Abbie didn’t have all night to find Gwen or to play twenty questions with a playboy looking for an hour of mindless entertainment.
That Hunter jerk had been watching someone else while he pretended to talk to her, probably another Lydia clone.
All men were liars and… liars.
She’d taken two steps when hands locked on each of her shoulders, stopping her forward progress.
Had to be Hunter.
She kept a leash on her temper, reminding herself he’d been the only person to step forward the last time she’d gotten into a confrontation. From the way no one challenged him then, she doubted anyone would speak up on her behalf this time.
His warm breath swirled the fine hairs along her neck when he said, “I wasn’t treating you like a joke or screwing with you.”
His hands were strong but held her carefully. The strength surprised her since she’d already tagged him as soft and worthless, but what else did a rich kid have to do all day besides go to the gym or play tennis?
“Admit it,” she whispered. “You were using me to snoop on someone. Another old nuisance?”
“Yes, I was watching a woman, but not an old girlfriend. I saw a woman who is engaged to a friend of mine kissing another man and wanted to be sure about what I’d observed. I didn’t realize she was there until I saw her behind you. I’d point her out if not for needing to protect my friend’s private life.” He squeezed her shoulders, a silent request for her to give him a chance. “I thought you wanted to meet some people and I do know practically everyone here. Now that you understand why I was distracted, will you help me? No one should have to marry a person who can’t even start off faithful.”
Those were the magic words.
Hunter had redeemed himself enough for her to give him a few minutes of her time.
Plus he could introduce her around and she would bet he knew Gwen. Everyone here-except Abbie-probably had some sort of connection to the heiress.
She nodded her head. “Fine. I’m game.”
He drew her around, then gently eased her to his side and walked companionably back to their prior spot. When he turned her to face him, he latched his hands on her shoulders again.
“I apologize for allowing my distraction to result in poor manners.” His eyes warmed with sincerity she wanted to believe. “I’ll strive to be better company while you help me.”
The way this Hunter guy soaked her up with his eyes scattered nervous prickling along her skin. He just needed her for camouflage, so ignore the sexy glint in that deep green gaze.
“Apology accepted.”
“Thanks for understanding,” Hunter murmured, his undivided attention spinning a cocoon of heat around her body.
What would it be like to have a man like that really interested in her.
Probably short-lived, and untrustworthy as her ex, Harry the jeweler.
She tried to shrug to break the spell trapping her mind, but his hands didn’t allow much shoulder movement. “Not a problem,” she finally mumbled. “Especially if it means exposing a faithless, conniving, untrustworthy… sack of pig manure who-” Deserves to be horsewhipped, she finished silently.
Harry’s face blurred through her scorching thoughts.
Forget about lying, cheating Harry.
Tonight’s cheating female was Hunter’s problem, not hers. Abbie peeked up at him, assuming his silence meant he was busy doing the snoop thing and might have missed her semi-rant.
Not even.
His gaze was still settled on her in quiet observation. “‘Sack of pig manure’? You’re really attractive when you’re in a snit.”
She couldn’t come up with a reply.
Couldn’t remember the last time a man had told her she was attractive.
Hunter’s lips shifted. He… almost smiled. The muscles in his face moved stiffly, as if he hadn’t used them to smile in a long time.
His fingers relaxed.
The backhanded compliment had disconnected the neurons between her brain and body. There could be no other reason she stood perfectly still as his warm hands slid down her exposed arms, waking excited nerves everywhere he touched bare skin.
When he took her hands in his, she wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe just an obligatory soft clasp of his fingers over hers, but his grasp was firm, his fingers closing with care. Strength hovered beneath the skin, warning there was more to this man than she’d initially assumed.
Something familiar about him bubbled in her mind again.
Did she know him?
In her dreams maybe. She had to tie this up and move on before she allowed herself to be flattered by his attention. “Can you see your friend’s fiancée yet?”
“If you stood a little closer, as if we’re whispering, I could get a better look.” He didn’t act on his statement until she nodded mutely. With a gentle tug, he had her chest-to-chest with him, too close for her to see his face.
But she could feel him.
