hen Clare walked into the living room, Sebastian stood with his back to her, gazing up at a portrait of her and her mother taken when Clare had been six. “You were cuter than I remember,” he said.

“That was retouched several times.”

He chuckled as he turned his attention to a photo of Cindy, all groomed and polished in her pink hair bow. “This must be your wussy-looking mutt.”

Cindy was AKC certified and belonged to the Yorkshire Terrier Club of America. Hardly a mutt. “Yes. Mine and Lonny’s, but he took her when he left.” Looking at the photo made her miss her dog a lot.

He opened his mouth to say more, but shook his head and glanced about the room instead. “This is a lot like your mother’s house.”

Her house didn’t look anything like her mother’s. Her tastes were much more Victorian while her mother’s tastes leaned toward the French classics. “How’ s that?”

“Lots of stuff.” His gaze landed on her. “But your house is more girly-girl. Like you.”

He set his beer on the mantel. “I have something for you, and I didn’t want to take it out in front of your friends. Just in case you hadn’t mentioned that night at the Double Tree.” He reached into the front pocket of his cargo pants. “I believe this is yours.”

He held up her diamond earring between his fingers. Clare didn’t know which was more stunning, that he’d found the earring and brought it to her or that he hadn’t mentioned it in front of her friends. Both gestures were uncharacteristically thoughtful. Nice, even.

He took her hand in his and placed the diamond earring in her palm. “I found it on your pillow that morning.”

The heat from his hand seeped into her skin and spread to the tips of her fingers. The sensation was disturbing, and as unwanted as the memory of what he’d been wearing, or rather, not been wearing, which seeped into her head and got stuck in her brain. “I thought I’d lost this for good.” She looked up into his eyes. There was something purely physical about Sebastian. A combination of cool strength and hot sexual energy that was impossible to ignore. “I would have had a difficult time matching it.”

“I kept forgetting to give it to you when you were at your mother’s.”

His thumb brushed hers and heat spread to her palm. She closed her hand into a fist to hold the hot tingles inside, pressing her fingers tightly together to keep the feeling from traveling to her wrist and spreading across her chest. Too late, she pulled her hand away. She was old enough to recognize the warmth brushing across her flesh. She didn’t want to feel anything for Sebastian. Or any man, for that matter. Nothing. She’d just finished a two-year relationship. It was too soon, but this feeling had nothing to do with deep emotion and everything to do with lust. “Tell me what happened in the Double Tree Saturday night.”

“I did.”

She took a step back. “No. Not everything. From the time you found me sitting on a bar stool talking to a toothless man in a wife beater until I woke up naked, something more had to have happened.”

He smiled as if he found something she’d said amusing. The smile chilled the warm little tug of lust. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what you and your friends were celebrating.”

“What makes you think we were celebrating anything?”

He pointed to the champagne. “I’m guessing that bottle cost someone a hundred and thirty dollars. Nobody drinks Dom Perignon for the hell of it. Plus, I just met your friends, so don’t give me that crap about a prayer circle.”

“How do you know how much the champagne cost?”

“I’m a reporter. I have an incredible capacity for minutiae. Your friend with the curly hair said today was about you. So, don’t make me work too hard for the answer, Clare.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts. Why did she care if he knew about the HIV test? He already knew she’d planned to take one. “I went to the doctor today and…remember Monday when I talked to you about getting tested?”

“For HIV?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t quite look him in the eyes and lowered her gaze to the sunglasses hooked to the neck of his T-shirt. “Well, I found out that I was negative today.”

“Ah. That’s good news.”

“Yes.”

He placed his fingers beneath her chin and brought her gaze up to his. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“We didn’t do anything. Not anything fun, anyway. You cried until you passed out, and I raided your minibar.”

“That’s it? How did I end up naked?”

“I thought I told you.”

He’d told her a lot of things. “Tell me again.”

He shrugged. “You stood up, stripped out of your clothes, then crawled back in bed. It was quite a show.”

“Is there more?”

He smiled a little. “Yeah. I lied about the guy in the bar at the Double Tree. The one with the baseball cap and wife beater.”

“About drinking Jägermeister?” she asked hopefully.

“Oh no. You were definitely knocking back the Jägermeister, but he wasn’t missing any teeth and he didn’t have a nose ring.”

Which wasn’t much of a relief. “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t know if she believed him. Even though he’d brought her the earring and spared her the embarrassing explanation in front of her friends, she didn’t think he’d lie to spare her feelings. God knew, he never had in the past. Her hand tightened around the diamond in her palm. “Well, thank you for bringing the earring to me.”

He grinned. “I have an ulterior motive.”

Of course he did.

“You look worried.” He raised his hands in the air as if surrendering. “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.”

