No Holding Back

“Sorry about that.” He relaxed his interrogation-stare, so apparently she’d passed the test. “I just have to be careful.”

“Why?”

He winked. “Double-O-Seven stuff.”

“Seriously?” She nearly swallowed her tongue. Had she not just been thinking James Bond? And here he was, the legend come to life, though she doubted he was actually doing anything but running his late father’s business. A business, of course, she knew nothing about as far as he was concerned, so she’d play along. “You’re a spy?”

“Not even close. What are we going to do with you?”

She had many ideas by now, none of which she could say out loud. But his abrupt change of subject away from the personal meant this could be a tough interview. “If you’ll point me to a phone I can call Triple A and have my car towed.”

Say no, say no, say no.

“Why don’t you wait until this weather clears? I’m sure Triple A will have its hands full rescuing motorists who couldn’t find conveniently unlocked, apparently deserted houses.”

“If you’re sure…” Stranded in a mansion with a hot über-rich playboy who could make her career? A miracle. Though she had no idea if Jack Brattle actually was a playboy. She could rule out gay now that she’d met him and had been on the receiving end of those eyes. If he was a playboy, he certainly kept his conquests as thoroughly out of the press as he kept himself. Maybe he sold his discarded women into slavery to ensure their silence.

She did think it was odd he wasn’t more disconcerted about his door being left unlocked.

“Are you hungry?” He put a hand to his sadly now-covered stomach. “I’m starved. Hardly got a thing to eat tonight.”

“Were you out?”

“For a while. The forecast convinced me to ring in the New Year at home.”

“Considering the state of my car, you made the right choice. Home would have been a lot simpler.”

And one-eighth the fun.

“Where in Philly is home?”

“Ah.” She glanced pointedly at her surroundings. “A stunning three-room estate above a shoe-repair shop.”

“Location, location, location.”

“So they say. Did you grow up in this…hut?”

“Yes. You never did tell me if you were hungry.”

“Famished.” Another abrupt change of subject. He wasn’t going to make this easy by volunteering long tales of his childhood, was he.

“This way to the kitchen.” He pointed down the hall and curved his other arm behind her as if he were going to touch her, but ohh, not quite. “Or maybe you’ve already been there.”

“I…took a peek, yes. Couldn’t resist. This is so not my life.”

“Don’t assume that’s a bad thing.”

“No?” She turned at the top of the stairs to see his face. Reserved as usual. “Why? Most people would die to—”

“Most people have no idea.”

Billionaire’s Bitter Secret. “Tell me then.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What do you think I think?” She knew he thought she’d gone too far when he shot her a look and started down the stairs ahead of her. “You think I ask too many questions.”

“You do sound like a reporter.”

“Didn’t I tell you I was one?” She laughed again, ha ha ha, watching him closely, but he only laughed, too, ha ha ha. Wow. Obviously he wasn’t as suspicious as he seemed or he’d have been all over that one. “Just naturally curious I guess.”

He ushered her into the kitchen and turned on subtle track lighting around the tops of the cabinets that lit the room one might almost say romantically, if one was thinking along those lines, but, of course, Hannah wasn’t. She wasn’t going to fall in the blink of an eye for any more toads who happened to be wearing prince’s clothing. Might as well become infatuated with movie actors.

Of course, she did that, too.

“Have a seat.” He indicated a tall stool pulled up to the space-age-looking island in the center of a vast area that would set any chef drooling, then rubbed his palms together. “What do you feel like?”

“Surprise me.”

“Okay. Let’s see.” He narrowed his eyes, looked her up and down speculatively, which made her hope her stomach wasn’t pooching out in doughy rolls. “You don’t look like a peanut-butter-and-jelly woman…”

“Ha!” She put on a deeply offended look. “I’m a prime, grade A, number-one peanut-butter-and-jelly woman. My desert island food.”

His smile made the corners of his deep brown eyes crinkle. “Then let’s go in another direction. You game?”

“Sure.” When he looked at her like that she’d agree to anything.

“Any foods you hate?”

“Tofu hot dogs. They taste like how my dentist’s office smells.”

