by Jo Grafford
“Very beautiful,” he agreed in a silky voice that reminded her all too much of another low, caressing voice. His dark gaze held an admiring glint as it perused her features. “Would you like to take a seat, Miss Cyrus?” He pulled out a chair for her.
As the chair slid away from the table, a glossy white globe caught her eye. Why, the pink and orange roses were tumbling from the most singular of centerpieces — a white ski helmet, if she wasn’t mistaken. One she recognized all too well, right down to the tiny streak of gold lightening at the temple.
Her puzzled gaze returned and clashed with Dash Holliday’s knowing one. “Don’t tell me you’re a fan of the Phantom.”
“Not exactly.”
“Then how did you win one of those?” She took a seat and clasped her hands in her lap to stop their sudden trembling. She’d never been this close to one of the Phantom’s helmets, and it was kind of unnerving.
“I didn’t,” he said simply. He took his seat, across from her. Well, technically, he was sitting more beside her than across from her. Picking up a bottle chilling in a crystal bowl, he poured her a glass of rose colored wine.
Oh. Her hand shook as she reached for it. What are you trying to tell me? Her thoughts raced frantically over his physical build, his scars, and the pitch and tenor of his voice as she tried to piece together the puzzle that was Warren Dasher Holliday. Her shocked brain delivered up a heart-stopping conclusion. It was distinctly possible she was sitting in the presence of the Phantom, himself. Which made a horrifically fascinating sort of sense. It would certainly explain his presence on the slopes earlier in the day. It would also explain why he’d never registered for a real race or pursued a bonafide World Cup for himself. A man as wealthy as Dasher Holliday had no need of the money or, quite frankly, the fame.
“How did you acquire the helmet?” Her voice was strained and shaken as she desperately sought an answer to the biggest mystery plaguing her life for the past five years. She took a tentative sip of her wine and discovered her throat was so tight it was nearly impossible to swallow.
“I think you know the answer to that, Jovie. May I call you Jovie?” His voice dropped to the impossibly low, far more caressing note she was accustomed to hearing on his videos. “I’ve been calling you that for so long, it’s the only way I think of you.”
It was him. It was really him! She stared at him in stunned disbelief as her wildest fears, deepest suspicions, and most frantic joys developed to full fruition. The crystal goblet slipped from her nerveless fingers and shattered on the marble floor between them.
Chapter 4: A Ghost Revealed
Dash
“Why?” she choked when she could finally speak again. “Why me?”
He smiled and poured her another glass of wine. “Because you’re the best.” A flick of his wrist brought a pair of waiters rushing forward to clean up the shards of crystal.
“You don’t know me.” She held on to the fresh goblet of wine he handed her like a lifeline and took a shuddering gulp that made Dash fear she was going to choke on it.
He tensed, ready to leap in her direction, if needed, to pound her between her shoulder blades. He didn’t breathe easily again until he saw her throat muscles constrict in a swallowing motion.
Perceiving she was recovering from her shock, he allowed himself the luxury of being entranced by her burning need to know. To make sense of things. To understand what was happening between them. It wasn’t enough for her to have a billionaire bachelor sit in front of her and all but admit he’d been obsessing over her for the past five years. He could tell his wealth and reputation didn’t phase her, at least not in this context.
He lazily toyed with one of the pink roses spilling onto the table. “Call me crazy if you feel differently, but I thought we connected the night of the charity ball.”
“Connected?” She shot him an incredulous glance. “We exchanged a few pleasantries.”
“We did.” He nodded. “About the loss of our mothers and how hard it was to smile for the cameras afterwards for our respective jobs.”
“It was crushing,” she agreed sadly. “You learn to get very good at pretending.”
“But neither of us had to pretend that night, did we? Not with each other. We had a real conversation like two real people, and it felt good.” He glanced away from her. “Considering both our names and reputations.” Boy! If Bull and Raj could hear him now, they’d be laughing up a storm at his severe lack of conversational prowess. “You were just so…nice to me.” Yep, he sounded about all of sixteen right now.
