HEATHER MACALLISTER - Tall, Dark & Reckless

“They’d never heard of him.” Same thing over and over again. Her mother never learned.

Sobbing.

Pointing to the clock, Dancie slipped around Piper and closed and unplugged her laptop.

“I thought he loved me!”

“You always think that,” Piper said quietly. “How much, Mom?”

“Wh—That’s—”

“I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. Do you have any money left at all? Or did he take you for everything?”

“Penelope Ann Scott! Don’t you talk—”

Piper took her mother off speaker. “Tell me how much you need and where to send it.”

When she ended the call, Dancie was trying to sneak out the door. “I’m so sorry, Piper. I never would have answered the phone—”

“Forget it.” Piper planned to. Until the next time. “Put on the jacket.”

“But it’s pink ,” Dancie said with heavy loathing.

“Blush khaki,” Piper corrected.

“If I were the khaki, I’d blush, too.”

“You wear pink.” Piper indicated Dancie’s tank.

“I got it at a breast-cancer awareness walkathon.”

Piper slipped the jacket over her shoulders. “And now, it’s complemented by the jacket.” It was a lucky break that Dancie was wearing that particular tank top today.

Dancie set her computer and folder down and put on the jacket. “I’m only wearing this because I feel horrible about answering the phone.”

“I know,” Piper said. “But I’ll take it—because you look great!” She gave Dancie a thumbs-up and followed her through the doorway.

“I didn’t realize you were still sending your mom money,” Dancie said as they started down the stairs.

“You have your mother issues and I have mine,” Piper said. “But right now, we need to concentrate on the meeting and getting you made partner.”

“Deal,” Dancie said. And then, “Oh, sh—”

“Language!” Piper cautioned with a laugh.

“—oot!” Dancie finished. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”

They were at the final turn of the staircase and Dancie was staring across the foyer at the conference table in the old dining room.

Piper followed her gaze and saw the blue-eyed limper from earlier. “Okay, who is that guy?”

“Seriously?” Dancie asked.

“Yeah, why? I ran into him earlier.”

Dancie gave her a strange look. “And you didn’t recognize him?”

“Well…” As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Piper glanced into the room again. “I thought he seemed vaguely familiar, but honestly? All guys are beginning to look alike to me.”

“If all men look like that to you, then you’re working too hard.” Dancie nodded her head in his direction. “That’s Mark Banning, Travis’s star columnist, his big moneymaker.”

There was something more … Piper couldn’t quite remember.

“Oh, come on, Piper! The big-deal foreign journalist who got himself captured last year?”

“Right!” Finally, she made the connection.

“And the only reason I beat Travis in revenue is because Mark got injured. He’s been teaching a journalism course at UT instead of wowing all Travis’s readers with his insane adventures.”

Mark got injured … Now Piper remembered. It had been all over the news. Dramatic rescue and so on. Video clips of the photogenic Mark Banning had run incessantly, including one of him waving from a stretcher, bloodstained bandage wrapped around his thigh—right about where his hand had gripped it earlier, if Piper wasn’t mistaken. Ah.

Dancie exhaled. “I thought I had another quarter before I had to compete with him again.” She headed for the conference room. “Well, if Mark’s back, that must mean his leg has healed.”

“Or maybe not,” Piper murmured beneath her breath. Mark Banning had been stateside for months. If his leg was still that sensitive, then it most certainly had not fully healed.

As they walked into the room, Piper glanced at the famous Mark Banning and found him studying her in a way that meant Travis had filled him in on her identity. Not that either of them would ever have anything to do with the other— unless Mark needed dating tips. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. The only tip he’d need was how to fend off women, something at which he’d no doubt had a lot of practice.

He stood by the sideboard and sipped coffee, his other hand, left and ringless, for what that was worth, rested on the back of a swivel club chair. Long and lean in a leather jacket, surrounded by a cloud of confidence and testosterone. An alpha-alpha, the pinnacle of male desirability. Men wanted to be him. Women just wanted him.

Not even Piper was immune, although she had no intention of treating Mark Banning with anything other than clinical detachment.

A double-alpha male was a lot of trouble. Not only would his woman have to fight to catch him, she’d have to fight off other females to keep him. This type of man lived as though the world revolved around him because it usually did. He didn’t become a part of your life, he drew you into his.

Piper would never recommend a double-alpha male for anything long-term unless a woman was a double alpha herself. And if she was, she’d hardly be a client of Piper’s. The only other kind of woman for a man like that was the completely self-sacrificing type who was willing to devote her life to enhancing his—and willing to look the other way when she had to.

Believe it or not, there were women like that in the world. More power to them.

Looking at Mark Banning, Piper could understand why. He was unignorable, like a Ferrari parked among the mom-mobiles at a suburban grocery store—beautiful to look at and you didn’t have to see it in action to know it had power and speed under the hood. Or needed extra maintenance. However, she wanted no part of a selfish, self-centered, arrogant, unaware … Except hadn’t Mark opened the door for her? Twice? He hadn’t said or done anything to make her feel bad when her bag had hit his leg, either. So maybe he wasn’t totally self-centered and unaware, which would make him unique among the double alphas she’d interviewed. But he still had the looks and power that made her want to take him for a test drive.

“Ladies!” Travis saw them and beamed his showman smile. “May I pour you a mug of coffee?”

“You’d better, since you stole the good pot!” Dancie said to her brother.

“Just for you.” Travis pushed forward an oversize mug with a crazed stick-figure woman that said, “Forget sugar and spice. Give me caffeine and then I’ll be nice!”

All the other mugs were plain. It was a subtle way to diminish Dancie, who didn’t notice as she eagerly gulped coffee. Piper would take care of it later.

As Travis poured more coffee, Piper looked behind the chair and saw that Mark’s knee was bent and one booted toe rested on the hardwood floor. He was keeping the weight off his leg, which made her feel awful knowing her bag had bashed it.

She probably wasn’t his favorite person at the moment. So why was he staring at her, clearly sizing her up?

Piper suddenly understood. She was the competition. Mark was not only the big moneymaker for Travis, he contributed to the OMG news division. At the moment, Piper was the big moneymaker for Dancie, but only wrote for the Living Fabulous division. However, they were presenting a proposal for expansion today and Mark was probably wondering how much of a threat to his budget she was going to be.

A lot, Piper hoped.

“Hey, Piper. How’s it going?” Travis asked.

“Fine.” She smiled. Travis was an alpha-beta, always striving to prove his alphaness, where a true alpha didn’t need to prove anything. He wasn’t her type, either.

He handed her a mug. “Good to see you, as always. You take cream and sugar?”