Her hands went to his arms out of automatic response for somewhere to grasp. She curved her fingers around the black sleeves of his tuxedo, holding roped muscle that rippled with imperturbable confidence.
Time skipped by.
Her skin tingled where his hands touched her.
Her skin never tingled around other guys. She never reacted this way to anyone from celebrity land, so why was this guy pressing all her female buttons?
Had to be hormones combined with her long dating dry spell. Self-inflicted, to be sure, but better alone than lied to and betrayed by men.
Men like this Hunter.
No problem. She’d keep her end of the deal and provide a few minutes’ cover in trade for meeting Gwen. Abbie hadn’t missed the way most of the room noticed when he’d walked her away from Lydia.
If she watched Brittany’s weekend show on celebrity affairs she might have an idea who Hunter was, but why should anyone care about how people with more money than God spent their time?
She should be glad she didn’t recognize him. That meant Hunter wasn’t a member of Chicago law enforcement or involved in Illinois politics.
But many of Chicago’s elite knew him. Hunter had to be somebody important.
He smelled like somebody important. Like he wore cologne sold by the teaspoon.
She could taste him with each inhale.
Her ears were becoming tuned to the smooth blend of cultured voice and sexy undertones.
But he wasn’t saying a word, which was starting to feel weird. She didn’t know this guy well enough to stand this near him and not talk. To be honest, she didn’t like standing still and not talking period.
Hunter whispered, “You smell intriguing.”
Her heart thumped. “Thanks.” Thanks? Talk about sounding stupid, but she was not in her element and he embodied this element. Stop worrying about what he thinks and act like a trained investigator. Get to the point of all this. She had to meet Gwen. “Um, so let’s talk about introducing me around.”
“Make you a deal.”
“What? I thought we had a deal.”
“We do. You agreed to help me catch a cheating fiancée. This is a new agreement.”
Technically, he was right, since she’d bailed on the first deal to stand with him for ten minutes. She hated when her sense of fair play got in the way.
She typed her fingers against his forearm, getting exasperated by yet another game. “What’s in this new agreement for me?”
“You want to meet people, right?”
“Maybe. Depends on what you want in exchange.”
“Are you always so suspicious?”
Yes. She’d believed another man once without question and he’d stomped on that trust. “Let’s just say I’ve been on the losing end of a proposition before and didn’t like it. Don’t make an offer you can’t back up.”
Hunter’s chest expanded with a slow breath. “Didn’t expect this to be quite so serious a negotiation, but I can meet that requirement. I don’t like unsolved riddles. If you figure out how we know each other I’ll introduce you around-”
“You already agreed to that,” she pointed out, hoping he wouldn’t call her on having walked off earlier.
“-as a friend of mine.”
That could carry more weight to help her convince Gwen to speak in private without using the hardball card Dr. Tatum had given her. “I’m game. Just who are you?”
His next breath ruffled fine hairs along her forehead. “Hunter.”
“I heard your old nuisance call you that. No last name?”
“Is it really important?” He’d asked that as if the wrong answer would somehow judge her.
She couldn’t think of a way to say, “Just how rich and important are you?” and he clearly didn’t want to share more than he had about his identity.
She should have set some guidelines before agreeing so quickly.
He really thought they’d met before now?
As if she’d forget meeting a man who looked like him?
“If I knew your last name it might help…” She paused. A waste of time asking since he didn’t respond. “But either way you still owe me for helping with this fiancée snooping.”
He stopped staring over her head and lowered his gaze to meet hers, not acknowledging or denying her point. Just giving her a scorching look that brought her dormant hormones to life.
His lips were cut like a man’s should be, not too smooth or too thin. A mouth that invited speculation.
If he rattled her that much with one long look, what would happen if he kissed her?
What was she doing even thinking something so ridiculous?
He gave all women that look. He probably couldn’t turn off his sexiness without medical intervention.
His hand smoothed upward along her spine when he glanced away, as though keeping a connection to her even when something else held his gaze.
Her skin moved toward his hand. Don’t shiver.
Where could she have possibly run into this guy? At a function she’d attended? “Been to any weddings in Chicago in the past couple years?”
