PRAISE FOR THESE AUTHORS

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

“The very best in love and laughter.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Exceptionally engaging!”

—Publishers Weekly

TRACY KELLEHER

On The Truth About Harry

“Effectively mixes stirring sensuality with sophisticated humor and light suspense.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

On It’s All About Eve…

“Well-rounded characters, sizzling love scenes and witty dialogue.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

MARY LEO

“Warmth, humor, quirky characters—

Mary Leo always writes a winner!”

—Maureen Child, USA TODAY bestselling author

“Mary Leo’s stories are sort of like wearing Prada with your circa-70s striped toe socks…classy but fun!”

—Holly Jacobs, 2004 Romantic Times BOOKclub Career Achievement Award Winner

Dear Reader,

It’s hard to believe that the Signature Select program is one year old—with seventy-two books already published by top Harlequin and Silhouette authors.

What an exciting and varied lineup we have in the year ahead! In the first quarter of the year, the Signature Spotlight program offers three very different reading experiences. Popular author Marie Ferrarella, well-known for her warm family-centered romances, has gone in quite a different direction to write a story that has been “haunting her” for years. Please check out Sundays Are for Murder in January. Hop aboard a Caribbean cruise with Joanne Rock in The Pleasure Trip in February, and don’t miss a trademark romantic suspense from Debra Webb, Vows of Silence, in March.

Our collections in the first quarter of the year explore a variety of contemporary themes. Our Valentine’s collection—Write It Up!—homes in on the trend of alternative dating in three stories by Elizabeth Bevarly, Tracy Kelleher and Mary Leo. February is awards season, and Barbara Bretton, Isabel Sharpe and Emilie Rose join the fun and glamour in And the Envelope, Please….And in March, Leslie Kelly, Heather MacAllister and Cindi Myers have penned novellas about women desperate enough to go to Bootcamp to learn how not to scare men away!

Three original sagas also come your way in the first quarter of this year. Silhouette author Gina Wilkins spins off her popular FAMILY FOUND miniseries in Wealth Beyond Riches. Janice Kay Johnson has written a powerful story of a tortured past in Dead Wrong, which is connected to her PATTON’S DAUGHTERS Superromance miniseries, and Kathleen O’Brien gives a haunting story of mysterious murder in Quiet as the Grave.

And don’t forget there is original bonus material in every single Signature Select book to give you the inside scoop on the creative process of your favorite authors! We hope you enjoy all our new offerings!

Marsha Zinberg

Executive Editor

The Signature Select Program

Write It Up!
Rapid Transit
Elizabeth Bevarly
The Ex Factor
Tracy Kelleher
Brewing Up Trouble
Mary Leo

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For David,

who made a rapid transit into my life and thankfully never left it.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetie

CONTENTS

Rapid Transit Elizabeth Bevarly

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Ex Factor Tracy Kelleher

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

EPILOGUE

Brewing Up Trouble Mary Leo

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Rapid Transit

Preface

TESS TRUESDALE, FOUNDER and editor in chief of the ultra-glam, ultra-bad-girl magazine Tess, basked in the glow of diffused lighting. She presided from behind her stainless-steel desk while the two other people in her office squirmed in vintage Arne Jacobsen chairs. Danish modern had never been so industrial, so sleek and so uncomfortable.

Tess smiled, content.

No one else did. Or had been. Both states being morphologically impossible for underpaid and overly cynical magazine writers.

“It was one of those karmic things, really.” Tess waved the tip of an onyx cigarette holder in a large loop. The mint-green cigarette at its tip burned slowly, a testament to her disregard for the no-smoking regulations in the building and her belief in the mantra she preached monthly to her devoted readers: “Go where no mother has been before, and where no father wants to know about.”

“I was enjoying a blissful moment on the deck off the master bedroom of Olympia.” Olympia was the “shack” in Southampton owned by Tess and husband number three, oil tanker billionaire Spiros Andreapolis. “Spiros was giving me a foot massage with the new Kiehl’s lotion that we wrote about last month, while I was sipping the perfect cosmopolitan. The sun was setting over the dunes, and there was silence, absolute silence—except for the occasional beep from the security system, of course. And that’s when the idea came to me.”

“That the social season had switched back to the city one week after Labor Day?” Abby Lewis ventured. One of the three senior writers on the magazine, Abby had just returned from a stint at Tess’s sister publication in Milan, Italy. Jet lag, not a heavy application of Bobbi Brown eye shadow, darkened her eyes.

“That salt air can be ruinous for a girl’s complexion?” suggested Samantha Porter, another of the senior writers. Draped in a chair next to Abby, she wore a golden Versace ensemble, the tight pants hugging her pencil-slim hips and the top negligently open to a bejeweled clasp just above her belly button.

Tess flicked the burning end of the cigarette into the Venetian glass ashtray. “Ooh, I just love it when you girls talk nasty. It means I’ve been the proper mentor after all. Still—” she paused “—I have my moments of inner reflection, and not just after having a colonic irrigation.

“You see,” she went on, “it occurred to me how lucky I was with my marvelous good fortune, and that there must be something I could do—we could do as an organization—to help others achieve some of this kind of serenity.”

“We’re going to sponsor a Fresh Air Fund kid to stay at Casa Olympia next summer?” Abby asked. As if.

“Of course not. I have white rugs. I couldn’t possibly have children. No, I realized that what we needed to do was to help other women obtain my lifestyle.”

Tess sat up straight, all business. “What I’m talking about, darlings, is opportunity. We’re going to show women the quickest, hippest ways to find the right rich mate.”

“You think if we knew the quickest, hippest ways to find the right mate, the right rich mate, we’d be sitting here?” Samantha asked.

Tess placed her buffed elbows on the desk and positioned her chin on entwined fingers. “No one ever really leaves Tess and all it stands for.” She let that pronouncement hang in the air. Then she zeroed in on Abby. “You will delve into the world of ex-dating.”

Abby coughed into her hand. “Do you mean extreme dating, as in tandem hang gliding on the first date or making out on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro?”

“No, Abby darling, that’s ‘ex’ as in former. From what I’ve gathered, it seems there are women out there who go to great lengths to help hook up their former beaux on this Web site, a kind of online matchmaking service that provides dating recommendations stamped with a type of Good Ex-Housekeeping Seal of Approval. I’m sure you’ll find out all about the particulars.”

Abby nearly gagged. She clutched her thighs tightly, the imprints of her fingers making deep grooves in the gabardine trousers.

Samantha smirked and didn’t bother to hide it.

Tess narrowed her eyes momentarily at Samantha before turning the full power of her LASIK-corrected eyes on Abby. “Now, Abby darling, I don’t want to let that little contretemps with your ex-boyfriend interfere with your ability to do this assignment.”

“Little contretemps?” Abby practically screeched. “The louse dumped me minutes after I’d won the internship to spend six months in Milan.”

“Really, there’s no need to be dramatic,” Tess replied dismissively. “Besides, the only real tragedy in the whole affair ending as far as I can fathom is that you need to find a new place to live now that you’re back in New York.”

Abby turned to Samantha. “And who blabbed all the details of my personal life around the office, huh?” It was an open secret that Samantha viewed Abby as a professional rival. When she’d found out Abby had gotten the Milan internship and not she, Samantha had launched her designer-suited-self at Abby’s throat. The fashion department had buzzed about it for weeks, totally eclipsing the disappointing London shows.

“Abby, there’s no need to point fingers,” Tess scolded. “Everyone knows I take a genuine interest in my staff’s personal and professional welfare.” True, though in Tess’s case, everyone also knew she exploited this information for Machiavellian purposes—lavishing an overabundance of care and attention to instill sufficient guilt so that employees wouldn’t complain about their measly salary and long hours.

Abby stewed for a moment before accepting the inevitable. “So if I’m ex-dating, what do you have in store for Samantha?” Ah, yes, the other shoe had yet to drop.

“Coffeehouse dating.” Tess picked up her cigarette holder and inhaled deeply before taking another breath.

Samantha immediately clutched her nicotine patch. “All those testosterone-impaired, Sartre-spouting losers who are too cheap to spring for their own wi-fi connections?”

“I’m sure some of them read James Patterson,” Tess countered. “Anyway, apparently coffeehouse dating works this way. Patrons provide biographical information and photos to the barista, who makes up these matchmaking binders. Then as you sip your skinny double lattes, you can peruse the offerings. Isn’t that marvelous?”

Samantha answered by grinding her teeth.

Abby frowned. “You mentioned three writers?”

“Yes.” Tess puffed in dramatic Auntie Mame fashion. “I thought Julia would do a wonderful job with speed-dating.”

Samantha’s jaw stilled. “Julia Miles, the magazine’s sweetheart, everybody’s sweetheart, doing a piece on speed-dating? The woman who told me she baked a lattice-topped pie for Geraldine in Accounting after her emergency appendectomy. I didn’t even know there was a Geraldine in Accounting. Did you?” She looked at Abby, who shook her head.

Tess took no notice. “Unfortunately, she’s not in the office right now, otherwise she’d be at the meeting.” Tess seemed put out. Her intercom buzzed and she held up her hand. “Yes?”

“Collette can fit you in now,” her assistant Ling Ling relayed. Tess went through assistants about as often as a dog marked fresh territory. Ling Ling, the daughter of Hong Kong’s leading action-film director, appeared to be able to deflect Tess’s jabs better than most.

Tess removed her cigarette from the holder and stubbed it out. “Darlings, I must be off. You will bring Julia up to speed for me, won’t you? The usual four-week deadline, of course, seeing as this will run in the February issue—in time for Valentine’s Day. Remember—first-person point of view. We want our readers to know just how juicy this kind of dating can be, don’t we?” She waved them out of her office, a miasma of Creed perfume floating along the length of her well-toned arm.

Abby and Samantha made it partway down the hall before Abby stopped. “So, tell me. What was that all about?”

“You mean the story assignments from hell? To think that the aroma of artificial hazelnut is going to penetrate my pores, not to mention the fact that some black turtle-necked pseudo-intellectual will be drooling over my photo.” Samantha shuddered.

Abby shook her head. “No, that’s just Tess’s usual manipulative behavior to keep the minions on edge. I’m talking about this Collette thing. What was so urgent?”

“Collette?” Samantha waved her hand. “She’s the current ‘It’ girl for giving chemical peels to the stars. Didn’t you see the way Tess reacted when I said salt-water wasn’t good for the skin?”

