Silk, Lace & Videotape

The newcomer was probably no one—just another artsy type who called this trendy area of the Lower West Side home.

Except that the endless feminine leg emerging from the cab didn’t look like it belonged to no one.

No. This trim calf and knee was sheathed in a light veil of pink, as if some clever spider had woven a cotton candy web around that expanse of perfect flesh. Capping off the pink stocking and mouthwatering leg was a hot pink shoe that looked more suited to the bedroom than the puddle-covered pavement of West Twenty-eighth Street.

He recognized that shoe. The Barbie doll he’d bought for his niece two years ago had been wearing heels just like it. This was the first time Duke had seen such impractical footwear on a walking, talking—

Woman.

Duke swallowed hard as the second leg swung down to the concrete. A sweat broke out when a trench coat and hourglass figure slid from the cab. Light brown hair and an all-too-familiar movie-star pout made his jaw drop.

Amanda Matthews had arrived.

Duke reminded himself to breathe. To think. He had a job to do, damn it.

Unfortunately, all he could think of was how odd it seemed for Victor Gallagher’s sexy girlfriend to be entering his apartment building at 9:00 a.m. rather than leaving it.

Did that thought rank as a distraction from his case, or was he thinking about it by thinking about her?

Damn.

It looked like Amanda Matthews didn’t have any intention of being banished to the filing cabinet any time soon.

AMANDA HAD NEVER fully appreciated the silk lining of her trench coat until she slithered her way out of a taxi in the garment with nothing on underneath it.

Well, almost nothing.

The metal hooks on her garters scraped lightly against her thighs as she hopped a puddle on West Twenty-eighth Street. The tantalizing abrasion reminded her she did indeed wear something beneath the oversize camel-colored coat. But she hardly counted the pink lace merry widow and matching panties as clothes. She was prepared to bare scandalous amounts of skin for her boyfriend today if it would help shed her good-girl image. She deserved a little adventure in her life, didn’t she? Before Victor could say, “let’s wait until the wedding night,” she would make her too-honorable beau look at her with something more than warm affection in his eyes.

Of course, Amanda had no intention of dropping her coat and praying for the best. Oh no. She’d planned today’s seduction scene with the same care and precision she’d used to take her career from window dresser to fledgling designer. She wouldn’t ditch the coat until she’d given her noble boyfriend a chance to view her secret weapon.

The video.

Arriving at Victor’s building, Amanda patted her pocket to reassure herself the tape still rested there.

This ranked as the smartest or the dumbest thing she’d ever done.

Either way, after today she would know if she and Victor had any hope of a future together. She wasn’t willing to take it on faith that physical chemistry would magically appear on her wedding night.

She reached for the door, noticing too late that her “Passion Flower Pink” nail polish didn’t match her fuchsia ensemble as perfectly as she’d hoped. Damn. Victor was as fashion-happy as her father. What if the only thing he noticed about the scintillating striptease she’d taped for him was that her manicure clashed with her spandex and lace?

“Don’t go there,” she chided herself, refusing to allow old self-doubts to creep in now. She hadn’t propelled her designs onto the runways of New York and Milan by questioning her judgment.

Before she managed to lever the heavy door open, a broad masculine hand appeared in her line of vision to do the job for her.

“Allow me,” a silky baritone voice rumbled from behind, making her jump.

She turned to thank one of New York’s nearly extinct courteous gentlemen and found herself blinking up at Sinatra blue eyes, a granite jaw complete with cleft chin, and cropped blond hair spiking in careless disarray. The stranger flashed her a gorgeous lopsided grin that packed nearly as much firepower as his multi-colored necktie emblazoned with fluorescent stars. A definite original. This man made Amanda’s father’s male showroom models look as bland as carbon copy Ken dolls.

Amanda forgot what she’d been about to say. The only thought in her brain was that this guy had more charisma in his pinky than those male models had in their overstuffed portfolios.

He also had a very broad chest beneath that loud necktie.

The man leaned fractionally closer, making her all too aware of the scant whisper of lace beneath her coat. His blue gaze scorched right through to her skin.

He winked. “Never a doorman around when you need one, is there?”

His words jarred her, reminding her she wasn’t just daydreaming again. She was actually face-to-face with a fantasy-worthy man and she could only ogle him like an overwrought adolescent. Not that she’d spent any teenage years wearing peekaboo lace panties.

“Thank you,” she managed, vaguely annoyed a handsome man could distract her from her important purpose today.

She wanted cultured, refined Victor Gallagher in her life, didn’t she? She didn’t need a fleeting attraction to a flashy stranger with a sinful smile.

And much too knowing eyes.

She stepped inside Victor’s building and a gust of wind caught the hem of her coat. The cold breeze swirled up her trench coat and around her thighs to tickle her in shocking places. She hoped the breeze caused the ensuing tingling rush and not thoughts of the man beside her.

Amanda clutched the heavy material more tightly to her, tormented by visions of her garters bared to the world—especially the guy standing at six o’clock.

She sensed his presence trailing slowly behind her as she rushed toward the elevator. One of the elevator doors was closing, but maybe if she hurried…

“Hold the elevator,” she called. Picking up her pace, she was so intent on escaping the sexy man behind her, she forgot about her made-for-the-bedroom shoes and nearly twisted her ankle.

New visions arrived—even more horrible. If she took a tumble in the lobby, the man behind her would see a lot more than garters.

Stray strands of her hair were springing loose from the chic French chignon she’d struggled half an hour to create. How could a total stranger fluster her this much?

Taking long, calming breaths, Amanda waited for the next elevator and assured herself once she initiated an intimate relationship with Victor, she wouldn’t feel a stray temptation like this again. She was probably just starved for male attention, considering her years of unwanted celibacy.

That had to be it.

She sure hoped so anyway because the push-up underwires her getup required were rubbing her breasts raw. Certainly that accounted for the tightening sensation in her nipples and not the slow footsteps of Blue Eyes as he approached.

She had never tried to attract much attention as a teenager because she’d been fifteen pounds overweight and relentlessly focused on succeeding in her father’s glamorous world. Then later, she’d been overlooked because she was famous designer Clyde Matthews’s daughter and no one wanted to risk a back seat tangle with the daughter of a man reputed to be tied to the mob.

All of which had driven her to set the fashion world on fire with her own designs—but it had also left her nearly as inexperienced as a virgin at the age of twenty-five. Her one sexual encounter with her college boyfriend in his car had resulted in the man’s hasty departure to enroll in a liberal arts program somewhere in Utah. No doubt, her powerful father had influenced that decision. But Clyde Matthews hadn’t objected to her relationship with his best fabric supplier, Victor Gallagher.

Maybe once she got closer to Victor, she would consider his repeated offers of marriage. All Amanda had to do was take their relationship to the next level to be sure they were really…compatible.

And try to ignore studly strangers she bumped into on the street.

Amanda stood amid the potted palm trees in the lobby, willing away a fierce attack of nerves as his footsteps grew louder, closer. Her feminine radar blinked wildly as he reached her side again. Her skin turned to gooseflesh beneath her coat. The silk lining of the trench coat teased her mercilessly.

It had to be the lingerie and spike heels making her feel this way, heightening her awareness on the most basic level. She just wasn’t that type of girl. She’d gone to Catholic school, after all. She rarely went out with the party crowds of her father’s fashion world. So far she’d managed to avoid the hubbub of life in the tabloids, preferring to spend her free time close to home.

And this was the only time in her life she hadn’t worn clothing beneath her outerwear.

“Going up?” the spiky-haired stranger asked as an elevator door slid open in front of them.