Leigh Michaels - The Tycoon's Proposal

“No, thanks. I like snow. Besides—” She checked the number on a ticket and went to the farthest rack to get an overcoat.

By the time she came back the athlete had apparently thought it through. “I know. You’ve got a boyfriend to come and get you.”

She flashed a smile. “What do you think?”

“I’ll save him the trouble,” the athlete offered.

The young woman held out a hand for Kurt’s claim check, but she didn’t look at him because she was still studying the athlete. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll give you a phone number. Call in an hour—just in case he hasn’t shown up.”

The athlete was practically salivating. He grabbed for a discarded napkin that lay on the counter and thrust it at her. She scribbled something and pushed it back.

“Is this your cell phone?” the athlete asked. “Where are you from, anyway? This isn’t a local number.”

She didn’t seem to hear. She looked up from the ticket she held and smiled at Kurt. “Be right back.”

Now he understood what had drawn the athletes. She might be skinny and big-eyed and boyish, but when she smiled—even that polite, almost meaningless smile of acknowledgment—the room instantly grew ten degrees warmer. Or maybe it wasn’t the entire room which heated up but just the men in her general vicinity. That would certainly explain why the athletes’ tongues were all hanging out.

There was something almost familiar about that smile….

But then, practically everything Kurt had seen in the last few days had given him a sensation of déjà vu. It was because he was back on campus, that was all. It had been a long time since graduation. And there were a lot of memories—good and bad—to dredge up…

She was gone for quite a while, and he started to wonder if she was ever coming back. Kurt leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, and the young men, after a few wary glances in his direction, moved away.

She returned with his grandmother’s mink and his own dark gray cashmere overcoat. “Sorry to take so long. I had the mink tucked away clear in the back, where it would be safer. It’s too beautiful to risk.” She ran a hand over the fur before she passed it across the counter.

Kurt laid the mink down and put on his own coat. “I seem to have driven away your admirers.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said lightly. “If they’d hung around here much longer they’d have gotten me in trouble with the boss.”

“I hope I didn’t discourage the young man from calling.”

“Probably not.” She didn’t sound excited at the possibility. “I hope he likes listening to the time and temperature recording in Winnipeg.”

He wasn’t surprised that it hadn’t really been her number she’d handed out. But why had she admitted it to him—a complete stranger?

Three guesses, Callahan, he told himself. Because she’s after bigger game, so she’s making sure you know the athlete’s not important.

No wonder he’d had that flash of thinking she looked familiar. One predatory feminine gaze was pretty much like another in his experience.

Her fingertips went out to caress the fur, still draped across the counter. “Careful where you leave that. We get a soft drink spilled every now and then around here, and I’d hate to see that beautiful coat get sticky.” She looked up at him through her lashes, with something like speculation in her gaze.

She’s debating what kind of approach will be most successful, he thought. Well, maybe he’d make it easy for her.

He picked up the mink, and then turned back as if struck by an afterthought. “I wonder….” He did his best to sound naive. “If I asked for your phone number, would you pass me off with time and temperature in Winnipeg?”

She looked at him for a long moment and her eyes seemed to get even bigger.

Calculating my bank balance, no doubt.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She reached for his claim ticket, which was still lying on the counter, flipped it over, pulled a felt-tipped marker from her pocket, and wrote a number on the back side. “Here you go.”

It certainly wasn’t the time and temperature in Winnipeg, Kurt saw, because she hadn’t added an area code. Not that he’d expected anything else. Now she had connected him with the expensive coat, there was no doubt in his mind that she had given him a real number.

Still, he had to admit to a trickle of disappointment, because somehow he’d expected more subtlety from this young woman.

So much for subtlety. He wondered how long she’d wait for him to call. Too bad that he’d never get to find out.

He dropped a substantial tip into the glass jar, and didn’t look back as he crossed the lobby to where his grandmother was talking to a white-haired dowager. “I’ll meet you here for lunch tomorrow, Marian,” his grandmother said. “And perhaps you can bring that young friend of yours to tea sometime in the next few days? Kurt’s staying with me through Christmas, you know.”

Kurt held his tongue until they were outside, protected from the falling snow by the awning as they waited for the valet to bring his car around. The street was already covered, with soft ruts starting to form in the traffic lanes. Flakes the size of quarters were falling slowly and almost silently. “Marian’s young friend is a female, of course,” he said.

“Now, what would make you say that, dear?” His grandmother looked meditatively at the street. “Falling snow is almost hypnotic, really. It’s such a relief in weather like this to be in the hands of an exceptionally good driver.”

“What big fibs you tell, Granny,” Kurt said dryly.

His Jaguar pulled up under the awning. As he reached into his pocket for a tip for the valet his fingers brushed the claim ticket. Maybe he should give that to the valet, too, he thought. No—the kid might think he’d been handed a reward, and no inexperienced young guy deserved the kind of trouble that woman represented.

Kurt decided he’d tear the ticket up and throw it away when he got home. Or maybe he’d keep it for a while, just as a reminder of how careful a guy needed to be these days. Not because he’d ever be tempted to use it.

The ticket slid from his fingers and drifted downward like one of the snowflakes. The small card was warm from his pocket, and the first huge flake which collided with it melted instantly and blurred the ink. He dived after it, and his dress shoe slipped on an icy spot, almost careening him headfirst into a drift.

Even as he was scrambling to keep his balance in the snow he told himself it was stupid to care whether he could still read a number that he had no intention of calling. But it burned itself into his brain anyway, as he picked up the ticket and carefully blotted the snowflake away. The handwriting was strong, clear, and neat, with each numeral precisely formed. And there was a nice sequence to the numbers, too. A memorable sequence.

An odd sequence, he thought as he slid behind the wheel. Maybe it was even a little too rhythmic. Five-six-seven-eight…. Wasn’t that just a little too handy a combination to be real? It sounded more like an aerobic dance routine than a phone number.

“Was there something you needed to go back for, dear?” his grandmother asked. “Or are you just planning to sit here and block traffic for the rest of the evening?”

Kurt stared at the ticket still cupped in his palm, and then he reached for his cell phone, angling it in the light from the entrance canopy so he could compare the keypad with what the young woman had written down. The corresponding letters leaped out at him. Five-six-seven-eight…. He started to laugh.

It looked like a phone number, all right, but he’d bet it led only to a misdial recording. Because surely no phone company would deliberately give a customer that particular series of numbers.