Heart of Ice (4 page)

She drew in a calming breath. “Do excuse me, Mr. Winthrop,” she said formally. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down? I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”

“Not until you tell me where you plan to pour it,” he returned.

“Don’t tempt me.” She reached up into the cabinet for a second cup and saucer while he pulled out a chair and straddled it.

When she turned back with the filled cups, she found him watching her. It unnerved her when he did that, and she spilled coffee into one of the saucers before she could set them on the table.

“Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked pleasantly.

“No,” she said. “I’m not used to sleeping late. I’m at my best early in the morning.”

A slow, wicked smile touched his hard mouth. “Most of us are,” he commented.

It didn’t necessarily mean what she thought it did, but she couldn’t help the blush. And that increased her embarrassment, because he laughed.

“Will you stop!” she burst out, glaring at him. “Oh, why don’t you take your coffee and go back to bed?”

“I’m hungry. Don’t I smell bacon?”

“Bacon!” She jumped up and turned it just in time. It was a nice golden brown.

“Going to scramble some eggs, too?” he asked.

“No, I thought I’d let you drink yours raw,” she said.

He only laughed, sipping his coffee. “I like raw oysters, but I draw the line at raw eggs. Want me to make the toast?”

“You can cook?”

“Don’t get insulting.” He stood up and found the
bread and butter. “Get me a pan and some cinnamon and sugar.”

She stared at him.

“Cinnamon,” he said patiently. “It’s a spice—”

“I know what it is,” she grumbled, finding it. “Here. And I’ve lined the pan with aluminum foil. It’s all yours.”

“Ungrateful woman,” he muttered as he mixed the cinnamon and sugar in the shaker she’d handed him. He buttered the bread and spread the mixture on top.

“Don’t get conceited just because you can make cinnamon toast,” she mumbled. “After all, it isn’t exactly duckling
a l’orange
.”

“I’d like to see you cook that,” he remarked.

She cleared her throat. “Well, I could if I had a recipe.”

“So could I.” He turned on the oven and slid the toast in under the broiler. “Get me a pot holder.”

“Who was your personal slave yesterday?” she asked, tossing him a quilted pot holder.

“I liked the old days,” he murmured, glancing at her. “When men hunted and women cooked and had kids.”

“Drudgery,” she scoffed. “Women were little more than free labor….”

“Cosseted and protected and worried over and loved to death,” he continued, staring down at her. “Now they’re overbearing, pushy, impossible to get along with and wilder than bucks.”

“Look who’s talking about being wild!” she burst out.

He stared down his nose at her. “I’m a man.”

She drew in a breath and let it out, and her eyes involuntarily ran over him.

“No argument?” he asked.

She turned away. “Your toast’s burning.”

He took it out—nicely browned and smelling sweet and delicate—and put it on a plate while she scrambled eggs.

“I like mine fried, honey,” he commented.

“Okay. There’s a frying pan, grease is in the cabinet. If you’re too good to eat my scrambled eggs, you can mutilate your own any way you like.”

He chuckled softly, an odd sound that she’d never heard, and she turned to look up at him.

“Firecracker,” he murmured, his eyes narrow and searching. “Are you like that in bed?”

She jerked her eyes away and concentrated on the eggs. “Wouldn’t you like to get dressed before we eat?”

It was a mistake. A horrible mistake. Because then he knew what she hadn’t admitted since he walked into the room. That, stripped to the waist, he bothered her.

The arrogant beast knew it, all right. He moved lazily until he was standing just behind her…so close that she felt him and smelled him and wanted nothing more out of life than to turn around and slide her hands all over that broad chest.

His hands caught her waist, making her jump, and eased her back against him so that she could feel the warm, hard muscles of his chest and stomach against her back. The caftan was paper-thin, and it was like standing naked in his arms.

She felt his fingers move to her hips, caressingly, and her hand trembled as it stirred the eggs to keep them from burning.

“Egan, don’t,” she whispered shakily.

His breath was warm and rough in her hair, because the top of her head only came to his chin. The fingers holding her hips contracted, and she felt the tips of them on her flat stomach like a brand.

“Put down that damned spoon and turn around,” he said in a tone she didn’t recognize.

