"Expensive company for a beachcomber," he remarked.

She flushed. "Well, you see..."

"Don't bother thinking up lies," he continued curtly. "I know who you are. I knew before you left the beach house."

"You never said a word," she accused.

He stuck his hands in his slacks pockets. "I was waiting to see why you were playing games," he said.

"It wasn't a game. I didn't know how to tell you," she replied quietly. Her green eyes searched his face, learning it all over again as the silence stretched between them. "You look so tired. It's been terrible, hasn't it?"

He lifted one thick eyebrow and smiled cynically. "Gathering tidbits to feed your brother?"

She drew herself up to her full height. "No. I was asking about the health of a friend," she returned. "You were that, for a brief time."

"And you weren't playing me for a sucker," he agreed mockingly.

"Would that be possible, even if I'd wanted to?" she asked. She smiled wistfully. "You'd have seen right through me."

He felt the ground going out from under him as he looked at her. He'd missed her. Being with Chris, even in the beginning, was nothing compared to the high he felt with Nikki. "Are you completely well this time?" he asked.

The concern thrilled her. "I think so. I've been taking it easy."

He looked around. "So I see. Everyone knows that Madge can't organize. If she could, Claude's desk wouldn't be in such a deplorable mess. You did all this, I presume?"

"Madge helped," she said in defense of her friend.

"And Claude reads Greek tragedies and listens to opera and pets cats when he isn't murdering people to entertain the public."

"Shame on you. Claude's your friend."

"Indeed." His eyes scanned the room until he saw Clayton, and then they narrowed angrily. "Your brother plays dirty pool. He's going to discover that the mud sticks when it's thrown. Remind him what my people do for a living," he added, glancing back down at her so quickly that she started. "And tell him that I said not to get overconfident. I'm on the firing line because one of my employees made an error in judgment. Your brother could be there for another reason entirely, along with his major cohort."

Nikki felt the blood draining out of her face. Major cohort. Mosby!

"Whatever Clayton's done-and I'm not defending him blindly-you have no right to hurt Mosby."

Her defense of her ex-husband irritated him. "Why not? He's behind this effort to discredit me, and don't think I don't know why. He's got a secret, hasn't he, Miss Seymour? And he thinks keeping my neck under his foot will keep us from digging for it while he uses every gutter tactic in the book to put Clayton Seymour back in office!"

"Mosby isn't underhanded," she began.

"One member of his staff is. And the honorable senator is putting pressure on me from a new angle," he said suddenly. "He has powerful contacts, you see, and he's using them all. Now it seems that I'm about to be investigated for income tax evasion. And guess who's heading the IRS in my direction?"

She just stared at him. It was inconceivable that Mosby would go so far unless he was really afraid. What did Kane know?

She moved closer to him, looking up with a plea in her eyes. "Don't hurt him," she said softly. "He isn't what you think. He's not like that."

"What is he like?" he demanded. "You ought to know, you married him, didn't you?" He caught her arm tightly and his dark eyes glittered down into hers. "Was he the one who didn't want you, Nikki? Did he only marry you to keep the gossip columnists finding out that he was involved with some married member's wife, was that it?"

She gasped.

"I thought so," he said coldly. He dropped her arm as if it offended him to touch her. "And you want along like a lamb. Did you love him?"

She bit her lower lip until she tasted blood. Her eyes were huge, tragic.

"Well, did you?" he demanded.

"Yes!"

"But he didn't love you, did he? Or want you." His eyes ran over her with involuntary appreciation, almost hunger. "But you still want him. You can't let go, can you? There hasn't been another man in your life since the divorce. Oh, yes," he said smugly, "we checked."

"We?"

"My father owns a tabloid," he reminded her. He smiled slowly. "There's nothing he can't find out. In fact," he added, "he's on the trail of something very big. If he finds it, your brother may be very sorry indeed that he took advantage of my unfortunate circ.u.mstances to feather his own political nest."

