The Millionaire's Club: Jacob, Logan and Marc: Black-Tie Seduction / Less-than-Innocent Invitation / Strictly Confidential Attraction

“Anyway, a couple of weeks into his treatment his twin brother, Connor, came to visit him. His identical twin,” she added to make sure Alison understood. “Long story short, they pulled a switch on me so Jacob—the evil twin—could sneak out of the hospital and go down to the Cattleman’s Club for a beer. The end result was that I actually gave a respiratory therapy session to the wrong man!”

She got angry all over again just thinking about it. “He could have caused himself a serious setback pulling a reckless stunt like that.”

Alison looked at her as if she was waiting for the punch line. Finally she said, “That’s it? That’s why you don’t like him? The poor guy had been stuck in a hospital bed, sick as a dog. A cold beer and some male company sounded good to him so he pulled a fast one on you to indulge in a tiny little creature comfort?”

“I don’t like him,” Christine restated, not liking that she felt defensive again, “because he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it that life is not one big lark. Life is serious. Life is real. It’s not a game, and you can’t just play your way through it the way he does.”

For the first time Alison looked at her with no trace of humor. And it was then that Christine realized tears had pooled in her eyes. Embarrassed, she quickly blinked them back.

“Oh, sweetie.” Alison reached out, touched her hand. “What happened to you?”

Instantly on edge, Christine pulled her hand away. She wasn’t comfortable with touching, even though Alison’s touch held compassion and concern—something entirely different than the hard hands that had touched her in anger when she was a child. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, what happened to you that made you decide life had to be all about work and duty with no room for fun?” Alison pressed gently.

Fortunately for Christina, Mark Hartman, Alison’s boss—who was also the self-defense class’s instructor and another Texas Cattleman’s Club member like Jacob—entered the room at that very moment.

His appearance and the necessity to get down to business saved Christine from opening up like a faucet and spilling out her sordid history to this woman whose insight and empathy had almost broken through defenses she’d kept shored up her entire life.

Christine was appalled with herself when she realized her eyes still stung with tears. She blinked them back and, giving Alison an apologetic look, moved away from her and onto her spot on the practice mat. Christine wished she could talk to her friend about her past. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

For the rest of the class she went through the self-defense positions like an automaton, knowing the moves as well as she knew the secret she’d kept from anyone who had ever gotten too close.

She had good reason to know that life was not fun and games. Life was a father who had beaten her and her mother and a mother who drank to escape the pain. Christine hadn’t had any escape—only fear—until she’d turned eighteen and finally had been able to run. She’d run as far away as she could from that horrible existence and the memories that sometimes still woke her, trembling, in the night.

That’s what had happened to her, she thought as she showered in the locker room later. That’s why she sometimes worked double shifts at the hospital, why she took her job as a respiratory therapist so seriously and why she also volunteered to work for the Historical Society. She never wanted to have to depend on anyone but herself. Her work at the hospital gave her that self-sufficiency. Her volunteer work at the Historical Society gave her a sense of community.

Both also gave her something else—something she hadn’t expected and hadn’t known she’d needed—respectability. Acceptance. A place to belong.

She protected those hard-earned parts of her life. Held them close—held herself aloof to make sure no one got close enough to discover that inside her, there were still strong echoes of a lost and helpless little girl who had always thought she wasn’t good enough for her own father to love her. For her own mother to protect her.

She never wanted to feel that sense of helplessness or hopelessness again. Respectability, security and safety. She’d needed them most as a child but had never received them. As an adult, she’d earned them and she never took them for granted.

Life was work. Life was hard. How many times had her father driven that point home? Often enough that she’d absorbed it along with the blows from the back of his hand.

Yeah, she thought pragmatically. Life was hard. But life was also precious.

And that’s why she didn’t like Jake Thorne, with his life-is-a-lark attitude and his damn-the-torpedoes grin. He took everything for granted. So much so that it puzzled her how someone like him had gotten invited to join the Cattleman’s Club—a club that was about duty and honor and public service. And if some of the rumors were to be believed, it was also a club where the members were covertly active in thwarting any number of horrible situations. In fact, she’d heard specific rumors that the club had been instrumental in breaking up a blackmarket baby network and once had prevented a bloody overthrow of a small European principality. Jacob Thorne just didn’t seem to fit the Cattleman’s profile.

Fun and games. That seemed to be as deep as he got. She didn’t know how to react around someone who was always smiling and joking. The way he’d joked with her the other night.

“Him and his condition,” she sputtered under her breath, remembering how he’d told her she could have the saddlebags if she met his condition.

