"Are you sorry?"

She smiled slowly. "Are you kidding? As I recall, this was pretty much my idea. I had to work very hard to seduce you. I should be asking you if you're sorry?"

"No."

"Right answer. Otherwise, I might have had to do you a grave bodily injury."

His brows shot up. "Really?"

Before he could stop her, she made a grab for his ear and gave it a quick, hard twist.

"Ouch."

"That's just a sample. I can do much worse."

He grinned at her, but when she started to roll off of him, he held her in place. "You said you pictured yourself in this chair? Do you want to run Metropolitan?"

"No. I want to be a features editor like Esme Sinclair. I've admired her for the longest time, ever since I first wanted to write for magazines. She even visited my college once and spoke to all the journalism majors. She was sitting behind this desk when I first met with her."

"She must have moved in here while my father was sick." He glanced at the chair. "It's funny that you and I have both wanted to sit in that particular chair. Maybe we have more in common than we think."

"You never sit in it," Chelsea said.

"Of course, I do."

"I've never seen you. You're always sitting on the edge of the desk or over at the conference table. Or you're walking around talking on the phone."

She was right. He did avoid actually sitting in the chair. "I made my mother cry the last time I sat in it." Where had that come from, he wondered the moment that he'd spoken the words aloud. He never talked about his mother. Not to anyone.

"How did you make her cry?" Chelsea asked.

Perhaps it was the way she looked at him, but Zach found himself telling her what had happened that day when he was five and he'd made the mistake of using his father's pen.

"You didn't make her cry. Your father did when he yelled at you for something that wasn't your fault," Chelsea said in a very matter-of-fact tone when he'd finished. Then very slowly, she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him.

It was different. There was a sweetness in the kiss that he hadn't felt before.

She was the one who drew back first. "C'mon. I have an idea."

Before he could stop her, she had rolled off of him and had risen to her feet. Then reaching down, she grabbed his hand and tugged. "It's supposed to help to erase a bad memory if you replace it with a good one. Have you ever made love in a chair?

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm absolutely serious. Have you?"

"I'm going to take the fifth on that one."

"Oh. That means yes, right?"

"Chelsea," he began.

"It's good that one of us has some expertise here because I've never-" She stopped short to frown at the chair, tilting her head to one side. "I suppose that there are various positions we could take?"

"Several come to mind. Let me get this straight. You want me to make love to you in that chair?"

"By George, I think you've got it!"

"Yeah, it takes me a while sometimes." When she took his arms to push him into the chair, he scooped her up by the waist and carried her with him. Once seated, he gripped her hips and positioned her so that she was straddling him.

"Oh," she said again as he pushed himself into her. "Ohhh."

"Is this what you had in mind?"

"Mmmm, even better. Once you get it, you're really quite good."

"Chels." He was chuckling as he drew her face close so that he could nip her ear. "If you continue to make me laugh, you may not get the results you're looking for."

"Then I'll get serious," she murmured as she took his mouth with hers.

She got very serious. And so did he.

"THAT'S ABOUT IT, Romano," Zach said, then turned to Chelsea. "Unless you have anything to add?"

Chelsea shook her head. Sam Romano the security consultant Zach had hired was seated across the conference table from her. The lean, dark-haired man wore a well-tailored suit and had been taking copious notes since he'd arrived. And Chelsea was trying to put her finger on the reason she sensed a certain tension between the two men.

Maybe it was because they were so much alike-both tall and dark and strikingly handsome. Each had charm to burn, although Sam Romano's particular brand was much more overt-from the laugh that seemed to be perpetually present in his dark brown eyes to his easy tone and engaging grin. Chelsea had a hunch that all of his clients must trust him and if they were female they probably fell a little bit in love with him right from that first handshake.

"What I need from your firm is a bodyguard for Chelsea," Zach said.

Sam stopped writing for a moment and glanced up from his notebook. "I agree. I'll be on the job first thing in the morning."

"You?" Zach asked, then frowned. "I was a.s.suming that your firm had people who specialized in providing personal protection. You don't look like a bodyguard."

