Sweetwater

She’ll do anything to save her small band of actors from the brilliant rogue who won her troupe in a poker match—even pretend to be the woman he loves.

For Portia Macintosh and her beloved company of Shakespearean performers, the summer was supposed to be a luxurious time spent staging the Bard’s famous plays by Georgia’s grand old Sweetwater Hotel. The famous resort is where well-to-do families sojourn to partake of the hotel’s famous springs.

Then her rascally father lost the troupe to businessman-gambler Daniel Logan.

Now it’s up to tomboy Portia to masquerade as the kind of femme fatale she thinks Logan wants—by impersonating her irresistible twin sister, Fiona. The stage is set for a grand deception . . . if only Logan doesn’t turn the tables on her.

Daniel bit back a smile. He truly hadn’t meant to call her by her real name—Portia.

She pulled her hand away and took a step back, keeping her eyes on his body’s very masculine reaction. “Will that happen every time we’re together?”

“Probably. It’s happened almost every time so far.”

“With Fiona, too?”

“No, just you.”

“Why me?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe because you’re not one of those silly fibbergibbets who go around pretending that she doesn’t feel anything when a man touches her. But I won’t make love to you unless you want me to.”

“You won’t?” She ought to be angry with Daniel that he misled her, that he’d pretended he thought she was Fiona. But, truthfully she couldn’t be angry, not when all she felt was a great sense of relief that the charade was ended.

“I won’t,” he promised.

Portia swallowed hard. He was so big, so handsome. If she admitted the truth, she’d confess that she wanted to know more about what they’d just shared. She might never know a man again. This afternoon was her one magical chance to be the woman Daniel seemed to think she was. She forced herself to accept the fact that he was like everything else in her life, temporary. He was right in calling her “gypsy.” Long ago she’d learned that tomorrow would always come and her band of actors would move on, just as they always had. But tonight she would lose herself in the role of a lifetime, pretending to be a beautiful seductress capable of winning Logan’s love.

“May I touch you?” Portia said.

He took her hand again.