Page 18 of Legal Attraction
The bell sounded again, so she picked her way through her suddenly overcrowded apartment to the door. When she peered through the peephole, all she saw were flowers—a colorful profusion of orange tiger lilies and red gardenias and yellow tulips. They were really beautiful. She couldn’t refuse them. With a sigh, she pulled open the door.
“You must be getting tired of bringing all of these up,” she said.
But then the flowers moved, revealing the face—the unfairly handsome face—of the man who carried them. It wasn’t Howard, the gray-haired doorman with so many wrinkles he looked like a bulldog. This was the man who’d been haunting Muriel’s dreams, keeping her awake in her tangled sheets.
He didn’t look as though he’d lost any sleep the past week. What a damn good-looking man. He must not have come from the office because he wore jeans and a T-shirt now, which left his arms bare—the muscles bunched up impressively with the load of stuff he carried.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her pulse quickening as she realized that he had somehow figured out which apartment was hers. Just the way he’d tracked her down at work, he had tracked her down at home.
He held up a bottle of wine that was in the hand not holding the arrangement. “We never went for that drink.” His dark eyes gleamed with naughtiness as he must have been remembering, like she was, why they hadn’t gone for that drink.
They had quenched their thirst in the elevator instead. No. That had just wetted Muriel’s appetite for more...of Ronan Hall.
“You’re not here for a drink,” she said as his gaze skimmed over her.
She wasn’t dressed like The World’s Most Beautiful Woman now. She wore an old pair of yoga pants and a tank top. But he stared at her like she was wearing only her Bette’s Beguiling Bows lingerie. Maybe he could see beneath the thin tank top and nearly threadbare pants.
He stepped forward, and she instinctively stepped back, which allowed him to pass in front of her and enter her apartment. Along with the wine bottle, he held up a big bag from which spicy and mouthwatering scents wafted. “No, I brought dinner, too. I remember you were hungry that night.”
“That was over a week ago,” she reminded him. “I’ve eaten since...” But shewashungry. It wasn’t for the food in that bag, though. She was hungry for him. Then her stomach growled, and she remembered that she hadn’t eaten lately.
He chuckled. “Not today.”
She snorted. “Not for a couple hours.”
He glanced down her body again. “You don’t starve yourself?”
She laughed now. “I wouldn’t look like this if I did.”
He nodded and a little groan slipped out between his lips. “No. You wouldn’t. I’m glad I didn’t bother bringing a salad, too.”
“What did you bring?” she asked, even as she knew letting him stay would be stupid.
They wouldn’t just have wine and food. They’d have sex, too. And maybe that was why she was going to let him stay.
She really, really wanted sex with him again. She wanted to know if it was as good as she’d thought it had been in the elevator. Or maybe it had just seemed like that because it had been so long since she’d had sex with anything but her vibrator.
“I brought Carmine’s.”
She pointed to the bag. “I can see that.”
“Pasta ragù and chicken parm...”
Her stomach growled again. “Good choices. And the wine?”
He held up the bottle again—it was in the same hand with the food. “Pinot noir.”
How could he have known all of her favorites? Then she remembered. She’d had to do an interview for the magazine that had bestowed the ridiculous title on her. She narrowed her eyes as she studied his handsome face. “You’ve done your homework.”
He didn’t deny it. Just grinned that damned sexy grin of his again. And his dark eyes twinkled. “Lucky for me your favorites are also mine.”
She didn’t know if she believed that or not. She doubted she could believe much of what he said. But she didn’t care at the moment. She was too hungry, and not just for the food.
She took the bag from his hand as she led him toward her small dining area. The table overflowed with flowers, too, like the coffee table and the narrow foyer table. The flowers were the only vibrant color in the apartment she had wanted to be a serene oasis for her after the chaos the divorce had made of her life. The walls and ceiling were white, as was all the furniture. And the floors were bare with no varnish or stain darkening the white oak.
“Looks like a funeral parlor in here,” he remarked.
“You’re not the only one who read that article,” she said. “These are all for congratulations.” From people she’d never even met, from designers and photographers and even a few movie producers. She shuddered a little, thinking of all the attention she’d garnered.
