Dream Man Read Free

nodded. “All right, then, Mr. McKenzie. Please come in. I can spare you a few minutes.”
    â€œMax,” he corrected her once more. “Maybe we could talk over lunch.”
    She froze inside. Would that be wise? No! Absolutely not. “No, thank you. I prefer to conduct business in my office,” she said pleasantly. Why he had come, why he wanted to see her, she had no idea, but she doubted it was to tell her that he’d been dreaming for most of the past year about a woman who looked exactly like Sharon. She doubted just as strongly that he was there to tell her he wanted to meet her sister and bring her out of her depression, to make her into a whole and happy human once again, to become the father Jason and Roxanne needed. But whatever it was he wanted from her, she’d feel safer hearing it with the barrier of her big oak desk between them. She flicked another glance at him and he smiled a smile she was utterly powerless to resist. She thought for a crazy moment that if he’d held out his arms to her just then, she’d have walked right into them.
    â€œSince you were on your way out to lunch, obviously you need to eat. So do I. Wouldn’t it be so much easier and save time, if we did it together?” he asked.
    Jeanie hesitated. The man’s logic was irrefutable. She had to eat. She had a table booked already. And she was a big girl, thirty-one years old. She could look after herself, and maybe she’d learn more about him in a less formal atmosphere than her office. She knew she should be as nice to him as possible. After all, she mustn’t forget that someone looking just like Max McKenzie had been peopling her dreams, filling her with the certainty that somewhere, sometime she’d find him, and he’d put Sharon’s world back together again the way she and all the king’s horses hadn’t been able to do.
    From somewhere, she was certain she heard the faint tinkle of golden bracelets jingling together. She glanced at her wrist. No bangles. But, despite that, she knew she had no choice. If he wanted to have lunch with her, then that was what would happen. Maybe Grandma Margaret was in charge of her mind and events after all, scary as the thought might be. “All right, Mr. McKenzie,” she said. “I can spare you an hour, but no more. This way, please.”
    She held the door open for him. Behind them, the receptionist said wistfully, “Have a nice lunch, Ms. Leslie. And don’t hurry. Remember, you have no more appointments today.”
    â€œAn hour, huh? No more?”
    Jeanie had to laugh as she led her companion past the elevator doors and toward the stairs. “Cindy is a temporary maternity-leave replacement,” she said. “But the girl does try very hard. It’s just that she’s young and impulsive and says anything that comes into her head. I hope to teach her some discretion.”
    â€œI’m sure time will, if you don’t,” he said easily as they started down the four flights of stairs. “The elevator worked fine when I came up a few minutes ago.”
    â€œDid it?” she asked. “Exercise is good you, Mr. McKenzie.”
    â€œMax,” he said, taking her arm, drawing in deep breaths of the delicate scent that wafted up from her hair.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard him.
    â€œMy name is Max.” He wanted to hear her say his name in that sexy, husky voice of hers. Never had he wanted so much to hear a woman say his name, but she seemed determined to be all business.
    â€œYes, I know.” She slipped her arm out of his clasp, swung her shoulder bag in between them, and returned his warm smile with a small, cool one of her own. She was, he realized with a slight sense of shock and a large dose of curiosity, completely impervious to that so-called natural charm his brother envied. Why? When his body chemistry reacted so wildly to her,