Passionate Persuasion (Entangled Indulgence) Read Free Page A

and slid over skin, and a charcoal skirt, hemmed right at the border of sexy and classy. And she was wearing makeup, but not so much he couldn’t see the freckles that had always charmed him.
    The second reason he was in trouble was that he hadn’t really thought all the way through his impulse to see her again, and the little lie by omission he’d committed to make it happen.
    And the third reason? Well, it was waiting for him when he came back to her after dealing with a total non-crisis that the manager could have handled. Kiara had figured it out. And she was pissed.
    God, he knew better than to say it just then, but she was irresistible when she was angry. Her cheeks flushed and her hazel eyes sparked and a lock of hair slid from her bun or updo or whatever it was called to curl against her neck and tremble with the intensity of her emotion. Kiara 2.0 was sophisticated and sexy. But this was his Kiara. Version 1.0—or maybe 1.5—was so very hot when she got hot under the collar.
    His . That was an unexpected and uncomfortable word. But it was the one he thought as he reached her, and she jumped off the barstool, not tottering at all in those high heels. They put her almost at eye level, but not quite.
    “I hope you’re happy,” she growled.
    He was. Happy to see her again, happy to have gotten to see her sparkling with passion again, happy she’d recognized him at all. He also had enough self-preservation to keep from saying that. “I can explain,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure how, other than, I was kind of an asshole, but I wanted to see you.
    “Was it fun?” she demanded, and even though they stood inches apart, even though her hitched voice was low between them, people around them were getting curious. Body language was louder than words.
    “Was what fun?” he asked, stalling. For what, he didn’t know. To think of something to say.
    “Making a fool out of me.”
    “Whoa… no.” Her voice was tight, as much with tears as anger. But he knew better than to reach for her, though that was his instinct. “That’s not at all— Okay, I know it looks bad. But I swear. Ted Benwick really did want to set me up with you, and his wife calls you…”
    “Katya,” she supplied, when he fumbled.
    “Right. I didn’t know who you were until he gave me your email address.”
    “Then you lied to me.”
    “Only my name. Everything else is true.”
    “ Only your name?” she repeated, her voice rising. They were definitely drawing an audience now. “You mean the small detail of your identity ?”
    “Well, would you have met me if you knew?”
    There was a small, telling hesitation before she said, “Of course not!”
    Alex lifted his hands in a well-there-you-go gesture that he thought would help, but didn’t. She got madder, despite the fact that she’d been enjoying herself two minutes ago, despite her admitting she wouldn’t have given him a chance if he hadn’t deceived her.
    Deceived her.
    Well, he hadn’t thought about it that way, but there it was, written in the flags of furious color in her cheeks. “Look, Kansas,” he started. “I’m—”
    “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t call me that.”
    “Kiara,” he amended, and now he held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I thought we’d laugh about it. Together , I mean,” he added hastily, seeing the spark of lit fuse in her eyes.
    “Maybe if you’d told me when you first sat down.” She grabbed her phone from the bar and fumbled it into her ridiculously small handbag.
    “I’m trying to apologize—”
    “Don’t,” she said again, snapping closed her purse. She put a wad of bills on the bar for her drink. “For someone who, the last time I saw him, was cutting a romantic swath through sorority row, you don’t know much about women.”
    Swath . His fraternity brothers had teased him about his farm girl freshman, but he’d always loved that she used words like swath and farce and even condescending chauvinist .