Her One-Night Prince (MF)

Excerpt

STORY EXCERPT

She circled the fountain and stopped in front of him, flicking an icy blue gaze over him just as coolly as he’d assessed her. Mitch felt a twinge of uneasiness, unused to being on the receiving end of such a critical look. Worse, she looked him almost straight in the eye. With him at six foot three, he figured she must be five feet ten or so without shoes.

He gave her his most charming grin, one that had never before failed him with women, and all it got him was, “You’re Mitch Gannon?” as if he was nothing more than a piece of gum on the sole of her sensible shoes.

The sexy timbre of her voice sure didn’t match the woman, and it caught him off guard. He didn’t remember that from their brief phone call. “Uh, yeah.”

She wrinkled up her nose and studied him head to toe. “You’re the man who answered my ad.” It wasn’t a question.

Could her disappointment be any more obvious? Who’d she been expecting? Bradley Cooper? If this was any indication of her bedside manner, no wonder the woman couldn’t get a date by conventional means.

“You’re not at all what I expected,” she said.

The feeling’s mutual. Had he forgotten to use deodorant this morning? From her distasteful expression, he might have skipped that step of his routine.

Man, Hal was going to owe him after this.

“I’m Lydia St. Clair,” she said before he thought of a civil response to her statement. She motioned to her right. “There’s shade next to the buildings.” Pivoting that direction, she obviously expected him to follow.

With a bemused grin, he did. Her long legs carried her quickly across the pavement, her practical heels clicking against the red brick.

As to the rest of her figure, it was hard to tell under that shapeless pantsuit, which was the ugliest, flattest shade of gray he’d ever seen. It was battleship gray and buttoned to the collar, fending off all possibilities of attack.

He cocked an eyebrow. No threat here.

This person definitely didn’t match that voice.

Lydia led him to a slightly quieter spot in the shade of the Bank of America Center. She unzipped her bag and rifled through it. As she did, Mitch found himself peering down at her pale-blonde hair, looking for dark roots. The color was too incredible to be real.

He studied her as she concentrated on the contents of her purse, the writer in him trying to get a feel for this woman. The man in him thought of a definite way to know if she was a natural blonde. He checked his thoughts. She wasn’t his type—not even close—but here he was picturing her naked.

Lydia raised her head, and he returned her cool stare with a shamefaced smile as if she’d read his thoughts. She didn’t return the smile.

BlackBerry in hand, she pressed a series of buttons. “I have a couple of questions for you.”

“Shoot.” And he’d have a couple of questions for Hal’s stupid story. Then he was out of here. The only thing even remotely likable about her was her voice. It belonged on someone wild, someone sexy, someone who didn’t pull her hair back like that. It belonged to a lady who wasn’t afraid to be a woman.

Something on her jacket caught his eye. A piece of white material stuck out between two buttons over her chest. Wayward lingerie, perhaps? He squinted. No. It was too stiff and unyielding. He imagined Lydia St. Clair starching her panties, and smirked.

When he lifted his gaze, he found her staring at him. Glaring was more like it. Realizing she assumed he’d been checking her out, Mitch sipped from his drink, hoping the moment would pass gracefully.

It wasn’t his lucky day.

“You are gay, aren’t you?” she asked.

His mouthful of latte spewed like a torpedo yet somehow missed drenching her. Was she serious? One look at her stony face told him she was.

He’d been accused of many things in his life. Being gay wasn’t one of them. The idea was so far-fetched he couldn’t help grinning. He wiped his chin with the back of his wrist. “Gee, is it that obvious?”

“Actually, I’d never have guessed except for the ad.”

He frowned. “The ad?”

“You know, that it was in the Men Seeking Men section?”

His teeth clenched. Hal. He was a dead man. The joker probably sat in his office right now, laughing his ass off.

Suddenly, the hilarity of the situation hit Mitch, and he concentrated to keep a straight face. “Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Lydia watched him, her expression wary. “So…you are, right?” No judgment tinged her voice, just curiosity and something sounding an awful lot like hope.

He stifled a grin. He cocked a brow and stared her square in the eye. Why not have some fun with this? After a few more minutes, he’d never see her again. Obviously, Hal didn’t want a story here, just payback for setting him up on a recent and disastrous blind date. Mitch should have expected as much when Hal approached him about the lame article he was researching.

“Let me put it this way, Lydia. My last lover’s name was Eddie, and my longtime companion, Jacque, is waiting for me at home.”

He wasn’t lying, exactly. He didn’t actually say he was gay. Edwina was his last lover. And Jacque was his pet parrot.

Lydia stared at him for a long moment, then her demeanor relaxed tenfold, and she smiled at him. The dour and prim woman was an attractive young lady.

She touched his arm, her long fingers wrapping softly around his wrist. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. You had me worried.”

“Huh?” He was so blinded by the change in her that her words barely registered.

She cleared her throat. “When I first saw you, you just didn’t look like you’re—not that there’s a certain way to look—but you didn’t act like you’re—” A blush swept up her neck and onto her face. “Have I completely put my foot in my mouth yet? I mean, if you’d seen some of the other men who responded to my ad…well, let’s just say they weren’t as, um, masculine as you.” She dropped her gaze, still blushing profusely.

His head firmly reattached to his neck, Mitch smirked and puffed out his chest. Dropping his voice a notch, he said, “Yes, I pride myself on looking like a manly man.”

She laughed, and the sound shot straight to his groin. God. It was even sexier than her voice.