Cinderella's Lucky Ticket. Melissa James
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gulped. Throwback to a lower stage of evolution he might be, but with his lithe build, bronzed skin, careless dark hair flopped over his forehead and deep, dark eyes that twinkled…well, even in her prejudiced view, Ben Capriati could speed up the average female pulse without trying. There was something so lush and Mediterranean, so inherently sensuous about him a woman couldn’t help but respond to—
Other women, not me! I’m far too intelligent to—
“No comeback? Given your ingenuity in getting in here, I thought you’d be a worthier opponent.” After a moment he added, “You need help? I can always rile you into a reply—babe.”
“You’re—you’re crude.” As crude as George of the Jungle—and every bit as gorgeous, even wearing running shorts instead of a loincloth. Something about him oozed raw sexuality…
So don’t look! I’m not here to do anything but take his prizes or some of them. Just enough to fund the wedding. He’s standing in the way of my story-book wedding to my perfect man.
“Amateur,” he taunted, without malice. “Come on, I’m waiting. Go for it. Hit me with your best shot.”
“We’ll—we’ll see about that!” She studiously kept her eyes above the neck, feeling like a Peeping Tom.
Mr. Hill edged nearer to the door. “Then, Mr. Capriati, if you have no objection to Miss Miles residing here—”
“He has no legal right to object! Does he?” she asked in sudden, confused anxiety. “I mean, if it’s my ticket, too—”
“Hey, no objections from me.” The ape leaned farther into the wall of the entry to the living room, lazy amusement in every feature. He didn’t seem in the least worried by her presence or threats. “Would I object to such gorgeous, charming company?”
“Oh, typical,” she muttered, squashing the twinge of hurt. No man ever had, or ever would, call her gorgeous….
“Typical of what?” He slanted her a rakish, wicked grin as she floundered, deriving great enjoyment from her dilemma. “Of?”
She drew a breath, garnered up her courage and said it. “Of—of modern-day proof that the reversion to the caveman Neanderthal isn’t yet extinct, but alive and well in the male population!”
He grinned at her, as if her insult didn’t bother him in the least. “According to leading anthropologists and paleontologists, Neanderthals were pretty sophisticated dudes, hut dwellers and toolmakers living prior to the Pleistocene era—almost modern man as we know it. Grunting, women-dragging cavemen are considered to be more in line with an earlier period, possibly the Paleolithic. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Her jaw almost hit the ground. “How did you know—?”
“Let’s say I subscribe to the occasional scientific journal when I’m desperate for entertainment.” His grin slanted sideways, charming and raffish as a Hollywood buccaneer. “Look, Miss—no, that’s ridiculous. If we’re going to cohabit for the next week or so and exchange mutually satisfying insults, we can at least drop the mister-miss farce. What’s your name?”
She froze. “My—my name?”
“Yeah, your name. Like mine’s Ben? You know—Miss, fill-in-the-blank, Miles.” His hands made typing gestures. “The thing other people call you, and you answer to. The semiunique title that stops me from yelling, ‘Hey, lady!’, and half the adult population of Southeastern Queensland from turning around.”
“Do—do you think—” The half-guilty temptation overcame the prompting of her conscience. What does it matter? He’ll be out of my life in a few days. She peeped at him in wistful appeal. “Do you think you could call me Lucy?”
Both eyebrows lifted. “Do I think I could call you Lucy? Is it your name, or isn’t it?”
Sensing defeat, she sighed. “Well, my real name is Abigail—Abigail Lucinda Miles—so everyone calls me Abigail. It’s a quiet, sensible, modest name, like me, but—but I don’t like it. I’d love for somebody to call me Lucy, just once,” she murmured wistfully.
“Um, right.” To her surprise, he chuckled again. “Well, sorry to disagree with the apparent powers that be, but so far, based on our short acquaintance, sensible, quiet and modest are the last terms I’d think of in connection with you.”
A mixture of total disbelief and pure joy budded to a flower of hope inside her. “Then you’ll call me Lucy?”
“Sure,” he agreed, with a cheerful air. “I like it. Lucy’s more your speed than Abigail—at least once the hair’s down and the cardigan’s skew-wif, like it is now.”
“That’s what I think! But—” Then she gasped. “My…hair? My cardigan?” She rushed to the mirror over the hall stand, and saw her hair in a tumbled mess and her cardigan slipping from one shoulder, leaving it almost bare. “Oh, dear, it’s all the fuss and upset. I need to calm down, do my positive affirm—” She slammed her mouth shut, concentrating on tidying the mess she was in. “Much better. I’m fine. I’m happy. I feel settled, and—” She turned back, satisfied, to see the ape watching her, containing his obvious amusement. “What are you laughing at now?”
“Whoever the fool was that thought you sensible or quiet.” He shook his head. “What sort of jerks are you hanging around?”
She bristled. “They’re not jerks. My family are highly respected members of the scientific community! Mother is a professor of biology, Father is an endocrinologist, and Hugh, my fiancé, is a geneticist!”
His eyebrows lifted. “How intimidating of them.”
Tossing her hair in defiance of his flippant attitude, she snapped, “I’m proud to be part of a scientific family. I’m a scientific librarian myself. I catalog and store some of the most important work ever done in this country!”
“I see.” His voice quivered. “No wonder you’re proud of yourself. That’s very, um, impressive.”
Stealing another peek at him, she saw that he didn’t look impressed in the least—more as if he was getting a huge kick out of every word she said. His dark eyes were alight with laughter; his big, bronzed, well-defined and dark-haired chest above his flat, hard stomach, shook with the effort of repressing his glee.
What was she doing, noticing his chest— that strong, olive-brown, muscular chest with enough dark springing hair to beg a woman to curl her fingers through it….
Oh, dear. Houston, we have a problem!
And she knew just what it was. She’d studied this well-known scientific effect on the feminine psyche for a thesis four years ago. The instinctive reaction to a tall, dark, strong-chested man: the type who could fight off invaders, hunt, provide for his woman, rescue his children from danger. This—this thing that had just happened to her was based on pheromone release alone. She’d thought herself above this unconscious reversion to her caveman ancestors; but, to her horror, her primal and base inner self was checking Ben Capriati out as a potential provider.
She shook herself, like a dog shaking water off its fur. No need to make a big deal of this! It was a scientific glitch: a simple case of recessive genetic memory dominating her better self. It had nothing to do with—couldn’t be—chemistry.
Physical attraction to an underdressed, seemingly unintelligent biker who did nothing but laugh at her, when she already had a reasoned, intellectual man all her own? Ugh. It couldn’t be!
It’s possibly more to do with the fact that you’ve been all but invisible to Hugh for the past year or two, the imp whispered from the back stalls of her mind.
She tossed her head, unaware that her hair fell from its bun again, spilling her despised curls around her face. “I suppose you think you’re funny. People who spend their lives contributing to the human race are something to mock. I feel sorry for you.”
“If