by Mary Campisi
“Prove you’re not afraid to be feminine, that you can defrost yourself enough to step out of that ice cube you live in.” He scanned her suits and landed on the tiny pin-striped black one. “Here. Put this on.”
C.C. scowled at him and grabbed the suit. She started toward the bathroom and paused. “Would you grab me the black shell that goes underneath this? It’s on the far right.”
“Nope. That’s how you’re going to wear it.”
“But I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She clamped her mouth shut and shot him a venomous look. “Good. We’ll stop at the mall and grab a belt to cinch in the waist. Hurry now, like a good girl, we’re running behind. And if you want to show real fearlessness, wear your hair long.”
Two hours later, Max wished he’d kept his big mouth shut and let C.C. stick with her boring suit, pinned-up hair, and chilly demeanor. From the second they’d set foot on the marble parquet at the Ritz, a huge segment of the male attendees had descended upon her like swarming bees, vying for attention and introductions.
C.C. handled it well, he’d give her that. The hand shaking and laughing hadn’t stopped since the first introduction. She didn’t need Max to navigate her through these waters; she could do it without a map or a paddle.
And if that half-drunk, liver-eyed president of Rostel Development tried to peek down C.C.’s jacket one more time, Max swore he’d take the guy out.
“Isn’t she stunning?”
Max turned toward the tall, distinguished gentleman beside him. “Yes. Stunning.” And he was the one who encouraged the little butterfly to shed her cocoon.
“I’ve known Catherine since she was a young girl,” the man said. “Bad bit of business two years ago. Glad to see she’s past it.”
“Yes, she’s past it.” What business?
“Grayson was very concerned, as any father would be. Poor child, losing her mother and then the other.” He sighed and sipped his drink. “Now she can get on with her life. Would you be the one to thank for that, young man?”
Max hedged. “She’s a strong woman. I can’t take credit for that.”
“Ah, no, of course not, though I’ve seen the way you’ve been watching her. You seem the honest type. Catherine won’t trust the wrong man twice.”
With that, the man nodded and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Max to ponder C.C.’s past and what or who was behind the bad bit of bad business the man referred to. It was well past midnight when C.C. finally said goodbye to her bevy of new admirers, Max cutting off two persistent middle-aged men who insisted C.C. accompany them for a nightcap. Not very likely. She might have agreed if Max hadn’t clasped her hand and hurried her outside, into his rental car. Did she really think they gave a damn about her interest in eco-friendly building materials?
“Thank you, Max,” she said, as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She kicked off her heels and sighed.
Max glanced at the woman beside him. This was the C.C. he’d met on the plane, the one who’d been hiding from him since she walked into her father’s office a few weeks ago. Confident. Sensual. Entrancing. Maybe three gin and tonics helped, but this was who she really was, who she wanted to be—he sensed it. Why was she so damned afraid of just being herself? And who the hell had hurt her so bad?
“Max?”
“What?”
“Are you mad at me?” She reached over and fluffed his hair. “Don’t be mad, Max. Mad Max.” She giggled. “You don’t look like Mel Gibson, but I could so see you in one of those armor suits swinging a battle ax.” Giggle, giggle. “Mad Max Jerrnigan and the Thunderdome,” she said in a deep voice. “Sexy.” She shimmied against the leather seat and closed her eyes. “Sexy Max. Sexy, sexy Max. Hmmm.” She sighed. “Sex. Max. Sex. Hmmm.”
Max gripped the steering wheel and refused to think about the bulge in his pants. The woman had him on a roller coaster; one minute she made him mad as hell, and the next, she sighed and strung a few silly words together, and zing, he wanted to kiss her.
Time to execute his plan. Max pushed aside the twinges of guilt that clung to what used to be his conscience. Grayson had been very clear about the deal—no strings attached. If Max didn’t act soon, he might run the risk of actually falling for C.C.
Then what?
He already found himself fantasizing about her spread out on his bed, dark hair spilling over the pillow, pale skin warm from their lovemaking. Her belly filled with his child. Her father said she wanted a baby and he intended to give her one. They’d both get what they wanted, and nothing more. Neither of them wanted anything more.
***
C.C. tried to snuggle deeper into the warm cocoon and burrowed right against a hard moving wall. “Where am I?”
“Shhh. We’re in the elevator.”
