“Malcolm?” she said, her voice breathy, and instead of explaining, he found himself mute, reaching out to feel the silky-soft skin of her cheek. His palm cupped the side of her jaw, his fingers feathering over her cheekbone, and he was lost.
Her eyes widened in surprise and she took a small step back, out of his touch, but her gaze didn’t falter. He waited a beat, waited in agony, waited until she swayed back toward him, and then he reached for her again. Her lips parted as she tilted her head into his palm. The world around them faded, and he took an infinitesimal step closer, being drawn by the magnetic force that had been there since he’d first laid eyes on her three months ago.
He was supposed to say something, tell her something, but there were no words in his mind, only Harper and the way her eyes had darkened as she looked at him. Breathing ragged, he lowered his head and speared his fingers through her long, glossy hair. This was wrong, so wrong, yet the rightness of it overwhelmed him, crushing all other thoughts.
She lifted herself on tiptoes and met him halfway, her mouth finding his, her lips soft, welcoming, wanting, her arms wrapping around his shoulders and gripping tight. With a groan of surrender, he slid his tongue along hers and hauled her flush against him.
This.
This was what had driven him crazy the night they’d met. This was what had kept her in his waking dreams since. This was what was making him dizzy now.
Of course, a little voice at the back of his mind whispered, this was also what had led him into trouble in the first place.
He had to stop kissing her. To find the strength to pull away and explain everything. Oh, but her mouth and what it was doing to his was divine...
Reluctantly, he eased back a little, then brushed his lips over hers one last time before straightening. She dropped her hands—all contact was broken—and he blinked hard to make his mind work. She gazed up at him, her eyes unfocused and her lips rosy from their kiss, and previous thought deserted him. In that moment, all that mattered was that Harper Lake knew she’d kissed him. Knew she’d made love with him. Nick Tate.
So, with his voice as rough as gravel, all he heard himself say was, “I’m not Malcolm.”
* * *
Harper gripped the edge of the door for balance but didn’t take her eyes from him as she said, “I know.”
If there was one thing for sure in the world, it was that the man in front of her was not the man she’d spoken to less than an hour ago. He might look like her boss, but there was an intensity in every part of him—from his gaze to the way he held himself—that easygoing Malcolm had never had.
And now that she was paying more attention, his hair was shorter, and there was a tiny scar in one eyebrow. But how was that possible? Then she remembered a little-discussed feature of Tate Armor Limited—it was jointly owned by Malcolm and his brother, Nick. A brother none of the staff had met and many of whom wouldn’t know existed.
“Twins,” she whispered, and he nodded.
All the pieces finally fit into place—her world made sense again. She’d been confused about why she’d never been drawn to her boss before the night of the masked ball, and why he hadn’t stirred a reaction in her since. But she’d made love with Nick that night. Things between them had happened so fast that even though she’d thought she’d sensed something different about him, she hadn’t had time to stop and question it. He’d kissed her and she’d melted and all coherent thought had stopped.
And it was also why Malcolm had been able to act like they hadn’t shared a night of passion when she saw him the next morning at work. At the time she’d been surprised—and relieved—that Malcolm had been able to carry on working with her as if they had an unspoken agreement to never mention their night together again. The first day had been awkward, but he hadn’t batted an eye when she’d walked into his office with contracts for him to sign.
As if nothing had happened.
Because nothing had happened with him.
Nick, on the other hand...well, he’d rocked her world.
She drew in a long breath and gripped the door a little tighter.
Nick was watching her warily, waiting to see what her reaction would be. Or perhaps he’d been as disoriented by their kiss as she had. Either way, they needed to talk, and standing on her porch was not the place to do it.
“You’d better come in,” she said as she opened the door wider and stepped back into the hall to let him pass.
Once they were in her kitchen, she made him a coffee and herself a peppermint tea—something that seemed to be keeping the morning sickness steady.
Nick accepted the steaming mug, set it on the counter beside him and blew out a long breath. “Look, about the ball—”
“No need,” she said, cutting him off. It wasn’t something she wanted to revisit in the cold light of day. “We’re beyond that now.”
He shook his head sharply. “I have to say it. I should have been up front. Told you who I was.”
Looking at him now, dominating her kitchen with no effort at all, she wondered how she could have confused the brothers, but hindsight was twenty-twenty.
“If I’d known Malcolm’s brother was his identical twin, I might have put two and two together on the night. I’ve worked with Malcolm. He’s attractive, sure, but he never made my knees go weak.”
“And I do?” Nick said, a cocky grin forming on his lips.
“I think we’ve proven that. Twice now. But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.”
The grin widened, then faded again. “I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t deliberately deceiving you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You were there on Malcolm’s ticket. That’s pretty deliberate.”
“That’s a fair point,” he said, wincing. “There was something I needed to do for Malcolm.”
“Deal with his stalker?”
Nick’s head jerked up and he met her gaze, surprise clear in his eyes. “You saw that?”
The whole staff at Tate Armor knew about the guy—an ex-customer—who’d been so angry at Malcolm personally that he’d begun to make threats. Malcolm, nice as ever, had been trying to use diplomacy to defuse the situation. No one else had believed that had a chance of working. And the fact that the entire town was on edge thanks to the blackmailer Maverick only made things worse. There were whispers in the office that the guy might be working for Maverick, but Harper had always thought it was unrelated—Maverick’s modus operandi was completely different. Which had left them with a run-of-the-mill jerk who wasn’t responding to Malcolm’s way of dealing with the situation.
Then, at the masked ball, Harper had been fascinated when the man she thought was Malcolm had calmly but firmly laid down the law for the man. He hadn’t even had to say much. It had been in his slightly menacing stance. In his lethal tone of voice. The troublemaker hadn’t been happy, but he’d clearly known he was up against a brick wall and had let it go.
“Yes, I saw you. You were...formidable.” He hadn’t had to do anything sinister, but it had been obvious to both Malcolm’s stalker and to her that Nick was almost entirely composed of tightly coiled energy only just held under control. It had scared one of them off. Harper, however, had pulled him out onto the dance floor and made love with him soon after. “But you still could have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure if you knew Malcolm. You never called me by his name, so I thought you were meeting me just as me. Besides,” he said, his cocky grin back in place, “neither of