Just One Kiss Read online

  “Maybe we can.” Michael delighted in hearing this resounding praise for Nikki.

  Darlene obviously did not. “Honestly, Jim. Comparing the two companies is inappropriate. Size alone makes the comparison invalid. If the perfect Nicole Johnson had some of our problems to deal with, I doubt she’d maintain her sterling record.”

  Jim Mallon shot Darlene an openly questioning look. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Darlene. What exactly are those problems? What causes late product delivery for three consecutive quarters?”

  “I can tell you exactly what—” Darlene started.

  “Not now, Darlene.” Michael cut in smoothly. “Plenty of time to talk business tomorrow. I think Jim just wanted to ruffle your feathers. You don’t want him to succeed, do you?” He tossed an easy smile toward Jim.

  Jim shrugged and smiled back, looking irritatingly smug, like a man who’d made his point and knew there was no comeback. He turned to his wife, who’d been silent throughout the exchange. “Let’s dance, honey. See if there is still some rock and roll in these fifty-year-old bones.”

  They’d barely left the table before Darlene started. “I can’t understand you, Michael. How can you let him get away with that? Megan would have—”

  Michael didn’t let her finish. “Megan would have handled it the same way. Jim is an important distributor. If he has problems, he has a right to voice them. My feeling is that it’s better done in a proper environment.” He turned to her, his voice firm. “I’m sorry if you disagree. Perhaps that’s something we should talk about as well.” He knew there was a trace of steel in his voice, but didn’t care.

  Darlene backed off. “That’s up to you, of course.” Her smile seemed forced as did her new, lighter, tone of voice. “But not right now. I think I’ll visit the powder room. Will you excuse me?”

  Michael stood, pulled out her chair, then watched her walk across the crowded room—and past Nikki’s table.

  Nikki was putting her sweater on and heading for the door.

  Michael deliberated—very briefly.

  He might not dare take her in his arms for a dance, but surely they could stand outside together and breathe the same air. Before anyone could return to the table, he’d followed her out the door.

  Chapter Eight

  “Warm—and loud in there, isn’t it?”

  Nikki jumped at the sound of Michael’s voice. “Yes. Yes it is.”

  She wished he’d move a step away so she could catch a deep breath, then called herself ten kinds of fool because he was at least four feet away already.

  “Walk with me?” Michael took a step closer and looked down at her. The request was innocent, the look he gave her was not.

  “I have friends waiting for me.”

  “So have I.” He reached out his hand.

  Without a word, Nikki took it and moved to his side. She had no idea why.

  The night was cold crystal, moon bright with a sky full of drifting clouds and the fixed glitter of stars. The icy snow cracked under their feet as they turned toward the now quiet village center. Intending only a moment’s fresh air, Nikki hadn’t put on her jacket, and the bright blue sweater was more fashionable than protective. She shivered. The only warm part of her was the hand locked in Michael’s, and now he released it.

  “Here, put this on.” He shrugged off his soft sheepskin jacket and draped it over her shoulders, ignoring her protests.

  “We should go back. You’ll freeze.” She looked at the forest green cashmere sweater he was wearing. Warm, yes, but not warm enough, she guessed.

  “The chance of me freezing when I’m in your company is very remote.” He pulled the coat around her. Lifting the large collar to cover her ears, from under the collar he held her face in his hands. “Do you want to go back?”

  Simple question. Why did she feel the answer required so much thought? She should go back. Her friends were waiting. There was no future in a walk through cool moonlight with Michael Dorado. Nikki had never felt such a powerful attraction in her life. It was as though she were hypnotized, moving against herself and her own interests. She should go back. Get as far away from this man as possible—as quickly as possible.

  “Do you want to go back, Nikki?” he asked again.

  “I should. They’ll be looking for me. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving.”

  His hands slid from under the collar to the lapels of the coat. She was trapped. Her heart stammered in her chest. Certain he could feel it, she pulled back.