"Clayton wasn't thinking beyond winning the race," she said, defending Clayton, as she always had. "Sometimes he gets tunnel vision. But he's a good man, and he does care about his const.i.tuents."

"I'm one of his const.i.tuents," he reminded her. "He didn't show me any of that concern."

"You're supporting his major opponent, a Democrat," she pointed out.

"And I'll support him even more, now," he returned. His face went even harder. "I'm going to see your brother thrown out of office in November. I promise you I am, no matter what it takes."

She felt chills run down her arms. "Revenge, Kane?" she asked.

"Call it what you like." He studied her beauty in the costume and felt regret like a wound. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?" he asked raggedly.

"It wouldn't have mattered," she replied. Her eyes were haunted. "All you had to offer was an affair, and I'm not heart-whole anymore. It was never meant to be."

One big, lean hand came out of his pocket. He reached out and touched her cheek, as lightly as a breath. She flinched, but she didn't pull back from it. Her soft, misty eyes sought his and gloried in their admiration of her beauty.

"Did you know what he planned to do?" he asked.

Her mouth pulled into a sad smile. "What do you think?"

"You're too honest for your own good in some ways, and a little liar in others. It hurt me to let you go, Nikki."

The pain she felt was naked on her face. "It hurt me more," she whispered unsteadily. "I don't have a lover hidden away to console me."

His jaw tightened and he dropped his hand. "She's convenient and she doesn't make demands," he said.

"I thought she made you impotent," she shot back, green eyes sparking with jealous rage.

He smiled in spite of himself. "You hope," he taunted.

"I loathe you," she spat under her breath.

"Go ahead," he challenged. His eyes were black, bright with wicked delight. "Hit me, Nikki. Come on." He stepped closer. "Throw a punch. You want to."

"If I hit you, it will be with a lamp!"

"You won't get that far. Know why?" He bent down, so that only she could hear him. "Because the minute you lift your hand to me, I'll back you up against a wall and kiss you blind."

"Is that how you manage women, Mr. Lombard?" she choked.

"It's how I'd manage you," he replied, so arrogant that her leg positively ached to kick him where it hurt most. "I haven't forgotten the way you looked at me that first morning," he added, his eyes narrow with masculine glee. "You l.u.s.ted after me, Nikki. And the one time I kissed you, do you remember who pulled my mouth down to your..."

"Isn't it warm in here?!" she croaked, fanning herself with the feather boa around her neck.

"Come out onto the balcony," he invited. "We'll...reminisce."

She could imagine how he'd do it. She had visions of being crushed between his powerful body and the stone wall, and her knees went rubbery. It wasn't fair. She was an independent, grown woman. He was making the sort of s.e.xist remarks that required her to pick up the nearest blunt object and lay his head open. If only her body would cooperate with her dizzy hormones.

"The ambitious senator obviously can't or won't do you any good," he said huskily. His dark eyes slid down to the low neckline of her dress. "But I could. I know how to make love, Nikki."

"I'll bet you do!" she said fiercely. "How many women did it take?"

"Not as many as you're thinking," he mused. "And I'm not promiscuous, either. There'll be no accidents and no risk."

"There'll be nothing, period," she said shortly. "I'm not about to replace Miss Ribs in your bed."

"Does your brother know about us?" he asked with pure honey in his deep voice.

Her face gave her away. That was an unexpected riposte.

"I didn't think so. Why didn't you tell him, Nikki?"

"Because I knew he'd have a screaming fit, that's why," she said. Her eyes searched his and she felt the hunger for him all over again. It was an odd hunger; something gnawing and deep that was more than glands and hormones. "Why didn't you tell the reporters?" she asked. "It would have hurt Clayton in the polls."

"It would have hurt you more. I don't have to stoop that low to win fights." He traced her cheek down to the small, pointed chin, and he smiled as he touched the faint hollow in her long, graceful neck. "I won't sacrifice you. Not even to save myself."

