The Borrowed Ring

“No.” Definitely not cold. Not now, anyway.

“We can speak freely—as long as we keep our voices low.” He was practically nuzzling her temple as he spoke, so there was little danger of anyone overhearing him, even from the next table. The table he had selected was partially screened by the drooping fronds of a large potted palm, and she doubted that his selection had been made by accident.

She suspected that Daniel's every action was calculated and deliberate. Including the nuzzling.

“You should try to smile at me occasionally. Pretend to be intensely interested in what I have to say.”

“Gaze adoringly into your eyes?” she suggested too sweetly.

He chuckled and brushed a kiss against her cheek. “That would certainly be helpful.”

It was only the thought of Bernard sitting nearby and watching them that kept B.J. from jerking away. She was afraid it would take more acting talent than she possessed to pretend that the touch of Daniel's lips against her skin was an everyday occurrence for her. “I'll, uh, see what I can do.”

“Relax, B.J. I'm not going to bite you. Yet.”

Now he was deliberately trying to rattle her. “You always did have an irritating streak in you.”

“You're still under the impression that I was the one who put the little snake in your bag?”

“I'm quite sure you were. I saw you busting a gut laughing when I screamed and threw that bag about twenty yards into the bushes.”

His smile was a bit nostalgic. “It was amusing.”

“Admit it. You did it.”

When he merely looked at her, she frowned, a longheld belief beginning to waver. “It wasn't you?”

He shook his head.

“Then who…?”

Lifting his champagne flute, he murmured into it, “Far be it from me to squeal—but you might have a chat with your cousin Jason when you return home.”

She narrowed her eyes, picturing her brilliant and unconventional cousin, Jason D'Alessandro. “Practical jokes aren't Jason's style. Now, if you had blamed my cousins Aaron and Andrew Walker, I might have believed you. The twins were always getting into mischief when they were kids. Heck, they're twenty-one now and they're still always up to something.”

“I never figured out how you could keep all that family straight. How many cousins do you have, anyway?”

“My father was an only child with a small extended family. But my mother has five living siblings. Between them, and a brother who died years ago, they have fifteen offspring. Two of my first cousins, Shane and Brynn, have children of their own now.”

“Shane's a father?” Because Shane was the son of the couple who had served as Daniel's foster parents, Daniel obviously remembered him well enough to be surprised.

“Yes. He and Kelly married only a couple of years after you left the ranch. They have two daughters—Annie, who's eight, and Lucy, who's four.”

“Do they all still live at the ranch?”

She nodded. “Shane added on to his house when Lucy was on the way, but other than that, not much has changed since you were there.”

“How are—” He broke off the question, took another sip of his champagne, then set his flute down. “Would you like to dance?”

Apparently he had decided to close that door to his past for now. Was it because he was concerned about being overheard—or was it that he simply didn't like to remember those days?

“I don't dance very well.”

“Not a problem. Besides, Bernard and his friend seem to be waiting for us to do something. We shouldn't disappoint them.”

She glanced involuntarily toward the table near the stage. Bernard was staring right at them now, making no attempt to pretend otherwise. He nodded when she looked his way and lifted his glass in a salute of sorts.

Though there was nothing at all threatening about his actions, she felt her stomach muscles clench anyway. “Actually I'm getting rather tired.”

“Then we'll go back to our suite—after our dance.” Daniel stood and held out his left hand to her, the gold band on his finger gleaming in the reflected light from the candle on their table.

In other words, he wasn't giving her a choice. Apparently he considered it important that Bernard see them dancing together. She laid her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

He had been right—as always—when he'd said that it wouldn't be a problem that she wasn't an experienced dancer. He held her so closely and moved so slowly that all she had to do was sway in place along with him. He didn't have to remind her that they were being watched, but he gave her little choice except to cling to him as if there was no one else in the entire resort.

She felt his lips press against her cheek, and it was purely instinct that made her tilt her head to grant him freer access. It was better, she decided, to simply act without thinking for now. Every time she started wondering what Daniel was up to or why she hadn't made more of an effort to get herself out of this situation, her head started to hurt.

She had a nagging suspicion that she should be more anxious, less willing to cooperate with Daniel's instructions. She was still trying to convince herself that he was on the right side of the law. An undercover cop. A private investigator, maybe. She told herself he had been trying too hard to convince her that he was no better than the men he was here to do business with, which must mean the truth was just the opposite, right?

Or was she still operating under the influence of a girlhood infatuation? Unable to believe the worst of the boy she had never forgotten? The man who could make her pulse race with nothing more than a slight smile? Not to mention the way she was reacting to being held so closely against his long, lean, muscular body.

She had never before allowed her hormones to overcome her common sense—and this was a hell of a time to start.

Her cheek rested against his shoulder now. As the song was winding down, he reached up to tilt her face toward him. Before she could say anything, his mouth was on hers. The kiss effectively ended the dance, since it rendered her completely unable to move her feet.

“Now,” he said when he lifted his head several long moments later, “we can go back to our suite.”

Blinking dazedly, she realized that other couples were leaving the dance floor. No one seemed to be paying much attention to them, but if anyone had been, they probably saw a couple eager to be alone to continue where the kiss had left off.

As Daniel led her away with one arm holding her snugly against him, she knew that was exactly the impression he had intended to give.

B.J. looked rather pale as they reentered the suite a few minutes later. Motioning for her to remain quiet while he swept for listening devices, Daniel regretted again that she had been put into this position. She was dead on her feet, and no wonder, considering all she had been through that day.

He probably shouldn't have pressured her to go out for drinks and dancing, but he believed it had been a useful outing. It had definitely reinforced his tale that his “wife” was completely absorbed with him, so enthralled by his skillful wooing that she had no interest in anything else that went on around her.

Reassured that no one had been in to bug their suite while they were gone, he turned back to B.J. “You're exhausted. You need some sleep.”

Nodding wearily, she took a few steps toward the bedroom, then froze when he moved to follow her. “Um…where are you going to sleep? On the sofa?”

Had it only now occurred to her that their charade of marriage included sharing a bedroom?

“It's a king-size bed,” he pointed out, waving a hand in that direction. “We can both sleep in it without even bumping into each other during the night.”

She looked from him to that big bed and back again. “I don't think so.”

Reaching up to squeeze the back of his neck, he spoke with deliberate impatience. “Trust me, Brittany, you are entirely safe with me tonight. We can't risk anyone suspecting that our 'marriage' is anything other than what I've said, so we'll share the bed, but only for sleeping. I plan to crash for a couple of hours and then I have some work to do on my computer before I meet with Drake tomorrow.”

B.J. flushed, and it wasn't hard to see that she had interpreted his tone to mean that he had no interest in taking advantage of sharing a bed with her. His use of the name she had answered to as a teenager had probably reinforced the impression that he saw her only as an inconvenient reminder of his past, still just a girl in whom he had no particular romantic interest.