McKnight in Shining Armor Read Online Free Page B

hundred-mile-per-hour delivery of her usual rejection speech. “I’d like to but I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time for that kind of thing because between work and my kids and all I’m just really tied up and I’m already late for a lingerie party so I’d better go thanks for calling bye.”
    Alec stared at the phone in wide-eyed amazement. He reached down and moved it a quarter of an inch to the right on the immaculately polished antique cherry table that sat beside his smoke-blue sofa.
    She’d hung up on him. She’d turned him down flat and hung up on him. Unprecedented. Still, she hadn’t sounded disinterested. Nor had she saidanything about seeing someone else. Talk about mixed signals!
    Lingerie party, huh? Now, that sounded like something worth going to. With one finger he lifted the black satin-and-lace waist cincher he’d found behind the couch in his office after Kelsie and company had left, an idea taking shape.
       “Bring on the beefcake!” Paula Budke screamed, dancing around her maid of honor’s living room in a purple peignoir. Shrieks from half a dozen other partygoers egged her on as the party built to a fever pitch in anticipation of the entertainment that was to arrive shortly.
    Kelsie forced a smile. She sat on the sidelines nursing a wine cooler and a vise-grip headache. Ordinarily she enjoyed these wedding showers. The women were usually in the mood for having fun and spending money. But the day had taken its toll on her fun-loving abilities. On top of everything else, she’d been fifteen minutes late to the party. The bride-to-be had been half in the bag by then.
    Carla, the hostess, tossed a red feather boa around her shoulders and cranked up the stereo so that the driving, sexy beat of Prince’s latest hit song rattled the glass in the china cabinet. Two of the bridesmaids danced out of a bedroom, modeling more lingerie.
    Kelsie sat back and thought of Alec McKnight, reasonably certain she was going to throw up. Alec McKnight wanted to go out with her—on a date. Alec McKnight, who could have melted the polar ice cap with his smile, wanted to go out with
her
, Kelsie Connors. Alec McKnight, who at the moment, wielded a lot of power over her future.
    The last thing she wanted to do was offend him, but she would not go out with him to make this deal. No matter how badly she needed to land the Van Bryant ad campaign, she wouldn’t sell herself for it. Not that he had suggested such a thing; it probably hadn’t even occurred to him.
    He’s a man, isn’t he? her alter ego asked. Of course it occurred to him.
    Stop it, she scolded herself, not all men were the kind of pond scum Jack turned out to be.
    Regardless of his intentions, she couldn’t go out with Alec McKnight. She had a business to run and another job at night. Between the two she had to sandwich in quality time with her children to be Mom
and
Dad. Then there were the two cats, the dog, the parrot, the rabbits, and fish that needed her attention too. And she had a dozen other responsibilities as an organizer for civic groups and charities. How could she even think of being wined and dined by Alec McKnight?
    What did she know about dating anyway? Nothing. She’d been a bookish wallflower in high school. When Jack Connors had asked her out, she’d latched on to him like a burr on a dog. She’d come a long way since those days, but she still didn’t know anything about the subtle aspects of dating. According to what she’d heard from single girlfriends and women at these Naughty Nighties parties, the dating scene was one big anxiety attack. Who needed that?
    The doorbell was ringing. No one seemed to hear it but Kelsie. Big surprise, she realized. Half the wedding party was doing the cancan on thesofa, while Rod Stewart wondered in song if anyone thought he was sexy.
    Sexy? Kelsie grimaced, going to the door. The guy didn’t need a mask for Halloween. Alec McKnight was sexy. Alec McKnight was—
    Here.
    Kelsie’s