He just looked at her. She was good to look at, her shoulders toned in the top that she wore, her br**sts round and full and her calves shapely beneath her longish skirt.
She broke the awkward silence by starting toward him. “I’ll just get us both a drink. How’s that?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He should have moved back. Instead, he let her brush by him on the way to the kitchen.
The effect was electric. On him, anyway. Had he imagined the quiver that had gone through her?
He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing and kissing her. Instead, he watched as she poured him a scotch on the rocks.
She set it on the kitchen counter near him. “There you go,” she said without glancing at him.
Had she been afraid to touch him? He couldn’t tell because she refused to look up.
He took the drink, then walked into the living room as he heard her open and close the refrigerator. He took a sip, felt the burn, then loosened his tie with one hand before raking his hair.
He felt more than heard her enter and turned to look at her. She came toward him, all cool Grace Kelly allure dressed up as 1950s bombshell, her stiletto heels clicking on the wood floor before hitting the area rug in front of the couch.
She held up her glass. “Cranberry juice with a splash of vodka.” She clinked her glass to his. “Cheers.”
A smile pulled at his lips. “Feeling reckless, are we?”
“Hmm.” She shrugged. “Aren’t you the expert on living dangerously?”
He took another sip, regarding her through narrowed eyes. “If I lived dangerously, I wouldn’t be standing over here and you wouldn’t be standing over there.”
She smiled, a gleam in her eyes. “But I’m only inches away.”
“Exactly.” Tonight, it seemed, was the night for her to confront all the disreputable males in her life: her biological father, him. “Let’s get to the bottom of what this is about, okay? Running into Bentley Mathison threw you for a loop.”
“Mmm.” She licked her lips.
He forced his mind to stay on topic.
She walked away. “So boring. Can we talk about something else?” She sat on the couch, crossed her legs and patted the seat next to her. “I don’t understand how you got your reputation as a great seducer when you use lovely conversation starters like deadbeat, jailbird fathers.”
He was tempted to show her just how he’d gotten his reputation, but her current performance could have rivaled Buffy the Man Slayer’s. And, that’s exactly what it was: a performance. She was playing the seductress—did she realize how naturally the role came to her?—intent on conquering him, the great seducer.
He swirled his drink. “Tell me how your mother fell under the spell of the great Bentley Mathison.”
Kayla wrinkled her nose, then took a sip from her glass. The reckless gleam hadn’t disappeared from her eyes. “It’s a tragedy in three parts. I like comedies better, don’t you?”
“How does act one begin?”
She heaved a sigh. “Act one begins with a young woman from a close-knit family going off to college on a scholarship.”
“Your mother?”
“Mmm-hmm. She gets a summer job at a financial services firm. Happily, it pays well and will help with the rest of her college bills. One of the partners takes a liking to her.”
“Bentley.”
“Yes, and reportedly quite the smooth operator even when he was younger.”
“So,” he guessed, “the summer intern proceeds to get pregnant by said partner, basking in the thrill of his attention.”
“Yes, that would be act two.” She swirled her drink.
“You’re too smart not to know act three.”
“He refuses to have anything to do with her,” he said flatly.
“Right,” she confirmed, her tone harsh. “You see, Bentley was about to become engaged to the daughter of a well-connected financier. Of course, a connection like that was going to make his career.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“Well, she was too afraid to tell anyone about the affair at first. Who would have believed her? Bentley had encouraged her to keep their relationship under wraps in order not to raise eyebrows at the office.”
She shook her head, then went on. “But eventually she told her family. They took her in. She dropped out of school for a time to have the baby. With her family’s help, though, she finally finished her degree.”
“And your sister?”
“Well, there’s the happy postscript.” She put down her drink on the end table. “Several years on, the woman meets a man who’s her soul mate. They fall in love and marry. He adopts her child and, later, they have a daughter together.”
“Understood,” he said, “except for one small detail.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not Bentley,” he said deliberately.
“I never said you were.”
“No, but you act like it.”
She uncrossed her legs and stood up, armor in place.
“I get enough pop psychology from Samantha.”
He wasn’t letting her off the hook. “I got it wrong, didn’t I?”
“Got what wrong?”
He shook his head and set his glass down, then let his gaze rake over her. “I’m not the favorite whipping boy of your column because you’re secretly attracted to playboys. Just the opposite, in fact. Players remind you of your biological father, so you’re determined to rake them over the coals.”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Believe what you want. You don’t know me.”
He sauntered closer. “Of course, that’s too bad for me,” he mused. “I prefer the story about your secret attraction to playboys.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation and he caught her chin in his hand.
The air went out of her and her eyes widened. “What are you doing?” she said, stumbling over the words.
“Putting you to the test,” he muttered, his gaze focused on her mouth.
“W-what test?”
“You know, the one where you prove that, unlike your mother, you can’t be taken in and seduced by the cads of the world.”
He raised his eyes to look into her stormy brown ones, and then he kissed her.
Seven
The second Noah’s lips touched Kayla’s, she felt herself yield. His kiss this time was not a fleeting brush, but a command. It took her breath away and her mouth opened under the pressure of his soft, coaxing lips.