Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  But that was why he was now standing in the foyer of the San Diego Aquarium eyeing his PR specialist’s legs.

  He put his hand on the curve of her bare back and he felt her jump beneath his touch. A slow smile curved his lips. He leaned in and her sweet feminine scent teased his sense. “You wore navy blue because I told you not to wear black, didn’t you?”

  She pursed her lips and looked to the side, her expression defiant and sexy at the same time. “Maybe.”

  “Because you like to challenge me without defying me outright,” he said, his lips brushing her ear. He felt the small tremor that shook her body. Interesting. She wasn’t as icy as she wanted him, and people in general, to believe.

  “I don’t want to get fired,” she whispered, her dark eyes warning him to back up or lose a limb.

  He frowned. He liked the feisty edge that Lily had, but she was his employee and he had no right to touch her simply because he felt an attraction. She was a good employee, and everything that made her so great to work with, made her the kind of woman he never wanted to get involved with.

  He dropped his hand and studied her flawless face. She looked different out of her work suits, with her brown curls shimmering over her shoulder. Softer. Touchable.

  His hands itched to do just that. To touch her petal-soft skin, to run his fingers through her hair. His body tightened in response to the thought, even as his mind rejected it.

  “As if I would fire you,” he said, putting distance between them. “You know too much.”

  “I think I might get that matted and framed. High praise indeed.”

  They walked into the main section of the art exhibit, which was being held in the kelp forest. The entire room was cast in a bluish glow, compliments of the massive, three-story cylindrical aquarium that made up the structure of the space. Water plants grew to impossible heights and fish wove through them. Art was placed on easels around the room, with a place to write down and submit bids next to each one of them.

  Gage walked over to one of the displays and, without even glancing at the artwork, took a form and wrote an astronomical sum on it before dropping it in the box.

  “You really should be less discreet when you do things like that, and when you do things like create wildlife preserves near your resort sites,” she said.

  “Why is that?”

  “It would help your image. And you need it. ‘Property developer’ is kind of a tough profession to sell to the public. You could make my job easier by trumpeting charitable contributions.”

  He frowned. “You were a witness. Trumpet it.”

  “You don’t want me to, though.”

  His jaw tensed. “Giving for the sake of your reputation is just paying for good publicity.”

  “Most people don’t have a problem with that.”

  “And what’s your opinion on it, Lily? And don’t give me your ‘my opinion doesn’t matter as long as the public likes you’ speech.”

  She bit her lip. This side of Gage always confused Lily. In some ways he seemed more uncomfortable having people know anything good about him. He didn’t seem to mind the negative press that came when he dated one supermodel, then switched to an actress the next night. But he didn’t seem to want to let anyone know about his good behavior. And there was something about that that made her almost like him sometimes, and that made all the other physical things he made her feel intensify.

  “It’s … okay, events like this are definitely a little bit fake. It’s see and be seen. Most people are flashing their bids all over the place.” She jerked her head toward the glittering celebrities and debutantes gathered around different pieces of art, waving their bids around while they talked.

  “I don’t play the game,” he said. “It doesn’t appeal.”

  “You have to play the game a little bit, Gage. It’s good for business.”

  “What’s it like for you, doing a job that’s so at odds with who you are?”

  The question was so strange and unexpected, she turned sharply, her mouth dropping open. “I … how is it at odds with who I am?” She knew better than most how important image was.

  The Lily Ford from a Kansas trailer park, who had pulled her way from poverty and put her past far, far behind her, was not going to get anywhere in the field of public relations. She knew, she’d tried that. But the Lily Ford who knew how to present herself with icy cool dignity, the Lily who wore tailored, designer clothing and always had her hair done perfectly, that Lily was a success. And it had all been a matter of image.

  Who she was underneath didn’t matter to clients or to the public when she was making a statement. All that mattered was what they saw. That philosophy was how she made her living, and she believed it, lived it, more than anyone she’d ever come into contact with.

  “You seem to value some sort of integrity. And you believe that these sorts of shows of wealth and generosity are false. But you wish I would engage in them.”

  She shrugged. “If the world were different, maybe these things wouldn’t matter. But we’re in a media-obsessed culture. That means making a good face to present to the media, and through that, the public.”

  “I don’t like to pander to the public.”

  “I know you don’t, but you do like to make money. And that means keeping your image favorable. Again, easier said than done for a capitalist pig like yourself.”

  He shot her a deadly look that she ignored.

  They continued to walk through the room. She noticed how, though Gage greeted people casually, he seemed separate from them, too. He didn’t really engage with people. She made her money partly by reading people, she had to have a good idea of who her clients were and what made them tick. But after four months, in a lot of ways, Gage remained a question mark. She spent nearly every day with him, but even with that, she knew very little about him personally.

  The conversation they’d just had was probably the most revealing one she’d ever had with him. Otherwise it was confined to business.

