Suzanne Brockmann - Undercover Princess

Katherine couldn’t stop the rush of compassion. There was no way on earth this man could have killed his wife. Absolutely no way. Obviously, he loved Helena still. “Well, now that I’m here, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“I suppose it’s too soon to try to talk you into staying on permanently…?”

Katherine laughed and stood up. “I’d better get back to the children.”

She started for the door.

“Kathy.”

She turned back.

Trey had stood up, and silhouetted the way he was against the window and the bright-blue November afternoon, he looked even taller and broader than usual. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

He reached up, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. “I was hoping we could set up a time to talk each day—maybe in the evening, in between Doug’s and Stacy’s bedtimes. You could keep me filled in on what’s going on with the kids.”

Katherine found her voice. “That sounds…very smart.”

He shrugged out of his jacket, draped it on the back of one of his leather chairs, then rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. “Say…nine o’clock here, in my office? Doug’s usually unconscious by eight forty-five, but Stacy usually doesn’t get to bed until ten-thirty or eleven. There are shows she likes to watch on TV.”

“That sounds perfect.” Good grief, she sounded like an idiot. That sounds smart. That sounds perfect. What it really sounded was incredibly, foolishly disappointing.

Her heart was still pounding, though. When he’d first said he was hoping to set up a time for them to talk each day, she’d actually been dumb enough to think it was because he enjoyed her company. But no. She’d forgotten herself for a nanosecond, forgotten she was wearing that dull white underwear, forgotten that Trey was, indeed, completely out of her league. Not to mention that he was still in love with his dead wife. Dear Lord, she was so foolish.

“See you tonight, then,” he said.

“All right.” She turned to leave, extremely glad he couldn’t read her mind, but again he stopped her.

“Kathy, hang on.” He crossed the room toward her. “You’ve got…”

She was completely confused as he reached around behind her. He smelled almost sinfully good at that close range, but she still nearly jumped a mile into the air as his fingers brushed the seat of her pants. What was he doing?

“Hold still,” he ordered almost sternly, then touched her again and—

There was a small tearing sound, and Trey handed her a small cardboard tag that had been attached to the back pocket of her brand-new jeans.

“Oh, dear,” she said.

He smiled. Not one of those forced, rueful half smiles he was so good at. This one was genuine, and at close range, it packed quite a wallop.

Katherine knew she was blushing, and she blushed even harder when she realized that in order for him to have noticed that tag, he had to have been looking directly at the seat of her pants. He’d been checking her out again. Imagine that. Even though she was wearing her boring white underwear.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said.

She took the piece of cardboard from him and their fingers touched. His were warm and big, with neatly trimmed nails. She glanced up into his eyes—she couldn’t help herself—and saw that his smile had faded.

He took a step back, away from her, as if suddenly aware he was standing much too close.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have this tendency to point out unzipped flies and spinach between teeth, too. I tuck labels back down into the shirts of strangers. It’s gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion.”

“I think I probably need someone like you following me around,” Katherine admitted. “I once spent an entire day with my shirt on inside out and not one person told me. I finally realized what I’d done at bedtime. I was mortified.”

“Maybe no one noticed,” he suggested. “Most people just don’t bother to look that closely at other people.”

Most people didn’t look at other people the way Trey Sutherland did. He didn’t just look, he examined, studied, memorized. Which was why he’d spotted that tag on her pants. He probably hadn’t been checking out her rear end after all.

Katherine wasn’t sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. She motioned toward the door. “I should…”

He nodded, taking another step backward. “See you at nine, then.”

“Not for dinner? I mean, I’m sure the children will expect to see you.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, I, um, I have a conference call scheduled and…”

“Oh,” Katherine said. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, I, uh…I’ll see you…later.”

That was completely strange.

Katherine found herself standing in the hallway outside the closed door to Trey’s office. What had just happened? Had she just imagined that Trey had suddenly gotten very, very tense? And if it wasn’t imagined, what had she done? Had it been something she’d said, or perhaps her body language? Her eagerness for him to join her for dinner?

It was absurd even to think he’d want to have dinner with her, but surely he’d want to see his children. Wouldn’t he?

Katherine walked down the stairs and back toward the playroom.

Yes, it was absurd to think Trey Sutherland would want to have dinner with her.

Regardless of what kind of underwear she had on, the man was completely out of her league.

“Stacy, what do you want on your sandwich?” Kathy backed out of the refrigerator, holding a pile of cold cuts. As she turned around, she slammed directly into Trey.

He saw it coming, but couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.

“Oh, dear, sorry!”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said.

She’d lost her hold on some of the slippery plastic bags, and now they were pinned between them. Trey grabbed for the bags with his left hand, juggling his morning mug of coffee in his right.

He should have just let them fall. Instead, he grabbed the swiss cheese and a packet of ham—along with Kathy’s right breast.

“God, I’m sorry,” he said again.

She made it to the counter and dumped the cold cuts there. She was laughing, thank God, although her cheeks were tinged pink with a blush.

She looked about eighteen years old this morning, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, face scrubbed freshly clean of makeup, dressed in an oversize sweatshirt and jeans.

“Well,” she said. “That certainly woke me up.”

“Sorry.” Damn, he was blushing, too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually blushed. Was it back in sixth grade or maybe third…?

He refused to think about how soft her body felt, or the fact that the accidental full body block had been the closest he’d been to a woman in far too long. He refused to acknowledge the sharp flare of sensation and emotion. He didn’t want to analyze whether that sudden turmoil in his chest was the result of longing or need or even attraction—he’d already decided that his feelings toward Kathy were brotherly.

He quickly changed the subject. “And as long as I’m apologizing, I’m sorry I had to cancel our meeting last night.”

“No problem,” she said briskly. “Thank you for leaving a note.”

“I had to go into the office—I didn’t get back until late. I think it was around two-thirty,” Trey explained. He didn’t want her thinking he’d blown her off for anything other than work. “We’ve got a deadline for a big software project for an important client. We’re down to the wire—I’ve got teams working around the clock. There was a problem and the project manager was home celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary, so I went in instead.”