All things said and done, Pendleton had enjoyed one or two better dinner dates in his life. Thinking back, he supposed it was foolish for him to be so surprised when Kit didn’t show up on time. Just because she slipped up a little when he asked her to wear her sarong, and just because she looked so warm and rosy that afternoon, and just because, dammit, he had started to actually like her for some reason—

He sighed and watched her face as he filled her glass with wine. Just because of all that, there was no reason for him to think she might treat him a little differently than she did anyone else. Nevertheless, he did think she would treat him differently. For all her coolness during the episode that just transpired, she still seemed strangely fragile somehow. And that made no sense at all.

It was just that he’d expected better of Kit. Yeah, she was a spoiled, pampered brat. He noticed that about her almost immediately. But all this time, he’d suspected her rich bitch act was just that—an act. An attitude she adopted as a weapon of self-defense, a wall she erected whenever someone threatened to tear her down—which, thinking back on his dinner at the McClellan home, probably happened to her pretty frequently.

Now, however, he was beginning to wonder if it was an act at all. Maybe she really was as bad as the other Hensley’s VPs made her out to be. Maybe she really was a man-eater. Maybe she really did intend to do him grave damage. Maybe, in addition to his sunscreen, he really should have packed a piece.

“Did you really break Novak’s arm?” The question erupted from his mouth before he could stop it.

When he looked at Kit, she was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Oh please. It was just a hairline fracture.”

“But did you do it?” he persisted, still unwilling to believe the worst of her.

She shook her head. “A cab driver in the Caymans did. When Novak tried to stuff me into the backseat of the cab. He thought Novak was attacking me.”

Something hot and heavy tightened in Pendleton’s midsection. “Was Novak attacking you?”

“Oh, God, no,” she was quick to assure him. “Novak is a pussycat. He was only trying to take me home I was just putting up a more, um, energetic fight than usual.”

“And Bahadoori’s ankle?” he asked.

She twirled her wineglass by the stem, watching the pale yellow liquid sheet up one side and down the other. “Um, he sort of fell down.”

“Sort of fell down?”

“Yeah. Well, actually, it was more like he fell off the side of a volcano.”

“A…volcano?”

This time she nodded. “See, there was this virgin sacrifice going on for Carnival—all mock, I assure you—and…well, it’s kind of a long story. But it wasn’t my fault,” she hastened to add.

Pendleton decided he didn’t want to know the details of that one. So he only asked, “And Ramirez’s wrist?”

“He fell, too. Over the side of El Morro.”

“El Morro?”

“It’s a popular tourist attraction in Puerto Rico. A big fort. Looks more like a castle. Ramirez went right over one of the battlements. It was only a drop of about twenty feet, though. Nothing major.”

Nothing major? “And on this fall, did he, oh… have any help?” Pendleton asked.

She gaped at him, clearly outraged at his suggestion. “Oh, please. Pendleton, what are you thinking? I would never help a man over the side of a battlement. I might chip a nail.”

Of course. “What about Carmichael’s hair?”

She smiled, the first genuine smile he’d seen from her all evening. “Oh, now that was a fun night. Carmichael and I actually hit it off really well, and after dinner—and oh, six or seven mai tais, I guess—I talked her into letting me give her a home perm. Unfortunately, it didn’t take. In fact, she wound up looking kind of like a giant Q-Tip.”

“Oh. And Washington’s, uh … derriere?” he concluded halfheartedly. “If it wasn’t you who bit him on the… If it wasn’t you who bit him, then who did?”

She blushed a bit, her gaze skittering away. “Well, actually…”

This time Pendleton was the one to gape. “You bit Washington on the ass?” he asked. “Are you serious?”

“It was an accident,” she said. “A terrible mix-up. It’s a long story, too, but the gist of it was that I didn’ realize it waWs ashington’s, um, tushie that I was biting.”

“Whose, um-tushie did you think it was?”

She stalled, tracing her thumb over a damask rose on the tablecloth. “I thought it was… Well, there was this, ah… Actually, with his back to me like that, and wearing that purple Speedo, I thought he was this perfectly nice scuba instructor named Julian, whom I was hoping to get to know better.”

Pendleton bit his lip to keep from asking anything more. If the way Kit got to know men better was to bite them on the ass, then he had no choice but to drag her back to the States and lock her up in Cherrywood as soon as was humanly possible. He owed it to the men of the global dating community.

“Miss McClellan,” he began again.

“Look, Pendleton,” she cut him off. “I know I owe you an apology—”

“Only one?” he interrupted.

