Rumor Has It by Tami Hoag

people think you were a spy or a jewel thief than tell them the truth. You're ashamed to tell them you're a stripper.”
    “Erotic dancer,” he corrected her, anger lighting fires in his dark eyes. “I'm not ashamed of it. I'm proud of being a dancer. I think I do a damn good job. The reason I didn't want to tell anybody was because I didn't think they'd understand. I guess I was right, huh, Katie? You don't understand. You're the one who's ashamed. You're ashamed of me.”
    “I am not!” Katie insisted, squaring off with him toe to toe, not the least intimidated by his towering height or the glower he wore, which made him look as ruthless as any mercenary. “I'llthank you to stop putting words in my mouth, Nick Leone. I thought you were wonderful. I thought you were magnificent—and that was before I knew it was you!”
    “You—” Her words penetrated his anger, and he caught himself in midtirade, his expression softening from one of hurt and fury to one of stunned surprise. “You thought I was won derful?”
    “Yes,” Katie said, relaxing as the fight drained out of her. “Your dance was so powerful, so elegant. The part where you spun around and around with the cape waving above your head took my breath away.”
    “You liked that part? I've been thinking of changing that,” he said in a conversational tone of voice.
    “Oh, no, don't change it. It was riveting.” Suddenly Katie pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head in amazement. “I can't believe we're having this conversation. I can't believe my Nick, who won't put his glasses on in public, is the same man who flung his clothes into a sea of screaming women.”
    A delighted smile split his dark face. He felt a little flutter in the vicinity of his heart.
“Your
Nick?”
    Katie's cheeks bloomed as pink as her skirt. “A figure of speech,” she muttered, staring down at her shoes.
    Nick stepped behind her and slid his arms around her waist. He dipped his head down to nuzzle her ear, and murmured, “I like it.”
    “Do you?” Tingles ran over every inch of her body. She had a hard time keeping her mind on the conversation and off thoughts of the way his muscles had gleamed under the stage lights and the way his hips had undulated so seductively as he had danced to her table.
    “Very much,” he whispered in a silky voice. He ran his lips down the column of her throat and back up as his hands splayed across her tummy, and pressed her back into the heat of his body.
    When Katie closed her eyes she could see the rippling of his hard abdominal muscles and the trickle of sweat that had trailed down the line of ebony hair on his belly as he had performed. She could feel the thick sexual tension that had filledthe air as he had moved as sleek and powerful as a jaguar, every eye in the place on him.
    She twisted around, lifting her mouth to Nick's, demanding his kiss, giving him free entry to the sweet warmth beyond her lips. When he raised his head and sighed, she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes and whispered, “How could you ever think I'd be ashamed of you?”
    The sharp, firm edges of his lips twisted into a wry smile. He ran a finger down her dainty nose. “You're so prim and proper, such a Southern lady, I wasn't so sure you'd have room in your life for a stripper from Jersey.”
    “Erotic dancer,” she corrected with a tender smile. She lifted her hand to the lean, hard plane of his cheek. He was so tough, so masculine, yet the look in his velvet brown eyes was one of uncertainty and hope. It won him yet another corner of Katie's heart. In the back of her mind she realized there weren't many corners left. Nick was going to own the whole thing soon. Whether or not she was being very smart about the situation she couldn't decide, but it certainly felt right.
    “After your act, when everybody was cheeringand applauding, I wanted to turn to Maggie and Zoe and tell them it was you because I was so proud of you.”
    “You