Naughty By Nature

“This is not my fault,” replied Lucy.

Morgan had stopped zipping his pants. “Bjorn?”

He wasn’t supposed to overhear, but at least the conversation was taking a rational turn. “Bjorn and Lucy are engaged,” Vanessa explained.

At the news, the sexiest mouth she’d ever kissed compressed into a grim line. “She’s engaged?” Morgan’s zipper continued its upward trek. “To Bjorn? Your father’s chauffeur?”

Vanessa was wishing Morgan didn’t look quite so shocked about Lucy’s engagement and wondering what he’d think if he knew Lucy was also pregnant when Lucy started in with her own apology. “I’m sorry, Morgan,” she began. “I know I’ve been flirting with you. Pretty shamelessly, I admit it. But ever since we got engaged, Bjorn’s become distant, and he never gave me a ring, just a promise, so I’m worried. You see, something’s happened that will change my relationship with him forever, and so I need to feel closer to him before I tell him—”

“You were flirting with Morgan?” interjected Vanessa.

“Yes,” admitted Lucy. “But it didn’t mean anything, Ness.”

Because Vanessa wanted to preserve any remaining dignity, she didn’t glare at her friend. She did, however, use her eyes to ask, How could you? As soon as Morgan arrived, Vanessa had shared her intentions about getting to know him. “Some friend,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” Lucy said.

“Let me get this straight.” Morgan was glaring at Lucy, and Vanessa felt a rush of pleasure she wasn’t proud of, since it was probably what Lucy deserved for her disloyalty. “You were using me to make your boyfriend jealous?”

“Fiancé,” Lucy corrected him as if it should change matters. “And not jealous,” she clarified judiciously. “Just more attentive. He loves me, and I know it, but as I said, I don’t have a ring. I’m afraid he’s getting cold feet. He hasn’t been…”

The flash of Morgan’s eyes stopped her. Seeing how it made him look as swarthy as a pirate, Vanessa suddenly felt bad for Lucy, and even though she was angry at the betrayal, she softened and decided she’d better smooth things over. After all, Lucy was right. Lately, Bjorn hadn’t been paying enough attention to Lucy, and after much discussion, she and Lucy agreed things needed to be on track before he was told about the baby. “Lucy and Bjorn have been together for some time,” Vanessa said, “and because my father suspects they’re sleeping together—”

“They are sleeping together,” Morgan interjected, sounding uncompromising, just as a government agent should, something that sent a thrill through Vanessa.

“The senator calls my room late at night.” Lucy picked up the thread. “Just to make sure I’m really in bed, because he’s afraid I’m sneaking to Bjorn’s apartment—”

“Which you are,” clarified Morgan.

“See?” Vanessa managed to muster a bright smile. “It’s all so simple. I sleep here sometimes and answer the phone, pretending to be Lucy. That’s how you and I wound up, uh, uh—” Her words stuttered to a halt, and she settled her gaze on the bed, which, she decided, said it all.

Morgan held up a staying hand. “I get the picture.” As graceful as a panther, he dropped to his flat belly and swept a long arm under the bed, looking for his shoes.

All conversation ground to a halt.

“Anyway,” Vanessa continued lamely, watching wistfully as he rose, sliding huge bare feet into polished black oxfords. Vaguely, she wondered what had happened to his socks. “I…” Staring at him, she forgot what she’d been about to say, mostly because she was vowing never to think again of the criminal lengths to which she’d gone to get him into her bed. Lucy’s bed, she corrected.

A rumbling bass, her father’s voice, suddenly cut through the silence. “Lucy? Are you up there?”

“Two words,” muttered Morgan, looking none too happy.

When his dashing eyes fixed on hers, Vanessa croaked, “Which two words?” And then prayed her father wouldn’t venture upstairs.

Morgan mouthed, “I’m fired.”

“Three words.” Vanessa couldn’t help but reply, unable to stop herself from pointing out his self-centeredness, given what was starting to feel painfully like rejection. “So is Lucy.”

Morgan’s gaze traced her bare shoulders, and sparks of awareness came into his eyes. “You’re safe.”

“No,” said Vanessa. “If my father finds me here, naked with you, he won’t fire me, he’ll kill me. I’m his daughter.”

