Lover Beware

have a good deal to discuss. How about the next night? I can get tickets to a play, reservations for dinner.”
    She eased her hand away from his. “That’s Friday night, and I’m booked. A family party—Grandmother’s eightieth birthday.” She started back down the path, but had taken only a couple of steps when she paused, looking back at him. The tilt of her lips held challenge. “Ah…it’s formal, a big bash at my uncle Chan’s restaurant. Would you care to go with me?”

Chapter 6
    LILY WASN’T SURE at what point she’d lost her mind. At six-oh-seven that Friday she slicked color over her lips and tried to figure that out.
    What had prompted her impulsive invitation to Rule? Hormones run amok? Her conversation with her mother earlier had put the idea in her head, but she hadn’t been serious. She certainly hadn’t intended to ask him. All of a sudden the idea had burst open in her mind like a flower gone from bud to bloom instantly, and she’d done it.
    Maybe it had been that brief, startling gentleness he’d shown. The way he’d stroked her cheek, the softness in his voice. For a moment, understanding had shimmered between them, fragile and precious.
    Or she’d thought it had.
    Lily shook her head, turned to open her closet, which was off the bathroom, and almost tripped over Worf. “No shedding or drooling allowed,” she told him firmly. “Sit.”
    Obediently he lowered his rear end, but continued to pant at her happily. She kept an eye on his lolling tongue as she reached for her dress.
    Never mind the reason. The fact was that she’d succumbed to impulse. A flash of lunacy, she supposed. And winced. Lunacy was not a comfortable word, considering the effect a full moon had on the man she would be with tonight.
    The moon would be full in three days. She’d checked.
    All in all, this hadn’t been a good day. She’d spent too much of it in court, for one thing, testifying against a scumbag with a lawyer bright enough to know his client’s only hope was to make Lily look crooked, incompetent, or both. He hadn’t succeeded, but it hadn’t made for a fun morning. That afternoon she’d argued with enough bureaucrats to drive a saint to violence. Finally the Department of Health had condescended to let her copy its list of lupi living in San Diego, complied back when the government was registering them.
    Rule’s name hadn’t been on the list. No surprise there. Neither was his father’s. But eighty-seven others were. She’d barely started checking the names and addresses against the phone book to see who was still around.
    Not everything had gone wrong today, she reminded herself. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had answered when, smitten by conscience, she’d called to let them know the name of her escort tonight. There was no point in hoping her family wouldn’t realize who Rule was. Shoot, her grandmother read People regularly, and the magazine had done a spread on the Nokolai prince only last March.
    Her mother was not going to appreciate the joke.
    So why was she humming? Lily froze with the dress draped over her arm. This was nuts. Anyone would think she was looking forward to the evening.
    Her dress. That was what had her humming, of course. She slid it from the hanger. Worf stood up, wagging his tail. “Sit,” she told him again.
    Her dress was ankle-length silk in a color that made her think of sapphires drenched in darkness, the color of the sky when dawn is barely a promise in the east. Lily had found it on sale a month ago and fallen in love. Even the sight of the price tag hadn’t deterred her.
    It was magnificent, she thought with sudden uncertainty as she surveyed herself in the mirror. A dream of a dress—sexy, feminine, sophisticated. Too sophisticated, maybe. She sure didn’t look like a cop. Rule was going to think she’d dressed for him. He would think tonight was…personal.
    He’d be right. Nerves snapped in her middle like a string of firecrackers.
    Maybe if she took her hair down she’d look more like herself.
    Lily had her hands in her hair, the first pin unpinned, when the phone rang. She stepped into her shoes on the way to the living room, the bobby pin still in her hand. She spared a glance at the clock as she picked up the phone.
    Six twenty-two. Rule would be here any minute. “Hello?”
    “You left a message on that infernal machine,” a light, high voice said in Chinese.
    “I am sorry, Grandmother, but when I couldn’t reach you