by Wendy Wax
When he didn’t speak, Ross Morgan was way up there on her list of all-time attractive men. His silence allowed her to fantasize all kinds of things.
On the way back to the hotel, she contemplated her silent-male theory. When a man was silent he could be mysterious. He could be strong, yet soft; virile, yet sensitive. If a man kept his mouth shut, a woman could imagine him to be anything—and everything—she’d ever wanted. It was only when he opened his mouth that a woman was forced to admit he might be none of those things.
Perhaps someone should conduct a study of male silence as an aphrodisiac. Or so she thought, as they parted in the lobby and headed for their separate floors.
Back in her room Shelley cased the minibar for a drink, finally selecting a miniature bottle of red wine. Setting it and a glass on the nightstand, she toed off her shoes, plumped two pillows behind her head, and stretched out on the bed.
The room was still and quiet, in stark contrast to the day just spent on the set. She was trying to work up the energy to remove her clothing when she noticed the blinking message light on the telephone. Worried that it might be an emergency call from Atlanta, she swiveled over to pick up the receiver, then punched in the numbers to access her voice mail.
“Shelley?” She’d been expecting Judy, whom she’d been unable to reach by phone, or possibly her mother. The voice was Selena Moore’s.
Unable to read the tone, Shelley sucked in some air and scooted into a sitting position. What if she’d decided to sue for her tennis injuries? What if she was trying to find Ross Morgan? What if . . .
“I’m tied up today and I’m leaving in the morning. But I wanted you to know that I found out today just how persistent you’ve been.”
Shelley groaned and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“I picked up all six of your messages from the Chicago office. The trainer, the spa receptionist, and the bell captain here at the hotel informed me that you’ve been on my trail since you arrived.”
Great. Next would come the part about the restraining order.
“Of course, I’ve also got a black-and-blue mark on my rear end and one on my arm from our match this morning. And I’m not too happy that Ross barely notices me when you’re around.”
Annoyed, bruised, and unhappy were not the kind of adjectives one wanted to hear from a coveted client. Shelley broke open the bottle of wine and took a great big slug of it, not bothering with the glass. Could the part about Ross Morgan be true?
“I expect what I should do is just put as much distance between us as possible. Because you’re dangerous, girl, in lots of ways.”
Shelley groaned and gulped more wine. She’d traveled all the way across the country to piss off the client whose advertising account she wanted. She could just imagine what Ross would have to say about this. She’d validated her father’s faith in him over her; proven once and for all that she couldn’t land an account on her own, let alone run the agency.
She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, the receiver clutched to her ear.
“But I like that about you. I like that you don’t give up,” Selena’s voice continued.
Shelley’s eyes flew open.
“I can’t stand quitters. I didn’t open as many retail outlets as I have by giving up when things got difficult.”
Shelley sat back up, held her breath.
“So if you’re interested in pitching my account, I’m interested in hearing it.”
There was a moment of silence. Then the smile was gone from Selena’s voice and she was all business. “I’ve got a lot going on over the next few weeks, with the move back to Atlanta and all. But if you call my assistant in Chicago, she’ll get you on my schedule.”
Shelley whooped out loud and sprang from the bed.
“I’ve heard good things about your agency. And nobody’s better than Jake Helmsley. I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with.”
Shelley pumped a fist in the air. She did a victory dance around the room. She could not wait another moment to share the good news.
Checking the bedside clock, she realized it was too late to call home. If her mother heard the phone ring at two A.M., she’d assume someone had died. Skywalker would be excited, but he was notorious for having early nights and he had to be on set at the crack of dawn tomorrow. That left only one option.
Without allowing herself to think it through, she threw open her minibar and pulled out everything that possessed alcohol content. Then she took out everything that had chocolate in it. Scooping the celebratory goodies into her arms, she rushed out into the hallway and took the elevator down to the bottom floor. Barefoot, she traversed the back corridors until she found the room she was looking for.
She could hardly wait to rub in . . . er . . . share her good news.
Ross Morgan opened his hotel room door wearing a pair of pinstriped pajama bottoms. And nothing else.
The cocky words of victory Shelley had planned to utter stuck in her throat. Unable to stop it, her gaze traveled from his bare feet up the loose-fitting cotton that encased his muscular thighs, to the drawstring that hung just below his navel. His stomach was flat and well muscled, and his bare chest was broad, with a light dusting of curly blond hair. She stared stupidly at that chest hair for a moment then finally forced her gaze up to meet his.
He looked at the food and drink clutched to her chest. “Did I miss the party memo?”
She had a brief flash that Selena Moore had probably seen him with even less on than this. Then she had another flash: Selena Moore thought Ross didn’t look at her when Shelley was around.
“What do you see when you look at me?” she asked.
He let his eyes skim up her body in the same unhurried way hers had skimmed his. “Bare feet. A fortune in minibar charges.” His gaze settled on her face. “And a mouth that says such blatantly annoying things that I sometimes forget how perfect it is.”
Oh. It was just like him to compliment and insult her at the same time.
