Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) Read Free Page B

tell. “You’re definitely your father’s daughter,” he said, and Kate felt as though she’d been roundly insulted. Her cheeks were throbbing with heat when Sean finally answered her question. “Roughly a dozen, give or take a plane. We’re phasing out our old fleet.”
    A dozen airliners. A contract like that would mean prosperity for a good many of her father’s constituents.
    “What do you do, anyway?” Sean asked.
    Again Kate felt vaguely indignant. “I work for the senator.”
    “I gathered that much,” Sean retorted, bringing the car to a sleek stop in front of Kate’s building. “Do you actually work, or do you just stand around agreeing with everything the old man says?”
    Kate’s color rose in anger, and she reached for the door handle, but Sean caught her hand in a swift grasp and held it prisoner. She trembled as he stroked the tender flesh on the inside of her wrist with the pad of his thumb.
    “Cold?” he asked, knowing perfectly well she was practically boiling.
    She gave a little cry when he tilted his head and melded his mouth to hers, but she made no move to resist him. The old attraction had returned to shame her.

Chapter 2
    K ate’s telephone was ringing when she let herself into the elegant condominium. She made no effort to lift the receiver, knowing the answering machine would pick up the call.
    She listened to her own voice giving a recorded greeting as she carefully folded her silk shawl and set it aside, along with her grandmother’s purse. There was a little dent, she noticed with a frown, where the solid brass bag had struck the mugger’s head.
    Brad’s voice filled the room. At least there was one good thing about this whole incident, and that was the fact that Brad’s job would be hers now. She was qualified, and she had more seniority than anyone else on the staff. “Kate, I’m at home. Call me immediately!”
    “Go to hell,” Kate muttered, her arms folded across her chest. Even though the living room was warm, she suddenly felt chilled. She turned down the volume on the machine and, if Brad said anything more, she didn’t hear him.
    Her mind and senses were full of Sean. Her heart was still beating a little faster than usual, and her nipples felt taut beneath the thin fabric of her evening gown. She kept her arms folded over her breasts in an effort to hide her involuntary response, even though there was no one around to see.
    Unlike her parents, Kate didn’t keep pictures of Abby out in plain view, but she went to the shelf behind her couch and took down a thin leather-bound album. The names “Abby and Sean” were embossed on the cover in gold lettering, and Kate felt a lump thicken in her throat as she opened it to the first photograph.
    It showed Abby sitting at her vanity table in her frilly room, her wedding gown a tumble of satin and lace and pearls. Kate saw herself, ten years younger and wearing a pink bridesmaid’s dress. In the photograph she appeared to be pinning Abby’s veil carefully into place, though in reality that task had fallen to a hairdresser.
    With the tip of an index finger, Kate touched her sister’s glowing, flawless face, her golden hair and wide brown eyes. Abby. The senator had called her his Christmas-tree angel.
    Tears brimmed in Kate’s eyes, and she closed the album and put it carefully back among the others. She couldn’t think about Abby, not with Sean’s kiss still burning on her mouth.
    Kate kicked off her shoes and felt her feet sink deep into the plush pearl-gray carpet on the floor. With a sigh, she wandered into her bedroom and slipped out of the dress, her panty hose and underthings. A long, hot shower soothed her a little, though the pounding massage of the water made her more aware of her body than she wanted to be.
    Clad in a striped silk nightshirt, her shoulder-length brown hair blown dry, Kate climbed into the brass bed that had once graced one of her grandmother’s guest rooms and pulled the covers up to