“Oh.” She snuggled back against the moving wall. “Okay.” Moments or hours later, the cocoon disappeared, the wall stopped moving and she was on her back. She inched her eyes open and tried to focus. “Max?”
“Hey.”
His voice sounded strained. Was something wrong? She started to sit up but a wave of dizziness flattened her.
“Stay still. You should try to rest.”
“What happened?”
“You fell asleep.”
“Fell asleep?” Her head pounded when she spoke.
“Okay,” he hedged, his expression grim, “passed out.”
“Passed out?” Oh, if only the throbbing would stop. “I passed out? Where?”
“Here. On the bed.”
“Oh.” She reached under the covers. No suit, no stockings, no necklace.
Max cleared his throat. “I hung up your clothes.”
“Thanks.” He’d seen the black lace bra and panties. He’d seen the garter belt.
“No problem.”
“Did I,” she hesitated, “do anything else?”
It was his turn to hesitate. “Nope. You were the perfect date.”
That could mean anything. “It wasn’t a date.” She closed her eyes, blinked hard and pressed her fingers against her temples. “My mouth feels like a triple-size cotton ball.”
“You threw up,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?” If that were true she willed the bed to open up and swallow her whole.
“Twice. Right after you tried to seduce me.”
***
When someone knocked on Max’s door late Saturday morning, he assumed it would be C.C. come to interrogate him about last evening. The woman must be hung over and mortified. He’d enjoyed the look on her face when he told her she’d been sick and had tried to seduce him. Okay, maybe seduce was a little strong, but she’d definitely thrown her arms around him and pressed her delicious body much too close to his.
And the throwing up part, well, Tanqueray and tonic as a main course could do that to a person.
He’d torture her a little before accepting her apology; payback for the restless night she’d given him. How was a man to sleep with visions of lace and flesh and garters dancing in his head? Max pulled open the door, hiding the beginnings of a smile. This was going to be fun.
He froze when he saw the woman standing on the other side of the threshold.
“Hello, Max.” Candy Monroe breezed past him in a flash of red and black, her stilettos sinking in the plush carpet with each stride.
“Candy? What are you doing here?”
She glanced at the unmade bed and shook her head. “You never did like making the bed.” Max cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his back pockets. Why couldn’t C.C. have been the one at the door?
Candy scanned the rumpled sheets, tilting her head from side to side, as though trying to determine what had taken place there. “Are you sleeping with her?”
“What?”
“Catherine. Please tell me you aren’t.”
“No!” And then with less force, “No, I’m not.”
“Don’t do it, Max.” She moved toward him, her red
sweater clinging to her perfect body like sex in motion.
What would she say if she knew about the deal Grayson had made with him? “My sex life is none of your business.” He did not want to talk about C.C. with her.
“Of course it isn’t, but I like Catherine and I want a chance at a good relationship with her.” Her voice dipped as she added, “And I care about what happens to you.”
“Sure you do. That’s why you stole my ideas and hooked up with Alex Drummond.”
Pain flashed across her face. Or had he imagined it? “I didn’t steal your ideas, Max. I thought you were moving too slow. All I wanted to do was speed things up a bit. I did it to help you.”
“You stripped my credibility with Drummond and he lost confidence in me. That was a major deal, my deal, and you got all the credit.”
Her hazel eyes glistened. “You just walked away, Max. From the project, from your work.” She hesitated, then said in a soft voice, “From me. I’ve always regretted what happened. If I could take it back, I would.”
He wanted to change the subject. “So this thing with Grayson, are you in love with him?”
Candy picked up a blue and silver print tie from the back of a chair and traced the pattern. “You always were a sharp dresser.” Seconds passed and he began to think she wasn’t going to answer his question, which would, of course, answer it. “I do love him,” she said, looking up. “In a calm, steady, admirable way.”
“Kind of like an owner loves his dog?” This was Candy Monroe, the firecracker who could play with the best of them, full out, all out, with heat and passion? She’d never used the words calm or steady in her life.
“Don’t make fun, please.” She sat in the chair by his desk and absently stroked his tie. “A year ago, I was working on a huge project outside London. Big rush, you know how that is. Three days before I was scheduled to leave, my mother had a minor heart attack. I thought about rescheduling but she was doing so well, I decided to go and return to the States in four weeks.” Her voice fell out flat and empty. “Six days after I left, she suffered a massive heart attack. She died before I could get back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I lost my mother. My sister had to deal with this alone because I was on a different continent. I should have been there and I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You couldn’t have known.” This sad and introspective woman didn’t sound like the Candy he knew.
