Bride On Loan
Leigh Michaels
Caleb Tanner is a playboy millionaire with an aversion to weddings–only, he's surrounded by women scheming to get him to the altar! Caleb needs a decoy: a bride on loan…Sabrina Saunders isn't thrilled about moving in with Caleb. He's far too attractive for his own good! He's also her agency's biggest client so she's forced to play the part of Caleb's bride-to-be. It's only for a couple of weeks–or so they both think!
“Do you anticipate actually announcing an engagement?”
“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Caleb replied.
“So we’re supposed to be living together with no intention of making it legal,” Sabrina mused. “It’s going to be bad enough having everyone think I’ve lost my mind enough to live with you. Having to explain that I was such a fool, I believed a diamond ring on my finger would tie you down…” Sabrina shuddered delicately.
Caleb grinned. “You’re a woman in a thousand, Sabrina.”
“And you,” she said under her breath, “are certainly the man who’s got enough experience to know.”
Three single women, one home-help agency—and
three professional bachelors in search of…a wife?
*Are you a busy executive with a demanding career?
*Do you need help with those time-consuming everyday errands?
*Ever wished you could hire a house-sitter, caterer…or even a glamorous partner for that special social occasion?
Meet Cassie, Sabrina and Paige—three independent women who’ve formed a business taking care of those troublesome domestic crises.
And meet the three gorgeous bachelors who are simply looking for a little help…and instead discover they’ve hired Ms. Right!
Enjoy bestselling author Leigh Michaels’s new trilogy:
HUSBAND ON DEMAND #3600
BRIDE ON LOAN #3604
WIFE ON APPROVAL #3608
Bride on Loan
Leigh Michaels
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u17da0900-9c10-5f51-a669-aea14cfc6d44)
CHAPTER TWO (#ua108c75e-ab89-5c88-b533-772f120e35ff)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc8261e2b-3708-565e-abb6-20b82b387093)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THE calendar said it was Halloween, but Sabrina Saunders thought it felt more like the middle of March. The gray sky, pale daylight, low roiling clouds and howling wind made her think of the Arctic Circle in winter, not Denver on an October afternoon.
As she started to get out of her car, a gust caught at the convertible’s door and slammed it against her shin. Sabrina winced in pain and paused to examine the leg of her silk trousers. Seeing that the edge of the door had hit hard enough to leave a streak of street dirt on the emerald-green fabric, she decided she didn’t want to look at the damage underneath. There wasn’t much she could do about it just now anyway.
She knelt on the driver’s seat, propping the door open with one foot, as she dragged a couple of long, lightweight garment bags from the tiny back seat. The breeze whipped the flimsy plastic, and she tugged it away from her face as she hurried up the ramp at the front of the little bungalow to ring the bell. “Come on, Paige,” she muttered as she waited, wishing she hadn’t left her scarf and gloves in the car.
The door swung open, and Sabrina looked down at a white-haired woman sitting in a wheelchair. “Hi, Eileen,” she said. “I brought Paige her Halloween costume for the party tonight. Is she here?”
Eileen McDermott didn’t answer, just backed her chair out of the way, looked over her shoulder and called her daughter’s name. Then she fixed her chilly gaze on Sabrina and said, “I do hope you’re planning to close that door. I’ve already got a sore throat.”
Sabrina bit her tongue to keep from saying how much she was enjoying the frigid air and finished untangling the end of one of the garment bags from the latch so she could close the door. “I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling ill again, Eileen.”
“I suppose I’m as well as can be expected,” Eileen said with a long-suffering air.
Paige McDermott came around the corner from the kitchen, checkbook and pen in hand. “You’re running a bit late, aren’t you, Sabrina?”
“Just a smidge. Nothing I can’t make up. And it was worth it, Paige, because look what I found today.” Sabrina pulled up one of the plastic bags to show off the garment that hung underneath.
Eileen sounded as if she’d swallowed a lemon. “You can’t mean that you chose that for Paige to wear at a children’s party!”
Sabrina raised her eyebrows and looked thoughtfully from Eileen to the skimpy bit of midnight blue satin and lace she was holding at arm’s length. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I think with her coloring she’d look lovely in it. If we team it up with some mesh stockings and very high heels, and maybe add a little ribbon tied around the neck—”
“Don’t forget a long flannel bathrobe to cover up the goose bumps,” Paige added.
“Made of a Scottish plaid, no doubt.” Sabrina sighed. “Paige, do you have no sense of adventure? No romance in your soul?”
“Not a speck,” Paige said firmly.
Sabrina ignored the interruption. “You’d look grand in a satin teddy, and if the right guy was around you wouldn’t have to worry about goose bumps, either.”
Eileen snorted. “That’s the kind of remark I’d expect from Cassie, not you. Now that she’s gone all starry-eyed about that…that—”
“I believe the word you’re looking for may be man,” Sabrina said innocently. “As a matter of fact, this bit of finery isn’t for Paige. I bought it for Cassie. Saturday’s her bridal shower, and I thought she’d rather have something like this than another casserole dish or set of tea towels.”
“And since you just happened to see it on the clearance rack as you were walking through Milady Lingerie…” Paige murmured.
“Well, not exactly. At least, it wasn’t on sale. But wait till you see what I did find on the clearance—” Sabrina stopped. “Hey, if you’re implying I was goofing off, Paige, I wasn’t. But Milady’s right across the mall from the costume place, and I had to wait while they adjusted the tail on my cat suit.”
Paige laughed. “And given a choice between killing time looking at lingerie or trying on clown noses—”
“I’ll take lace and satin any day,” Sabrina agreed.
Paige gave a tug to the other garment bag and glanced without apparent interest at the contents. “At least it isn’t lace and satin,” she said. “But I still don’t see why we have to dress up for this. It’s not like we’re part of the party, we’re just running the thing.”
“Because we won’t look so out of place if we’re in costume. And it’ll be more fun for the kids that way. They love it when adults make fools of themselves.”
“No doubt,” Paige muttered darkly. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind dressing as the party organizer. Jeans, sweatshirt, running shoes and clipboard are my idea of a great costume.”
Sabrina grinned. “Hey, be grateful I didn’t call you All Hallows’ Eve and deck you out in fig leaves and apples.”
“I’ll remember that,” Paige said. “Mother, are you absolutely certain you don’t want to go to the party at the senior center tonight instead of staying here alone? I can drop you off, and they’ll make sure you have transportation home even if I’m late. It would be much more fun—”
“If you’re worried about my safety, Paige, I certainly have no intention of opening the door to the sort of little hoodlums who are likely to come trick-or-treating. I’ll just sit here with the lamps turned off, with my book and a flashlight, and they’ll never know I’m home at all.”
Sabrina wanted to roll her eyes. Sitting alone in the dark seemed to her to be one of Eileen’s favorite pastimes—especially if there was a chance of making Paige feel guilty about it.
“Now if you wouldn’t mind finding my cough drops, Paige,” Eileen said.
“Is your throat worse, Mother?”
“I don’t think so.” Eileen’s tone, in contrast to her words, was full of doubt. “Though if you could see your way clear not to go out tonight…Cassie will be there to help with the party, won’t she?”
Sabrina nodded. “But it’ll take all three of us just to oversee the people I’ve hired.”
“I thought this was going to be a small party,” Eileen said. “Just a little entertainment for the staff’s children, to keep them off the streets on Halloween night.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Sabrina agreed. “But then it grew into a celebration for everybody at Tanner Electronics.”
“That’s because Caleb Tanner’s bimbo of the week got hold of the idea,” Paige explained.