“It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it?” she said quietly. “Always playing a part. Always having to keep up appearances. At least I didn’t have to start doing it until I was sixteen. That’s when I competed for my first World Cup. It was also when the paparazzi first discovered me.” She sighed. It was a soft feminine sound that cut straight through his defenses and nestled deep in his heart. “But it started much sooner for you, didn’t it?”
“The day I was born.” He waggled his brows at her. “The first son of a billionaire hotel and resort tycoon?” He gave a long low whistle. “My parents basically had to hold a press conference at her bedside in the hospital. Her name was Lorelei, by the way.” His voice fell to a hushed and reverent tone. “She was the most wonderful person.” He shook his head. “I know that sounds cliche, but it’s true. Everyone loved her. Even our butler, and that’s saying a lot.” He snorted out a laugh. “You know what they say about butlers, at least at every dinner mystery theater I’ve ever attended.”
Jovie tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and laughed. “Yeah. The butler did it. He’s always guilty.”
“In the library,” he added with a wink.
“With a candlestick,” she finished.
They shared a laugh.
“Shoot!” He fiddled with one of the roses on the table again. “You get me. It’s refreshing. I feel like saying something completely foolish all of a sudden, like…” He paused, feeling, well, foolish.
“Like,” she prodded in a teasing voice.
“We should be friends.” He tensed, not ready to look up and see the questions in her eyes. Or the hesitation. Or the pull-back over such blatant transparency on his part. She was probably pretty disappointed by now with how un-magical a billionaire he was turning out to be. Just a regular ol’ guy with normal feelings and desires.
“I’ll think about it.” Her frosty, impersonal tone made his gaze whip back to hers.
“You’ll think about it, huh?” He was unprepared for the blast of mirth in her baby blues. She was laughing — not with him, but at him. He supposed he deserved it.
“Yeah. I’ll think about it.” She stuck her pert, pixie-like nose in the air, folded her slender silk-clad arms on the table, and treated him to a haughty glance. “Last time you thought we connected, you disappeared into the sunset.” She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “You don’t write. You don’t call. What’s a girl supposed to think?” Her voice was teasing, but the question in her eyes was serious.
“You were so young,” he blurted. It was a lame excuse, but it was the truth.
“I remember. It was my birthday. So?”
“I’m thirty-eight, Jovie. That’s a little old, don’t you think? To be obsessed with a gorgeous up-and-coming champion skier in her prime with her whole life ahead of her.” There. His deepest darkest secret was out. Not only was it out, it was in the hands of the one woman he’d spent the last five years fantasizing about. He braced himself, ready to have what was left of his heart and pride trampled on.
“Up-and-coming?” Her outraged question was like a sock in the gut. “Up-and-coming!” She half rose from her chair.
He stared at her, utterly stunned. That was what she’d taken from his soul-bearing admission? He was basically asking her if he was too old for her to date, and she was choosing to quibble over his choice of words.
“I have twenty-nine freaking World Cup podiums under my belt, t
hank you very much. There’s nothing up-and-coming about this gal, mister.”
“Okay, okay.” He held up both hands, laughing and utterly entranced by the warm and amused acceptance in her eyes. Something special was happening between them. Something earth shattering. He could sense it, and he knew she felt it, too.
“Oh, that is so-o-o-o not good enough. You can do better than that, my phantom friend, starting with an apology for your horrendous choice of words concerning my long and glittering list of accomplishments.”
Before he could think of a fitting response, she’d whipped the bottle of champagne from its holder and started to shake it.
He lifted his chin. “You wouldn’t,” he taunted. “I’m wearing a very expensive suit.” One that had set him back fifty grand.
“You’ll just have to buy another one, rich boy, if you can’t come up with the words to make things right between us.”
