Blame It on the Blackout

He slid the wire-rim glasses from his nose to get a better look, but she still looked stunningly beautiful. Her hair fell about her face in an ebony curtain and the red satin of her gown, overlaid with black velvet in an intricate flowered pattern, brought out the rosy tint of her alabaster skin.

And that was just from the neck up. From the neck down, she made his eyes sting, his mouth go dry and his nerve endings sizzle.

He’d always known Lucy had a fabulous body. All the straight skirts and tailored jackets in the world couldn’t hide that. But this dress, with its spaghetti straps and scallop-edged bodice, high-slit skirt and the three to four inch heels that made her legs go on for eternity, brought out every nuance of her drop-dead figure.

His gaze drifted over the generous swell of her breasts, the slim line of her waist, the gentle curve of her hips, and up again. Her ice-blue eyes met his and for the first time in his life, he found himself at a loss for words. Speechless, when he’d thought that was something only movie stars suffered because a script called for it.

After several long seconds of complete, utter silence, Lucy interrupted his total lack of thought and started blood flowing back to his brain.

“What?” she asked, glancing down at herself as though something was wrong with the awe-inspiring concoction she was wearing. “Don’t you like it? Should I take it back?”

“No!” he yelped, too fast and too loud. Taking a breath, he tempered his tone and added, “It’s perfect. I was just…” Admiring the view…thinking sinful thoughts…looking for a way to get you out of it… “Thinking of all the heads you’re going to turn tomorrow night. We may have to beat men off with a stick.”

Her cheeks colored prettily and she lowered her eyes for a moment. “Thank you.”

“You won’t have any trouble stirring up interest for Reyware in that outfit.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. What was he thinking, effectively equating her attending the charity soiree in that dress to prostitution? Hey, Luce, how about fixing yourself up and coming to dinner with me so you can give new meaning to “pressing the flesh” and drum up a little financial support for my personal corporation?

Lord, he felt like a pimp.

And he knew his comment hurt her because she lowered her head and traced invisible designs on the carpet with the toe of her shoe.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he cursed silently. “That didn’t come out right,” he tried to apologize.

She raised her eyes to his, dark and shadowed, and offered a weak smile. “I know what you meant.”

No, she didn’t, but he couldn’t think of a way to further explain himself without making matters worse.

“I’d better go change back,” she said, letting her gaze slide away from him again. “Before I get stained or torn or wrinkled.”

He could think of a couple of things he wouldn’t mind doing to tear or wrinkle her gown. And he’d happily pay for another when they were finished.

As quickly as that image entered his mind, he shut it down. Lucy turned, heading back to his bedroom, and there was enough testosterone swimming around in his veins at the moment to watch her walk away and enjoy every elegant, long-legged stride.

But that was as far as it could go—watching. Lucy wasn’t one of the women who snuggled up to him at parties and made it clear they were hoping to spend the night in his bed.

As much as he might wish differently, he couldn’t use her to scratch this itch that was suddenly driving him crazy. She was his assistant, and he hoped a friend. Those were two things he wasn’t willing to risk.

Worse than that, though, Lucy wasn’t a woman he could walk away from in the morning. She would always be here, working for him, helping him to market his software designs and computer know-how, and filling the holes in his own personality with her award-winning people skills.

Dropping into his desk chair, he sent it spinning and watched the blue of the walls swirl around him. What a mess. He should have hired a man to answer the phone and open his mail. He sure as hell wouldn’t be having this problem then.

But Lucy was the best, and he honestly wouldn’t want to work with anyone else, no matter how hard it was to ignore her presence.

If he started something with Lucy, there would be no one-night stand, no casual roll in the hay that could be forgotten and ignored ten minutes later. She wasn’t that kind of girl.

And if she wasn’t that kind of girl, then she was the other. The forever kind, with visions of marriage and children and picket fences dancing in her brain.

That kind scared Peter to death. He’d decided long ago never to let a personal, romantic relationship cloud his acumen for business.

His father had tried to have both and failed miserably. Oh, his company was a smashing success, but his marriage might as well have been a house afire. He’d spent all his time at the office, put all of his energy into deals and negotiations…while Peter and his mother were the ones to suffer.

