CHAPTER THREE

      GREED WAVED a victory banner Kara couldn’t ignore. “I say a girl’s gotta eat sometime, right? I’m sure she can squeeze in a dinner date during the next month. Let me call her and get back to you soon.”

      “Great! Oh, man, a date with the Mystery Woman,” he crowed. “Wait’ll the guys in the shop hear about this. They drooled so much over the last catalog the ink took twice as long to dry.”

      Oh God.

      “What’s her name, by the way?”

      Kara pressed cool knuckles against a heated cheek. “The modeling agency is very strict about guarding its clients. If she agrees to meet you, I’ll let her tell you herself.”

      “Well...I guess that’s fair.”

      Thank goodness.

      “A hot babe like that must worry about stalkers and stuff.”

      Oh God.

      “You call me as soon as you talk to her, okay, Kara?”

      “I’ll do that, Vinnie. Bye now.”

      “See ya, doll.”

      Carefully replacing the receiver, Kara assumed a casual expression and cleared her throat. “That was Vinnie.”

      Lisa Williams leveled the lovely brown gaze that made small boys fight to crawl onto her lap and men scramble to pull out her chair. Ebony-haired, porcelain-skinned and five foot three in her highest Bruno Magli heels, she drew protective males with her petite femininity faster than Jane could yodel up Tarzan.

      Kara, standing five foot nine inches sans heels, had always felt like an Amazon in comparison—especially in grade school, when she’d also towered above the boys. Small as her best friend was, when it came to Lisa and the opposite sex, Kara knew exactly who wore the loincloth.

      She’d be lucky to stave off the impending lecture. “Just hold your comments until I can explain, Lisa.”

      “Tell me you didn’t promise that man a date with the Mystery Woman and I’ll be quiet.”

      “Okay. I didn’t promise that man a date wi—”

      “Damn it, Kara, would you mind explaining why we’ve been more secretive than 007 all these months if you don’t mind blowing your cover? Are you crazy?”

      Sighing, Kara glanced at the unpaid vendor invoices stacked in order of squeakiest wheel. “Not yet. But I’m getting there.”

      Lisa’s indignant glare became a worried frown. “You look exhausted. Something’s happened you’re not telling me. I sensed it even before Vinnie’s call. Big trouble?”

      Six feet four of it, crowding her dreams last night with hurtful memories and erotic images.

      Kara resisted the urge to mention her bizarre reunion with Travis. Lisa had argued too long and fiercely nine years ago on his behalf. Better to let sleeping no-good insensitive dogs lie.

      “Gram phoned a little earlier,” Kara said instead. “Carol picked up from out by the register. By the time she turned the call over to me, she had Gram in a tizzy. I got a sound scolding on my failure to uphold the Taylor tradition of providing excellent customer service and employee working conditions.”

      “And in English that would mean...?”

      “I had to let Jennifer go yesterday.”

      The part-time saleswoman had covered for Carol during her lunch hour, doctor’s appointments and a slew of increasingly creative emergencies.

      “Oh, hon, I’m sorry. I know how much help Jennifer was. How’d she take it?”

      “Much better than Carol,” Kara admitted wryly.

      “O-o-oh, I hate to see that lazy woman taking advantage of you.” Lisa fingered the hammered gold choker above her russet silk dress as if throttling were on her mind. She cast a hostile glance at the closed office door. “I wish you could’ve fired her instead of Jennifer.”

      That made two of them.

      But the middle-aged saleswoman had once been best friends with her mother, and Gram treasured and took comfort from the tenuous connection. Until that changed, Kara would put up with Carol’s sour disposition.

      “Believe me,” Kara assured her loyal friend, “I’ll hire more sales staff the minute I can divert profits from Mystery Woman orders into the store. Which, by the way, is the reason I agreed to set Vinnie up on a blind date. He’s going to print the next catalogs at cost if I come through for him. I’ll save as much as four thousand dollars!”

      “Why won’t you let me give you—”

      “No. It’s bad enough I’m letting you do the photography free of charge. I won’t accept your money.”

      “Fine. Then accept a loan.”

      “Another debt hanging over my head? Thanks, but no thanks.” Kara pointedly checked her wristwatch. “You’re going to be late to the country club if you don’t leave soon. Isn’t your mother chairing the fashion show luncheon this year?”

      Irritation pinched Lisa’s lovely features. She snatched her purse from the floor and rose. “You know she is. Just like you know she’ll have a cow if I walk in late.”

      She moved rigidly to the door, then paused dramatically, hand on the knob. “We’re not finished, Kara. I’ll stop by after the luncheon and you can tell me which proofs you want made into transparencies. And then maybe we’ll discuss how the businesswoman Vinnie has talked to dozens of times and the Mystery Woman model he takes to dinner, are going to keep him from learning they’re the same person!”

      Tossing her dark chin-length bob, she flung open the door—and yelped.

      Kara followed Lisa’s gaze to the man standing with his knuckles raised as if to knock. Dark blond hair, impeccably tailored suit, wire-rim glasses that enhanced his Wall Street aura and polished good looks. He stared down with the dazed expression Kara had witnessed on masculine faces since the third grade.

      No surprise, there.

      The