Reckless Promise Read Online Free Page B

silver, fierce and startling in his dark face. Again the
shock of recognition jolted through her, and her heart began to
pound.
    She couldn't catch her breath. The wide,
glossy floorboards under her moccasins dissolved into nothing and
left her suspended in space. The echoing dinner gong, the laughter
and voices and footsteps, faded until the only thing in her world
was that sharp gaze, stretching like a fine silver chain between
them, an unseen but unbreakable link.
    Wrong, wrong, wrong. When she found the man
she'd waited for all her life, somewhere, someday, he wouldn't be
one who played with married women. But music played in her head,
filling the air with words about never letting him go. He took a
step toward her. She couldn't breathe.
    "Mac?" The voice barely penetrated Poppy's
fog, but the woman who came with it did. "Mac, come on. Dinner is
served." Alice put a hand on his arm.
    Poppy focused on that intimate, demanding
hand. Alice's gaze followed hers. A faint smile curved her mouth
and she nudged Mac toward Poppy. Poppy couldn't imagine why Alice
would push her illicit lover at another woman. Judging by Poppy's
all-too-physical reaction, it might be better not to stay and find
out. This man couldn't be anything but trouble. Swallowing the
sudden lump in her throat, she turned and fled into the dining room
with its welter of clattering silverware and conversation and
plunked herself down between the two men she'd been talking with
earlier.
    Jase had it right: she could act. Her
performance at dinner deserved an Oscar. Her conversation sparkled,
judging by the attention of the people around her. Inside her head,
the dialogue didn't sound at all light, bright, or witty. She spent
the whole meal silently berating herself for getting weak-kneed
over an adulterer.
    Mac sat next to Alice, of course. Poppy cut a
tiny, careful bite of steak and shot a glance down the table at
them. He leaned close to say something in Alice's ear. Poppy
pulverized the steak in one bite.
    She refused to listen to the violins that
sounded faintly in the back of her mind. Nothing but chemistry.
Pheromones. She knew all about pheromones, even if the scientific
explanation didn't hold a candle to the real thing. The lightning
bolt that had hit her when their gazes locked across the crowded
room couldn't keep her from doing her job. Absolutely not.
    Mac leaned closer to Alice.
    Poppy gulped a too-large swallow of wine. She
had a job—get Tom his wife back—and she'd do it, no matter what
niggling doubts she had about the happiness of a marriage held
together by jealousy. If her pulse jumped a little when she flirted
with Mac, she would think of it as method acting.
    Another sliver of steak turned to mush
between her teeth.
    * * *
    After dinner, Alice served coffee in the
Great Room, and Mac put Operation Protect Tom into effect. Poppy
followed along with the rest of the guests, and he followed Poppy.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye while he filled two
cups with coffee.
    Those two jerks she'd been playing ping pong
with tried to get her back, but he moved in between them and
maneuvered her off to a corner with only two chairs. The guy she'd
turned her back on earlier watched them, but it didn't look like
he'd get away from his wife's death grip any time this century.
    So far, so good.
    Alice must be blowing things all out of
proportion. The redhead might be a man magnet, but she hadn't
flirted with anyone all evening. Still, he couldn't think of a
better way to keep her away from Tom than to have her nailed down
before Tom got back. He considered it his duty to his sister.
    "You're too pretty to be vacationing alone."
It might have been his imagination, but he thought she flinched.
"We'll have to make sure you're not lonely."
    "Oh, I'm sure I won't be." She sipped the
coffee he'd handed her and gazed up at him through her thick fringe
of eyelashes. "There are lots of people here to do things with."
The words were as innocuous as the