Under The Millionaire's Influence

His touch muddled her thoughts when doggone it, she had a list of things, logical things, she wanted to say, such as this wasn’t his problem or any of his business, and instead she found herself babbling, “I’ve asked them to leave and go to an RV park. They refused. Short of siccing the cops on them, I don’t know what more I can do to move them.”

“Then call the police.” His fingers massaged hypnotic circles beyond anything her ma could have set up in one of her psychic scams. “Or evict them. They have no legal right to be here if you don’t want them around.”

Starr chewed on her lip again. She really should tell him to get his hand off her, but it felt so amazingly good and she’d never been particularly strong when it came to resisting his touch….

The very reason she had to stop this. Now. She gripped his wrist. “David. Stop.”

She held his gaze in a battle of wills, the heat of his skin radiating through even his rolled-up shirt cuff. Finally, his fingers slowed against her scalp and he swung his arm away, to his side. She released his wrist—and the gulp of air in her lungs.

He tugged at his tie as if in need of air, too. “Damn it, Starr, they steal from people, they prey on the weak and they’re undoubtedly trying to prey on you.”

“I’m too strong to let anything happen.” And she was stronger now, thanks to the self-confidence Aunt Libby had given her. “They’ll hang out for a few days, realize I don’t have any money to give them and then they’ll leave. Just like always.”

His eyes narrowed. “I can make it happen faster than that.”

Too easily she could let him deal with her problems, but she couldn’t tangle her life with his again. “No offense to your professional buddies, but don’t you think that has been tried again and again? It never works. They always get away with whatever illegal or squirrelly scam they’re running.”

Technically not true, she had to confess, at least to herself.

The police had caught up with them one time. The summer they had found ten-year-old Starr locked alone in a boiling hot RV for eight hours while her parents had gone door to door collecting money for yet another bogus charity. She’d nearly died of heatstroke. Five days in the hospital later, the child protective services in Charleston, South Carolina, had placed her with Aunt Libby as a foster child.

At first she’d been wary of Aunt Libby. Nobody could be that nice. Slowly, Aunt Libby’s maternal magic had worn through the years of neglect and abuse and Starr had begun to heal.

Then had come a new fear—that her family would try to take her back.

Thank God, Aunt Libby had always known just how to handle them on their rare visits to the seaside mansion, always with their hands out. And today, Starr followed Aunt Libby’s model of brushing them off.

“Starr?” David snapped his fingers in front of her face, his voice urgent, a hint impatient.

“What, David? Can we make this quick? I need to get back to work.” Actually back to Ashley’s party, due to start up in an hour.

“Has your family ever been reported to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Has anyone ever told me the specifics of their recent scams?” He thumped his chest.

“Well, uh, I guess technically not.” She knew he was darned amazing at his job. Heaven knew his mother bragged about his feats often enough. The woman hadn’t wanted the two of them together, yet she also hadn’t been able to resist rubbing Starr’s nose in what a “catch” she’d missed out on as he sent postcards from this country or that.

Little did his proud mama know those far flung travels only cemented Starr’s resolution she’d made the right choice. Her connection to Aunt Libby’s crumbling old antebellum home, this city, the sisters of her heart went deeper than David could understand.

“David, honestly, I’m not in their inner circle these days since they know I’m not into that kind of life. Even if I were in the know on their plans, they’re so darn slippery in the execution.”

“No one gets past me.”

His confidence was unmistakable.

She couldn’t resist jabbing. “Could that be because your enormous ego blocks the doorway?”

His mouth twitched. God, she loved his mouth, those perfectly full lips that brought such pleasure. His ability to laugh at himself made him all the more attractive.

“You always have been the only woman who wouldn’t put up with my crap.”

David smoothed his hand over her head again, his fingers tangling in her curls as he slid farther this time, down her neck, her back, free of her hair to palm her waist. He flattened her body to his in one of those masterful shows of gentle force that sent her senses tingling even as she longed to stomp on his foot.

He tucked his size-fourteen wingtip shoes gently over the toes of her feet in a preemptive move as if reading her thoughts. “You may be the only woman who doesn’t put up with my crap, but you’re also the only woman I can’t seem to forget.”

Darn him. He always did know what to say to melt her like the glue sticks in her arts-and-crafts gun. His foot slipped off her feet so she could arch on her toes to receive the kiss she could already sense coming.

No. She would hold strong against temptation.

She flattened her hands to his shoulders to stop his kiss, if not the embrace. Their chests pumped for air against each other in time with the gushing waves below the dock.

“I have to go,” Starr gasped. “We’re having a surprise graduation party for Ashley.”

His arms stayed banded around her, his chin resting on top of her head. He stood a full foot taller than her, yet their bodies always seemed to fit. “No way can she be that old already.”

“A lot of time has passed since you and I were together.” Years that had filled his body with muscles and her heart with resolve of what she needed from life.

But oh, how she couldn’t push away from this man just yet. She’d resisted the kiss. She could indulge in at least this much.

“A year.”

She’d meant since their teenage time together, since they’d had a relationship. “Does that really count? That was just—” incredible, heart-searing “—sex.”

That she could narrow down the experience to one word was truly an injustice to a weekend that had left her seeing stars for days.

“And your point is?”

“We don’t have anything else in common.” Her heart pinched tight at the minor lie. They’d had plans in common, once upon a dream ago. Of course, now they’d plotted their lives and their paths diverged. Still, pushing him away again was tougher than she’d expected. Damn it, why did this have to ache all over again? “I can’t see past your eyes anymore but I’ll be honest and lay it all out there and say you hurt me. And quite frankly, between you and the gypsy circus act parked on my lawn, I’ve reached my hurt quota for one lifetime.”

If only he would step back and give her space, she could breathe. And yet that traitorous part of her craved his touch. All the more reason she needed to make this break fast.

“Well, babe, while I’m not sure I like being lumped in with a bunch of crooks, I get your point.” His hands fell to rest on her shoulders, a warm and too-tempting weight that spurred her to press harder.

She inhaled a bracing breath full of his tantalizing scent. “So while I understand that you have to settle your mother’s health issues, you will stay clear of me while you’re here.” She tipped her chin toward each of his hands still cupping her shoulders. “I don’t want us to repeat past mistakes.”

This was tough enough—having him touch her, here where they’d once made love under an eiderdown comforter he’d dragged down to the beach behind a dune, back when the place had been less populated.

He raised his hands and backed away. “No past mistakes.”

Starr wrapped her arms around her waist to ward off a chill that shouldn’t have stood a chance on such a warm spring night. As she watched him lumber away, she let herself take one final moment to enjoy the view before she shook herself back into reality, a reality that would not include him.

Except wait. A dangerous realization tickled up her spine.

He may have said no past mistakes, but Special Agent Word Craftsman had never once agreed to stay away from her.

He was ticked off.