intelligence Test. All the major talk shows booked him as a guest,” she added helpfully.

      Shrugging, Joe spread his hands. “Sorry. Never heard of him.”

      Catherine felt a shocking surge of satisfaction. “Where have you been the past year?”

      Eyeing her closely through slitted lids, he tilted his head back and took a deep swallow of beer. When he rested the bottle on his muscular thigh, over a third of its contents had vanished. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

      She drew her brows together. “Should I?”

      He chuckled ruefully. “Guess not. On paper I played for the Astros, but my knees were on ice half the time.”

      “You’re a hockey player?” This was terrible.

      “I said Astros, not Aeros. As in the baseball team,” he explained, his male disgust palpable.

      Baseball, hockey—they both meant road trips, lots of publicity…“Wait a minute. Did you say played?”

      “Yeah.” His bleak tone matched his eyes. “Right now I’m kinda at loose ends.”

      She broke into a joyful smile, then smothered it at his startled look. “I’m changing jobs, too. That is, I’d like to establish my own family counseling practice. But my fiancé—the man buying the drinks tonightwants a more…traditional relationship.”

      Joe knuckled his eye sockets, blew out a breath and held her gaze. “Catherine…work with me here. What the hell do I have to do with any of this?”

      Oh, God. She took a tiny sip of beer and grimaced. What she wouldn’t give right now for a snifter of Remy Martin to bolster her courage. “I need you to win a bet I made with Carl.”

      “A bet.”

      “That’s right. Over dinner, we were discussing Father’s theory that intelligent sophisticates are born, not made. Carl agrees with the theory. I don’t.” She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I became a tad… vehement.”

      Her fiancé had stepped into her father’s shoes for the summer and triggered years of suppressed rebellion. She’d actually raised her voice in a chic restaurant defending environmental versus genetic influence on behavior. Every paternal slur regarding her own “tainted” gene pool had fueled her heated challenge.

      “You might wanna speed things up, doll. This place СКАЧАТЬ