Silk on the Skin: A Loveswept Classic Romance (19 page)

“And where did you come up with the idea for the folder?” he asked. “It was perfect.”

She shrugged. “I figured nothing looks more impressive than a folder full of facts when a person wants to give a good impression.”

“What was really in it?”

She laughed. “Anything and everything. Bills of lading, old income-tax returns, half of a three-ring, notebook-style Betty Crocker cookbook. The pages come out, and they make a nice, thick pile. Good thing nobody asked to look inside.”

“If they did, you could have given them a recipe for Baked Alaska,” Dallas said with a straight face.

“What do you suppose Ned will do?” she asked. After the meeting, all of the board members had gone into Ned’s office to remove priority files. A couple of items indicated that Ned had been doing more with M & L’s finances than making bad business decisions, and the high-paying dividends had been just one of them. Only she and Dallas hadn’t been surprised. Dallas had sensed something wrong about Ned from the beginning, and she had proof of his lack of compunction. “What will the company do to him?”

“Nothing,” he said bluntly. “The truth is, M & L doesn’t need a hint of scandal while it’s getting back on its feet. There are ways to handle it quietly, like taking the embezzled money out of the shares he owns.”

“How much do you think he got away with?”

“It’s hard to say.” Dallas shook his head. “That
was one headache none of us needed. I wanted him out completely because of what he’d done to you. I have to admit, though, that I thought I would need to put more pressure on him before he gave up the shares. Now I know he was afraid I knew about the money, too. Ned will probably realize the company won’t do a public investigation. He’ll disappear quietly, and gratefully, I’ll bet.” He scowled. “He bragged too much about his ‘business acumen’ to the corporate community to face any of them now.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then Cass caressed his arm and said, “How does it feel to be chairman of the board?”

“Strange,” he admitted. “I’m more used to fighting a board of directors to get what’s needed, than to being the head of it. Of course, it’s a damn good way to insure that you’ll always be at the meetings.”

Cass laughed. “I doubt I could get out of that if I wanted to. It wasn’t quite so bad as I thought it would be.” Then she smiled hugely. “You’ll notice that, while we gave the job to you, we didn’t give you any more shares than what you’ve already got.”

“I noticed,” he said. “However, there are always your shares.…”

“Forget it,” she said bluntly. “I learned my lesson, and from now on, I’ll get out of my death bed to go to those meetings.”

“Super stockholder!” Dallas pronounced in triumphant tones.

“Clown,” she muttered.

“Wait, I’m forgetting something,” he said, lifting her off him and climbing out of the bed.

Pulling the sheet up over her nakedness, she watched her nude soon-to-be husband walk over to the valet. She sighed to herself as she noted his strong shoulders, and the muscles playing across his back. Hardly a potbellied executive, she thought with pride. Her gaze drifted lower, to the taut buttocks and lean legs. That great tush.

He knelt down and took something from his briefcase. Turning to her, he held up an electric-pink, sheer baby-doll nightie trimmed in black lace. The points of the bodice were covered by two enormous rhinestones with black tassels hanging from the center of each.

“Dallas! Where did you get that horrible thing?” she demanded, sitting up and pulling the sheet across her breasts.

“From M & L. I went down to the sales department and took it off the rack before I came back to the board meeting.” He winked at her. “It’s part of the now-defunct Lusty Lingerie line. I figured you’d look great in it on our wedding night.”

“We don’t need it,” she said, flinging the sheet off her body.

He grinned widely at her, tossed the nightie over his shoulder, and headed for the bed.

Welcome to Loveswept!

We’re delighted to offer you another sizzling e-original next month: From rising romance star Sharon Cullen comes a tale of the fiery passion between a noble naval officer and a female pirate that’s as tempestuous and as unpredictable as the sea.
THE NOTORIOUS LADY ANNE
is Sharon Cullen’s first historical novel and her debut with Loveswept. Sensual and enticing, this is a book you won’t want to miss.

