Moonstruck In Manhattan. Cara Summers

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СКАЧАТЬ as his sentence trailed off, Chelsea glanced past him to the couple seated just beyond the entrance to the bar. The woman wasn’t staring at her. But the man was. On second thought, he was scowling. She felt Daryl’s hands reach under her skirt again.

      “Daryl, I think you’d better—”

      “Miss,” Pierre paused to clear his throat. “I’d like to apologize for the behavior of our bartender. If you would allow me the pleasure of seating you at one of our best tables, I can offer you a complimentary lunch.”

      Chelsea stared at the maître d’. A moment ago, he’d been frowning. Now he was beaming a smile at her and offering her a free lunch.

      “Turn,” Daryl said as he ripped off another strip of tape.

      “Customers are looking at us. I don’t want you to get fired,” Chelsea said in a low tone. She didn’t want him to get hurt either. The scowling man was beginning to look dangerous.

      “I just have one more section to fix. Turn.”

      Even after she did as she was told, Chelsea felt the scowling man’s eyes boring into the back of her neck. Her skin had started to prickle. She could have sworn she felt that gaze move right down her body to where Daryl was fastening the last bit of tape to her hem.

      “YOU HAVEN’T HEARD a word I’ve said.”

      Zach tore his gaze from the woman at the bar and fastened it on his favorite aunt. He was sure that Miranda McDaniels would have been his favorite hands down, even if she hadn’t been his only aunt. From the time he was a child, she had personified the word flamboyant to him. She was also one of the kindest and most generous people he knew. “Yes, I have. You’re trying to convince me that—”

      The rest of his reply was cut off by the arrival of a waiter to take their drink orders. Zach managed to suppress a smile when his aunt ordered a martini straight up with a cherry. The waiter never missed a beat as he scribbled it on his pad.

      “And you, sir?”

      “I’ll have bottled water.”

      As soon as the waiter had moved away, Zach grinned at Miranda. “Let me guess. The cherry will go with your outfit.”

      “Exactly,” Miranda said. “Not to mention my nails.”

      Not many women could carry off the bright red wool suit and the wide-brimmed hat, but his aunt could. On impulse, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

      “You’re trying to distract me.”

      “Am I succeeding?”

      Miranda sighed. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

      “You’re trying to make me believe that my father really intended for me to run Metropolitan magazine. But it’s not going to work. The bottom line is that he left it to you in his will because he was sure that I couldn’t be trusted with it.”

      Miranda McDaniels sighed and shook her head. “You’re a lot like him, you know. Stubborn, opinionated—” She broke off her sentence to follow the direction of her nephew’s gaze. “Well, well. No wonder you aren’t paying two cents worth of attention to anything I’ve said. She’s very pretty.”

      “The bartender would agree with you,” Zach said. “He hasn’t been able to keep his hands off her since she took her coat off. Of course, that skirt hides nothing. She might as well be naked.”

      Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? She’s fully clothed. In fact, that skirt is too long.”

      “Can’t you see her legs?” Zach asked. They were much longer than he’d imagined and he’d been thinking about them quite a bit since she’d taken off her coat and stepped toward the window. With the light behind it, he could see right through the thin material of the skirt. She wasn’t very tall, but below her waist she was all legs. A little fantasy of just how those legs might feel wrapped around him had begun to play and replay itself in his mind. He couldn’t seem to shake it loose. He felt exactly the way he had several times as a teen, totally paralyzed by a hormone surge.

      “I’ve heard of men undressing women with their eyes, but this is the first time I’ve actually witnessed it taking place,” Miranda said.

      Zach tore his gaze away from the woman at the bar to find his aunt laughing at him. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. That hadn’t happened since he was a teenager, either.

      She leaned closer to him. “If you’d like I could make a quiet exit stage left and you could go introduce yourself to that young lady.”

      Zach frowned but he couldn’t prevent his eyes from returning to the woman in the bar. “A lady would hardly be wearing a skirt like that. Nor would she allow a man to fondle her in a public place.”

      Miranda’s eyes widened. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak about a woman in quite that judgmental way before. You sound like your brother.”

      “Ouch!” The corners of his mouth curved as he pantomimed pulling an arrow out of his heart. “Way to hurt a guy.”

      “Drastic measures were called for. One stuffy prude for a nephew is all I can handle.”

      “Speaking of Jerry, how does our esteemed congressman feel about your decision to put me in charge at Metropolitan magazine?” Zach was sure it must have come as an unpleasant shock to his older brother that Miranda was going to do what his father had failed to do—hand the publishing part of his empire over to the black sheep of the family. “He must have given you a hard time at the board meeting.”

      “On the contrary. He had no choice but to support my recommendation. If he’d made any strenuous objection, it might have looked as if he was stabbing his brother in the back.” Miranda’s lips curved. “You have to be very careful not to do that when your campaign for public office is based on restoring family values.”

      “And they all agreed to let me break the news to the editorial staff?”

      “Absolutely. It’s your magazine now. You call the shots.”

      My magazine. He played the phrase over in his mind, liking the sound of it. Running Metropolitan had been a dream of his since he’d been a child. Unfortunately, it had not been part of his father’s dream for him. Jeremiah McDaniels, Sr. had wanted his sons to run for public office. He could train people to run his businesses, he said. He wanted his sons in positions of power. Zach’s brother had gone along with the plan. He hadn’t. “Jerry can’t be happy.”

      Miranda shrugged and smiled. “He didn’t like it much when you made Harvard Law Review either. That was one distinction that eluded him. Your father was proud of you that day.”

      “One day in thirty years.” Zach shook his head. “But he wasn’t proud enough of me to give me a job at Metropolitan after I graduated. And he definitely wasn’t proud of me when I turned down the position he’d lined up for me at that prestigious law firm.” He could still recall his father’s exact words, ones that he’d heard over and over as he’d been growing up. Can’t you do anything right? “Let’s face it, Aunt Miranda, there just isn’t enough evidence for you to win your case here. My father did not want me at Metropolitan.”

      “All СКАЧАТЬ