“Yoo-hoo, Abby. I’ve been looking for you.” The voice came from the elevators. Julia was racing down the hall toward them. She wore a baby-doll Betsey Johnson dress and ballet flats. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz never looked more wholesome. “Oh, hello, Samantha. Only you can carry off Versace in the middle of the morning.” From Julia, that was a compliment.

“So what happened at the story meeting I missed?” Julia asked.

“Trust me—” Samantha imitated Tess lording over everyone with her cigarette holder “—you didn’t miss anything, darling.” She looked at Abby dismissively. “In fact, I’ll leave you to fill in Betty Crocker on the details. I want to catch Ned before he finishes his cover shoot so that he can take my photo. I have to look my most ravishing for the biscotti and café au lait crowd.”

“So Ned’s still around?” Abby asked Julia after Samantha had sauntered off in her Jimmy Choos.

“According to circulation, there’s always a bulge in newsstand sales when his covers appear. Though Tess is complaining that he’s too expensive.”

“Tess complains that everyone is too expensive. What else is new?” She started walking toward her desk in a cubicle around the corner.

“Actually—” Julia took a series of deep breaths.

“Are you all right?” Abby looked concerned.

“It’s nothing. Just trying to put in practice some of the stress-busting breathing techniques I just learned about from this tantric sex therapist.”

“Yes, well, I can see how Tantric sex and stress might go together.” Abby paused. “We’re talking about an article for the magazine, right?”

“Of course we’re talking about the magazine. What did you think? Oh, never mind. What I really wanted to talk to you about was if you might have some leads on potential apartments? You see, I was planning on having my book group over on Wednesday, and with you camped out in the couch, with all your stuff…Not that you’re at all in the way…”

“No, problem. Hey, I’ve imposed on you long enough. Besides, once I tell you about the latest assignment, you’ll probably need to recuperate in a prone position on said couch—just to get over the shock.”

“It’s that bad?”

“You might want to start those breathing exercises now.”

PROLOGUE

JULIA MILES STOOD OUTSIDE the big, ominous door that opened onto her employer’s big, ominous office and did her best not to hyperventilate. She told herself that there was no reason to be afraid of Tess Truesdale, that she herself had been a senior writer for Tess magazine for a long time now, and Tess had never once made good on her threat to have one of her writers’ spleens for dinner. Tess was all bluster and brass and big-shouldered bitching…and Givenchy and Grey Goose and Chanel No. 5. Oh, sure, there was that rumor about the guy from the mail room who’d disappeared and then been discovered months later—in pieces—after misplacing some galleys for the fall fashion issue, but that was different. That had been a guy from the mail room. Julia had never heard of Tess hacking one of her writers to bits.

Yet.

Of course, there was a first time for everything, and the admonitions of Julia’s co-workers, Abby and Samantha, still buzzed in her ears. Julia had missed a meeting yesterday about a new assignment for the three of them, and now she would have to suffer Tess’s exasperation at having to go over it a second time. Tess hated doing things a second time. If something wasn’t done perfectly the first time…Well, that was where the spleen-for-dinner thing usually came in.

Smoothing a hand over her flowered, crinkle chiffon Betsey Johnson dress, Julia lifted a hand to the big, ominous door and knocked.

“Entrez-vous” came her employer’s voice from the other side.

Dutifully, Julia entered, closing the door behind her. Tess was dressed in basic black today—in spite of the warm September outside—a mock turtleneck and straight skirt that made her look very much like an older Kim Novak from Bell, Book and Candle, one of Julia’s favorite movies. Would that Tess would be as sweet as Kim—or would that Julia could perform a little witchcraft like Kim—this meeting might be easier to get through.

“You missed a meeting yesterday,” Tess said without preamble before Julia had even completed the dozen steps that brought her to stand before her employer’s big, ominous desk.

The comment didn’t invite a reply, but Julia did her best to excuse her absence by telling her employer, “I’m sorry, Tess. I was out of the office working on another story.” What she didn’t add was that it had been a story Tess herself had assigned to her, so if Julia hadn’t been around for the meeting, it wasn’t exactly her own fault.

Instead of complaining, though, Tess only waved her bejeweled cigarette holder through a haze of smoke in front of her face and said, “I have a new assignment for you and Abby and Samantha. It’s for our February issue. Valentine’s Day, darling.”

Uh-oh, Julia thought. Valentine’s Day meant love. Couples stuff. Romantic stuff. It wasn’t exactly her area of expertise.

“Valentine’s Day?” she echoed with obvious trepidation.

Tess moved the cigarette holder to her mouth and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke inside for several moments while Julia watched fascinated. The woman’s lungs must be as black as her attire. Then again, Tess was a stickler for making sure her clothing and accessories matched. She’d doubtless insist on doing the same for her organs.

Finally, Tess exhaled, saying at the same time, “I want you to go out and meet men. Lots of men. And I want you to date them. Then I want you to write about your experiences in great detail for the magazine.”

Julia’s eyebrows shot up behind her long, medium-brown bangs. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

Tess expelled a sound of impatience. “Darling, you really should have been at the meeting yesterday. It’s going to be so tedious having to go through all this again.”

Oh, fine, Julia thought. Her editor wanted her to put herself on the block for a virtual gang bang and was calling it tedious? Julia could think of a few other things to call it. Luckily for her boss, she was way too polite to say any of them. And lucky for Julia, too, since saying them would land her on the street without a job like that.

“It’s called speed-dating,” her editor told her. “Have you heard of it?”

“A little,” Julia said. What she didn’t add was Enough to know I don’t want any part of it. Because she had a feeling she would have to eat those words if she said them aloud.

“It’s the latest thing for meeting people,” Tess added.

It was also the lamest thing, Julia thought.

“It’s something we’re long overdue for covering,” her editor said.

It was something that should be covered up completely, Julia thought.

“And I can’t think of a better person to write it up than you.”

Except maybe someone who actually wanted to write it up.

Julia sighed inwardly and mentally cleared her calendar. She was going to need a lot of free time if she was going to be a sacrificial lamb.

Tess tapped the ashes of her cigarette into a millifiore ashtray on her desk and smiled. A predatory, scheming, spleen-eating smile. A smile that told Julia she was about to be coated in a nice mint jelly.

“Darling,” Tess said as she lifted the cigarette to her mouth again. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN SHE HEARD THE BELL RING, Julia’s first instinct was to come out of her corner swinging. Which was a perfectly appropriate response. Because seated as she was in a bar full of people, wearing her favorite dress fashioned of black lace over pink charmeuse, armed with an appletini (and not afraid to use it), she was here to meet men. And lots of them.

Speed-dating. The words echoed in her head—though it was Tess’s voice saying them—as Julia awaited the arrival of her first victim…ah, date, she meant, of course. Who had come up with such a concept, anyway? Maybe she should explore the genesis and history of the phenomenon, too, as she researched her article for Tess magazine. See if she could find out just where the whole idea of dating en masse for four-minute increments had originated.

Then again, speed-dating was a good description for Julia’s own alleged love life. In the five years since she’d graduated from college, she hadn’t dated anyone for more than a few months. Usually, the guys she went out with disappeared after a few dates. And there had been one or two she wished hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes.

Even her college boyfriend, whom she’d dated for more than a year, had been surprisingly easy to get over after he’d dumped her for the captain of the gymnastics team, telling Julia that the whole double-jointed thing was going to be such a boon to his sex life. The joke had been on him, though. It had been sweater-weather at the time, so it had taken a couple of weeks for him to discover that gymnasts have no breasts, and by that point, Julia was so over him.

Since then, however, even her breasts hadn’t been enough to keep guys around. Or maybe the scarcity of a long-term relationship had been more due to her demand that she be treated with respect and dignity. Hard to tell. Men never seemed able to distinguish between honoring the breasts and honoring the woman.

She shoved a handful of shoulder-length, medium brown hair over one spaghetti-strapped shoulder—thankfully, the September evening had cooperated with her wardrobe by being balmy and dry—fluffed up her overly long bangs, and hoped she hadn’t applied her glittery eye shadow and lip gloss too heavily. She wasn’t normally one to wear a lot of makeup, but something about tonight’s event had made her drop into a Sephora store on the way home from work last night and spend more than she should have on stuff she’d probably never use again.

Or maybe she’d just wanted to adopt a disguise of sorts. The prospect of meeting so many men in one sitting had generated a desire in her to never be recognized on the street. It didn’t matter that eight million other people lived in New York, or that one rarely even saw one’s next door neighbors in this city. With her luck, every man she met tonight would be standing in line in front of her at Starbucks in the morning. Treating this like a masquerade had seemed like a good idea.

The first man on her list, Julia saw as she glanced down at her roster of prospective mates for the evening, was Randy 6. Well, now. That sounded promising. It had been a while since Julia had had any six…uh, sex. The way she was starting to feel, the randier Randy 6 was, the better.

According to the rules of the game—which the hostess had handed to Julia as she registered for the event, and which Julia had researched even before she arrived—she would have the opportunity to meet twenty-five men tonight. Each “date” would last approximately four minutes, starting and ending at the sound of a bell, with another minute in between for people to move from one table to the next. For the first half of the event—which was being held in the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria—the women would be seated at tables and the men would flit from place to place. Then there would be a short intermission for “mingling,” followed by another round of “dating,” this time with the men seated and the women flitting. It would either be a lot of fun or phenomenally irritating. Julia had yet to decide which.

But she got her first clue—not to mention a jolt of disappointment—when Randy 6 sat down. He looked more like Somethingthecat 8. And then deposited in the litter box. Somehow, Julia managed to curb the urge to strike a line through his name in his presence.

“So. Randy,” she began after they’d introduced themselves, already mentally counting the seconds. Just how many were there in four minutes, anyway? She did some quick math. Two hundred and forty? That many? She’d never survive. “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

There. That ought to kill a few dozen seconds at least.

“I don’t get out much,” Randy 6 said, thereby killing roughly two. Not to mention Julia’s appetite. On the up side, her desire for a drink was skyrocketing.

“Well,” she tried again, her fingers inching toward her appletini, “you’re here now, aren’t you?”

“My mother made me come,” Randy 6 said. “She’s over there.”

Then, to Julia’s amazement, he turned in his chair and waved at a middle-aged woman on the other side of the room, who, like Julia, was sitting at a table speed-dating. The woman waved back, then made a spinning motion with her hand and mouthed something that even Julia could read as, Turn back around and talk to her, you big jerk.

Wow. Speed-dating with one’s mother. That gave new meaning to the term “Keeping it in the family.” A really icky meaning, too.

“I see,” Julia said.