He chuckled, which made him look twice as charming, she should mention, and worse, making him laugh gave her a stupid silly thrill. “Crossing tofu hot dogs off the list. Now…”

He looked around, as if choosing which cabinet to open and amaze her with first. Then he opened one with a flourish…and apparently struck out. As he did also on his second try. One more, and he made a sound of satisfaction and pulled out a couple of plates.

Hannah kept on her polite smile. He didn’t know where he kept his plates? Did this man do nothing for himself?

Powerful Billionaire Helpless in His Own Home.

Two drawers later he’d located knives, forks and spoons. Quite a while passed before he found champagne glasses. The champagne, however, he scored on his first try, and she’d just say that wow, it was not Asti Spumante, and it made her uncomfortable thinking of how much the bottle cost and how much her parents could have used the money she and…Jack…would drink up in such a short time. Probably a week’s groceries in that bottle. Maybe two.

“To start us off.” He removed the cork expertly and just as expertly poured her a glass. Clearly he had more experience with bartending than cooking, she’d guess with bottles exactly this expensive and more. “Happy New Year, Hannah.”

“Thank you, Jack.” She lifted her glass and toasted him, feeling a fizz of excitement even before she’d started drinking, a feeling she recognized all too well. No, no. No crushes. She was here as a professional first, not a female, and never the twain should meet. “You’re not having any?”

“After I get the food ready.”

“Cheers, then.” She took her first sip tentatively, hoping to be able to sneer and assure herself a bottle of bubbles couldn’t possibly be worth that much money.

Oh wow.

Not that she was an expert, in fact, she prided herself on being an expert on all things not likely to be in Jack Brattle’s palace, but even she could tell the champagne was exquisite. Nothing like the swill Gerard served at the party, not that she’d blame him with that many people drinking that much. But this…tiny bubbles that streamed daintily upward, a smooth delicate flavor that changed over the course of the sip-swallow, and no sour aftertaste to ruin the experience. This was why champagne existed, and what everybody was after while making do with inferior stuff.

“I don’t need to ask what you think, I can see it in your face.”

“I was that obvious? How unchic of me. But, yes.” She turned the glass reverently. “I’ll have to work not to guzzle.”

“Feel free.” One eyebrow quirked. “I enjoy watching that much pleasure.”

Ohh my. Except instead of arching an eyebrow back and saying something sultry like, I’d love to show you exactly how much pleasure I can feel, Jack, she gave a snort of nervous laughter and then made an even more revolting noise to get champagne out of her sinuses.

“You okay?”

“Mm, yeah. Sure. Fine.” She thumped her chest and took another more cautious sip.

“I’ll put the bottle where you can reach.” He took a slim elegant wine cooler from under the island and slid the champagne inside, putting it on the counter next to her. “There’s more where that came from.”

“Thank you.” There was more. More hundreds-of-dollars bottles of champagne. Not just this one, carefully saved for the occasion, of course not. The idea both thrilled and repelled her.

“Let’s see what’s in here.” He rummaged through his refrigerator, mumbling to himself—which tickled her since she did the same thing—occasionally withdrawing cans or jars or various other containers, and placing them on the counter next to him. Hannah’s bid to check out what billionaires had in their refrigerators besides not-Asti Spumante champagne was foiled when she couldn’t stop checking out the pull of his wide shoulders under the soft-looking shirt and the shape of his beautiful you-know-what—yes, they were Lee jeans and, oh, he did such lovely things for them. They should be grateful. She certainly was.

A few minutes slicing this and that, arranging that and the other, another few minutes at the gleaming toaster, then he loaded up his haul onto a large lacquered tray and bore it triumphantly to the island. “Seems we’ve done pretty well.”

“Um…yes.” She put down her champagne and gaped. Suffice to say what was in his refrigerator bore absolutely no resemblance to what she had in hers. A glass jar of foie gras with slices of toasted brioche and thin slices of what looked like apple or pear but wasn’t—maybe quince?; tins of osetra and beluga caviar to be served with delicate bone spoons alongside toasted pita bread squares, and a satiny white cream of some sort to spread over them; translucent slices of prosciutto next to a silver bowl of fresh green and black figs; cheeses whose names she didn’t know on a polished elegantly grained wooden tray; olives in three colors; flawless miniature vegetables—tiny carrots, yellow squash, cucumbers and elongated radishes—with a green creamy herb dip; perfect maroon grapes the size of peas, tangerines the size of golf balls; plump raspberries whose gorgeous perfume made her want to bury her face in them; assorted miniature pastries…

“Are you expecting a crowd?”

