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mother’s kind.
    Not rich like this, of course. You grew up in a small town at the end of nowhere, the men with all the money and power owned the Chevy dealership. The gas station. The shops on what really was called Main Street. And none had been as handsome as Lucas Vieira but the basics were the same.
    Too much money, too much power, too much arrogance. Mama had always fallen hard for men who were rich and good-looking and one hundred percent no-good.
    Caroline had never understood it. Mama was bright. She was logical about everything else; you had to be, to raise a child without money or a husband. Still, she’d fallen for the same kind of guy over and over.
    One good thing was that Caroline had learned from Mama’smistakes. She’d avoided boys like that in high school, in college, here in New York.
    So, what in hell was she doing tonight?
    She could never pull this off. Pretend to be Lucas Vieira’s date. His girlfriend. Anybody’s girlfriend, in a setting like this.
    “Mr. Vieira,” she said, rushing the words together, “I think I’ve made a mistake.”
    “I agree. But the people we’re meeting haven’t shown up yet, so—”
    “I shouldn’t be here. I’m not—I’m not going to be very good at this.”
    “You’ll be fine.”
    There was a grim quality to his voice. He was desperate, but how could a man like this be desperate? He could snap his fingers and damned near every female in the place would come running. Okay. He needed a translator. She could, she supposed, be that, but she could never pull off pretending to be involved with him.
    “I can translate for you. But the rest—”
    “The rest is the most important part.”
    Caroline frowned. “I don’t get it. Why would me pretending to be your date be important?”
    “Not just my date.” His mouth thinned. “My lover. My mistress.” His hand moved up her arm to her shoulder. She could feel the heat of his fingers on her bare skin. “We’ll need to convey a sense of intimacy, Dani. Do you understand?”
    She blinked. Dani? Right. Right. That was her name tonight. She was Dani. Oh, if only she were! She had no idea what Dani did when she wasn’t in class but there was a sense of sophistication to her that suggested Dani would know how to deal with a man who looked like this. Who sounded like this, that faint, sexy accent, that husky tone of command. Aman whose scent was clean and masculine and crisp, if you could call a scent “crisp.”
    And when had they moved closer to each other? She didn’t recall that happening but, somehow, it had, close enough so she had to tilt her head back to look into his face.
    “Dani. Do you follow what I’m saying?”
    “Intimacy,” she said, her voice trembling.
    “Yes.”
    “But why? If this is a business dinner—”
    He hesitated. To her surprise, faint stripes of color appeared on his cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders and she thought,
why, he’s almost human!
    “The man I’m doing business with has a wife. She’s—she’s an unusual woman. Very assertive. Make that aggressive. When she wants something, she goes after it.” The color in his face deepened. “No matter what that something is, no matter if that something reciprocates or not—”
    “She’s hitting on you?”
    “You, ah, you might say she’s…” He paused. “Damned right, she is. And I’m counting on your presence to stop it.”
    Caroline swallowed hard. “Mr. Vieira—”
    “Lucas.”
    “Lucas. That just cinches it. I can’t—there’s no way I could—”
    “Damnit!”
    He was staring over her head. The expression on his face went from harsh to grave.
    Caroline stiffened. “What?” she said, and tried to look back, but his hand tightened on her shoulder.
    “No. Keep looking at me.”
    “But—”
    “It’s the Rostovs. The people we’re meeting. They’re coming toward us.”
    If he’d said Genghis Khan’s army was thundering out ofthe steppes at that moment, she couldn’t have felt a greater flash