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He tried for matter of fact, as if talking to a classroom of college freshmen.

“You’d be surprised at some of the things I learned there. The answer is yes and no. Some areas are primitive. Some are a lot like home. But all in all, I’d say it was certainly exotic and exciting.”

She offered him a bite of cake, and when he shook his head no, she shrugged her shoulders. Taking a bite, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the couch. “I love chocolate.”

For a second, Donovan couldn’t talk. Couldn’t even think as she chewed and then swallowed. Oh man—he was so dead.

“Yeah.” The word was more than a little gruff when it came out, and he could swear she was smiling. “I remember that. I’ll be back in a second. Since you’re here, I might as well get you your gift.”

He practically ran out of the room.

When the knock sounded on the door outside the room he'd fled to, Donovan promised himself he wouldn't give in to the temptation, wouldn't let himself get sucked into Kacie Jo's game. No flirting. No listening to the dulcet tones of her voice and thinking dirty thoughts. No anything other than treating her like what she was: his best friend's baby sister.

When Donovan ran away, Kacie Jo almost broke into a victory dance.

Yes, yes, yes. Donavan Nelson might not be ready to admit it, but she had him where she wanted him. Now to figure out how to get him alone.

If her brother hadn’t followed him out of the room, she’d have had her chance.

Eliza walked over and plopped down next to her.

“Forget it, Kacie Jo. Your brother pegged the situation the second you walked in the room.”

Typical Eliza. One little problem and, boom, abandon the plan.

Kacie Jo made sure the guys in the room were watching the game and then leaned closer. “Grady might have pegged the situation, but he can’t stop me, El. I’m sick of wondering what a night with Donovan would be like. It’s like I have a sickness where he’s concerned. I don’t care what else happens, I’m getting him out of my system while he’s here.”

Eliza looked at her like she was crazy. “If you do this, Grady’s going to blame Donovan.”

“Donovan doesn’t stand a chance here. He certainly won’t be to blame, and who’s to say Grady will know.”

“He’ll know.”

“God, El, it’s not like Grady knows everything. He won’t know unless
someone
tells him. Just because you’re his office manager doesn’t mean you have to talk about this.”

Her best friend didn’t look a bit sure of that, but she simply shrugged. “Just remember, I told you he’d know. Besides, I think Donovan’s on to you anyway.”

She certainly hoped so. "Not a problem since what I plan requires his complete cooperation.”

Eliza took the last bite of cake and shrugged. “It's whatever. All I know is, Donovan sure took off in a hurry. Didn’t look all that cooperative if you ask me.”

Eliza might be right, but the night was young. Kacie Jo was bound and determined. She’d been crazy about Donovan for too long. Her every fantasy starred him, and she was done waiting.

Somehow, someway, she was going to seduce Donovan Nelson, and he was going to like it.
 

Donovan opened the door with resignation and then, when he saw who was there, relief. “Thank God.”

“Thought it was Kacie Jo, huh?” Grady didn’t look happy. Donovan couldn't blame him.

“The thought did cross my mind.” No sense hiding what his friend obviously already knew.

“Then why the hell are you opening the door?” Grady walked in as he asked the question that didn’t sound as surly as it could have.

“I was asking myself the same question as I walked over here. But you know Kacie Jo. Once she gets an idea in that head of hers….”

“You’re right about that, too," Grady said. "I don’t know what I’m going to do if she’s decided to go around looking like that all the time.”

“I’d highly suggest keeping that disapproving tone out of your voice when you talk to her. Seems to me I remember a time when she did anything and everything to oppose you.”

Grady sighed. “I thought she’d moved beyond that stage.”

Donovan didn’t know how to answer that, so he kept silent and continued to search through his bag until he found the gift he’d bought Kacie Jo in Bahrain.

“What’s that?" Grady's voice sounded even more concerned and Donovan grinned.

“Your sister’s gift.”

“You’re giving her a gift? You do realize she’ll think…”

Donovan cut him off. “She’ll be happy I thought of her while I was in that hell hole.”

“Don’t see it happening, bud.”

"Then I’ll just have to make sure she sets her sights on someone more her style.”

The minute the words were out of his mouth, Donovan knew they were a mistake. Grady’s frown grew even deeper. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, either. At least not if she’s going to look like she does tonight.”

Donovan agreed. If Kacie Jo went around flashing the I’m young, I’m hot, and I’m available signals she was tonight, she’d be a walking target for some jerk. “I’ll work it out somehow.”

“I just wanted to make sure…”

Donovan didn’t need to hear the rest of his best friend’s unspoken words. Grady just wanted to make sure Donovan realized his sister had no business with a guy like him. A guy whose life was a mess. A guy who lived his life in the fast lane and liked his whiskey and women the same way. Quick and easy.

And Grady didn’t even know the worst of it. The disaster he’d made of his career and the woman, the princess, whose death he was responsible for.

“You've got nothing to worry about," Donovan said, and then he turned back to the suitcase, dismissing Grady. "I’ll be out in a minute.”

After his best friend left, Donovan tried to ignore the tinges of anger, but they simmered below the surface, barely hidden, always. Not anger at any one person or thing. The barely contained rage sat waiting, and eventually it would reach out and claw him to death.

Donovan closed the suitcase and grabbed on to an idea he thought might work to chase Kacie Jo away before she got caught in the inferno burning beneath his skin, his heart, his life.

Hopefully, after tonight, Kacie Jo would forget about trying to entice men like him. Hopefully, she wouldn’t hate him forever.

Chapter Two

Grady stalked back into his living room like a man on a mission. A man on a mission headed straight to her.