  “I didn’t ask what you should do. I asked if you wanted to.” He held her, snugly imprisoned in warm sheepskin.

  Conflicting emotions made Nikki uncomfortable. She liked straight lines, well-marked paths, and solid plans. What she didn’t like was ambiguity, unknown roads, or abrupt changes in direction. Michael Dorado was all those things, and, most important of all, he was her boss. She felt pressured and it made her angry.

  “I know what you asked. You asked me for a walk.” She met his gaze directly and added, “but it’s not just a walk. It’s some kind of test, isn’t it?”

  They’d stopped near the stone-faced wall of a restaurant. The restaurant was closed and the darkness of its covered walkway hid the expression on Michael’s face, a face dangerously close to her own. She knew his eyes would be dark, intense. She felt them.

  “Maybe that’s exactly what it is, a test of willpower. Not so strange, when you think about it. Last night, you asked me to kiss you. Wasn’t that a test?”

  “Maybe it was. That was different,” she sputtered, desperate for the right words. “We were going to forget about that. Be friends, remember. Besides, I didn’t know you then. We were strangers.” Damn it, this was getting worse all the time. She saw his smile deepen across the sensual line of his mouth. A mouth slowing moving toward hers.

  He tugged gently on the lapels of the big coat and pulled her closer. “So tell me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Do you always go around asking strangers to kiss you?”

  “No, of course I—”

  He stilled her lips by moving his own softly across them. Nikki felt the air escape her lungs as his mouth moved over hers, feather light, touching, yet not touching. The earth rolled slightly, and she swayed toward him. His arms left the lapels of the coat and wrapped around her. He lifted his head and looked down at her as if studying her reaction. Their breaths mingled and steamed in the cold night air.

  “We shouldn’t—” She started to protest.

  “Hush,” was all he said, his lips poised over her half-open mouth. “This is my test.” She felt his smile against her lips. “Shall we see if you pass?”

  In the part of her brain still functioning, Nikki knew that Michael’s test would be much more demanding than hers. This was not a surprised man in a darkened car, this was an experienced, seductive male primed for conquest.

  His hot tongue grazed the moist inner swell of her lips, then moved deeper. So deep Nikki forgot to breathe. He played there, inside her mouth, probing the sensitive flesh. She tried to hold back, to deny him, but it was useless. His mouth intoxicated her, unleashing an aching, powerful need. Her head whirled, and she pressed against him. His body responded instantly, wedging her tight to the stone wall, his arousal full and hard against her. Every nerve in her body danced to it.

  She freed her hands from the heavy coat and moved them hastily across his cashmere-covered chest and up and around his neck. She wanted to feel skin, his skin. Demanding more, she sought the warm flesh under his collar. She found it and a cry of pleasure escaped her lips. Her tongue met his, heat against heat.

  Michael groaned, pressed himself to her, gripped by raw, primitive need. Control in tatters, reason gone, he was a hungry man. Dangerously hungry. He had to pull back. If he didn’t, he’d explode. He rested one hand on the wall above Nikki’s head and cupped her breast with the other, his intent a gentle caress. But when the hint of one tautly aroused nipple teased his thumb through her sweater, he crushed her back to him, kiss
ing her throat, her fluttering eyelids, her mouth again.

  Slowly, he took his mouth from hers and held her away from him, his hands once again safe on the lapels of the coat. His voice was husky and uneven.

  “I want you, Nicole. I want you badly.” He lifted a hand to softly stroke her hair. “It seems I’m the one who failed the test.” It was as though the last sentence was for his own benefit more than hers. “The question is, where in hell do we go from here?”

  “Somewhere out of the cold?” Nikki leaned heavily against the restaurant wall, still dazed by the shock of her own responses. He turned her into a crazy woman, and she could make no sense of anything. Want. She knew all about want. She moistened her suddenly dry lips with her tongue. They felt swollen.

  He smiled and ran a thumb slowly across her mouth. “I wish I could believe that was a proposition. A your-place-or-mine kind of proposition.”

