The Temptress (Montgomery/Taggert 8)

Rory was aghast. “I’m afraid,” he said with emphasized tolerance for her ignorance, “that you don’t know this man. He’s—”

Chris hadn’t traveled all over the United States on her own and not learned how to handle all types of men. “I have just spent a great deal of time alone with this man and I know all I need to know about him. I am especially aware of the fact that he has the manners of a gentleman.”

She turned away to see Tynan standing beside her, an enormous grin on his face, his arm extended. “The lady has taste,” he said to Rory. “Sit back down and finish your meal. I’ll take good care of her.”

With that, he led Chris out of the hotel and into the moonlit street. But as soon as they were outside, he released her arm.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I can’t stand that type of man,” she said with feeling.

“Type? But I thought all women liked that kind of man. Most all of them I’ve ever known do.”

“But then you’ve never met a woman who could run away from home at the age of eighteen and become a newspaper reporter either, have you?”

“No,” he said with a grin. “I haven’t. Do you really have a headache? Do you want me to take you back inside?”

She stopped and looked at him. “If I promise not to be forward, will you take me for a walk?”

“Forward?”

“Such as pursuing you and asking too many questions and, in general, making a nuisance of myself.”

He gave her a startled look, then grabbed her arm and pulled her into an alleyway. Before Chris could speak, he had her in his arms, holding her head against his chest. “Chris, you don’t understand, do you? Thank you for what you did in there tonight. If four men came up to me aiming guns at my head, I’d know how to handle them, but give me one spoiled rich boy and I’m at a loss. But you made me feel…”

“Like a winner?” she supplied and tried to look up at him but he held her head against him. “Deja vu,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I have a feeling that I’ve been here before, in just this situation. Remember our first meeting?”

“No man could ever forget a meeting like that. Chris, you have to go back inside. I can’t go walking with you in the dark.”

Chris wanted to stay with him always and, had he asked, she would have climbed on a horse and ridden away with him—to live in the rain forest for all she cared. But she knew she had to obey him. He didn’t know how he felt about her and she wasn’t about to pursue him.

“All right,” she whispered with great reluctance in her voice. “Let’s go.”

He moved away from her slowly, not looking at her, and allowed her to go first back onto the street. Chris took one step around the corner and saw Rory with Asher coming toward them, and they had the look of a vigilante committee out to rid the world of whatever they considered vermin. She turned back to Tynan. “Kiss me,” she whispered urgently.

Ty looked astonished for a split second then he lost no time obeying her, taking her in his arms and kissing her with a passion Chris had never before known existed. She completely forgot about the reason she’d asked Ty to kiss her but returned his passion, her arms going around his neck and pulling him closer—not that he could get closer as he wedged his thigh between hers.

“Unhand her!” came Rory’s voice as he pulled Tynan away from Chris.

For a moment, Chris was too stunned to even open her eyes, much less try to speak.

“I should call you out for this,” Rory was saying.

Chris was leaning against a building wall and was in such a state of euphoria that someone could have told her a bomb was about to explode under her feet and she wouldn’t have been able to move.

“I’m ready when you are, Sayers,” she heard Tynan say in a voice deep with threat.

Reluctantly, Chris began to surface because she sensed that this was an argument that she had to stop. But as she moved away from the wall, her eyes opened wide for a moment. The entire back of her dress was unbuttoned.

Standing as straight as she could, not allowing the loose dress to fall forward, she confronted Rory Sayers with his backup of Mr. Prescott.

“Mr. Sayers,” she said angrily. “I do not know you and, after tonight, I don’t believe I want to. You have no right to interfere in my life and I kindly wish you’d stay out of it.”

“Chris,” Tynan said. “Stay out of this. This has been coming for a long time.”