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She quickly averted her eyes, but not before he saw the look in them. Like he was an ice cream cone and she hadn’t had a sweet treat in so long.

Neither had he.

Fuck. She would definitely think he was Mike. Was she interested in his brother? Mike hadn’t told him anything about her except that she was highly competent and selected because absolutely no one on the leadership team had come into contact with her, so her cover would be easy to keep. It was precisely why Sandra was going in as backup. She hadn’t been with the company for long. McKay-Taggart had handled many of MaloneOil’s security issues over the years, but Nina was fairly new to the London team and she’d never worked in the States before.

Had she caught sight of him staring at her? Would she be terribly disappointed to find out he wasn’t his brother at all?

“Hi.” She was standing in front of him, a glass of red wine in one hand and a beer in the other. “You looked like you could use another. Please tell me if I’m intruding. I don’t want to bother you, but I’m a bit on the lonely side and you didn’t seem to be waiting on anyone.”

“I’m not.” She wasn’t talking like she knew him—or rather knew his twin. She was talking like a woman who’d seen someone she was interested in. “Please join me.”

She smiled and he was utterly dazzled. “Thanks. It’s been a long time since I chatted up a bloke. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m terrible at it. I’m Nina.”

He loved that accent. It was familiar since his mother had been born in England. She hadn’t moved to the States until she’d married his dad. That accent oddly sounded like home.

He didn’t want to say his name now because he liked the idea that he was nothing more than a guy in a bar and she was a woman who wanted to spend a little time with him. But he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Jackson. But my friends call me JT.”

She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, JT.”

There wasn’t a hint of recognition in her eyes.

She had no idea who he was. None. She didn’t know he was the heir to an oil company, had no clue he was considered one of America’s most eligible bachelors, had been asked to star on reality shows where he would date twenty women and probably dump them all because no one should find their soul mate on national television. Which was why he’d turned them all down.

He was JT, a guy in a bar.

He reached for her hand and took it in his. “Nice to meet you, Nina. And I’m lonely, too. I appreciate the company.”

It wouldn’t hurt to pretend. Just for a little while.

CHAPTER 2

Nina wasn’tsure what she was doing, but she knew one thing. She didn’t want to turn back and go to her own room. She’d spent the last two hours with JT. She didn’t know his last name and didn’t care. He didn’t know hers, either. There was something freeing in being JT and Nina.

Not exchanging last names didn’t mean she didn’t know anything about him. She’d found out he worked for his father’s company and his job took him all over the world. He was an utterly charming mix of down-home boy and sophisticated world traveler. He was a good listener. He had a brother and loved his family.

He was so sexy it hurt.

The lift doors opened and he held a hand out, allowing her to go first. He was also a perfect gentleman. After she’d bought him a beer, he’d bought the next round and then had made her choose between having another round or switching to coffee. She got the idea that if she’d had another drink, he wouldn’t have invited her up to his room.

“Tell me something,” she said as she moved to the elegant hallway. At this time of night, it was perfectly quiet. Her ownroom was several floors below. When the time had come to decide on whose room to go to, she’d insisted on his.

Yes, he was lovely, but she wanted an escape if she needed it.

“I’ve told you a lot. I can tell you more,” he said in that deep Texas accent of his. He followed her off and the doors closed behind him.

She hoped she didn’t need it. She hoped he was every bit the Cowboy Prince Charming he seemed to be.

“If I’d had drink number four, would we be here?” She was curious. She’d had more than one man try to ply her with drink to get what he wanted. It never worked, but she wanted to understand his reasoning.

He stared at her for a moment as though assessing the situation and then he leaned against the wall. “No. I would have made sure you got back to your room, but I don’t know your threshold. I have zero interest in coaxing you with liquor. I would far rather know you wanted me and not some random guy to forget your troubles with. And I didn’t want to get drunk either. Three’s a good limit for me. I don’t need anything to dull this experience.”

He was forthright. She liked that quite a bit, and he hadn’t had a fourth drink either. He’d been perfectly in control. Another thing she liked. She couldn’t exactly come out and tell him she would very much enjoy it if he dominated her sexually. Or could she? “But I am trying to forget my troubles. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you in particular. If you hadn’t been in the bar this evening, I would have settled for a book.”

His lips curled up in the sexiest smile. “What kind of book?”

“Romance.” Somehow she didn’t think he would be derisive. Some people had contempt for the genre, but they were usually the ones who could use it the most.

He moved in, his hand coming up to brush a stray hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “I like the sound of that.It’s your turn to tell me something. What would the hero of that book you would have read do right now?”