Between us. His heart sang at her words. Never before had he wanted so badly to kiss a woman. She challenged and intrigued him on every level. She made him feel things he’d only dreamed of feeling before now. She gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, a guy like him actually stood a chance with a woman like her.
“Time’s running out, Holliday.” She raised her white-blonde brows at him in a ferocious, wildly flirtatious challenge that made his blood run a thousand shades of torrid.
He reached for his half full wine glass and leaped to his feet in a single, fluid move; but he was too late.
She aimed the neck of the wine bottle at him, popped the cork, and sent the bubbly fluid gushing down the front of his suit jacket and dress shirt.
With an expulsion of shock, he flung the contents of his wine glass at her, catching her square in the face with the sweet, pink beverage.
She stood there, blinking and dripping champagne from her eyelashes. “You are so going to pay for that.” She bent to set the empty wine bottle on the floor, all the while sidling closer to the table.
He ducked behind the other side of it, trying to gauge her intentions from the way her calculating blue eyes were darting this way and that.
The next thing he knew, the head of a pink rose came zinging across the table. “Pink roses are for sweetness and innocence,” she accused. “You’re the Phantom and you’ve done nothing but taunt and goad me for the past five years!”
He ducked as another rose head came soaring in his direction. His hand shot out at the last second and plucked it from the air. “Pink is also for admiration.” He winked at her. “And grace, elegance, and refinement.” He tossed the bud back in her direction. She tried to dodge it, but it glanced off her shoulder. “Although one of us is clearing lacking in the refinement department at the moment.”
“Just digging your hole deeper.” She grabbed a whole fistful of orange roses and flung them across the table, raining petals in his hair and down his suit. “Then again, what do you expect from a guy who buys a girl orange roses? Trying to remind me how bold and adventurous you are, eh? Of all the harrowing, heart-stopping moments you’ve given me while leaping from jagged mountain tops in my name. I never asked for any of it, Dash. Not one moment of the angsty insanity you brought into my life.”
“Aw, did I worry you, Miss Cyrus?” He made a tsk tsk sound, thrilled at the fact she’d called him by his nickname without seeming to realize it.
“You’re a complete lunatic, you know that?” She flung another handful of rose blooms in his direction. “You actually made me feel responsible, somehow. I mean, if anything had gone south in one of your foolish pranks…” Her voice hitched.
He brushed at the petals clinging to the damp sleeve of his suit jacket. “That would’ve been bad for your ratings, huh?”
“I have no idea,” she exploded. “All I can say is I went from being plumb irritated that you’d chosen me for the butt of your pranks to being downright worried about you. Like crazy frantic with worry the day you went careening down the Grand Teton. What were you thinking?”
He shrugged and offered her an abashed grin. “Guess I was trying to get your attention.”
“Well, it worked.” She sounded so regretful that he did a double take.
Now what? Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. His hopes plummeted.
“I have a super wonderful guy in my life already, Dash. He’s made it clear in recent weeks that he’d like to take things to the next level with me, but…”
But? He ached with every ounce of his being for the coming letdown.
“There was you.” She spread her hands, which were trembling again. “Always you. Taunting me from the shadows. Holding me in your enthrall, somehow. A man without a face, without a name. I thought I was losing my mind. And the worst part of it?”
He grimaced as fresh hope spiraled through his gut. “Dare I ask?”
She flung the last handful of roses she’d been shredding to the floor. “I never knew for sure if you were even real. You could have been nothing more than an expertly edited, spliced, and shopped piece of video footage, for all I knew.”
“Ouch!” He slapped a hand to his heart. “I think you just got me back big-time for my jibe about your up-and-coming-ness. Edited, spliced, and shopped. That really burns!” He clutched his chest with both hands and pretended to stagger backwards. “So much for all my crashes and broken bones during the years it took to perfect my skiing techniques.”