“You said you were hungry.”

“You eat like this all the time?”

He looked blank. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Billionaire Out of Touch With Reality. She was about to roll her eyes when he winked, and she blushed instead, because the wink made it seem as if they were alone in a highly intimate situation. The fact that they were alone in a highly intimate situation only made her blush harder. But that wink would do it even in a crowd of thousands. And yet…how could she eat this? Enough for twenty people. What would he do with the leftovers? Toss them? To waste money and food…she hated the idea of both. However, no, she couldn’t help herself. She was dying to try everything. Would he let her take some to share with Mom and Dad? With her friends. Her landlady? The whole block? Everyone should be able to eat like this.

“Now, the final touch.” He fumbled with buttons on an under-cabinet music system and soft jazz floated into the room. Oh my. Oh my my my. You could absolutely not beat the cheesesteaks at Jake’s Corner Bar, or the fresh almond cookies at Mama Fortunato’s Bakery, or the sizzling shrimp at Hu Min’s Dragon but…

Oh, but…

Mr. Amazing then rummaged in another three drawers before he found what he was looking for, which turned out to be candles. Candles. What kind of man thought of candles?

Perfection in a Male: My Evening with Jack Brattle.

Was this his typical evening at home? He couldn’t have been expecting her. Maybe just a typical New Year’s? But why would he haul it all out for her if he was planning a party later?

Was he…trying to seduce her?

She shouldn’t, but with half a glass of excellent champagne in her, on top of a couple of glasses of not-so-excellent champagne, and dazzled by the man and the occasion, she sort of hoped so. Not that she could give in and sleep with Jack Brattle when she was planning to publish an article about him. She had her limits. What fun though to hold this memory close to her heart, and place it reverently into her best friends’ voice mails and long e-mails to people she didn’t know that well, for the rest of her life.

“Do you often throw impromptu candlelight suppers in the middle of the night for strange women?”

“I might make it a habit after tonight.” He considered her carefully. “So far, no signs that you’re a deranged killer…are you?”

“Ah, no. I gave up deranged killing. Hell on a girl’s nails. And those dry-cleaning bills…” She made a tsk-tsk noise and shook her head.

“I hear you.” He pulled up another stool close to hers, so what could she do but wiggle around until she faced him? “I’m glad you showed up.”

“Really?” Fishing, fishing, she was shameless.

“Really.” He poured himself champagne, topped hers off and put the bottle back in the fancy chill-thing, which undoubtedly kept it at the perfect temperature. “Since I left my party early, the evening didn’t feel finished. I’m glad to have company to salvage it.”

I Need a Woman: Billionaire’s Sad Tale of Deprivation.

He clinked his glass to hers. “Dig in.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have, maybe she should have at least hesitated and spent another minute or two contemplating the plight of the poor, but she didn’t. She dug.

Oh my. Dug again. And again, and where was her shovel? If D. G. Jackson could see her, he’d never stop saying told-you-so. She’d deserve it, too.

“Caviar?” He passed it, amusement in his eyes.

Caviar…who knew? She’d had the jarred preserved stuff from the supermarket once and decided the fish should have been able to keep it.

“Foie gras?” The amusement became a smile.

Foie gras…she’d cheerfully gain forty pounds on the stuff given the chance.

“Prosciutto with figs?” This time he was outright smirking.

Prosciutto with fresh figs…sign her up for that action every day. And on and on, while they talked about the food she was eating: him discussing the various types of caviar, she bringing up overfishing in the Caspian Sea; he regaling her with memories of his first taste of foie gras, her mentioning the controversy involved in force-feeding the geese and ducks; him painting a picture of the summer he spent in Lebanon and the fig tree outside his bedroom window from which he could pick ripe figs first thing in the morning, to which she had no politically correct objections. All the while their champagne glasses were emptying and refilling until finally she couldn’t eat or drink another bite and what a horrible shame that was.

