“It’s not one now.”

“I have to be realistic. As much as I want this…” She kissed him lightly, her hand drifting down his shoulder, and it was all he could do to stand there and listen to her. She drew back slightly. “I know it won’t last.”

“Because it didn’t last time?”

“You went into it last time wanting a weeklong diversion. I went into it…” She breathed, maintaining her calm. “I went into it not knowing what I wanted. Now, I’m not so inexperienced. I know myself better. And I know you.”

He eased his fingers into her hair, caressed the back of her neck, where she was warm and not so tense. “Maybe we’re here now because what we had ten years ago did last.”

His mouth found hers again, and their bodies melded, nothing held back as they tasted, touched, rekindled a desire like no other he’d ever known. It boiled through him like a hot river, and he knew at some point, soon, it would rage out of control, break down all his dams of resistance. Then where would they be? In the past again. Succumbing to instinct and desire instead of using their heads. Even as his palms skimmed over her soft breasts, as he explored her mouth, he knew he would have to exercise self-discipline now if he didn’t want to lose her forever. Physically, she was ready. Emotionally, she didn’t trust him. More important, she didn’t trust herself to trust him.

Slowly, with a control he’d lacked ten years ago, he slid her back down onto her chair and stood back from her. Boiling still. Not simmering. Not even close to simmering. “I know a nice, quiet Cuban restaurant a few blocks from here. Inexpensive. Good food. It’s not much on atmosphere, but if we stay here…” He smiled, shrugged. “I’m afraid my picture’ll go back up on your dartboard.”

She licked her lips, adjusted her shirt, cleared her throat. It was no use, and he suspected she knew it. Nothing she did could make him forget her response to their kiss, her body pressing wildly against his. “That sounds fine. And I don’t suppose you need Bennie and Albert and Sal to start thinking we’re going out together, which we’re not.”

“No. Absolutely not. I only kiss women I have no interest in going out with.”

“That was-” She searched for the right word. “-inevitable.”

“Inevitable?”

“We’ve had to get it out of our systems once and for all.” Her eyes fastened on him, as if she needed to make herself take a good, hard look at him. “So we’d know there are no sparks left.”

“No sparks.”

“Jeremiah, if you keep repeating everything I say like I’m not making any sense…”

“Sorry, sweet pea, but you’re not. You know as well as I do that if we don’t get the hell out of here within the next ten minutes, we’re going to end up in the sack together. Then we’ll see about sparks and what’s really inevitable.”

His frankness had her swallowing, and, he could tell, swallowing hard. Which only meant he was dead on.

“I love being right.” He scooped up the lemonade glasses, set them on the tray, and started for the kitchen. “However, I shouldn’t have said that. I lured you into something you didn’t want ten years ago-”

“No, you didn’t. It’s what I wanted to believe, but you didn’t. I knew what I was getting into when I went to dinner with you that first time. Jeremiah, I’m just as responsible for what happened between us then as you are. Yes, I was confused and twenty, but I wasn’t stupid. I understood very clearly what kind of man you are.”

He grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “What kind of man I am? Mollie, Mollie. I’m a nice Florida boy out of the Everglades who investigates crime and corruption for a living.”

“It’s more than a living for you.” She rose, her legs looking remarkably steady under her. Jeremiah’s own felt like Gumby’s on a bad day. The run, the self-restraint. Mollie tilted her chin up at him, dignified, pushing back any urge to delve into personal matters. “I didn’t come here to discuss our relationship. I want you to warn this Croc character that if I catch him tailing me again, I’ll phone the police.”

Jeremiah set the tray on the kitchen table. “The message has already been delivered.”

“Why don’t you suspect him of being the jewel thief?”

“Who says I don’t?”

She inhaled sharply, rigid, not moving, an unsteady mix of outrage and heat in her eyes, her mouth. Sparks. Definite sparks. It was like holding a magnifying glass over a dried leaf and waiting for it to burst into flames. He figured he had less than five minutes to get her out the door. She fisted one hand and pushed it into his chest, not hitting him so much as holding him in place.

“Jeremiah, I have a right to know everything you know about this story. You’re not compromising your ethics. It’s not as if you’re going to write it.”

“Mollie. Let’s go eat. We’ll talk.”

His calm seemed only to inflame her further. “I don’t think this thief is about you-or even me.”

“Mollie.”

“We must be missing something-some clue-”

“Mollie.”

She paused, frowned. “What?”

“Our ten minutes are almost up.”

The restaurant was small, simple, and within easy walking distance of Jeremiah’s building. The good, inexpensive Cuban food reminded her of the lunches and dinners they’d had together ten years ago. Their waiter brought her cup of black bean soup, and Mollie, feeling more in control of herself, spooned into it as she cast Jeremiah a dubious look. “You were bluffing. You wouldn’t really have dragged me off to bed.”

He smiled, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, reminding her he was no longer twenty-six. “I don’t think I’d have had to do any dragging.”

“It’s because of our past.” She tried her soup, which was thick and spicy and steaming hot. She was being pragmatic. With Jeremiah Tabak, pragmatism was the only sensible approach. “If we hadn’t already slept together, you wouldn’t be tempted.”

An eyebrow quirked. He’d ordered a margarita, no soup. “Mollie, that’s the most twisted logic-”

“No, it makes perfect sense. One, I’m not your type. I’m a publicist. You’re a hard-news journalist. I live and work in Palm Beach. You work for a tough, urban newspaper, and you live with Bennie and Albert and Sal.”

“I don’t live with them. We simply share the same building.”

“Because you don’t care where you live. It’s immaterial. Jeremiah, I grew up with people like you.”

“Are you comparing me to your parents?” He laughed, giving a mock shudder. “I need another margarita.”

“You’ve never even met my parents.”

“They’re violinists. Flakes.”

“The point is,” she said, refusing to be distracted, “that you and I have and want different things out of life. I listened to Carmina Burana on the way down here. I looked at your CD collection while you were in the shower. Rock, blues, jazz. All stuff I like, but no classical, which I love, which I used to live.”

He frowned. “How can you live classical music?”

She threw up her hands. “There. I rest my case.”

“Mollie, you have no case.”

“I do. The reason you and I would have ended up in bed together is because of some kind of hormonal memory or something. Probably some chemical. A throwback to our week together. You know, it was so fast and furious that-” No, best not to go down that road. She grabbed the pepper shaker. “I’m sure it’s chemical.”

“Right.”

She felt warm and tried to blame the soup. “Well, that was the first reason why we wouldn’t have ended up in bed if we already hadn’t. The second reason is business. You’re more experienced than you were ten years ago. You wouldn’t sleep with me now because it’s too risky. It’d look bad. You’ve a reputation to maintain.”

“Mollie.” He leaned across the table, the candlelight bringing out even more colors in his eyes. A fiery yellow, a gleam of black. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about my precious reputation. I do what I do because I think it’s right. Ten years ago, I thought it was right to sleep with you. Twenty minutes ago, I didn’t. Twenty hours from now…” He shrugged. “Who knows?”