High-Society Bachelor. Krista Thoren
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her mail too abundant. No, this time it really was her fault.
The question was, how had he found out?
He crossed his arms and fixed a sharp green gaze on her. “My girlfriend.” His polite tone and neutral expression gave her no clues as to his mood. His eyes showed a flicker of something that, in anyone else, she might have interpreted as humor. But in her admittedly limited experience of this man, he’d shown no signs of having a sense of humor. Maybe someone as good-looking and rich as he was never got the chance to develop one.
Deborah forced her thoughts to a halt. “I can explain the whole thing,” she said in her most cheerful tone.
“You can?” He gave her that intense stare again, the one that always made both her brain and her mouth run amok. Which was silly, since it wasn’t as if she cared what he thought of her. Wealthy man-about-town types didn’t appeal to her.
Deborah nodded. “Yes. It’s simple, really. In fact, you wouldn’t believe how simple it is.” Right, as in simpleminded. She couldn’t believe it herself.
“Are you going to let me come in?” It wasn’t really a question. At that moment, as if to underline his demand, the door downstairs opened, sending an icy blast of January air up the stairway.
“Come in?” She didn’t want him in her apartment. He was too big, too…male. But under the circumstances, she didn’t have much choice. “Well, I guess so, if it’s necessary. But I’m sure we can settle this very quickly, without taking too much of your time.” Or hers. She was running a tight deadline on arrangements for the Tyler twins’ birthday party, and their mother was not a calm woman.
“We need to talk.” He brushed past her, and with his six-foot-plus frame inside it, her apartment immediately shrank to shoebox size. His aftershave smelled fresh and piney.
“Talk?” Deborah took a breath and forced herself not to say anything else for five seconds. She wasn’t letting any man, especially one in pinstripes, turn her into a parrot. The problem was, Cameron Lyle made every cell in her body go haywire. He always did. He’d stand and look at her without saying anything at all. He didn’t smile much, either. The man should learn how to smile. It was, after all, a very natural thing to do, and it put people at ease.
But Cameron Lyle wouldn’t know anything about that. And if he did, the idea of putting people at ease probably wouldn’t be a selling point.
Deborah pointed to the couch. “Have a seat. Are you allergic to cats?”
He raised one dark brow. Now that he did well. It was obvious that he disapproved of not only her music, but practically everything else about her, too. She’d gotten a lot of brow action from him over the past three months. He had strong, very masculine brows to go with a strong, very masculine face. And his jaw was way more aggressive than any jaw she would consider going out with.
Deborah grimaced. She didn’t want to guess where that thought had come from. It wasn’t as if she even liked the man, for heaven’s sake. He was the only person she knew who consistently challenged her natural optimism and good humor.
Still, he had to have a good side to him somewhere. After all, he attracted an amazing number of women. How many times had she gone downstairs to chat with his assistant, Barb, and found some glamorous woman waiting for him?
“No,” said Cameron finally, settling himself onto her couch.
Deborah sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa and tried to remember what he was saying no about. “Cat hair,” she explained after a moment. “Cat dander, to be more accurate. Libby sheds, and the hair doesn’t always vacuum up completely. So it’s a good thing you’re not allergic. Now, let me tell you how this boyfriend-girlfriend thing came about.” She took a long, steadying breath. “Actually, I never used the word boyfriend to Marilyn. I just said I’d been seeing someone, and she asked who, and I said you.”
“I see.”
What that meant, and what exactly he saw, was a mystery to Deborah. His face gave nothing away. But based on all her other encounters with Cameron Lyle, disapproval had to figure in there somewhere.
“Strictly speaking, I do see you from time to time,” she pointed out, trying not to sound as defensive as she felt. “But of course Marilyn drew her own conclusions.” Which I did nothing to correct.
She wanted to clear her throat, but that would make her sound as nervous as she was. Instead she traced a pattern on the arm of her chair. So much for telling herself that Cameron would never find out about her little misrepresentation, and that even if he did, he dated so many women he wouldn’t notice one more in the crowd.
Wrong on both counts.
Deborah stifled a sigh. It would be nice if he would stop looking at her as if she were a zoo exhibit. His gaze was too intense. It made her feel completely off-balance. Plus, using the word “boyfriend” in connection with the man seated opposite her went beyond weird. Not only were they an unlikely pair, but there was nothing boyish about him. He was all lean muscle and hard edges.
In short, all man.
Which, of course, she had noticed even when she had been engaged to Marilyn’s son, Mark.
His gaze held steady on her face. “I’ll admit I’m curious as to why you didn’t use your fiancé if you needed to claim a boyfriend. I’d have thought he would be the ultimate in convenience.”
Deborah blinked. Aside from those two sentences being the longest ones he’d ever sent in her direction, he was apparently the only person in this little corner of Indianapolis who hadn’t heard the news.
The interest her broken engagement had generated in Tulip Tree Square had taken Deborah totally by surprise, but as her friend Ann had pointed out, their small community of shop owners was closely knit, and people had to talk about something. If they didn’t care about sports, then love lives were a decent alternative.
Tulip Tree Square needed more sports fans.
“I don’t have a fiancé,” Deborah said.
His brows shot up, but not in a supercilious way this time. He looked genuinely surprised. In his eyes she saw a quick flash of something else, too, something undefinable, before his gaze dropped to her left hand. For the first time since her breakup, Deborah was acutely conscious of her bare ring finger.
“No fiancé,” he murmured.
“Right. Not anymore. Mark broke it off a month ago. And his mother was so concerned about me that I had to say something to reassure her. We had lunch together, except she wasn’t eating any of hers, and she badly needs to get her strength back after her surgery—”
Deborah stopped. She simply had to control herself. She had to ignore his intense eyes and her own embarrassment and remember that this man didn’t care two hoots about Marilyn not eating any of her roast beef au jus sandwich. Or that she’d been like an extra mother to Deborah for years. There wasn’t much Deborah wouldn’t do for Marilyn. A little white lie hadn’t seemed too terrible if it brought her peace of mind.
“His mother. I suppose that would be Marilyn Snyder,” observed the lofty Mr. Lyle.
“Right.” Her own mother’s best friend. Now that her mom had remarried and moved to Florida, it was up to Deborah to keep an affectionate eye on Marilyn during her convalescence. “You know her, obviously,” Deborah added.
“Only slightly. Committee work.”
She nodded. “Well anyway, Marilyn had an emergency appendectomy a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, her appendix exploded on the operating table, and the infection got really nasty.”
He winced. “I see.” He looked like he wished he didn’t. “I had no idea she had a son. She didn’t mention him to me at all during our conversation.”
Deborah lifted one shoulder. “Well, since she thinks you’re my new boyfriend—which, as I’ll repeat, is not what I told her—she