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thought she’d willingly go into any man’s arms except his. “He saved me from another bruise.” To punctuate her statement, she bent forward to retrieve the shawl from where it had dropped when Soren rescued her.

    “Well, at least it wasn’t Trey trying to play hero,” Augie sneered. “Father isn’t in any shape to physically pick up a woman. He can only do it with money.”
    “Money always seems to loom large to those who have none.” Trey stood and shot his French cuffs from under his linen blazer as he glared at his son. “Perhaps that’s Fourth’s problem. I can see,” he said, turning to Rowena, “that it’s impossible to continue our discussion with so many interruptions.” He took the older woman’s hand and lifted it to his mouth. “Come walk me to the front door.”
    “It will be my pleasure,” Rowena said. “And you, my strong, handsome Augie,” she turned her smile on the young man, “I would be much obliged if you would help me bring down a cumbersome package from the attic.”
    Augie reluctantly pulled his glare away from Crystal and Soren and allowed himself to be nudged toward the pocket doors, carefully avoiding any contact with his father.
    “And as for you, my dear, remember, a D’Angelo always honors a commitment.” She gave Crystal one of her imperious stares. “I suggest you and Mr. Thorvald stay in the study and work out the details of your agreement. In fact,” she pushed down a lever as she slid the doors closed, “I’m locking you in until you do.”
    When the doors met, the lock mechanism clicked loudly. Retreating footsteps, muffled by the oriental runner on the parquet floor, faded into silence.
    Crystal barely held back the smile that threatened to twitch the corners of her mouth. She knew, although Soren probably didn’t, that the door couldn’t be unlocked from the hallway, but only from inside the study. Grandma had truly given them privacy.
    The thought sent her pulse racing. She reached for the talisman at her throat. The crystal now lay silent and inert in her hand, as if in tacit approval.
    They stood no more than two feet apart. Crystal had the strongest urge to reach out to him, to run her fingers through his wavy blond hair. Hers. This man was hers. Did he know it too?
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “I’m sorry I—”
    They had spoken simultaneously. Crystal thought he looked as hesitant as she herself felt.
    “Ladies first.”
    She cleared her throat. “You’re really not a brute. And…and you’re not uncouth, or any of the other horrible things I said. I was just…I mean, when I saw that front-page photo, it made me pretty upset.
    The paper could have been merciful and said ‘unknown woman’. But to see my name in the caption and have it linked to that huge derrière, well, I never realized my butt was so big, and the—”
    Soren raised his hand in a stop-sign gesture. “Your butt isn’t big. It’s—” he cut himself off before he could say It’s perfect the way it is — “It’s not big,” he repeated. God, how lame was that?
    “Oh, heck.” Crystal waved a hand in the air. “I don’t really care how big my butt is. It all has to do with camera angle, anyway. What I do care about is the image created by that photo. Poor Grandma. She’s always tried to remind me of the decorum expected of, well, the upper class, and I came across looking like an exhibitionist on one of those tell-all, bare-all television shows.”
    Soren tried to keep his thoughts pure. He really did. But having seen Springer when his patrons clamored for it on the bar’s big-screen TV, his long-dormant imagination had Crystal ripping her sweater over her head and baring her lush breasts to an audience before launching herself at the “other woman”
    with claws unsheathed, and him being one of the bouncers keeping the combatants apart, having to put his hands on her soft skin to hold her back and maybe, just maybe, copping a surreptitious feel…
    Jesus. He