Hard as it was to believe, the conversation only deteriorated after that, and she worried that her session with Randy 6 was going to set a precedent for the entire evening. Sure enough, her next three dates—Ryan 4, Ernesto 18 and Jack 24—were only marginally more scintillating than Randy 6. But the next two, Armand 13 and Michael 19, were relatively interesting. Unfortunately, it was relative to Randy 6. In spite of that, Julia made a quick, surreptitious notation in her notebook about each of the men between rings of the bell, as she awaited the arrival of her next victim…ah, date, she meant, of course. For the two allegedly interesting candidates, she wrote, respectively:

If he were the last man on earth, there might at least be hope, if not an actual likelihood, that the human race could continue.

Says Angelina Jolie is too good-looking, but I’m pretty sure he’s lying. Still, could just be being ironic, so might be worth a second look.

She took a second to flip through her notes. If Armand 13 was as good as it got tonight, the survival of the human race might be a problem. So far, Julia hadn’t met anyone she was eager to check off her list as a potential meet-again. Which was what she was supposed to do at night’s end—identify any of the men she’d “dated” this evening as someone she might want to see a second time.

The men had a similar list of the participating women and were supposed to do likewise. Their hostess—in this case, a woman who owned a Manhattan dating service—would then compare the lists and see whose names corresponded with whose, and anyone who showed up on both lists would receive notification that there had been a spark of interest on both sides and given the opportunity to make further contact via e-mail.

So if, at the end of the night, Julia put a check mark on her list of men’s names by, say, Armand 13—as if—and if Armand 13 put a check mark on his list of women’s names by Julia 6—oh, please, God, no—then they’d both be given each other’s e-mail addresses so that they might continue with their conversation, and, ideally, a romance. The way things were looking so far, however, Julia was reasonably certain tonight was going to be a bust. Which was okay. Sort of. Because she’d arranged to attend four of these things this month in order to get as full a view as possible for her story.

Gee, had she actually been thinking at first that it might be fun? Julia was beginning to wonder. Had she actually attended the story meeting with their editor in chief, Tess Truesdale, discussing the idea—three writers, three styles of alternative dating, no waiting—she could have won one of the other topics. Or maybe changed Tess’s mind. Maybe—

Oh, who was she kidding? Had Julia attended the meeting, the outcome would have been no different. She and Abby Lewis and Samantha Porter—all in-house writers for the magazine—would have ended up with the same assignments. Once Tess decided to go with something, there was no stopping her from getting it. Woe betide anyone who thought she could change Tess’s mind. No matter what went down in Tess’s office that morning, Julia would still be sitting here, nursing her appletini, perusing her notes about unremarkable men, and wishing she was anywhere but—

“Hi. I’m Daniel 9.”

She glanced up from her notes with a glib response on her tongue, but it dried up completely when she got a look at her next date. Mostly because there were better things to put on one’s tongue than glibness. Like, for instance, Daniel 9.

His sandy hair was thick and tousled, unruly and long enough to let her know he wasn’t obsessed with excessive grooming, but clean and combed enough to make clear his desire to look good. And, baby, did he look good, dressed in slightly faded but form-fitting blue jeans, a white oxford shirt open at the collar and a black blazer. His hazel eyes, an intriguing mix of gray and blue and green, reflected intelligence and good humor, as did the scant smile that curled his lips. Even seated as she was, Julia could tell he easily topped six feet, and that every last inch of him was lean and solid.

Oh, yeah. Continuation of the species was looking better and better. As was the species itself.

She extended her hand and hoped her palm wasn’t as sweaty as the rest of her suddenly felt. “Julia 6,” she said, introducing herself with her first name and her assigned number, as each of the fifty participants had been instructed to do.

Daniel 9 smiled, something that made Julia want to purr and rub against his leg. “Six and nine,” he said as he slipped his hand into hers. “Now, why do I think those numbers would go so well together?”

She was so besotted by his dark, velvety voice, and so agitated by the frisson of heat that charged up her arm when her fingers connected with his, that she didn’t even care he’d made such an adolescent remark. In fact, she was starting to suffer from a case of overactive hormones herself.

“Have a seat,” she told him as she reluctantly released his hand.

He sat immediately, and she made a mental note of how obedient he was. They were off to a very good start as far as she was concerned.

“So what brings you to tonight’s event?” she asked.

Daniel 9 smiled again, and Julia did her best not to swoon. “It sounded like fun,” he told her. And, to his credit, he actually sounded as though he meant it. “I haven’t dated anyone seriously for a while, and I’ve been missing the companionship.” He shrugged as if that weren’t a big concern of his, but something in his eyes indicated otherwise. “A buddy of mine heard about this thing tonight,” he concluded, “and invited me to tag along.”

“And how’s your evening been so far?” Julia asked.

He pretended to give that some thought. “Actually, I don’t think my evening started until I sat down at your table.”

Oh, good answer, Julia thought. She was ready to start working on that continuation of the human race right now. She wondered if there was room for both of them under the table.

She smiled, and he smiled back, and suddenly, two hundred and forty seconds wasn’t nearly enough. And then she realized she was wasting them by just sitting there ogling him. Oh, wait, no, she wasn’t. There was no way a second could be wasted, provided she was within viewing range of Daniel 9.

“So tell me a little bit about yourself,” she said.

“Well, I don’t like piña coladas,” he told her, “or getting caught in the rain.”

“Excellent,” she concurred. “I’m not much for either myself. So what do you like? Raindrops on roses? Bright copper kettles?”

“I can handle those,” he said, “as long as you don’t make me go bicycling through the Alps with a bunch of kids wearing lederhosen made out of curtains.”

So he was familiar with The Sound of Music, Julia thought, putting another mental gold star by his name.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know how to say it without sounding really boring,” he said.

“Try me.”

And, gosh, smart guy that he was, he totally picked up on her double entendre, because his smile this time was a little suggestive. Oh, goody.

“The usual stuff,” he told her. “Movies, music, books, eating out.”

“Sports?”

“Some,” he said. But he didn’t start frothing at the mouth the way some guys did, which was a definite bonus. “I like to watch the Rangers when I get a chance.”

Hockey. A manly man sport. Cool.

“And since I grew up in Indiana, I’m really into college basketball.”

A small cry of delight escaped Julia before she could stop it. “I grew up in Indiana, too,” she told him. “What part?”

“Indianapolis,” he said, obviously as pleased by the discovery as she was. “How about you?”

“Evansville. So do you miss Bobby Knight as much as I do?”

“Hell, yes,” he told her. “I don’t care what anyone says about him, he was the best damned coach that team ever had.”

They launched into an enthusiastic dialogue about college hoops, which was inescapably what Hoosiers talked about when meeting for the first time outside Indiana. Or inside Indiana, for that matter. All too soon, the bell was sounding, announcing the end of their date and Daniel 9’s departure.

“Dammit,” he muttered, sounding genuinely hacked off.

Oh, they really did have so much in common, Julia thought. She was peeved by the bell, too.

“Intermission’s coming soon,” he said as he stood. “I’ll be looking for you, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ll find me with little trouble,” she assured him.

He grinned at that, lifted a hand in farewell and walked away. But not without looking over his shoulder and meeting her gaze. Six times. Not that Julia counted or anything.

The men who visited her table in the next half hour might as well have had names followed by the number zero, so lacking in everything were they when compared to Daniel 9. Nevertheless, Julia made a few perfunctory notes and decided a couple of them might be worth checking off at night’s end, if for no other reason than to provide her with some amusing anecdotes for her story.

When the long bell sounded to announce intermission, she couldn’t get out of her chair fast enough. She should have been starving for hors d’oeuvres and badly in need of another appletini, but she tucked her notes into her tiny purse and headed for the women’s room instead. Not that her bladder was her primary concern. She needed to check herself in the mirror, to make sure she was at her dazzling best. Then she would find Daniel 9 and keep him occupied for the entirety of intermission. With any luck at all, he’d give her an anecdote—or something of an entirely different nature.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL TAGGART WAS FIGHTING off a major wiggins at the lusty look he was getting from Edna 12, a woman old enough to be his mother, when the long bell signaling intermission finally rang. With a hasty farewell and without a second thought, he retreated to the men’s room, wanting to regroup before he went in search of Julia 6.

What a tasty little morsel she was going to be. In fact, of all the women he was going to, ah, meet while researching and writing his article for Cavalier magazine, she might end up being the most luscious treat. He quickly scanned the list of dates he’d had so far tonight. Man, the way things were going, she’d be his only treat from this batch. Not that he hadn’t checked off a number of names. But few of them were women he really, truly wanted to, ah, meet. Even for the sake of his article.

He was thankful—and not a little surprised—that the subject of careers hadn’t come up while he was talking to Julia 6. So far this evening he’d managed to muddle his way through that mine-filled swamp by lying through his teeth. No way could he tell these women his editor’s most recent assignment was a story about the potential for racking up one-night stands through speed-dating events. That was guaranteed to ensure no-night stands with the women Daniel was targeting for his story.

There was something about Julia 6, though, that made him think she’d be difficult to lie to. He couldn’t imagine what. He’d gotten extremely good at lying to women, even before he attended his first speed-dating party a week ago.

As if he needed something like speed-dating to fuel-inject his love life. Not that his love life contained anything remotely resembling love.

Sex life, he corrected himself. There. That was more like it. And Julia 6 was going to be a very nice addition to it. Even better, he suspected, than the two women with whom he’d had success at the event last week. And certainly better than the other women he also planned to score with at tonight’s.

When Daniel emerged from the men’s room, he scanned the crowd until he located Julia 6, at the exact moment she spotted him. They grinned at each other the moment their gazes connected, and, as one, they began to cross the room toward each other. They met precisely in the middle, but not before Daniel noticed what extraordinary legs she had under her short, frilly dress, and how nicely they complemented her incredible breasts.

What was weird, though, was that his gaze kept traveling upward and landed above her neck, and that was where it ultimately stayed. Yeah, her face was as extraordinary as the rest of her, but it was something in her wide green eyes that really captivated him. Not the gaudy, glittery shadow he’d seen turning up on so many women lately, but the fact that the gaudy, glittery shadow seemed so out of place on her. Even weirder was that Daniel usually liked to see women wearing a lot of makeup, but now he found himself wanting to know what Julia 6 looked like without it.

The dress, too, as nice as it looked on her, made him wonder what she looked like out of it. And not naked out, but wearing-something-more-casual out. Which was the weirdest thing of all.

“How many names have you checked off so far?” he asked when they came to a stop in front of each other.