He leaned back and raked her with a curious look, shaking his head. A lock of golden hair brushed his brow. His rugged chin fit with the relentless cut of his smooth jaw and cheeks. Professional grooming? No doubt.
Too perfect. Sort of like Harry the jeweler, that rotten low-life, cheating bastard. He’d screwed around on her the whole time she’d starved herself thin to drop two dress sizes and struggled with heating irons to straighten her hair.
She’d looked like his image of sexy, a total physical overhaul that never felt right.
No more starving or hair straightening.
All gone back to natural now.
Good thing. Six years ago, she’d stared into the mirror the day after catching Harry in the wrong sister’s bed-Casey’s.
Abbie hadn’t spoken to Casey since then.
She’d made a life-altering decision that morning. The next man she got seriously involved with would have to take her the way God made her, with curly hair and a few extra pounds.
And she’d walk the minute she caught him in a lie.
“What kind of writing do you do?” Hunter asked, reminding her she was supposed to be figuring out where they might have met.
“Nonfiction.” Abbie chewed on the inside of her lip, avoiding any discussion of how they met that might involve bringing up her employment with WCXB. “You do any volunteering with Greenpeace or the animal shelter?”
“No.”
Another strike against this guy. Everyone should donate time to something.
An idea popped up. Her dad had collected antique farm equipment, storing treasures in his barns. She used to hunt for additions to his private museum during her travels. Before he died. “Do you own a farm of some sort?”
“A farm? Like a working farm?”
Why’d Hunter sound so incredulous? Some very influential people had grown up on farms and they were proud of their background. She was proud of hers. “Yes, a real live farm that produces things like crops, livestock, pigs, whatever.”
“Pigs? No.”
His insulted tone underlined how they were lifetimes apart in so many ways, the way they grew up only being one difference.
Keep that foremost in her thoughts to counteract any renegade tingling or stray hormones. She gave up. “You could help. How do you think we met?”
“No idea.” He leaned back. His indolent gaze floated down to hers. “But I did meet you somewhere.”
She couldn’t be expected to figure this out with no reciprocal information. “What do you do?”
“I don’t exactly have a job.” He said that in a slow that-I-exist-should-be-enough voice.
She really hated men who did nothing. Harry thought selling diamonds was hard work.
Where were the real men in this country?
“We could get to know each other again,” he said in a tone more suggestive than his words. “Might jog our memories.”
Now that sounded like a line if she’d ever heard one.
Logic kicked in. Sure, he was hot, but underneath all that window dressing slept another lazy pretty boy who didn’t lift a hand to do serious work and would never get involved with a woman like her. A woman who’d grown up with dirt under her nails and calluses on her hands.
Hunter used a finger to toy with an errant curl dangling above her eye.
All the logic in the world didn’t stop the stampede inside her chest at his touch.
Did he know the effect he was having on her?
Of course he did. He was a man, one with lots of Lydias dying to climb into bed with him.
So why is he flirting with me? Because he considered her an easy target who would be thrilled over his attention?
She was pretty flattered, but not enough to feed an ego with an insatiable appetite.
Hadn’t she learned anything six years ago?
All men were jerks.
Never, ever, forget that.
Within an instant, all playfulness vanished from his posture. His gaze flashed up and past her shoulder, alert, at something behind Abbie. The cheating female?
A rumble of excited voices vibrated the room.
She broke away from Hunter and swung around to find out what had everyone buzzing.
Gwen Wentworth had entered the main ballroom. Finally.
Abbie had played “how did we meet” long enough. The way the crowd was flooding in around Gwen, she doubted Hunter could even see his friend’s fiancée any longer. Gwen would disappear into a gulf of humans in the next minute. Gaining her ear for more than ten seconds would be tough at this point.
Hunter owed Abbie an introduction for allowing him to use her as cover. That whole bit about knowing her had probably been a big fat lie just to keep her talking.
Her conscience argued that she’d had a moment of déjà vu, too, when she’d first seen Hunter outside.
Didn’t matter.
She wasn’t asking for much in return and Gwen would be out of reach quickly. “That’s who I want to meet.”
When she didn’t hear a reply, Abbie swung around.
Hunter was gone.