But he didn’t reply right away, because the sommelier had made a smiling reappearance to refill their wineglasses. And because she was nervous, she began sipping again. Not such a bad thing, she assured herself. Wine this good wasn’t customarily on her menu. Since he was being such a grade-A idiot about the wedding, she might as well consume his wine.
“Taste your fish. It’s delicious.”
“It is,” she agreed, taking a bite.
“You don’t have a Southern accent,” he said. “Not much of one, anyway.”
“Florida isn’t really known for an accent,” she reminded him.
He smiled. The man had a really great smile, she realized. His dark good looks could give him an austere, even dangerous, appearance. His smile was full of pure charm. Unaffected, easy, even rueful.
“Ah, now, that’s not true. Perhaps in the big East Coast cities, where there’s a blend of immigrants and transplants, along with the natives, there’s not much of an accent. But in the center and the north of the state, you can come across a lot of lovely accents deriving from the Deep South.”
“You don’t sound like a New Yorker.”
“And what does a New Yorker sound like? You mean I don’t have a Brooklyn or Bronx accent.”
“Well, I majored in theater in college. In L.A.,” she said. “That’s where I lost my accent.”
“I see.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. “I spent a lot of time right here when I was growing up.”
“Right here?” She frowned.
“OK, not right here. In St. Augustine.”
“With Mike?”
“You got it.”
“On the boat? You…went salvage diving with him?”
He nodded. He had finished his fish. She realized she had, too. Cleaned the plate, actually. The food had been divine. And her wineglass was empty again. The sommelier saw to it that it didn’t stay that way.
Her head was spinning, but not in a bad way. She felt light-headed, certainly. And…wow. Great. She felt as if she were walking on air, except that she wasn’t walking at all. She was sitting. Warm, amazingly relaxed.
“You didn’t think a New Yorker could dive?”
“Well…no, not exactly. I mean, there are ski shops all over Florida. They’re a very big business down here. I guess people who live in the heat all the time enjoy getting away to the snow. And people who live where there is a real winter…”
“Enjoy getting away to warm water and balmy breezes.”
“Exactly. I just didn’t realize you had spent so much time with Mike.”
“Amazing. You’re marrying him, and you know so little about him.”
There it was. The subtle attack. But it didn’t bother her. She ran a finger over the rim of her wineglass and took another sip as the plates in front of them seemed to magically disappear.
“We feel that we know the important things to know about each other.”
“Namely?” he inquired.
“Well, that we’re deeply in love. What else is there?”
“Of course, what else?”
She frowned slightly. “The religion thing doesn’t bother you, does it? I mean, Mike is Jewish, and M—I mean I’m Catholic.”
He shook his head. “See, there’s just so much you don’t know! My grandmother was Catholic, and so was my mom, at least, when she was young. She moved to a place in Florida after my dad died, a special town for spiritualists. ‘All paths lead to one place.’ That was her belief.”
“That’s lovely,” Aurora said. She was leaning lightly on the table.
He did the same. “You really are lovely, you know.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind having me for a stepgrandmother,” she said. “But then again, you’ve got a…proposal, for me.”
Again, he was close. So close. Eyes on her so intently. She could smell his aftershave. Subtle, nice. Almost feel the whisper of his breath.
“Yes. A proposal…”
Four
“Dessert,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“The dessert menu is here.”
“Oh…sorry. I’m not much on dessert.”
“They have Decadent Chocolate Delight.”
“I really don’t…”
“Listen to the description. ‘An amazing hot chocolate shell saturated with sumptuous mousse and sinfully filled with vanilla bean ice cream, crested with decadent chocolate and vanilla sauces.’ We can share one.” He was watching her across the table. She realized that her ankle was resting against his. She couldn’t quite bring herself to move it. His lips weren’t moving, but she could swear she heard him talking again. Describing dessert. An amazingly fit male of the species, hot, sinfully wicked, delectable to the palate, decadent in every move.
“Shall we?”
“Shall we what?”
“Share dessert?”
“No!”
“You want your own?”
“No, I, uh…”
“I’ll try it. I’m sure I can talk you into a small bite.”
He ordered the dessert. And some form of ridiculously aged cognac. She fanned herself with her napkin, then caught him watching her again.
“It’s a little warm in here,” she murmured.
“Perhaps it is a little warm…at this table.”
It’s hot here next to you.
She nearly jumped, afraid she had said the words out loud. She hadn’t. But his eyes hadn’t left her face.
“Now…as to this marriage and my proposal…”
“Yes?”
“Where’s Angie’s dad?”
She frowned and said softly, “Deceased.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Recently?”
She shook her head. “Several years now.”
“Ah. Good marriage?”
She found herself smiling. “Yes. Realistic. We fought. We had a tendency to dream the same dreams. We always made up. His one dream, though…he wanted to fly. I was against it. I gave him a hard time, but…not hard enough. He crashed.”
