Sweet Child of Mine. Jean Brashear

started convincing people that we’re a couple.”

      Hesitantly, she slipped her hand in his, let him tug her to her feet.

      But he didn’t stop there. He pulled her into his arms and before she could react, lowered his mouth to hers.

      The kiss was quick but lethal. Michael lifted his head and stared at her, his own confusion mirroring hers.

      Suzanne knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t seem to do it. The sense of safety in his strong arms was seductive. It felt far better than it should.

      Mistake, her mind kept trying to say to her.

      But before her voice could catch up, Michael lowered his mouth to hers once more.

      And this time it wasn’t quick. It wasn’t casual.

      It was more lethal. Devastating. When one arm tightened around her and the other hand slid into her hair, Suzanne felt her legs turn to jelly, her brain overload.

      All the fire that had sparked between them in words in the past raced to a four-alarm blaze when they touched. As though they belonged to someone else, her arms slid around his trim waist, her hands sliding over the long muscles of his back, her mouth surrendering to his, her body softening against him.

      Her response was gasoline splashed on flames. His powerful body tightened against her, and she thought she heard someone moan softly before she realized it was her own voice.

      Michael broke off the kiss and let her go, then quickly pulled her back. She’d seen those green eyes in many guises, but she’d never seen them hot. And bewildered. Very much like her own must be.

      Suzanne shivered. Michael dropped his arms and stepped back.

      “This—” His voice was rough. It felt like sandpaper on her too-sensitized skin. “This could be a problem.”

      She realized that many patrons had turned their way. Bobby, she thought. My baby. Nothing else mattered.

      “It won’t happen again,” she said, furious that her voice was shaking.

      Michael studied her for a long moment, his expression moving from stunned to almost amused. The heat still simmered in his eyes. “Spontaneous combustion is a force no one can control.”

      There were many more facets to Michael Longstreet than she’d seen. She’d need every bit of her wits to pull off this charade.

      She struggled to remember the Suzanne Jorgenson who’d traded barbs with him with abandon in council chambers. “Heat lightning,” she said. “It comes, but it doesn’t last. And it doesn’t come often.” She shrugged with an assurance she wished she felt.

      One dimple winked at her. The smile was too much. No way would she check to see if the eyes were still smoldering.

      “Don’t kid yourself, Suzanne. We’ll strike fire off each other. Often.” But to her relief, he shrugged and clapped a companionable arm around her shoulders. “But it’s just sex. And we’re reasonable people, right?”

      She thought she heard laughter in his voice, but she wasn’t looking at him again tonight. That was too dangerous by half.

      So she just patted the hand that lay on her shoulder and smiled for the audience. “Reasonable, that’s right. Now get me the devil out of here.”

      Michael laughed and led her outside.

      Three

      Warm rays of sunlight on his face awakened Michael. He levered himself up from the bed, not happy that he’d overslept. A glance at the clock told him he’d have to hurry to squeeze in his morning run. He scrubbed his face with both hands, then slid them upward through his hair.

      And then it hit him.

      He fell back on the mattress, arms outspread. The night—and his impulsive gesture—came flooding back.

      He was going to get married. To Suzanne Jorgenson.

      Jerking upright, he pulled on a pair of ancient sweats and shoved his feet into his running shoes. He barely spared a glance for the treasured panorama from his bedroom but as he crossed to the hallway door, his gaze fell on the connecting door that led from his bedroom to an old-fashioned dressing room…and then to the bedroom Suzanne would have. The house had been built by a San Francisco shipping magnate in the last century and it had four bedrooms, two large and two small, all on the second floor. He used one of the smaller ones for an office, and the boy would need the other, which left only the room originally designed for the magnate’s wife.

      Separate bedrooms had seemed perfectly reasonable last night, but that was before that last kiss. Now he wondered if maybe these weren’t separate enough.

      Michael began his warm-up stretches, his mind lost in thought.

      He should have expected it, he guessed, that swift punch of need. It was an understandable reaction to the wealth of passion he’d already seen in Suzanne’s devotion to her causes. He had to admit that he’d wondered, sitting there on the dais watching her eyes spark as she argued fervently over one thing or another, if that fervor would translate to the physical.

      He’d underestimated how much. And seriously underestimated his own reaction to it. The woman would strip a man of every rational thought and leave him happily witless.

      Suzanne might be small, but she packed a punch.

      But that wasn’t the part that worried him most. For all that she could make a man want, it was the new vulnerability he’d seen in her that gave Michael pause. This was a dangerous game they would play—assuming she wasn’t having second thoughts as huge as his.

      He’d have to track her down this morning and take a good look in her eyes. Given how badly she wanted her son, he suspected she’d go ahead, no matter her doubts. And he’d given his word, so he wouldn’t retract his offer.

      He finished his last stretch and cast one more look at that connecting door.

      Shaking his head, he pounded down the stairs. He’d hate to drill into the antique doors, but locks were made to control temptation, if he needed them. Kissing Suzanne last night had been an impulse but a very good lesson. Having her close would be a constant physical temptation, but he had his warning.

      He’d have to be very careful. A woman like that could make a man lose his head. Good thing he wasn’t a man who let his body rule his mind.

      But that kiss, that feel of her pressed against him—

      No. Suzanne needed his help, and he was a man of his word. If she still wanted to go through with it, he would not let her down nor let physical attraction complicate an already thorny situation.

      He raced out the front door and let the cold air slap sense into him.

      Suzanne slipped out of the last room housing one of her charges and walked down the hallway of Emily’s House, already thinking about Monday’s move of the kids to Hacienda de Alegria, the Colton ranch. Mentally compiling her to-do list, she was lost in thought when she heard his voice. Her gaze arrowed toward the man who’d made last night a very bad one for sleep.

      Michael stood with a couple of staff members and Dr. Jason Colton, patiently answering questions about the water crisis. He hadn’t seen her yet, so Suzanne was free to look her fill. She needed to do it, to put him into some perspective. To remember that he was merely extending a helping hand in return for her help in solving his own problem. That was all this was, nothing else. A simple, bloodless, temporary marriage that each of them needed for different reasons.

      If only he didn’t look so good. Dressed in his usual jeans and boots and wearing a long-sleeved forest-green shirt, he held his leather jacket over his shoulder with two fingers. Tall and so at ease in his skin, he smiled and laughed easily as he talked with the trio.

      She wondered if anyone else in Prosperino knew he was a fraud. That Mr. Romeo Rich Guy had a heart that had never healed after a loss