She glanced up to acknowledge his interjection. “Okay, I owe you several. And I’d like to offer them in the form of an explanation.” When he opened his mouth to say something more, she rushed on, “But don’t start with all that ‘endearing’ stuff again, okay. It makes me nauseous. No offense.”

“Oh, none taken. It doesn’t bother me at all when a woman tells me I make her sick.”

“That’s not what I…” She sighed impatiently. “Never mind.”

He remained silent as she enjoyed deep swallow of her wine. Then, almost immediately, she downed a second of comparable size. Somehow, Pendleton thought she was doing it because she needed the false courage that alcohol brought on in some people. Either that, or she just really liked the wine a lot.

“Okay,” she finally said as she set her empty glass on the table. “Here’s the deal. I suspect that, unlike some of his other VPs, Daddy sent you to fetch me without filling you in on all the particulars.”

“Gee, what makes you think that?”

She smiled. “Because you’ve been way too tolerant, and not at all obsequious.”

“Ah. Then again, fetching you is in my job description.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll forgive me if I say that you don’t seem like the kind of guy who takes his job description all that seriously.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he should be offended by that. “Are you saying I’m not a good VP?”

“No, Pendleton, I’m saying you’re not a doormat.”

“Ah.”

“But the reason paragraph six, subheading A exists on page four of your job description is because it’s essential for Daddy’s executives to be the ones who come after me. It’s the main reason he’s hired them, after all.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” Pendleton said, studying her with interest. “Why can’t he send one of your brothers after you?”

She smiled again, but this time the expression wasn’t exactly happy. “Because I can’t marry one of my brothers. It’s against the law. Even in Kentucky.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s true,” she said. “Not many people believe it, but it really is illegal to marry your own brother or sister inKentucky. It has been for, oh, gosh…years now, I guess.”

He made a face at her. “I meant why would your father find it necessary to hire men to marry you?”

“So he can collect my mother’s fortune.”

“Excuse me?” Pendleton was hopelessly lost. What was it about the McClellans that turned his brain into pudding?

Instead of answering his question, Kit posed one of her own. Not some idle, oh-by-the-way question, either. No, when she opened her mouth again, the oddest thing came out. “Pendleton? Have you ever been in love?”

As questions went, it wasn’t one he heard often. Nevertheless, he replied honestly, “Yes. Once.”

Her eyes widened in what was obvious surprise at his revelation. “Really?”

He nodded.

“Wow.” She gazed at him with what he could only liken to awe, then asked further, “Was she in love with you?”

That one was difficult to answer with the truth, simply because he didn’t know the truth. So he replied, “She told me she loved me. Many times, in fact.”

Kit continued to gaze at him as if he were some mythic creature that had just risen from the surf amid fanfare and fire. Then, as he knew she would, she asked the one question he really, really hated to answer.

“What happened to her?”

As always, he answered anyway. “She left me.”

That didn’t seem to surprise Kit at all, because she only nodded as if she completely understood.

He had no idea why he would want to prolong such a discussion, but somehow, he heard himself ask in return, “How about you? Have you ever been in love?”

Evidently, she didn’t have to think about her response, because, immediately, she shook her head. Then she reached for her empty wineglass and held it out to Pendleton in a silent request for a refill. So he plucked the bottle out of the ice bucket and obeyed her command.

As he was pouring, she qualified, “But I was engaged once, if that counts for anything.”

Oh, it counted, he thought as the wine poured over the rim of her glass and cascaded onto the tablecloth. He jerked the bottle back and met her gaze levelly, but had no idea what to say. All he could manage by way of a response was an echo of her earlier sentiment. “Really?”

She wiped her hand on her napkin, then sipped carefully from her over-filled glass. “Really.”

“But you didn’t get married?”

Still not looking at him, she replied, “Nope.”

He knew it was none of his business, and probably a bad idea to boot, but he asked, “Did you get cold feet at the last minute?”

She turned her head to stare out the window, and inevitably, he repeated the gesture. The black ocean beyond stretched to infinity, linking with the black sky at some point on the horizon. But since both were spattered with starlight, it was impossible for him to see exactly where that line between air and water lay. In the nighttime, both mingled and joined, becoming one. Only at daybreak would they part again.

“Nope,” she said again, her voice insubstantial, as if coming from a great distance. “I didn’t get cold feet. He did.”

Pendleton felt a twist of regret turn inside him, and he wished he hadn’t asked her to elaborate. He was about to say something about how the two of them had actually managed to find something in common, when she opened her mouth and, to his even greater regret, she elaborated some more.

“Actually, he didn’t get cold feet,” she said softly. “What he got was cold cash.”

