Into the Fire

“And I need to know yours,” Nate replied, giving the beautiful woman beside him a light nip on the neck. “So I know who now owns me body and soul.”

She stretched out lethargically and kissed his jaw. Then, lifting a shoulder, she allowed the robe to fall completely off one arm. As he bent lower to taste that sweet, smooth skin, she whispered, “My name’s—”

Before she could finish, the door opened, and a light flashed on. “It’s J.T.,” Nate said. “Oh, boy.”

“Oh, boy is right,” the woman echoed, her horror undisguised.

Nate shifted slightly to the side, hiding her behind him, as J. T. Birmingham entered the room.

Taking stock of the situation—and not looking the least bit surprised—J. T. finally said, “Son, I think you’re wearing my robe.”

Nate groaned. He’d been caught by a millionaire, wearing the man’s robe during an important cocktail party at which he was the guest of honor. Caught fooling around with a gorgeous stranger on that man’s trampoline. “Can things get any worse?” he muttered.

“And,” J.T. continued, “you’re lying on top of my daughter….”

Dear Reader,

I love Broadway musicals. And I’ve always been fascinated by the thought of looking across a crowded room on “one enchanted evening” and finding a stranger who turns your world upside down. That’s exactly what happens to my heroine, columnist Lacey Clark, who falls instantly for a devastatingly attractive man during a crowded party. When she finds herself alone with him a few moments later—and they end up naked on top of a trampoline—she never imagines that she’s in the arms of her nemesis, Nate Logan.

Can two enemies-turned-lovers navigate the rocky road to romance in the sometimes outrageous world of magazine publishing? I sure had fun finding out while writing Into the Fire.

Those of you who read my first Temptation novel, Night Whispers, will recognize some characters in this book. I was so happy to find just the right story for Kelsey Logan’s older brother, and I got a kick out of writing more of those sexy radio show segments. For my readers who have written to me asking for a sequel…I hope this one lives up to your expectations.

I’d love to hear what you think. Please drop me a line at P.O. Box 410787, Melbourne, FL 32941–0787, or write to me through my Web site: www.lesliekelly.com.

Enjoy,

Leslie Kelly

Into the Fire

Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With love to the Smith kids:

Lynn, Donna, Karen, Cheri and Lee.

I can’t think of five other people I’d rather have

grown up with—telephone poles and all.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

1

ALONE in a throng of elegantly dressed people, in the lavishly appointed reception room of a tasteful Baltimore mansion, Lacey Clark began to sweat. Not a ladylike beading of perspiration on her upper lip. Not a moistness at her temple. No. Her tight black cocktail dress was growing downright damp as each additional person oozed into the already overcrowded party. A few more minutes and there would be circles under her armpits and her makeup would run off her skin in great bisque streaks.

“Get me out of here,” she murmured, wondering if she could make it through the sea of people to the exit. Surely no one would notice if she slipped away. After all, she looked like practically every other woman in the place. Ninety percent of the females at the party wore the typical city social uniform—a little black cocktail dress, sheer black stockings, shiny, never seamed. Ridiculously high heels, useless tiny bag barely big enough to carry a tube of lipstick. Not to mention the confident expression disguising boredom.

Boredom always made Lacey Clark sweat. As did low-cut, skintight dresses and heels so high she wondered if she was going to fall on her fanny and humiliate herself in front of Baltimore society. Not that she really cared about Baltimore society. This was definitely not her crowd. Lacey would much rather have been at her favorite bar with her best friends.

For the hundredth time, she wished she’d been able to find a way out of this evening’s event. As if it wasn’t bad enough that her dress was uncomfortably tight, her stockings scratchy and her makeup oozy, her entire life was about to change course. Lacey didn’t like feeling cornered nor having her personal affairs made very, very public. And tonight, in her boss’s home, at a cocktail party where she was about to be honored for her job, she was also about to be set up for some major intrusion into her personal life. Her family. Her history. Her nice, orderly world.

“Dammit,” she whispered, knowing things were completely beyond her control and not liking it one bit.

