How to Tame a Modern Rogue

by Diana Holquist

  “Perverse?” Sam studied every inch of her as deliberately as possible. The buttons on her dress were tiny oranges. What a detail. Sam leaned forward and she leaned back, as if she were pulling him with a string. He tried it a few more times, just for fun.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  He sat back, perplexed. She wasn’t a slob who didn’t care about her appearance. She cared deeply about her clothes and probably went to great lengths to plan her wardrobe. But her choices had nothing whatsoever to do with the male of the species. Clothes to her were like a tulip garden, solely for her own pleasure, perhaps the pleasure of other females, but the gate was decidedly closed and locked to the male of the species.

  And that riled him beyond measure.

  He wanted to vault the fence, stride through her prissy bed of tulips, scoop her up, and take her to his jungle lair to show her what nature left to its own devices could come up with. He could almost hear the snapping tulip stems under his feet. Or, better yet, her orange buttons snapping as he yanked her dress free.

  He felt himself stir and adjusted his posture to hide his arousal. That would surely make her mad and let loose the guard dogs.

  She was waiting for another reply. What had she said? From somewhere deep in his jungle, he heard echoes of her civilized conversation: She had gone off on a dissertation of the psychological reasons her grandmother liked him. “I often affect women that way,” he interrupted.

  “Demented ones,” Ally amended.

  “Do you mean Veronica or your grandmother or yourself, Ally?” An image of Veronica lying about the broken pipes in her apartment hit him. There was something demented about Veronica, vibrating behind the facade of her beauty. The quest for perfection had sent her mad with botox and bleach and gravity-defying heels. That woman was a whole different kind of tulip garden, a Day-Glo one made of plastic, taking him for a fool, as if he wouldn’t notice it was all a put-on.

  But at least Veronica was trying to impress him. Not like this woman, who clearly didn’t give a rat’s ass if he liked her or not. A garden full of poison ivy if he wasn’t careful.

  Ally sighed. “Granny Donny won’t go without you because…” She took a careful, tiny sip of water, then set the glass gently on the glass table. “She wants us to marry. It’s a delusion. She’s very difficult and confused. But very stubborn. I need her to make this trip.”

  “Why?” The word marry brought him to full attention. But unlike the terror that word usually instilled in him, he felt intrigued. A woman like Ally would have to be fought for, broken down, uncovered layer by reluctant layer. And he had the feeling that every layer would reveal something fascinating, unusual, worth the fight. Deep roots, as it were, instead of plastic artifice.

  “Long story.”

  He braced for another onslaught of words. But she didn’t seem inclined to speak. Behind her eyes, he saw a flash of distress that fairly shouted, Rescue me.

  They stared at each other across the expanse of couch. He wanted to close the gap between them, but he didn’t know how with a woman like Ally. His body vibrated with indecision. “Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Do you think your grandmother is completely mad, or do you think she’s on to something?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t you want to marry me even the tiniest little bit? Just for the sex and money?” He was testing her, probing for her weakness. Show it. Show me.

  “Maybe for the Porsche,” she said dryly. “If it was yellow.”

  What did she think would happen if she let him in? “You despise me. Why?”

  “You’re reckless,” she said.

  “So?”

  “So. Reckless people leave disasters in their wake for other people to clean up. They only see the fun, and they don’t look back to see the problems they cause for everyone else. Like Veronica. Or Misha.”

  “Misha?” Was she talking about his doorman? “You know, sometimes, reckless is good. Sometimes, things need a little stirring up.” He could read in the narrowing of her eyes that she thought he meant she needed stirring. But face-to-face with her, he saw it was his life that needed a good whisk. Because she was definitely agitating him, and although he didn’t know why, he was enjoying it.

  She stared him down as she would a bad dog. “If you hate Veronica, she shouldn’t have been here.”

  “I don’t hate her. I just don’t want to marry her. There’s a difference. I actually enjoy her company a great deal. She’s a very funny, sexy person. We both enjoyed sex with each other. A lot. Is that a crime?”

  “How you just treated her is a crime.”