  “It’s not,” she said quickly. “But I think we should talk. I think we should answer your question about where we go from here?”

  “We could leave that until tomorrow. Couldn’t I interest you in something other than conversation?” He kissed her softly, lifted his head, and smiled at her. Again she saw the small light at the back of his eyes, ready, she was sure, to burst into flame. She swallowed.

  “It was your question, and it’s a good one—a serious one.” Damned serious, she thought, and took a step away from him.

  The game, if that’s what it was, between her and Michael had to stop. The face of her old boss, Brent Marshall, bright with rage, rose before her and she trembled. She couldn’t risk that again. But any further involvement with the irresistible Michael Dorado, and that’s exactly what she’d risk. Pain, insults, and recriminations. She didn’t need any of them. She was on shaky ground already after that drop-dead kiss. She took a deep breath. How was he going to take her rejection now? she wondered.

  Nikki groaned in frustration. All she wanted was to make her way, using whatever brains and talent she had—and be recognized for them. Why did she have to be cursed with another boss who’d prefer she make it using a set of skills better used in the bedroom than the boardroom. Skills she wasn’t even certain she possessed.

  But she’d started this emotional tangle. It was up to her to untangle it. She looked up at Michael. He was still looking at her and her stomach, along with everything else, lurched in response.

  She found her voice. “There’s an Italian place up ahead. Why don’t we go in and have a cup of coffee?”

  “I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy this cup of coffee.”

  “They make very good coffee.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He put a casual arm around her shoulder as they moved up the covered walkway.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you’re going to throw my words back in my face. You’re going to talk about our employer-employee relationship—and I think you’re going to tell me this thing between us should stop before it goes any further. That there is no future in it, only trouble.” He paused, frowned slightly. “And I think I don’t want to hear that.”

  Nikki stared at him, wind gone from her sails.

  “After you.” Michael pushed open the door of the restaurant.

  When they were seated, he asked, “Would you like something to eat?”

  “No. Thanks. We ate earlier.”

  “We?”

  “John, Christy, Amy, and I.”

  “No one else?”

  “No. No one else. Why do you ask?” His questioning puzzled her.

  “Obvious, don’t you think? I’m working my way up to asking if there’s a man in your life?”

  It crossed Nikki’s mind to say yes. It would be an easy way out of this mess. She could say she was engaged or at least serious about someone. She decided against it. She would accomplish her goal with truth, not lies.

  “There’s no man in my life. Unless you count a father and three older brothers.” She was glad when the waiter came to take their order. She had intended to direct this conversation, but it didn’t seem to be turning out that way.

  “They live in Vancouver?”

  “No. My brothers are spread around the States now, and Dad lives in Denver.”

  “You’re from Denver, then.”

  “That’s where I grew up. I transferred here a few years ago when the computer company I was with set up its BC office. When that didn’t work out as I planned, I took the job at Kingway.” She didn’t elaborate.

  “Why leave Denver in the first place?”

  She hesitated. “The usual reasons. The job here looked good, and I thought it was time to try my own wings. Being the baby sister in a family of men wears a bit thin after a while.” It was almost the truth.

  “What do they all do, besides look out for baby sister?”

  Nikki had no idea why he’d be interested in her family, but it did buy her time to get her thoughts together. So she answered, “My father is an attorney. The best one in Denver,” she said. “Jack, my oldest brother, is president of an oil company in Dallas. Steve is the entrepreneur of the group. He owns a company that manufactures microchips in California. Corbin, the youngest, followed in my father’s path. He’s a lawyer with one of the biggest firms in New York.”

  “Impressive. Sounds as though achievement is important in your family.”

  “I guess you could say that. I’m proud of my brothers.”

  “And your father?”

  “Of course.”

  “They must be proud of you, too.”

  “I guess so.” She shifted uneasily in her chair. She didn’t like talking about her family, particularly her place in it. “Let’s just say we’re all proud of each other.”

