anything to worry about, then. It's not as if we're about to fall into bed again."
"Right." She sat back, obviously relieved. He noticed she still had that tabloid he'd found. Her fingers tightened on it when he reached over to pat the back of her hand.
"And so there's no reason you can't go out to dinner with me to night."
Chapter 12
What? After her long speech about being capable of handling herself and of no longer being in her New Year's Eve, uh, "state," could she possibly have said no to Tanner's invitation to dinner?
Refusal would have made her look foolish, and that particular fashion was so last year on Hannah.
With that firmly in mind, she'd let Desiree raid her overstuffed closet once again, and out had come this beautiful and bold red silk chiffon strapless dress. The bodice curved over the tops of her breasts and cupped under them, creating an empire waistline. From there, more layers of fabric fell to her knees in soft pleats and folds. Desiree pulled out a pair of sharp-toed red pumps to match, as well as a lipstick in the same exact shade.
The other woman had apparently absorbed makeup tips through the umbilical chord. Although it didn't seem she was close to her former-model mother, Desiree was positive about what Hannah should do with her face.
"A brush of powder in a naked-skin shade," Desiree declared, sweeping sable hairs over Hannah's forehead, nose, and across her eyelids. "Then just the red mouth and gobs and gobs of mascara."
"This isn't like a real date or anything," Hannah hastened to assure them both, as she followed directions and looked at the ceiling while Desiree wielded the black wand on her upper and then her lower lashes.
"What ever you say," Desiree agreed. "But when a woman goes out with a man - for what ever reason - she needs all the armor she can get."
"So that's why you're wearing the jeans that you complained to me yesterday are a size and a half too tight," Hannah said. "Because you're going to be with Troy to night."
Instead of answering, her suite mate started humming as she left off with the mascara and then performed girl-magic with a hairbrush and a light hair spray that made Hannah's long hair fall across one eye in a sexy side part. "Voila!" Desiree finally said, drawing Hannah to the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door. "Helmet, shield, spear."
No schoolteacher in sight. Hannah swallowed, bemused by her unfamiliar reflection. Her eyes looked bigger, though her red mouth was the focal point of her face. After that, there seemed to be yards of skin, all of it looking decidedly bare in the room's soft light.
She appeared almost as bold as the crimson color of the dress. Surely the strange woman in the mirror could win what ever battle Tanner might bring her way.
When he knocked on the front door of the suite, she was ready for him. Desiree, before taking off for her shift at Hart's (in full modern female warrior gear of those sprayed-on jeans and a see-through top over a lung-hugging camisole), had caught sight of the tabloid Hannah inadvertently brought home from the DMV. Flipping it open to an article in the middle, she'd given Hannah yet another weapon in her arsenal.
Thanks to the almost year-old magazine, she now knew enough about the Hart family to manage some dinner table small talk.
But when she turned the knob and swung open the door, her mouth couldn't form a single word. It hit her immediately - that Tanner must know something about weapons too. It wasn't the well-polished preppy loafers on his feet that gave it away. Nor the charcoal-colored flannel wool pleated slacks. No, props went to the collared, three-button, had-to-be-cashmere sweater he was wearing. It was pushed up casually on his forearms and was the exact same straw honey, old gold shade of his incredible hair. It made his eyes stand out like blue jewels in his tan face.
She wondered about that winter tan, then wondered if he surfed like Troy too. From there her mind leaped to the fantasy of his butt wiggling beneath a beach towel.
Heat burned the back of her neck, and her hand rose to fan her face.
Tanner cleared his throat. "You all right?"
"Sure. Yes." Had he dressed to impress? Was this more like a real date than she'd been telling herself?
The thought set the back of her neck on fire again, and nerves started pushing each