Excerpt of Then He Kissed Me by Christie Ridgway

“So who’s the other guy?” Stevie’s friend Mari asked, as she
slid into the passenger seat of the waiting limousine.

“Uh . . . other guy?”

“Tall, dark, and dashing?” her friend qualified. “Don’t tell
me you didn’t notice.”

She’d noticed. From the moment he’d stepped out of the
resort. But tall, dark, and dashing didn’t make up for rich,
self-important, and rude. “He’s haughty.”

“I’ll say,” Mari agreed. “My sister gave me a
Hottie-of-the-Month calendar for Christmas and I bet he’s in
there.”

Stevie frowned. “Haughty, not hottie.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Just tell me his name,” Mari urged. “I’ll find out his
phone number myself.”

Another frown dug between Stevie’s brows. Her friend had a
headful of blond spiral curls and a black book that rivaled
any Hollywood bachelor’s. But it was Stevie who had spied
tall, dark, and dashing first, and didn’t that give her . . .

No. Hottie, true. But the haughty got him permanently
expunged from her own Bachelor Book, if she’d actually had
one. And not to forget, there was that very recent New
Year’s resolution she’d just made. Men are off-limits.

“I think he’s with the princess,” Stevie said to her friend.
When she’d told her clients they had to get moving or miss
their tasting appointments, he’d climbed into the back with
Emerson and his fiancée. “His name’s Jack.”

Mari gasped. “Jack! Of course! ‘Jack’ is Prince Jacques
Christian Wilhelm Parini. I read about him in one of those
magazines at the hairdresser’s—you know, the pulpy ones with
paparazzi pics of movie premieres and Euro trash boogeying
down in flashy discotheques. He’s some kind of notorious
playboy and the princess bride’s big brother.”

That made sense. He struck Stevie as a royal pain-in-the-ass
because he was a royal pain-in-the-ass. She loved being right.

Though she should have made the Jacques-Jack connection on
her own. Blame it on her ex anxiety. She knew of the man,
not from a magazine, but because he was college friends with
the Bennett brothers, neighbors since birth and
not-so-silent partners in the Tanti Baci winery. Liam and
Seth, she recalled, knew Jack through the UC Davis
Viticulture & Enology program and had mentioned during
one of their regular poker nights that their old buddy was
coming for a visit.

“It’s a small world of wines,” Stevie murmured.

“Yeah, and—” Mari’s curls swung in an arc as her attention
shifted to the side window. “Ooops, gotta go. My peeps are
ready to move. Happy New Year!”

She was gone in a blast of chilled air, leaving Stevie alone
once again in the driver’s seat. Mari wasn’t soothing
company, but she missed her anyway, because now there was
nothing else to think about besides that little threat she
been putting off contemplating.

Your sister promised that it’s you who’ll handle each and every fine point of the upcoming Parini-Platt nuptials.

Closing her eyes, she groaned. Had Giuliana really made that
guarantee? Could she actually expect Stevie to honor it?

The passenger door clicked open a second time. Stevie, eyes
still shut, blessed her buddy and the distraction she’d
prove to be. “Mari. Thank God, you’re back. I—”

Her throat closed as heat prickles took another dash across
her flesh and that weird hyperawareness she’d experienced at
the resort tightened her belly. Opening her eyes, she saw a
long male body fold onto the seat beside her. “Jack,” she said.

He smiled at her, the wattage bright enough to bring up the
temperature in the front seat.

“You remember my name.”

And his scent. It reached her again, subtle and smooth, a
top-shelf cologne, one ounce likely costing more than her
new boots—and probably her monthly rental check as well.

“What are you doing here? You belong there,” she said,
jerking her thumb toward the winery.

“I belong wherever I want to belong,” he answered, smiling
that easy smile he had as his body slid nearer to hers on
the bench seat. “Just like I do whatever I want to do.”

Stevie crowded close to the driver’s door. It didn’t stop
his left thigh from grazing her right, his knee from bumping
hers. One long finger reached out to adjust the heater that
she’d left running.

Forcing her gaze off his lean hand, she narrowed her eyes at
him. “And what you want to do is . . . ?”

Her suspicious tone didn’t appear to offend. He relaxed against the leather seat, sliding an arm across its back, obviously comfortable in his own privileged skin. His charming smile deepened. “Nothing for you to worry about. I only thought we might take these few minutes to get better acquainted, ma belle fille.”

Not for a winter’s worth of bookings would she let him know
that just for a second—a nanosecond—she found the soft
foreign phrase as disarming as he most certainly intended.
Even as her insides recovered from their quick melt, she
made her expression blank and raised both brows in inquiry,
all tomboy bumpkin.

His smile was rueful, his shrug European. “What can I say? I
know five languages and how to compliment a beautiful woman
in each and every one.”

Wide-eyed, she pretended to appear impressed. “Wow.” Then
she dropped the innocent act. “And to think I only know how
to say screw you in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.”

He blinked, then laughed.

“Oh, and in English it’s fu—”

Leaning forward, he clamped his palm over her mouth. At the
contact, they both froze and the smile on his face died. Her
lips tingled, her skin burned, another shot of adrenaline
punched into her bloodstream. Fight or flight.

Uncertain which order to follow, her body twitched.

His hand dropped.

They stared at each other.

Refine that New Year’s resolution, Stevie thought, despising her breathlessness. Stay away from this man.