Nearby, two senior staff members from the magazine where she worked beckoned her closer. She smiled and pointed over her shoulder, implying she was waiting for someone. She didn’t want to engage in small talk. Lacey just wanted to escape.

It might be possible to slip away for a few minutes, but she couldn’t get away entirely, not when she was scheduled to receive a very public award for a job well done. Besides, even if she did disappear, J.T. Birmingham, millionaire publisher and owner of For Her Eyes Only, the magazine Lacey worked for, would make his second announcement anyway. The big one. The personal one. The one that would reveal beyond a doubt the intimate connection between them that she’d struggled to keep quiet.

Nothing she’d said in the past six weeks had dissuaded him. He was bursting at the seams, and he wanted the world in on his jubilation. Never mind that Lacey didn’t.

No, a dash for the door was out. But she could at least hide for a while. She tried to sidle toward the exit but hadn’t gone three steps when a voice stopped her.

“Did you see his new column?”

Lacey didn’t even have to turn around. She knew who was speaking—her good friend Raul Santos. She certainly knew who he was speaking about. Nate Logan. Yuck.

The open door still taunted her from across the room. She stared at it longingly, knowing it offered an avenue of escape, a minute of peace and quiet, a chance to find a hidden corner and wipe the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. Stopping meant frustration. No question about it.

She muttered a curse and turned. “I don’t read his column.” Lacey stepped closer to Raul, who had worked with her at For Her Eyes Only magazine until a few months before. “Besides, I can count on you to tell me what was in it, right?”

A wide white smile creased Raul’s darkly tanned face, enhancing his sharply attractive features. “Of course. You know, if I’d realized I was going to have this much fun being a double agent, reporting back and forth between the two of you, I would have taken the job at Men’s World for much less money!”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she retorted with a smirk. “You need the money to keep up with the women.”

“I would have forgone even that if I’d thought you really wanted me to stay.” Raul smiled again, a glitter in his dark brown eyes. “You look exceptionally beautiful tonight, Lacey.”

“Knock it off. We’re way past that,” she snarled.

No question, Raul was definitely hot, in a lean and lanky Latin lover way. But since they’d first met as lowly grunts at the magazine, they’d recognized they were destined to be friends, particularly since Raul was three years younger than Lacey. She looked at him like he was one of her little brothers, which he claimed wounded his male ego nearly beyond repair. Still, Raul couldn’t help flirting. It was his modus operandi.

“So, you didn’t see it?”

“No. Are you going to tell me?”

He paused as if debating it. A definite act since she knew he got a kick out of the fiery feud between Lacey and her nemesis, columnist Nate Logan who wrote for Men’s World. “Well, he does expect me to,” he finally said.

Lacey frowned. “Most double agents don’t go around bragging about playing from both sides of the deck.”

“Oh, I’m lousy at keeping secrets. Remind me to tell you what he said when I told him you called him a pimply prepubescent boy trapped in a man’s body.”

She groaned. “Raul…”

“Okay. In the column this month, he talks about a certain unnamed female magazine columnist who’s either a man-hating femi-Nazi or a frigid virgin.”

“What?” she shrieked, drawing the attention of those nearby. She immediately lowered her voice. “That son of a…”

“Well, Lacey, you did take a serious shot in your last column. Come on, saying all men who go to nightclubs are cheats looking to score?”

“Aren’t they?”

“They’re not all cheats.”

“But they’re all looking to score!”

“Then you went on to mention certain men who enjoy being photographed in such clubs surrounded by brainless bimbos.”

“I didn’t mention him by name.”

“You didn’t have to, darling, the whole country, let alone the city of Baltimore, knows the two of you have a private war going on.”

She couldn’t deny that. It was entirely true. Somehow, she, Lacey Clark, had gotten caught up in a battle of the sexes with a man she’d never met, never even laid eyes on, except for one grainy photo in a social rag. Even then she hadn’t been able to see much of him since he’d been photographed wearing a Panama hat, dark glasses and holding a big, ugly cigar between his teeth.