She didn’t even look at her list before telling him, “Only one.”

“What a coincidence,” he said. “I’ve only checked off one name, too.” The lie left an immediate bad taste in his mouth, surprising him. What the hell was up with that? Why did he feel so guilty all of a sudden? He was only doing his job, for chrissakes. “I wish we could leave right now,” he added. That, at least, was the truth.

He could tell by her expression she felt the same way. In spite of that, she said, “I can’t. I really need to see this through to the end.”

“Me, too,” he told her. Then, because for some reason he felt that it was necessary to embellish his lie, he added, “For my buddy, I mean. But we should be out of here by eleven,” he added. “What are you doing afterward?”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the invitation. “I, um, I really don’t have any plans,” she said.

“Let’s have a drink.”

She expelled a soft little sound of surprise that he found strangely erotic. “O-okay,” she agreed.

The bell rang to notify everyone that intermission was drawing to a close, and Daniel really needed another drink before facing round two. “Just meet me downstairs in the lobby when it’s over,” he said. “You need a drink before you head back into the fray?”

Her expression made him think she was a little flustered by the speed at which things between the two of them were progressing. Which was good, he thought. Why should he be the only one here who felt muddle-headed?

She nodded. “Please. An appletini.”

“Not a cosmo?” he asked. After all, that was what all the other women he’d met tonight had been drinking.

She shook her head this time. “Too trendy. I don’t like to be like everyone else.”

He shrugged off the strange irritation that settled on his shoulders at hearing her say that. And it bothered him even more to realize the irritation he felt was for himself. “Consider it done,” he said.

With that, Daniel took off for the bar and Julia 6’s appletini. Surely that was going to be the next trendy beverage of choice for party-girl barflies, he told himself as he went. Because in spite of the naturalness with which they’d connected, and in spite of the ease with which he’d talked to her, and in spite of his singular reaction to her, he reminded himself that Julia 6 was like every other woman.

And damned if he wouldn’t prove it tonight.

BY MIDNIGHT, JULIA AND Daniel were talking again, with a lot more than four minutes allotted them, at Marquee, arguably New York’s hottest club. She watched as the bartender placed an appletini and a Scotch and water on the bar before Daniel, who dropped a twenty and a ten beside them to cover the twenty-two-dollar tab, telling the bartender to keep the change. Another gold star, she thought, for the generous tip.

And yet another for the fact that the two of them had been talking naturally and comfortably about everything under the sun since leaving the speed-dating party, without a single awkward moment to muck things up. Julia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to talk to a guy with such ease right after meeting him, and she was perfectly content to keep doing it. Talking, she meant. Not, you know, doing it. And looking at Daniel, she could see that he was perfectly content to keep doing it, too. Talking, she meant. Not the other thing. Which earned him yet another gold star beside his name.

At this rate, by night’s end, he was going to be his own galaxy.

After collecting their respective drinks, they threaded their way through the throngs of people milling about beneath the boxy yellow-gold lights, until, miraculously, they saw a couple surrendering a table to their right and quickly ducked into it. But instead of sitting opposite each other, they made a silent but unified decision to fold themselves onto the sleek, red-leather banquette by the wall, side by side.

The music wasn’t blaring quite as loudly here, and they wouldn’t have to shout at each other to talk. Despite that, when they first sat down, they only sipped their drinks and gazed at each other for a moment, as if neither could believe how quickly the night had moved. Julia hated to think about it ending. Then she wondered just how it would end. And if it would still be night—or morning—when it did.

She shook the thought off. No matter how comfortable she felt with Daniel, she barely knew him. Glancing down at her watch, she told herself to find out everything she could ASAP.

“So…what do you do for a living?” she asked, surprised that neither of their occupations had come up yet in conversation.

That was good, though, right? That they’d had so much else to talk about, they hadn’t even touched on what was usually the first thing two people getting to know each other discussed.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought his smile fell just the tiniest bit as she concluded the question, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying, “I’m sort of self-employed.”

For the first time since meeting him, Julia felt a hint of dismay. Had he sounded evasive just then? He’d been answering her other questions straight to the point all evening. Why not now?

“Doing what?” she asked. Surely she’d only imagined his hesitation. It depended on what he was self-employed as. If he said he was a male escort, she could see where it was coming from. And she could see where she was going to. Out of his life. Fast.

Again, he sounded as if he were being deliberately vague when he told her, “I kind of work in the arts community.”

Uh-oh, she thought. Maybe he was gay and still in the closet, and that was why he was hesitating. He was by far the most attractive and appealing man she’d met in a long time. He was well groomed and fashionably dressed. And her karma being what it was—namely, bad—it would be almost mandatory that any man she was attracted to who wasn’t a jerk was either gay or terminally ill, or had a chemical dependency or stalker tendencies.

“What part of the arts community?” she asked.

Seeming resigned now to having to give her a more complete answer, he sighed and admitted, “I’m a writer.”

She brightened. A writer? Well, no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her what he did for a living. “I’m a writer, too,” she said. “I’m on the staff of Tess magazine.”

“Tess,” Daniel echoed. “Women’s magazine, right?”

She nodded.

“I think I’ve seen it around.”

Well, duh, she thought. Tess was only the training manual for every bad girl in the making, telling today’s young women not only what to do, say, wear, drink and buy, but also where to go. Uh, for clubbing and shopping and traveling, Julia meant.

“So what kind of stuff do you write?” she asked Daniel.

He seemed to hesitate again before finally telling her, “Right now, I’m working on a…a kind of travel piece that I hope will sell to Cavalier magazine.”

“Cavalier,” she echoed in the same tone of voice he’d used to identify Tess. “Men’s magazine, right? I think I’ve seen it around.”

“Touché,” he replied with a grin.

Oh, she’d love to touché him.

“But it’s not exactly a woman-friendly magazine, is it?” she added. “I mean, it’s not as bad as Playboy or Penthouse, but it isn’t exactly The Journal of Sensitive Men, either.”

“I like to think of it as the magazine for men who never quite left their college fraternities behind.”

Now Julia was the one to grin. “Apt description.”

“And I like to think of Tess,” he added, “as the magazine for women who think Barbie is the quintessential female consumer.”

“No, we think the Bratz dolls are the quintessential consumers,” she countered with a chuckle. “Barbie’s middle-aged now, after all. Not to mention monogamous. And much too wholesome for the likes of Tess. So you’re working on a travel piece?” she asked, turning the topic back to him. “I hope you’re not just in town for a visit.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no. I’ve lived here since I started as an undergrad at Columbia twelve years ago.”

Which would make him about twenty-nine or thirty, she thought, age being another area they had yet to cover. Funny how all their vital statistics seemed of no importance to either of them. They were too busy discussing all the philosophical quandaries of life—and college hoops—which Julia had barely ever touched on with guys before. Now that she thought about it, that went a long way toward explaining why so many of her past boyfriends had had such a short shelf life.

“I went to Columbia, too,” she said. “I must have started the year you graduated. School of Journalism, right?”

“Of course.”

“We seem to have a lot in common,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

“Yes, we do.” And, like Julia, he seemed to find that both interesting and agreeable. “So what kind of stuff do you write for Tess?”

Julia told herself that was her cue to be evasive and vague, too, that there was no reason to tell him she was writing an article about speed-dating. She’d just started her research and would be attending a lot more parties like tonight’s over the next couple of weeks, even going out with some of the guys she met. That was something that could really put a crimp in any potential relationship she might start with Daniel. What guy wanted to date a woman whose objective was to date several men in a short span of time to see who was best?

But Julia discovered, not much to her surprise, that she didn’t want to be dishonest with him. Lying could really put a crimp in any potential relationship she might start with Daniel, too. Besides, he was a journalist. He’d understand about getting a story. He’d know the research was just a part of the job.

So, without hesitation or evasion, Julia told him, “Well, as a matter of fact, I’m doing a story on speed-dating. Consider yourself my first primary source.”

CHAPTER THREE

SOMETHING ICY AND ROCK HARD slammed into Daniel’s midsection at hearing Julia’s admission, and it was all he could do not to choke on his drink. “You’re writing about speed-dating for Tess?” he asked after he finally managed to swallow.

Her laughter was touched by nervousness when she said, “Yeah. Pretty funny, huh?”

He wasn’t sure if it was funny, but it certainly answered one question he’d been asking himself all evening. Namely, why would a gorgeous, funny, interesting woman like Julia need something like speed-dating to meet men? And she was covering the event for a story the same way he was. Interesting. He wondered if the objective of her article was also the same as his.

As if he’d spoken the question aloud, she said, “I’m supposed to be looking for Mr. Right. See if speed-dating is a venue where a woman can find a forever-after kind of Prince Charming.”

Ah. No. Hers wasn’t the same objective at all.

“I and two other writers,” she continued, “have been assigned three different types of alternative dating to cover. They are doing coffeehouse dating—you know, where patrons of a coffeehouse fill out forms about themselves and stick them along with their photos in binders that the baristas manage?—and ex-dating. Which is where a woman sets up her ex-boyfriend with another woman. It’s big on the Web. We’re all supposed to see if we meet any decent guys for a feature story in the February issue. Valentine’s Day.”

“And have you?” Daniel asked experimentally. “Met any decent guys, I mean?”

She smiled, and that cold feeling in his belly suddenly went all warm and gooey. “Well, I can’t speak for the others—not yet, anyway—but speaking for myself, yeah. As a matter of fact, I have. I met one decent guy in particular at tonight’s party.”

Oh, that’s what you think, sweetheart.

Because Daniel wasn’t looking for Ms. Right. No, his editor at Cavalier wanted him to look for Ms. Right Now. A never-again kind of Princess Willing. Edward Cabot, editor in chief, had told Daniel that the object of his story was to see how many women he could pick up and have a one-night stand with over the course of a month of speed-dates. And that was exactly what Daniel intended to do.

Julia was right about Cavalier. The glossy monthly didn’t exactly put women on a pedestal. Unless it was to look up their skirts. The magazine objectified them, poked fun at them and didn’t take them seriously for a minute. Daniel had never been bothered by that, because he didn’t take women seriously, either. At least, he hadn’t before. There was something about Julia, however, that made him want to reconsider.

Bullshit, he told himself. Julia was no different from any other woman he’d met. Hell, she was no different from any other woman period. If he found her sexier or more appealing or sexier or more interesting or sexier or more intelligent or sexier than other women of his acquaintance, it was only because…Because…Because…

Well, just because, that was why. And it was a damned good reason, too.