Sam grinned at him. "That's why I make a good one. Before I went to work for Sterling Security, I worked as a private investigator in my cousin's firm. When there's a job that calls for street experience, Sterling usually turns it over to me."

Zach's frown didn't fade as he studied Sam for a moment. Then he reached over to cover Chelsea's hand with his. "As long as you understand that Ms. Brockway's welfare is very important to me. She'll be staying with me at my apartment until this matter concerning her safety is resolved. Do we understand each other?"

Zach was staking out a claim, Chelsea realized. No wonder she'd sensed tension between the two men. Before she could sort out the feelings moving through her-pleasure, annoyance-Sam nodded. "I understand you perfectly. Between us, I think we can watch over Ms. Brockway. The problem is that she might not be the only one in danger."

"What do you mean?" Zach asked.

Sam flipped through his notes. "The car you mentioned-the one that nearly ran you down near Rockefeller Center. It would have hit you both, right? And you received a threatening note this morning reminding you of it. This person may have a grudge against you and Ms. Brockway could just be an innocent bystander."

Trying to ignore the quick spurt of fear shooting through her, Chelsea laced her fingers with Zach's. "Sam's right. You need a bodyguard, too."

"Maybe not." Zach met Sam's eyes squarely. "I'm going to tell you something that I didn't tell the police. I think it might have been my brother who's sending the notes. He might be behind the phone calls, too. He wants me to resign from my job here at the magazine. But I'm not in any personal danger. I don't believe he'd hurt Chelsea either. He'd only want to scare her."

"Unless he was behind the wheel of that car," Sam said. "But let's suppose, for the moment, that it's not your brother. As I understand it, you've just stepped in as editor of Metropolitan and you intend to make a lot of changes. Some people might resent that and want to see you fail."

"Yes, I suppose so." Pausing, Zach frowned. "But if it's someone here at the magazine who has something against me, why would they take it out on Ms. Brockway? I don't see the connection."

Sam leaned forward. "You've signed her to a contract. If her articles do well for the magazine, that would be a feather in your cap. Right?"

Zach nodded. "I suppose."

"Who here at the magazine would like to see you fail?" Sam asked.

"Bill Anderson and Hal Davidson would head the list," Zach said. "Then you can add the rest of my editorial staff."

Sam flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "Tell me about them."

By the time Zach had finished, Sam was frowning thoughtfully. "I'll have them checked out. The fact that Christmas is just days away will slow the process down a little."

"You got any hunches?" Zach asked.

Sam shook his head. "It's too soon. It could be that we've got two different things going on here. On the one hand, there are some people who are very, shall we say, disgruntled about your new position as editor of Metropolitan. Some even want you to step down. Then there are others who are upset about the kind of articles that Ms. Brockway is writing for the magazine so they want to put a stop to that."

"You're saying there might be more than one person behind all this?" Chelsea asked.

"Bingo," Sam said. "Or it could be just one person-say your ex-boyfriend. If he's the kind of looney tune that Detective Perez had in mind." He shifted his gaze to Zach. "I'll check him out. And your brother, too."

Zach's gaze narrowed. "You think both of them could be involved?"

"What I think is that we've got some puzzle pieces. We won't know how they all fit together until we get some more. In the meantime, I think that both of you need protection." He flipped to a new page in his notebook. "It's the weekend so it would help if you could provide me with an itinerary of your plans for the next two days."

"Tomorrow, I'm going to the MOMA, the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and then-"

"You're going to have to change your plans," Zach said turning to Sam. "Tell her it's too dangerous."

Sam's grin flashed quick and easy as he held up both hands, palms out. "I have this rule not to get involved in domestic disputes. It dates back to my P.I. days."

Chelsea wanted to hug him, but she stifled the impulse and smiled at him instead. "Thank you very much, Sam." She turned to Zach. "You're determined to print the articles. That means I have to write them. The sooner I do, the sooner this will be over."

She was right. He turned to Sam. "Can you protect her?"

"I have a pair of skates I haven't used in a few years," Sam said. "I used to be fairly competent on the ice. If someone is after one or the both of you, we're not going to lure them out if you hole up for the weekend."