Before Morgan could respond, Lucy called, “I’m on my way, Senator!” Her eyes bugging a final time, she stared around—at the evidence on the floor, at Vanessa, who was still clad in a sheet, and at Morgan, who was seated on the bed’s edge in wrinkled pants, a shirt without buttons and shoes without socks. “I know Mrs. Bell called in sick.” Lucy continued in nervous falsetto, prying Vanessa’s fingers from her arm so she could go downstairs. “And I’m on my way!”

“Hurry up,” intoned the senator, adding one of his usual aphorisms. “He that riseth late must trot all day, Lucy.”

As soon as Lucy was gone, Vanessa realized the sheet wasn’t adequately covering her. Her bare behind was facing the stairs her elderly father had just threatened to climb. Reaching behind herself, she grabbed a flap of the sheet and fashioned a toga. Her eyes settled on Morgan’s fingers, which were lacing the left shoe, and she steeled herself against memories of those fingers gliding along her bare thighs, parting them, stroking between them. Straightening her shoulders, she could only hope she didn’t look anywhere near as humiliated as she felt.

He must have read the lift of her chin as haughty, because he glanced up and cautioned, “Don’t look at me like that, Ms. Verne.”

His not calling her Vanessa was driving her crazy. “Look at you like what, Mr. Fine?”

“Like I’ve done something wrong.”

Actually, she thought with a shudder, the problem was that Morgan had done so many things just fine, and during the long seconds they eyed each other, she dwelled on each and every one of them. From the moment she’d watched him drive up to the house, she’d decided he was her dream man. His easy humor and air of quiet competence had impressed her, and soon enough she’d decided the competence would extend to the bedroom, which it had. His rejection was nearly killing her. “Maybe next time—” she couldn’t help but speak stiffly, wishing they weren’t alone “—you should check to see who’s in bed with you.”

For the endless moment his gaze held hers, she tried not to notice the sleek black curls dancing around his face and how sharp his cheekbones looked under taut skin. “I thought it was Lucy.”

“It,” she whispered, wishing she didn’t sound so miserable. “Do you think I’m an it?”

He blew out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Do you really like Lucy?” It was horrible to ask, but after feeling how he’d made love, Vanessa had to know. Hovering by the door, she held on to the toga knot and waited.

He gave a very male grunt. “No, I don’t like Lucy.”

“Maybe that’s even more offensive.” She couldn’t help but say it. After all, Lucy was Vanessa’s best friend, had been since they were babies. Feeling the toga slip, Vanessa curled a hand more tightly over the knot between her breasts and hiked up the sheet. “Anyway, what does that mean? Do you usually sleep with people you don’t like?”

Looking annoyed, he placed his palms on rock-hard thighs, rose from the bed and moved toward her, stopping when he was close enough that her every breath was drawing in a fresh, wind-in-the-pines scent. “Watch it.” She couldn’t help but taunt him, holding out her flattened palm. “If you come any closer, I might bite. And if I trip over a sheet and almost break my neck, like I did a minute ago, you definitely shouldn’t help me out. Heaven only knows what could happen to you if you did.” She paused for effect. “You might turn into a gentleman.”

He ignored the gibes. “I do not sleep with people I don’t like,” he assured her. “And I do think last night you could have stopped me.”

What was she supposed to do now? For a second, she was so stunned she forgot she was standing there looking like an idiot with green goop in her hair. “When? When I was half asleep and you climbed into bed with me? When you undressed me?”

“In anticipation of my visit,” he reminded her, his voice growing husky in a way she would have found arousing under any other circumstance, “you weren’t wearing much.”

“I was in bed when you called! You woke me up!” He was acting as if she’d worn a sexy nightie just for him. “If I was calculating,” she said, “I would have washed this stuff out of my hair.”

“Good point,” he conceded, making her feel even more ridiculous. “Still…”

“What was I supposed to do?” she asked, her jaw slackening. “Manacle your hands when they…” Her voice trailed off at the memories of what those hands had done. Suddenly starting, she forged on. “Muzzle you when you kissed me like a man possessed?”

When his gaze lingered a second too long on the mouth he’d plundered so senselessly, she fantasized him grinning and saying, “You think I kiss like I’m possessed, huh?” Instead, he said in a deliciously smooth baritone, “Look, the sooner we forget all this, the better, Ms. Verne.”

Whichever poet said hell had no fury like a woman scorned was probably right. She was definitely getting testy. “That’s a far cry from passion that keeps people together forever,” she retorted dryly.