  Gage knew how to play the game. He said the right things to the right people, but there was nothing personal in the way he spoke to anyone. It was the first time she’d realized that even she had never seen past Gage’s public persona.

  A thin blonde socialite with cleavage spilling over the top of her dress grabbed Gage by the arm and beamed up at him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Lily was standing on the other side of him.

  “Gage,” the blonde said breathlessly. “I’m so glad I saw you here. There’s dancing out in the courtyard,” she added.

  She noticed that Gage didn’t bother with his signature smile. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to dance with my date.” He hooked his arm around her waist and slid his fingers over her hip, the light touch sending heat ripping through her body. When he brought her close to his side her legs felt as if they might buckle.

  She’d never in her life been affected by a man’s touch like that. Of course, that could be because she rarely let men touch her. She’d watched her mother go through an endless succession of men. Men who had asked her mother to uproot them and move from one town to another, men who had berated and belittled both of them, men who had always held the control over both of their lives. Lily had never wanted that. By the time she was thirteen she’d decided that from what she’d seen of relationships she wanted nothing to do with them.

  She’d finally left home at seventeen and moved to California. Ten years later she had her own business, a beautiful apartment, complete control over her own life, and still no man. She had never regretted it. Some of her friends thought she was crazy, and insisted she was missing out on one of life’s fundamental experiences. But every time she agreed to go on a date with some guy her friends promised would be perfect for her, she found herself dissecting his behavior, imagined how the possessive hand on the curve of her back would change to a fist intent on controlling her once the newness of the relationship wore off. She didn’t have second dates.

  It was fine for h
er friends. Fine for other women who hadn’t seen the steady digression of a relationship over and over again.

  But Gage’s touch didn’t make her think of being controlled. She couldn’t think of anything. All she could feel was the gentle sweep of his fingers over the curve of her hip.

  “Care to dance?” he asked, his lips close to her ear, her body responding so eagerly she felt certain he would be able to see just how much he was affecting her. Her breasts felt heavy and she was thankful for her moment of near-defiance in purchasing the navy blue. Hopefully it would help conceal her tightened nipples.

  The blonde was giving her a glare that had the potential to turn a lesser woman to stone, and her pride only left her with one answer to give Gage. “Of course,” she said.

  In a moment of total madness, she reached up and touched his face, the dark stubble there scraping her palm. Her heart hammered hard, her throat suddenly dry. She dropped her hand back to her side. She’d thought about touching his face before. Fleeting moments that had invaded her thoughts while she fought for sleep at night, fantasies that had now bled over into reality. Her palm still burned.

  She followed him through the hallway lined with more aquariums and out into one of the outdoor courtyards where a band was playing.

  He took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers and drawing her into his body, his expression intense. Her heart was thundering in her chest now, and there was no pretending that what she felt wasn’t attraction. The most acute, real, dangerous attraction she’d ever felt in her life.

  “This is inappropriate,” she said, horribly conscious of the fact that her voice felt as shaky and jittery as her whole body felt.

  “Would you rather I danced with Cookie?”

  She snorted a laugh, then covered her mouth with the hand that had been resting on his shoulder. She lowered it when she caught her breath, not sure whether or not she should put it back on him. “That’s not really her name is it?”

  “It might be a nickname, I’m not sure.”

  “You never asked?”

  “It wasn’t important at the time.”

  That spoke volumes about the way Gage treated relationships. He avoided commitment with flings. She avoided relationships by not having romantic contact with men altogether. But they were both avoidance tactics. In that, at least, they obviously saw eye-to-eye. Relationships were overrated.

  Gage put his hand on the small of her back, on her bare skin, and he felt a small shiver go through her whole body. She was feeling every bit of the attraction he was. Strange, because he had only ever seen her in her buttoned-up professional mode, now suddenly she was unbuttoned and very, very hot. Although, she’d always been hot. He’d thought more than once about uncoiling her tightly wound hair and watching the dark curls tumble down.

  She shifted against him, her hip brushing his body intimately. His muscles tensed and desire roared through him, his body hardening at the accidental contact.

  He drew her closer, letting her feel. Letting her know exactly what she was doing to him. He didn’t hit on employees as a rule, ever. But she tempted him. And that was a new experience. Women appealed to him, and he desired them. But he’d never considered them a serious temptation. If it wasn’t the right time, it was easy for him to leave his date standing on the doorstep and go home without taking her to bed. There had been a lot of times in his life when pleasure had had to be deferred due to responsibility, either because of his family or because of business. He was an expert at deferring pleasure if necessary. But this feeling, this hot surge of lust coursing through him, didn’t feel like something that could be deferred or denied.

  Her head jerked up, her dark eyes wide, her breath coming in short bursts. “That’s definitely not appropriate,” she whispered.

  “Maybe not, but I’m enjoying it.”

  She licked her lips, the slow, sensual movement hitting him like a punch to the gut. She looked down again, not saying anything, but leaning in a little bit closer, her breasts brushing his chest.

  Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted slightly and she swayed a bit in his arms. Then she went stiff, pulled back quickly, her brown eyes huge with shock.

  “Did you make all the bids you were planning on making?” she asked, her breasts rising and falling with her labored breathing.

  “Yes,” he said, trying to ignore the ache of unsatisfied desire that was gnawing at him.

  “Then we should go. We’ll probably have another early morning.”

  She turned and walked back into the building. He shook his head. She was right to have stopped things, as much as his body rebelled against the admission. He valued her too much as an employee to sacrifice it for sex. Even if it would be incredibly hot sex.

  He liked to keep his life compartmentalized. There was work, there was his family life, and then there was his sex life, and he didn’t combine them. Ever.

  Though with the memory of her in his arms, how soft and sweet she’d felt there, how close he had come to tasting her lips, it was hard to remember why that was.

  Lily couldn’t sleep, and it was all Gage’s fault. And hers. He’d nearly kissed her. She’d nearly kissed him. Curiosity. That was all it had been. The need to know what it would be like. She’d wondered about it. She wouldn’t be human if she hadn’t.

  Gage was so much more than any other man she’d ever met. More successful, more driven. And those were things that appealed to her. But she had never felt so compelled to abandon all of her tightly held business principles for a few moments of … of … lust.

  She hadn’t wanted to pull away, hadn’t felt like he was trying to manipulate her in any way. She’d felt … passion. For the first time in her life she’d experienced real, physical passion. She’d always felt passion for her work, a drive and a need to succeed, but that was where it had been contained.

  Her body still felt hot and restless, unfulfilled.

  “I don’t want Gage,” she told her empty bedroom. “I don’t.”

  He was her boss. If she wanted a relationship, which she definitely didn’t, it wouldn’t be with him. Her job was too important to risk it by blurring personal and professional lines. It had never been an issue for her before.

  Her clients had been almost exclusively men, and even when they’d shown interest, like Jeff Campbell, she hadn’t been remotely tempted to accept. There was a clear line drawn in her mind. Work was work.

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to make the shaky feeling go away. The worst thing wasn’t that Gage was her boss, it was how out of control he’d made her feel. She’d kissed men before—several of them—and the experience had ranged from completely undesirable to okay. None had lit her on fire from the inside out. But the near kiss with Gage made her feel like she was burning.

  The worst thing was that she knew that if his lips had touched hers, that last shred of sanity would have turned to a vapor and any inclination she had to resist him would be gone with it. And when had she ever struggled with her willpower? She created her own destiny. She was in charge of her own life.

  She let out a low growl of frustration and tossed off her covers before stalking over to her computer. If she wasn’t going to get sleep, she would get work done.

  She opened up her email account and clicked open the message that she knew contained her search engine alerts on Forrestation Inc. and Gage Forrester. It was important for her to keep tabs on what was being said about him so she could release a statement if necessary.

  She scanned the message and her stomach dropped. She bit out a curse and picked up her phone, speed dialing Gage’s number, not caring that it was three in the morning.

  “Gage, we have a very serious problem.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “THIS is garbage.” Gage threw the printed papers back down on his desk, his muscles tense, his entire body wound up and ready to attack at any moment.

  Hearing Maddy’s voice, thick with tears on the other end of the phone a few moments bef
ore, had made him feel capable of very serious violence against the person responsible for spreading such venomous rumors.

  It made him feel physically ill, seeing the article written with such foul accusations. Accusations directed at Madeline. She was doing well now, had graduated from college, was finally coming out of her shell and putting their neglectful childhood being her. She’d been such a quiet little girl, as if she was afraid to step out of line. Afraid he might abandon her, too. But she’d grown so much in the past few years, and now this threatened to destroy everything Maddy had battled so hard for.

  “I agree,” Lily said. “It’s not news, and it’s a shame we live in a culture that thinks it is. But the simple fact is that we do, and this story is going to be in every print and digital publication this morning, from respected newspaper to scandal rag.”

  “She doesn’t need this. She’s been through enough. She just graduated. It’s hard enough finding a job, and she won’t let me help her. Add this, and no one will hire her.”

  Lily sucked in a sharp breath and tugged on her suit jacket. “I know, Gage. Trust me. I’m fully aware of how hard it is to be a woman in the corporate world, and a …” She looked at him, her expression filled with distaste. “Sorry, but a sex scandal is hard to move past. For the woman, at least.”

  “She wasn’t involved with him,” Gage growled, skimming the article on the top of the stack again. “She swears she wasn’t. She says he was her boss, she was doing an unpaid internship, and he came on to her. She refused to sleep with him, and now, now that his wife is leaving him because he’s a lecherous old jackass, he’s blaming Maddy to try and make her look like she was some kind of predatory female out to destroy their marriage, out to take him down and ruin his life.”

  “Regardless of whether she had a relationship with him or not …”