She was just like every other woman he knew, he told himself more adamantly. And just like every other woman he knew, he was going to do or say whatever he had to in order to have sex with her. Then she’d become just one name among many on the final tally for his article. With any luck at all, by morning, Julia would be nothing more than a footnote in his story and a fond memory in his brain.

“Unfortunately, I have to do three more of these speed-dating things over the next few weeks,” she said when he didn’t reply, sounding a little anxious. Doubtless because of his profound lack of response. “For the story,” she quickly added. “I just want to tell you that now, because…I mean, I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but…” She lifted her shoulders and let them drop in a shrug that was…

Well, hell, Daniel thought. There was no way around it. It was adorable. Dammit.

“Look,” she continued, looking and sounding even more nervous now, “I don’t want you to think I’m assuming anything, but it seems like you and I are hitting it off pretty well, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sitting here trying to get up the nerve to ask you out again. But if I do, and if you say yes, I’m still going to have to go to those speed-dating things and even go out with some of the guys I meet, so I can write about it for my story. I just want to be straight with you about that right off the bat. So if that’s going to bother you, or if I’m totally off base about the way things are between us at this point, then be straight with me, too, okay?”

Daniel really wished she hadn’t said that. The last thing he could be with her right now was honest. He appreciated her telling him what was what—he hated when women said one thing while they were thinking another, which was a malady that seemed to be endemic to their gender. But he couldn’t extend the same courtesy to her. Not about the subject matter of his article. Her article, he thought, was really nothing major, and was actually kind of sweet.

And oh, man, had he really just used the word sweet? Right on the heels of adorable? Great. Already she was turning him into a girly-man. He ejected the thought from his brain and got himself back on track. With the speeding locomotive that was his brain, by God.

Her story was a fluff piece, he amended, disregarding, for now, the fact that he had used the word fluff, too. It was an industry term, dammit. If he told Julia the object of his story was to sleep with as many women as he could and then discard them like dirty socks the next day, there was no way he’d get her into the sack. Not tonight, not ever. Which would mean he wasn’t completing his assignment as ordered. Ergo, he wasn’t doing his job.

That was the only reason, Daniel assured himself, why he didn’t want to be straight with Julia. It wasn’t because he was worried she’d think less of him for pursuing such a story. And it wasn’t because he was afraid he’d never see her again once she knew the truth. Hell, that was the whole point. To not see her again after the two of them hooked up. And to hook up with her in the first place.

So donning his most disarming smile—and ignoring the bad taste in his mouth—Daniel told her, “Okay, I’ll be straight with you. I understand completely. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

And he assured himself he was telling the truth when he said it, even if it felt like a half truth instead. He did understand why she needed to keep speed-dating in order to write her story. But damned if it didn’t bother him.

A lot.

BY THE TIME THEIR CAB arrived at the Chelsea brownstone that housed Julia’s third-floor apartment, it was after 3:00 a.m. Even though tomorrow—or rather today—was Saturday, she couldn’t believe how late the two of them had stayed out. She was never out this late. The time had just passed so quickly with Daniel. Even now, she didn’t want the evening to end. Unfortunately, there was a fine line between good night and good morning, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to cross it with him yet.

Strangely, it was because she liked him so much that she didn’t want to invite him up to spend the night. Sex was a wonderful thing, and it had been a while since Julia enjoyed it. Sex with a guy like Daniel would be phenomenal. But even before they’d sat down at the club, she’d begun to realize she wanted to share more with him than just sex. If the two of them slept together now, sex would become the defining characteristic of their relationship. And Julia wanted any relationship they might have to be defined by something else. So the sex, she decided, was going to have to wait.

“Thanks for seeing me home,” she told him. She opened her purse as she glanced over the front seat of the cab to read the meter. “Since you paid for two rounds to my one tonight, I’ll cover the cab.”

He curled his fingers gently around her wrist before she could reach her wallet and slowly drew her hand back out of her purse. “I’ve got it,” he said.

Before she could object, he was thrusting a handful of bills over the front seat and thanking their driver. Then, to her surprise, he climbed out of the cab on his side, circled the back of it to hers and opened her door for her.

Julia couldn’t remember the last time a guy had done something so, well, gallant. Chivalry really wasn’t dead, she thought. Gee, who knew? And it was living in Daniel Taggart now.

They’d shared last names and phone numbers and cell numbers and e-mail addresses before leaving the club—along with middle names, birth dates, political affiliations, childhood injuries and highest spider-solitaire scores. If he wanted to see her again, he knew where to find her. But as the cab pulled away from the curb and he did nothing to stop it, she realized he was thinking he wouldn’t have to look far. In fact, he seemed to be thinking the next time he wanted to exchange hellos with Julia, all he’d have to do was roll over in the morning and nudge her.

“You let the cab drive away,” she said as she watched the red taillights disappear around the corner half a block down.

“You didn’t stop me from letting it go,” he pointed out.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she told him.

He grinned. “Neither was I.”

It would be best, she thought, to lay it all out, right up front. Cards-on-the-table time. “You can’t come upstairs with me, Daniel,” she said as gently as she could. “Not tonight.”

His expression changed not at all, so she had no idea what he was thinking. “Why not? I thought we hit it off pretty well.”

To punctuate the statement, he lifted a hand to her hair and tucked a few strands behind her ear, then turned his fingers backward and lightly brushed his knuckles over her cheek. The sensation that shot through her in response was nothing short of atomic. Her eyes fluttered closed, and unable to help herself, she tilted her head to the side, so that he might touch her again. He evidently didn’t need any more encouragement, because he immediately framed her face in both hands and dipped his head to graze her mouth with his.

It was an extraordinary kiss. He brushed his lips lightly over hers, once, twice, three times…lightly…gingerly…blissfully. Then he took a step closer, bringing his body flush against hers, and covered her mouth more completely. Julia curled her fingers into the lapels of his jacket and tipped her head backward, savoring the sensation of the rough, callused fingers so gentle on her face, the warmth of his body swaying closer to her own, the taste of Scotch that clung to his mouth, the clean masculine scent of him that surrounded her.

As she leaned into him, he dropped one hand from her face to loop it around her waist, pulling her closer still. Julia’s fingers crept up over his shoulders, one cupping his nape as the other threaded into his silky hair. It was so soft falling against the back of her hand, and his skin was so warm where she touched him. He curled his fingers under her chin and tilted his head to the other side, and kissed her more deeply still.

Her legs nearly buckled beneath her when he pushed his tongue into her mouth, but she rallied and met him taste for taste, her breathing growing ragged with every new foray. Daniel, too, seemed to scramble for breath as they each grew more insistent. Finally, Julia made herself pull back, end the kiss just as it was about to drag her completely under. The way she felt at the moment, she’d not only consent to Daniel spending the night tonight, she’d be begging him to move in with her.

When she tried to step away from him, he let her go but caught her hand loosely in his. “Where ya going?” he asked softly, still a little breathless.

She smiled. “I need to go upstairs. Alone,” she added before he could challenge her. She truly didn’t think she had it in her to say no if he pressed.

But he didn’t. And for that, he got a million more gold stars. “Can I see you again?” he asked.

She nodded without hesitation. “Oh, yeah.” Although she wasn’t sure why she made the suggestion, because it wasn’t the sort of thing she did for men, even after knowing them for a while, she said, “Look, why don’t you come over tomorrow night—tonight, I mean. If you’re free,” she hastily added, “and I’ll cook dinner for you.”

“Oh, I’m definitely free for you,” he said. “And I’ll for sure come over tonight. But I’ll be the one who cooks dinner for you.”

She smiled. “How about if we cook together?”

He smiled back. “Cooking together is good.”

Funny, but she got the feeling he was talking about something other than dinner when he said that the way he did. And she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Good thing they’d be seeing each other again, so she could decide.

“I’ll do the shopping and get everything we need,” she offered.

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. With a cryptic smile, he told her, “I might pick up a couple of things myself.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“You shouldn’t have to do all the work, that’s all.”

She honestly didn’t know what to say in response to that. So she only asked, “How will you get home? Taxis aren’t exactly plentiful this time of night.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “I’m a very lucky guy.”

Before she could say a word in response to that, a bright yellow taxi rounded the corner opposite the one from which the other had disappeared, and it headed right in their direction. Still smiling at Julia, Daniel raised a hand to hail it, and it rolled to a stop at the curb.

“Like I said,” he told her, “I always get lucky.”

And before she could say a word in response to that, he kissed her again, briefly, almost chastely this time, and strode to the waiting car. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said as he opened the door. “Six o’clock okay?”

Dumbly, she nodded.

“I’ll wait till you’re inside,” he added, jutting his chin up toward her front door. “Then I’ll go.”

Still not trusting herself to say anything that didn’t make her sound like an idiot, Julia fumbled for her keys and made her way up the steps to unlock the front door. When she turned to wave goodbye a final time, managing a soft “Good night,” Daniel lifted his fingers to his lips and let them drop again, the masculine version of blowing a kiss. Then he climbed into the cab and closed the door, and the taxi pulled away from the curb. But his face was framed in the back window as the car drove away, watching her.

Leaving Julia to wonder when she would wake up. Because there was no way a man like Daniel Taggart could exist anywhere outside of her dreams.

CHAPTER FOUR

IN SPITE OF JULIA’S HAVING assured Daniel she would shop for everything they’d need to cook dinner, he showed up at her front door with two brown grocery sacks brimming with the makings of a meal that promised to be infinitely more elaborate than the meat loaf and tossed salad she had planned herself.

And he looked even yummier than the food, wearing a pair of snug, lightly faded blue jeans and a lightweight, equally faded forest-green polo that gave the green in his eyes a bit more dominance over the blue. She was glad she’d dressed casually, too, likewise in faded blue jeans, though hers were topped by a colorful, long-sleeved T-shirt decorated with a beaded, spangled art deco French postcard. So accustomed to being in her stocking feet at home was she that she had neglected to put on shoes, which she only now realized as she looked at the heavy hiking boots on Daniel’s feet. However, she didn’t feel any big urge to go put some on. Already she felt that comfortable with him.

She directed him to her kitchen—which wasn’t hard to find since her apartment was roughly the size of an electron—where he deposited the bags on what little counter space was there and began to unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them.

Whoa. He’d brought more stuff than she would have thought a man could even find in a market, let alone know what to do with. A loaf of French bread, a leafy head of romaine, a bottle of olive oil, free range chiken, she saw with some surprise when she inspected the label—tomatoes, parsley and…a wheel of Brie?