Too bad the cake was gone. Grady usually forgot all about being bossy if she could get his mind focused on food.

He walked past Eliza with a curt, “Excuse us, Eliza Jane,” and then nodded his head pointedly toward the kitchen. Unspoken message: Get in there, now. We're going to have us a little chat.

Would he ever see her as anything other than five years old? Kacie Jo stood and followed her brother.

Three coolers filled with beers of various sorts sat on the floor, and bags of pretzels, chips and peanuts cluttered the cabinets.

Trying to stall, she looked around and whistled. “Shoot, Grady, if I’d known you boys planned on getting drunk tonight, I’d have waited a few more hours.”

“You knew good and well what was going on over here tonight. And you knew you weren’t invited. But here you are.”

She sighed, making sure he saw her annoyance at his mothering. “Yep, here I am.”

“Kacie Jo, you’ve got to stop.”

Lordy, she was tired of being dictated to. “Stop what, brother dear?” she asked with a wide-eyed pretense of innocence.

“Don’t even go there.” Grady stood nose to nose with her, refusing to give an inch. “You know what I mean. Look at you.”

She laughed. “Hey, I’m smokin’. Every one in that room thinks so.”

“Look, Kacie Jo, I know you’ve had a crush on Donovan for a long time, but Donovan’s not himself right now. He doesn’t need you chasing him like he’s some sort of forbidden dessert.”

Worry hit her hard and fast at Grady's words. “What do you mean, not himself?”

 
“I don’t know,” Grady said. "He seems different, like he’s barely hanging on and could go off any second. He doesn’t need you following him around like a lovesick intern, and you certainly don’t need to get mixed up with a guy like him.”

Kacie Jo hated the way Grady said those words
a guy like him
. What was that supposed to mean, anyway? Donovan hadn’t seemed all that different to her. In fact, other than his long hair and the way he’d filled out over the last few years, he seemed like the same person he’d always been.

Until their eyes had met. Now
that
was something completely different. Surely, if something was wrong she’d have sensed it then.

No. This was just another of her brother’s diversionary techniques. A way to get her to do what he wanted instead of what she wanted. Guilt her away from Donovan because of Donovan’s history with women.

Well, it wasn’t going to work this time, but Grady didn’t have to know that. She grabbed one of the beers and popped the top.

“You're right. I guess I’ll go back out there my demure usual self and pretend I didn’t just flirt outrageously with him, and then everything will be okay.”

She’d said the wrong thing. Grady’s eyes narrowed. “The day you’re demure I’ll close my office and move back in with dad. Just go back out there and give the guy a break. He’s only here a couple days.”

She pretended offense. “Hey, I can be demure.” She flirted her eyelashes and then winked before turning to go back into the living room.

The last words she heard were a combination of warning and brotherly good humor. “Just don’t forget what I said. And if you do, you better believe I’m going to say I told you so.”

She didn’t bother to answer.

For ten minutes, Donovan listened to the game, to the guys and to Eliza Miller, but he couldn’t remember anything said. Not by them and not by him.

For months he'd skidded by, and now he needed to be aware, very aware of what he said and did.

He clutched the box in his hand tighter and waited. Unless Grady’s powers of persuasion had improved over the last few years, Kacie Jo was still going to do whatever the hell she had in mind. Her motto had always been simple: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, Kacie Jo walked toward him. Whatever Grady’d said had taken some of the sway out of Kacie Jo’s hips, and for that, he was eternally grateful.

“You were saying something about a gift?” She raised her eyebrows with a saucy grin, and he wondered if she was still flirting or if this was just who she’d become over the last few years.

“You haven’t changed all that much have you, Kacie Jo?” He’d meant the words to sound casual and fun. A simple reminder that she’d always been and always would be a kid in his eyes.

Instead they acted as a sort of intimate reminder that they knew each other and always had. The fact that he’d asked the question instead of making the statement made the words inadvertently more personal. Let her know he spent time thinking about her.

Kacie Jo tossed her hair back then she leaned closer with a smile that promised sinful secrets and sensual pleasures. “You wouldn’t believe how wrong you are.”

He gulped silently as the temperature in the room jumped ten degrees in two seconds flat. Well, hell. He was going to have to do it. Damn. He sent a silent prayer to a God he wasn’t even sure existed.
Please don’t let her hate me after tonight.

And then he grabbed her left hand with his right, purposefully brushing her palms with his fingers. “I’m sure you could make a believer out of me.”

He almost laughed when she yanked her hand out of his as if his touch blistered her skin. Would have if the heat of the touch hadn’t made him pause. For a few seconds she said nothing, and he let the silence build between them until she finally broke.

“So about that present?”

He forced an easy smile, the smile the cameras loved, and held out the box. “It’s not much, but when I saw it, I thought of you.”

Kacie Jo swallowed the unsettled feeling and forced her hand to remain steady as she grasped the oblong box.

The shiny white covering almost showed her reflection.
 

Across the top someone had scrawled a word in some foreign language. It looked Middle Eastern, like what she saw on the news she’d watched in hopes of catching a glimpse of him, but she had no idea what it said. She’d ask later.

Slowly, she lifted the top off the box. Under a layer of filmy white gauze sat an incredibly intricate piece of black lace.

She pushed the gauze away and lifted the lace out of the box. The delicate stitches were obviously the work of a master craftsman. The rectangle of material fell across her lap as she ran her fingers over its silky softness.

“I love it.”
 

He took the lace from her lap with reverent fingers, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m glad. I had some help picking it out, and I’d hate it if you were disappointed.”

He held the cloth as if it would turn to ashes and fly away if he let go.