Read Online The Baron by Sally Goldenbaum - Free Book Online Page A

dipped way below her knees. Like a fine fabric, the blended, woven lines of her were even more lovely up close.
    “Oh, but the Contessa is here.” Nick fingered a lock of hair that fell over her shoulder.
    Leo Thorne coughed loudly. “Excuse me, you two, but I have business to attend to.” He edged his way to the door.
    “Leo, wait! Isn’t Nick here to see you?”
    “No, my lovely. He and I talked before the board meeting. Oh, and Halley?”
    “Yes?”
    “I promised Nick you’d take him on a tour of the Thorne Estate. He was fascinated by what we’ve done out there.”
    “But, Leo—”
    “I’d do it myself, but I have another meeting, and you do such a good job of showing the old place off, you know.”
    Leo’s swift movement through the door belied his seventy years. Halley watched him silently, her hasty objection left hanging like the last leaf of autumn on a barren branch.
    “Do you mind?” Nick’s rich voice filled the empty room.
    “Well …”
    “We’re not strangers, you know.”
    “But in a way we are, Nick. The weekend was just a game, pretending. I’m someone different. I’m Halley—”
    “Yes, you are. Halley Elizabeth Mary Finnegan.”
    She glanced up at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. “But what’s in a name? Do you know, also, that I’m not really a contessa?”
    “I don’t know that at all.” Nick wrapped an arm around her and steered her out the front door of the bank. “You’re my denim-clad contessa. I think it’s rather nice.”
    “But not chic, Nick. Not chic at all. Or glamorous.” She put her glasses back on and looked up into the deep black eyes. Oh, my, he was handsome! she thought. “I’m a—”
    “Librarian. Leo told me.” His fingers played with the hair at her neck, and he found himself wanting to play with far more. “I’ve never met a librarian before. I mean, person-to-person—”
    Halley laughed and shook her hair free. “We’re a fascinating breed.”
    Her freckles deepened when she laughed, and Nick was enchanted. “I know.”
    “To add a serious touch to this conversation, Mr. Harrington, what the devil are you doing here?”
    Nick held open the door of a Porsche 944, and Halley slipped inside, inhaling the wonderful leathery smell. She could smell Nick, too—his sexy, musky after-shave smelled like those envelope samples from Giorgio’s that passed across her desk at the library.
    Nick was around the car and beside her in seconds. “I told you. I came to see you.”
    Halley looked straight ahead, trying to keep her smile appropriate. To see
her?
Crazy! A man with a III behind his name didn’t pursue someone like Halley Finnegan! She shifted in the seat to look at him, and when she read the seriousness in his eyes, her laughter spilled out. “Oh, Nick …”
    Nick’s smile was confused. “I didn’t know I was so funny.” He started the engine and steered the car into the line of traffic.
    “I’m sorry, Nick. It’s simply a surprise. I didn’t really expect to see you again.”
    “Are you disappointed?”
    She shook her head and pointed directions toward the tiny pocket of the town that housed the neighborhood known as the Hill. “Of course not.”
    “Good—although I would have come, anyway.” His hand moved over and rested on her thigh.
    Halley continued to give directions, ignoring the searing heat that lit her up like a Christmas tree. She prayed he wouldn’t notice. Lord, he’d think she was some sex-starved juvenile and not a twenty-seven-year-old woman who simply reacted very strongly to his touch. Like food or smells or music—some turned you on, some didn’t. It certainly wasn’t personal.
    “The Thorne Estate is on Jackson Avenue at the top of the Hill.”
    “I know. We went there once when we were kids and the Thornes still lived there. A Christmas party, I think, with the biggest Christmas tree I’d ever seen in my life.”
    “I remember when the Thornes used to do that,” Halley said