Where were the meat and potatoes? she wondered. Most guys she knew would have brought a half dozen cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and called it dinner.

“And for dessert,” Daniel said, reaching deep into the first sack—Good God, what was in the second? she wondered— “Godiva white chocolate torte ice cream. A pint for each of us.”

All right. That did it. Julia was ready to propose.

“Wow,” she said. “I hope you know what to do with all that. I’m still working on getting the hamburger I’d planned to mix with onion soup mix out of the plastic wrapper. Do you know how that works?”

He grinned smugly. “Not only can I get this chicken out of the plastic,” he said, pointing at the product in question, “but I can infuse it with fresh rosemary, poach it in a dry, kicky chardonnay and garnish it with a radish rose.”

“My God,” Julia whispered reverently. She poked him lightly in the ribs. “Are you sure you’re for real?”

He laughed as he turned his attentions to the second bag. “My parents own a restaurant in Indianapolis,” he said as he withdrew fresh herbs, red, yellow and green peppers, garlic, onions, mushrooms and two bottles of white wine—presumably a dry, kicky chardonnay. “My dad’s the chef, my mom’s the manager. When I was growing up, while my friends’ dads were out in the backyard pitching baseballs to them, my father had me in the kitchen showing me how to broil lamb chops and put the finishing touches on a chocolate soufflé. It goes without saying that I got my ass kicked at school on a regular basis.”

Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I bet the girls were crazy about you.”

He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Good point. And using the blow torch on the crème brûlée was always fun.”

“So what can I do to help?” she asked.

“Well, I won’t make you take the plastic off the chicken,” he told her. “So why don’t you open the wine?”

She nodded. “No problem. I’m much better wielding a corkscrew than I am a garlic press. I’m also seriously qualified to choose excellent dinner music.”

“That’s good to know.”

For the hour that followed, and accompanied by the dry, kicky tunes of Michael Bublé, Julia and Daniel worked side by side and shoulder to shoulder—and often hip to hip, so tiny was the kitchen—putting together a meal that was more elaborate, and doubtless more delicious, than anything she’d had since leaving home.

Never before had she realized how intimate—and sensual—creating a meal could be. Along with the sound of jazzy music, the aromas and textures and tastes of the food—to which they frequently helped themselves and then fed to each other—there was the jolt of electricity and the thrill of anticipation that shot through her every time their bodies touched. By the time they sat down to eat, they’d already finished one bottle of wine and opened the second, and they’d sampled enough of the meal to make them leave fully half of their dinners on their plates.

They did, after all, have to save room for ice cream.

But first, Julia wanted to simply bask in the happiness that was dinner with Daniel. He was amazing. Incredible. Too good to be true. Gorgeous, funny, smart, decent. He smelled great—and not just from the garlic, either—was easy to talk to and made her feel as though nothing in the world would ever go wrong again. And he could cook.

There had to be something wrong here, she told herself. No guy could be this perfect and still be available. And she wasn’t the sort of woman who experienced this kind of good luck.

So maybe, she thought, finally, her turn had come. Maybe it was possible to meet Mr. Right through a venue like speed-dating. Maybe, just maybe, her prince had finally come.

“THAT WAS WONDERFUL,” Daniel said at the end of dinner as he twirled his wine idly by the base of the glass.

He hoped Julia would realize he was talking about a lot more than the meal. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself this much on a date. Probably, he thought, because he’d never enjoyed himself this much on a date.

He still wasn’t sure what had come over him to make him offer to cook for Julia. That was a side of himself he normally never showed to anyone, male or female. It wasn’t that he thought cooking wasn’t a masculine pursuit, or that he was ashamed of what his father did for a living. On the contrary, not only was Steven Taggart one of the most celebrated chefs in Indianapolis, whose restaurant commanded four stars from the Michelin Guide, he was also the one who had fostered Daniel’s love of both basketball and hockey.

But as adept at cooking as Daniel was, it was neither a vocation nor a hobby he had wanted to pursue, and he hadn’t done much of it since leaving home. Cooking reminded him too much of home. It was something he did with family, in a family environment, something that roused feelings of comfort and affection and happiness and domestic tranquility. Which, now that he thought about it, might be why he’d never wanted to share it with women.

So why had he been so eager to offer to cook for Julia?

She looked great tonight, he thought, pushing the question away without answering it. He liked her better in the jeans and T-shirt and sock feet than he had in the party-girl outfit of the night before. If she was wearing any makeup tonight, he sure couldn’t see it. And instead of the curly, flyaway do her hair had been arranged in the night before, tonight it fell in soft waves over her shoulders, enough of it clipped back in a barrette to make Daniel’s fingers itch to loosen it.

“It was good, wasn’t it?” she agreed, looking at him in a way that told him she was talking about more than just the meal, too. “But now we have to clean up,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

“It won’t take long with two of us,” he said.

And, with two of them, it didn’t. In no time at all, they had completed the task and were bringing fresh glasses of wine into the living area—the apartment wasn’t large enough for an actual living room. But as comfortably as they’d spoken throughout the preparation and consumption of dinner, once they were sitting beside each other with nothing to do, neither seemed to know what to say.

Julia had dropped into one corner of the sofa while Daniel had folded himself onto the other. It was a small couch, and the gap between them probably wasn’t more than a couple of feet. Just enough to be annoying, he thought, but still enough that if he scooted himself closer to her, it would be an obvious ploy to get closer to her.

But then, why shouldn’t he be obvious about that? he asked himself. He and Julia weren’t in high school, right? Even if, for some reason, he had sort of felt like an adolescent with his first big crush since meeting her. Gee whiz, maybe they could play spin the bottle. Golly willikers, maybe that would give him an excuse for why he had to kiss her and get her girl cooties all over himself.

He blew out an exasperated breath at the thought.

“What?” she asked, obviously hearing it.

He shook his head. “I was just sitting here trying to think up some excuse for why I could move closer to you,” he said.

She smiled. “Why do you need an excuse to do that?”

He smiled back. “Good question.”

Just as Daniel began to scoot himself down on the sofa toward Julia, she scooted herself closer to him, until they were seated immediately beside each other, almost touching, in the middle.

“That’s more like it,” he said.

“Indeed it is,” she agreed.

“So. Come here often?” he asked.

“Occasionally,” she replied. “But I don’t like to be a regular anywhere. So some nights, I go to the chair over there in the ’burbs, and other nights, I like to go uptown to the table. When I’m feeling really wild and want to party hearty, I head downtown, to the kitchen.”

He nodded. “Must cost a fortune in cab fare.”

“It’s okay. Here in my world, I’m independently wealthy.”

He laughed at that. Then, before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, “I really like you, Julia Miles.”

She seemed surprised at hearing his admission. Maybe even as surprised as Daniel was to have uttered it. “I like you, too, Daniel Taggart. You’re—” But she halted before completing the remark.

“I’m what?” he asked.

She seemed to give that some thought before answering. “Different,” she told him.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Different from what? Other guys? Serial killers? Tropical fruit? Waterfowl? What?”

“Just different,” she said with a laugh. “From other guys and tropical fruit. You’re just fun to be with.”

“And that makes me different from other guys and tropical fruit.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It makes you pretty wonderful.”

Daniel thought she was pretty wonderful, too, but he wasn’t ready to reveal that to her. Not yet. Bad enough he’d told her he liked her. He honestly didn’t say things like that to women. Especially not after having met them barely twenty-four hours before. Hell, how could you even know if you liked someone in that short amount of time?

Strangely, though, he did know it about Julia. He wasn’t sure how. And there was something else he knew, too. He knew he wanted to kiss her. Badly. He just wasn’t sure how to go about it.

Which was nuts, because Daniel never second-guessed himself with women. If he wanted to kiss one, he kissed her. Something about Julia, though, made him hesitate. He wanted to make sure he did it right the first time. Because he wanted there to be a second time. And a third. And a fourth.

Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just do it.

But all he managed was to lift a hand to her face, to cup her cheek in his palm and hold her gaze intently with his. Julia didn’t seem surprised by his touch, and in fact lifted her hand, too, toward his face. She skimmed her fingers lightly along the line of his jaw, then down to the back of his neck. His heart hammered harder as her fingers wandered into his hair, fondling the shorter strands at his nape, sparking something hot and frantic deep inside him. Then she hesitated for a moment, her fingers stilling against his skin as if she were trying to decide if she really wanted to do whatever she was thinking about doing.

Daniel held his breath in anticipation, then slowly released it when she moved forward to rest her forehead against his. Her breath stirred the fine hairs at his temple and warmed his face, and her heat and her fragrance surrounded him.

Her mouth was scarcely an inch from his own now, her lips parted slightly in an unmistakable invitation. As if she couldn’t quite bring herself to be the one to kiss him, but very much wished he would kiss her. So Daniel closed what little distance still remained between them, slanting his mouth over hers. She gasped softly in surprise and stiffened for a brief moment, as if she honestly hadn’t thought he would kiss her. Then, just as quickly, she melted into him, tunneling the fingers of both hands through his hair, kissing him with equal fire, equal need, equal hunger.

Daniel bit back a groan and cupped the crown of her head in his palm, dropping his other hand to curve his fingers over her shoulder. As they warred over possession of the kiss, Julia pushed her body closer to his, and his hand drifted lower, down along her arm, over her rib cage, her waist, her hip, then back up again. As he did, he pulled her closer still, devouring her even more voraciously. When she raked his lower lip softly with her teeth, he drove his tongue into her mouth, then groaned as she sucked him in deeper still.

Something dark and explosive shattered inside him, and, his mouth never leaving hers, he looped both arms around her waist and tugged her onto his lap. He continued to kiss her as he reached for the barrette at the back of her head and unclipped it, relishing the sensation of soft silk spilling over his hand.

Julia uttered a hushed little whimper in response, then shifted in his lap, roping both arms around his neck. Daniel dropped one hand to her hip, splaying his fingers wide over the denim, opening the other over the small of her back. She felt so good against him, her body fitting so perfectly against his own. She was soft in all the places he was hard, curved where he was angled. She was all the things he wasn’t, and somehow that made him want her all the more.

For a long time, they only held each other, kissed each other, enjoyed each other, until Daniel couldn’t tolerate not knowing more of her. Slowly, tentatively, he pushed the hand on her hip higher, over her waist, along her rib cage, until he encountered the lower curve of her breast, cradling it in the deep V of his thumb and forefinger. Julia sighed at the contact but didn’t pull away. In fact, she leaned in closer, deepening their kiss. So Daniel inched his fingers higher, covering her breast completely with his hand.