Looking perturbed at having his words used against him, Morgan glanced toward the stairs and cocked his head, listening to her father and Lucy. “Sounds like your father’s leaving now.”

The words stung. For weeks, she’d flirted with Morgan, and when he’d climbed into bed with her, Vanessa had naturally assumed he’d succumbed to her charms. Sure, she’d tried to trick him into bed—she could admit that much—but he was acting almost as if she’d knowingly pretended to be Lucy. For Morgan Fine, she’d stoop, but never that low.

“Last night,” she began, feeling forced to defend herself, “I thought you knew it was me.” And their joining had been so perfect and complete she’d felt sure there would be a future for them. Or at least a formal date. Or maybe just a wild, passionate fling. “I thought you didn’t flirt because you were working, and since you were going back to headquarters today…” Her voice trailed off. “I thought you knew Lucy snuck out at night to see Bjorn—”

His eyes dropped over her. “How would I know that?”

Wishing she wasn’t feeling body heat seep from beneath the shirt she’d torn from his chest, she tried not to gape at him. “Because you’re from the Secret Service, that’s how.”

“We don’t know everything.”

Her tone stopped just shy of acid. “Obviously.”

There was a long silence. While she hated striking a nerve by attacking his competence, she suddenly couldn’t fight the urge to get a rise out of him. She’d like to evoke enough reaction that he’d tumble back into that big, warm, mussed bed, taking her with him. She couldn’t help it. She’d never felt anything like what they’d experienced last night, and now he looked like a man emerging from a seedy bar after a wild drunken night—his clothes wrecked, his hair sticking straight up and thick dark stubble coating his jaw. Every rakish inch of him was making her knees turn to jelly.

“A lot of men find me charming,” she added. In case he didn’t quite get all the implications, she continued, “Men have slept with me, knowing it was me.”

He murmured, “So I’ve heard.”

Her fingers tightened anxiously around the sheet. “Heard what, exactly?”

Assessing eyes glinted with what might have been male need, and during another prolonged silence, she heard the tick of a clock and muted dialogue as Lucy marshaled her father from the kitchen. Devastating and liquid, Morgan’s eyes were traveling over her with such hungry, bold possessiveness that she was sure he was going to take it all back. He was going to say he’d known it was her, not Lucy, all along….

“Let’s forget what happened,” he said.

“Last night’s not the kind of thing most people forget.”

“True,” he admitted. “But we’re not most people, are we?”

He made things sound so reasonable, but she wanted to protest, to say she’d never forget their hours of pleasure. “I just want to know one thing.”

“What?”

“Well…you said we owe it to ourselves to be honest.”

Looking miffed at having his words used against him again, he edged aggressively closer. “Okay,” he muttered, his eyes lashing into hers. “I’ll be honest. Perfectly honest. What do you want to know?”

With him so close, her heart started hammering. She hated humbling herself, but after last night, she agreed with him that they had no choice but to be honest. “Why?” she asked. “What’s wrong with me? Why are you sorry it was me, not Lucy?”

He seemed unaware he’d gripped her arm and was using a thumb to rub deep circles on her bare skin—or that he did so until she felt so hot, she was half convinced she was wearing an electric blanket instead of a sheet. “I know what you’re thinking,” he finally said. “You’re smart, you’re rich, you’re gorgeous, right? So, why shouldn’t the hired help be happy to do whatever you want?”

Including sleep with her? As much as she appreciated the back-door admission that she was smart, rich and gorgeous, she instinctively backed away—only to pull him with her. “You’re wrong,” she managed to say as her back hit the wall. “And I’m no snob.”

“If anything—” he agreed with a readiness that fueled her temper “—maybe you’re too undiscriminating.”

She thought of how brazenly her tongue had swirled over every inch of him. “You’ve got a point there,” she admitted shakily. She’d certainly never shared her body with somebody who didn’t even like her. “I definitely should have gotten to know you better before—before…” She couldn’t force herself to say the words before we made love. “Before, well, you know.”

“It’s not the first time you’ve made this mistake, is it?”

She felt a sledgehammer knock the wind from her. “What?”

“A little truth bothers you?” His gaze was tracing her lips, the expression in his eyes a little lost, as if he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her again. “At least you’ve got a conscience.”

