Page 58

His eyes met hers. “Cancel it.”

This time, his voice was soft. Rough. Sexy, just as she’d remembered it. Heat swept through her as it had a few minutes ago, and wasn’t that ridiculous? The way she’d reacted to him that night in Santa Barbara had been an aberration.

He wasn’t her type, and one decent instinct did not turn a rogue into a gentleman.

“I can’t. As it is, I’ve kept him waiting.”

“Him? You mean you have a date?”

Her eyebrows rose. He sounded as if she’d said she was on her way to Mars. So much for his being a gentleman.

“Is it that so difficult to believe?”

“No. I didn’t mean…”

She stuck out her hand. “Thank you for—for your concern, Lieutenant, but I assure you, you have nothing to worry about.”

He looked at her hand. Looked at her face. Enough, she decided, and she spun away from him and started for the corner.

The light was red. Red lights had never stopped Sicilians nor did they stop New Yorkers. But there was traffic coming, so she tapped her foot and waited.

She wasn’t just late, she was unforgivably late.

That wasn’t all that was unforgivable.

The way she’d run into the lieutenant’s arms. As if she were a maiden fleeing a dragon, and he were a knight come to rescue her.

Dammit, why didn’t the light change?

If her feelings about him had softened those final minutes she’d been trapped in the dark, it was only because remembering what he’d said about facing fear had been effective. In a sense, he’d helped her. And then there he was, just outside the door. Was it any wonder she’d lost perspective and rushed to—

The light changed to green.

Bianca stepped off the curb.

A horn blared.

Chay’s hand closed on her wrist. He dragged her back as a truck hurtled by.

“Goddammit,” he growled,

“you want to get wherever in hell you’re going in an ambulance?”

“I told you, I’m late.”

She hurried forward. He did, too, one hand still clamped around her wrist.

“How come this guy you’re in such a rush to see didn’t meet you at your office?”

“He didn’t meet me at my office because he doesn’t have the address.”

“What do you mean, he doesn’t have the address?”

“I mean exactly what I said. He doesn’t…” She shot him a sideways glance. “Come to think of it, neither did you.” Her eyes widened. “You did not ask Tanner for—”

“I did not, no.”

“Why are you mimicking me?”