Bending to the Bachelor's Will. Emilie Rose

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      Eric had enjoyed his dinner at one of Wilmington’s finest restaurants as much as he always did, and yet the only enthusiasm he’d seen from Holly had been for her crème brûlée. Throughout the rest of the meal, she’d appeared tense and uncomfortable.

      He signed the credit card slip and rose. Apparently eager to leave, Holly sprang to her feet without waiting for him to pull back her chair, thereby proving his sister’s prediction true. Holly wasn’t enjoying the evening. Eric was determined to change that.

      Keep the client happy. He’d decided the safest approach to this series of dates would be to consider Holly a client. They had a verbal contract, and she’d paid for his services even if he had a check for a one-hundred-percent refund in his pocket. He didn’t mix business with pleasure. The one time he had—his engagement to Priscilla—he’d been burned.

      You’ve never seen any of your clients naked.

      He locked the safe on that thought. Outside the building, he cupped her elbow. She stiffened. “Would you care to walk along the waterfront?”

      Her hesitation shoved another splinter into his ego. “Sure. Why not?”

      The moon ducked behind a cloud, but the streetlights illuminated the area well enough for a stroll. Holly wore flat shoes tonight, along with a simple black dress that in no way resembled Saturday night’s seductive number but that did nothing to erode the memory of how she’d looked wearing sinfully high heels and nothing else. Holly had an amazing figure. Not Rubenesque by any means, but not fashionably slim, either. She had curves, womanly, generous curves that begged a man to map her topography with his hands. With his mouth.

      He ran a finger beneath his suddenly restricting collar and loosened his tie a fraction of an inch.

      Holly’s long stride down the cobblestoned sidewalk would leave a shorter man in the dust. Eric kept pace beside her until she halted abruptly in front of a gift shop window. A Haunted Historic Wilmington Tours poster held her attention. He shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for her to move on, but then she looked over her shoulder at him. The excited sparkle in her eyes knocked the wind out of him.

      “Want to? It starts in ten minutes.”

      He’d rather shred money. But his pride demanded he show Holly a good time and thus far he’d failed to deliver anything more than a fine meal and stilted dinner conversation. If this tourist fodder entertained her, then he would—what had she said Saturday night?—survive it. “I’ll buy the tickets.”

      Thirty minutes later, Holly inched closer to him in the shadowy interior of the theater allegedly haunted since the 1800s. Since the tour began, she’d startled at every squeak and gasped along with the other gullible fools on the tour as they followed their guide through the drafty and dimly lit area beneath the stage. Goose bumps covered her skin. She shivered and rubbed her upper arms.

      Who’d have expected practical Holly to believe in ghosts? Eric took pity on her and put his arm around her shoulders. A mistake, he realized an instant later.

      Holly burrowed against him, her breast pressing against his ribs, and she stayed as close as she could and still walk the creaking floor boards. Her scent filled his lungs and her hair tickled his jaw. The warmth of her in his arms roused the specter of his libido and sent it drifting through his blood like a hot phantom breath. It took every ounce of concentration to focus on the guide’s macabre spiel instead of the woman plastered against him.

      At the conclusion of the tour, he had to admit that if he’d been a more susceptible sort he’d have enjoyed their talented host’s shtick, but Eric was a cynic. Smoke and mirrors didn’t interest him. He preferred cold, hard, provable facts. But the excited flush on Holly’s cheeks and the twinkle in her eyes made the price of admission worth every penny.

      On the sidewalk in front of the building, she took one last look over her shoulder as if she expected an evil spirit to chase after them from the theater, and then she grinned at him. “Thanks. That was awesome.”

      Her wide, unrestrained smile reminded him of the girl she’d been back when they’d shot hoops in her driveway and of the idealistic fresh-out-of-university fool he’d been at the time. Was it only fourteen years ago that he’d first joined Alden’s? It seemed like a lifetime since he’d realized his father was a source of amusement to many of the bank employees—a figurehead who did whatever Eric’s mother told him to do like a well-trained dog. A man more excited by a good cigar or a round of golf than a P&L statement.

      The day he’d heard the laughter in the break room, Eric had decided that he would never be the butt of jokes. He’d be man enough for both his father and himself, and he’d succeeded until Priscilla made a fool out of him. Now the reporter’s coverage of this damned auction package could sink him faster than rising interest rates could the stock market and with equally devastating results. What in the hell had his mother been thinking when she’d inflicted this on him?

      “I’m glad you enjoyed the tour.”

      Holly’s eyes widened at the unintended sharpness of his voice and then she averted her gaze. “I guess we should head back. I have an early start tomorrow.”

      He led her back to his ’Vette and then pointed the СКАЧАТЬ