"I'll be coming along, too," Zach said.

"Great," Sam said, his grin widening. "That'll make it real simple to protect you."

"YOU CAN'T SKATE with me," Chelsea said.

Not bothering to glance up, Zach jerked at a knot in the laces of his skate. "We settled this in the taxi. You're not going out on that ice alone."

As far as Chelsea was concerned, the only thing that had been settled in the taxi was that Sam had lost the coin toss deciding who was going to go out on the ice with her. The rest of the ride had been taken up with arguing. But the arguing was better than the wall of silence that Zach had built between them since they'd made love.

When they'd reached his apartment last night, it was as if he'd forgotten that they'd made love together. He'd escorted her politely to one of the guestrooms and told her that they both needed to sleep.

His control was back in place. He'd probably spent the night listing all the pluses and minuses of making love with her again. The minuses clearly had won. They always did when it came to the men in her life.

Fine. She took a deep breath. She would just stick to her own agenda. The focus of her second article was to see how the skirt worked at various New York landmarks. She was ahead of schedule thanks to the fact that they'd been asked to leave the Museum of Modern Art.

From the bench they were sitting on, she could see that the rink was already crowded with a variety of skaters, from children to older couples, from obvious beginners to a young man who was just coming out of a professional-looking spin. There were definitely some men skating without partners. That was a good sign.

The question was: would the skirt have some effect on them?

Beside her, Zach muttered under his breath as one of his laces broke.

Perhaps the bigger question was: would the man sitting next to her let her put the skirt to a test without interfering again?

Leaning closer to Zach, she said, "I think we need to set up some ground rules here. When you come out on the ice with me, you have to keep your distance and give the skirt a chance to work. No one will come near me if you start lurking too close like you did at the MOMA."

"My lurking saved you from being a.s.saulted by a dirty old man."

Her brows shot up. "Funny how the security guard thought that you were the one hara.s.sing me. You were the one he asked to leave the museum."

"Yeah, well, he was conveniently looking the other way when that old man started to paw you. All he saw was my reaction."

"You grabbed a helpless old man and pinned him against the wall!"

When Zach straightened from tying his skate, Chelsea became suddenly aware of how close they were-nearly mouth to mouth.

"Chels, come back to the apartment with me."

She could feel the heat of his breath on her lips. The cool reserve that had been in his eyes since they'd left the office last night had vanished. In its place was something hot, dark and reckless. It had her heart fluttering like the snowflakes that had begun to tumble from the sky.

When his hand moved to rest along the side of her throat, she felt her pulse skip, then quicken. She wanted him. It was just that quick, that simple, that elemental.

"Chels-"

There was a part of her that wanted very much to forget what they'd come here to do and go back to Zach's apartment. She was even willing to forget the way that he'd pushed her away.

"What do you say? We could go back and spend the rest of the day-"

He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. Her whole brain began to fog as he described exactly what they could do for the rest of the day. In some part of her mind, she was aware of sounds-someone clearing their throat, a s.n.a.t.c.h of music escaping briefly from someone's headphones. But she was totally lost in the images that Zach was creating. They were so tempting and it would be so easy... She had to say something, anything, or her body was just going to get up and go with him.

"Excuse me. I was wondering if..."

Zach didn't release Chelsea as he turned. "What do you want?"

The woman, a frazzled looking brunette flanked by two little girls, took a quick step back at Zach's tone. "I wanted to use the bench. My daughters and I need to put on our skates. I thought because your skates are on, we could..."

"Of course you can use the bench," Chelsea said, and the moment that Zach loosened his grip, she stood up.

Zach pulled her back down. "It'll just take us a moment to get out of our skates."

"Get out of our-" Chelsea felt the sensual fog she'd been trapped in finally lift. "No, we can't go yet. I have to skate." She stilled his hands on the laces. Though their faces were close, she didn't look at him. If she did, all her newfound resolve would waver. "We decided all this last night with Sam and again just now in the taxi. I need this research to finish the articles. The sooner I do, the safer we both will be."