Free Betina Krahn by Make Me Yours (v5.0) Page A

he abandoned them to rush down the hall, retrieve his hat and exit via a side door. By the time Jack turned back to Mariah, she was moving in the other direction, headed for the reception area, straightening her hat and donning her gloves as she went.
    He waited until they were on the street and walking briskly in the direction of the hotel before demanding, “Well?”
    She looked as if she was concentrating on something as she stopped abruptly on the pavement.
    “Chocolate,” she declared. “I’m dying for a piece of chocolate.” Peering up and down the street, she spotted something that looked like a sweet shop down the way and struck off for it.
    “What?” He was caught flat-footed.
    She wanted chocolate? Now?
    Infernal female.
    He followed her into a shop that specialized in gustatory decadence. The air reeked of edible sin—melting sugar and tempering chocolate—and the place was crowded with ornate glass cases containing confections displayed like the blessed Crown Jewels. She selected piece after piece of chocolate-covered nuts, nougats, crèmes and caramels. After the clerk had assembled a sizeable collection into a pink pasteboard box, she instructed the woman to give the bill to Jack, seized the package, and exited the shop.
    When he caught up with her, she had pulled out a nougat the size of a Yorkshire pudding and was nibbling it. He stepped in front of her to block her way, and she looked up with lips laced with chocolate and eyes luminous with pleasure. Wordless, she held up the candy to offer him a bite.
    “I want—” His mouth was watering so profusely that he had to swallow in order to speak. “I want to know what happened with Bickering.”
    She popped the rest of the piece into her mouth and closed her eyes, radiating such indecent pleasure that two men passing by slowed to leer at them. It was all he could do to keep from shaking her. Or licking her. Odds were even on which.
    “A-are you marrying him or not?” He tried to keep his voice down.
    “Not.” She dabbed the corners of her mouth with the crumpled candy paper, gave an enormous sigh, and headed toward the hotel.
    “Not?” The news struck him like a blast of fresh air. Hiswhole body relaxed. Annoyed by his relief, he hurried after her. “Why not?”
    The look she gave him from the corner of her eye was infuriating. She was tormenting him and, from every indication, enjoying it.
    “The hotel man indicated that there were dressmakers and milliners in the next street,” she said with a wave in that direction. “I really should have a look before we leave tomorrow morning. Their work may not be quite London quality, but I imagine they’ll have some things of interest.”
    “We’re not going anywhere until I have a straight answer from you.” Glancing around and finding the street around them mostly empty, he snagged her arm as they approached the hotel. “Why did you reject him?”
    “Does it matter? We simply go on to the next candidate.”
    “Not until I know why you refuse to wed this one,” he demanded.
    “Very well.” She tugged her arm free. “He was genial, gentlemanly, intelligent, mannerly…perfect in all respects but one.”
    “And that was?” He could think of only one criterion just now, staring at her chocolate-tainted lips and imagining her using them on the accommodating lawyer.
    “He’s being married this Saturday to the daughter of the head of his firm.” Her face sobered. “Which I believe makes him ineligible as a husband for me. I don’t know where you got his name, but he’s been betrothed for more than a month now. And to a young woman he dearly…well, he seems to be quite smitten with her.”
    Cutting off further discussion, she quickened her pace to the hotel, past the doorman and through the lobby. With the box of chocolates dangling from one hand and her skirts held primly in the other, she swept up the stairs. He had to take the steps two at a time to catch up with her on the