“I have reached my absolute limit.”

He drained the last of the bottle into her glass. “C’mon, I dare you.”

“Oh, you Satan.”

He picked up her practically licked-clean plate, grinning triumphantly. “Enjoyed it?”

“Ya think?” She gathered up dishes and bowls and placed them in the sink. “I’ve never had a feast like that. I’m not much of a luxury foods person.”

“Ah.”

Something about the way he spoke made her glance at him suspiciously, though he was concentrating apparently innocently, on rinsing plates. What was that about? Had she disgraced herself with her greed? Maybe, but everything was so good she couldn’t regret it. And he’d been eating quite healthily himself. Best of all, with Mr. Jack Brattle’s notorious aversion to publicity, this multidollar-binge could remain her guilty secret.

“I feel like I should run about five miles to atone for those calories.”

“There’s a pool if you want to do laps.”

Of course there was. “No suit.”

“I’m sure you’d look great in one of mine…”

She giggled and blamed it on the champagne. “Um. Minor coverage problem.”

“If you’re sure…”

“No women in the house?” She tried to ask casually, and succeeded. She thought.

“Not for a long time.”

“Are you divorced?” A natural question, wasn’t it?

“No.” He walked toward her, drying his hands.

“Never married?”

“Never. You?”

“Never. Girlfriend?”

“No. Boyfriend?”

“No.”

And there they stood. If he was feeling anything like what she was feeling, the obvious circumstances of their proximity and their mutual singlehood were suggesting a number of delightful possibilities. Unfortunately there was that damn ethics thing because getting romantic with a man and then publishing an article about him was taking kissing and telling way further than she was comfortable taking it. But ohh, his mouth was so tempting, his lips full and sharply drawn, surrounded by the faint masculine gray of stubble-to-come.

A song came on, a smooth velvety jazz lullaby sung by a female artist whose voice she didn’t recognize.

He took a step forward and she took one, too. His arms went up, one at her shoulder height, one at her waist. “Dance with me, Hannah.”

Jack Brattle: All the Right Moves.

“Love to.” Mmm, she hadn’t been in a man’s arms since Norberto, the smooth-tongued, talented-in-bed, charming, absolute cheating idiot creep jerk butthead…

Okay, she’d ignored all the warning signs and leapt happily into his arms and gotten her heart smacked down yet again. She should have known better.

But now, Jack Brattle smelled soooo good. And he moved like a dream. Under her hand, his shoulder was solid and warm, his chin also warm and smoothly close-shaven when it occasionally brushed her forehead. His fingers held hers lightly, but he kept his body close.

Hannah should know better right now. She’d have to crash down into reality all too soon. Somehow that seemed so deliciously far away, though, and he was so deliciously near.

“You dance divinely, Ms…what?”

“O’Reilly. Thank you. As do you, Mr…?”

She knew he wouldn’t answer, but she lifted her head from where it had pillowed itself on the smooth comfortable front of his shirt and looked up expectantly.

“…Brattle.” He stopped their dance. Looked down intently.

Her reaction was perfect, since she was actually shocked and could do a convincing double take. She couldn’t believe he’d told her. What about keeping himself such a tremendous secret all those years? All that trouble to stay hidden, and now he was telling her, a complete stranger who’d already joked she was a reporter and had been asking all kinds of questions?

Why would he do that?

Her treacherous imagination immediately supplied the kind of answer that was always getting her in trouble. Maybe he’d fallen for her, same as she’d fallen for him and therefore he had given her this incredible gift of trusting her with his identity.

She sighed. Nice story, but it never happened. At least not to her.

Something was definitely odd about the confession, but her brain discarded those thoughts because he was still inches away, their hands were still on each other’s bodies, champagne fizzed through her veins, and since somewhere there must be someone for whom the name Jack Brattle rang only the faintest of bells, she decided the best possible course of action was to pretend to be that person, go on tiptoe and kiss him.