Thinking he’d misunderstood, Pendleton asked, “Say what?”

“Actually, that’s not quite right, either,” she said, finally turning to look at him again. “What Michael got was a check. From my father. Daddy gave him one for a quarter-million dollars at the rehearsal dinner as kind of a ditch-the-wedding present. But Michael cashed it the next day, so I guess that makes it close enough to cold cash, don’t you think? It certainly made for cold feet. Michael couldn’t get out of the restaurant fast enough.”

“Your father paid your fiancé a quarter of a million dollars to leave you?” he asked. “The night before your wedding?”

Kit dropped her gaze to her wine again. “Yeah. Pretty tacky, huh?”

“And your fiancé actually took it?”

The chuckle that emerged from her mouth was obviously forced and false. “Gee, Pendleton. You almost sound surprised.”

“Well of course I’m surprised. That’s outrageous.”

“Yeah, I guess a guy like you would have held out for a cool million. But Michael came from humble beginnings and all that. He’d never seen that many numbers in front of a decimal point in his life.”

“That’s not what I—”

“In fact,” she interrupted him again, “Michael was so eager to take the money, that Daddy figured later he probably could have gotten off with a hundred gees instead of two hundred and fifty. But, hey, that’s my dad. Always overdoing things.”

When she finally seemed to be through talking, Pendleton tried to jump into the conversation again. “What I meant was, it was outrageous for your fiancé to take any amount of money in exchange for abandoning you.”

She glanced up again, her eyes dark and troubled and sad. “Why was that so outrageous? Any other guy would have done the same thing.”

Pendleton refused to dignify the latter part of her objection with a comment. Instead, he said, “It was outrageous, because in the long run, he could have had the money and you.”

For a long moment, she only observed him through narrowed eyes, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to think of him. Then, slowly, she began to smile. It wasn’t a big smile. But it wasn’t bad. “Why, Pendleton,” she said. “I’m not sure, but I think you just paid me a compliment.”

He was as surprised by the realization as she seemed to be, but said nothing to retract his statement. “At any rate,” Kit hurried on, her gaze skittering away again, “my father’s now paying about ninety-nine-point-four million more for that bribe than he thought he would.”

“Excuse me?”

The question seemed to be Pendleton’s response to everything that night, but honestly, he couldn’t help but excuse himself. He’d never been more bewitched, more bothered, more bewildered in his entire life. Unfortunately, when Kit spoke again, he realized that he was nowhere near as befuddled as he was going to be.

“Unless I’m married in two months,” she told him, “my family will lose everything.”

“Excuse me?”

Kit chuckled at Pendleton’s echo of bewilderment. Dearie dear. What to tell the poor boy that wouldn’t overwhelm him. Maybe she should do something different for a change and tell him all about it. Obviously, no one else had. She twisted her wineglass by the stem and decided, What the hey? If nothing else, maybe it would make her feel better to finally talk about it.

“As you know,” she began, “my family is very wealthy.”

“I did rather notice that the night I was at your house.”

She nodded. “What you may not know, however, is that the McClellan wealth comes entirely from my mother’s side of the family.”

“No, I assumed your father—”

“Daddy started off as a laborer for Hensley’s, working in the bottling plant for union wages. He and my mother met at some big function Granddaddy threw for the workers one summer. Mama was immediately smitten. And Daddy knew a good opportunity when he saw it. They got married six months later. Mama was pregnant with Holt at the time.”

“Whoa.”

Kit smiled at Pendleton’s slip into the vernacular, then continued. “For what it’s worth, Daddy was a relatively decent husband to her. To the best of my knowledge, he was never unfaithful, and he always came straight home from work. But he never loved her.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” she said quickly before hurrying on. “And so did Mama. And I guess Granddaddy did, too, because he made my father sign a pre-nup, back in 1969, when such things were unheard of.”

“No way.”

Kit smiled again at his second lapse. “Way, Pendleton. Granddaddy wasn’t about to condone the marriage, bastard child or no, unless Daddy agreed to enjoy the Hensley lifestyle without getting his grubby hands on the Hensley money. Daddy lived at Cherrywood, drove the cars, wore the clothes, walked the walk, talked the talk. But he never owned any of it. Mama did. He was groomed to take over the company, but the company—and everything else—always belonged to my mother.”

“Get out.”

This time, Kit chuckled out loud at Pendleton’s exclamation. For some reason, telling the story tonight didn’t make her feel quite so empty inside as it usually did. “It’s true,” she assured him. “It wasn’t the outcome Daddy expected when he deliberately knocked up the boss’s daughter. But, in the long run, he realized he could do a lot worse. So he agreed to play by Granddaddy’s rules.”

