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  “Well, really,” the blonde said again, and Tess opened her mouth but Nick was already speaking.

  “It’s the only way,” Nick said and picked up his own roll. “Don’t you think, Park?”

  Park was still looking at Gina’s plate in puzzlement, but he caught on gamely. “Absolutely,” he said, looking around the table for a roll.

  “Oh, no,” Gina said faintly, dropping hers.

  “She’s right,” Welch said from the end of the table. “Good for you, kid. I like a woman who knows how to eat.”

  Gina’s smile was so weak it barely existed.

  The blonde looked up from the bread on her plate to glare at Tess, clearly not sure where she stood on the roll question but definitely sure where she stood on Tess.

  Tess ignored her and turned back to Welch. “I like you,” she said. “I apologize for the morally bankrupt part.”

  Welch grinned at her, and she felt Nick relax with a sigh beside her and begin to speak to the blonde across the table, smoothing her ruffled feelings as only Nick the snake-oil salesman could.

  Tess leaned toward Welch. “You know, I didn’t get that woman’s name,” she whispered to him. “Who is she?”

  Welch lowered his voice so the blonde wouldn’t hear him. “Tricia Sigler.”

  “Sigler?” Tess said, taken aback.

  “Yeah,” Welch said, watching with interest.

  Tess felt her stomach sinking. “Any relation to Alan Sigler? The Decker Academy?”

  “Husband. He couldn’t make it tonight. She came alone.” Welch looked at her with calculation. “What’s the Decker Academy to you?”

  “I was thinking about getting a job there,” Tess said. She felt like kicking herself. Nick had warned her. Gina had warned her. Hell, even Park had warned her. It was her own fault that she’d antagonized the wife of the only ally she had at Decker. Dumb. She sighed and then realized Welch was watching her and smiled brightly at him to distract him. “So tell me,” she said, “exactly where did you get Henderson? My first thought was Sears, but after watching him in action, I’ve switched my guess to Nieman Marcus.”

  Welch’s roar of laughter beautifully covered Nick’s groan, but it didn’t do anything to dim Tricia Sigler’s basilisk glare.

  Five

  Two hours later, Nick stood in the doorway to Tess’s bedroom in his pajama bottoms and tried to forget the dozen different times during the evening that Tess had teased Welch with animated banter, and the way Welch’s eyes had followed her around the room even when she wasn’t saying something outrageous to him. It would be ridiculous and petty of him to be jealous of Welch. He should be grateful to Tess for so obviously captivating the man, but every time he thought of Welch growling at her in evident appreciation, it was hard to remember why he wanted the contract, or why he wanted anyone as undignified as Tess, especially since she had now draped herself in about thirty yards of pink-flowered flannel nightgown and was sitting on the bed watching him warily.

  “This is not how I’d pictured this night,” he said.

  “Oh? And how had you pictured it?”

  “Well, to begin with, you weren’t wearing flannel,” Nick said. “But forget that for now. Did you have to argue with Welch the entire night?”

  “He started it,” Tess said. “And besides, I think he liked it. You know, I don’t think he’s healthy.” She frowned as her train of thought switched tracks. “I don’t think this dieting is enough. Maybe I should say something to Henderson about cutting off his booze, too.”

  “No,” Nick said, moving toward her. “Absolutely not. You will not say anything to Henderson.”

  “Well, not tonight, anyway.” Tess crawled into bed and flapped her hand at him. “You may go now. I’ve got a big day of fighting with Welch tomorrow, and then there’s the reading in the afternoon. I need my sleep.” She slumped down under the covers and switched off the bedside light, and then she turned her back to him.

  “Right.” Nick sat on the bed and switched the light back on. “Come on, Tess. We need to talk.”

  WHEN HE SAT next to her on the bed, Tess debated ignoring him, but knowing Nick, he wouldn’t quit. He leaned on the pillow next to her, and she rolled over to talk to him and then regretted it.

  His arms were even better close up than she remembered, the swell of his bicep neatly cleaving into the long lovely line of his shoulder, the hint of his tricep promising—

  She rolled away from him, trying to get her breath back, vaguely wondering why, for her, it had always been arms, and why he had to have such great ones.

  “Tess?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “I think we should talk.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “I mean it,” Nick insisted over her shoulder. “We have a lot of history that needs sorting out. You’re still mad about that parking-lot thing. I’m still confused about why you won’t go out with me. I think—”

  Tess rolled over and ended up against his chest. “You necked with me in a parking lot until I was insane with lust and then you said you didn’t want to sleep with me, but you don’t know why I won’t go out with you? And just for the record, I’m spending the weekend with you, so don’t try that just-give-mea-chance garbage on me. I’m helping you, you ingrate.”

  “See, I think we should talk,” Nick said, and she was momentarily distracted by the backlighting on his deltoid and how warm his chest was against her cheek, and her breath went again.

  “Put on a shirt, and we’ll talk,” Tess said and rolled away from him again.

  “Fine.”

  She felt Nick get off the bed, then come back a few moments later. She checked over her shoulder. The shirt was on. It wasn’t buttoned, and he did have a nice chest. Well, actually he had a great chest, but chests were resistible. It was arms that made her weak. “Okay,” she said, sitting up in bed and propping a pillow against the headboard behind her. “Talk.”

  He propped the other pillow next to hers and relaxed against it. “Let’s get the worst over with first. The parking lot.”

  “Good choice.” Tess seized on past anger to defuse present desire. “I am definitely still hostile about that damn parking lot.”

  “Well, first, I never said I didn’t want to sleep with you—” Nick began.

  “You said no.”

  “I said I didn’t want to make love with you in the front seat of my car in the middle of the Music Hall parking lot because, among other things, it’s against the damn law.” He glared at her.

  Tess glared back. “This is an apology?”

  “No,” Nick said. “This is an explanation. I was more than willing, perfectly willing, extremely willing, to take you back to my apartment and make love with you all night if necessary, but you got all huffy—”

  “What’s romantic about going back to your apartment?” Tess asked him, annoyed.

  “What’s romantic about doing it in the front seat of a sports car?” Nick retaliated. “Hell, I’m not even sure it’s possible. There’s not that much room.”

  “We could have found out,” Tess said. “But no, you had to be respectable and responsible—”

  “Besides, I have a career on the line here—”

  “—and dull and boring—”

  “—which I realize means nothing to you—”

  “—and completely unexciting—”

  “—but it means a lot to me—”

  “—not to mention a grave comment on how little you actually wanted me—”

  “—or at least enough that I’m not going to risk it for sex in a car—”

  “—which is why I see no reason in pursuing this relationship—”

  “—and anyway I prefer beds—”

  “—so you can just go back to your own bed!” Tess flared.

  “—like this one, for example,” Nick finished.

  “What?”

  “I think we should make love,” Nick said.

  Tess looked at him incredulously. “Did you