The sound she uttered then was wholly erotic, sparking heat deep inside him where he’d never felt it before. She moved in his lap, her bottom rubbing against him, stirring his erection to completion in one swift maneuver. As he gently kneaded her breast, loving how it filled his palm so perfectly, he moved the hand on her back lower. He tugged at her shirt until it was free of her jeans, then dipped his fingers beneath it to open them again, this time over hot, naked skin.

Too much, too soon, he thought the moment their bare flesh made contact. It was a realization completely out of character for him. To Daniel, there was never enough when it came to sex, and it was never too soon to have it. So it was even more out of character when he, and not Julia, ended the kiss. But, suddenly, he jerked his mouth from hers, pulling back to look her squarely in the eye.

Gasping for breath and groping for coherent thought, he somehow managed to ask her, “What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?”

She leaned in again, touching her forehead to his the way she had before, a gesture that was sweet and affectionate and should have had him running for his life in the opposite direction. Instead, it made him want to kiss her again.

“Daniel,” she said, pulling his name out on a long groan. “I know this is going to make me sound like a tease considering what we’re doing. But I don’t think I’m ready to—”

He moved his hand to cover her lips, halting her objection before she could utter it. “I’m not asking to spend the night,” he said.

And strangely, he realized that was true. Oh, all right, half true. If she had invited him into her bedroom right now, he would, without question, have followed her. But the knowledge that this evening wasn’t going to end in sex—and that he was the one who’d put a stop to things—didn’t bother him the way it should have. The way it would have, had Julia been anyone else. He was satisfied enough—for now—just to have been able to spend time with her. To have held her. Kissed her. Touched her bare flesh, if only for an instant. For some reason, he didn’t want to know any more than that tonight.

“I just meant,” he said, “if you’re not busy tomorrow, do you want to meet for breakfast somewhere?”

Did he only imagine the look of disappointment that clouded her features for a moment? he wondered. Must have, he quickly decided. Because she was the one who’d said she wasn’t ready to go any further. Even if Daniel was beginning to suspect the same was true of himself.

“I’d love to meet for breakfast,” she said. “Just tell me where and when to be there. But Daniel,” she added with a smile that was almost shy. “You don’t have to leave just yet, do you?”

He grinned, withdrew his hand from beneath her shirt and awkwardly tucked it back into her jeans. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her once, twice, three times, four, and told her, “No. Of course not. We can still sit here and…chat…for a while.” Then he covered her mouth with his again.

And again. And again. And again…

CHAPTER FIVE

“SO. HOW’S THE SPEED-DATING story coming?”

Tess Truesdale asked the question just as Julia was enjoying a forkful of her carryout Waldorf salad, so she had to spend a few minutes chewing before she could reply. After all, dribbled lettuce and grapes would in no way complement her pale blue, pleated, beribboned miniskirt and cropped, ribbon-tied blazer of the same color. Tess had also lightened up today and was dressed in a clingy ivory sheath of pure silk, accessorized by a clunky bronze necklace that could have come from the Egyptian room at the British Museum—and, knowing Tess, it probably had.

Julia had been surprised by her editor’s invitation to share lunch in Tess’s office, but now realized her employer intended for this to be a working lunch. Which, of course, came as no surprise at all.

“It’s going very well,” she said evasively, not sure how much she wanted her editor to know about her budding relationship with Daniel. If indeed what she and Daniel had was a relationship, and if indeed it was budding.

It was still too new, too fragile, too personal to talk about—with anyone—having been only a few days since they’d made dinner together. But. Julia had awoken two mornings ago in a much better mood than she normally did on a Monday. That could only be because she’d spent her weekend with Daniel. Breakfast Sunday had led to a movie in the afternoon, then dinner that evening. And then drinks al fresco by the park before Daniel escorted her home, lingering inside her apartment just long enough to kiss her good-night. Twenty-seven times.

They’d spent Monday and Tuesday evening together, too, not to mention lunch yesterday. In fact, since meeting Daniel Friday night, Julia had spent virtually every moment of her nonworking life in his presence. Normally, being with one person that much would drive her nuts. With Daniel, though, the days had seemed to pass too quickly. Already, she was anticipating meeting him again, that night after work.

“And by ‘very well,’ you would mean…?” Tess asked.

Julia shrugged, hoping the gesture didn’t look as awkward as it felt. “I mean it’s going very well,” she said.

Tess narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Have you met any men who might be worth mentioning for the article?”

“One or two,” Julia told her. The correct answer, naturally, being one. The other men she’d met weren’t exactly “worth” mentioning. Except maybe to provide some comic relief.

Tess uttered a sound of exasperation that put Julia on red alert, tossing her fork into her Cobb salad with much flourish. “Tell me you’re not wasting the magazine’s time,” she demanded.

“I’m not wasting the magazine’s time,” Julia vowed.

“Tell me this article is going to be excellent,” Tess insisted.

“The article is going to be excellent,” Julia promised.

“Tell me you’ve met someone special to write about.”

“I’ve met someone special,” Julia assured her. And then she smiled. Because she just couldn’t help herself. “Oh, Tess, I’ve met someone wonderful,” she added as she leaned back in her chair.

This time when her editor smiled at her, Julia didn’t feel at all like the main course. Because this time, Tess seemed genuinely delighted by what she was hearing. “Tell me more,” the other woman said.

Julia shook her head slowly, honestly not knowing where to begin. “I didn’t think I’d meet anyone even halfway decent doing this speed-dating thing,” she confessed, “but this guy…” She sighed eloquently. “He’s too good to be true, Tess. Gorgeous, funny, smart, kind, totally decent…”

“Nice ass?” Tess asked.

“Great ass,” Julia replied with a chuckle. “And he cooks.”

“He does not,” Tess gasped incredulously.

Julia nodded enthusiastically. “He can poach chicken in a kicky chardonnay.”

“Get out.”

“And make radish roses.”

Tess made a disappointed sound as she moved her fork around in her own salad. “He’s gay, darling. He just hasn’t accepted it. Find someone else to write about.”

“He’s not gay,” Julia said with certainty. “Trust me.”

Tess’s smile turned satisfied. “Then the two of you have—”

“No,” Julia interrupted her. “We haven’t. Not all the way. Which is another thing that makes him different from other guys. He’s not in a big rush to have sex.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in that sentence,” Tess said.

Julia had, too, quite frankly, something that rather surprised her. “But…” she said. “But I think maybe I’m starting to be in a rush for it myself. I really like him. A lot. I mean, maybe I even…”

No. She stopped herself before completing the statement—verbally or mentally. She would not permit herself to say it. She would not permit herself to feel it. Not yet. It hadn’t been long enough to know if she even…

No. She halted herself again. Not yet.

Tess nodded with much approval. “Good. I was beginning to worry about you, darling. You and Abby and Samantha, all of you. None of you girls has enough epic romance in your life.”

And Tess would know, Julia thought, since she was currently working on the third epic romance of her own life.

“It’s going to be a great article, Tess,” Julia promised again. “Because Daniel is such a great guy. There have even been times this week when I honestly found myself thinking he might just be…”

No. Not yet.

“The one?” Tess finished for her.

For a moment, Julia didn’t dare acknowledge anything of the kind, certain she’d jinx it if she did. And also because she wasn’t ready to admit it yet, on account of—had she mentioned?—it was too soon for her to know such a thing. Then she realized how silly she was being. Nothing could jinx the way she and Daniel were together. And she was completely crazy about him.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Sometimes, I think he might just be…the one.”

Tess sat back in her chair, propping her elbows on the arms and tenting her fingers together. It was her life-is-good pose. “I like seeing you so enthusiastic, darling,” she said. “It will serve you well when you write this article.”

Naturally, Tess would see it that way, Julia thought, forking up another bite of salad. She herself saw it another way entirely. Forget the article. Having Daniel in her life was serving to make Julia happy. Deliciously so. She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve such incredibly good fortune, but she wasn’t about to question it.

Daniel Taggart was a dream come true. Perfect beyond words. The answer to every silent plea for Mr. Right she’d ever sent out. Regardless of the manner in which she’d found him, and no matter what Abby and Samantha experienced on their assignments, Daniel was Mr. Right.

Tess was right. Life was good. And Julia couldn’t imagine a single thing that would change that.

DANIEL HESITATED BEFORE entering the bar his editor had directed him to for yet another round of speed-dating, wondering at the likelihood of running into Julia here. She had said she would be attending three more of these parties herself. Just how many speed-dating events were going on in New York on any given night?

He did some quick mental math. Eight million people, probably half of them adults, then another half of those single, then half of the singles looking, then another half desperate enough to try a half-dozen different types of dating…Half by half by half by half, then a half dozen of that…Drop the zero, carry the two, then divide by pi…Do the hokeypokey and turn yourself around…

Oh, hell. The chances were probably pretty good.

But the bar was packed, he reassured himself as he peeked inside, so he could probably pop in for a quick look around without being noticed. Grab one of the lists of participants for the event to see if Julia’s name was on it. Not that anyone was ever fully identified by name at these things, since security was a major consideration, especially for the women. But there were usually first names followed by a number or letter, or people were identified by drink preferences, or celebrity names they chose for themselves, or some character trait like “Loves music” or “Sleeps in the buff” or something. If Julia was on the list, Daniel was confident he knew enough about her by now to recognize her, even under an alias.

And the reason he knew enough about her was because the two of them had seen each other nearly every day in the week that had passed since the night they’d cooked together in her kitchen. And then cooked together on her couch. No, what had happened couldn’t be called a one-night stand by any stretch of the imagination. But they had enjoyed quite a nice little make-out party. Then they’d enjoyed some Marx Brothers on DVD. Then they’d enjoyed those two pints of Godiva.

And it went a long way toward telling Daniel how far gone he was on Julia that he’d returned home that night feeling even better than he had after those delirious one-night stands with the two women from that first speed-dating party.

Only a week, he marveled. Damned if it didn’t feel as if he’d known Julia for years. He had barely seven days’ worth of memories of her, but there were so many good ones, it might as well have been enough for a lifetime.

In addition to the ones from dinner last Saturday, there was spending the day with her all day Sunday. There was lunch at Rockefeller Plaza, where they’d met three days this week because it was located almost exactly midway between their two workplaces. There was the midweek foray to an off-off-Broadway play that was so bad they’d spent two hours afterward improving the writing themselves. There was the trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a place Julia said she visited once a week to keep herself in touch with her humanity, a place Daniel hadn’t visited since college. Seeing it again with her, he wondered why he’d stayed away.