The shock of what he was saying went all the way down to her toes. She stared at him with aching need, with a terrible sense of loss. She could have loved this man more than she ever dreamed. But her brother stood between them.

"Clayton won't stop. Neither will Mosby," she said miserably. "They'll carry the pollution charges all the way to the court of last resort if they have to."

"It was a nasty piece of work, wasn't it, Nikki?" he asked quietly. "I hated the photographs, the damage it did. It wasn't my fault, but I can't prove that."

"If you told about the accident, on the beach..."

He shook his head, smiling. "Even that wouldn't exonerate me. I told you. I won't sacrifice you."

"Why not? Everyone else has, at one time or another," she said bitterly. First her father, then Mosby.

"I'm saving you for a special occasion," he replied. "I miss you, Nikki."

"I miss you, too," she said sadly.

His dark eyes slid over her with a kind of pos-session. "You look lovely. Your brother is glaring at us."

"My brother is glaring at you," she corrected. "He likes me."

He smiled. "So do I. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"We never had a chance," she replied.

The band was playing, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Chris draping herself against the oil millionaire's son on the dance floor.

He caught Nikki's hand. "We're going to be burned at the stake before the evening's over," he said. "We might as well enjoy it. Come here."

He drew her into his arms, into his body, and wrapped her up tight as he began to move to the lazy two-step. Nikki shivered and tried to stop.

"Why?" he whispered at her ear.

"I can't," she ground out, clutching his lapel.

His big arm contracted, bringing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s right into his shirtfront. "Relax," he said huskily, his voice deep and sultry in the s.p.a.ce between them. "It's all right to let me see that you want me. I want you, too."

Her legs trembled as they brushed his. She couldn't remember feeling anything so explosive since Mosby had first come into her life. But Mosby hadn't wanted her close like this. Mosby hadn't made her feel like this. She shivered as she let it happen, and her body melted into the warm strength and power of Kane's.

"Chemistry," he said deeply, feeling her tremble. "We mix like oxygen and hydrogen, bubbling where we touch. Blood rushing into empty s.p.a.ces, churning, making heat and magic. Feel it, Nikki?" he asked, and his arm dropped just a fraction, rubbing her against the suddenly changed contours of him.

She gasped and instinctively started to step back, but he laughed deep in his throat and held her firmly in place.

"Now you know, don't you?" he whispered. "There's only one secret left. And if we go outside in the shadows, I can ease up that voluminous skirt and we can have each other against the wall I mentioned earlier."

Her fingers curled into his chest under the dark evening jacket, against his spotless white silk shirt. She could feel the thick hair under it, the warmth. "No."

"No," he repeated. "It's unrealistic, isn't it? But I know how it would feel. So do you." He moved, deliberately letting her feel the power of his body as his cheek lay against hers and his breath feathered the hair at her ear. The music, the people, the world vanished in the heat of what they were sharing. Her eyes closed. She felt him in every cell of her aching body.

"Come closer," he said, his voice harsh.

She pressed into him, shivering.

"Move, Nikki," he challenged. His hand slid to her lower back, pulling, pressing.

"Kane," she protested once, the fragile sound lost in a gasp as she felt herself going helplessly on tiptoe to search for a more intimate contact.

His other hand clenched in the thick hair at her nape and he made a muted, hoa.r.s.e sound at her ear.

"Oh, G.o.d," he groaned, shivering.

She couldn't stop. She hoped they weren't being watched, because she couldn't stop what was happening. The sheer heat they were generating was becoming a throbbing pleasure that outweighed every single thought of modesty.

The sudden change of tempo in the music was a shock like ice on fire, and Kane's head lifted to see that people around them were beginning to shift gears into a complicated disco pattern.

"I can't dance anymore." Nikki's voice sounded choked, as she looked up at Kane.

His face was faintly flushed, high on his cheekbones. His dark eyes were fierce as they searched her face. "We'll have to," he said huskily. "Would you like to look down and see why?"