Secret Weapon Spouse - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,45

heat through her. She could feel Alex watching her, measuring her. The man definitely made her feel unsettled, unsure. Vulnerable. But it was the other emotions he made her feel that scared her. Especially the big one: desire.

She recalled the last time she’d felt desire—and how badly it had ended. She reminded herself that she was happy being a chameleon, blending in, going unnoticed by men.

She didn’t want her life disrupted by him stirring up feelings, needs. She felt oddly exposed as if for all her care at hiding behind her glasses, her clothes, her front at Weddings Your Way, he could see through her.

It was the way he looked at her. There were moments when she was positive he could see right through her veneer to her deepest, darkest of all secrets. Not only that she was an agent but that her real guise was pretending to be a wallflower so she didn’t attract men like Alex Graham.

Was it possible Alex already knew that while she was cool and collected on the outside, she was a mess below the surface whenever she was around him? That it was a battle to keep anything from him?

Her heart beat a little faster at the thought that he knew her and that was one of the reasons she felt so drawn to him.

He started to say something but stopped as a waiter slid a basket and a dish with what looked like jalapeño peppers onto the table.

“Wait until you taste this.” He stabbed one of the pepper slices with his fork, uncovered the warm bread, took a piece and shoved the pepper into it before he holding to her lips, his gaze meeting hers.

There was nothing she could do but open her lips, all of her senses on alert at the intimacy of him feeding her.

Hesitantly she took a bite. The bread was warm and wonderful, the pepper both hot and sweet. She’d never tasted anything like it.

“I knew you’d like it.” He sounded a little sad, the pad of his thumb deliciously rough as he dabbed at the corner of her mouth when some of the pepper juice escaped. She felt the sudden intense heat of the pepper.

But it was nothing compared to what the look in his eyes did to her. Heat skittered over her skin, firing her senses and sending a shaft of desire straight to the heart of her.

“Well?” he asked.

She took a drink and had to swallow twice before she trusted herself to speak. “Wonderful.”

He smiled that beguiling smile of his. “That was just the beginning. There are more surprises in store.”

She was almost positive he wasn’t referring to food now.

He didn’t want to ask her if she’d gone back to the condo last night. But he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.

He wiped his mouth on his napkin then took a drink of his margarita. Funny, but he hated to disappoint her. He knew how much she was hoping that Preston would turn out to be one of the good guys.

Putting down his glass, he said, “I’m afraid it’s just as I feared. Caroline is broke. I have connections at the bank. She’s gone through most of her inheritance. From what I can tell she’s completely financing the condo development along with her own condo renovation. The checks are being run through Preston Wellington III’s construction company.” He could see that Samantha wasn’t any happier to hear this than he had been.

She took a sip of her drink, lashes hiding her eyes, and said nothing, giving him the impression that, as bad as this news was, it hadn’t exactly come as a surprise.

“You still want to believe in him, don’t you?” he said.

“For Caroline’s sake and the baby’s? Yes, I do.”

He sighed, unable to wait any longer. “I went to Caroline’s condo last night after I got a call that someone had broken into it.”

Something flashed in her eyes—or had he just imagined it?

“The champagne glasses and bottle were gone and the bathroom was shot up,” he said. “There were two bullets in the wall where the bathroom mirror used to be.” His gaze locked with hers.

He hadn’t realized how much he was hoping she would say she didn’t know anything about it. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of a good reason she would break in to steal an empty champagne bottle and two dirty glasses.

Unless she was covering for somebody.

And he hoped to hell that wasn’t the case, since he