Matchless Millionaires: An Improper Affair. Elizabeth Bevarly

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      “You mean, my moment of glory as the red-haired sex goddess?”

      Erica grinned. “Even Greg was surprised, and, let me tell you, after two kids and twenty years in the fire department, it takes a lot to shock that man.”

      “I got completely and utterly inebriated.”

      Erica’s eyes widened. “Drunk?”

      “I was a drinking virgin until last night,” she confirmed grimly, putting down her purse and taking off her jacket.

      Erica looked at her closely. “Well, you don’t look too much the worse for wear.”

      “Thanks to coffee, and lots of it,” she responded, echoing Ryan’s earlier statement.

      “I knew we should never have left you! I said as much to Greg, but he said Ryan was around to keep an eye on you.”

      “Oh, he kept an eye on me all right,” she said ominously, remembering the way he’d gotten an eyeful of her breasts. “He drove me back to the lodge—” Erica’s mouth fell open “—and put me to bed in one of the guest suites.”

      Erica gave a laughing gasp.

      Unflinchingly, she went on with the rest of the story. “I tried to sneak out this morning, but he heard me, plied me with coffee and drove me back to my car—which was still parked in front of the White Fir—and completely failed to take advantage of me in the process.”

      “Good gracious!”

      Kelly sucked in a breath. “I set out to make a point and I fell flat on my face—“

      “No, not completely,” Erica said, shaking her head. “Instead of confirming you’re like your mother, last night might just as well have convinced him of the opposite. After all, you couldn’t hold your liquor—” Erica gave her a semiapologetic smile “—and you didn’t leave the bar with anyone. I mean, other than Ryan.”

      Kelly frowned. “He ran the guy off.”

      Erica raised her eyebrows. “Ryan ran off a guy you were talking to?”

      “Not talking to,” she corrected. “Flirting with. And yes, he ran him off, though he denied it. I don’t know what he said to Tate.”

      At least she thought his name had been Tate. Last night continued to be a headache in more ways than one.

      Erica laughed. “I ought to tell you my story of Greg running off a guy I was flirting with soon after we met.”

      Kelly sighed and Erica looked at her sympathetically.

      “Is it possible that Ryan isn’t the black-hearted ogre you think he is?” Erica asked. “Greg liked him.”

      “Greg’s a guy.” Then she admitted, “Ryan was extraordinarily nice this morning. I couldn’t really understand why …”

      “Mmm-hmm.”

      “He wanted to have dinner tonight at Clearwater’s.”

      “And you said?” Erica asked.

      “I said yes.”

      Seven

      That night, using directions Kelly had given him, Ryan discovered that Kelly lived in a town house midway between the lodge and Distressed Success.

      Her place was in an older development, with a parking space out back and a neat little garden in front.

      He rang the doorbell, and when she opened the door, he felt the air whoosh out of him.

      She wore a bottle-green velvet jacket that gathered under her breasts and revealed plenty of cleavage. A slim brown skirt and knee-high, high-heeled boots completed her outfit.

      He was glad now that he’d dressed more formally for tonight. He had on beige pants and a striped dress shirt beneath his blazer.

      “You look fantastic,” he said as his eyes ate her up.

      She smiled at him and stepped aside. “Come on in. I just need to grab my purse.”

      When he’d stepped inside, he immediately realized her house was a showcase for Distressed Success’s style.

      The front door led directly into a large room with a living-room area at one end and a dining room at the other. A kitchen sat off to one side.

      The dining room had a table and sideboard in some sort of distressed finish. A chandelier with multicolored beads that reflected the light hung above the table.

      The living room contained a sofa and love seat at right angles to each other. They were covered with a profusion of pillows in different prints and shapes. An etched-glass cabinet stood against one wall and a fireplace was set in another. A tasseled rug partially covered the wood floor.

      “If your decorating project at the lodge turns out as well as your house,” he said, turning toward her, “I’d say you’re well on the path to success.”

      “Distressed Success,” she deadpanned.

      “Is there any other?” he countered.

      She smiled. “I’d offer to show you the rest of the house, but I think we’ll be late.”

      Looking into her eyes, he said, “Next time.”

      The moment drew itself out between them and he could tell she was thinking about what meaning to attach to his words.

      All of them, he wanted to tell her.

      Kelly cleared her throat, breaking the mood. “Let me just turn off the lights and make sure I’ve got my house keys.”

      As she switched off lamps, he reflected that she’d surprised him last night and proven him wrong, and he wasn’t a man used to being surprised—or wrong.

      She’d only slept with a guy once or twice. She’d floored him with the admission, though she’d given no sign since that she even remembered what she’d said.

      He realized now that she must have been even more affected by growing up with Brenda Hartley than he’d been by being Webb Sperling’s son.

      Last night she’d even referred to not being able to shake off her mother’s history. Now he knew how it had affected her in surprising ways.

      Of course, it all meant he’d been wrong about her—wrong to accuse her of being like her mother and wrong to think he had her all figured out.

      Sure, the way she’d dressed and acted last night had been at odds with her sexual inexperience, but she seemed to have set out to teach him a lesson.

      She’d said she was just living up to the behavior he expected of her. Or just maybe, he mused, it was the behavior she was expecting of herself that she had fought against.

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