He reached out and pulled her inside. Without asking or moving, he took the bottles and candies from her hands and set them on a nearby dresser.
Once again, he was taking charge, expecting her to follow, even though she was the one who’d knocked on his door. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you want to know what I see when I look at you?” she demanded.
“No.” He took a step forward so that their bodies pressed together. Her back was up against the door. “We do better when we don’t talk.”
Silence as an aphrodisiac. She cocked her head sideways. “Hey, that’s my theory.”
He lowered his head so that his mouth skimmed the hollow of her throat and continued to the V of her blouse. His hair brushed the side of her face, tickled the underside of her chin.
Oh. She opened her mouth, still planning to give him an argument for stealing her theory, but then his fingers moved to the top button of her blouse and his mouth covered hers.
His kiss pushed the silence-as-aphrodisiac theory and an incredibly pithy comeback right out of her head, and she was forced to settle for, “What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
He didn’t say anything, which proved both maddening and, as her theory postulated, incredibly exciting. When his hands slipped inside her bra to cup her breasts, the irritation and annoyance she normally felt for him combusted into an unwelcome jolt of desire.
“Oh!” The door was hard and cool against her back. Ross Morgan was hard and hot. She locked her arms around him and dropped her hands down to cup his buttocks. Holding on, she spun them around until he was the one pinned to the door. And then she pressed up against him until all of them touched.
“Which part are you finding confusing?” he breathed in her ear.
Before she could even consider answering, her blouse and bra landed on the floor, and the tiny part of her brain not currently ooohing and ahhhing over what was happening to the rest of her shrieked warnings like “This is a mistake,” “Don’t be stup
id,” and “Step away from the bed.” But she could barely hear them over the whooshing of blood through her veins and the hammering of her heart.
He stepped out of his pajama bottoms. A heartbeat later she was down to her thong. As he carried her to the bed, she tried to formulate an argument, but she couldn’t come up with a single complaint. She liked, make that loved, every damn thing he was doing to her, and might have to kill him if he stopped.
By the time she was spread-eagled on the bed with his hard body poised above hers, she was a quivering mass of nerve endings clamoring to be silenced.
Then all thinking ceased.
She lost track of time, and everything else except the things they did to each other. A kiss demanded a kiss and a groan begat a groan as they urged each other on to a series of mind-bogglingly silent crescendos.
It was only hours later, when they collapsed together in an exhausted, sweat-soaked heap, that she remembered her alleged purpose in knocking on his door.
She spooned up to his back and buried her face in his shoulder. Her last waking thought was that she had, in fact, rubbed plenty of things in Ross Morgan’s face last night. Unfortunately most of them were body parts.
The shrill ring of the phone woke them. Disoriented, they rolled toward the middle of the king-size bed and collided. Their eyes opened and they took note of each other. The first words out of both of their mouths were “Oh, shit!”
Ross got a hand on the phone. With a groan he removed the receiver from the cradle and brought it to his ear. He was naked, and not worried about it. Shelley gathered the sheets in front of her and sat up.
There was nothing like a six-thirty A.M. wake-up call to bring the real world crashing back into focus.
He hung up and they looked at each other. If Ross’s face was any indication, he was experiencing the same flush of horror and disbelief that was currently washing through her.
“We can’t even blame it on alcohol,” he said with a groan, nodding toward the dresser where he’d deposited the unopened minibottles.
“Or a sugar high,” she agreed. The miniature candy bar wrappers were still intact.
He shook his head and ran a hand through the hair she’d been raking her fingers through most of last night. “When a woman knocks on your hotel room door in the middle of the night armed with alcohol and chocolates, you don’t normally stop and question her motives.”
“I came to tell you that Selena Moore asked me to pitch her account.”
“Oh.”
There was a long silence as they both thought about what had transpired between them. She had no idea where they were supposed to go from here.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
The silence stretched out and took on a life of its own. Only this time it was anything but sensual. She didn’t know what to say. Or how to find the words that would assure him their lovemaking had meant nothing more to her than it apparently meant to him.
Except, of course, that it had been incredible. And not just physically, either, though she’d cut out her tongue before she mentioned that little tidbit.
She watched him shrug into the hotel-provided terry-cloth robe and run his hand through his hair. Again. His obvious discomfort made her own unease grow.
So what had she expected? she chided herself. Admissions of undying love? Confessions of feelings long kept bottled inside and only now allowed to spring forth?
They’d had sex in a supply closet over a year ago, and then pretended it never happened. This time the sex had taken place in more comfortable surroundings—even the dregs of the Four Seasons were decidedly first-rate. But what had really changed?
“Listen,” he began, “I’m really sorry. What happened here between us never should have taken place. But—”
Humiliation washed through her and her gut twisted. She absolutely did not want to hear what was coming next. Pretending relief, she interrupted, “You are so right. This was definitely a mistake. And I really need to get going.”
Unable to meet his gaze, she clutched the top sheet around her and left the bed to hunt for her clothes. Getting out of here before more damage was done was feeling increasingly urgent. “Let’s just forget this ever happened,” she said as she bent to retrieve the clothes she’d been so quick to shed. They formed a trail straight from the door to the bed.