“He married your mother for her money, even though it would never be his.”

“Not while Granddaddy and my mother were alive. Granddaddy made sure of that.”

The wheels of thought seemed to be turning in Pendleton’s brain, so Kit waited before continuing so he could catch up.

“But since your mother passed away,” he finally said, “your father must have ultimately come into her fortune, right?”

She shook her head. “Mama changed her will a while back without telling any of us. We didn’t find out the details until after she died.”

“Why would she change it?”

Kit would have thought by now that voicing the next part wouldn’t be quite so painful these days as it used to be. Funny, though, how the prospect of revealing it to Pendleton now hurt even more than usual. “Because Mama knew it was the only way I would ever snag a husband.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m still not following you.”

A band kicked up in another room then, a lively, lovely number rich with horns and piano that roused her from what was fast becoming a sullen mood. Seeking to put an end to their conversation as quickly as possible, Kit concluded her story in a rush of words.

“In order for my father to get his hands on the Hensley millions, he has to make sure I’m married within two months. That’s what it says in my mother’s will. At this point, Daddy figures any available guy has son-in-law potential, and you’re unfortunate enough to be his latest acquisition. For that, as much as anything else, I apologize. But don’t worry. You’re not my type, so there’s no reason why we can’t just be friends. Now, with all that said, dance with me.”

He gazed at her, nonplussed. “Excuse me?”

“Dance with me, Pendleton. The band is playing a marimba. It’s my favorite. Don’t they marimba in New Jersey?”

He laughed low. “Not in the neighborhood where I grew up. Do they do a lot of marimba-ing in Louisville?”

She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “They do at Arthur Murray. Come on. Dance with me.”

She laughed, too, as she stood, the ripple of sound bubbling up unbidden, effervescing in her chest with an explosion of warmth. It was a nice feeling, she thought. One she hadn’t experienced for some time. Funny, it coming out of nowhere like that.

When Pendleton made no move to accompany her, she extended her hand across the table. “Please?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss McClellan, but my job description is quite specific. And nowhere on page four, paragraph six, subheading A does it say that I am required to marimba with the boss’s daughter.”

She settled her hands on her hips and smiled the most winning smile she could rouse. “I’ll give you a dollar.”

He twirled his wineglass by the stem and avoided her gaze. “I think I’ve had enough excitement for one evening. I think that, as soon as we finish with our dinner, I should take you home.”

“One dance, Pendleton. That’s all I ask. Pretty please?”

He glanced up with a look of put-upon patience. “Oh, all right. But don’t forget—you owe me a dollar.”

He stood and buttoned his suit jacket, then closed his hand over hers. And when he did, that explosion of warmth in Kit’s chest suddenly fireballed, shooting heat throughout her entire system. His dark eyes glittered with something she didn’t dare ponder, and his mouth was set in a smile she found irresistible. She wove her fingers with his and tugged gently, then guided him in the direction of the festive music.

By the time they reached the room where the band was playing—which actually wasn’t a room at all, but an open-air patio—the marimba had segued into something softer and slower and more suited to the sultry night. When she felt Pendleton hesitating behind her, she spun around to look at him.

“Marimba’s over,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “Guess you don’t owe me that dollar after all.”

Instead of answering, Kit tugged playfully on his arm, pulling him forward until his body brushed up and down hers. “Not so fast,” she said. “You promised you’d dance with me. Marimba, mambo, rumba, samba…it’s all the same to me.”

“It’s all the same to me, too,” he told her. “I don’t know what any of those are.”

“Then I’ll teach you.”

Pendleton gazed down at Kit and tried to pinpoint the exact moment when the balance of power shifted. Until just a few seconds ago—right around the same time her body came moseying on up to his—he was thinking he had things under control. Now, suddenly, he found himself looping his arms loosely around Kit McClellan’s waist—and quite a nice waist it was, too—as she danced him backward onto the dance floor.

Dammit, she would want to lead.

Then again, seeing as he suddenly had no idea what he was doing, maybe he should just surrender to her. The thought of surrendering to Kit took on a way too erotic connotation then, so he set the thought aside and tried to concentrate on something else. Unfortunately, his concentration seemed to be intent on erotic thoughts this evening, and they kept zeroing in on things they had no business targeting. Like how warm and silky was the bare flesh above Kit’s skirt that his fingertips encountered when he settled his hands on her hips. Like how good she smelled all up close this way, sweet and decadent and tempting. Like how fluid and natural her movements were when she propelled her body forward into his again. Like how unspeakably lovely her eyes were when she glanced up to see how he was doing.