  Bollocks. His arousal for Ally faded enough so that he could stand. He looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows over the park, which from the twelfth floor opened onto a view of green treetops and the blues of shimmering ponds. “You have no idea how she treated me. I’m like a bank to her. Arm candy, too, of course. You think she’d stay with me a half-second if I were poor and ugly?” He spun to face Ally, his agitation growing. “How dare you accuse me of being awful? That woman has no one to blame but herself. At least I’m honest.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Ally took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “I really don’t care about your and Veronica’s sad, shallow relationship. But you promised you’d talk to my grandmother, Sam. So there’s nothing more for us to talk about. Come to the Plaza before Monday. That gives you the whole weekend to find a moment between floozies to put some clothes on. Ask for Donatella Giordano. We’re leaving first thing Monday morning. Tell her you’ll come with us.” She stood up.

  She was leaving. Just like that. She had come on a mission, and nothing about him or his place had fazed her. She was a bulldog. Relentless.

  He liked that in a woman.

  Then she pushed a strand of escaped hair behind her ear and for a split second, there it was again, the flash of exposure into her soul. He saw that she was exhausted, alone.

  That was her weakness.

  She needed him and she despised him for it. And wasn’t that the very definition of a rogue—a lone wolf, a person outside society, unwilling to conform to society’s demands? She was the rogue as much as he was. And he had her trapped.

  “Where are your parents?” he asked.

  She stared at him a long moment before she said, “Gone.” Did she mean they were dead?

  “Brothers? Sisters?”

  “None.”

  “So it’s you and Granny Dotty?”

  “Donny. Donatella Giordano. This weekend at the Plaza. I’ll leave your name with the doormen.”

  She was completely alone in the world. Her grandmother was all Ally had, and she was slipping away. He wanted to protect Ally, to pull her back in. “How are you going to get to the beach? Do you have a car? A driver?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of? Sort of what?”

  She was looking out the window, gloriously immune to the multimillion-dollar view. “A driver. No car.”

  He came next to her, close enough to touch her. The scent of lilacs mixed with lily of the valley swirled around her. A driver. No car. He grasped her shoulder and turned her to him. “No. You can’t.” She didn’t shake off his touch, but she didn’t respond to it either. “Not Paula,” he said, aghast.

  She met his gaze with defiance. “Paula.”

  “It’ll take days. It’s got to be, what, a hundred miles to Fire Island?”

  “Eighty-four and a half.”

  “Eighty-four and a half miles through some pretty shady neighborhoods. Have you ever been through Brooklyn?” He wanted to shake her, but the delicate skin under his hand and the smallness of her shoulder bones held him back. As did the look of pure determination on her face.

  “It’s really not your concern. We’ll be fine.” She looked at her watch, a clunky antique man’s silver contraption with a thick metal band. Awful on her delicate wrist. “Thank you, Sam. I appreciate your going to talk to her.” She dislodged his hand from her shoulde
r like it was a pesky wasp, crossed his apartment, and soon was into his private foyer, pushing the elevator call button.

  The elevator doors whooshed open and she stepped inside.

  He raced after her and caught the doors with his hand before they could close. “Ally, I’m sorry about your grandmother. I hope she gets better. Of course I’ll talk to her. And I’m sorry about your parents. And—”He was going to say he liked the way she smelled, but it seemed a both inappropriate and insufficient way to express the tenderness he felt for her at that moment. You don’t have to be alone. I will help you.

  Why? Why would he want to do that? What had she just done to him? And how? And how the devil would he extricate himself?

  She jabbed at the lobby button. “The Plaza. This weekend. We leave first thing Monday. Thank you. Now excuse me, I really have to go.”

  At first, Sam didn’t see it since it blended with the couch. But after a few moments of agitated pacing— damn, that woman agitated him—it caught his eye: Ally had left her purse. It was a small white bag with a tiny orange-shaped button for a clasp.

  He was about to call down to Misha to stop her, then reconsidered. If she thought he was a despicable rake, unworthy of anything but her scorn, he’d be a rake all the way.

