Chocolate Kisses by Judith Arnold

catering
was currently the major attraction for the first annual Glenwood debutante
cotillion’s ravenous guests. Claudia ought to have taken satisfaction in that.
    Edie
was treating Claudia with surprising courtesy. In fact, it was she who had
suggested that Claudia step outside for a breath of air. “I’ll make sure
everything stays hot until it’s served,” Edie assured her. “you go out and clear
your head.”
    She
stood outside the kitchen door, trying not to shiver in the frigid night air.
Everything was going smoothly. She had endured calamity after catastrophe after
debacle and somehow she’d pulled this thing off.
    So
why did she feel miserable?
    Surely
it had nothing to do with the fact that once Ned had chewed out his sister and
ordered her to apologize to Claudia, he’d vanished into the glamorous swarm of
guests. The party had begun and Ned had transformed into a full-blooded Wyatt.
Flirting benignly with the giggling debutantes, ushering blue-haired dowagers
to chairs, schmoozing with other male guests about golfing and investments, he
was the proper Wyatt host. Claudia could almost see the Roman-numeral IV in his
posture, his demeanor.
    Who
was she kidding? All day long he’d been nothing more than a man on the prowl,
trying his luck with the lady caterer. But he knew his place—in the ballroom
with the guests. And she knew hers.
    The
orchestra played gamely on; she heard the strains of music coming from the
ballroom.
    “Care
to dance?”
    Claudia
flinched and spun around to see Ned stepping through the kitchen doorway. She
suffered the same acute reaction to him as she had earlier: he was as suited to
suave gray silk tailoring as he was to black denim. He looked as sexy shaved
and combed as he did scruffy and windswept. Dressed up or dressed down, he was
irresistible.
    She
resisted, anyway.
    “You
ought to go back to the party,” she said quietly, turning back to gaze at the
cars parked beyond the tiny porch.
    Ned
sidled up next to her and slung his arm around her shoulders. “I’d rather party
with you.”
    “Ned.”
She didn’t hide her exasperation. “I’m working.”
    “Edie’s
holding down the fort. Dinner is a major success, by the way. They’re scarfing
it up like there’s no tomorrow.
    “Why
don’t you go back inside and scarf it up, too?”
    “Because
there is a tomorrow,” he said, urging her around to face him. “I’ve done
my duty to my niece, danced with my mother, made chitchat with the garden-club
ladies and their boring husbands—and now I’m on my own time. I want to spend it
with you.”
    His
eyes were luminous in the silvery light. His smile was earnest yet surprisingly
seductive. She had to force herself to remember that, just as he’d said, there was a tomorrow. Whatever silly dreams she’d entertained about a romance with him
would vanish as soon as the moon set on Valentine’s Day.
    “Come
upstairs with me,” he murmured.
    Her
bones seemed to melt in the heat of his gaze. She couldn’t give this man her
heart, and she couldn’t give him anything else without giving him her heart as
well.
    Who
was she kidding? Her heart was already his. She was going to wind up despondent
whether she went upstairs with him or not.
    He
leaned toward her, brushed her lips with his…and she resigned herself to the
inevitable, to her own imperative yearning. She loved him. He had stood by her
all day, helping her, supporting her, rescuing her, defending her. She loved
him.
    There
was a back stairway—the servants’ stairs, she thought ironically, wondering
whether Ned had ever had a reason to use these stairs before now. He held her
hand tightly as he led her along the second-floor hallway to the room in which
she’d washed up and dressed for the party a few hours ago. Once they were
inside, he locked the door and gathered her into his arms. “I almost dove into
the tub with you this afternoon,” he confessed, unclasping her barrette and
fluffing her hair loose about