“At least she’s not expecting us to arrange all the entertainment for the adults.” Sabrina wrinkled her nose at the memory. “But since it looks as if her festivity’s going to last all night, I decided it might be prudent to hire a couple of baby-sitters for each age group, to take the kids off and entertain them while their parents party.”
“It breaks my heart, Paige,” Eileen said mournfully, “the sort of people you’re being exposed to.”
She sounded, Sabrina thought, as if she believed her daughter was still an impressionable preteen. “And there’s an amazing age range on these kids,” she went on, “so the number of sitters required—”
“Besides, there’s not only a range, there’s a lot of kids,” Paige said. “For what was represented to us as a bunch of nerds with nothing on their minds but work, the crew at Tanner Electronics have an awful lot of offspring.”
“Which is why it’ll take all hands to manage the party, Eileen. And right now,” Sabrina added, “though she means well and she tries hard, the fact is that Cassie doesn’t have eyes for anything but Jake, so she’s going to be of minimal—”
“That’ll wear off soon enough.” Eileen’s tone was chilly. “The tunnel vision, I mean. And obscene bits of underwear won’t delay the process by much, either.”
Obscene? The teddy was certainly suggestive, Sabrina thought. It was even a trifle naughty—that was the whole point of honeymoon lingerie, after all. But it was hardly obscene.
Sabrina couldn’t stop herself. She draped the teddy across the arm of Eileen’s wheelchair so the woman couldn’t avoid an up-close view while she painstakingly retied a blue satin ribbon, located at the bikini line, which had come undone. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell us exactly how you know all that,” she said innocently as she held up the teddy once more.
Paige intervened hastily. “If you’re going to get everything done in time, Sabrina, hadn’t you better be going? I’ll be along just as soon as I can.”
“Perhaps you’d better go right now, Paige,” Eileen said. Her voice was grim. “There’s no telling what Sabrina could accomplish if she’s left to herself—she could bring down the whole business that you’ve worked so hard to build.”
“It is true,” Paige said judiciously, “now that Rent-A-Wife has landed a client like Caleb Tanner, we’d be wise to avoid offending him. But I’m sure Sabrina already—”
Sabrina gave her a sunny smile. “Oh, well, if not offending Caleb Tanner is the goal,” she said gently, “then you really had better wear the teddy!”
The atrium lobby at Tanner Electronics was brightly lit and bustling; Sabrina noted that Cassie’s crew of volunteers had been busy, for most of the decorations they’d selected were already in place. Fake spiderwebs, bats hung on threads and a scarecrow-like witch in the corner all looked a bit obvious at the moment, but when night settled in and the lights were turned down, the effect would be appropriately spooky.
Not as good as a true haunted house, of course, Sabrina thought regretfully. But in the year since she and Paige and Cassie had combined forces to start Rent-A-Wife, they’d learned to work within all kinds of restrictions. And since this was the first good-size job they’d done for Tanner Electronics, it was more important, Paige had said, to pull off a simple, nice event that stayed well within the budget than it was to blow Caleb Tanner’s socks off with an expensive gala.
At the time, Sabrina had agreed, but after her first encounter with Caleb’s bimbo of the week, she’d had a change of heart. It was more likely, it seemed to her, that anything Rent-A-Wife came up with would look anemic to a man who was used to the celebrations thrown by a woman who obviously had no hesitation about spending his bank balance.
But Paige was right; there was quite a difference between the two situations. And it was too late for modifications now. They’d just have to impress Caleb the old-fashioned way.
Though it was an hour till the start of the party, Sabrina changed into her sleek black cat costume in the ladies’ lounge before she started to fill the dozens of black and orange helium balloons that would finish off the atrium’s decor. She knew from experience how easily time slipped by when she was busy and how hard it was to break away from a half-finished task, with party pressure already under way, to change clothes. This way, if the kids started arriving before she was finished, they’d think that helping blow up balloons was simply part of the planned entertainment.
Pumping helium into what seemed to be a million individual balloons was not Sabrina’s idea of high enjoyment. By the time the first hundred were filled, tied and bobbing from a hook on the side of the rocket-shaped helium tank, she was reminding herself that the occasional tedium of her job was more than offset by the daily advantages of flexibility, frequent change and lack of pressure.
By the time the second hundred were finished, she was regretting that she hadn’t kept her coat handy; the delivery company had left the helium tank right inside the main door, and every time an employee or visitor came in or out, Sabrina got a blast of chilly air. But since the tank was almost as tall as she was, at least twice as heavy and awkward to boot, she didn’t have the option of moving it.
“At this rate,” she mused, “even Eileen will have to concede me the title of sore-throat queen.”
She decided to take a break from filling and started to untangle the blown-up balloons from the hook on the side of the tank; she’d tie them into clusters so as soon as Paige showed up she could start placing them strategically around the atrium to complete the decorations.
And just where was Paige, anyway, she wondered. Kids in costumes were going to start drifting in at any minute.
Sabrina counted out fifteen balloons and began tugging them free from the anchoring hook on the side of the tank, intending to haul them out of the draft from the doorway so she could work more easily.
Her attention was focused on untangling the balloon strings, and when one unexpectedly gave way Sabrina took an unplanned step backward, directly into the doorway. Directly into a brick pillar—or at least that’s what it felt like to Sabrina. Only there weren’t any brick pillars in the atrium—and even if there had been, brick pillars didn’t swear.
The impact jolted her, and fifteen orange and black balloons soared free from her grip and bounded to the high ceiling. Short of driving a fire-department snorkel truck into the building, Sabrina bet they’d stay up there till they withered with age. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, and turned to face the object she’d collided with.
He was a big man, lean but broad-shouldered and a couple of inches over six feet. His size seemed to be magnified by his attire—a close-fitting black-and-silver motorcycle suit, complete with a dark-visored helmet, which completely hid his face.
“Nice costume,” she said almost automatically. “But you’re a bit early. The kids’ party won’t actually start for half an hour or so, and the adult version won’t get rolling till—”
“I’m not here for the party.” His voice wasn’t much more than a growl. Or was she hearing the effect of the helmet?
“You mean you always go around looking like a cross between Don Quixote and a Hell’s Angel?”
“I mean I was merely walking in with an armload of mail when I got tackled by—of all things—an ill-mannered cat.”
“You’d better be referring to my outfit,” Sabrina said pleasantly. “Because if you’re accusing me personally of being an ill-mannered cat—”
“I’m not the one who called you Don Quixote.”
Interesting, Sabrina thought. It almost sounded like he’d taken the Hell’s Angel part as a compliment.
“Just look at the mess you made.” He waved a black-gloved hand at the floor.
Sabrina looked down. What would have been a respectable pile of envelopes, catalogs and folders, probably a hundred in all, had scattered like a shotgun blast across the granite floor, some skittering as much as ten feet across the slick stone. “I’ll admit to being a bit clumsy,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t see you, but you must have noticed me. And you could have walked around me, you know.”
“How? You’re right in the middle of the doorway, as much in the way as it’s possible to be. Can’t that project be done somewhere else?”
“It could,” Sabrina said, “if the delivery company hadn’t planted the tank right here.”
“It’s on wheels.”
“Yes, but wheels or not it’s too heavy for me to move. If you’d like to lend a hand—”
He moved quickly for a big man, Sabrina had to give him credit for that. So quickly, in fact, that before she’d even realized what he intended to do, he had seized the tank and tipped it back, nudging the wheels into motion with the toe of his boot.
The bunch of balloons she’d tied haphazardly to the hook on the side of the tank floated loose. Desperate not to see the rest of her work escape to the ceiling, Sabrina made a wild leap for the trailing strings.