She was shaking like a leaf, and God only knew what would have happened. But noisy footsteps sounded outside the kitchen door, and an equally noisy yawn followed it. Egan let go of her and moved away just as Ada walked in.

“There you are!” she said brightly, watching her best friend stir eggs. “I’m starved!”

“It’ll be on the table in two shakes,” Kati promised, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. Damn Egan!

“I’d better get dressed,” Egan commented, winking at Ada as he went past her. “I think I bother somebody like this.”

Kati made an unforgivable comment under her breath as he left the room.

“At it again, I see,” Ada sighed wearily.

“He started it,” Kati said through her teeth. “I didn’t ask him to walk in here naked.”

“What?” Ada blinked.

Kati looked at her friend with a pained expression. “Oh, God, isn’t he beautiful?” she whispered with genuine feeling.

Ada chuckled gleefully. “Well, I always thought so, even if he is my brother. But isn’t that something of a strange admission for you to make?”

“It slipped out. Just forget it.” She dished up the eggs. “I think I’d better put something on too.”

“Don’t be long,” Ada cautioned. “The eggs will congeal.”

“I’ll hurry.”

She ran for her bedroom and closed the door just as Egan opened his. A minute’s grace! She got into her jeans, blue T-shirt and shoes, and barely stopped to run a brush through her hair. She hoped it would be a short week. She hadn’t expected Egan to have this kind of effect on her. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never even tried to make a pass at her. Now, in less than two days, he’d made more impact on her guarded emotions than any other man had in all her twenty-five years. She was going to have to get a hold on herself. She didn’t know what kind of game Egan had in mind, but she wasn’t playing.

He was wearing a brown velour pullover when she came back, one that emphasized his dark
hair and complexion and the hard muscles she’d already seen.

“We left a little for you,” Egan commented as she sat down. He pushed aside his empty plate and poured himself another cup of coffee from the hotplate on the table.

“How kind of you,” she said pleasantly. She held up her cup and Egan filled it, studying her far too closely.

“What does your boyfriend do for a living?” he asked unexpectedly.

“Jack isn’t my boyfriend,” she said. “He’s a man I date. And he’s a political reporter for the
New York Times
.”

He leaned back in his chair while Ada bit her lower lip and looked apprehensive.

“Is he really?” Egan asked. “He doesn’t look like he gets much exercise. A little overweight, wouldn’t you say?”

She glared at him. “He works very hard.”

He only laughed, and sipped his coffee. “If I took him home with me, I could break him in one day.”

“You could break the devil in one day,” Kati said, exasperated. “What business is it of yours who I date?”

“Now, that’s a good question,” he replied. His eyes narrowed, and there was a smile she didn’t understand on his chiseled lips. “Maybe I feel sorry for the poor man. He does know what you do for a living, doesn’t
he? Must be hell on him, having everything he does to you turn up in a book…”

“Egan.” Ada groaned, hiding her face in her hands.

“You overbearing, unspeakable, mean-tempered…” Kati began in a low tone. She threw her napkin down onto the table and stood up.

“You sure got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Egan commented. “Here I am a guest in your apartment—”

“I’d sooner invite a cobra to breakfast!” she burst out.

“You should have,” he murmured, glancing at the plate he’d just emptied. “He might have enjoyed burned eggs and half-raw bacon.”

She tried to speak, couldn’t, and just stormed out of the room.

She left the apartment before Ada could get out of the kitchen, and wandered around the streets shivering in her thin jacket for an hour before she gave up and went back. It was too cold for pride, anyway. All she’d accomplished was to let Egan see how unreasonably she reacted to his prodding. She’d just have to grit her teeth, for Ada’s sake.

Egan was nowhere in sight when she got back, and Ada looked apologetic and worn.

“I don’t understand him, I just don’t,” Ada groaned. “Oh, Kati, I’m sorry. If I’d realized how bad things were between you, I’d never have invited him.”

Kati was generous enough not to remind her friend
that she’d tried to warn her. She sat down on the sofa with a hard sigh.

“I’ll manage. Where is he?” she added darkly.

“Gone to spend the day with some girlfriend of his,” Ada said absently. “He said he might not be back until late.”