  He popped the clasp.

  He had been with enough women to know that a woman’s purse was the key to her soul. But Ally’s purse was nothing like he suspected it would be: a purple rabbit’s foot keychain; a small wallet that held a picture of a couple with a child (Ally?); a bright pink cell phone; and a small white card that read, “Carpe diem.”

  Carpe diem? Her?

  Also, there was a tattered copy of The Dulcet Duke.

  He felt a rush of hope; she had a fun side.

  He lifted the book from the purse. The cover sported a painting of a stunning redhead in a long, pink gown who stared out the window over rolling green hills. The cover was slightly narrower than the rest of the book, and from underneath peeked out what looked to be a second cover. He turned the page and was startled at what he saw. Another full-color painting, but this one of a shirtless man smashing the heavily bosomed redhead onto a red couch. Her clothes were torn and their torsos met violently. The man’s face was savage; the woman’s head thrown back in surrender.

  Sam flicked back and forth between the image of the prim, composed woman on the front cover and her ribald, passionate abandon on the inside cover.

  He glanced out the window to see Ally emerge onto the street below, her head held high and her gait tight and focused as she marched away, prim and composed.

  He flipped to the inside cover.

  Hot damn.

  Getting to know Ally might be more fun than he imagined. She was hiding her true self—her fun, waltz-in-the-park, make-out-in-the-foyer self.

  He poured himself another Perrier, sank onto the couch, and started to read.

  The duke had taken her glove, and in her haste to flee, Alexandra had neglected to retrieve it. She imagined him pressing it to his face, smelling it perhaps. The image made her flush with shame. And with other emotions she dared not address.

  —From The Dulcet Duke

  Chapter 11

  Ally had walked ten blocks before she realized she didn’t have her purse. She stopped in her tracks, the humid air thickening around her. She considered calling Sam, but of course she didn’t have her cell. She considered turning back, but she didn’t feel steady enough to face Sam again, and no way was she dealing with that nosy Misha a second time. She needed space and air. Well, what air there was in the mid-morning heat of a July day. Sam would bring her purse to her this weekend when he came to talk to her grandmother. Until then, her grandmother had everything she needed. Ally was late meeting June for coffee, but her friend wouldn’t mind spotting her the tab this once.

  Ally strode into Edgar’s Coffeehouse, still feeling unsettled. June was waiting at a corner table with two small coffees in steaming white mugs. Ally tried to hold off her words until she sat down, but she couldn’t. “Sam Carson is the worst kind of man: a man who hasn’t grown up. After all, why would he? He has it all—money, looks, success. He’s a child who lives for his own pleasure with no responsibility to anyone!”

  June’s eyes lit up with delight as Ally took her seat. “Hello, dear. Nice to see you, too.” A small, knowing smile played around her lips. “So, why are we talking about Sam Carson?”

  Ally was too worked up to address June’s question. “I see teenagers like Sam in my classes every single day, and it’s my job—my life’s mission!—to teach them that good looks and charming personalities are not enough to get them through life.”

  “Too bad it’s a lie,” June pointed out. “You love Sam Carson already just the way those teenage girls love the bad boys, Professor.”

  “I do not love him.”

  “Ally, why fight it? I saw that man. Love him. Want to sleep with him. Want to reform him. He’s not ordinary in any way. He’s beautiful and funny as hell and smart and, well, exciting.” She paused. “But, um, Ally, why are we now arguing about Sam Carson?”

  Ally blew on the coffee June had bought her and emptied in a sugar packet. “Because he is exactly like my father, and I will not be exactly like my mother.” She stirred her coffee angrily, the metal spoon clanking against the mug. “I will never forgive my mother for leaving with that, that, scoundrel,” Ally said, upset that she couldn’t find a more modern word for the reckless man her father was. “My father might have been an irresponsible gambler, a drinker, a charming rake—a rogue. But my mother was worse because she was the good woman who threw her life—and me—away to be with him.” Ally poured in another packet of sugar. “I will not be a too-stupid-to-live fawning groupie, going after an irresponsible, idiotic man just because he has hot abs.”

