by Lori Wilde
“I hope this place is okay,” he said anxiously. “It’s not trendy, but the owner and his family are friendly and the food is great.”
He was trying so hard in that moment, as if her approval meant a lot. He’s as nervous as I am, she realized with a start. She was touched that he cared enough to be nervous.
“Did the Young Bostonian article drive you underground?” she said. “Or do you always prefer to frequent out-of-the-way places?”
“You saw that article,” he said, pulling her chair out for her.
She sat down and slid her briefcase under the table. “Oh, indeed. Who could miss it? Impressive piece about Boston’s premiere hotshot multimillionaire. You’ve got the buzz, babe.”
He sat down across from her. A look of embarrassment crossed his face. “It’s a lot of hype.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
The waiter came over. Liam ordered a bottle of modestly priced white wine and antipasto as an appetizer. He wasn’t trying to impress her. Why not?
Katie was confused. She knew he was attracted to her, but he wasn’t pulling out all the stops. What was the deal?
The waiter returned with their wine and the antipasto plate heaped with buffalo mozzarella, salami, black olives, sun-dried tomato relish and thin slices of toasted garlic-bread rounds.
“Are you ready to order your main course?” the waiter asked.
“Oops,” Katie said. “I haven’t even looked at the menu.” Because she’d been too busy looking at Liam.
“They have excellent veal marsala,” he suggested.
“Veal marsala it is,” she said, and passed her menu to the waiter and thanked him.
Once the waiter had gone, she leaned in closer. The scent of Liam’s cologne mingled with the delicious smell of the antipasto. It was a bracing fragrance, hearty and substantial. “Thank you for bringing me here. I adore Italian food. It’s my favorite.”
“Mine, too.”
Strange. She’d pegged him as a sushi lover or maybe upscale French cuisine. Mr. Young Bostonian, and all that.
“Why don’t we take a look at the mock-ups while we eat?” she said. “Kill two birds with one stone.”
“Actually,” he said, reaching across the table to rest his hand on hers to stop her from reaching for her briefcase, “I have a confession to make.”
“A confession?” She studied him, still thrown by the mixed messages he was sending. It wasn’t often that any male knocked her off-kilter.
Using the food as an excuse, she slipped her hand out from under his and reached for a toast round, scooping a spoonful of the sun-dried tomato relish onto the garlic bread.
“This dinner isn’t strictly business.”
“No?” She chased the antipasto with a measured swallow of wine but never took her gaze from his face.
“Surely you knew it was pretext.” His smile was positively wicked and spiked up the heat already invading Katie’s body. “We could have had the business meeting at Sharper Designs on Monday.”
They stared at each other across the table.
“Listen,” they said in unison, then both broke off, chuckling.
“Why don’t you go ahead and show me the designs you’ve come up with?” Liam said. “Let’s get the business portion of this meeting over with so we can—”
“Get down to the pleasure?” Katie impishly finished for him.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“No,” she countered, “I’m certain you’d planned on being much more diplomatic.”
“You think I’m a stuffed shirt?”
“I think that’s the image you portray, but I know better. I’ve seen the real you in action.”
His face flushed. “You’re referring to the Ladies League ball.”
“I am.” She lowered her eyelashes.
“That’s not the real me. You just caught me on a bad night.”
“Not from my point of view.” She winked. “I thought you were very, very good that night.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I took advantage of you.”
“That’s not the way I recall it. In my memory, I clearly took advantage of you.”
“Either way, it was a life-altering experience for me.”
“How’s that?”
“Ever since that night I’ve been unable to think about anything but you.”
“Really?” she said.
“Believe me, that’s not normal.”
“Way to flatter a girl,” she teased, “telling her it’s not normal to be wanted.”
“That’s not what I mean…” He pressed a palm to the back of his neck, chuffed out a breath. “I’m handling this badly.”
She studied his face, clean-shaven, honest, aboveboard. If this had been the Middle Ages, he most certainly would have been a dutiful knight, stalwart and well-intentioned.
Something scary shifted inside her. Maybe she shouldn’t try her Martini dare on him. He was too nice of a guy and she didn’t want to hurt him. “Liam, I…”
“Yes?”
The way he was looking at her caused her feminine sex to clench with a swift squeeze of ravenous need. A deep-seated tightening of desire. She had to have him, never mind the costs.
Befuddled by lust, she dropped her gaze, fumbled blindly for her briefcase, heard her heart pounding blood rapidly through her ears. “I…I’ve got your proposal right here. I’ve gotta warn you, the designs are a bit racy, but you did say you wanted sex.”
The word sex hung in the air, as provocative as heavy breathing.
Unnerved, Katie pushed aside the appetizer plate, scooted her chair closer so they could both see it and placed the file folder on the table between them. “Obviously we’re appealing to young, urban professionals with a high income.”
“Obviously,” he agreed, and leaned over her shoulder. The warmth of his breath fanned the hairs along the nape of her neck.