Her own little bread crumb trail, leading straight to the one place she shouldn’t have gone.
chapter 26
The awkwardness between Shelley and Ross intensified. They tried to cover it up, but it was there, lying in wait, crackling in the air between them for the rest of the week. She could barely look at him without remembering the things they’d done to each other and his look of horror when he’d woken up beside her. A mistake? No kidding! Neither of them mentioned it again, but it was like the purple elephant in the corner; they could pretend all they wanted, but the elephant was still there.
She went out of her way to charm the client, and expended considerable energy jollying Jake and Luke along. In between, she maintained phone contact with her accounts back in Atlanta and tried, unsuccessfully, to get ahold of her sister. She found a way to do everything except interact normally with Ross Morgan. This was why fooling around in the workplace was such a big no-no. Why sleeping with a boss who already considered you frivolous made you too stupid to live.
If she could have ducked out of the Friday night wrap party at the end of the shoot, she would have. Instead, she found herself trailing behind the group into Shutters on the Beach, where she’d booked a table that would allow the Simmses one last view of the ocean.
She managed to keep the rest of the party between Ross and her as they entered the high-ceilinged dining room. Luke and Jake and Tracy fanned out between the Simmses, while she kept her eye surreptitiously on Ross in order to maintain that much-needed distance. The end, at last, was in sight: The shoot was over, and all she had to do was get through this meal and deliver the Simmses back to the hotel. Once they were back in Atlanta it would be much easier to stay out of Ross’s way. She intended to make sure of it.
“Ross,” Brian Simms said as they prepared to sit, “would you mind switching with Jake? Charlie wants to pump him for information about postproduction.”
Shit. She shot the director a “Behave yourself” look, and stood stock-still as the others rearranged themselves. Despite her prayers to the contrary, and the odds against it, Ross ended up directly on her left. Next to her. With no buffer zone of any kind.
This was not good.
Without comment, he pulled out her chair, and she had no choice but to sit. As he eased her chair, and her, toward the table, a whiff of his cologne reached her nostrils and taunted her. A moment later he took his seat beside her.
Panicked, she turned to Brian Simms on her right and began to talk. “I understand the Dungeness crab salad is to die for,” she began. “And the rock shrimp ravioli and George Banks seared scallops are equally famous.” Not pausing for breath, she worked her way through the menu then started on the decor. “You know, I think they keep that fire in the fireplace going all year round. Doesn’t it feel wonderfully northeastern seashore in here? Have you ever been up to the Cape?”
Shelley peppered him with questions and babbled on unchecked, and Brian Simms looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. She sounded inane even to her own ears and knew she should shut up, but she also knew that if she let the conversation end, she’d be forced to interact with Ross.
Stop me, she thought wildly, before I speak again.
Simms’s eyes had begun to glaze over when Ross slid an arm across her shoulder. He leaned closer so that they were both facing their client. As he had so long ago in Wiley Haynes’s office, he squeezed her shoulder in a silent signal. But while her reaction then had been annoyance, her reaction today was much more visceral.
She wanted to run as far away from him as possible. And she wanted him to lean closer and whisper hot sex words
into her ear.
This was not good. This was definitely not good.
She remained silent while the two men spoke, and smiled occasionally when it seemed appropriate, though none of what they said actually registered. His arm remained slung casually across her shoulders; the places where their bodies touched were electric and alive.
When their food came and he took his arm back, she missed its weight. And when he turned to his left to talk to Luke, she felt oddly alone.
The next morning, as she boarded the plane for Atlanta, she told herself she was relieved that he’d taken an earlier flight.
It was early Saturday evening by the time Shelley dropped her bags in her foyer and kicked the door shut behind her. “Judy?” she called, but got no answer. “Are you here?”
There was still no answer, but as Shelley moved through her condo, signs of Judy’s occupation were everywhere. Fresh flowers spilled out of a cut glass vase on the cocktail table, and a bowl of perfect fruit sat in the center of her kitchen table. Opening the refrigerator, which normally echoed with emptiness, she encountered neat stacks of Tupperwared leftovers.
“Jude?” She ventured into the guest bedroom and found the bed crisply made and the closet full of color-grouped clothing. The bathroom counter was neatly lined with cosmetics.
In the living room, the sound system remote had been neatly arranged with the TV and DVD remotes in a new acrylic holder. When she went to the living room shelf to choose a CD, she discovered that everything she owned had been alphabetized.
Her sister had been alone here for the last seven days and the results were . . . impressive. If Judy stayed much longer, she might be able to get her to redecorate the whole condo.
Wondering where her sister was, Shelley picked up the phone, plopped down on the sofa, and began to retrieve voice mail.
The message that made her heart pound wasn’t from, but for, Judy. It had been left that morning.
“Hi, Judy, it’s Brett O’Connor,” the deep male voice said. “I really enjoyed lunch the other day and I wanted to confirm our plans for tonight.”