Her foot hit one of the scattered envelopes, which slid like an ice skate across the smooth floor. She missed the balloons, and her shoulder hit the top of the tank and over-balanced it. All three of them—motorcyclist, tank and Sabrina—spun out of control and hit the polished granite.
The crash echoed around the atrium for what seemed hours.
Sabrina lay still for a long moment, trying to gather her wits and catch her breath, afraid to open her eyes. She’d hit the granite with only a glancing blow, she knew—probably because the motorcyclist’s body had broken her fall. But what about him? If, in addition to her, the tank had landed on him—
After the echo of the crash died, all she could hear at first was a faint hiss. Was that him, or had the valve on the helium tank ruptured at impact?
She rolled clear and sat up. The hissing stopped. Now he was groaning—but that was good, wasn’t it? At least he was alive, though it was hard to tell through the darkened visor of his helmet whether he was conscious or not.
Mixed with the groans, she began to make out words. He was conscious, she concluded. And—judging by his choice of vocabulary—he was not very happy. Well, she couldn’t exactly blame him for being upset.
His muttering was getting louder, she noted.
“Excuse me,” Sabrina said. “But the kids are starting to come in for this party, so if you could modify the language—”
He stopped talking for a moment, and even through the darkened visor there was no mistaking the glare he sent her way. “A bit clumsy?” he quoted grimly. “That’s what you call a bit clumsy?”
“Wait a minute. You’re not going to blame this on me when the whole thing was your fault.”
“Mine?” His voice was little short of a howl. “I didn’t knock over the damned tank!”
“If you’d just told me what you were planning to do, I could have gotten the balloons out of the way—and if you’d picked up the mail, my foot wouldn’t have slipped.”
“You mean, the mail you knocked on the floor in the first place.”
Sabrina bit her lip. She couldn’t exactly argue with that, so she decided it was safer to change the subject. “Here, I’ll help you up.”
“No, thanks. I’ll get myself off the—” He shifted position as if to sit up and let out a yell of pain, twisting his body so he could clap both hands to his right knee. “I can’t get up.”
Sabrina felt the blood drain out of her face. She looked wildly around for help.
Though it felt like forever, it could only have been moments since the accident, for just now were people starting to cluster around them. A man moved through the crowd, edging between onlookers until he reached the center of attention and knelt next to the motorcyclist, and Sabrina loosed a sigh of relief at the sight of Cassie’s fiancé.
Jake Abbott shot a questioning look at Sabrina as he reached down to release the chin strap on the motorcyclist’s helmet. “What happened this time, Sabrina?”
“What do you mean, this time?” the motorcyclist said as Jake pulled his helmet loose.
Sabrina got her first good look at his face, but it didn’t tell her much. He looked vaguely familiar, and she thought that under normal circumstances he’d probably be quite good-looking. A lock of dark brown hair tumbled engagingly over his forehead, and any woman who needed mascara would have killed for his eyelashes—long, thick, dark and curly.
Of course, at the moment it was hard to tell, because the man’s face was twisted in pain and sweat had broken out in big drops on his forehead.
“Is she in the habit of assaulting perfectly innocent bystanders?” he demanded.
Sabrina ignored him. “Thank heaven you’re here, Jake,” she said. “He fell, and—”
The man on the floor spoke through clenched teeth. “I did not fall,” he said grimly. “Cat Woman there knocked me down. She’s a menace—I think she’s broken my knee.”
“Let’s not leap to conclusions, Caleb,” Jake said. He released the zipper at the motorcyclist’s ankle and gently folded back the tight-fitting suit.
Caleb, Jake had said.
Sabrina’s gaze flew to the motorcyclist’s face. Now that she’d heard his name and knew what to look for, she could see him more clearly. Sure enough, under the pain-twisted expression lay the handsome features of Denver’s most famous entrepreneur.
Of all the people in the world she could have collided with, Sabrina had flattened Caleb Tanner. Electronics wizard, playboy millionaire…brand-new client.
Stunned, Sabrina stared at his exposed knee. The flesh was already so puffy it was no wonder he couldn’t bend it. And much as she tried to convince herself she was seeing a shadow, she couldn’t honestly deny that the joint was already bruising, as well.
In fact, his knee was starting to resemble one of the multitude of black helium balloons that were now cheerfully bouncing against the ceiling.
Her stomach felt queasy. What was it she’d been thinking just an hour ago, about impressing Caleb Tanner?
Well, Sabrina told herself gloomily, it looked as if she’d impressed him, all right. In all the wrong ways.
Sabrina was still sitting cross-legged, almost stunned, on the cold granite floor when the paramedics came. She watched as they worked over Caleb, and for a moment, she hardly noticed the petite redhead in a milkmaid’s outfit who stooped over her, holding out a headband to which a set of cat ears had been attached. The ears looked as if they’d been stepped on.
With a sigh, Sabrina reached up to take the ears, raising her gaze to her partner. “Thanks, Cassie. I hadn’t even realized they were gone. They must have gone flying when I hit the floor.” She poked the headband approximately into place atop her head.
Cassie pulled it loose again and turned it so the ears faced properly forward. “Are you okay? The ambulance crew is about ready to transport Caleb, but maybe they should take a look at you before they leave. Did you hit your head?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. Oh, Cassie—Paige is going to kill me for this.”
“For what? Assaulting a brand-new client? She won’t if I have anything to say about it.”
“You’re a love, Cassie.”
“Because I’m going to get you first,” Cassie said lightly. “After all I went through to land this account, you treat the boss like a punching bag….”
Sabrina felt tears sting her eyelids.
“Hey, I’m teasing,” Cassie said hastily. “In the first place, you obviously didn’t do it on purpose.”
“He thinks I did.”
“Sabrina, a man who’s in pain always looks for someone to blame.”
The paramedics elevated the gurney in preparation for rolling it out to the ambulance, and the crowd shifted and moved back to give them room.
Sabrina’s conscience nagged till she caught Jake’s eye and offered reluctantly, “Should I come along? Since I know exactly what happened—”
Caleb raised a hand in a commanding gesture. “Don’t you dare let her, Jake. If that woman gets into the ambulance, I’ll walk to the hospital.”
Sabrina felt like sticking her tongue out at him, but there wasn’t much point; he wasn’t in a position to see because the gurney was already rolling toward the door.
A small boy who was standing nearby, wearing a super-hero costume, said, “Where’s the blood? Isn’t there going to be blood?” Disappointment dripped from his voice.
The door opened, and a whoosh of cold air surrounded Sabrina. Wearily, she forced herself to stand. The chilly granite had left her feeling stiff and sore, and for a moment she wondered if she should have let the paramedics look her over.
From the doorway came a feminine shriek. Only half-curious, Sabrina turned to look.
A princess in long, flowing robes and a faux medieval headdress was blocking the door, hands pressed to her mouth, staring at Caleb in horror. “What happened, darling?”
His tone was dismissive. “Just an accident, Angelique. Nothing for you to have hysterics over.”
“Figures,” Sabrina muttered. “For her, he’s brave and manly. A couple of minutes ago you’d have thought he was barely hanging on to life.”
“There’s no need for you to miss your party, Angelique,” Caleb said.
“The party? Darling, surely you don’t think I could possibly stay here and have fun while you’re in agony!”
Beside Sabrina, Cassie muttered, “She will if she knows what’s good for her.”
The princess seized Caleb’s hand as if she was daring anyone to remove her from his side. The gurney started to roll again, and she walked alongside.
“I don’t need to be fussed over,” Caleb was saying as the door closed behind them.
