A Proper Wife

“Your secretary assured me that you always got in before nine, but—”

“Never mind what my secretary assured you!” Ryan stalked toward her, anger stamped into every feature of his face. “Where do you get off, telling her your name was Kincaid and that you were my niece?”

“I am,” she said, flushing slightly. “Your stepniece, if you want to get technical about it.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to get technical about it. I’m not even sure there is such a thing as a ‘stepniece.’”

Although she was certainly done up to look like a niece this morning, Ryan thought furiously, assuming you got to pick your niece from the latest Ralph Lauren ad in Vanity Fair.

No red velvet capes today, no prim and proper suits. Devon was wearing an oatmeal-tweed blazer opened over a black turtleneck shirt, faded jeans and ankle-high leather boots. Her hair was drawn back loosely from her face, secured at the nape of her neck with a demure black bow.

Ryan’s gut tightened. On second thought, she didn’t look the least bit like anybody’s niece. Nieces were supposed to be cute little girls in gingham dresses, but there was nothing cute about Devon. Her jeans clung to her calves and slender thighs; her high, rounded breasts pressed lightly against the black cotton shirt. And all Ryan could think about the tied-back, platinum hair was that it would only take one tug of his finger to undo the ribbon and send all that pale silk cascading over her shoulders.

Hell, he thought, and his expression grew even more stern.

“Well?” he said coldly. “I’m waiting. What’s so important that you lied your way into my office?”

“I needed to see you—and I didn’t think it would be such a hot idea to drop the reason on the dragon outside.”

“OK,” Ryan said, leaning back against his desk and folding his arms, “you’re seeing me. Now, what’s this all about?”

A flush rose in Devon’s cheeks. “Must you always try to humiliate me? You know damned well why I’m here. You just want me to say it because you know it’ll embarrass me.”

“I hate to ruin this little scene for you, Devon, but I don’t think it’s possible to embarrass you. And I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Devon stared at Ryan’s implacable face. It was wrong, that a man so astonishingly good-looking should also be such a worthless bastard.

Not that his arrogance and his nastiness really surprised her. She’d spent years among people of his class; she knew what they were like. That awful boarding school might not have taught her how to type or balance a checkbook but it certainly had taught her that the rich thought they owned the world.

“Well? Are you going to tell me why you’ve come here, or am I going to call Security and have you escorted out?”

“You are, without any question, the most miserable son of a—”

“Such sweet talk, darling.” Ryan walked around his desk, sat down in his chair, shoved it back and put his feet up on the desk. He smiled coolly. “You’re going to wind me around your finger if you keep it up.”

Devon stared at him as the awful possibility that he was telling the truth began dawning. She cleared her throat.

“You...you really don’t know why I’m here?”

“No, dammit, I don’t. And you’ve got two minutes to tell me before I toss you out of here on your pretty little behind!”

Devon licked her lips. Just say it, she told herself, and get it over with.

“Your grandfather—James Kincaid—wants...he wants us to get married.”

She jammed her hands into the pockets of her blazer, fisting them tightly for courage, while she waited for his reaction. Would he burst into laughter? Throw her out of his office? Send for the men in the white coats?

But he had no reaction. Oh, he looked upset. Even mildly piqued. But he certainly didn’t look the way she felt, as if the entire planet had turned upside down.

“Damn,” he said.

“Damn?” she said, sinking down onto the edge of a chair. “I tell you that your grandfather has decided to play matchmaker-from-hell and all you can say is ‘damn’?”

“How did you find out?”

“How do you think I found out? My mother told me.”

Ryan nodded. Evidently the old man had discussed his plan with Bettina before Friday night’s get-together. It surprised him that James would have spoken with Bettina before speaking with him—but why should it? The real surprise was that his grandfather would have even considered such an outrageous scheme in the first place.