Also upcoming: Patricia Olney’s irresistible
JADE’S GAMBLE
, Linda Cajio’s sinfully sexy
STRICTLY BUSINESS
, and three blazing hot books from Sandra Chastain:
A DREAM TO CLING TO
,
LOVE AND A BLUE-EYED COWBOY
, and
MAC’S ANGELS: MIDNIGHT FANTASY
.

If you love romance … then you’re ready to be
Loveswept
!

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

P.S. Watch for these terrific Loveswept titles coming soon: March brings Ruthie Knox’s scorching
ALONG CAME TROUBLE
, and some classic you’ll want to read: Patricia Olney’s moving and funny
STILL MR. AND MRS
., Juliana Garnett’s compelling and sensual
THE BARON
, Jean Stone’s exceptional and heartwarming
FIRST LOVES
, Linda Cajio’s extraordinary
UNFORGETTABLE
, and beloved author Iris Johansen’s brilliant
AN UNEXPECTED SONG.
In April, we’re excited about Megan Frampton’s emotional and powerfully erotic tale
HERO OF MY HEART
, Karen Leabo’s electric
HELL ON WHEELS
, Linda Cajio’s stirring novels,
HE’S SO SHY
and
DESPERATE MEASURES
, and Sandra Chastain’s spellbinding books,
NIGHT DREAMS
and
PENTHOUSE SUITE
. Don’t miss any of these extraordinary reads. I promise that you’ll fall in love and treasure these stories for years to come.…

Actually I wasn’t prepared at all. I just wanted to go to bed. I was tired and cranky, sweat was puddling between my boobs, and my armpits smelled like sprouting onions. Deodorant cost one ninety-five at the prison canteen, well beyond the means of someone who earned ten cents an hour. Given a choice between M&Ms or Mennen, I’d pick the sweet and live with the stink. Repulsive, yes—but chocolate is what gets you through the day, and no one else smells any better.

If I’d stuck to chocolate, things might have turned out differently. But I had a leftover cough drop from a bout with bronchitis, and when my cellmate, Tina Sanchez, developed a tickly throat, I gave her the cough drop. Just being a pal, right?

Wrong. You’re supposed to return unused medications to the medical director. The staff tracks pharmaceuticals the way the CIA tracks yellow cake in the Middle East. A cellblock officer caught the menthol scent on Tina’s breath and wrote her up for taking a nonprescription drug. Since I was the one who’d dished out the illicit substance, I was written up, too. Along with a bunch of other drug offenders—aspirin pushers, Alka-Seltzer peddlers, and Midol dealers—Tina and I were sentenced to garden detail.

Not exactly the Bataan death march in a suburban peas and petunias plot, but Taycheedah’s gardens are a whole different chunk of real estate. Looking out over them is like gazing at the Great Plains; you wouldn’t be surprised to see buffalo and buzzards roaming around out there.

The first days of September had been sunny and hot, and in the perverse way of growing things, every tomato on six acres had ripened on the same day. Ten thousand of the squishy red things, demanding to be handpicked before thunderstorms swept through and turned them into salsa. We picked. And picked. And picked some more. All morning, all afternoon, and into early evening. When it got to be five o’clock I thought we’d be dismissed for dinner. But no-o.
You do the crime, you do the time
: that was the warden’s motto. The kitchen staff sent out sandwiches and bottles of water and we ate sitting cross-legged in the dirt. Then we hauled ourselves to our feet and went back to work.

My spine was an archipelago of ache, my skin felt scalded, and my teeth were filmed with bugs. The rank, catnippy odor of tomatoes clung to my clothes. I straightened and stretched at the end of my gazillionth row, rubbing my back and anxiously scanning the sky to the west, which had turned the pus-yellow of a fading bruise. The air was thick enough to stir with a spoon. Crickets chirped storm warnings. Lightning flickered in a raft of distant clouds.