“Whew,” Cassie said. “My guess is that will be the final straw. Angelique’s time as bimbo of the week has just expired. Of course, it may take her a while to realize it, but—”
Sabrina frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Didn’t you see the way he looked at her when he said she didn’t need to have hysterics?”
“Yeah, I saw. It looked pretty mild compared to the way he’d been looking at me. It’s my opinion you’re suffering from wishful thinking, Cassie. Just because you don’t like Angelique…” Sabrina sighed. “And I thought the biggest problem I was going to face tonight was having to apologize to Paige for baiting Eileen about your bridal shower gift.”
Cassie opened her mouth, then obviously thought better of the question. “Let’s get the party started,” she said instead. “What’s first? Bobbing for apples?”
Sabrina looked at the house, then at the number scrawled on the square of paper clipped to the convertible’s visor. The address agreed, there was no doubt of that. But had she written it down wrong? The last place she’d have expected the playboy millionaire to live was in a neighborhood that had long since passed its prime.
In the strong morning sunlight, the three-story colonial revival house looked nothing short of dilapidated. Its white paint was alligatored; one faded green shutter hung at a tired angle and another was gone altogether. The railing on the small balcony above the pillared front porch was missing half a dozen balusters, and one of the pair of chimneys looked as if it could benefit from a serious tuck-pointing.
As she looked at the address again, however, a truck pulled into the semicircular driveway and parked directly before the front door. Two uniformed men climbed out, and a moment later they began unloading what looked like a hospital bed.
Yeah, Sabrina told herself. Unlikely as it seemed, she had the right place after all.
She squared her shoulders and gathered up a small, bright-colored shopping bag and a sheaf of fresh fall flowers wrapped in cellophane. Caleb Tanner would probably throw the contents of the bag in her face and use the sharp flower stems to defend himself, she thought gloomily. But she had to make the effort. Whether he was likely to accept her apology wasn’t the point; she still had to offer it.
She followed the bed to the front door and up two steps onto a crumbling concrete porch. The door stood wide open; a small, fussy-looking elderly man was just inside, giving directions to the delivery men.
The bed crossed the wide hallway and stopped while the men debated how to make it fit through a too-narrow door. They tipped it on one side and pushed; a rail scraped the door molding, and the little man held his breath until the delivery men set the bed down and stood back to scratch their heads and consider.
From the doorway on the other side of the hall, opposite the room where the bed was noisily being set up, a familiar feminine voice cooed. “Darling, are you absolutely certain there isn’t anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”
Angelique, Sabrina thought. Cassie had been wrong; the bimbo’s time in the sun obviously hadn’t expired just yet.
Sabrina edged closer and peeked around the corner of the doorway. Beyond it lay a large living room with a high-beamed ceiling, two sets of French doors and a fireplace where a blaze crackled cheerfully. Over the back of a black leather couch, which sat directly in front of the fire, she could see just the top of Caleb’s head.
Next to him, perched on the edge of the couch cushions, was Angelique. “If you’re certain,” she said, and leaned against him for an obviously intimate embrace.
Sabrina drew back into the hallway and debated her next move. Fortunately, the little man was too absorbed in watching the delivery crew to ask what she wanted.
Before Sabrina had made up her mind what to do, Angelique appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” she asked suspiciously, eying Sabrina. “Not that it matters. Mr. Tanner is resting, so you’ll have to go away. Jennings, take the things this woman has brought and see her out. I have an errand to run, but I’ll be back in an hour to see how our invalid is doing.”
Without another word, she paused beside the front door and waited until the little man opened it for her. Head held high, she swept out.
The little man closed the door and turned to Sabrina.
Just as he opened his mouth, the delivery men gave the bed a superhuman push. It went through the doorway, but it left four deep, raw, precisely parallel scratches.
The little man squeaked, almost as if the scratches had been made in his flesh rather than in unfeeling wood, and stormed across the room, chattering almost incoherently.
The instant his back was turned, Sabrina ducked into the living room.
The first impression she’d gotten from her initial glimpse of the room, of size and light and perfect proportions, was modified on closer examination. The room’s pale yellow paint was faded with age, except for spots here and there where artwork had obviously blocked the sunlight for years, and the carpet was almost threadbare.
She walked around the end of the incongruously modern black leather couch. Caleb, wearing a worn navy-blue jogging suit, lay with his right leg propped on a couple of pillows and strapped into a canvas-covered immobilizer, which stretched from mid-thigh to his lower calf. Nearby a pair of aluminum crutches leaned against a small table.
Jake had told her last night when he’d finally returned to the party what to expect. Still, the sight stopped Sabrina in her tracks. Her throat tightened. Very deliberately she looked away from the injured leg and focused on Caleb’s face.
His eyes were closed, and he was a little paler than she’d expected him to be. But of course she was basing her assessment on photographs she’d seen, and she was assuming, because many of those pictures had shown the playboy millionaire in outdoor activities, that he’d sport a perpetual tan. But that wasn’t necessarily so, she told herself, and so his lack of high color didn’t mean he was still in pain from his injury.
“I thought I made it clear—” he said, and opened his eyes.
Sabrina braced herself.
Caleb pulled himself up a little higher. “I suppose you’ve come to assess the damage you did.”
She bit her lip. “I’ve come to tell you I’m sorry for my part in the accident.”
“Your part?” His gaze roved over her. “Well, it’s just as well you showed up—because otherwise I’d have had to come looking for you. Figuratively speaking, of course, since it’s apparent I’m not going to be able to move much beyond this couch for a few days, at least.”
He sounded perfectly matter-of-fact, not in the least vindictive or threatening. And yet there was something about the tone of his voice that sent a trickle of fear oozing through Sabrina’s bones.
“Yes,” he said. Somehow he made the word sound almost triumphant. “You’re just the person I’ve been wanting to talk to.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE pillows supporting Caleb’s knee slid, and the shaft of pain that shot up his leg made him wince and look hopefully at the clock. But there was another hour to wait before he could have the next dose of pain medication, so he swore under his breath, lay back as best he could, took a couple of deep breaths and tried to distract himself by studying the woman who stood beside the sofa.
Under normal conditions, he decided, she could take a man’s mind off almost anything. Of course, these weren’t normal conditions. His knee was a constant reminder that she was not only pleasant to look at but damned dangerous to handle—and that was something he had no intention of forgetting.
He’d noticed her as soon as he’d walked through the front door at Tanner Electronics yesterday, just as he noticed any extraordinarily pretty woman who happened across his field of vision. His optic nerves were hard-wired for that sort of observation, so in the first split second he’d automatically assessed the basics—she was tall and slim, with hair as sleek as black satin and green eyes set at an exotic tilt in a porcelain-fine heart-shaped face.
Then she’d pasted him to the floor, and suddenly he hadn’t been in the mood to study her any further. He already had enough of a mental picture to let him identify her in a police lineup or to avoid her on the street, so what else could he possibly need to know?
But that had been yesterday. Since then, he’d had an unpleasant evening in the emergency room, a long and almost-sleepless night and an almighty frustrating morning. Now here she was again—and it occurred to him that he might be able to put Cat Woman to good use.
Though…it was mighty convenient of her to show up just now. Suspicion flickered through him. Was it possible she had some sort of agenda of her own?
He surveyed her through narrowed eyes and decided that she looked far too ill at ease to be plotting anything. Relieved, he dismissed the idea and settled back, letting his gaze linger on her face.
His initial assessment might have been lightning-fast, but it had been absolutely on target, he concluded without surprise. Where pretty women were concerned, he never missed.