  “Your dad had hot abs?”

  Ally was too frustrated to respond to June’s teasing. “My point is, I will not fall for a rogue like my mother did. Ever. It ruined her life.”

  “Such a protest,” June said. “It’s not like anyone’s disagreeing with you. Hey. Wait.” She pointed a coffee stirrer at Ally. “Did something happen?”

  Ally’s fingers went to her still-heated lips before she could stop them.

  “You kissed him!” June cried.

  “No! Certainly not!” Ally stirred her coffee, watching the whorl of coffee like the whorl of…Oh, stop. There were more important things to be thinking about than that man’s belly-hair trail. Or the way he seemed to see right through her, into her soul. Why pretend that you’re not drawn to me…?

  “You did.” June looked dreamily at her. “I want every single disgusting detail.”

  “I didn’t.” Ally ripped open another sugar. “Well, not exactly.”

  June took the sugar gently from her before she could pour it into her coffee. “Not exactly?”

  “He kissed me,” Ally said quietly. She winced as she sipped her oversweetened coffee.

  June clapped her hands and smiled like a child. “And?”

  “And, it was the most unbelievable, sexiest kiss of my life.”

  June started to squeal, but Ally held up a hand to stop her. “That doesn’t make Sam any more acceptable. In fact, it makes him worse. Dangerous. He’s still a man led by hormones, and I’m still a woman with a brain.”

  “So then why did you go to see him?”

  Ally told June the story of her grandmother’s growing insistence that Sam come with them.

  After June took it all in, she asked, “So, is Sam going to talk to your grandmother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how bad could he be? I think that’s very nice of him. He could have said no.”

  Sheesh, June sounded ready to go after the man herself. “Trust me, it wasn’t nice of him. He had other motives. He was trying to blow off a naked floozy who was in his apartment, trying to get him to marry her. I pretended to be his”—Ally blushed at the memory—“his girlfriend. So he owed me.” Ally repla
yed in her mind everything that had happened in his apartment, ending with her missing purse. “Listen, speaking of owing, can I pay you back for the coffee later? I forgot my purse.”

  “You went out without your purse?” June shook her head in a worried way. “You never go out without your purse. You must be exhausted, honey. You really need a break.”

  “That’s why I’m going to the beach. Anyway, I’m fine. And I didn’t go out without it.”

  “Then where is it?”

  “At Sam’s.”

  June’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Now that’s a whole ‘nother kind of upset.” June tried to suppress her grin. “You so want that man.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Oh, Ally, it’s turning out just like the book. Remember? The princess forgets her gloves. Now, he’ll come to your house to return the purse. And you’ll have a moment. Another kiss that becomes more than a kiss!” June put her hands to her heart. “Lovely! Oh, Ally. If it turns out like the book, I want to be your maid of honor.”

  “I am not controlled by that stupid book.”

  June pointed her finger at Ally and said sternly, “You’re also not controlled by your mother’s genes. Just because she followed your father to God-knows-where doesn’t mean this situation is the same. You need to see Sam on his own terms, Ally. He’s a beautiful man.” She took a sip of coffee. “A beautiful, rich man.”

  Ally couldn’t help herself. “A beautiful, rich, smart man. With an apartment you would not believe.” She paused. “And a Porsche.”

  “Yellow?”

  “Red.”

  June grinned. “You’re all lit up. You so have a torch for that man; admit it.”

  “I do not!” Ally insisted. “He’s the most irresponsible person I’ve ever met.”

  June wagged her finger at Ally. “You think any woman who has a torch for Sam Carson is going to get burned. But maybe, hon, just maybe, it’s about time you faced a little fire. Maybe, because of your past, you’re the one woman who can reel him in.”

  Sam read the last page of The Dulcet Duke and angrily snapped the book shut. His bedroom felt eerie, like he had just awakened from a disturbing dream. It was dark outside. He’d been reading for hours, missing his dinner date. He paced his apartment, then gave up and set off for Boule’s Pub.