  As if Michael sensed her discomfort, he switched direction. “Do you miss Denver?”

  “No. I love it here. Vancouver is a beautiful, clean city, and the way it’s growing, there’s lots of opportunity.” Her answer was banal, but it was the best she could come up with as she tried to figure out a way of gaining control.

  “Opportunity? What kind of opportunity interests you, Nikki? I know I can’t count myself as one of them.” He smiled again, a teasing one this time.

  “I was referring to career,” she said stiffly.

  “Ah, yes. Career. Important to you. Am I right?”

  “Very,” she said, then added crisply, “Which is why we’re having this conversation. I don’t want any misunderstanding about that.” There, it was out in the open. If she could have, she’d have patted her own back, certain now he’d get her point.

  Michael tilted his head, studied her a moment. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” he finally said.

  Before she could answer, the waiter came with their cappuccinos. After that they sat in silence. Nikki grew uncomfortable under his steady gaze.

  “You don’t mention your mother.” Michael said finally, watching her and playing idly with a spoon, moving it back and forth on his folded napkin.

  “She died when I was eight.”

  “That must have been hard for your father. It wouldn’t be easy raising four kids. He never remarried?” Michael drank some coffee.

  “No. Maybe he never found anyone he thought could replace my mother. That would be the romantic view, anyway.” Thoughts of her driving, demanding father pushed themselves into her consciousness. “Or maybe he didn’t have time for it. He dedicated himself to his work and his sons, uh, I mean us.” She corrected herself. “He was ambitious for all of us. Our success is important to him. Still is.”

  If Michael noticed Nikki’s slip of the tongue, he ignored it. “What do you think? That your mother was his one great love or that he had no time for another marriage?”

  She frowned. That question always puzzled her. More so as she grew older. Her father was a wealthy, successful, and still very attractive man. She often wondered why he never remarried. He was also an exacting perfectionist with a rock-hard set of standards. She doubted many wome
n would live up to them.

  “I don’t know. My father isn’t much for sharing his feelings. My guess is he felt we were his first responsibility. Like I said, he’s ambitious for us.” It was the best answer she could come up with. “What about you? Any family?” She determined to change the subject.

  “Not close family. My father died when I was five. Odd when you think about it. You were raised in a motherless household and I in a fatherless one.” His eyes held a trace of sadness when he added, “You probably know that my mother died a year ago.”

  Nikki nodded. Megan Dorado was a legend in the cosmetic industry, and her death had been well publicized. “You must miss her. From what I understand, she was an extraordinary woman.” Nikki hesitated to carry on a line of questions on a subject that might cause pain. She proceeded cautiously. “She was only fifty-six, the papers said.”

  It was Michael’s turn to nod. “And you’re right. She was extraordinary. In many ways, she was a woman before her time. Today, I think you call them superwomen. Isn’t that a women who does it all, has it all?”

  Nikki smiled at his use of the word.

  “Superwoman,” he appeared to ponder the word, “What every woman now aspires to be.” He shook his head then. “God, what a crazy ambition.” Then he went on.

  “Mother started Prisma shortly after my father’s death, She built it into an international success story—and she raised me. She was always working, always traveling. The strain must have been incredible. I could see the toll it was taking, particularly in these last few years. I pleaded with her to slow down, but I think she’d forgotten how. By then, Prisma was everything to her. It filled her life. It was her life.”

  Nikki sensed the affection Michael had for his mother and something else. Her next question was tentative.

  “Did you resent her ambition? Suffer for it in any way?”

  “No. I didn’t resent it. I admired it, but I damned well resent that she died for it, that she didn’t know when to quit. I hate that she let her life get so unbalanced she forgot there were other things besides work. She deserved more. She should have had more.” He stopped talking then and looked at her. “Were you thinking that as a child I was abandoned, left for long periods of time while my mother selfishly pursued her career?” He looked at her, almost quizzically