A Cowboy in Disguise (2 page)

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Alexandra asked.

The woman was nearly breathless. Were her hands actually shaking? “Grease remover. And antiseptic. Seeing if the cleaning staff has some. Back in a minute.”

Alexandra watched her assistant scurry away. She could only guess what kind of tragic accident could have prompted the need for cleaner and peroxide. She just hoped the repair guys hadn’t had another unfortunate incident with that copy machine on which they’d attached wheels. After that last runaway …

Alexandra turned the corner to her office, and that’s when she saw him—the man from the freeway sitting on the corner of her desk rubbing the front of his white dress shirt. The very sight of him stopped her dead in her tracks.
Oh no
, she thought,
this can’t be
. The butterflies in her stomach fluttered mightily. This added a whole new and unneeded wrinkle to her desperate presentation-saving situation.

“Chivalry has its disadvantages,” he said without looking up. The more he rubbed, the larger the black smear on the front of his shirt grew.

“So it seems.”

Scott Falconer’s gaze lifted slowly at the familiar sound of her voice. “Don’t tell me you’re Alex?”

She willed her feet to move again and stretched out her hand to shake his. “Alexandra. That would be me.”

Scott laughed and took her hand in his warm, firm grasp. “Well, if this isn’t ever fate.”

“Something like that.”

Alexandra’s heart leapt into her throat and then landed firmly in the pit of her stomach. Great. Beautiful blue eyes on the devil himself. He was her enemy—the man poised to take away her presentation, her client and her authority. God had a sick, sick sense of humor, didn’t He?

Her fingertips felt like fire in the palm of Scott Falconer’s hand and she pulled away a little too quickly from the greeting.

“Still happy?” he asked quietly. His eyes sparkled.

Surely someone of his sort would continue to use that comment against her. Indefinitely. If he had any class or mercy in him at all, he’d let it drop. Before Alexandra could think of a cutting reply, Sarah returned empty-handed.

“Couldn’t find a thing,” the woman said. “Sorry. Oh, I did find a medical kit under the washroom sink for that knuckle. Do you have something to change into? You could at least put on a clean shirt.”

He shrugged. “Not before a client meeting I have this morning, I’m afraid. Everything’s at the hotel, so what I have on will just have to do. You know, I’ve found the freeways around here a lot friendlier than I’d thought,” he said pointedly. “But alas, there’s no time to drive back for a fresh shirt.”

Had he really used the word “alas” out loud? She inhaled quietly. If Alexandra stayed annoyed or aloof enough, maybe the memory of her initial attraction to him would fade into oblivion. Besides, she could have sworn he was amused by her and that realization made her determined side come out all over again. She smiled brightly and forced herself to think something about bumbling idiots and enough rope.

“That’s just too bad,” she finally said in her most saccharine voice. “Maybe if you do up all the buttons on your jacket, it’ll hide the spot.”

Now where had
those
words come from? She certainly hadn’t meant to be sarcastic either. Nothing came out right when she was near this man.

•

Scott shot her a questioning look. David had warned him this might be a rough transition and he’d really have to prove himself to win over the likes of Alexandra Hunter. But he wasn’t sure if this situation was what he’d expected.

She was obviously annoyed with the entire scenario and exasperated with his mere existence, but all Scott could think about was how classically stunning she looked in the usually unflattering fluorescent office lighting. Beauty and competence fairly flew off of her in sparks.

He imagined the woman from the roadside in a thousand ways during the rest of his drive to the office. How might things have gone at this introduction they were now having, had he leaned in and kissed her tempting lips right there on the freeway? How would she have reacted had he pulled her into his arms and looked deeply into her emerald eyes?

A man could search all his life for a woman with her poise, her presence, and never find her. Yet Scott had been so shaken by his physical reaction to her that he’d panicked and walked away without so much as an introduction.

Now he was glad he hadn’t acted on his impulses. The business gods were looking out for him.

“I don’t think we did, but did we get off on the wrong foot somehow?” he asked quietly.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” she countered politely. “You were kind enough to change my tire. Thank you again for that.”

He studied the stoic expression on her face for a moment. Stubborn.

“Well, in any case,” he said, “I’m off to my meeting. David told me where your favorite restaurant is, so meet you there at five for an early dinner? It would be great to start going over the presentation details as soon as possible.”

“So looking forward to it,” she accepted with just a trace of ice in her voice. Or maybe he’d only imagined the ice.

Scott shot her another curious look and a dazzling smile, then buttoned up his jacket—all the way to the top as she had suggested. He didn’t know what insanity had just made him invite a hostile woman to dinner, but he’d have to remember to ask David about that restaurant and hope Alexandra Hunter really did have a favorite.

•

Alexandra knew Sarah was lurking just around the corner. Waiting. Ready to pounce.

“Did you see him—what I just saw?” Sarah strolled into Alexandra’s office and leaned dreamily against the wall. “He’s absolutely beautiful. All that thick, dark hair with those blue eyes—and that body. Gosh, it’s no wonder they say he has a new girlfriend every month. No one could resist a guy like that.”

Alexandra’s heart did a little sideways twist and settled even deeper into her gut. “Probably not the most appropriate office topic of conversation to be having, Sarah.”

“Don’t you even want to hear who he’s dated?”

“Nope.”

