Sun Kissed (Crane Series) Read Free Page A

wore a robe, but Crane had a way of gazing at her that reminded her she wore no underwear. She was two not very sturdy garments shy of naked. At least her host was still fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, though his feet were bare.
    “I hope I didn’t wake you?” she asked politely.
    “No. I was working in my study.”
    Her eyebrows rose. “In the middle of the night?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t need much sleep.” He glanced at her shrewdly. “I’d say you’re done sleeping for the night, darl. Come on back when you’ve finished your brekkie. I’ve got some reading material for you.”
    “I’m sure I’ll go straight back to sleep,” she lied, thinking endless games of solitaire on her laptop were preferable to a meeting with Crane’s CEO in the wee hours.
    “Take it up with you anyway. It’ll bore you to sleep.”
    What could she say? “All right.”
    He walked to the sink with an easy grace that forced her to remember how he’d looked with nothing covering him but a little steam and a few bubbles. He grabbed a glass of water. “I’ll leave you to it, then. My study’s back there.” He pointed through a doorway at the opposite end of the kitchen, and then he was gone.
    She finished her food but, as Crane had smugly prophesied, she wasn’t remotely sleepy. She’d deliberately set her watch to Sydney time, but that didn’t prevent her from calculating that it was only nine in the morning yesterday in San Francisco. After tidying up and putting everything away, she ran back upstairs. Cameron Crane might be able to dictate her actions, but no way in hell was she going into his study to talk business in her nightgown.
    Besides, her calculations reminded her that her fiancé, Mark Forsythe, would be wide-awake and dying to hear that she’d arrived safely. He was such a sweetheart—steady, reliable, good-hearted, and he worried about her.
    She called and Mark answered on the first ring, as though he’d been sitting by the phone waiting. Sure enough, his first words were, “I’m so glad you called. I was wondering if you made it okay. How was the flight?”
    “Long and boring.”
    “Don’t forget to drink lots of water. Jet lag can be a killer.”
    “I know. It’s three in the morning and I just ate breakfast.”
    He chuckled. “Give me your hotel and room number before I forget.”
    She hesitated. She loved Mark and sometime in the next year or so was going to marry him, but he could be a little old-fashioned. He’d blow a gasket if he knew where she was currently staying. She hadn’t finished blowing her own gasket so she didn’t need any extra aggravation.
    “My schedule’s going to be so hectic, it’s probably easier if I call you. I’ve got my cell. I’ll keep it with me at all times.”
    “Okay.” He was so trusting and so dear.
    She called up his face: good-looking in a clean-cut, all-American way, with his clear blue eyes and crisp black hair. So different from Cameron Crane with his dirty-blond hair, eyes so shifty they couldn’t decide between gray, brown, and green and had settled on a murky hazel. Mark was always clean-shaven. Crane looked as though he had five o’clock shadow twenty-four, seven.
    As though divining her thoughts, Mark asked, “Have you seen the client yet?”
    “Yes. Briefly.” And all of him there was to see, but she kept that information to herself.
    “First impressions?”
    Since Mark was not only her fiancé, but a tax accountant who often did work for her marketing firm, they tended to talk business a lot. She liked to bounce ideas off him, for he was as logical as she was creative. That’s what made them such a great team.
    So, she sighed and said, “I’d say dynamic, driven, mercurial. . . and domineering.” Great bod.
    “You don’t like him.”
    She laughed. “You know me too well. Not unless my first impression changes drastically. He’s the client. I’ll hide my feelings, naturally. But no, I don’t like Cameron