Peter had seen the anguish in his mother’s eyes. The slump of her shoulders, the air of dejection she carried when her husband disappointed her yet again with late nights or canceled plans.

And Peter would be damned if he’d burden another woman with that type of lifestyle, the way his father had burdened his mother. Especially a woman he cared for.

Marriage, family, happily ever after…they weren’t for him. His entire focus was on building his business and designing software to rival the competition. Which meant he had little or no time to devote to a relationship.

Even if he did…even if Reyware and Games of PRey were well-established enough to relax a bit, to go out and enjoy a healthy social life…he still wouldn’t.

For Peter, it was all or nothing. He could concentrate all of his efforts on business, or he could concentrate all of his efforts on finding a wife and starting a family. He couldn’t do both. And for now—probably for the next ten or twenty years—he chose to concentrate on his work.

It was a damn shame, though. Spending a few hours in the sack with Lucy might just have been worth losing time on a project or two.

The night of the charity event, Peter arranged for a limousine to pick Lucy up at seven o’clock. That gave her two and a half hours to get home from work, shower, change clothes, fix her hair and do her makeup.

It probably shouldn’t have taken her half that long, but she wasn’t used to attending high-priced dinners and fancy fund-raisers. And the thought of going with Peter, perhaps being mistaken for his latest bit of arm candy, had her stomach in knots.

Her apartment, only a few blocks from Peter’s town house in downtown Georgetown, was small, but served its purposes. She’d bought several paintings from a local art gallery and framed some pictures of her family and friends to decorate the otherwise sparse white walls. Small area rugs added color to the brown pile carpeting, and the African safari images on her full-size bedspread made her room feel—in her opinion, anyway—wild and exotic.

And, of course, there was Cocoa, her beautiful, long-haired calico cat, who always rushed to the door to greet her, but ran from anyone else.

“Hello, baby,” she cooed, heedless of the hairs covering her skirt and jacket as she swept the cat into her arms. Cocoa began to purr and nudge Lucy’s chin with the top of her head.

“All right, all right. You’re hungry, I know.”

As was their habit, she set the feline on the kitchen table while she opened a can of Deluxe Dinner and chopped it up into bite-size pieces on a platter with pastel pawprints and Cocoa’s name painted in flowing script.

“Enjoy your liver and chicken,” she said with a kiss to the top of the cat’s head. “I have a big party tonight and need to get ready.”

Every item she intended to wear to the benefit lay strewn across her bed, for fear she might forget something. After a quick shower, she rubbed moisturizer into her steam-warmed skin and dabbed her pulse points with her favorite perfume. Then she blew her hair dry and began the painstaking process of getting dressed.

She started with the matching bra and panty set she’d bought to go with the red satin and black velvet gown before sliding on the black silk thigh-highs the saleslady had talked her into. Thigh-highs or stockings and a garter belt, the woman had assured her, were much sexier than panty hose.

Personally, Lucy questioned the need for sexy lingerie for a nondate with her boss. She could walk out to the limo naked and doubted he would spare her more than a glance before once again burying his nose in his laptop.

With the expensive gown molding to every curve of her body, she swept her hair up and fixed it into a loose French twist at the back of her head. Makeup and jewelry came next, and she pretended not to notice the slight tremor in her fingers as she applied mascara and lipstick.

This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, attending a charity event to raise money for domestic violence victims and hopefully stir up interest in Peter’s company. Not a geeky teenager attending the home-coming dance with the captain of the football team.

Steeling her spine with renewed determination, she slipped into high heels, grabbed the tiny sequined clutch with little more than a compact and lipstick inside and headed for the front door.

A glance at the microwave clock showed she was five minutes early, but if she headed downstairs now, she could meet the limousine when it arrived instead of making the driver buzz up for her.

She gave Cocoa one last stroke as the cat continued to lick her plate clean. “Be a good girl. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

To her surprise, the limo pulled up just as she reached the double glass doors of her building. Draping a fringed black shawl around her shoulders, she went out to meet the car.