Today the satiny hair was pulled into a subdued knot at the nape of her neck, and instead of the slinky black cat costume she was wearing a soft tweed pantsuit in a color that made him think of the pine forests that lined the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Neither change did anything to diminish her attractiveness. They simply added an air of efficiency and capability.
Which just went to show, Caleb thought, how very deceptive appearances could be.
“Sit down,” he invited, and waved a hand at a nearby chair.
She set the small shopping bag she carried on the floor near the couch, laid the sheaf of flowers on the coffee table and sank onto the edge of the black leather seat. To watch her, Caleb told himself, one would think she was the most graceful creature on earth.
“I brought you a few magazines,” she said. “I hope they’ll help pass some time.” She seemed to be having trouble making her voice work right. “I understand your knee’s not broken, after all, just sprained.”
“Technically, they called it a strain.” He saw the tiny quiver of relief go through her and added maliciously, “Of course, the doctors tell me a bad strain’s almost worse than a break. It’ll certainly take longer to heal completely, and it’s far more likely to be reinjured in the future if I’m not extremely cautious.”
“Oh.” Her voice was very small.
“Yes. I’m looking forward—if you want to put it that way—to as much as two weeks in this contraption.” He gestured at the immobilizer. “And even after that, I’ll still be on crutches for a while. It will likely be months before I’m back in top form.”
She’d turned white, he noted. Encouraged, he pressed on. “That means I can’t easily go up and down stairs. I can go to work, but only if I install a recliner or a hospital bed in my office to keep my leg elevated. And of course, that’s assuming I can get there—I couldn’t drive a car even if I had one, and I certainly can’t ride my motorcycle.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel bad, Mr. Tanner—”
“Not at all,” he said, not even trying to sound candid. “I’m only telling you the circumstances of my life. The very much changed circumstances.”
“I’ve already said I’m sorry.”
He pretended not to hear. “You know,” he said sadly, “I was scheduled to go skydiving this weekend.”
Her eyes, he noted with interest, looked like turbulent storm clouds when she was angry.
She said, through almost clenched teeth, “Would you knock off the pity party?”
He stared at her and did his best to look wounded. “If you think I don’t have a right to feel sorry for myself, Ms.—”
“Oh, you’ve got a right. I just don’t think that’s what you’re doing at the moment. If you’re hoping to scare me into offering you some sort of settlement—”
“Not a bad idea,” he said thoughtfully.
“For the damage I’ve supposedly done to you—”
“What do you mean, supposedly? This immobilizer isn’t exactly a figment of my imagination.”
“There’s still the question of who’s really at fault, you know.”
“But there’s no doubt at all about who’s been damaged.”
“Nobody made you grab hold of that tank.”
“What? You asked me to lend a hand!”
“I didn’t suggest you pretend to be Hercules. At any rate, I should warn you that I don’t have much in the way of financial resources. So if you are hoping to collect from me, I’m afraid that you’re not going to have much luck.”
Caleb shrugged. “Money I have plenty of. But there are other ways of settling scores, you know. The kind of damages I want to collect, you’ll have no trouble paying.”
Her eyes turned to arctic ice. The effect was almost enough to make him shiver.
“I see,” she said. “Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time a man has leaped to the conclusion that because I’m not exactly hard on the eyes, it would be worth his while to try to manipulate me into bed, but—”
He grinned. “You think sex is what I have in mind? When the moon turns to liverwurst, maybe.”
She colored a little and said in a small, tight voice, “I do apologize. How conceited of me to assume you might find me attractive in that way.”
So the lady had a vulnerable spot, he thought with delight. “That wasn’t what you assumed,” he said easily. “You jumped to the conclusion I’m the kind of guy who wouldn’t hesitate to blackmail a woman for sex whether I found her attractive or not.”
Her gaze dropped to her hands, folded in her lap.
“Not a very flattering picture,” Caleb went on. “But you know, I didn’t say that I don’t find you appealing. It’s just that, having already had a good demonstration of what you’re capable of, I’d have to be a blooming idiot to ask for more. Frankly, my mind boggles at the thought of what you could accomplish if—”
“There’s no need to go into detail, Mr. Tanner. Now, since we’ve established that we’re not discussing going to bed, perhaps you’d like to make clear what you do have in mind?”
He took his time. Letting her stew in suspense might have interesting results. “As I’ve already pointed out, there are a number of things I’m not going to be able to do on my own for the next few weeks.”
“So? I presume that’s why you have what’s his name out there. Jennings—is that it?”
“Jennings is a fine butler in what has up till now been a low-maintenance household.”
He watched her gaze flick around the room. “Are you sure low-maintenance is the word you want?” She sounded honestly curious. “I’d call it neglected, myself.”
“I’m not referring to the house, exactly, but to my needs. Jennings answers the door and the telephone, cooks a bit, supervises the cleaning team, that sort of thing. But I take care of myself.”
“Fancy that.”
He decided to ignore the interruption. “However, now I can’t look after my own needs—and I can’t expect Jennings to pick up the slack. He’s too old to be on call around the clock, but someone will have to be.”
“And you’re expecting me to wait on you?”
“You’ve got it. I’m going to need someone to fetch and carry, hand me my crutches, sort out my pills, plump my pillows, bring fresh ice packs, read to me when I’m restless, go out for ice cream at three in the morning if I can’t sleep….”
“I get the idea,” she said dryly. “I just don’t see why you want me doing all those things.”
“I’d say you’re a natural choice. Jake tells me this is the very sort of thing your business does all the time.”
“Not precisely,” she said coolly. “There’s a reason we called it Rent-A-Wife, not Buy-A-Slave.”
“Look at it this way, Ms…” He shifted, trying without success to get more comfortable. “What is your name?”
“Does it matter? I thought slaves had to answer to whatever their masters called them.” After a moment, though, her gaze wavered and she said softly, “Sabrina Saunders.”
“Sabrina,” he said slowly, making the name almost a caress. “You caused this problem. You’re going to fix it. At least as much as it can be fixed.”
“Look, there are agencies that provide special-duty nurses, and I’m sure you can afford to—”
“I didn’t ask you for nursing services. I do not have a death wish. In fact, there are limits to slavery, too—I don’t expect you to deliver hot soup directly into my hands. Having you set it on a table nearby will be risky enough, in my opinion.”
“You know,” she said slowly, “that’s what I don’t understand. I should think all you’d have to do is raise your voice and there would be a hundred women swarming around you, thrilled to be of service.”
“Exactly.” His voice was crisp.
She frowned. “Then I really don’t understand why you’re putting pressure on me. Why would you want a reluctant helper—one you don’t even trust not to scald you with the first cup of coffee—when you could have enthusiastic ones?”
“Because I don’t even have to raise my voice to attract all those women, that’s why. I don’t know if you ran into Angelique when you arrived?”
She sounded wary. “We spoke, yes. Actually, she spoke to me, but I didn’t exactly answer.”
“She’s been here since the crack of dawn. She’d have spent the night except that all she had to wear was the princess costume.”
“And you didn’t like the idea of having her plump your pillows? I don’t get it.”
“Plumping pillows was not the sort of thing she had in mind.”
“Ah,” she said on a long note of discovery. “I suppose last night you weren’t feeling up to any—how can I put this delicately?—athletic activity. Well, I can see how having a woman like Angelique around in those circumstances might make a man like you very uncomfortable, but—”
“And she’s far from the only one who’s been hovering helpfully. Since the word started to spread last night that I was injured, there have been seventy-two phone calls and nineteen visits from women.”
Sabrina shrugged. “Sounds like masculine heaven to me.”
