Ridge: The Avenger. Leanne Banks

a second. Her natural impulse was to respect another person’s privacy. “Family?”

      His gaze turned cool. “None. My mother and grandparents are dead.”

      No wife. No mother. No children. No business of hers. “You don’t like answering questions about yourself, do you?”

      “I’ve learned that you have to reach a meeting of the minds with your clients. It makes the job work more smoothly.” He glanced away. “Most clients aren’t interested in me, though. They just want me to do my job.”

      Dara pictured Ridge’s usual client—a businessman, perhaps a rock musician, someone from a foreign country. They probably all treated him like he was part of the woodwork. She laughed at the ridiculous notion.

      He looked at her curiously.

      “I guess I’m not like most of your clients, am I?”

      His gaze skimmed over her. “No.”

      Lord, he was stingy with his answers. She sighed. “What else do you know about me?”

      He cocked his head to one side.’ “The regular stats. You graduated with a Liberal Arts degree three years ago and went to work for Montgomery. I’ve been briefed on your close contacts and some of your habits—you don’t last much past midnight if you’ve gone full-speed all day. You’re not usually demanding, but you prefer to feel like you have some say over your situation. I’ll have to agree with that one,” he said, his voice dry.

      “And if you were in this situation, would you be any different?”

      “No,” he admitted, but he looked as if he would like to argue the point. He loosened his tie. “The file said you have a lot of friends, but you’ve put those relationships on the back burner because of the election. You stay in touch with your mother. You’ve been out with a dozen men in the last several months on outings while you campaign for your godfather, and you’ve politely turned them all down when they asked for another date.”

      “And you really wonder why?” she asked. Thus far, Ridge had been incredibly perceptive. She was surprised he hadn’t figured out her reasons on his own.

      Ridge shrugged. “The only lethal thing about that guy tonight was his line.”

      Dara laughed and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

      “Right,” he said, his voice full of skepticism.

      “I get this all the time. I’m given an escort to most of these functions. It’s part of the job, but these men are all the same. They all want the same thing—and it’s not my heart, not my soul. Or my body.”

      Ridge’s gaze flicked over her, lingering on her legs, as if he seriously doubted that last statement.

      Dara smoothed her hand over the hem of her dress. “They all want a closer connection with Harrison, and they’re hoping they can get it through me.”

      Understanding flickered across his face. “And you want?”

      Dara hesitated, wondering how the conversation had meandered back to such a personal topic. “Wasn’t that in my file?”

      He held her gaze, shaking his head slowly.

      Fighting an urge to fidget she thought she’d conquered years ago, Dara sighed. She still felt a pinch when she remembered how she’d fallen hard for one man’s line, only to learn that what he’d really wanted was an association with her godfather. The experience had made her gun-shy. “It sounds corny,” she said quietly, “but I just want to be wanted for me. I want someone who, for the most part, doesn’t really care that I’m Harrison Montgomery’s goddaughter.”

      Dara resisted her need to look away from Ridge although she was too aware of him, of how close his knee was to hers, of how his musky male scent mingled with her perfume, of how curious she was about him when she shouldn’t be. Taking a deep breath, she instinctively turned the conversation away from herself. “And what about you? What do you want?”

      A charged silence stretched and tightened between them. Ridge leaned forward and placed his hands on either side of her legs. His teeth flashed in a slow, big-bad-wolf grin. “Are you making an offer, Miss Seabrook?”

      Her heart hammered against her rib cage. Heat and confusion tangled inside her. “I, uh, I—”

      “Because if you are…”

      Panic won over excitement. “No!” She pressed her back against the seat. “I was just wondering—”

      “I’m wondering, too,” Ridge interrupted in a voice threaded with intimacy. “I’m wondering what’s going on in your mind when your eyelids flutter.”

      Her mouth desert dry, she stared at him.

      He slid his thumb just under the hem of her dress on the outside of her thigh and her breath hitched in her throat. Watching her with his compelling, golden eyes, he moved his thumb in one slow stroke that made her feel branded. “I wonder a lot more, but if you’re concerned that I’ll take advantage of you, don’t worry. It’s my job to guard your body, Dara, and that’s what I’ll do, even if it means protecting you from me.” Ridge removed his hands and eased away from her. “I make it a policy never to get involved with a client.”

      Heaven help her if he changed his mind! She’d been about as threatening as a wet noodle. She should have slapped his inquisitive hands. Next time she would. This time, she just wanted an ice cube. Dara searched for her breath and finally found it. “Good,” she managed to say, nodding emphatically and wishing her hands would stop trembling. “Very good. I think that sounds like a… uh—” She cleared her throat and wondered why she felt like a bomb had gone off inside her. “A wise policy,” she finished, and breathed a sigh of relief when the limo pulled to a stop outside the hotel.

      “Here they are. Just what you ordered.” Wearing a dubious expression, Clarence handed the bag to Dara.

      Sitting on the plush sofa of her hotel suite, Dara glanced inside the bag and gave a weak smile. “Thank you. They look fine. Did you find anyone who can coach me?”

      Clarence adjusted his bow tie. “I asked a couple of people at the local campaign headquarters, discreetly of course, but none of them had any, uh, experience with, uh, rollerblades.”

      Ridge watched the interplay between the two of them curiously.

      Dara sighed and tucked a lock of her damp hair behind her ear. Fresh from a morning shower, weaning blue jeans that cupped her well-shaped rear end and revealed tantalizing hints of bare flesh from strategically placed tears, along with a Mickey Mouse T-shirt that stretched across her breasts, she looked more like a college coed than the current darling of the press. Her face and feet were bare. With all the polish rubbed off of her, she still exuded a subtle but provocative energy that lured his attention and held it.

      The only thing that proved, he told himself, was that his hormones were in working order.

      “I don’t want to sound vain,” she said, “but this is something I really don’t want to see on the evening news for the rest of my natural life.”

      Clarence nodded sympathetically. “Forrester should have asked you first, but you know how he is when he gets going. I suppose we could attempt to cancel,” he said, his voice full of doubt.

      “It would be easier to die.”

      Ridge tried to put the pieces of the conversation together. He knew Drew Forrester was Montgomery’s cracker jack media specialist. “Cancel what?” he finally interjected.

      Both heads turned toward him. Reservation shimmered in Dara’s eyes. She’d deliberately ignored him since last night. Ridge wondered if that was a result of his actions, and felt the slightest sting of regret. He’d intentionally made her uncomfortable because he’d seen that reckless glint in her eyes, the womanly curiosity. Perhaps he could have let it pass if he hadn’t felt an answering flicker