“Don’t be ridiculous,” she chided, mustering all the cool disdain possible. “Spring is hay fever season. Something on the grounds has been making my eyes water all night.”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” He held his hands away from his body and stepped back, as if to give her an unimpeded view.
She wanted to laugh, her emotions boiling over after a day from hell. No, a year from hell. But no matter that he was being irreverent, her gaze raked over him from head to toe, lingering in the middle. Heat flared inside her as she responded the way any red-blooded woman might to an invitation to ogle a man who looked like him.
“Um. No.” Her grip tightened on her shawl, her arms hiding her body’s reaction to him. “You look full grown to me.”
The throaty hitch in her voice couldn’t have sounded more sexually aggressive if she tried. But damn it, she hadn’t tried. She just felt inexplicably attracted to him and that scared her.
“Your car’s ready, sir,” a young valet informed them from behind Kyle. She hadn’t heard Kyle request his car—the kid must have just recognized him and brought the automobile around.
The teen must have been there for a while as he’d already vacated the driver’s seat of the midnight-blue Audi coupe. Now he held the passenger side door open, as if he fully expected Marissa to get into the car with Kyle.
Her excuse hovered on her lips.
But the sexy hockey god shut it down by darting in with a precisely aimed kiss that sealed in the words.
It was more functional than anything, but that didn’t stop her heart from leaping into overdrive in her chest. Before she even had the chance to process what had happened, his lips were beside her ear, whispering softly into her hair.
“The night is young. We’ll go for a quick drive and I’ll have you back in an hour, safe and sound.”
She seriously doubted she’d be any more “sound” after spending time with a man who scrambled her thoughts and made her pulse race. But the night had done a number on her. The pressure had built to such a boiling point with her mom that she didn’t know where to go next to afford the medicine she needed. And in order to snag the man she’d promised Stacy, Marissa would have to beat out the competition.
“Come on,” he urged, his lower lip grazing her cheekbone in a caress that kicked off a hum of awareness deep inside her. “I think you’d agree we have some unfinished business between us.”
Easing back from him, she found his steady gaze on her and realized she couldn’t even look away, let alone walk away. She had no idea if the unfinished business he referred to had to do with her matchmaking proposition or the heat sizzling along her skin. Right now, she wasn’t sure she cared.
With an unsteady nod, she agreed to his terms and headed for his car.
IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE Normandy Farm Hotel, Stacy Goodwell tried to say good-night to the man stuck to her like glue.
“Thank you for offering to walk me to my car.” She stepped back from the overeager concert promoter she’d danced with earlier tonight and promptly caught her heel in a crack between the pavers. She stifled a wince. “But I’ll be fine from here.”
“Are you sure?” He reached to steady her and looked skeptical about her ability to navigate the parking area.
“Absolutely.” She danced away again and gave him a friendly wave. “Good night.”
Blake had seemed harmless enough at first. But she was a wretched judge of people. It had been proven many times in a colorful dating career that included a charming thief who’d stolen all her jewelry and an in-the-closet gay man who’d only wanted her as a smoke screen for his disapproving parents. True to form, Blake had gone from fun to pushy about twenty minutes ago and Stacy was stuck trying to send him on his way.
In some ways, she didn’t blame her father for wanting to help her find a great guy through a matchmaking service. She could honestly see his point. On the other hand, how could she look at herself in the mirror if she allowed her father to pick the men she dated? The idea was ludicrous. But telling that to her dad was even tougher than shaking her clutching escort.
Initially, she’d hoped that setting her sights on an impossible date request in the form of hockey star Kyle Murphy would buy her time until she figured out what to do next. Sort of a passive-aggressive rebellion. She hadn’t counted on her father being on board with the plan—micromanaging the process and bullying her into attending the fundraiser tonight. In hindsight, she realized the idea of her landing a socially acknowledged great catch had appealed to his competitive side, which was legendary. He’d made Kyle Murphy a personal mission.
What a mess.
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I left a lady alone out here?” Blake Someone-or-other caught up to her and gave her a knowing you’ll-be-mine-soon look that set her teeth on edge. The diamond studs in his eyebrow winked in the light of a streetlamp.
It was a flaw of her character that she couldn’t just tell guys like this to buzz off. For one thing, she expressed herself better in writing, where she had time to think and formulate her ideas. She loved her job with the local paper even though her dad considered it a waste of time. For another thing, she was a confirmed people-pleaser and preferred to coast along without making waves. She was the queen of disappearing after a trip to the ladies’ room.
But Blake Whoever was proving tough to shake. Where was Marissa Collins to run interference?
“Actually,” Stacy improvised, her feet killing her in the new stilettos that had pinched her heels even before she’d twisted her ankle. “My matchmaker insists I don’t start any relationships unless she’s involved. She already spoke to me tonight about agreeing to dance with you without—you know—following proper procedure.”
A flimsy excuse or a stroke of genius? She’d realized early on that Blake had only been hitting on her because of her wealthy father. Concert promoters liked to cozy up to the folks who owned big arenas, the same way her father hoped to woo business from the Murphy family if Stacy dated Kyle.
“You have a matchmaker?” He raised his diamond-studded brow.
“A strict one, unfortunately. My father insisted on it.” She extricated her arm from his hand and hated herself for playing the “dad” card. How would she assert her independence when she still relied on the family clout? “If you’d like, you can catch her in the lobby. Her name is Marissa.”
Putting her feet in high gear, she took advantage of her escort’s hesitation and hurried away as fast as her tyrannical shoes would allow. Weaving around a commercial truck, she never looked back, stopping only when she arrived at her base model American-made minivan. She’d bought the used silver Dodge Grand Caravan after her father berated her for wrecking the new Jaguar he’d bought for her twenty-first birthday. She’d only just gotten her license at twenty-one, after years of being chauffeured at his insistence. Who gave a new driver an expensive foreign car as a first vehicle? He’d been so mad about the wreck, he hadn’t dared yell more when she’d replaced the ride herself with money earned working for the local paper.
She dropped her keys twice and hurried to put the right one in the lock. Was it upside down? The fit seemed tight.
Come on.
Peering toward where she’d left Blake the Snake, she jammed the key in again and twisted hard.
“Are you trying to wreck my van on purpose?”
A male voice behind her startled her into a partial coronary and she jumped backward half a foot. A rumpled, grouchy-looking man wearing