The Bachelor Chronicles. Lissa Manley

to know why he was so skittish. Fortunately, she wouldn’t know him long enough to find out, and she doubted her article would delve that deep. And this certainly didn’t seem like the time to press him about his daughter. “I’ve noticed that.”

      She leaned toward him and nuzzled the pup in his arms. Realizing how close she was, she stiffened and looked up. Her eyes met his and their gazes held. Silence strung out between them, taut and tense. She was so close she could smell his scent, coffee and earth, swirling around her. Sparks of awareness tingled along her skin. Her heart leaped. Obviously, the attraction she’d felt earlier was not a one-time thing.

      His gaze flicked to her lips and stopped, and her body tightened. She swayed toward him, wishing with everything in her that he would close the distance between them and press that wicked mouth against hers for a long, deep kiss.

      The puppy yipped, breaking the spell, scrambling Erin’s control like eggs in a sizzling frying pan. She took a quick step back and drew in a ragged breath. Man, Jared was hot. His smell and gorgeous body were enough to make control a foreign word.

      Enough, already! Shocked, Erin moved back another step and ripped her gaze from his, hoping he didn’t notice her blush. She scrabbled for control, focusing her wayward attention on what she’d come here for. Her story. The bonus. Financial salvation.

      “So, about the interview?” she asked, proud of how normal she’d made her voice sound after she’d almost burst into flames.

      He turned and moved behind his neat-as-a pin, heavy wood desk, an expression on his face she couldn’t decipher. “Still after that story.”

      She regarded him solemnly. “It’s my job.”

      He tucked the puppy under one arm and looked through some papers on his desk with his free hand, but didn’t speak right away. Her heart pounding, Erin waited for an answer.

      Finally he looked up, his face hard. “I’m sorry, Ms. James.”

      Erin fought the panic spreading through her, grasping at straws in a last-ditch effort to change his mind. “Even if I let you have final approval of the article?”

      He hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”

      The burn of defeat spread through her, creating a lump in her throat the size of a boulder. She vaguely wondered how she was going to clean up the gigantic financial mess Brent had saddled her with and how she was going to complete “The Bachelor Chronicles.”

      She nodded woodenly and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. “I guess… I guess I’ll go now,” she managed to say. She wished she could forget this story and Jared Warfield and everything else that had happened in the past two days.

      And then, because she had no choice, she turned and walked away, hoping she would wake up and discover this was all just a bad dream.

      Jared watched Erin leave, admiring her slender legs from the back, loving the way her curvy hips moved under her skirt.

      When she was gone, he rubbed Josie behind her ears and tried to regain control of his body, floored at how close he’d come to kissing Erin a few minutes earlier. Thank goodness Josie had let out that bark in the nick of time.

      Despite his irritation over the pull he felt toward Erin, he still wondered if he shouldn’t have given her the damn interview. If marketing said Warfield’s needed the publicity, then Warfield’s needed the publicity.

      Oh, man. Had he let his desire to protect Allison intrude on his good business sense? Maybe he should call Erin back.

      The sizzling look they’d shared was incentive enough, as was the way she’d looked sitting on the floor with Josie, her skirt hiked up above her knees, her long, shapely legs exposed. With her auburn curls framing her face and her moss-colored eyes sparkling with delight, she’d looked like a woodland goddess come to life.

      He brought his thoughts up short. He met beautiful women every day. Why was he even thinking about calling back this woman reporter? Why should he trust the media, especially now, when he and Allison were finally taking baby steps toward recovering from the heart-tearing grief of Carolyn’s death?

      No. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up with Erin James, or any other woman for that matter. All of his father’s wives had left him, and he’d died alone and miserable, and that had taught Jared an important lesson: never let a woman worm her way into his life only to leave him or take advantage of him in the end. He had to protect himself, and now he had Allison to think about, too.

      No way was he going to mess up his precious daughter’s life by getting involved with a woman. Sure, he dated occasionally to satisfy his need for social activity, among other things. But drinks and dinner, usually never with the same woman more than a few times, were as far as his dating ever went. He made it a point not to date anyone he might be tempted to bring home, or anyone who might want to get her hooks into a millionaire—and that seemed to be everybody. He avoided emotional entanglements like a dreaded disease.

      And Erin was a reporter, to boot. No way was he going to let some gossip-chasing journalist close enough to hurt Allison.

      No. Erin James was out for her story and would probably exploit him given the chance. Flower-colored lips and leaf-speckled eyes couldn’t change that. Nothing could. Resolutely he vowed to put the whole thing from his mind. He’d never wanted to do the interview, and now he wouldn’t have to.

      He put Josie in her crate next to his desk, then leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his watch, waiting for relief to surface.

      A few minutes later his eighteen-month-old daughter, Allison, appeared in the doorway holding her nanny, Mrs. Sloane’s, hand. “Hi, Dada!” Allison crowed, waving. She ran into his office and jumped into his outstretched arms, looking absolutely adorable in light-blue pants and a pink top with fuzzy yellow bunnies all over it.

      He pulled her close and buried his head in her wispy, blond curls, loving how her baby-fresh hair tickled his nose. “Ally-Bear. What a nice surprise.” He gave Mrs. Sloane a questioning look.

      She smoothed her gray hair, pulled back in its customary bun, and smiled indulgently at Allison, her gray eyes sparkling. “She wanted to come visit her daddy. I hope you don’t mind.”

      “Of course not.” He pressed his mouth to Allison’s neck and made raspberry sounds. “I’m always happy to see my pretty girl.”

      Allison chortled in delight and squirmed away. “Tickly, Dada.” She pulled back and plopped down on his lap, then maneuvered herself around and scooted out until she sat just behind his knees. “Horsey, Dada, horsey!”

      Smiling, Jared put his hands under her arms and moved his legs up and down in a jerky, horselike fashion. “We’re going on a ride, Ally-Bear. Hold on!” he playfully warned, then moved his legs faster and faster.

      Allison shrieked in delight.

      Jared had never heard a more wonderful, happy sound in his life. He didn’t want to do anything that might threaten his angel, something that might someday give her a reason not to giggle her heart out.

      He made the choice then and there not to second-guess his decision to back out of the interview. Erin James had gotten his back up from the get-go. He didn’t trust her, and he never would. Too much was at stake to risk opening up to her. He’d forget everything remotely connected with the delectable reporter and put his darling Allison first.

      Allison laughed again, and the sound echoed within his heart, filling a space that he’d always thought would be empty. Allison was all he needed.

      Case closed. He’d do everything possible to stay away from Erin James, no matter how good she smelled.

      Erin looked up from the legal pad on her lap. “Come on,” she said to her best friend, Colleen. “Get over here and help me. I need to figure out how to get this interview.”

      Colleen glared at her over the door of Erin’s refrigerator and shoved her blond curls out of her eyes.