F YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO DANCE WITH ME," COLE JOKED when they neared the entry to the adjoining ballroom, "I suggest you have something to drink first." He stopped at a banquet table with an untouched place setting, lifted a bottle of champagne from the cooler in the center of the table, and poured some champagne into an unused glass. "Alcohol acts as an anesthetic," he told Diana with a grin as he handed her the glass, "and dancing with me could be a painful and dangerous experience."

Diana took the glass, so relieved that her personal ordeal was over and so grateful for his kindness and ingenuity that she would have danced with him if her feet were bare and he was wearing golf cleats. No longer were women eyeing her with pity or disdain. In fact, she noted with amusement, they weren't looking at her at all—they were looking at Cole, and Diana couldn't blame them. With his thick black hair, piercing gray eyes, and tall, athletic physique, Cole Harrison was magnificent.

The same male qualities that had made all the girls fantasize about him long ago were even more pronounced now. There had always been a rugged strength and latent sexuality about him, but now it was enhanced by an aura of cool sophistication and indomitable power.

Walking into the adjoining ballroom, she sipped the champagne, enjoying the looks of confusion on the faces of the same acquaintances who earlier had eyed her with pity or satisfaction.

The orchestra was playing a popular slow song as they neared the dance floor, but when Diana started to put the glass of champagne down on a table, he shook his head. "Finish it."

"Are you really that worried about stepping on my feet?" she asked, her smile filled with a mixture of gratitude, relief, and laughter.

"Certainly not," he teased. "I'm worried that you'll be so tense and stiff that you'll step on my feet."

With a laugh, she drained the glass and tucked her hand through his arm, drawing him close in an unconscious gesture that seemed a little possessive to Cole and pleased immensely. He was about to negotiate one of the most important "business deals" of his life with a lovely, unsuspecting woman who needed to trust him enough to accept his bizarre offer.

When he slid his arm around her on the dance floor, Diana gazed up at him, her features soft and warm with gratitude. "Cole?"

He returned her smile, but the gray eyes that regarded her from beneath half-lowered lids seemed preoccupied, thoughtful. "Hmmm?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you are very sweet and very gallant?"

"Certainly not. Generally, I'm described as cold, calculating, and ruthless."

Diana was aghast at the injustice of that. With her heart filled with gratitude and her head swimming from all the wine and champagne she'd drunk to reinforce her courage, Cole Harrison seemed completely wonderful and omnipotent—a mighty defender who'd charged to her rescue, vanquished her foes, and saved her from humiliation. He was gallantry and daring in a world filled with cowardice and malice. "How could people possibly think such awful things about you?"

"Because they're completely true," he stated with calm finality.

Diana's reply was an irrepressible giggle. "Liar."

He looked stung. "Now, that is one thing I am not."

"Oh." Trying unsuccessfully to bite back a smile, she decided he was joking because he was embarrassed by her praise, and she switched the topic. "Who did you really buy this necklace for?"

Instead of answering, he gazed at her in speculative silence for so long that Diana began to wonder uneasily if he'd had a recipient in mind, or if he'd actually spent $40,000 on a necklace merely to bolster her status tonight. His next words relieved her mind. "The necklace is a wedding gift for my future wife."

"How wonderful! When are you getting married?"

"Immediately after I propose."

He sounded so matter-of-fact that Diana couldn't resist teasing him. "Either you're very certain she'll say yes, or else you're hoping to sway her with this necklace. Which is it?"

"I'd say it's a little of both. I'm hoping to sway her with this necklace, and I'm fairly certain she'll say yes, once I explain the wisdom and benefits associated with such an arrangement."

"You sound as if you're proposing a business merger," Diana advised him with a surprised smile.

Cole quickly reviewed the plan he'd conceived in the last half hour and made his final decision. In a deceptively casual tone, he said, "The last time I asked someone to marry me, we were both sixteen. Obviously, I need to practice my technique, Kitten."

Diana was a little disconcerted to discover that Cole Harrison hadn't been nearly as decisive and knowledgeable about women as she'd thought he was when she was sixteen and crazy about him. Most of all, she was touched by the name he'd called her. Kitten. The old nickname he'd occasionally used for her seemed poignantly familiar at that moment—a reminder of a time when she chatted with him while he worked in the Haywards' stable surrounded by the sweet smell of fresh hay and oiled leather, their desultory conversation punctuated by the muted shuffling of horses' hooves. Her life had been so simple then; her future had seemed so bright and full of exciting possibilities. "Kitten…" she whispered softly, her eyes shadowed with the realization that those old promises of a bright future hadn't worked out at all the way she'd imagined.

Sensing the sudden dipping of her mood, Cole maneuvered her smoothly off the dance floor. "Let's go somewhere else and work on my proposal technique. Our audience is too big in here."

"I thought you wanted an audience for us."

"They've seen all they need to see."

He pronounced that with the arrogance of a royal decree, and with his hand beneath her elbow, he maneuvered her off the dance floor and out of the crowded, noisy room.