Of course, of course he kissed like a dream. The first was soft and quick, probably a surprised response to her typical lack of self-control. Then another at his initiation, longer and sweeter…then gradually hotter. Her body warmed, she felt his next kiss right down where kisses went when doled out by seriously sexy men. And when she pressed closer—and who could help it when his strong arms slid around her so completely—she could tell that he was…er, enjoying the kiss, too.

Mayday. She was completely crazed with lust, unbearably infatuated with everything about this man and this evening. This was where she should back up, think this through and make sure she understood every possible ramification of her—ooh.

He’d nudged her legs apart and put his thigh between hers, which made her skirt ride upward. His hand dipped to caress her rear, which she faintly hoped, with the last glimmer of her sanity, had gotten firmer since she’d been going to the gym.

What had she been thinking? Something about pulling away. Something about…

Aw, hell.

He guided her back a few steps and lifted her onto the edge of his counter stool, stepped between her thighs and kissed her exactly how women all over the world longed to be kissed whether they knew it or not. He was very hard now, pushing the swollen heat against her thin, red, lace panties, making her nearly ready to come just thinking about being in bed with him.

Wasn’t she supposed to stop this? Something about a story, about ethics…

His lips left hers to explore her neck; his hands drew her skirt slowly up, building her arousal with the expectation of more intimate touch. He slid those same warm hands back and forth on her hips as more and more of her skin became available to his fingers.

Must…hang on…to brain. “Jack.”

“Mmm.”

“This is a little…unreal.”

“How so?”

“You and this amazing house and the incredible food and the champagne and now…this.”

“What ‘this’?”

“Nothing that should be happening.” Her voice was low and breathless, making it damn clear how serious she was about stopping. Which would be not enough.

“I know. It’s a lousy idea.”

“You do? It is?” She opened her eyes. “Why shouldn’t you be doing it?”

“Shh. Pretend it’s not happening.” He trailed his fingers across the lower edge of her abdomen, then along the lacy sides of her panties. “What happens tonight stays there. In the morning, it will all be erased.”

“So…this isn’t happening?”

“No.” He urged her legs farther apart, slid fingers teasingly inside the lace edge. “It’s not happening.”

“Mmm, Jack, but it…really does feel like it’s happening.” She braced her feet on the chair rungs, lifted her hips. He took his cue and slid her panties down, got them over one leg and let them fall down the other.

“No, don’t worry.” He knelt and she leaned her elbows behind her on the counter, tipped her head back, open and vulnerable to him, feeling his warm breath on her sex, closing her eyes in delicious impatience for his even warmer tongue. “I promise it’s not happening.”

“If you say so—oh!” She gasped, let her hips lift and retreat under his talented thrusts, so close to coming so soon that she had to take deep breaths and open her eyes to slow the process down. She wanted him with her. She wanted this to last forever. But, no, she wasn’t going to hold out much longer. “Are you sure this isn’t happening? It really really feels like it is. Any second now.”

“Let it happen, Hannah.”

“I want you with me.”

“I don’t have a condom downstairs.”

“But if this isn’t happening…” She was panting, trying desperately to hold on to some kind of logic. “Then we don’t need…oh!”

He’d moved to kiss her inner thighs, but now settled firmly back on her clit and she was lost. The orgasm started in a dark rush, then boom, steam engine blowing past, making everything rattle and roll in its wake, subsiding eventually to the distance and the past.

“Oh my goodness.” She slowly unclenched her muscles, slumped wearily back on the counter, staring at him with what was certainly a worshipful look as he stood up, smiling male triumph.

Then the impact of what she’d just done hit nearly as hard as the orgasm, creating a serious rupture in her afterglow. Sex with an interviewee who didn’t know yet that he was an interviewee…absolutely not. He’d think she’d slept with him for the story.

Jack Brattle—Jack Brattle—stepped forward and scooped her back to upright, bent and kissed her hard, once, then again and nearly overwhelmed her dismayed and blissful heart by gazing into her eyes and smoothing back what must by now be a rat’s-nest hairdo. “You know they say what happens to you New Year’s Day predicts how you’ll spend your whole year?”

“Does it?” She smiled wistfully up at him, already in love with this perfect, beautiful, incredibly talented-tongued man. “Then this is going to be the best year of my life.”