Body Language by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online

again and went off in different directions.
    McCade pushed his way through the crowd, following Sandy into the conference room where Harcourt was slated to give his speech. But there was no time to talk. She was kept busy right up until the candidate began talking, and then McCade had his job to do. It wasn’t until his camera was packed and in one of the equipment vans that he could focus on Sandy.
    She was standing by the main door, talking to James and her assistant, Frank. Frank left with a cheery wave, and as McCade watched, Sandy got even more tense. After about thirty more seconds James disappeared.
    “Hey.” McCade came up behind her. “The band’s starting to play in the ballroom. What do you say we take a spin around the floor?”
    “Since when do you know how to dance?” Sandy raised one eyebrow. “It’s not something you can pick up simply from watching Fred Astaire movies.”
    “My mother taught me,” he admitted.
    She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
    “She told me good looks weren’t everything. She said there were three things a man needed to learn in life in order to succeed. One was ballroom dancing.”
    He pulled her hand into the crook of his arm and led her back toward the ballroom.
    “What were the other two?” she asked.
    “Research,” McCade told her. “She said memorizing the answers to a test didn’t make a man smart—it made him a parrot. But a man who knew how to do research had the answers to virtually any question at his fingertips.”
    A twenty-piece swing band was playing in one corner of the room. McCade tugged Sandy gently toward the dance floor.
    “You might know how to dance, but
I
don’t.”
    “Just follow me,” he said. “How’d it go with Vandenberg?”
    “He makes me really nervous,” Sandy admitted.
    “So I noticed.”
    “I made a joke, and I don’t think he got it. I wish…”
    “What?” McCade looked down into her eyes. Heaven was that shade of blue, so soothing and pure.
    But she shook her head. “How
do
you tell the difference between love and lust?” she asked instead.
    He laughed in surprise. “You’re asking the wrong man. My experiences with love are extremely limited.”
    Sandy smiled up at him. “Come on, McCade. I’ve known you for fifteen years, and you’ve been in love at
least
twenty different times—”
    “It wasn’t ever real,” he told her. “I’ve really been in love just once.”
    “So there
are
differences. Tell me what they are.”
    He shook his head. “Kirk—”
    “Please. You’re the only person in the world I can talk to about this.”
    He was silent, just looking down at her as they danced.
    “Did you know it was love before or after you slept with her?” Sandy asked.
    McCade shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Sandy—”
    “
McCade.
” She imitated him.
    “Before,” he told her. “I knew before.”
    “You’re positive?”
    “Very,” McCade said.
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Because I never made love to her.”
    McCade could see surprise in her eyes. “You’re kidding.”
    “Can’t we talk about something else?” he said a little desperately. “Have you seen Spike Lee’s latest movie yet?”
    “How could
you
be in love with someone and not—”
    “Look, it takes two to tango, Kirk.” McCade smiled grimly. “All right? Now, can we drop this?”
    Sandy studied his handsome face. His arms felt so solid around her, and he was holding her close enough so that their thighs brushed as he moved. They fit together perfectly, just as he had said they would—Wait. He’d been talking about Sandy and
James,
not Sandy and himself.
    She closed her eyes, imagining a world where Clint McCade saw her as a woman, not just a friend. He would hold her even closer, and she would melt against him, and…“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it. There’s no woman on earth who would refuse
you.
”
    McCade just laughed.

FOUR
    S ANDY THREW HER keys onto the coffee table, and herself onto the