Free Eye of the Tiger by Diana Palmer

up.
    Wade helped her into the Mercedes with a flourish. He looked debonair in a navy-blue blazer and whiteslacks with a white shirt and ascot. With his natural darkness, the contrast gave him a rakish look.
    “And here we are again.” He grinned. “Sorry about Sunday, but I managed to sell O’Clancy two colts. Forgive me for stranding you with Keegan.”
    “You apologized Sunday night,” she reminded him, “and I accepted. It wasn’t so bad. He brought me home in one piece.”
    “Odd, him being at the marina on a Sunday,” he said carelessly. “He doesn’t usually go near the place except with his father. I suppose it was those papers he had to get.”
    She didn’t mention that she hadn’t seen him get any papers. She didn’t want to remember what had happened Sunday at all.
    “I missed you,” she said with a mischievous smile.
    “I missed you, too,” he murmured dryly. “Not that the Irish girl wasn’t a dish. Very, very nice. Pretty face, good manners… a little mercenary, but nobody’s perfect.”
    “Dad’s miffed at her for costing him his chess partner,” she mentioned. “He said that Keegan’s taking her out tonight.”
    “Lucky stiff,” he said with feeling. He glanced sideways. “Not that you aren’t a dish, darling. How do you feel about feverish affairs, by the way?”
    He might have been kidding, but she didn’t think so. And it was better to have it all out in the open, anyway. “I don’t care for feverish affairs, in all honesty,” she told him with a quiet smile. “I’m sorry, but I’m the product of a strict upbringing.”
    “No need to apologize,” he said, and for once hedropped the facade of devil-may-care charm. “It’s rather refreshing, in fact. I think I might enjoy really talking to a woman for a change. This playboy mask is wearing a bit thin, the older I get.”
    Suddenly he was another person, something besides the surface bubbling charm. He slowed down as they approached the restaurant. His dark eyes cut sideways and he smiled, but it was a different kind of smile. “Are you always so honest?”
    “Most of the time.” She sighed wearily. “I’m hoping to outgrow it eventually.” She half turned in her seat when he stopped the car. “Why did you start taking me out, if a quick affair was what you had in mind? Surely you heard about me through the grapevine?”
    “Sure. That was part of the appeal.” He sighed and smiled, a genuine smile this time. “I guess the reverse is true as well. What did they say about me?”
    She remembered what Keegan had said. “That you’d been caught doing it every way except hanging from a limb of a tree,” she said flatly.
    He burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.” He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. “In fact, there is a bit of truth in that rumor. But a lot of my reputation is inflated. I’m not really the big, bad wolf.”
    “You’re a nice man,” she told him, and smiled back. “I like doing things with you.”
    “I like being with you, too,” he said, then searched her dark eyes. “Suppose we give it a chance. I won’t try to seduce you, if you won’t try to seduce me. How’s that for fair?”
    She grinned up at him. “That’s fair enough.”
    He kissed her fingertips and got out to open the door for her.
    Dinner was exquisite. She ate things she could barely pronounce, and Wade introduced her to a white wine that convinced her “bouquet” could mean something besides flowers. He taught her how to pronounce the gourmet dishes they ate and seemed to enjoy tutoring her.
    “I’m so backward,” she grumbled as she stumbled over a name.
    “No,” he said, and meant it. “You’re a refreshing change. I like you, Eleanor Whitman. You may take that as a compliment, because I don’t like many people, male or female. I’ve learned in my life that most people are out for what they can get. And a rich man quickly becomes a target.”
    She’d heard Keegan