“Whatevs.” She rolled her eyes. “I went so far as to have experts examine your videos. They assured me it was real. The runs, the jumps, the risks, the danger.” She shook her head. “I assure you that did nothing to lower my blood pressure.”
“You did?” It made his insides light with the beams from a thousand suns to realize how much effort she’d gone to in order to prove he was the real deal. He mattered to her. He still wasn’t sure if he mattered to her half as much as she mattered to him, but… “I want to date you, Jovie Cyrus.”
She blew her bangs from her forehead and twisted her wine dampened hair into a ponytail. “You do? I was about to say something similar.”
“You were?” He stalked in her direction, wondering if it was too soon to take her into his arms. It wasn’t as if they’d just met. They’d been playing cat and mouse for five tumultuous years.
“Yes.” She treated him to a coy smile. “I was going to say, I want to race you, Dash Holliday.”
He reached for her hands. His heart thudded with joy and excitement when her warm slender fingers squeezed back.
“Racing is not really what I do. I’m an extreme skier, Jovie. You know that better than anyone.”
“Then teach me,” she insisted, tipping her face up to his.
“I can’t do that,” he protested. “It takes years of training and conditioning to do the things I do. Something else I think you understand better than anyone else.”
She raised her chin in defiance. “You don’t think I have it in me?”
He grimaced, wanting to crush his mouth to her sassy lips and put a delicious end to their sparring. “It’s more like I don’t want to see you hurt. You’re an Alpine skier. The best one I know, with many more champion podiums ahead of you, Lord willing. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. You can’t ask that of me, babe.”
“Babe?” She made a face at him. “Is that what I am now? Some billionaire-chasing groupie chick?”
“What? No!” he groaned. “A thousand times, no! You’re special, Jovie. You always have been.” He gave a helpless chuckle. “Despite the wine dripping from your hair and rose petals stuck to your ears and cheeks.” He flicked one pink petal from the top shell curve of her ear. “Or maybe because of it.” He smiled tenderly down at her. “May I kiss you?”
Her damp brows shot upwards. “You’re asking my permission?”
He tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear and flicked away another rose petal. “Just making sure you’re as into me as I am into you. What’s wrong with that?”
She bit her lower lip, as if trying
not to laugh. “What’s wrong is, you’re blowing all my misconceived notions about hot and hunky billionaires right out of the water. According to the movies, you’re a cocky, demanding bunch, ploughing your way through crowds of women like Viking conquerors and—”
“Good grief! Do you ever shut up?” He closed the remaining distance between them and sealed his mouth over hers.
And ceased to think. Only feel. The warmth and goodness in her radiated from her very soul. He drank her in, starving for more of it. More of her. He tasted the sweet remnants of wine on her lips and breathed in the delicious overtones of admiration, adoration, and acceptance — all the things he’d been missing in his life. All the things he’d been trying to substitute with extreme sports and cheap thrills. This was so much better. So glorious. So wonderful. So real.
Her fingers traced over the scar on his cheek. “Dare I ask?” she inquired softly.
“I’d rather you didn’t.” He smiled against her lips. “It wasn’t one of my finer moments.”
“Please assure me you didn’t earn this beauty while doing something insanely reckless in my honor.”
“No, nothing that exciting. Trust me.”
“Let me guess, then.” She tipped back her head, laughing. “You caught sight of a cute skier and got distracted.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not even close. It was a night course. An owl came out of nowhere and would’ve flown straight into me if I hadn’t ducked.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I would’ve ducked, too. They have some pretty unforgiving talons.”
“Those were my thoughts, as well, but I veered off course and the branch I took in the face was equally unforgiving.”
“Ouch.”
“Like I said. Not one of my finer moments. Unlike being with you.” He tipped her chin up with a finger. “And kissing you. This is definitely my finest moment.”
She twined her arms around his neck. “Okay. That was the most romantic thing any guy has ever said to me, which means it’s official. You’re out of the doghouse.”