He was supposed to have hit on her once to see if he could score, and when it became clear that first night he wouldn’t make it past first base, he should have moved on to greener pastures. Greener baseball diamonds. Whatever. Instead, he’d gone home that first night feeling oddly relieved that she hadn’t invited him up to her place. Odder still was the fact that he hadn’t pressed to get her into bed since then. Not even the night they’d cooked together. For the life of him, he didn’t know why. He was just having too much fun getting to know Julia. Talking with Julia. Doing other things with Julia. Being with Julia. Yeah, he wanted her. Something fierce. But there was so much else he wanted, too.

The image of her face swam up in his brain then, the way it had a habit of doing lately, her mouth curled into that wry smile, her green eyes laughing at something. She laughed a lot, he’d noticed. She found humor in almost everything, the same way he did. She had a quirky way of looking at things that was unlike anyone else’s. In spite of his own protestations to the contrary that first night, he had no choice but to admit she was like no woman he’d ever met before. Daniel liked that. He liked all of it. Hell, he just liked Julia. A lot.

And he had no idea what to do about it.

He glanced down at the list in his hand, reminding himself he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Julia right now. In fact, he should be putting thoughts of her as far away from himself as he could. Because he had a job to do tonight. He had women to meet and charm and cajole into bed. And then abandon. The way he was supposed to have done with Julia.

And dammit, would he never be able to think about anything again without having her slip into his thoughts?

Work, he reminded himself. Work now. Julia later. Then he chuckled derisively at himself. If work turned out the way it was supposed to tonight, Julia had better not find out about “later.”

Man, could he do that? he asked himself. Could he really sleep with some woman he picked up tonight for casual sex, just so he’d have a story to write? Well, yeah, since he’d already done it twice. But that was before Julia. Could he do it now? Sleep with some stranger one time and hope that the woman he was beginning to care about never found out? A month ago, he could have answered that question easily, and in the affirmative. Tonight, though…

Damn. He honestly didn’t know.

No names, he saw when he looked down at the list in his hand. No identifying elements at all. Damn. The participants for this event were only assigned numbers. There was no way he’d be able to tell if Julia was among them.

He really needed to stay for this party tonight, he told himself. Because the third one he’d attended—the Sunday night after meeting Julia—had been a complete bust. Not a single woman in the bunch had stirred his libido in the slightest, and he’d gone home alone.

And it wasn’t as if he had high standards. His main requirement in a woman was that she needed to have produced estrogen at some point in her life. His second was that she have a pulse. His third was that she breathe oxygen. His fourth and final was that she not set off his gag reflex. Yet still he’d ended that third party without checking off a single name from his list.

And he’d been so besotted by Julia at the second event that he hadn’t even turned in his name list at the end of the night. Thank God for the two women from the first party or he wouldn’t have a story at all. Thing was, he could barely remember either one of them now. Good thing he’d taken notes.

All the more reason to focus on work tonight, he told himself. He was in desperate need of material. Which meant he had to go to this party and find a few halfway decent—or rather, wholly indecent—women to fill the pages of his story.

As long as, you know, Julia wasn’t here.

Still wary of her appearance, Daniel hovered near the front entry, skirting the wall, keeping one eye on the door, in case she was a last-minute show. But by the time the party finally got going, ten minutes late, there was still no sign of her. Obviously she wasn’t coming tonight, so he’d be free to pick up women at will. And as he’d scanned the crowd looking for Julia, he’d spied a number of attractive women who might work well for his purposes. At least none of them had set off his gag reflex, all clearly possessed beating hearts, and he couldn’t detect gills on any of them. Now, as long as he didn’t see any Adam’s apples or facial hair…

A tall slender redhead caught his eye as he was pondering her hormonal composition, and she smiled at him. Naturally, Daniel smiled back. He waited for that kick to the gut that usually hit him when a pretty woman smiled at him that way, but it never came. Neither did the heated speculation about what she looked like naked that usually came right after the kick to the gut. Nor did the deep-seated sexual anticipation that had his fingers curling over imaginary breasts.

Which could mean only one thing.

He was so far gone on Julia that it was absolutely, unequivocally, irretrievably essential that Daniel get that woman into bed tonight, and enjoy every last inch of her. Twice. At least. Because maybe that, finally, would work Julia Miles out of his system, and put him back on the road to eternal hound-dogging perdition, which was where he wanted to be. Right?

Damn right.

Daniel had neither the time, nor the inclination, to be besotted with anyone. Besotment led to even worse things. Things like commitment and monogamy and chick flicks and remembering obscure milestone anniversaries like the day they discovered a gum wrapper on the street together. He had far more important things to do. He had a sensational story to write. A postadolescent dream job to keep. A lifestyle as an arrogant alpha male to maintain. And it was about time he remembered that.

Instead of remembering how good it felt to have his arm around Julia’s waist. And how nice she smelled. And how her hair caught the light in a way that made it look like liquid gold. And that soft, husky laugh that was just so damned sexy. And that afternoon they discovered the gum wrapper on the street together…

JULIA CAUTIOUSLY WATCHED the retreating back of her sixth speed-date of the night, whose identifying number looked way too much like what would appear under his mug shot, and wondered again what she was doing here. Oh, yeah. Trying to get a story for Tess magazine. She hoped Abby and Samantha were having more luck meeting write-worthy men than she was, and couldn’t quite curb the fear that they might have to scrap the whole story. Or at least her portion of it. So far, the only decent guy she’d met speed-dating was Daniel.

Which, okay, might provide her with all the material she needed for the story, since she’d pretty much decided he was her Mr. Right. But her contribution to the article was going to be pretty short and pretty boring if she didn’t have at least a few good guys she could hold up as examples. 40387—yeah, that was definitely a prison jumpsuit number—wasn’t anywhere close. She riffled through her notes for the night so far and sighed. Neither was any of the other guys.

And for this she’d dressed in a screaming red, lace-trimmed, curve-hugging slip dress? What a waste of perfectly good designer clothing.

She had flipped to a clean page and was tipping back her glass to suck up the last of her appletini—the way things were going, she needed every last drop of vodka she could absorb—when she saw Daniel sitting at the table of some tarty redhead in the corner of the room. Worse, he was smiling at the tarty redhead in much the same way he had smiled at Julia that first night they met. Worse still, he was holding the tarty redhead’s hand. Or maybe the tarty redhead was holding his hand. Hard to tell from this angle. In any event, they were both holding hands and neither seemed to mind very much.

What was he doing here? she wondered as something cool and heavy slithered into her stomach. Why was he still speed-dating when the two of them had been getting along so well? He’d told her that first night he was looking for companionship. So what was Julia? His faithful canine friend?

Okay, so she didn’t have any major claim on him, she reminded herself. And they’d only known each other a week. But they’d seen each other nearly every day this week, and they’d had a lot of fun. And, yeah, they’d done a lot of making out. That was part of the fun. Daniel had been totally affectionate with her, and God knew she’d felt affection—and then some—for him. The night they’d cooked dinner at her place had been one of the most enjoyable Julia had ever spent, even before the lip-locking on the couch. And things had only gotten better after that.

Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been as ready to do the horizontal boogaloo as he was, despite her claims to Tess at lunch Wednesday. That was actually a good sign. It was. It meant Julia cared enough for Daniel to want to make sure she didn’t screw things up with him. Sex could make people weird with each other if it came into a relationship too soon. Which—she had to be honest with herself—Julia had finally decided was what she and Daniel had.

Maybe she should have told him that, she thought now. Well, the worrying-about-things-getting-weird thing, if not the actual relationship thing, since guys tended to get really weird after that word came up. But she’d been afraid even that small mention of her feelings might spook him. Even when things were going really well between a man and a woman, guys didn’t want to cross that emotional bridge as soon as girls did. And if the man and woman weren’t progressing at quite the same pace in their relationship…

Something hot and scary splashed through Julia’s midsection. She had assumed Daniel was getting as serious about her as she was about him. He’d been as eager to see her from one day to the next as she had been to see him. They’d spent their final moments together every night locking lips in a way that indicated they were both fully sprung on each other.

But what if she was wrong?

Why was he speed-dating? she asked herself again. He knew she was still doing it, too. He had to have realized he might run into her at one of these things. But he’d done it, anyway. Evidently because he didn’t care if she saw him here. With a gorgeous, if incredibly tarty, redhead. Smiling at the tart. Holding her tarty hand. Still holding it as both of them stood up to say their goodbyes at the conclusion of their speed-date. Kissing her tarty cheek before leav—

Kissing her cheek? Julia realized in openmouthed amazement. He hadn’t kissed Julia’s cheek that first night! Just who did he think he was? Why, she ought to march over there right now and tell him—

What? she asked herself, deflating some. He’d never said he wanted to be exclusive with Julia. She’d never said that, either. She’d just figured he felt the same way she did about the way things were progressing between the two of them. She’d assumed he wasn’t seeing anyone else because he liked her well enough that he didn’t want to see anyone else. The same way she didn’t want to see anyone else, either. Because she liked him well enough, too.

She was such an idiot.

He was such a jerk.

The tarty redhead said something to him that made him laugh, and Julia’s stomach knotted tighter. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was palming her purse and walking slowly across the room. But he left the tart’s table before Julia reached them, so she turned to follow him.

She kept her distance as he went to the bar—was he getting the tarty redhead a drink, the way he’d gotten one for Julia that night?—then ducked behind a chatting couple when he turned to look behind himself. But he didn’t look back at the redhead, Julia noted. Instead, he seemed to be scanning the crowd, looking for someone else.

Jeez, just how many women was he hoping to meet tonight?

He picked up his order from the bar—one drink, the color of Scotch, she saw with some meager reassurance—and started to make his way back across the room. He was looking over his list of dates as he came toward her, so he didn’t see her standing where she was…still cowering behind the same two people who were now looking at her as if she were a complete moron. When someone accidentally bumped him, making him drop his list barely two feet from where she was standing—oh, all right, where she was cowering—Julia took her chance. Stepping forward, she scooped up the list just before he would have grabbed it himself, and stood.

He straightened, too, saying as he did, “Oh, thanks for getting that for me. I really appreci—”

And that was when his gaze connected with Julia’s and he realized who he was talking to.

“Julia,” he said softly.

“Daniel,” she replied tersely.

“I…” he began vaguely.

“You,” she remarked pointedly.

He smiled, that boyish, self-deprecating smile he’d used so successfully the first night they’d met.

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