Betina Krahn by The Soft Touch Page B

conversation. Anything, he thought, would be preferable to staring in stony silence at that damned golden hair of hers … those big blue eyes … those smooth, naked shoulders. Why did women have to cinch themselves up like that … make themselves nothing but treacherously irresistible curves and crevices?
    “So, what does he want?” he asked shortly. “This Kenwood fellow.”
    “What does everyone want?” she said through a forced smile.
    Without thinking, he quoted Halt Finnegan’s definition of the “good life”: “A warm bed, a full stomach, and a good five-cent cigar?”
    When she looked up at him and blinked in confusion, he reddened.
    “Money,” she supplied after a moment, averting her gaze.
    “Money?” A pricking sensation occurred in the region of his conscience. “You think he’s after your money?”
    “It usually comes down to that.”
    “You don’t think he might have at least
one
other motive?” he asked, thinking that with a woman who looked like her, any red-blooded man should be able to come up with at least a dozen possibilities more interesting than government greenbacks. He caught himself peering raptlyat the plunging neckline of her gown and jerked his gaze away. Any man except him, of course. All he wanted was …
    A straightforward, by-the-book business loan. He felt another twinge of conscience that said it wasn’t quite that simple. Every time he came within ten feet of her, his honorable financial intentions got tangled up with long-dormant physical needs. The worst part was, he didn’t know which of his two desires—for her money or her person—was causing this uneasiness.
    The music ended, just then, and they were forced to disengage and applaud the music and their own duplicitous performance.
    When he stepped back, she seized his arm. “Don’t leave!”
    “Well, actually, Miss Wingate”—he swallowed his misgivings and forced himself to seize the moment—“I was hoping to speak to you—”
    “There you are!” came a booming voice that to Bear’s ear had a forced joviality to it. They turned together and found Morgan Kenwood approaching with a determined stride and a brusque urgency to his manner.
    “Diamond, my dear!” A higher-pitched and disagreeably nasal voice came from the side a moment later. Diamond turned to find her “missionary” coming across the dance floor with a look of distress on his sallow face.
    Bear watched her stiffen and melt back a step toward him. Her hands fluttered frantically behind her back, searching for his arm or hand—anything to hold onto—as a third voice assailed her.
    “
Diamond mine!
You stunning creature, you—I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” A darkly handsome and carelessly dressed fellow was drawing attention from around the room as he approached with a half-empty champagne glass and a sensual swagger.
    She was being descended upon from three different directions at once. Bear heard her whimper of distress and allowed her to find his hand. She grabbed it as if it were a life preserver. From his position behind her, he could both feel her terror and see the reason for it. The looks in those three male faces were nothing short of predatory. He’d seen circling wolves with less hunger in their eyes.
    One by one, they stopped before her, and she huddled back a bit more each time, until she was virtually standing on his feet. Scowling at the way she was crowding him, he caught sight of the panicky flutter of her pulse at the side of her throat. She glanced up at him with a sickly smile and he experienced an insane urge to grab her up by the waist and run from the damned room.
    “Why, Paine, you’re home already? How wonderful,” she said, her voice reedy and oddly constricted. “And you, Louis … And of course, Morgan … Why, you’re all so … dashing and so … so very … very …”
    She sank toward the floor.
    It was a brilliantly executed swoon. A sway, some blinking, a wrist to