“Not when I’m flat on my back and unable to defend myself. Every one of those women has ideas of mothering me, nursing me or otherwise convincing me that I simply cannot live without her on a permanent basis. In other words, they’re far more interested in their left ring fingers than in my knee.”
“And you really don’t believe you can defend yourself against that?” She shook her head. “I’m disappointed in you.”
“I don’t choose to spend my energy on that kind of battle. I’d rather focus it on getting back on my feet as soon as possible.”
She’d gone straight on. “And you call yourself a playboy! Besides, you have Jennings out there. All you have to do is tell him to turn off the phone and not let anyone in, and—”
“Oh, really? You got past him without any trouble, didn’t you?”
She sounded a little less certain of herself. “You said you wanted to see me.”
“But you didn’t know that till after you were sitting here. And he doesn’t know it yet. No—Jennings is well-meaning, but he’s not cut out to be a bodyguard.”
He watched the play of expressions cross her face. Now, he thought, they were getting somewhere.
“Face it, Sabrina—since it’s entirely your fault that I’m being subjected to this siege, it’s entirely your responsibility to do something about it.”
She slapped her hands against her thighs and stood up. “You know,” she said, “I think you’re right. Goodbye.”
Caleb blinked in surprise and tried to struggle into a sitting position. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She barely paused. “To the animal rescue league to see if they happen to have a Rottweiler with misogynistic tendencies. I’ll sign the adoption papers, deliver him to Jennings, and your problem will be solved by noon.”
“Sit down, Sabrina.”
“But it’s the perfect—”
His voice was silky. “Let’s talk about this business of yours.”
“Rent-A-Wife? What about it?” She sounded ever so slightly apprehensive.
“Do you and your partners want to continue to work with Tanner Electronics employees?” He saw the flicker of discomfort in her eyes and smoothly pressed his advantage. “Or shall we just call it one of those trial runs that unfortunately didn’t work out?”
She stopped in mid-step. Very slowly, as if she were walking to the guillotine, she returned to her chair and sat down. “When do I start?”
Satisfaction sizzled through Caleb. He hadn’t realized that being on the receiving end of total capitulation could be so enjoyable.
“Right now will be fine,” he said. “But I hope you don’t mind if we don’t shake on the deal, Sabrina. I’m going to need the use of both hands, and I really don’t want to take the chance of you messing one up.”
Sabrina’s fingers moved automatically, arranging the sheaf of flowers she’d brought in a tall glass vase, while she told herself that of course she’d done the only thing she could.
Faced with the threat of Rent-A-Wife losing its newest and single most substantive client, she hadn’t been left with much choice.
In fact, she thought, instead of growling over the idea of spending the foreseeable future waiting on Caleb Tanner hand and foot, she should probably be thanking her lucky stars that a maidservant was all he wanted. How stupid it had been to feel that flash of resentment at the idea that he didn’t find her physically attractive—for even though he’d sidestepped the question, there was no doubt in Sabrina’s mind that if he’d really found her desirable, he wouldn’t have hesitated to act on that feeling.
Her irritation had been almost an automatic reaction, of course—the kind of thing she would probably have felt for an instant no matter who had made the statement. Her momentary fury really had nothing to do with Caleb Tanner.
In fact, she decided, it had nothing to do with men at all; it was more likely a psychological warning buzzer. If she couldn’t laugh off the notion that a man—any man—might not find her appealing, then perhaps her ego was getting out of line and needed a serious pruning.
In any case, she should be celebrating the fact that Caleb hadn’t tried to force her into his bed. Because if he had…
She squashed a momentary vision of Caleb Tanner’s face looming above her, his handsome features honed by desire.
Rent-A-Wife would just have had to cope with the fallout of losing an important client, she told herself.
The loss would have been monstrously unfair to Paige and Cassie, of course, but there was nothing Sabrina could have done about that. And they would have understood; there were prices that no one should be expected to pay, and sleeping with Caleb Tanner was one of them.
Obviously there was no shortage of women who didn’t agree with that philosophy, Sabrina admitted. But she’d never made a habit of following the crowd, and she wasn’t about to start now just because Caleb was involved. The fact that there were women standing in line hoping to be his bimbo of the week was no recommendation where Sabrina was concerned.
However, it looked as if Cassie had been right, after all, when she’d said Angelique’s time in the spotlight had expired. Perhaps the rest of the feminine crowd had sensed that Caleb was getting restless and ready for a change; that would help explain why women had started to swarm around him as soon as they’d heard he was hurt.
That thought provided a little comfort to Sabrina. Not that she much cared what happened to Angelique, but it gave her a little more hope for her own situation.
It appeared, from everything she’d ever heard about him, that Caleb Tanner was constitutionally incapable of sticking with any one woman for long. Implying that whichever lady he was currently seeing would last no longer than a week might be a trifle exaggerated, but the description hadn’t come out of nowhere.
Therefore, Sabrina thought, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that he’d soon get tired of her, too—or at least grow weary of the idea of exacting revenge for his injury by keeping her dancing attendance on him. And, wildly improbable though it sounded, if she was actually successful in keeping all of his women away…
Well, Sabrina thought, he could talk all he wanted to about not wanting them around, but she’d bet her convertible that Caleb would soon be bored without his harem. In fact, she calculated, she’d give him three days maximum.
Feeling considerably more cheerful, she stuck the last flower into the vase and was starting to wipe up the water drops that had splashed everywhere when Jennings came into the kitchen carrying a cordless phone, which he held out to her without saying a word.
Sabrina took it and tried to brace herself. “Jennings, did Mr. Tanner tell you to pass his calls on to me?”
“The lady asked for you, miss.”
Relief whispered through her. “Oh, that must be my partner. She wasn’t answering her phone a few minutes ago so I left a message on her voice mail.” And you’re deliberately delaying, she told herself, because you aren’t looking forward to reporting this morning’s change of plans. “I’ll be out of your way here in a minute, Jennings. Where will I find the garbage can?”
He pointed at the far corner of the room. “I’ll take care of the debris, miss.”
“Way over there? Why? It isn’t even next to the back door, much less convenient to anything else. I don’t know a lot about kitchens—”
Even though she hadn’t yet put the phone to her ear, Sabrina could hear laughter from the other end of the line. She tucked the phone between shoulder and ear and said, with mock hauteur, “I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Cassie.”
“What you know about kitchens would fit on the head of a pin with room left over,” said her unrepentant partner.
“That may be true. But I know an inefficient one when I see it.”
“Whose kitchen are we talking about, anyway?”
“Well…this could require a bit of explanation.” Sabrina took a deep breath. “It’s Caleb Tanner’s.”
The long silence on the phone was the loudest Sabrina had ever heard. “No wonder the phone number looked vaguely familiar. Why aren’t you using your cell phone, by the way?”
“It’s not working. It seems to have been a casualty of the fall last night.”
“That figures,” Cassie said. “So about Caleb…Please tell me he invited you.”
“No, Cassie, I crashed my way in.” It was true, of course, but Cassie would never believe it—and what her partner didn’t know, Sabrina told herself, wouldn’t hurt her. “Actually, I came to apologize.”
“So what’s keeping you? Sabrina, do us all a favor and get out of there before something else happens.”
“Now you’re treating me like Typhoid Mary,” Sabrina complained. “Honestly, Cassie, you make it sound as if I’m too clumsy to walk down the street and whistle at the same time!”
“You have to admit you’re the only person in Denver who can fall over a ray of sunlight—I’ve seen you do it. Just don’t take any chances, all right? Maybe you don’t realize how important Tanner is to Rent-A-Wife right now, but I saw last month’s profit-and-loss statement when Paige was working on it, and believe me, we can’t afford to lose this client.”