She turned away and placed the earring in the cloisonné dish on the coffee table. “The last time you said that, you talked me into playing doctor.” She straightened and pointed to her chest. “I ended up buck naked.”

“Yeah,” he said as he laughed. “I remember, but it wasn’t like you didn’t want to play.”

Saying no had always been her problem. Not any longer. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“I don’t have to know.”

“How about if I promise that you won’t end up naked this time?” His gaze slid to her mouth, down her throat, and to her finger, resting on her dress, between her breasts. “Unless you insist.”

She picked up the three empty glasses and champagne bottle. “Forget it,” she said through a sigh as she walked from the room.

“All I need are a few ideas about what I should get my father for the party Saturday.”

She looked back at him. “Is that all?” There had to be more.

“Yeah. Since I had to drop off the earring, I thought you could point me in the right direction. Give me some ideas. Although Dad and I are trying to get to know each other again, you know him better than I do.”

Okay, so now she felt bad. She was being judgmental, and that wasn’t fair. He’d been a smooth-talking flimflammer as a child, but that was a long time ago. She certainly didn’t want to be judged by things she’d said and done as a girl. “I got him an antique wooden duck,” she answered, and entered the kitchen, the heels of her sandals tapping across the hardwood floors. “Maybe you could get him a book on wood carving.”

“A book would be good.” Sebastian followed. “What do you think of a new fishing pole?”

“I wasn’t aware that he fished these days.” Clare set the glasses and bottle on the granite island in the middle of the kitchen.

“He and I pulled a few trout out of the reservoir this afternoon.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “His gear is fairly dated, so I thought I’d get him a newer setup.”

“With him, you have to pay attention to brands.”

“That’s why I thought you could help me out. I wrote down what we’ll need.”

She stopped and slowly turned toward him. “We’ll?”

He shrugged. “Sure. You’ll go along. Right?”

Something wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t looking her in the eyes and…She sucked in a breath and the real reason for his unannounced visit became crystal clear. “There’s no ‘we’ll,’ is there? You came here to talk me into getting your father a fishing pole. By myself.”

He looked at her then and gave her his most charming smile. “Honey, I don’t know where the sporting goods stores are in this town. And really, there’s no point in both of us going.”

“Don’t honey me.” She was such a fool. She’d given him the benefit of the doubt, felt bad for misjudging him, and here he was, standing in her kitchen attempting a bait and switch. She folded her arms across her chest. “No.”

“Why not?” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Women love to shop.”

“For shoes. Not fishing poles. Duh!” She groaned inwardly and closed her eyes. Had she just said Duh? Like she was ten again?

Clearly amused, Sebastian laughed. “Duh? What’s next? Are you going to call me a numb nut?”

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Good-bye, Sebastian,” she said as she moved to the kitchen doorway. She stopped and pointed to the front of her house. “You are on your own.”

He pushed away from the counter and moved toward her. Slow and easy, as if he wasn’t in a big hurry to comply to her demand. “Your friends are right, you know.”

Good God! Had he overheard the heft conversation?

As he walked past her, he paused and said next to her ear, “You might not have been the cutest little girl in patent leather shoes, but you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. Especially when you’re all worked up.”

He smelled good, and if she turned her face just a little she could bury her nose in his neck. The desire to do so alarmed her, and she kept as still as possible. “Forget it. I’m not doing your shopping for you.”

“Please?”

“Not a chance.”

“What if I get lost?”

“Get a map.”

“Don’t need one. The Land Cruiser has a navigation system.” He chuckled and pulled back. “You were more fun as a kid.”

“I was more gullible. I’m not a little girl now and you can’t trick me, Sebastian.”

“Clare, you wanted me to trick you.” He smiled and moved to the front door. “You still do,” he said, and was gone before she could argue or utter a good-bye or good riddance.

She walked back into the kitchen, reached for the champagne glasses, and set them next to the sink. Ridiculous. She hadn’t wanted to be tricked. She’d just wanted him to like her. She turned on the faucet and added a few drops of lemon fresh Joy. She’d just wanted him to like her. She supposed that was the story of her life. Sad and a little pathetic, but true.

The water ran for a few moments before she turned off the faucet and placed the glasses in the warm soapy water. If she were honest and took a good hard look at her past, she could see the same destructive patterns in her life. If she were honest, the kind of honest that was painful to look at, she’d admit that she was letting her childhood influence her adult life.

Admitting that really did bite the big one, but it was too obvious to ignore. She’d absolutely refused to consider it for so long because it was such a cliché, and she hated clichés. She hated to write them, but more than that, she hated being one.