Like how he wondered what she would do if he kissed her.

“Getting the hang of things, Pendleton?” she asked as she executed a stunning pirouette that offered him quite a nice view of her bare back.

“Oh, yeah,” he replied, the words coming out a bit rougher than he intended. “I’m getting the hang of things really well.”

“It’s all in the hips,” she told him.

“It certainly is.”

“And the legs.”

“I noticed that, too.”

She laughed with genuine delight, oblivious to the fact that the two of them were talking about entirely different things. “I knew you’d be a good dancer,” she said, spinning closer still.

“How did you know that?”

She smiled. “You got good moves.”

“Why, Miss McClellan, I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“I notice more than you think, Pendleton.”

“I don’t doubt that for a moment. Something tells me you miss very little.”

“And something tells me you don’t miss a thing.”

The music changed again, and he found he couldn’t comment to her statement, because he was too busy trying to figure out where the hell she was going. The pace quickened riotously, the piano player’s fingers tripping up and down the keys, stopping and starting without warning. Kit kept up effortlessly, reeling and darting around Pendleton with the grace of a summer breeze, chuckling good-naturedly at his obvious and total confusion. Before he realized his own intentions, he snaked an arm out to halt her, pulling her to him until her body was flush against his.

Then the strangest thing happened. Although the music kept playing, faster and faster, and the dancers surrounding them still pranced and staggered merrily about, the world enclosing them gradually slowed down to a halt. So Pendleton slowed down with it, spinning Kit in a gradually more languid circle, pulling her closer with every turn, until the two of them stood utterly still at the center of the dance floor.

And then, although he never planned to do it, he kissed her.

As he dipped his head forward, Kit tipped hers back, and oh, so slowly, he covered her mouth with his. Her lips opened easily beneath his, and the taste of her filled him, nourished him, intoxicated him. But it didn’t quite satisfy him. Instead, the kiss only inflamed his appetite, making him hunger for more of her than he could ever hope to have. Despite that, he deepened the kiss, cupping her face in his hands, tilting her head back further, plundering her mouth at will. Kit acquiesced through all of it, curling one hand around his nape, knifing the fingers of her other through his hair with much affection. She returned his kisses with equal fervor, equal finesse, equal fire. For the life of him, he simply could not let her go.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there so entwined—perhaps seconds, perhaps centuries—but when the music changed again, slowing down this time, the enchanted moment was lost. He pulled his head back from hers and opened his eyes, only to find her gazing steadily back at him. But she never said a word about what happened. Instead, she dropped her hands to his shoulders, retreated one step, and began to move her body in time to the beat once again.

“Now this is a merengue, Pendleton,” she said, the unsteadiness of her voice belying her composure. “It’s a bit trickier. You might have trouble keeping up, so I’ll go slow. Maybe you should go slow, too, okay?”

Slow. Right. He’d forgotten.

“On second thought,” she said, interrupting both his thoughts and their dancing, “maybe you’re right. Maybe it would be better if you just took me home. I’m really not all that hungry. And I’m staying here at the hotel, so it’s not far to go.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in, because he was too focused on the flush of pink that stained the creamy flesh above her breasts. When he finally realized what she said, he told her, “No, Kit, when I said that earlier, I meant I should take you home home. Back to Louisville.”

He didn’t realize he’d called her by her first name until her blue eyes turned to midnight, and her lips parted in surprise. But she didn’t protest the familiarity. The wind kicked up again and nudged a single, stray curl down over her forehead. Kit reached up to push it back into place at exactly the same time he did, and as a result, he found himself curling his fingers over hers. For one long moment, neither of them moved. Then she dropped her hand back down to her side, and he deftly tucked the strand of hair back into place.

“That, um, that sounds like a good idea,” she said softly. “Maybe you should take me home-home. I’ll just get my purse, and you can settle up with our server while I give my notice to the bar manager.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” he asked, not certain whether he was talking about her job or something else entirely.

She shook her head. “Nah. Bartenders are a dime a dozen down here.” She turned to go, tossing over her shoulder, “Then again, so are marimbas. I’ll meet you at the maitre d’ stand, okay? And then you can take me home. To Louisville.”

Pendleton watched in silence as she retreated, his mind a flurry of impressions that refused to connect. All he could do was wonder why, suddenly, the last thing he wanted to do was take Kit back to the McClellan home in Glenview. Because in spite of his earlier convictions to the contrary, Cherrywood seemed like the last place for her to be. Somehow, she deserved something more than a multimillion dollar estate with a name.

Though what, exactly, she did deserve, Pendleton couldn’t yet quite say.