She fell silent. She had said far more than she had meant to, so she turned the conversation to his past. “What about you? I mean…look at you. It seems as if someone should have caught you by now. Oh, Lord. That was awful. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I do mean is that you’re not a kid. You’re not old…but old enough.”
He laughed. “I have come close. Very close. Twice.”
“And what…never mind. Not my business.”
“Hey, if you do it your way, you’ll be my grandmother. That gives you a right to pry. The first time, we’d lived together for years. But we didn’t share the same dreams. And the second time… I backed away.”
“Why?”
“There wasn’t enough there.”
“Love,” she said sagely.
He lifted a brow.
“Well…” Chocolate sin or decadence or whatever had arrived. She spooned out a morsel. “I’ve told you, the only reason for marriage is love.”
“Of course.”
“And you don’t believe I love Mike. Well, you’re wrong.”
He leaned forward. “Want to test it?”
She didn’t answer right away. The dessert was unbelievably good. She was on her third mouthful. The plate sat in the middle of the table, and somehow they were leaning together above it. His dark eyes were right on hers. Hard, and yet…
Bedroom eyes. Was it the dessert? The wine?
Or him?
She warned herself to lean back, then spoke at last.
“Test it?”
“I give you a great deal of money…”
“Go on.”
“And you give me a week.”
Her hand and her fourth spoonful of dessert froze halfway to her lips. “A week?” The fingers of her other hand curled around the small snifter of unbelievably stong cognac. She swallowed it in one gulp.
“A week,” he repeated.
/>
“A week of what?”
He had leaned back and was summoning the waiter. After a quick word to the man, he turned back to Aurora. “Shall we leave and discuss this further?”
He was already standing, reaching for her elbow to help her from the chair.
“You have to pay the check,” she told him.
“I have an account.”
He would.
She found herself being escorted out. Not through the front door, though. They ended up out back, where the breeze was good, cooling her flesh, clearing her mind. The beach belonging to the restaurant was pristine, private, surrounded by flowers….
“Why don’t you take off your shoes?” he suggested.
He was already taking off his own. Rolling up his perfectly pressed pants. She was playing a role, she reminded herself. She had to hear him out. She could always give him a shove right into the surf if he got too outrageous.
She bent to slip off her shoes. Her balance was not what it should have been. Afraid of falling, she instinctively reached out. He was there. Steadying her.
“Sorry.”
“Not at all. My pleasure.”
A moment later they were arm in arm, walking along the shoreline. The moon was riding high in the night sky as gentle waves lapped over their feet. The sound of the water, rushing to shore, was lulling.
“Tell me about this week,” she pressed.
“Oh, you know, dinners, dancing, walks along the beach.”
“I have to work.”
“I can help.”
“There’s Mike.”
“We can visit him together.”
“The wedding is this week.”
“If you love him, what would it hurt to give it a little time?”
“He would wonder what was going on.”
“He’d say you were worth waiting for.”
“Maybe not.”
“Oh, I’m sure he would. What do you say?”
They weren’t walking anymore. She didn’t remember when they had stopped. It seemed that her dress left a great deal of her flesh bare, and she could feel the breeze wafting across her skin. She was cool on the outside…
Hot inside. She felt his hands on her bare arms and looked up. He was staring down at her intently.
Then his knuckles brushed her check. There was something so startling about the feeling. Something like tenderness. She wanted nothing more than to curl against him. To feel that caress and more. She wanted to know the texture of his shirt against her face, and what it would feel like to be held, really held. It had been such a long time….
His knuckle moved beneath her chin, raising it. He was tall, and so close. She knew she should move, but she couldn’t. His lips moved down to hers. Brushed them so lightly at first that it was like being tempted by a glass of water in the desert, feeling the rim and dying for the liquid within….
Then he kissed her. Really kissed her. Lips fully over hers, persuasive, with a seductive pressure that didn’t force, only seduced. His kiss was the sustenance she had yearned for, and her lips parted in response.
And then his tongue entered the moist cavern of her mouth, and it was the most sensual thing she had felt in her entire life. It was just a kiss, yet it seemed like a promise. She was curved into his arm. Held, because she might have slipped away into the sand, otherwise, like a castle swept away by the surf.
His lips moved away. She was still held in his arms, he was staring down at her with his ebony eyes. “A week,” he said.
“Walks in the sand.”
“Dinners,” he added.
“Dinners…” she repeated.
“And sex, of course.”
She felt as if the sea suddenly surged from the North Atlantic and became a tidal wave of pure ice that slammed against her. This was a charade, she reminded herself, before she could haul off and slap him with all her strength. She forced herself to remain exactly where she was. After all, this was the kind of thing she had intended, just so that later she could tell him what a complete idiot he was.
“Sex?” she asked.
