“Oddly enough, I took an interest in you, Lenore. Last night—” He saw her stiffen and felt a certain satisfaction. No, he wasn’t going to let her forget that, any more than he could forget it himself. “Last night,” he repeated slowly, waiting until her gaze lifted to his again, “I wanted to make love with you. I wanted to get beneath the careful layer of polish and discover you. When I had, you’d have looked as you do now. Soft, fragile, with your mouth naked and your eyes clouded.”

Her bones were already melting, her skin already heating, and it was only words. He didn’t touch her, didn’t attempt to, but the sound of his voice flowed over her skin like the gentlest of caresses. “I don’t—I had no intention of letting you make love to me.”

“I don’t believe in making love to a woman, only with.” His eyes never left hers. She could feel her head begin to swim with passion, her breath tremble with it. “Only with,” Hunter repeated. “When you left, I turned to the next best way of discovering you.”

Lee gripped her hands together in her lap, knowing she had to control the shudders. How could a man have such power? And how could she fight it? Why did she feel as though they were already lovers? Was it just the sense of inevitability that they would be, no matter what her choice? “I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice was no longer calm.

“Your manuscript.”

Uncomprehending, she stared. She’d completely forgotten it the night before in her fear of him, and of herself. Anger and frustration had prevented her from remembering it that morning. Now, on top of a dazed desire, she felt the helplessness of a novice confronted by the master. “I never intended for you to read it,” she began. Without thinking, she was shredding her napkin in her lap. “I don’t have any aspirations toward being a novelist.”

“Then you’re a fool as well as a liar.”

All sense of helplessness fled. No one, no one in all of her memory, had ever spoken to her like that. “I’m neither a fool nor a liar, Hunter. What I am is an excellent reporter. I want to write an exclusive, in-depth and accurate article on you for our readers.”

“Why do you waste your time writing gossip when you’ve got a novel to finish?”

She went rigid. The eyes that had been clouded with confused desire became frosty. “I don’t write gossip.”