Why that simple statement should make her feel murderous, Kati didn’t know. But something gnawed inside her at the thought of Egan with another woman.

“I wonder how much he had to bribe her?” she asked nastily.

“Shame on you,” Ada said.

But Kati didn’t apologize. And she didn’t dwell on her confused emotions, either. She wanted no complications in her life, especially with someone like Egan Winthrop.

She and Ada went shopping later in the day and ate out at a little Italian restaurant just down the street from their apartment. They watched television and eventually went to bed. And Egan didn’t come back. Not that night. Not until the next morning.

Kati was sitting on the living room floor with pages littering the area around her. They were galleys of her latest book, which had come that morning by special messenger, and she was going over them. Ada was at auditions for a new play, hoping to be home by lunch if she didn’t get held up at the theater during tryouts. That was a laugh. Most of the time, it took hours. Despite the appointments the hopefuls were
given, something always went wrong. Ada had never gotten back when she thought she would, and Kati was dreading Egan’s arrival. She felt wild when she thought of his not coming in at all, and angry because she didn’t understand why. She didn’t even
like
the man, for God’s sake!

There was a loud knock at the door an hour later, and when she opened it, Egan was standing there looking faintly amused and as immaculate as when he’d left. Still in the same clothes, of course….

She glared at him. “Lose your key?” she asked.

“I thought I’d better not use it, in case you were…entertaining,” he said.

She let him in, slammed the door and went back to her comfortable sprawl on the floor.

“Coffee’s hot if you want some,” she said icily. “I’m busy reading.”

“Don’t let me interrupt you. I thought I’d have a quick shower and change clothes. I’ve got a lunch date.”

Why, oh, why did she feel like smashing plates? She frowned and concentrated on what she was doing. Minutes later, he was back, dressed in a navy blue pinstripe suit with a white silk shirt and a blue and burgundy tie. He looked regal. Sexy. Unbelievably handsome for such an ugly man. If he was dressing like that in the middle of the day, he must be on his way to the Waldorf, she thought. And God only knew with whom.

“Ada didn’t worry, did she?” he asked, checking his watch.

“Oh, no. She’s used to people staying out all night,” she lied deliberately, lifting her eyes. It shocked her, the flash of reaction in his face before it was quickly erased.

His eyes ran over her: the gray slacks and burgundy silk blouse she was wearing, her feet hose-clad and without shoes. Her hair was loose, and flowed in waves of reddish gold silk down her shoulders; her face was rosy and full of life.

His scrutiny made her nervous, and she dropped her eyes back to the page she was reading.

He moved closer and suddenly bent to pick up a page. His eyebrows rose as he read, and a slow smile touched his mouth.

“You do put your heart into it, don’t you?” he murmured.

She reached up and took the page out of his hands, glancing at it. She blushed and tucked it under what she was reading. Why did he have to pick up
that
page? she groaned inwardly.

“Is that what you like with a man?” he continued maddeningly, his hands in his pockets, his eyes intent. “I’ve never done it in a bathtub, but I suppose—”

“Will you please go away?” she groaned, letting her hair fall over her eyes. “I don’t care where you’ve done it, or with whom, just please go eat your lunch and leave me to my sordid occupation.”

“I suppose I’d better. Stockbrokers sure as hell don’t have time to waste.”

She looked up as he turned to leave. “Stockbroker?” she murmured incredulously.

He glanced down at her from his formidable height with an expression she couldn’t decipher. “I’m a businessman,” he reminded her. “I do have the odd investment to look after.”

“Yes, I know,” she said quickly. “I just thought—”

“That because I was out all night, it was with a woman—and that I was meeting her for a leisurely lunch?” he suggested in a menacing tone.

She turned back to her work, trying to ignore him. It wasn’t easy when he loomed over her that way.

“The reasons I stayed away might shock you, city girl,” he said after a minute.

“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” she muttered.

“And that wasn’t what I meant. It might have something to do with you.”

The careless remark brought her eyes up, and he held them relentlessly for so long that she felt currents singing through her body.

“I didn’t expect you to start trembling the minute I put my hands on you,” he said in a harsh undertone. “Not after all these years. We’ve been enemies.”