“Just because I slept with you,” she said, color flooding her cheeks, “and just because it was good doesn’t mean I do it all the time.” Before Hans Breakman, she’d only had one other lover, a boy she’d met in high school. “You say that as if I’ve slept with every Tom, Dick and—”

“Ivan Petrovitch.” Morgan cut in. “What about him?”

Had Morgan Fine stooped to believing what he read in the tabloids? Before she could ask, he added, “And let’s not forget Kenneth Hopper.”

Apparently Kenneth Hopper had told his Secret Service buddies about the most humiliating incident of her life. For a second, the present fell away, and with it a piece of her heart. Vanessa was reliving the months following her mother’s death. Slowly, she was watching her father withdraw to hide in his work. Since he kept forcing her to attend school, she’d kept flunking out so she could come home and take care of him. With her mother gone, she’d had no shoulder to cry on except Lucy’s—and Hans’s. Mrs. Giangarfalo had left for Arizona. Vanessa had been so sure Hans loved her that, even now, the betrayal made her voice falter. “What did Kenneth say?” How could the agent who’d been kind enough to bring her home lie to his coworkers?

Morgan’s eyes turned cold. “Not much. He’s never worked in this country again.”

“Kenneth wanted to work overseas.” She defended herself. “And I don’t know what you heard, but I was…was in love with Hans.”

Morgan shrugged. “He was the gardener, right?”

She was starting to think better of making herself vulnerable to Morgan, but after last night, she still felt compelled to try. “You’re the one coming onto me as if I’m a snob. What’s his job got to do with anything?” Before he could answer, she plunged on. “Is that what’s bothering you this morning? That you’re working for my father?”

“I work for the Secret Service.”

And he thought she was a flighty woman looking for flings—with men who worked here. Well, so be it. She had more pride than to let him know how he’d gotten to her last night.

At least until he said, “What about your lover?”

Once more, his words took the wind out of her sails. “My…what?”

“Lover.” Seemingly impulsively, Morgan lifted the hand from her arm and glided a finger down her cheek, the touch leaving a furrow filled with longing for him. “‘Oh, Vanessa,”’ he murmured, the sexy words coming from his lips affecting her more than they should have as he quoted one of the letters, “‘I’m hungry to taste every tall, lanky, elegant inch of you….”’

No matter what happened, Morgan Fine could never discover who wrote those letters. Not after last night. She’d sooner die than have him discover the truth. Luckily, he was leaving this morning. “Those letters aren’t signed,” she argued quickly. “They’re anonymous. I don’t know who’s sending them. The…the writer’s not my lover.” She shook her head adamantly. “Definitely not.”

He eyed her for what felt like an eternity, and when he spoke, he sounded very convinced. “You’re lying.”

She was. “That,” she said, “or you’re very suspicious.”

He didn’t deny it. “You met him at the Blues Bar, right?”

“No,” she replied. “Not knowingly, anyway,” she clarified. “Maybe he met me there but, if so, I don’t remember it. He’s a…a secret admirer. Nothing more.”

Morgan’s voice was just gentle enough to remind her how it sounded when he whispered sweet nothings. “You really expect me to believe that, Ms. Verne?”

“Of course I do.”

But he thought she slept around. He believed she’d taken him to bed when she already had another lover. She couldn’t defend herself, either. The truth was, she had written the fool letters. After Morgan had been there a week during which he hadn’t seemed to notice her, she’d solicited Lucy’s advice. Lucy thought Morgan might become more interested in Vanessa if he thought another man was in the picture. “You know what they always say in Cosmo.” Lucy had coached her. “If there are no cars parked in front of a restaurant, a man won’t go inside.”

Sending herself a couple of love letters that she knew Morgan would open seemed harmless, and Vanessa had done it in a spirit of good, clean fun. In fact, when she’d surreptitiously watched him read the first, she’d doubled over laughing at the practical joke.

But now the joke was on her.

Silently, she cursed herself for listening to Lucy. Giangarfalo women, Lucy’s mother included, were hopelessly Italian, which meant when it came to men they thought everything boiled down to love triangles and hot-blooded jealousy. It wasn’t the first time Vanessa realized she’d be better off following her safer, Anglo-Saxon impulses.

“Yes.” She finally continued, trying to find a way to end this encounter before it worsened. “I have a secret admirer. I do not know who he is. And while you were so busy disparaging me, blackening my reputation and raking me over the coals, Mr. Fine, I noticed my father and Lucy quit talking downstairs. Since he’s no longer in the kitchen, maybe you should leave now.” When he didn’t move, she knew her only hope was to give him a taste of his own medicine. “You really didn’t know it was me?”