She flipped open the file, then looked at him to gauge his initial reaction to the graphics of her mock-up.
Suddenly, she understood exactly how much she wanted his approval.
Liam tilted his head to study the photograph with interest, but his face remained unreadable. Damn him and his perfect self-control.
In the ad, a lithe young woman was stepping naked from a patio hot tub underneath a starlit sky. She was holding a white terry cloth towel in her hand that barely covered her explicit parts.
Seated on a lawn chair, in the dark, at the far end of the patio was a man equally as naked, his explicit bits hidden in the shadow cast by a glistening chrome barbecue grill. The man’s eyes were hooked on the woman, the unmistakable signs of feral lust on his face.
The woman was as blond as Katie, the man as dark-haired as Liam. The setting was totally intimate. The choice of models and setting had not been accidental. She’d worked very hard to create an erotic, atmospheric draft that was still subtle enough for mainstream media. It had been a tricky balance, getting the right play of light, capturing the seductive interplay without going over the top.
“We’re thinking of a caption along the lines of— James Place Condominiums…Where Your Most Forbidden Fantasies Come True,” she said. “But the copywriters are still working on it.”
He raised his gaze from the photo, locked eyes with her. “It makes me want to sell my penthouse apartment and move in tomorrow.”
“You really like it?” His approval gladdened her heart.
“It’s exceptional work. You’ve accurately captured exactly what I was going for. The color, the mood, the marketing elements. You’re a master at this, Katie. You can go as high as you want in your career.”
The way he was looking at her made her feel competent and accomplished and reliable. She could honestly say no one else had ever made her feel quite this proud of her work. Katie wasn’t accustomed to impressing a man with her artistic skills, especially a man with as much business savvy as this one. He made her want to truly commit to her career. To throw herself into it
the same way she threw herself into romantic adventures.
It was a new experience, this desire to be industrious and self-reliant. She liked it.
And she liked him.
Then he did something completely unexpected.
Liam reached over, took her hand in his, stared deeply into her eyes and said, “After dinner, would you like to go bowling?”
BOWLING?
Why in the hell had he invited her to go bowling? Liam had never bowled a day in his life.
Why? Because Tony had advised him to throw her a few curveballs. And his friend’s advice had seemed to work with the dog collar and taking her to Carmine’s when his instincts had been to send long-stemmed roses and take her to the fanciest French restaurant in town in a limo.
But bowling? Maybe he should have given the monster-truck rally more consideration.
Unfortunately for him, Katie had been excited at his suggestion. Apparently the girl loved to bowl. Who could have suspected a well-bred Brahmin blue blood would go for bowling?
The alley was alive with noise. He was seriously out of his element as he laced up the two-toned rented shoes. Why on earth was he doing this? His forte was the boardroom, not the bowling lanes.
Then he looked at Katie with her face aglow and he knew why. Her smile made him happy. The realization surprised him. The happiness surprised him.
Absentmindedly, he raised a palm and pressed it against his heart as he watched her pick up her bowling ball and take aim at the ten pins. She looked adorable in those ugly bowling shoes, the hem of her dress swirling around her firm thighs and her hair tumbling over her shoulders in untamed abandon.
He loved her gung-ho spirit and her lively personality. She could turn something as mundane as taking out the trash into a grand adventure. Life with Katie would be lots of fun.
Trouble was, Liam wasn’t used to fun. If he wasn’t working, he felt guilty for leaving things undone. He hadn’t made it where he was today by goofing off with frivolous activities such as bowling.
Being with Katie made him understand how much he’d been missing out on. And he was tired of missing out. Even if it meant he had to make a fool of himself at the bowling alley.
She bent over to take the shot.
Underneath his palm, he felt his heart rate kick up.
She wiggled her butt and he couldn’t help but think she was teasing him. Then she was in motion, floating gracefully down the lane as only a bowling, blue-blooded princess could. She let go of the ball. It rolled down the alley, mowing down every pin.
“Strike!” she yelled gleefully, and spun around toward him, a huge smile on her face. She came trotting over to where he sat. “High five.”
He slapped her upraised palm. The smacking sound, the resulting tingle as his flesh met hers, caused a stirring deep inside him. A stirring unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He had no name for it and that bothered him.
Her gaze met his. Nervously, she flicked out a tongue to lick her lips. It wasn’t a calculated gesture, of that he was sure. But the sight of her sweet pink tongue darting out to moisten those full red lips caused his stomach to contract and his penis to harden.
“Where’d you learn to bowl like that?” he asked. “Last time I checked they don’t have bowling alleys in Beacon Hill.”
“My mother,” she said.
“Bowling isn’t a sport that high-society mamas usually encourage their daughters to take up.”
“My mother was an exceptional woman.”
“I’ve got to hand it to her. She certainly raised an exceptional daughter,” he said.
Katie smiled at his compliment and he discovered he felt quite pleased to bring that smile to her face. “Mom did a lot of things with us you wouldn’t expect from a woman with her advantages and privileges. Sometimes, it earned her criticism from my dad’s family.”
