Holding the Dream Page 0,18

you a damn plate."

"No, I - " Ordinarily that vicious look wouldn't have quelled her, but at the moment she was feeling shaky. "Okay, thanks, but don't say anything. It'll only worry them, and they've got all these people here. Just don't say anything," she repeated, then watched him, after one last, smoldering look, stride off.

Her hand trembled a bit as she opened her bag and swigged from a small medicine bottle. All right, she promised herself, she would take better care of herself. She'd start trying those yoga exercises Margo had shown her. She'd stop drinking so much damn coffee.

She would stop thinking.

By the time he came back she was feeling steadier. One look at the plate he carried and she let out a laugh. "How many of those starving sailors do you intend to feed?''

"Just eat," he ordered and popped a small, succulent shrimp into her mouth himself.

After a moment's deliberation, she scooted over on the cushion. A distraction, even in the form of Byron De Witt, was what she needed. "I guess I have to ask you to sit down and share."

"You're always so gracious."

She chose a tiny spinach quiche. "I just don't like you, De Witt."

"Fair enough." He dipped into some crab souffle. "I don't like you either, but I was taught to be polite to a lady."

Yet he thought of her. Odder still, he dreamed of her, a fog-drenched, erotic dream he couldn't quite remember in the morning. Something about the cliffs and the crash of waves, the feel of soft skin and a slim body under his hands, those big, dark, Italian eyes staring into his.

It left him uncomfortably amused with himself.

Byron De Witt was sure of many things. The national debt would never be paid, women in thin cotton dresses were the best reason for summer, rock and roll was here to stay, and Katherine Powell was not his type.

Skinny, abrasive women with more attitude than charm didn't appeal to him. He liked them soft, and smart, and sexy. He admired them simply for being women and delighted in the bonuses of quiet conversation, hardheaded debate, outrageous laughter, and hot, mindless sex.

He considered himself as much of an expert on the female mystique as any man could be. After all, he'd grown up surrounded by them, the lone son in a household with three daughters. Byron knew women, and knew them well. And he knew what he liked.

No, he wasn't remotely attracted to Kate.

Still, the dream nagged at him as he prepared for the day. It followed him into the executive weight room, tugged at the back of his mind as he pushed himself through reps and sets and pyramids. It lingered while he finished off his routine with twenty minutes of the Wall Street Journal and the treadmill.

He struggled to think of something else. The house he intended to buy. Something close to the beach so that he could run on the sand, in the sun instead of on a mechanical loop. Rooms of his own, he mused, done to his own taste. A place where he could mow his grass, turn his music up to earsplitting levels, entertain company, or enjoy a quiet, private evening.

There had been few quiet, private evenings in his childhood. Not that he regretted the noise, the crowds he had grown up with. He adored his sisters, had tolerated their ever-increasing hordes of friends. He loved his parents and had always considered their busy social and family life normal.

Indeed, it had been the uncertainty as to whether he could bear to be so far away from his childhood home and family that had made him put the six-month-trial-period clause into his agreement with Josh.

Though he did miss them, he'd realized he could be happy in California. He was nearly thirty-five, and he wanted his own place. He was the first De Witt to move out of Georgia in two generations. He was determined to make it the right move.

If nothing else, it would stop the not-so-subtle family pressure for him to settle down, marry, start a family. The distance would certainly make it difficult for his sisters to continually shove women they considered perfect for him under his nose.

He had yet to meet a woman who was perfect for him.

As he stepped into the shower back in his penthouse office suite, he thought of Kate again. She was definitely wrong.

If he'd dreamed about her, it was only because she'd been on his mind. Annoyed that she continued