She tapped a finger on the table while she considered her options. “They might not talk to you. In fact, they may not like it that we’ve brought you into this, even on a peripheral level.”

“Leave that part to me. Getting into places where I’m not wanted is part of my job description.”

“Is that how you got into my apartment last night?”

“Ouch. Why don’t we run up there tomorrow morning? I can pick you up at ten.”

“All right.” What harm could it do to have him along?

“THERE’S no need to walk me all the way to the door,” Malory said as they approached her apartment building.

“Sure there is. I’m just an old-fashioned guy.”

“No, you’re not.” She muttered it as she opened her purse for her key. “I’m not asking you in.”

“Okay.”

She slanted him a look as they stepped up to the door. “You say that like you’re an affable, easygoing man. You’re not that, either. It’s a ploy.”

He grinned. “It is?”

“Yes. You’re stubborn and pushy and more than a little arrogant. You get away with it because you put on that big, charming smile and that I-wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly demeanor. But they’re just tools to help you get what you want.”

“God, you see right through me.” Watching her, he twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “Now I either have to kill you or marry you.”

“And being appealing on some screwy level doesn’t make you less annoying. Therein lies the flaw.”

At those words he caught her face in his hands and crushed his lips enthusiastically to hers. The heat shot straight up from her belly and seemed to burst out the top of her head.

“Neither does that,” she managed. She shoved her key in the lock, pushed the door open. Then shut it in his face. Half a beat later, she yanked it open. “Thanks for dinner.”

He rocked gently on his heels when the door shut in his face a second time. When he strolled away, he was whistling, and thinking Malory Price was the kind of woman who made a man’s life really interesting.

Chapter Six

DANA gulped down her first cup of coffee while standing naked in her tiny kitchen, eyes closed, brain dead. She drained it, hot, black, and strong, before letting out a soft whimper of relief.

She downed half the second cup on the way to the shower.

She didn’t mind mornings, mainly because she was never awake enough to object to them. Her routine rarely varied. Her alarm buzzed, she slapped it off, then rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen, where the automatic coffeemaker already had the first pot ready.

One and a half cups later, her vision was clear enough for a shower.

By the time she was done, her circuits were up and running, and she was too awake to sulk about being awake. She drank the second half of the second cup and listened to the morning news report while she dressed for the day.