“What about your mom’s family?” he asked.
“Her parents had passed away and she didn’t have any siblings.”
“What about cousins?” he asked. “Aunts or uncles?”
“That was always sort of a mystery,” Katie admitted. “My mother never talked about her extended family. My sisters and I got the impression she was estranged from them. We didn’t really ask about it. My father’s family was so close-knit.”
“What else did your mother like to do besides bowl?”
“Ice skate, bicycling, anything active. She even took us go-carting one time. I loved it, but Joey fell out of her cart and skinned her knees. Dad forbid any more go-cart excursions after that.”
“It sounds as if you and your mother were a lot alike,” he commented.
Katie looked surprised by the suggestion. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but, yeah, maybe so. We were the two who never seemed to fit in with the Winfields.”
“Tell me more about your family.”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. You’re the kind of guy who hates to lose and you’ve seen what a whiz I am on the lanes. No more stalling. It’s your turn. Get out there.”
“But I’m enjoying getting to know you better.” He patted the hard vinyl seat next to him.
“What’s the matter?” she taunted. “Are you afraid you can’t live up to my strike?”
“Absolutely.”
“Get up.” She reached out, took him by the hand and hauled him to his reluctant feet.
“Bowling’s really not my strong suit.”
“I promise, I won’t gloat when I beat your pants off.”
“I don’t believe you. You seem like the type who would gloat over her prowess,” he teased.
She raised two fingers. “Promise.”
“Here’s the deal. I’ve got a confession to make,” he said as she tugged him toward the lane.
“Oh?”
“I can’t bowl.”
She canted her head. “Quit stalling and get out there.”
“No, honestly, I can’t bowl.”
“Really?”
He shrugged.
She rested her hands on her hips. “Then why did you suggest we come here?”
“I was hoping to surprise you with a fun activity you wouldn’t expect me to suggest.”
“And you did.”
“I had no clue you had the makings of a pro bowler. I thought we could look silly together. Now you’re just going to mop the floor with me.”
Katie giggled. “Don’t be afraid to look silly. No one cares, honestly. Just pick up your ball and take your best shot.”
He walked to the ball carousel, stopped, turned back to look at her. Damn, but she seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of glee in his ineptitude.
“Come on, where’s the fearless attitude that propelled you to king of the heap of Boston real estate? I know you’ve got a risk-taking gene in there somewhere.”
“It only applies to business.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He couldn’t fight her infectious smile. “All right,” he conceded, “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
Liam picked up the ball, figured out where to slip his fingers into the holes and then walked to the edge of the lane. How exactly did this thing work? He sneaked a peek at the bowlers on the next lane over.
“Use the arrows on the floor to line up your shot,” Katie called out.
He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t—”
“What? You don’t ask for help?”
“Not until I’ve exhausted all other options.” He grinned.
She sat back against the plastic seating, knees crossed, one leg bouncing provocatively and sent him a wicked grin. “Stubborn.”
“A man likes to do things his own way.”
“Even if it’s the hard way?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tough guy going it alone, huh? No need to be part of the pack. Lone wolf Liam.”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds desolate to me.”
�
��Yeah,” he admitted with a cheerful shake of his head, “maybe a little.”
“Fine. Go it alone.” She chuckled. “I’ll keep my advice to myself.”
“Thank you,” he said, and promptly threw a gutter ball.
Katie hooted.
He sauntered toward her. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“Darn right.”
One look into her eyes and nothing mattered except keeping that wide smile on her face. He kept forgetting he’d hired her to advertise his condos, that she was essentially his employee. As they bowled frame after frame—or rather, she bowled and he pitched balls down the gutter—Liam found himself wanting her more and more. And by the time they ended up at her front door, he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
All evening her laughter had pealed like wind chimes in his imagination, light and free. Whenever she brushed against him, an uncontrollable surge of hormones deployed straight to his loins. And when he drew close to her, he smelled the exotic scent of her shampoo—a piquant blend of lotus blossoms and crystal ginger. It was all he could do to keep himself from burying his nose in her shimmering hair.
“Thanks for a wonderful time,” she said. “I know this was supposed to be a business meeting, not a real date, but I had more fun than I’ve had in a long while.”
“Me, too,” he said huskily.
She turned to slip her key into the lock.
He put his arm on the doorjamb over her head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a woman this badly. “You’re not going to invite me in?”
“On our first date, which wasn’t even really a date?” She turned back, eyes dancing. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“I didn’t…that wasn’t…um…”
“Lighten up, silly,” she said, “I was just yanking your chain.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m not inviting you in.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said, “I’ve got something better in mind.”
His curiosity was piqued. “What’s that?”
She wagged a finger. “If I told you, it would take all the fun out of it.”
“You are a tease.” He couldn’t stop looking at her sweet mouth. At his perusal, her lips parted like petals opening.
“Guilty as charged.”
“And remorseless in what you’re doing to me.”