Besides, she hadn’t been able to look too closely at the photo considering all the breasts. The man had been photographed framed on all sides by women’s breasts. Proudly. He’d been sitting in a chair while buxom beauties all around him showed just why they’d been finalists in the bar’s wet T-shirt contest, which he’d judged. Sexist pig.

She shook her head, forcing thoughts of Nate Logan out of her mind. Tonight, as strange as it seemed considering he had been driving her nuts for months, he was the absolute least of her problems. If it meant keeping J.T. from revealing the truth about Lacey to the entire world, heck, she’d get up on stage and dance the tango with the man! It wouldn’t, though. J.T. was determined. So she got to deal with the two biggest anxieties in her life on the very same night. J.T. And Nate Logan.

Resigned, she asked, “Is Logan here yet?”

Raul grinned, obviously knowing she couldn’t restrain her curiosity. It was hell never having seen your publicly sworn enemy! “Holding court outside, last time I checked,” Raul said.

“Great. Maybe we’ll get lucky and one of his bimbos will drag him off to a frat party.”

“Probably be more fun than here.”

Lacey grinned reluctantly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Ah, for the simple days. Games of quarters until you passed out, staggering into class for an exam after an all-nighter.”

Raul raised a brow. “Lacey Clark, Miss In-Control, playing quarters at a frat house? People’d pay money to see that.”

She shrugged, then sighed. No, most people wouldn’t be able to grasp that mental image. Not with the Lacey they knew now. The Lacey most people knew now.

Raul obviously noticed the smile fade from her lips. “My car’s out back. Wanna run away and find the nearest bar?”

“You know I can’t.”

“I know,” he admitted. “J.T.’s still going to do it?”

Lacey nodded.

“Okay, then, we’re stuck. But I know you’re bored outta your skull. If we have to stay, we can at least stir up some trouble. You know you’re just dying inside to go up to Norm Spencer’s wife and tell her everyone in the room can see the line of her girdle because her dress is too small.”

“She either needs a better girdle or a dress two sizes bigger,” Lacey admitted.

“That’s my girl.”

Lacey shook her head. “You’re so bad.”

“Maybe that’s why we get along so well.” Raul’s eyes glittered. “Birds of a feather…”

“Get shot down together? No, I have to behave myself.”

Raul gave her a gentle squeeze on one shoulder. “That’s the problem, doll face. You keep trying so hard to be good, one day you’re gonna just explode.”

Before Lacey could toss off a reply—feeling the need to assure him that being good was more effort than instinct—her attention was drawn to the bar where one man in a sea of black tuxedos stood out. Around her, conversations continued to drone on, but the voices and high-pitched laughter faded to an indistinguishable buzz. Lacey suddenly found herself tense and aware for the first time this evening.

“Who’s he?” she wondered aloud, not really directing the question at Raul, though he stood beside her.

“Who?”

Lacey didn’t reply, still studying the man. She didn’t stare because he was gorgeous, though he was. He didn’t catch her eye because he filled out his tux better than any other man in the room, though he did. No, it was his obvious boredom that caught her attention. His looks merely kept it.

He was taller than average, long and lean. His dark blond hair was thick and wavy, and she imagined his wife or girlfriend would be unable to keep her fingers out of it. The way he held his body screamed self-confidence.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed him. Lacey watched a curvy redhead approach the bar, try to strike up a conversation, then walk away in a pique. The man shrugged and kept talking to the bartender. His boredom radiated toward her from across the room. He barely looked at the crowd surrounding him, instead giving all his attention to the guy making drinks.

The lean, strong line of his jaw made her wonder, suddenly, what color his eyes were. And whether his mouth was really as impossibly gorgeous as it appeared to be from over here. When he laughed in response to something the bartender said, Lacey sucked in a breath. Yes, the man had one heck of a mouth.

“The guy at the bar?” Raul asked, narrowing his eyes as he noticed her interest. “Not your type, Lace.”

“So, you do know him?”

“In passing. And I’m afraid he wouldn’t do for you.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a bonehead, Lacey. A jock with a Jaguar. Not a brain in his head. Got where he is on his looks.”