His dark eyes surveyed her with the same caution he used in crowds while protecting a client. “No.”

“Well, before you gossip like Kenneth Hopper, you might want to think twice,” she cautioned, a slight smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Your Secret Service buddies might point out that I don’t look anything like Lucy. I’m taller. She’s bustier.” Pausing for effect, she added, “And it wasn’t really all that dark, now, was it, Morgan?”

His glance was wary. “It was pitch-black.”

“My voice is deeper.”

He was watching her so carefully she could have been a bomb about to explode. “I’d had a long day.”

“Pardon me for mentioning what we’re supposed to forget,” she returned coolly, “but you didn’t seem all that fatigued to me last night.”

He considered a long time, and when he spoke, she felt the soft rasp of his voice in her blood. “I guess you’ve got a point there.”

At the admission he’d enjoyed their evening, something fluid attacked her knees, making them flimsy as noodles. Once more, she was sure Morgan was about to break down, confess he’d really known it was her and repeat every sweet, heartfelt confession he’d made to Lucy. Right before the part about passion that kept people together forever, his hot, hard mouth would settle over hers….

Instead, he said, “You’re right. I think Lucy finally got your father out of the kitchen.”

“I hope you’ll be more discreet than Kenneth and not share the intimate details of my life,” she said, mustering one last shred of dignity. “You said we couldn’t pretend. But apparently we can. So, let’s pretend last night never happened.”

Sighing in relief, he nodded. “I’m expected back at headquarters by eight this morning. If I’m ever assigned to your home in the future—”

“You won’t be,” she assured him, thinking fate could never be so cruel. She managed a curt nod, and then, having no idea what to do next and being too well-bred to turn away, she thrust out her hand. After a second’s hesitation, he shook it, and from the sigh that left his lips—this one quick and involuntary—she could tell the touch affected him, too. Not that their uncanny attraction stopped him from leaving. He headed downstairs, his parting words floating over broad shoulders that spanned the stairwell. “See you around, Ms. Verne.”

“Looking forward to it, Mr. Fine.”

But both of them knew it was a lie.

3

WHAT HAD HE DONE? Morgan slipped into an overcoat, shouldered his duffel bag and headed for the Vernes’ front door. He had to get out of here. If Vanessa Verne was lying about those letters to protect a man in her life, it wasn’t Morgan’s problem. “Tell my Secret Service buddies about this?” he whispered with a wince, straightening the silver silk tie he was wearing with a fresh gray suit. Was she crazy? Morgan wouldn’t confess this adventure to a hearing-impaired priest who didn’t speak English. Meet me in broad daylight. Had he really said that? And We made each other insane with lust. We need to follow this passion wherever it takes us.

Fortunately, he wouldn’t be seeing Vanessa again. But how could he forget her? By four o’clock this morning, when she’d done that mind-bending, over-the-top thing where her tongue twirled around every inch of him, Morgan had suspected he’d never again crave another woman. Every tantalizing tidbit he’d ever heard about Vanessa had turned out to be true. And boy, oh boy, he’d loved every minute of it.

“Two words,” Morgan whispered, resting his hand on the doorknob. “Forget her.”

Vanessa Verne was rich, smart, gorgeous and played with fire, something that could cost Morgan the job he loved. Just as he swung open the door and realized Bjorn hadn’t brought his car around front as he’d promised, the senator’s bass voice sounded behind him. “You won’t be needing your car.”

Morgan got a sinking, no-way-out feeling. Two minutes later, he was ensconced opposite Vanessa in a leather armchair in the late Nora Verne’s study, and his worst fears were realized. His eyes trailed from floral draperies to peach walls lined with photographs of the nationally renowned socialite who’d befriended countless dignitaries and achieved fame for her tastefully lavish parties—and then to Vanessa.

She’d inherited her mother’s looks. Her father, who was pacing between them in front of a teak desk, was a full five inches shorter than she. He was known for his taciturn manner, and he had heavy sagging jowls and watery dark eyes that hid in the fleshy folds of his eyelids. If it weren’t for the navy suits that barely buttoned over his portly girth and the conservative ties he favored—this one printed with sailing ships—Ellery Verne would look more like a Mafia don than an aging, eccentric, retired U.S. senator.