Chris felt the fine line of civility snap. She made a swift, angry gesture with her hand. “A lark?” she shouted. “You moved into my house on a lark? You seduced me on a lark?”

“I didn’t seduce you. Women only get seduced in historical romances. What we had was mutual lust.”

He was right, but, dammit, she didn’t like hearing it. Lust. It was such a narrow emotion, and what she felt for him was so beautiful and complicated. But she couldn’t deny it. In the beginning there had been a lot of lust going on. She shook her head. “Who cares what you call it, anyway. You’re starting a battle over semantics to avoid the issue. You took advantage of me and my aunt. These three weeks have just been a diversion for you. Three weeks of lies and a phony engagement just to amuse yourself because you’re tired of being Hatchetman.”

“The business about me being tired of Hatchetman might be true, but there’s nothing phony about our engagement. I love you. There’s nothing phony about that, either.”

“Unfortunately, I love Ken Callahan. I don’t even know Kenneth Knight.”

“They’re the same person, Chris. They just dress differently.”

“Are you kidding? Look at this house! What sort of a person would live in this house? Lord Fairfax couldn’t have handled this much grandeur.”

“I hate this house.”

“You bought it. You must have liked something about it.”

There was a moment of strained silence before a mischievous twinkle appeared in his eyes, and an embarrassed grin spread across his mouth. “I guess I had an image of myself lounging about in bucolic majesty.”

Chris was caught short by the sudden change in tone. The tension in her eased a little and she giggled. He really did have a way with words. “Bucolic majesty,” she repeated. “I like that.”

His smile was stiff. He looked at the red brick monster that dominated the hillock. “A little pretentious, huh?”

“Everything is relative. Louis XIV would have thought this was modest.”

“We could gut it and make it an ice rink.”

“Yeah. It’d have about the same seating capacity as the Capital Center.”

The two of them burst into gales of laughter, relieved that they could still find humor in a crumbling world. Chris finally wiped her eyes and sank down in her seat. “My sides hurt.” She gasped for breath.

“You’re lucky. It’s my heart that’s breaking,” he whispered. “I love you.”

Chris blinked against an annoying mist in her eyes. She didn’t feel up to a discussion about love. She had achieved her goal. She had forced him to tell her the truth, and now she wanted to go home. She wanted to be alone to lick her wounds and restore some order-some peace to her life. She bowed her head and studied her skirt with unseeing eyes. She had expected to feel hurt and anger and resentment, but she only felt sad. She had anticipated this confrontation for days-had lived through it in minute detail every waking hour since she’d seen the magazine, and now she was incapable of real communication. She had rehearsed speeches, but she couldn’t remember any of them.

Ken draped his arm over the wheel. He gently touched her cheek with his thumb, wiping away an errant tear. “Why did you ask me to bring you here?”

“To force your hand. To help myself decide what to do about this ring.”

He kept the tone of his voice light. “Got cold feet?”

She nodded. Tears choked her throat, and she swallowed them down. “Could you take me home now?”

Chris glared across the room at Ken Callahan Knight. “You’re being unreasonable.”

Ken lounged against the dining room wall and watched the two women working in the kitchen. “I don’t consider it unreasonable. I’ve paid my rent through December, and I’m not leaving.”

Chris slammed the freezer door and marched over to the stove with a box of frozen corn. She wanted him out of her house. His presence was like a drug, robbing her of her ability to make an intelligent decision. And Lucy was becoming more attached to him with each passing day. “You took the ring back. Why won’t you move out?”

“I didn’t take the ring back. It’s sitting in a coffee cup on top of the toaster because you refuse to wear it. And I’m not leaving because I like it here.”

She ripped the box of corn open with a vengeance and thunked it into a pot of boiling water. Already he was behaving like Kenneth Knight. Unreasonable, unbending, unflappable tycoon. Just look at him standing there so outrageously handsome and infuriatingly relaxed. Damn. How can he be so cool when I’m in such a turmoil? He almost looks…amused! She slammed the lid on the pot filled with corn. “Aunt Edna, tell him to leave.”

Edna studied the gravy she was making as if it were incredibly fascinating…almost spellbinding. “Well, he did pay his rent.”

“Aunt Edna, you’re siding with him. How could you?”

“I’m not siding with anyone. I’m just being fair.”

“All right. I’ll give you your rent money back.”

Edna cleared her throat. “That could be tough. I don’t think we have it, what with paying bills and buying Christmas presents…and I already ordered our Christmas turkey.”

Chris and Ken exchanged horrified stares at the mention of a Christmas turkey.

“I don’t know why you don’t want him around, anyway. I like him.” Edna waved the gravy spoon at Ken. “What did you do today to screw things up? Everything looked hunky-dory until you took her out to see that house of yours this morning.” She turned on Chris. “What’s wrong with his house? Why did you give his ring back?”

Chris didn’t know what to say. She didn’t exactly know what was wrong with his house or why she’d given the ring back. She just felt uneasy. She didn’t want another marriage that lasted six weeks. She wanted a marriage that lasted forever, and the brooding executive on the cover of Newsweek didn’t seem like the home-and-hearth type. And the fact that she’d started out as a lark to him still rankled in her mind. Despite all his assurances, she wasn’t sure that the lark had ended. Chris carried the mashed potatoes to the table. “His house was fine, Aunt Edna. I just need a little time to make sure I’m doing the right thing, and I thought I could make the decision better if he wasn’t living here.”

Ken lit the green Christmas candles on the table. “You spent three weeks living with Ken Callahan. I think you should give Ken Knight equal time.”

Edna stood in the doorway, hands on hips. “Who’s Ken Knight? This isn’t anything kinky, is it?”

Sunday morning Chris was drawn to the kitchen by the tantalizing aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Edna stood at the counter, rolling out a pie crust. She was in flour up to her elbows and humming happily. Chris looked cautiously around before reaching for the coffee pot.

“If you’re looking for Ken,” Edna grunted as she rolled, “he’s already gone.”

A rush of emotion that smacked of disappointment passed through Chris’ stomach. “Gone?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back. He said he had some things to take care of in Middleburg.” Edna looked at Chris. “You don’t really want him to move out, do you?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

Edna returned to her pie. “What a ninny.”

Chris spent the day puttering around the house. She went to the regional library with Lucy and took her to the playground down the street. At four o’clock, they went out to the shopping center and had their pictures taken with Santa Claus. Ken still hadn’t returned home by suppertime so the three women of the house decided to make sandwiches and eat them in front of the fireplace and television downstairs before retiring to bed. It wasn’t until eleven-thirty that Chris heard the key click in the front door and knew Ken had returned home.

She looked at her naked ring finger and felt a sweep of sadness for the beautiful diamond, all alone in the coffee cup in the kitchen. Maybe Edna was right. Maybe she was being a ninny. She went to the bedroom window and pulled the curtains aside, looking for the reassurance of the blue truck parked at the curb. “Oh, peas and carrots,” she whispered. There was no blue truck. In its place sat a sleek, gleaming black Mercedes sports car. “Kenneth Knight,” she said. “That sucker belongs to Kenneth Knight.”