“Oh, great.” She sighed. “A Nate Logan type, you mean?”

Raul snorted a laugh. “Well, he’s maybe not that bad. But definitely not someone you’d be interested in.”

Too bad. It had been a long time since Lacey had looked at a man and felt such a sudden, overwhelming attraction. When she thought about it, she didn’t think she’d ever gone breathless and jittery just from spying a stranger across a room.

Of course, she was a woman and she could appreciate a good-looking man. This one had looks to spare. But as her eyes kept returning to him, she knew it was more than looks. There was such power in his masculinity, such magnetism in his self-confidence. It was damned unfair for a creature so breathtakingly male not to have the brains to go with the rest of the package. “What a shame,” she murmured as she forced herself to look away.

“True,” Raul replied.

Raul chuckled again, and Lacey wondered if he was up to something. She didn’t quite trust the humor in his eyes. “What?”

“I’m thinking how fortunate it is,” he said with a Raulish smirk, “that beauty isn’t always wasted on the stupid.” He pointed to himself.

Lacey laughed. Despite the arrogance and oozy charm, Raul was loyal, smart and a real friend. “Thanks for the tip, Raul.”

“Logan’s response to the prepubescent boy remark was…”

“I don’t want to know,” she said as she turned to leave. Hearing Raul’s chuckle behind her, she knew he’d get around to telling her sooner or later.

As she walked toward the door, she did pause once to glance over her shoulder toward the bar. Though she told herself she was merely looking over the crowd, she still felt a pang of disappointment that the gorgeous blond hunk was no longer standing there. She looked around the room, but didn’t spot him anywhere. “Just as well,” she said with a sigh.

Lacey managed to fend off conversational gambits from several people as she eased across the room toward the exit. Some didn’t try to talk to her, obviously seeing by the glint in her eye she was in no mood to chat. “Frigid virgin, indeed,” she muttered, remembering what Raul had told her before she’d been so thoroughly distracted by the blond man.

She shouldn’t have been surprised by the latest insult. Ever since the first shot in this war had been fired, nearly a year ago, she and that brainless, oversexed Animal House reject Nate Logan had traded barely veiled insults on the pages of For Her Eyes Only and Men’s World every single month.

As the featured love-and-relationships columnists for their respective magazines, they should have had a lot in common, particularly since both magazines were owned by the same publisher, J.T. Birmingham. But they obviously had about as much in common as dirt and ice cream.

Nate Logan touted flirtation, sexual freedom, openness and exploration. He also liked to blame women for everything wrong with the male-female relationship. Lacey, on the other hand, knew darn right well it was usually the man who screwed things up on the romance front.

She also favored true love, soul mates and sexual responsibility. Hadn’t her childhood, her entire life, been a never-ending lesson in that regard? With her mother’s past and her stepfather’s attitudes, Lacey had learned at a very young age that sexual mistakes could shatter lives. Heaven knew her stepfather had never let any of her family forget that lesson. She’d also decided—more out of a need for it to be true than anything else—that true love had to exist and was worth waiting for. She would settle for nothing else.

“Having a nice time, Lacey?” someone asked as she finally made it to the foyer of the mansion.

Seeing a colleague from work, Lacey forced a smile. “Yes. My favorite way to spend an evening.” Second only to having my bikini line waxed or my nails ripped out with hot pincers.

“I hear you’re going to receive some kind of award tonight,” the woman continued.

Ah, yes, the award. The reason everyone thought they were at this party. If that were the only reason for tonight’s gathering, Lacey would probably be able to relax and at least make a small effort to enjoy herself.

“And Nate Logan is, too,” the woman continued, a note of maliciousness obvious in her tight smile.

“So I hear,” Lacey muttered. She moved away, as if going to the powder room down the hall. If one more person stopped her and mentioned Nate Logan’s name, she might have to throw up.

