“The facts haven’t changed, Allie. I still need a wife so that I can adopt a child, and you still need money.”

“I intend to explore other avenues for the loan.” What those would be she had no idea. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with your…situation, but marriage is out of the question.”

Resting his arms on his desk, he leaned toward her. “Why?”

Why? she asked herself. Why couldn’t she marry him? Last night at two a.m., her bedsheets tangled around her legs from her restlessness, she’d had the answers. Now it seemed none of them would hold up to his scrutiny.

“Because we hardly know one another.” She groped for the words. “Because marriage…” Because marriage is far too intimate a relationship. Because it would force a false closeness on us neither one wants.

Because you kissed me.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for the Barbaras: Barbara McMahon, my mentor and good friend; Barbara Stier, my stepmom and biggest fan; and Barbara Williams, my mom, who no doubt keeps them hopping up in heaven.

And special thanks to Jo Cain-Stiles for helping me understand Lucas.

first caught the writing bug at age nine when, as a horse-crazy fourth grader, she wrote a poem about a pony named Tony. Many years of hard work later, she sold her first book (and she got that pony—although his name is Ben). She enjoys writing novels, short stories and screenplays and recently produced her first short film. She lives in Northern California with her husband of twenty years and two teenage boys who are busy eating her out of house and home.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Allie Dickenson paused at Lucas Taylor’s office door, gulping in a breath and smoothing her hair with nervous hands.

She knocked twice, waiting for his impatient, “Come in!” before slipping inside and shutting the door. He sat behind his desk, his dark head bent to his work, his complete focus on the papers in his hands. Breath held, spine straight, she moved to stand before him, her stomach a mass of knots.

“Lucas, I need to talk to you.”

He took another moment to finish scribbling a note, then looked up at her, his gray eyes narrowing. Behind him, the morning sun streaming through the window backlit his large frame, casting his face into shadow. “Talk to me? About what?”

She slid her hands into the side pockets of her full skirt, her fingers clenching into fists. “Something…somewhat…personal.”

He just stared, still as a tiger stalking prey. She wished he’d look away…back to the papers cluttering his desk, out the floor-to-ceiling window that formed the back wall of his office. But of course he didn’t, and Allie had no choice but to meet his hard gaze.

“Personal?” He raised one brow. “As in unrelated to your job?”

“Yes…” The word came out as a near whisper. She swallowed, took another long breath. “…and no.”

As he fixed his gaze on her, the deep well of wishful thinking inside her imagined something in his eyes, something that set her heart to beating faster. Then his mouth tightened with annoyance. “I’m busy, Allie. Can you get to the point?”

The knots in Allie’s stomach froze into a sickening weight. She forced herself to loosen her fingers, ordered her shoulders to relax. Forming the words in her mind, she imagined them marching off her tongue. I need to borrow twenty thousand dollars. But they wouldn’t quite come. “This is hard for me to say.”

He waited for her to continue, fingers drumming. Then he picked up a pen, stroked its length with his fingertips. Forbidden thoughts arose in her mind as she followed his unconscious gesture. The brief panoply of images that emerged before she could banish them reminded her of all the reasons asking Lucas for a loan was a bad idea, no matter how desperate she was.

“Is this about your last raise?” he prodded. “You don’t think I’m paying you enough?”

She shook her head. “No, no, it’s not that.”

If anything, he overpaid. Since she’d joined TaylorMade Foods two years ago, she’d worked hard and had taken on increasing responsibility. But her last employee review had overwhelmed her with its glowing accolades. And the amount of her raise left her gasping. Once the problems with her father had started, though, she was glad for every penny.

“I’m probably the best paid administrative assistant in Sacramento County.” She mustered a smile and his gaze sharpened on her in a way that sent heat curling inside her. In spite of herself, she looked away briefly, then back at him. “But I’ve had some problems recently.”

Her hands had scrunched back into fists and she pressed them against her thighs. Despite the fullness of her muted floral-print skirt, he detected the motion, his gaze flicking down to her hips, then dragging back up to her face. There was a message in his gray eyes, in the sharp line of his jaw, one that reached inside her, teased her to translate it— That he was her superior, that he was fourteen years older than her twenty-six years, shrank to insignificance in the face of that enticing lure.

A stunning thought flashed into her mind. Maybe these ridiculous feelings weren’t one-sided. Maybe Lucas felt the same way. Maybe—

When he spoke, it took her a moment to understand the quiet words. “Allie, are you in trouble?”

She flushed, all at once mortified and relieved. Thank God he couldn’t read her mind. “No,” she assured him. “It isn’t that at all. It’s just—”

His phone jangled on his desk, forwarded from her own phone when she hadn’t been there to answer it. She took a step toward his desk, reflexively reaching for the receiver.

Lucas put up a hand to stop her. “I’ll get it.” He punched the lighted button on the phone console and lifted the receiver. “Lucas Taylor.”

He listened a moment, then glanced up at her. “I’ll have to get back to you, John. Give me two minutes.” Hanging up the phone, he said to Allie, “Can we finish our conversation later?”

Even as she felt relief at the reprieve, she worried that waiting would only make the words harder to say. She nodded. “Let me know when you have time.”

“You know my schedule better than I do. When do I have time?”

She squelched her irritation at his abrupt tone. She thought she’d learned not to react to his arrogance. It must be her unease about their conversation that had her off-balance. “You have an hour after lunch.”

“Come back then.” His gaze lowered to his papers. When she didn’t turn immediately, he looked up again. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing.” She quickly turned on her heel and let herself out of his office, shutting the door behind her.

Crossing to her desk with two long strides, she sank into her chair. Her hands covering her face, she wondered which was the biggest mess—her father’s crisis or the impossible situation with her boss.

What had started as a dimly remembered erotic dream had quickly flowered into a series of daytime fantasies that she couldn’t seem to stop. She’d allowed herself the indulgence at first because the fantasies distracted her from her loneliness, never mind the inappropriateness of the central figure. But her daydreams had recently taken on a life of their own, until the sexual images had drifted into decidedly unwanted emotions. Feelings for a man she truly didn’t know.