“Of course. How else will you be able to know how much more a younger man can offer than an octogenarian? I don’t believe you find me totally repulsive.”
Her temper burned. She knew that she was as angry with herself as she was with him. Hell, no, you’re not repulsive, you’re the best thing I’ve seen in forever.
What an idiot she’d been. Not only wasn’t she what he thought her to be, she wasn’t even sophisticated enough to play her own game without getting burned.
Scorched.
Somehow she managed to stay still and stare at him coolly.
“How much money are we talking?”
“I don’t know. What do you think you’re worth?”
“What do you think I’m worth?”
“Well, there are going rates, of course. And I’ll guess along the line of what the highest might be. So we’re talking several thousand, at the least…. It’s a whole week, and of course the idea is to get you paid off, keep you from marrying Mike. Ten thousand?”
It was finally as far as she could go.
“You asshole! You couldn’t buy me for a million dollars!”
“A million? Hey, the kiss was great, so I’m assuming you’re good, but—”
She did slap him then. Slap him, and push away. But her exit was marred by the fact that she stumbled in the sand and nearly fell.
She heard a noise behind her. His anger, she thought, and for a moment, she was afraid of physical harm. She swirled around, on the defense, but the movement was too much for her precarious sense of balance, and she found herself sitting on the sand, staring up at him.
And he was laughing. Bent over, laughing.
“What the hell…?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. But he was still laughing as he approached her, hand outstretched.
She shimmied away from him on the sand.
“Hey, I’m just trying to help you.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No, I’m not. Really.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Okay, maybe I am, but you deserve it.”
“I deserve it?”
He stopped, standing over her. He was so tall and imposing that she allowed him to take her hand and help her to feet just so she wouldn’t have to look so far up to see his face.
“I know,” he told her.
“You know what?”
“That you’re not marrying Mike.”
She stared at him in silence. The sea breeze felt almost cold suddenly, but her cheeks were on fire.
“Oh?” Perhaps she hadn’t really understood him.
“I know it’s your grandmother who’s marrying Mike.”
She spoke slowly. “You…know. Since when have you known?”
“Since I was getting dressed to pick you up.”
The ice had come. She was frozen. Absolutely frozen. Here she had thought she was playing him…
And all night long, he had been playing her.
“Bastard,” she hissed.
She managed to turn and walk away.
“Wait!”
He matched his strides to hers without even breathing hard. He caught her by the elbow, but she wrenched away.
“Look, Aurora.”
“Ms. Beck to you, buddy.”
Damn him, he was still laughing.
“What are you so mad about? You started this whole farce.”
“You had no right!”
“I had no right?”
“You tried to make a complete fool out of me.”
He caught her arm again, and she found that she was staring at him again.
“You were the one trying to make a fool out of me!” he declared.
“I didn’t have to make a fool out of you,” she told him. “You walked into the place like the world’s biggest fool.”
“Yes, I did.”
“What?”
“I
acted like an idiot. You have to understand—I really love my grandfather. And I’m sorry I had it all wrong. But how can you say something special didn’t happen between us tonight?”
“Because you’re horrible.”
“You went with me to torment me, and I’m horrible?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I don’t have to make sense to you.”
“You’re just mad that you didn’t make me pay enough for being an idiot—but I’ve apologized.”
“And an apology makes everything okay?”
“Well, it should, when you were the one who started this charade.”
“Just let me go.” She stared at his hand, still wound around her arm. Long fingers, pleasantly tanned.
She was still angry. This charade had been too real. Standing on the beach with a man—this man—had been too real. The wine, the food, the walk in the surf. The feel of his lips. All too real.
He released her. “I’m going to take you home.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I took you out, I’ll take you home. I won’t touch you. I won’t speak to you, if you don’t want me to. But I’m going to take you home.”
She didn’t want him to. She wanted to walk away and take a taxi, though here in Paradise, it could take half an hour—at the best of times—to get a taxi.
“I’m not going with you,” she said stubbornly. But he had walked past her. She couldn’t see his face to judge his reaction. She walked along the sand in his wake, not quite catching up to him.
He stopped suddenly, swinging back to her.
“I thought you weren’t going with me?”
“Excuse me, but my shoes are in the same place as yours.”
He didn’t reply, just slid his feet easily into his shoes. To her mortification, she fell—into him—while attempting to put on her sling-backed high-heeled sandals.
He steadied her.
She straightened with a curt, “Thank you.”
She went through the restaurant, aware that he was following her. She went out the front door, fumbling for her cell phone. She could call a taxi. Or even call the theater. Someone would come for her.
As she dug out the phone, she glanced at her watch. She nearly fell over again. It was after ten o’clock.
“Oh hell,” she swore.
“What now?” he demanded.
She stared at him furiously. “It’s after ten.”
With a Southern Touch: AdamA Night in ParadiseGarden Cop Page 14
