The Tycoon Takes a Wife by Catherine Mann

had almost happened to his mother. “An assassin tried to make a statement by shooting up one of her events.”
    “Ohmigod, I remember that.” Her fists unfurled in his shirt and her hands smoothed out the wrinkles in soothing circles. “It must have been horrible for you. I seem to recall that some of her family was there…. You saw it all happen?”
    “I’m not asking for sympathy.” He clasped her wrists and stilled her hands. She might mean her touch to be comforting, but it was rapidly becoming a serious turn-on. “I’m only trying to say I understand how youfeel. But, Eloisa, once you’re in the spotlight, there’s no way to step back out.”
    “I completely get your point,” she said emphatically. “That’s why I’ve kept a low profile.”
    He brought her hands together, their hands clasped as he tried to make her understand. “You were born into this. There’s no low profile. Only delaying the inevitable. Better to embrace it on your own terms.”
    “That’s not your call to make,” she snapped, pulling her hands away.
    God, it was like banging his head against bricks getting this stubborn woman to consider anything other than a paradigm constructed a helluva long time ago. “Are you so sure about your father’s reasons for choosing to close himself away?”
    Her spine starched straight again, ire sparking flecks of black in her eyes. “What are you hoping to accomplish here?”
    He’d been hoping to learn more about her in an effort to seduce her and had ended up pissing her off. But he couldn’t back down. “You don’t have to play this their way anymore, Eloisa. Decide what you want rather than letting them haul you along.”
    Her hands fisted. “Why does this need to get so complicated, and what the hell does it have to do with you?”
    Anger stirred in his gut. “I’m the guy who’s still married to you because it’s so complicated. Damn it, Eloisa, Can you understand my need to do something, fix this somehow?”
    “Maybe there’s nothing to fix. And even if there is, do you know what I really want?”
    “Okay. Mea culpa.” He thumped his chest. “You’ve got me there. I haven’t got a clue what you want from me.”
    “Well, prepare to find out.” She clasped his face in her hands, only giving him a second’s warning.
    Eloisa planted her mouth on his.
    He blinked in shock—for all of three seconds before he hauled her against him and kissed her right back.
    As her arms slid around his neck, he decided the time had come to take this as far as she would go.

Seven
    E loisa couldn’t decide if she’d just made the best or worst decision of her life. Regardless, she knew she’d made the inevitable choice in kissing Jonah. They’d been leading up to this from the second he’d stepped out of his limousine last night.
    She pressed her body closer to his, fully, for the first time in a year, her mouth opening to welcome him. Last night’s staged kiss outside the party had been too brief. She’d somehow forgotten how well they fit, the way she tucked just inside his embrace, his head angling down. He was taller than she was, but somehow it worked just right for her arms to rest on his shoulders while she burrowed her hands into his hair.
    And ohmigod, his hair.
    Eloisa touched and roved and savored his head, the slight waves curving around her fingers as if coaxingher to stay. No persuasion needed, she was on fire with want after a year without this kind of sensual contact.
    She’d reached for him in frustration, her desire slipping past when her defenses were weakened by irritation. But now that he was touching her, stroking her, coaxing her body against his, she forced all that ire away, just put the whole argument right out of her mind.
    Still, part of her feared he’d sparked something deeper inside just by caring enough to ask the hard questions others avoided. He confronted things she liked to keep tucked away.
    Either way, she didn’t want to argue. She wanted