Mistress for a Month. Ann Major

to settle. Maybe it was time to live a little dangerously.

      Slowly Amy dug into her pocket and felt for the scrap of paper with Remy’s phone numbers on it. For a long moment she studied the flowing black letters. Then with shaking fingers she began dialing his mobile, but after letting it ring once, she hung up, and would have chewed her nails except she couldn’t because she had on those new tips.

      Damn!

      She was still staring at her fake pink fingernails in utter frustration when the phone rang.

      Expecting Carol, she picked it up.

      “Did someone from this number call me?” Remy’s deep, dark voice spoke with such tender concern she almost forgot he was the terrible person she’d read about and not the sweet man she’d met by chance and had liked so much this afternoon.

      He sounded so nice.

      “Me!” she squeaked, forgetting the terrible bit. “That would be me! The girl you bumped—”

      He laughed as if he were thrilled, too. “I know who you are.” Somehow the way he said that made her feel very special, like she was the only woman in the world who mattered to him. Which was ridiculous. He was a womanizer.

      “I was afraid you wouldn’t call,” he said, again sounding so sincerely worried and humble she could almost feel her heart shatter. He was that good.

      Or that bad.

      Either way, this could be a win-win.

      Hang up on him.

      She plunged in recklessly. “I—I’m free tonight. Carol…” Amy glanced across the room at a silver-framed photograph of her blond sister and Steve and silently crossed herself. “We…we won’t be getting together, after all. She…has a headache.”

      “Nothing too serious, I hope.”

      “No.”

      “Excellent. I can be there as soon as you can be ready.”

      “But I don’t have anything to wear.”

      “I don’t really object to that,” he teased. “I could bring dinner over, and we could stay in. You could wear…nothing. I wouldn’t mind. I swear.”

      She laughed. “You are terrible.”

      “So I’ve been told.” He laughed. “What do you want, chérie?”

      If she wanted lessons in love from an expert, she should say, “You.” She should say, “Yes! Yes!”

      “Fortnam and Masons is only two blocks away. If I could just pop over there…”

      “I particularly liked your dress this afternoon.”

      “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

      “I can’t wait to see you,” he said in a dark, eager tone that sent a chill through her.

      “Me, too,” she responded in a voice that was probably too low for him to hear.

      When he hung up, she licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and drew a slow, deep breath. Just talking to him made her feel sexy and daring.

      She exhaled a long, shaky breath. And then another. Oh, my God. She was so excited she’d held her breath almost the entire phone call.

      Deep down she knew that if she were smart and practical, she would return to Honolulu and regroup. No way should she fly to France to negotiate with his agents or his family about the vineyard or even think about the Matisse until she had her head on straight. If she were smart and practical she would tell him she knew who he was and ask him to leave her alone.

      But despite everything she’d read about him, or maybe because of it, she wanted to go out with Remy. Which was crazy.

      He’d tricked her!

      But he’d been charming, devastatingly charming. And he had not pressed his advantage, she told herself.

      Not yet, anyway.

      Her mind warred with itself, but soon the hunger for adventure with a dangerous, incredibly attractive man won out over good sense and logic.

      He was a comte. Despite his many faults, that would cut a lot of ice chunklets with her shallow mother and brilliant sister. Definitely, he was a win-win.

      Now all she had to do was to find a sexy red dress!