The Secretary's Seduction

It'd hurt him when she left. It hurt that she'd walk away from him.

It crossed his mind that everything had changed.

Something had happened in the past few weeks. Something had happened just yesterday. And something had happened today when he pressed her against the bedroom wall and felt her shudder beneath him, felt her body arch against him. He wasn't indifferent to her. Not in the least.

"Why did you run away yesterday?" he asked her, abruptly, recognizing how heavily the question had been weighing on him the past twenty-four hours.

"Why did you ask me to marry you?"

"You already know that answer."

Her head lifted, her light brown ponytail swishing as she looked up at him. "I wouldn't have asked if I knew."

This was a new Winnie. A stronger Winnie, a more confident Winnie.

Certainly a more direct Winnie.

"Because you were the best candidate for the job," he answered lightly, trying for humor, but she didn't smile. Her grim expression didn't change.

"What about Annika?"

"What about Annika?" he retorted.

"Well, she's blond and beautiful and famous. She's your Swedish supermodel and she'd have looked perfect in the paper's page six photos."

"But I don't want to be the center of the society page. I don't want to spend the rest of my life photographed. I just want to live a normal life. A quiet life. A life away from the limelight."

It took Winnie a moment for the implications to hit her. She grit her teeth thinking he had incredible nerve. He didn't want a beautiful supermodel for a wife because the press would eat it up, but he'd marry her, a chunky little secretary who'd bore the media to death.

Her stomach physically hurt. "What about love?"

"I don't love Annika."

"You don't love me."

He didn't answer. The rawness inside her chest was nearly intolerable. "You don't love me," she repeated, her tone turning savage. "Do you?"

Morgan regarded her steadily. "No."

"So why me? Why did you ask me?"

"You're different." His shoulders shifted. "You know me. You wouldn't be operating under some false romantic illusion about married life."

Because a woman like Winnie wouldn't have any romantic illusions. A woman like Winnie was practical, dependable, sensible. A woman like Winnie didn't get many offers and she ought to know that Morgan Grady wasn't just a good catch, but a dream catch.

God help her, but she was supposed to be flattered.

He expected her to be pleased.

For the first time since working for him she thought she could actually hate him. He really had no idea who she was.

She'd waited her whole life for the magic of falling in love, for the chance to be deeply loved. Her sisters had been loved, adored, spoiled. Winnie wanted the same thing, too, but didn't think she'd ever have it ... didn't think she deserved it until yesterday when she looked in the mirror at the expensive Park A venue salon and saw what the bevy of makeup artists and hair stylists had done, saw how they'd turned her from stodgy Winnie Graham into someone utterly magical, truly beautiful.

Winnie had looked in the mirror, contact lenses in, hair glossed and pinned, makeup expertly applied and she'd seen a woman who deserved real happiness, a woman still longing for the fairy-tale ending. And a marriage of convenience wasn't even close to her idea of a happy-ever-after dream.

Yes, she'd have money, Morgan had ensured she'd be handsomely compensated, but what was money without love?

What was anything without love?

Winnie turned away and looked out toward the ocean.

The late-afternoon sun shone hot and bright, glazing the beach.

"You know they're wrong," she said quietly, "those gossip columnists who called me a gold digger. I'm not interested in your money. I've never been interested in money-least of all yours."

She shook her head once, remembering the harsh things written about her in the past couple weeks and then looked back at him over her shoulder. Her lips twisted in a brief, rueful smile. "The only one thing I want from you is love."

CHAPTER EIGHT

MORGAN laughed. It wasn't a loud laugh, or harsh, but it was definitely laughter and it was the last thing Winnie expected to hear from him. "Why are you laughing?' '

"Because you ... you're ... a dreamer."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, except you're bound to be disappointed, and you think you agreed to marry me for love-which is very virtuous-but it's not exactly the truth."

She stiffened, blood draining from her face. "You can't say that. You don't know that. You don't know me."

Morgan smiled grimly. "Actually, I'm beginning to know you. I'm starting to understand you. You're not quite the altruistic person you think you are. You might tell yourself that all you want from me is love, but that's not true. You want a lot more than that."

"Really?" She glared at him, temper rising.

"Really." He walked toward her. "You want passion, sex, glamour, adventure. You want to try something different, be someone different. You think with me it could happen, and you're right, it could. With me you can be anyone and anything you want to be including yourself."

He stood just a foot away and Winnie had to tilt her head back to see his face. His eyes were narrowed, his expression closed, but the heat he was generating more than made up for his lack of expression.

Winnie was powerfully reminded of how it'd felt in his arms, pressed against his hard body. She felt the warmth increase now, and the slow, seductive rise in energy.

From the dark blue of his eyes, and the angle of his jaw, she realized he was feeling the change in tension, too.

"Neither of us are altruistic people, Winnie." He lifted a hand, touched the curve of her ear, rubbed his fingers lightly across the skin. His eyes met hers and held. "We both have needs-and some of these needs have nothing to do with love."

Winnie's pulse raced. His touch was amazing. He made her feel so many incredible things but her attraction to him was based on love, not lust. "Maybe you can reduce it to the physical, but I can't. I feel this way around you because I love you, not because you turn me on."

He smiled. "You're such a romantic. You want it all-love with a capital L, romance with a capital R, passion with a capital P-"

"Yes, I do, and I think it exists."

His smile reached his eyes. He had the most beautiful eyes, the most lovely shade of blue. They were the kind of blue one would never get tired of. Not a shiny plastic blue, but rich and dark, like sapphires and midnight and silk from the Far East.

His fingertips trailed down her neck. ''We could be happy together, Winnie. I know I could make you happy."

His touch did one thing to her. His words did another.

She felt her heart squeeze, protesting against his logic, and his cool pragmatic reasoning. "I couldn't ever be happy with you if I knew you didn't love me."

"There's all kinds of love. You're talking romantic love. I'm talking reality love. I'm talking respect, admiration, friendship-"

"Not that again!" she interrupted, drawing swiftly away.

She wanted passion, romance, love and he wanted respect, admiration, and friendship. How perfect was that?

Snorting to herself, Winnie reached for her frosty glass and took a swallow. He'd spent the last fifteen years dating models, actresses, socialites, but he wanted to marry her based on the incredibly dull virtues of respect and admiration.

He wanted to marry someone safe. Someone dependable. Someone dumpy, dowdy, dull.

"Boring!" she snapped, setting her drink down again. "I can't spend the rest of my life with a man who feels nothing for me-"

"But I do like you."

"Like? Morgan, I want love." She was getting angrier. She needed to take a step back, calm dow

n, but she was too irritated. "I want someone who really wants me, someone who can't keep his hands off me, someone who'd walk to the ends of the earth for me. I want the real thing, and that includes fireworks, amazing sex, and eternal love."

She felt his gaze but he didn't speak. Her shoulders slumped, anger fading. She drew a shaky breath. "I just don't want to settle for less. It'd be wrong to settle for less."