“I know,” Sabrina said quietly.
Cassie had gone straight on. “Plus, on a personal level, Sabrina, I’d kind of like to remain on speaking terms with my future husband’s boss, so if you could avoid offending Caleb any further—”
Sabrina raised her voice. “He’s asked me to help him out for a few days.”
“Help him…. You’ve got to be joking.”
“He can use a hand just now. Twenty-four hours a day, in fact.”
“Caleb Tanner wants you with him around the clock? What’s the man taking for pain medication, and does his doctor know he’s showing symptoms of psychosis?”
Sabrina went straight on. “So that means I can’t handle my regular clients.”
“I suppose you want to pass them off to me? Sabrina, you know I’m only scheduled to work half days till my wedding—”
“What were you saying about the Tanner account being very important just now?”
Cassie swore under her breath. “All right, give me your list.”
Sabrina closed her eyes in relief. It was one small blessing—not so much for her sake but for Cassie’s—not to have to give her partner every last detail. Why should both of them have the whole mess to worry about? “Thanks, Cassie. It’s not that long a list, really. And I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
By the time she put the telephone down, Jennings was taking containers of food from the refrigerator, stacking them almost haphazardly on a tiny strip of countertop nearby. “Is there anything particular you’d like for lunch, miss?”
“Heavens, no. Don’t go to any special trouble for me.”
He caught a paper-wrapped bundle just as it slid off the pile. “I’d be happy to cook whatever you’d like. Of course, if you’d prefer to make yourself at home in the kitchen—”
Sabrina said hastily, “I’m not big on kitchens. Is this one really as inconvenient as it looks?”
“It’s the worst arrangement I’ve ever seen, miss, but then there hasn’t been time to do much about it. I expect when Mr. Caleb gets back on his feet, there’ll be some changes.”
“Then this house is a new purchase? That’s a relief—I was thinking it might be the family homestead, handed down for generations.”
Jennings almost cracked a smile. Sabrina felt rewarded.
“Oh, no, miss,” he said. “Mr. Tanner’s parents live in Boulder, and until last month he had an apartment in one of the new developments downtown.”
“Really? But he moved here? Why?” Sabrina raised an eyebrow. “No, let me guess—I bet the landlord objected to the bimbos getting into a traffic jam in the lobby. Actually, it’s too bad he didn’t stay there, because the doorman could have doubled as a security guard.” And I’d have been saved a lot of trouble.
An asthmatic-sounding chime wheezed from the front hall. There’s Angelique, Sabrina thought. She said she’d be back in an hour.
It was apparent that Caleb had heard it, too. He called, “Sabrina! Come in here, will you? And bring Jennings with you.”
She carried the vase into the living room, setting it with exaggerated caution in the precise center of the coffee table, just out of his reach. Then she picked up the motorcycle enthusiasts’ magazine that had slid off his lap, gave it back and said, “What do you want me to tell Angelique?”
“Nothing. Just let her in, Jennings.”
Silently, Jennings headed for the door.
“I thought you wanted me to defend you,” Sabrina said.
“You’re going to. Sit down. No, here on the floor right beside me, with your back to the couch.”
She looked doubtfully at him, but there wasn’t time to argue; she could hear the squeak of the front door opening. As Sabrina folded herself up on the carpet, she bumped the sore spot on her shin where the car door had caught her yesterday and grimaced.
“I see I’m not the only one who suffered damage in our collision,” Caleb said. “You should have told me.”
“Would it have made any difference in your demands?”
“Of course not. But we could have felt sorry for each other.” He shifted onto his side and swore irritably. “Not being able to turn over without help is going to get mighty aggravating, you know.” He draped one arm around her shoulders and slid the magazine onto her lap. They must look, Sabrina thought, as if he was leaning over her to point out something. It was a nice, friendly little pose….
“Darling,” Angelique said, “I do hope you’ve gotten some rest, because—” She rounded the end of the couch and stopped dead in her tracks. “What in the—”
“Hello, Angelique,” Caleb said calmly. “I’m glad you stopped in. Sabrina was just telling me a minute ago that she wished she could thank you properly for helping out this morning till she could get here. In fact, she said when this is all over, she’ll throw a back-to-good-health party for me and invite you.”
Angelique opened her mouth and shut it again.
Sabrina, half-stunned herself, had no trouble imagining what the woman was feeling.
“You can’t mean this,” Angelique said. “You can’t toss me aside like this, Caleb. You need me, especially now….” Her voice trailed off.
His voice sounded oddly gentle. “I told you days ago that we were finished, Angelique. You wanted to follow through with the Halloween party since you’d gone to so much trouble over it, and I agreed. But the party’s over, honey. And messing up my knee didn’t change my mind.”
Angelique’s tone was suddenly venomous. “You didn’t say anything about her.”
“Surely you’re not surprised. It would hardly have been respectful to drag Sabrina into it, because she didn’t cause the breakup, you know. It was just time, Angelique.”
“Of course she didn’t cause it.” Angelique’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I’m sure she just happened to be innocently standing there when you started looking around.” She glared at Sabrina. “Well, let me warn you, girl, you’ll be just one more in a long line. Whatever he tells you, the truth is as soon as he’s got what he wants, he’ll start looking around again. So enjoy it while it lasts—because it won’t last long.” She tossed her long hair and stormed out of the room. The bang of the front door told Sabrina that this time Angelique hadn’t waited to be respectfully bowed out.
Sabrina slammed the magazine down on the carpet with a satisfying bang. “That was the worst, most obnoxious, horribly callous piece of behavior I have ever seen.”
Caleb leaned heavily on her shoulder in order to push himself into position on the couch. “Angelique isn’t known for her tact, but I didn’t expect she’d be quite so unrestrained. I’m sorry about that.”
Sabrina wrenched herself around to face him. “I was not talking about Angelique,” she snapped. “I’m not in the least offended at what she said, because every word of it’s absolutely true. Crude, maybe, but I’ll make allowances for that, since she got her cataracts ripped off without an anesthetic. But as for you, making me look like just another one of your bimbos in order to hold all the other ones off—”
“Can you think of a better way to discourage all the women who’d like to step into Angelique’s shoes?” He sounded perfectly calm.
“Yes. Rent a medevac helicopter and take off for Costa Rica!”
“Do be serious, Sabrina. As soon as they know there’s a new woman in my life, they’ll realize there’s nothing to be gained by making spectacles of themselves, and they’ll stop.”
“Or else they’ll redouble their efforts. For all I know they’ll lay siege to this house, and—”
“Not once they’ve seen you.” He sounded very sure of himself. “That’s what makes you so perfect for this job, Sabrina. You’re exactly the kind of woman I like.”
Sabrina almost screeched. “You are a piece of work, Tanner! I ought to kick you in the kneecap for insulting me like that.”
He looked vaguely puzzled. “What can you possibly find insulting about me saying that you’re my kind of woman?”
“Make that your other kneecap!”
He shrugged. “The point is, they’ll take one look at you and they’ll give up. I’m actually doing them a favor, saving them all the time they’d be wasting otherwise.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes heavenward.
“But you see, what they don’t know is that because of certain characteristics you possess, I’m immune to you.”
“Now that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in some time,” she muttered.
“And that’s also the beauty of the whole idea. Not only do you understand that I’m not vulnerable to you, but because of that little accident last night, you owe me. So, unlike every one of those women, you’re under absolutely no illusion that you could crook your finger and ensnare me.”