Lacey couldn’t recall how her war with the other journalist had started. Who had lobbed the first insult? All she knew was last year she’d heard J.T. had hired a new columnist to spice up Men’s World. Within three months, the magazine’s formerly health-conscious, “strong mind, strong body” image had changed. It now appealed to the man who would rather be reading Playboy but had to mollify his wife or girlfriend by picking up a health magazine. So the centerfolds were somewhat clothed and usually reclining on exercise equipment or the hoods of automobiles.

She had to assume Nate’s column, which had gained instant popularity, was part of the reason circulation had skyrocketed.

Seeing no one waiting outside the powder room, Lacey walked right past it, down a long corridor. When she heard voices in a nearby room, she ducked behind a piece of pricey statuary. Hearing the voices recede, she dashed by the doorway, trying to stay on her toes to avoid letting her heels click on the floor.

“Hide and seek,” she whispered, knowing she was probably being juvenile and not really caring.

It wasn’t just the aura of sex appeal on every page of Men’s World that bothered her. She also didn’t like Nate Logan’s smart-ass tone, his flirtatious, irreverent writing style. She certainly didn’t like his advice. But his readers obviously adored him. He’d even been given an unprecedented second column, “Nate’s Notes on the Nice and the Naughty.”

“Notes from Nate the Nitwit,” she muttered sourly.

She had to admit that she’d been somewhat amused by his observations. But when he’d started getting a little too obnoxious, she’d reacted. She was only human, after all. Since he seemed to delight in targeting her sex, well, what else could a fair-minded woman do but defend herself?

Once, he wrote a column about the way women couldn’t keep secrets. His theory was that a woman didn’t make a single decision regarding career, life, love or sex without consulting her gaggle of girlfriends. He went on to use as an example the way women went to the ladies’ room together at restaurants. His assertion? They were flipping a coin to see which one would sleep with her date and which would come down with a headache.

That, probably, was the first time Lacey had responded on the pages of For Her Eyes Only. She’d fired a mild shot about the way men felt it necessary to touch each others’ butts during athletic events.

The battle had gone on from there. He’d claimed women’s so-called emotional loyalty to each other disappeared whenever three females were together, since as soon as one left the other two dissed her awful shoes, tight dress or bad hairdo. Lacey retorted that the buddy syndrome was the way men got close to other men’s girlfriends in order to hit on them.

He said women sent mixed signals, demanding equality yet having a fit and refusing sex if a man didn’t always pick up the check for dinner. She said women wanted to be treated with respect, courtesy and graciousness, not like walking sex toys.

He said women drove men out with their demands. She said men walked out wide-eyed when a good set of legs happened along. He said women were untrustworthy. She said men were dogs.

He said. She said.

On and on the Ferris wheel turned in their undeclared war between the sexes. Their readers followed along in amusement, driving up circulation, ad revenues and publicity.

Lacey and Nate Logan had been invited to appear together on a nationally televised morning show. Lacey had refused, as always being careful to guard her privacy. She wouldn’t have gone anyway. Sharing a magazine rack with Nate Logan was bad enough. Sharing a TV stage would be impossible.

If Lacey hadn’t been too excited about her sudden notoriety, J.T. and the other higher-ups had been absolutely thrilled. So here they were, about to be toasted, together, by the publisher of both magazines they worked for.

“Unfair,” she muttered as she made a few turns, passing J.T.’s private office and his wife’s art studio. Lacey wasn’t ready for this evening.

She could admit that it wasn’t really the Nate Logan situation. The main problem tonight was the personal issue. The issue of Lacey Clark—who she really was, where she’d really come from. She’d pleaded with J.T. not to go ahead with the announcement he planned to make at the party. Not unexpectedly, he’d ignored her, caring only about the circulation numbers, not about personal feelings. Not even hers.

Lacey’s high heels clicked loudly on the polished floor as she walked toward her destination. There was one spot where she knew she could be alone. She couldn’t escape the inevitable forever. But she could at least take some time to prepare for the evening she faced.

Thirty minutes. She deserved thirty minutes of peace before J.T. changed her secure, comfortable, low-key world forever.

“NOTE TO SELF. Next time you attend a rich man’s cocktail party, bring your Game Boy.”