Anna DePalo - Tycoon Takes Revenge

Kayla considered him a moment. “What would be the terms of our dating?”

She saw the flare of gratification in his eyes, but he quickly banked it. “Terms?”

“There has to be a time limit,” she said firmly.

“Make your best offer,” he countered.

“Two weeks.”

He shook his head. “Six. These things take time.”

“Let’s split the difference,” she countered. “Four. It shouldn’t take long to repair the damage of having to be seen with you in public.”

“A pleasure doing business with you.” He closed the space between them and held out his hand.

Relief, followed by panic, washed through her. She took his hand, felt her own engulfed in his, and experienced a surge of sensation. She started to draw away, but he pulled her closer. He lifted her chin with his free hand and she had just a moment to lower her eyelids before he brushed her lips with his.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A lifelong book lover, Anna discovered that she was a writer at heart when she realized that not everyone travels around with a full cast of characters in their head. She has lived in Italy and England, learned to speak French, graduated from Harvard, earned graduate degrees in political science and law, forgotten how to speak French and married her own dashing hero.

Anna has been an intellectual-property lawyer in New York City. She loves traveling, reading, writing, old movies, chocolate and Italian (which she hasn’t forgotten how to speak, thanks to her extended Italian family). She’s thrilled to be writing for Silhouette. Readers can visit her at www.annadepalo.com.

For my sister, Pina,

and my cousin Anna Dagostino,

who’ve always been there for me

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Gossip is news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress.

—Columnist Liz Smith

Smooth, moneyed and used to having things fall in his lap.

In short, Kayla thought disdainfully, as she watched him move toward her with a thin gloss of civility, he was everything that her family history had taught her to avoid.

Noah Whittaker. She’d spotted him instantly when she’d arrived at the cocktail party tonight at one of Boston’s finer hotels to celebrate a retired Formula One race-car driver’s newly published autobiography.

Her headline about Noah in that morning’s Boston Sentinel flashed through her mind: Caught with Fluffy, Huffy Calls It Quits. Will Buffy the Man Slayer Be Next for Noah?

She supposed he hadn’t liked her story one bit. But she didn’t make the news, she just reported it. And he gave her plenty of material to work with. He had, in fact, become a popular figure in her column.

And writing about him was easy. She knew his type. He acted as if the world were his cocktail, served up dry with a twist just for him, exactly as her biological father did.

She watched him approach and pushed aside the irritating twinge of nervousness. She had nothing to be nervous about.

She knew that, for some women, thoughts of sin and Noah Whittaker went hand in hand. But she’d been inoculated at birth against the players of the world—though she could dispassionately assess the attraction: Noah’s hair, closely cropped but thick, looked as if he dried it with a blow-dryer set on scorch, its shade a burnished bronze. Over six feet tall, he had the honed body of an athlete. He’d had a brief but meteoric career as a race-car driver, though these days, he was better known as a vice president of Whittaker Enterprises, the family conglomerate in Carlyle, near Boston.

Noah stopped in front of her. “Kayla Jones, right?” He paused for a moment, his face all lean, hard planes of masculinity. “Or should I say,” he added, his tone betraying a hint of derision, “Ms. Rumor-Has-It?”

Her chin came up. If he thought to faze her, he had another thing coming. She’d gotten plenty of practice handling barbs from the pampered and privileged at the fancy prep school she’d attended on scholarship. “That’s right. It’s nice of you to remember.”

One side of his mouth quirked up. “Hard to forget when you’ve been wielding a machete all over my social life. Or is that part of your job description as the Boston Sentinel’s resident gossip columnist?”

Her shoulders stiffened. They’d seen each other a few times at various social events, but this was the first time he’d deigned to speak with her personally. “I prefer the term society columnist. I write for the style section of the Sentinel.”

“Is that what they’re calling the fiction part of the paper these days?”

She attempted a dismissive laugh. “If I hadn’t heard that line before from more people than I can count, I’d say you were trying to insult me.”

He cocked his head, seeming to consider her question. “That depends. Are you trying to spread lies about me, or is that just a nice little fringe benefit in your line of work?”

“For your information, all my columns are carefully researched and my sources checked for reliability.”

“Obviously you need to work harder.”

“Are we by chance discussing my column in today’s paper?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re discussing that all right. And last week’s column. And the one before that. One guess as to what they all have in common.”

“There’s no need to descend into sarcasm,” she said. “I’m aware of how often I’ve mentioned you in my column.”

“Are you?” he asked silkily. “And are you also aware it’s your fault that Eve Bernard—or as you’ve referred to her, Huffy—broke up with me?”

From what she’d heard, Eve had done more than break up with him. According to eyewitnesses with whom she’d spoken, Eve had delivered the news—along with a slap to the face—in the presence of dozens of departing guests at a glittering banquet on Saturday night. A Sentinel photographer had gotten a great shot of Noah, glowering at Eve and holding her by the forearms.

But what did he mean it was her fault?

“As a result of my column?” she asked with skepticism. “Don’t you mean as a result of your cavorting with Fluffy?” At his sardonic look, she caught herself. “I mean, Cecily?”

He chuckled cynically. “Cavorting? My, my, what colorful language you society columnists use. All the better to write innuendo, I suppose?”

She tossed her head. “Whatever,” she retorted, dropping all pretense of politeness. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed other guests had begun to throw curious glances their way. “There was a photo of you and Cecily kissing outside the Kirkland Club.”

“And we all know a picture is worth a thousand words, right?” he responded. “Or, in this case, a thousand lies. In fact, if you had done some inquiring instead of relying on that shot that your photographer snapped, you would have discovered that Cecily caught me by surprise with that kiss.”

“How nice for you.”

He ignored her. “You see, Cecily has this weird idea that making the gossip columns will bolster her fledgling acting career—and so much the better if the guy on her arm happens to be rich or famous. So she plastered herself to me the minute she spotted the Sentinel’s photographer.”