“Sunny
Chezdous
.”

Alexandra couldn’t help herself. “That trashy movie star?”

“None other,” Sarah whispered. “And before that, he was with that pop singer, Kristina
somethingerother
. And they say he even dated that princess—you know, the one who’s always causing all the scandals.”

Alexandra sunk her head deep into the back of her leather chair and groaned. Scott Falconer’s reputation was progressing—or deteriorating—from bad to worse.

But Sarah’s enthusiasm wasn’t to be quelled. “I also heard he grew up in Boston and spent his summers in France. Jet-setting, yachting and all that. Most definitely old money. Want to know more?”

“Probably never had to work a day in his life, right?”

“I can find out,” she offered with a gleam in her eye. There was nothing Sarah enjoyed better than a good gossip-gathering mission.

“No, that’s all right. I have a feeling I’ll find out soon enough for myself.”

David wouldn’t put up long with an employee who sacrificed job performance for personal decadence. Maybe she’d found Falconer’s Achilles heel.

Chapter Two

Just before five o’clock, Alexandra slipped out of her silk suit and into the simple black dinner dress she kept hanging on the back of her office door. She kept a pair of strappy black high-heeled shoes in her bottom desk drawer. If this old-money-playboy-exec-wannabe couldn’t keep his head on straight in the company of beautiful, dumb women, she wondered how flustered he might get with an average-looking, smart one.

She couldn’t remember wondering how a man might react since Duncan Phelps—and she’d nearly married that idiot.

She’d first met Duncan at a public relations seminar in New Orleans. He was working for a competitor at the time, but when he sauntered over to her table with his sandy blond hair and cocky grin, how could she have refused him? After all, people from several prominent companies mixed and mingled during these seminars.

Duncan had nearly made her pulse skip at first, too, she remembered, her thoughts sliding back to Scott for a moment. And there had been the surreal atmosphere of autumn in New Orleans, the romantic strolls down cobblestone walkways. Theirs had seemed the perfect start to a new relationship.

Alexandra’s eyes misted over, purely from the infuriation she still felt with herself, and she quickly checked her mascara in the rearview mirror as she drove. Yes, theirs had been the perfect beginning, but what she’d never forget was the last evening she’d seen Duncan. The ending to beat all endings.

After work, she’d stopped and picked up Japanese takeout to bring over to his condo. She’d smiled all the way there just knowing they’d finally set a wedding date and found the right church for the ceremony. She’d been excited about shopping for a dress and having the invitations designed. Things couldn’t have been better—or so she’d believed.

She hadn’t recognized the red sports car in Duncan’s reserved parking space, but she’d burst in through the front door without giving it much thought. Maybe he had a company car for the day. It didn’t matter. She was just happy with the thought of seeing him again as she shut the door behind her.

Then her entire world went dark. All she could see was Duncan’s face as he twisted around to look at her from a blanket spread out on the floor between the coffee table and the living room fireplace. As he pulled the blanket around himself and tossed another to the curvy little brunette beside him, Alexandra had hurled the takeout food at his head. The man was lucky she hadn’t picked up pizza. A flatter box would have sailed faster toward his stupid face. She wondered if her aim had been good, and hoped it had—but she’d never looked back to check.

It wasn’t until the next morning when she finally noticed her day planner and confidential client files were missing. In fact, everything to which Duncan had access was missing.

She’d never spoken to the man since, and the lawyers had discretely handled the low-profile corporate espionage case against him and his employers while she buried herself in work. Not so many months later, she accepted David’s offer and left that tainted part of her career behind.

Alexandra shook off the bitter memories and finished wiping away a final streak of mascara. “That’s what happens when you listen to your heart and not your head,” she whispered to herself as she turned off her car’s engine.

She locked the car door behind her and started to walk across the parking lot of her “favorite restaurant.” The car in front from her looked awfully familiar. Could it be? It was. Scott’s black BMW with both of its front tires completely flat, sitting sort of sideways in front of a spike strip.

“Should I even ask how you managed to do this?” Alexandra gestured toward the mutilated tires.

Scott looked up at her from on bended knee beside his fender. His eyes roamed her body for only a split-second, but she saw it, turned her head aside and grinned in spite of herself.

“Don’t say another word.” He laughed with a twinkle in his blue eyes. Steam rose up from the dark pavement behind him, a reminder it had rained only recently.

Alexandra bit her lip to keep from laughing outright. “I had no idea a flat was a contagious condition. And two of them? Guess that must qualify for an epidemic.”

“Was that actually a smile?” He switched to his best phony southern accent. “Why ma’am, I do believe you’re enjoying my suffering. But if that’s what it takes to get a smile, I’ll suffer gladly.”

Suffer? Insufferable cad was more like it, she forced herself to think. When standing so near him, it was hard to remember she disliked everything this philandering glory-boy stood for.

“Can we eat now?” she said amicably. “I’m suddenly famished.”

As they walked into the restaurant, the manager recognized Alexandra at once and greeted her warmly. They were escorted to the ideal table, far to the back of the room with very little lighting to show off the grease-stained front of his formerly white dress shirt and now-torn jacket. From the critical look he’d received, Scott suspected the restaurant manager would have hidden him at a grungy table near the kitchen or in front of the restroom doors if he hadn’t seen Alexandra at his side.