Free A Cowboy in Disguise by Victoria Ashe

she’d planted in her head. She hadn’t given Scott a fair initial reaction because of them.
    “Those!” Sarah gave a sweeping game show hostess gesture toward Alexandra’s office. A dozen long-stem Lady Diana roses sat in a crystal vase in the middle of her desk. She felt the color rise in her face and remembered the emotion in Scott’s eyes … She knew without looking that the roses were from him.
    “What’s the card say?” Sarah squealed, shaking Alexandra back to the present.
    Alexandra pulled the card from the bouquet and read it silently to herself. I’ve still got your back. I’m sorry. Thank goodness the card wasn’t signed, because she wasn’t entirely sure Sarah hadn’t done a little snooping.
    “Well?”
    “They’re just from a friendly business associate, that’s all,” Alexandra told her. “Nothing to get worked up about.” She had no intention of reading the card out loud to her assistant no matter how anxious the woman was to hear what was written on it.
    Sarah gave her a suspicious and disappointed look and went back to her desk.
    Scott called Alexandra just as she sat down at her desk. “Hi, it’s me,” he said.
    “I got the roses. How very original.” She hated to shoot him down, but there was no other way.
    “Look, Alex. I think I scared you. But I feel wonderful and can’t wait to see you. I’ve asked about Duncan and about your family, but I haven’t told you anything you need to know about me. Talk when I get back?”
    “No need. We’ve got to get the presentation going, you know. I don’t need to know your past, Scott. What happened in that cabin will never be repeated. It doesn’t matter now. I apologize for being to unprofessional with you in Colorado. I wa —”
    “You’re wrong, Alex,” he interrupted. “It matters very much and you know it. We have feelings for each other that are hard to come by in this world. We need to see where they lead.”
    Alexandra hung up the phone not wanting to hear the end of his romantic sales pitch. He was right. She didn’t really know much about him considering all she’d heard. Maybe he was the playboy Sarah had warned her about and happened to be a very good actor when it came to hiding his true self.
    That ice wall was firmly in place and she wasn’t going to let him chip away at it again. But the man called incessantly, nearly every hour, every day until she wanted to scream. She finally explained to the receptionist that they were working on a presentation together and to expect several calls, but knew that the fodder for office gossip was already in place.
    “You have to quit calling,” she whispered frantically to him after the fifth call. “Between that and the roses, we may as well have actually done things together for all the damage this is doing to my reputation.”
    “Things?”
    “ Things .”
    “Oh, okay. So I won’t call you,” he agreed amicably.
    Five minutes later, Scott appeared in front of her desk. “Surprise! I flew in and came straight here. Go to dinner with me?”
    Alexandra’s mouth dropped open. “Were you calling from the parking lot? The plane?” Scott Falconer had nerve if nothing else.
    Though she hated to admit it, she hadn’t seen him for a couple days, and hadn’t realized how much she’d missed looking at his face. He wore a beautifully tailored suit that screamed authority and sophistication. She loved how he could look one way at the office and quite another while tossing wood on a fire. It was as if he stepped with ease back and forth between two very separate, very masculine worlds.
    •
    Scott grinned. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
    Her classic navy blue suit had small yellow buttons and yellow piping at the bottoms of the sleeves—and it fit her amazingly. But no suit could erase the memory of her skin, warmed to golden hues by firelight.
    “I missed you,” he whispered.
    “Shut the door before Sarah hears you,” Alexandra hissed. “I’m not having