Prince of Secrets

He turned the smile on them. “What do you say? Am I sincere?” he asked an older woman wearing something he was sure fit a lecture hall better than a formal dinner hosted in the Hilton ballroom.

Her returning smile was the besotted one he was used to getting from women. Even academics. “Very. Perhaps your companion can’t help her insecurities. Women like us don’t usually snag such lovely escorts.”

Chanel made a small, almost wounded sound next to him.

Before he could respond to it, the short, rather round man beside the older woman puffed up like a rooster. “Is that meant to imply that I am not as imposing?”

The woman looked at her date, and the smile she gave him shone with the kind of emotion Demyan found incomprehensible. “No, you are not, and that’s exactly the way I love you. I would not have married you nearly forty years ago and stayed this long otherwise.”

Feathers suitably smoothed, the man relaxed again in his chair, even deigning to give a somewhat superior smile to Demyan before turning to his wife. “Love you, too, m’dear.”

The older couple became obviously lost in a moment Demyan felt uncomfortable witnessing. He turned his attention to Chanel, only to find her frowning, her expression sad and troubled.

“What is it?”

“She’s right. You don’t belong with me.”

“That is not what she said, Chanel.” He put his hand on the green-silk-clad thigh closest to him. “I would say there is great evidence to the contrary.”

“What do you mean?”

He did not answer, but his expression was as meaningful as he could make it.

He could tell the exact moment all the tumblers clicked into place in Chanel’s scientific brain.

Her eyes widened, color surging up her neck into her face. “That’s just chemistry. A kiss hardly constitutes a claim.”

On that, he could not agree. Loss of control or not, their kiss had been a definite claim-staking on his part. “I’m surprised a woman of your education would declare there was anything mere about chemistry.”

“We’re here.”

“And?”

“And if the chemistry was so amazing, we wouldn’t be.”

He couldn’t believe she’d said that. He’d damn near ruined a pair of Armani trousers because of the heat between them.

They were not back at her apartment making love for two important reasons only, and neither had a thing to do with how much he’d wanted what she offered so innocently.

Making love tonight wasn’t according to plan. Even if it had been, Demyan would have changed the plan because he’d needed the distance from his passion.

He couldn’t tell her that, though. Not even close. “I thought you wanted to hear this lecture.”

“I did.”

He let one brow quirk.

“I do,” she admitted with the truculence of a child, made all the more charming because he was fairly certain she had not been a truculent child.

Just a very different one than her mother had expected her to be.

From everything he’d learned about her, both from the investigative dossier and herself, Chanel Tanner took after her father, not her mother. Not even a little. Mrs. Saltzman had clearly found that very trying when raising her daughter.

An hour later, Chanel looked up from the furious notes she’d been taking for the past twenty minutes on her smartphone. “I’m enjoying myself. Thank you.”

A genuine smile creased his lips. “You’re welcome.”

He liked seeing her like this, enthusiastic, clearly in her element.

“Dr. Beers has made at least two points I hadn’t considered before. They’re definitely worth additional consideration and research.” Chanel glowed with satisfaction Demyan found oddly enticing.

He liked this confident side of her.

Afterward, Demyan made sure she got the opportunity to talk to not only the visiting lecturer but also the head of the university department overseeing her lab’s research.

Her boss, who had attended the dinner as well, kept shooting her accusing glances from across the ballroom.

Demyan observed, “The head of your research is not happy to see you here.”

“He doesn’t like any of his assistants to make connections outside the department.” Chanel didn’t sound particularly bothered by that fact.

“That is very shortsighted.”

“He’s a brilliant scientist, but petty as a human being.” She shrugged. “I have no aspirations to run my own lab.”

“Why not?”

“Too much politics involved.” She looked almost guilty. “I like the science.”

That sounded like what Demyan knew of her father. “Why the frown?”