In college she’d taken sociology classes and read the studies conducted on children raised in single parent homes. She had thought she’d escaped the statistics, which found that girls raised without fathers were more likely to engage in greater and earlier sexual activities and were at a greater risk of suicide and criminality. She’d never had one single thought of suicide, never been arrested, and was a freshman in college when she’d lost her virginity. Her friends from two-parent homes had lost theirs in high school. Therefore, she’d convinced herself that she did not have the classic “daddy issues.”

No, she hadn’t been sexually promiscuous. Just emotionally hollow and subconsciously seeking male approval to fill the empty places inside. And she didn’t have to look very hard at her life to discover why she always searched for male attention to make herself feel whole.

Clare washed the glasses and set them on a towel to dry. For all intents and purposes, she’d been raised without a father. On those occasions when she visited her dad, he always had a beautiful woman living with him. A different beautiful woman. To a little girl with thick glasses and a wide mouth that didn’t fit her face, all those beautiful women had made her feel even more unattractive and insecure. It hadn’t been their fault. Most of the women were kind to her. Nor had it been her fault. She’d been a child—it was just life, her life—and she was still letting those old insecurities influence her relationships with men. After all these years.

Clare reached into a drawer and pulled out a towel. As she dried her hands, she came to a painful realization. She’d settled for men unworthy of her because, deep inside, she’d felt lucky to have them. It wasn’t exactly the bing-bing moment she’d been waiting for to explain her relationship with Lonny. It didn’t answer why she hadn’t seen what had been so obvious to everyone else, but it did explain why she’d settled for a man who could never love her the way any woman deserved to be loved by the man in her life.

The telephone sitting next to the porcelain canisters rang, and she glanced at the caller ID. It was Lonny. He’d been calling every day since she’d kicked him out. She never picked up, and he never left a message. This time she decided to answer. “Yes.”

“Oh, you’re there.”

“Yes.”

“How are you?”

Hearing his voice made all the hollow places ache. “Fine.”

“I thought maybe we could get together and talk.”

“No. There’s nothing to say.” She closed her eyes and pushed past all the pain. The pain of loss, and of loving a man that did not exist. “It’s best if we both just move on.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

She opened her eyes. “I’ve never understood what that means.” She laughed without humor. “You dated me, made love to me, and asked me to marry you, but you weren’t physically attracted to me. Exactly what part of that wasn’t meant to hurt me?”

He was silent for several long moments. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“No. I sincerely want to know how you could lie to me for two years, then claim you never meant to hurt me.”

“It’s true. I’m not gay,” he said, lying to her and probably himself. “I’ve always wanted a wife and kids and the house with the picket fence. I still do. That makes me a normal man.”

She almost felt sorry for him. He was even more confused than she was. “That makes you trying to pass for something you’re not.”

“What does it matter anyway? Gay or straight, men are unfaithful all the time.”

“That doesn’t make it right, Lonny. It makes them just as guilty of lying and cheating as you.”

When she hung up, she knew she was saying good-bye to him for the last time. He would not phone again, and there was a piece of her that missed him. That still loved him. Not only had he been her fiancé, he’d been one of the best male friends she’d ever had, and she would miss that friendship for a very long time.

She dried the glasses and placed them in the china hutch in the dining room. Her thoughts turned to Sebastian and his irritating sneaky ways. And of the pheromones that rolled off him like heat waves tumbling across the Mojave Desert. Those pheromones had stunned Maddie and Adele and left them both dazed. And no matter how much she hated to admit it, there was no denying that she was very aware of him too. The way he looked and smelled, and the touch of his hand on hers.

What was wrong with her? She’d just ended a serious relationship, and was already thinking about the touch of another man. But now that she thought about it for a rational moment, she realized that her reaction to Sebastian probably had more to do with not having good-quality sex in ages rather than the man himself.

He wants you, Maddie had said, and Adele had added, You need a rebound man. But they were wrong. Both of them. The last thing she needed, rebound or permanent, no matter how long it had been since she’d had good sex, was a man. No, she needed to be okay by herself before she even considered allowing a man in her life.

By the time she crawled into bed that night, Clare was certain that her reaction to Sebastian had been purely physical. It was the reaction of any woman to a handsome man. That was all. Normal. Natural. And it would pass.

She turned off the bedside light and chuckled into the darkness. He’d thought he’d come over to her house and sucker her into doing his shopping for him. Charm her just like he had in the past.

“Who’s the sucker now?” she whispered. For the first time in her life, she hadn’t been tricked by Sebastian.

But the next morning, while her coffee brewed, she opened the front door to get her newspaper and a fishing pole fell into the house. A note written on the back of a Burger King napkin was stuck in one of the eyes of the pole. It read:

Clare,

Could you please wrap this and bring it to the party tomorrow night? I’m horrible at this sort of thing and don’t want to embarrass the old man in front of his friends. I’m sure you’ll do a great job.

Thanks, Sebastian