Five's A Crowd by Kasey Michaels Page A

to know. After all, the woman had ignored her as if she didn’t exist, walking into Holden’s bedroom and draping herself over his arm, telling him he had been a naughty boy to have gone off without telling her where she could find him when she got back from her swimwear shoot in the Virgin Islands.
    Lucky for her, the model had gone on saying, there had been a small item in the New York papers this morning, saying that Woody and Tiffany LeGrand, children of Peter LeGrand, had been seen cavorting on the beaches in Ocean City, New Jersey, of all places.
    “You’d said something to me about Woody spending the summer with you when you turned down my invitation to Rome. So I took a chance and called out to California, and the housekeeper gave me
    this address,” she’d explained as she dragged Holden through the kitchen and down the steps to the upper living room, away from Taylor. “Aren’t you proud of me, Holden? I’m a budding detective! Now, tell me all about your arm. Is it true that you need major surgery on something called your rotator cuff—and that your career may be over?”
    “I guess I hadn’t realized the rumors had gotten so bad, so blown out of proportion,” Taylor said now, pushing her bare toes into the cooling sand, wondering just how long it would take to dig herself a hole deep enough to bury herself in. Or was she the only one who remembered what had almost happened in Holden’s bedroom? Besides, if he dared to try apologizing for having kissed her, she’d have to slug him. It was better to talk about Amanda and the press, and leave the subject of that fairly explosive interlude to die a natural death. “Did you convince Amanda that you don’t need surgery?”
    “I did.”
    She laid her elbows on her bent knees and stared out at the ocean as sea gulls laughed overhead, mocking her nervousness. “And did you tell her you’re just fine, that your career isn’t in jeopardy?”
    “That, too.”
    Why was he talking to her in shorthand—barely getting out more than two words at a time? Something else was wrong. She was sure of it.
    Taylor turned her head, rested her chin against her upper arm and looked at Holden out of the corner of her eye. Oh, yeah. Something else was wrong, all right. That tic was working in his left cheek again.
    “What else did you tell her?” she asked, feeling an apprehensive knot beginning to tighten in her stomach. “I mean, how did you explain me? Explain, um, what we were doing?”
    “Oh, that was simple enough,” he said, still speaking in a monotone and still not looking at her. “I told her we’d just gotten engaged.”

5
    “E XCUSE ME ? I COULDNT have heard that right. You told her what?”
    Holden grinned, having already figured that it wouldn’t take long for Taylor to respond to his last statement. And she hadn’t immediately smacked him one across the face and stomped back to the condo to pack her bags. He had to consider that a plus. “I told her she caught us celebrating our engagement. Don’t look at me like that—it was the only thing I could think of on such short notice. After all, she did find us in a rather, um, compromising position, so I had to protect you.”
    “Rather compromising? Holden, don’t pretty it up on my account. I know what we were doing. We were about to go at each other like crazed rabbits. And you had to protect me? Well, isn’t that so wonderfully old-world of you. Who said chivalry was dead? They certainly haven’t met Holden Masters, have they?”
    She was onto him. Well, he’d always known she wasn’t stupid. “All right, all right,” he confessed quickly, “so I was also thinking of what Amanda might babble to the press about why you’re here. Iadmit it. Amanda is a lot of things—one of them isn’t smart, if you were wondering—but she knows a million people and has a remarkably big mouth. But I was worried about your reputation. That was the first thing I thought of, honest.” He tried for a