The man was utterly serious and so completely sure of himself that he was mesmerizing. All Sabrina could do was stare at him in morbid fascination.
“You will very efficiently hold them off until I’m healthy enough to defend myself. Meanwhile, I’m in no danger from you. Once I’m back on my feet—” he kissed his fingertips “—it’ll be goodbye, Sabrina.”
And he could start taking applications for bimbo of the week again, Sabrina thought. It couldn’t happen quickly enough for her.
“It’s perfect,” Caleb said. “Don’t you agree?”
CHAPTER THREE
SABRINA stared at him with the same wariness that she would have accorded to a crocodile who’d suddenly reared his head from the middle of the threadbare carpet. She’d encountered egotistic males in her day, but never one quite as sure of himself as Caleb Tanner.
It was long past time for someone to teach the man a lesson, she thought. It would do him a great deal of good to be the jilted one for a change, chasing hungrily after a woman who ended up coldly rejecting him. Maybe even turning green around the edges with jealousy.
The woman who accomplished the feat would be striking a blow for her sisters around the world. In fact, Sabrina thought, she’d deserve sainthood.
For a moment, she actually considered trying it—and then her common sense reasserted itself. Not only weren’t the odds of success exactly favorable, but she suspected that anyone who made the attempt to break Caleb Tanner’s nonexistent heart was more likely to end up in a mental health ward than in the feminist hall of fame.
Even contemplating the idea was courting temporary insanity. She’d rather take on a suicide mission. I’m immune to you, he’d said—and Sabrina wouldn’t put it past him to be telling the precise truth.
“Perfect?” she said. “Of course. Who could possibly question the clarity of your logic?”
Suspicion sparkled in Caleb’s eyes, but before he could pursue the discussion the asthmatic doorbell chimed once more.
This time Caleb drew her down to sit facing him on the edge of the couch, with her hip nestled warmly against his. She landed a little off balance and had to brace a hand against the arm of the couch, just above his shoulder, to keep herself upright.
The man should be a stage director, she thought irritably. From the doorway, it would look as though they’d either just finished a kiss or were about to start one.
“Who’s this visitor likely to be?” she asked. “I doubt the news of Angelique’s comeuppance has spread across Denver in the ten minutes since she left. Is this likely to be one of her friends going behind her back in an attempt to seduce you, or someone from an entirely different branch of your feminine fan club?”
She heard the door squeak as Jennings opened it, and then a man’s voice from the front hall made her release a long sigh of relief. “That’s Jake,” she said, and tried to sit up straighter.
Caleb’s fingers curved around her wrist, preventing her from moving. “So?”
“There’s no need to pretend for his sake. He wouldn’t believe in this charade of yours, no matter what script you ran past him.”
“Why not? Do you already have a boyfriend or something?”
“Oh, nobody you couldn’t threaten into disappearing, I’m sure,” Sabrina said dryly. “But that wasn’t what I—”
“Then he’ll believe it. He won’t have any other choice.”
“You mean you’re going to lie to him.”
“I mean we’re both going to be very convincing. Let’s get one thing straight, Sabrina. We aren’t going to tell anybody about our private arrangement, and I mean anybody.”
“But Jake’s different,” Sabrina argued. “He was right there yesterday. He heard what you said to me.”
“And he will surely understand how profoundly I now regret that outburst,” Caleb said.
His voice was deep and warm and so convincing that even Sabrina felt herself wavering. “How do you do that?” she asked admiringly. “If anybody ever does a remake of the Garden of Eden, you’d be a natural to play the serpent. One word from you and apple sales would skyrocket across the nation.”
Caleb laid a finger across her mouth to shush her, then with the edge of his nail lightly traced the outline of her lips.
It was all she could do to sit still. From the corner of her eye, Sabrina noted that Jake had stopped on the threshold as if he’d run smack into a glass wall. Slowly, still watching the couple on the couch, he crossed the room and set a bulging briefcase on the floor next to the couch. “Don’t think, just because you’re wounded, that you’re going to take a vacation, Caleb,” he said. “I brought all the—”
Caleb didn’t appear to hear. He was still looking soulfully into Sabrina’s eyes.
“Caleb?” Jake said a little louder.
With a long sigh, Caleb let his fingertips drop from Sabrina’s face—though he didn’t release the wrist he was holding with his other hand—and turned toward Jake. “It’s amazing how a simple accident can clarify your vision,” he mused. “That fall yesterday was probably the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me, because I might never have met Sabrina otherwise.”
Jake looked at him as if he were a scientific specimen. “Did they X ray your brain last night, Caleb?” he asked brusquely. “Because if not, they should have. Sorry, Sabrina, but—”
“Oh, you don’t need to apologize to me, Jake.” Sabrina looked straight at Caleb while she peeled his fingers loose from her wrist. “I told you he’d never believe it.”
“It may take him a little time to be convinced.”
She stared at him in utter disbelief. Surely, in the face of Jake’s obvious skepticism, Caleb wasn’t going to pursue this nonsensical course. Was he?
He went on smoothly. “In fact, I expect lots of people are going to have their doubts for a while. Even though it isn’t every day I confide that I’m serious about a woman, my friends may well be hesitant to believe—”
“You’re absolutely right about that,” Sabrina said judiciously. “It’s not every day, and it’s not exactly a whispered secret from you to your friends, either. From what I hear, it’s more like twice a month and announced in the society page headlines.”
Caleb’s scowl was clearly a threat, but his voice was gentle and reasonable. “It’s not at all the same thing, my dear. All the women who have been in my life up till now sort of run together into a blur as I think about them.”
“That I can believe,” Sabrina muttered unrepentantly.
“In fact, my darling, compared to you they don’t even exist. I’ve never declared myself this way before, because I’ve never felt about any woman the way I feel about you, Sabrina.”
The seemingly innocent sincerity in his voice left Sabrina staring at him in reluctant appreciation. She’d run into men before who had an endless supply of gall, and ones who possessed more than a touch of pure blarney. But she’d never before encountered a man who not only possessed both qualities but who used them so effectively. No wonder women fell over themselves to get near him—and no wonder he left such a swathe of destruction in his wake.
And to make it worse, he was telling the precise truth. I’ve never felt about any woman the way I feel about you. Well, two could play at that game.
She patted Caleb’s cheek and said with utter honesty, “And of course there’s never been a man who could inspire the sort of feelings I have for you, Caleb, dear.”
She realized abruptly that it was the first time she’d actually said his name. She had neither anticipated nor avoided the action; in fact, she hadn’t given it any thought at all. So it came as a shock to discover that the taste of his name on her tongue was like the hottest of chili peppers—it not only tingled at first exposure but it hinted of a burn that instead of fading would grow even stronger with time.
She edged away from him. “I’m sure you don’t need me sitting right here while you talk business.”
“And you’d probably be bored by all the details,” Caleb agreed.
Sabrina bit her tongue to keep from retorting that she wasn’t his typical bimbo, incapable of understanding the nuances of a business discussion. Bringing up the point again would probably make no more impression on Caleb than the last time she’d tried. Besides, it would just make her situation worse by giving him an excuse to keep her sitting beside him—the last place on earth she wanted to be.
And what difference did it make, anyway, if he thought she was as airheaded as the rest?
Talk about his ego, Sabrina told herself. You’ve got more than a little problem with your own, if you’re worried about what he thinks of you.
She smiled sweetly and murmured, “And it would be so rude of me to yawn in your face just because I couldn’t possibly keep up with the discussion, darling. Far better if I just go away while you and Jake have your important talk.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/leigh-michaels/bride-on-loan/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.