Lightning terrified me. I glanced uneasily at the officer on duty, hoping she’d let the tomatoes go to mush and order us back inside. She didn’t. She just yawned, leaning against a tree, staring glassily into space. Obviously, distant lightning wasn’t high on her list of concerns.

“Did you know that lightning can strike as far as ten miles away?” I said to Tina, who was picking on the opposite side of my row.

“So what?” Tina scoffed. “Your chances of getting hit by lightning are less than winning the Powerball.”

“You’ve got it backward.” The heat was making me cranky. It was Tina’s fault I was on this gulag detail in the first place. “The odds against winning the Powerball are greater than your chances of being struck by lightning.”

“I ain’t never won the lottery and I ain’t never got hit by lightning neither, so that proves my point.”

Tina’s logic made my brain hurt. I opened my mouth to explain her faulty reasoning, which would probably have resulted in Tina’s giving me a mashed tomato facial, but at that moment a siren began to wail. I nearly jumped out of my sweat-streaked skin. Dropping my tomatoes, I clapped my hands over my ears.

“Is that the escape siren?” I asked.

“No, you goober. That’s the tornado siren.”

Tornado?
My stomach did a roller-coaster dip. Tornadoes scared me even worse than lightning. What were you supposed to do? In grade school we’d had to practice tornado drills, crouching under our desks with our arms over our heads and our butts in the air. By the time the drill ended, our classroom smelled like a cauliflower factory.

The guard-snapped out of her heat-induced stupor, blew a whistle, and bellowed, “All right, everybody, form up in a line. We’re returning to the main unit. Inside, you will proceed to your designated—”

A galloping wind drowned out her voice, bowled over the tomato plants, and hurled leaves through the air like green rain. The storm blitzed in faster than anyone could have expected. Thunder shook the ground and a zag of lightning split the sky. The mercury vapor lamps that lit the grounds exploded, plunging us into murky gloom.

Disoriented, I grabbed onto Tina and we bumbled around, tripping over vines, squishing tomato guts underfoot, trying to catch our breaths against the scouring gale. The air sizzled with electricity and my hair stood on end. The wind worked itself into a tantrum and slammed us along, Tina’s long braid whipping against my face until she was whirled one way and I was hurled another. I smacked up against the wall of the greenhouse and stepped in a load of peat moss from an overturned wheelbarrow.

Lightning flashed again, turning the world muddy purple. The purple goop spat hail. Split pea hail at first, that sounded like the first faint pops of microwave popcorn, then fist-sized hail that smashed the greenhouse panes and sent shards of glass geysering into the air. A 747 revved for takeoff inside my skull. My ears popped, my hair tried to yank itself out by the follicles, and what felt like a dozen Dustbusters sucked at my clothes. Tree branches and gutter spouts hurtled through the air, outlined by strobes of lightning. Something enormous somersaulted toward me, growing bigger and bigger, blotting out the sky. I stared in disbelief. It was a house! An enormous house was about to smack down and squash me like the Wicked Witch of the East. When the rescue workers came around searching for bodies, they’d discover my feet sticking out from beneath the foundation.

“She really needed a pedicure,” they would say.

I was five years old when I watched
The Wizard of Oz
for the first time. My parents were out and my older brothers, who were supposed to be babysitting me, had abandoned me. Alone in the house, I poured myself a glass of Kool-Aid, dribbled my way to the TV, and popped a tape into the VCR. I couldn’t read yet, but the video cover showed a girl in a blue dress, a scarecrow, a lion, and a shiny metal man. I plopped down on the sofa, my legs so short they stuck straight out over the edge of the cushions, and watched, entranced, as a girl named Dorothy balanced along a fence, singing a song about a rainbow.

Then Almira Gulch appeared. Eyes like Raisinettes, chin like an ax blade, mouth like a rat trap. By the time she was pedaling her bike through the twister, cackling insanely and transforming into the Wicked Witch of the East, I was petrified, sobbing, and soaked.