She looked as if she needed its comfort, he thought, and suddenly had to resist the urge to put an arm around those frail shoulders. She was making him feel too proprietary for words.

But he still had to know about Gloria. “Tell me,” he said softly. “You can trust me, Jenny.” He teased her gently. “Have I not shinnied down drainpipes on your behalf?”

That brought an answering smile. “There was a perfectly good fire escape. If you chose the drainpipe…”

“Heroes always choose drainpipes,” he told her, smiling. “It’s far more heroic.”

“But much bumpier.” She managed a chuckle. “Not to say risky-especially if you’re thinking about the future production of little superheroes. Think of what all those sharp edges on the way down could have done to your manhood.”

That took him aback. He stared at her in shock. His quiet, demure secretary making remarks about his manhood! And then slowly, his deep green eyes creased into laughter.

HE CHUCKLED, a low, lazy rumble that Jenny hadn’t heard before. Very few people had. Michael Lord wasn’t much given to laughter.

It transformed him, she thought. Michael was big and solid, with a blaze of burnt-red hair, deep green eyes and strongly boned features that made him classically good-looking. His aloofness had repelled her, though, during the time she’d worked for him. She hadn’t noticed what she was noticing now, that the laughter behind his eyes made him seem not just classically good-looking. Impossibly good-looking!

She had other things on her mind, though, apart from Michael’s good looks. She tore herself away from the laughter in his eyes and forced herself to answer his question. After all, she did owe him the truth.

At least talking bought her time. She didn’t have to get out of this lovely car quite yet and face whatever was before her alone.

“I told you. Gloria is my mother-in-law,” she said in a low, husky voice that Michael had to lean forward to hear. “Or she was my mother-in-law.”