Nothing had changed there, she admitted, as with a brief hug she begged off Alison’s offer to stop at the Royal Diner for a diet soda that was really a ruse to get her to talk. Christine wasn’t ready to confide that part of her life with Alison, although she’d come as close to telling her as she had anyone.

Instead she went home. She still wanted the box with Jess Golden’s things for the Historical Society. And because this was serious business, she knew what she’d known from the beginning and simply hadn’t wanted to admit.

She’d have to give in to Thorne’s condition. Eat some crow and call him. Tell him she’d reconsidered. She’d go to his damn ball—so he could have some fun at her expense.

She undressed, brushed and flossed, then slipped into a white cotton nightie. She plopped down on her back in bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark.

First thing tomorrow she’d call him.

Oh, joy. Something to look forward to. A conference with the evil twin.

Two days after the auction, Jake waded through a dozen voice mails at his office at Hellfire, International, hating it that he wasn’t on-site with his men.

“You get caught up in another fire,” his doctor had warned him before he’d released him from the hospital after his accident, “and the next time you won’t walk away. The damage to your lungs is just too extensive to risk it. They can’t take another hit.”

Sidelined. Jake hated it. To take his mind off the reality that ate at him every day, he started thinking about the auction again. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Not just that he’d gotten ornery and outbid Chrissie Travers for the box of junk, but why he’d told her he’d give her the stuff if she’d go with him to the ball.

Now, where in the name of anything sane had that come from? Okay. Sanity probably hadn’t had anything to do with it. Sheer impulse had.

Still, that didn’t explain why he’d asked her. Probably because he’d figured she’d do exactly what she’d done—stick that little nose of hers high in the air and turn him down flat.

He glanced at the box he’d brought to work and set on the floor in the corner. It was as closed up and secretive as the prickly Ms. Travers.

“Let’s just call it a testosterone moment,” he muttered grimly and leaned back in his leather chair. For some inexplicable reason, the woman was always messing with his hormones. And that in itself was a major puzzle.

She was so not his type. Uppity little tight-ass. That’s what she was. He’d always gone more for the party girls who wanted to have a good time, knew how to have a good time and didn’t beat themselves up the next morning after they’d had a good time. Prissy Chrissie wouldn’t know a good time if it sneaked up and bit her on her cute, curvy butt.

So why did he find himself grinning at the prospect of seeing her again? And why did he have this recurring fantasy of biting the cute little butt in question?

Uncomfortable with his turn of thoughts, he sobered and stood abruptly, tucking the tips of his fingers into the back pockets of his jeans. He walked to the window of his fourth-floor office and stared down at the street.

Well, well, well, he thought, feeling a little too much pleasure when he saw who was walking down the street. Speak of the devil—or in this case, the saint. There she was. Little Miss Priss, in all her starched-panties glory.

He leaned a shoulder against the window frame, crossed his arms over his chest and looked his fill as she marched down the sidewalk toward his building. All she needed was a uniform and she could be captain of a drill team.

What made a woman, he wondered and reached up to scratch his jaw, who was put together in a package like a sweet little china doll think she had to go through life like a caricature of a turn-of-the-century, stiffbacked, prim and proper suffragette?

Hell, he bet she did starch her panties. And they were probably white. Most likely cotton. With days of the week that she always wore on the proper day.

Why that image made him hot, he had no idea.

She was within a block now and he couldn’t help but appreciate the view. She was barely five-four. Her pale blond hair and large hazel eyes gave her a cute, fragile, elfin look that in his weaker moments made him want to protect her as much as provoke her. Since he was fairly certain she’d never let anyone protect her—regardless that she looked as delicate as the petals on a yellow rose—provoking her was a much better bet.

And again, she was not his type. She was the exact opposite of Rea, who’d been svelte, sexy and as predatory as a jungle cat. Thoughts of his ex made him shiver. Too bad he’d been so blinded by the svelte, sexy parts that he’d missed the other characteristic until it was too late.

Whoa, what’s this, he wondered when he saw Chrissie cross the street. Without a doubt she was on her way up to see him.

Fine. He walked away from the window, picked up the box and set it on his desk. He’d been about to have his secretary call a courier to pick it up and deliver it to Chrissie anyway. This would save him a buck or two. He’d had his fun. Now she could have her precious box. And the musty-smelling saddlebag that was in it.

His secretary, Janice Smith, who had been with him from the beginning seven years ago, buzzed him on the intercom as he settled in behind his desk.

“Yes, Janice.”

“Christine Travers is here to see you, Mr. Thorne.”