She swiped at a tear. “When I lost my mother, it was a wake-up call, Max. I quit my job, took time off to spend with my sister and her family. Eventually, I started consulting, but now I don’t jump continents and live out of a suitcase. I travel a few days a month, the rest is done from my office. I met Grayson on a consulting job.”
“And you’re happy?”
A flash of something close to regret crossed her face. “I’m content.” She switched gears quickly. “But I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came to talk to you about Catherine.”
“Catherine?” What could she possibly have to talk to him about?
“Please don’t hurt her.”
“Who says I’m going to hurt her?” The words fell out of nowhere, implying a long-term relationship of some sort, definitely not what Max had in mind. He planned to fulfill his part of the deal and move on, with visitation rights minus a wife.
That’s what he wanted.
Wasn’t it?
“You never mean to hurt anyone, but you do.” She folded his tie and placed it on the desk. “You don’t even realize what you’re doing. We all make it easy on you because we’re so desperate for a piece of you. But there’s something inside you that won’t let you commit. When you walked out on me, I cried for two months.”
Max scrubbed a hand over his face and wished this conversation were over. “I’m not going to hurt her,” he said, as much to himself as to Candy.
“Yes, you will. You won’t mean to, but it will happen.” She stood up, and made her last appeal. “Please, Max. Do us all a favor and leave her alone. She’d never survive you leaving her.”
Chapter 7
Roxie Revito stood outside J&R Associates, debating whether or not to confront Rhyder Remmington before or after lunch. She checked her watch. It was 11:35 a.m. C.C. had told her the man was an architect, which meant he probably followed a rigid schedule; lunch at 12:00, not 12:01. And since Roxie needed his full cooperation in order to evaluate him, she didn’t want to annoy him, not that Roxie could annoy a man. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even mildly irritated one, with the exception of her father. Him she hadn’t spoken to in seven years.
Roxie stuck a double wad of watermelon-flavored gum in her mouth and considered her strategy. Two days earlier she’d contacted Mr. Remmington’s assistant under the pretense of soliciting architects to design a botanical garden for her great aunt, Cecilia Revito, well-known Chicago humanitarian. Okay, so Aunt Cecilia was wandering around Tibet for the next six months, but if she were here, she’d be thrilled with the idea of a botanical garden. Of course, Roxie had no desire to involve herself with anything philanthropic, academic, or remotely logical. That life was past. All she wanted to do now was cut, perm, dye and blow dry.
She snapped her gum and blew a monster bubble. Time to do a little detective work for C.C. Roxie pulled open the large stainless rimmed glass door and waltzed inside.
Piece of cake. Architect or not, Rhyder Remmington was still a man, and men were her specialty.
***
Rhyder checked his watch and permitted himself a half smile. Cecilia Revito’s niece was punctual, a necessity for any reasonable business negotiation. He’d have preferred meeting with Cecilia directly, but the niece would do for now. She was most likely merely a messenger. After all, one couldn’t expect much in the area of gray matter from someone with a name like Roxie. Rhyder winced. The name reminded him of a lead-in to a circus act. Or a stripper.
When the door flew open and Ms. Roxie Revito pounced through, Rhyder realized two things: the woman behind the name was most likely not only part of a circus act, but she was probably a stripper as well. He’d never seen such I Love Lucy red hair, spiked short and sprouting out in all directions. He could see the black eyeliner from across the room, framing eyes that could be any color—blue, green, purple. She reminded him of an elf with her pointy chin and upturned nose on a frame that wouldn’t reach his shoulder, even with the spikes.
“Roxie Revito,” she announced in a husky voice, thrusting her small hand at him.
There were rings on every finger, sparkly big ones, round, square, and two on her thumb. Rhyder maneuvered his hand between the geometric designs and shook her hand. Her grip was strong, and surprisingly self-assured. Interesting.
“Rhyder Remmington,” he managed, carefully extricating his hand. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
He pulled out the adjoining chair and sat down. This woman was going to give the go ahead for a multi-million-dollar project? This woman with the red-spiked hair and enough holes in her ears to play connect the dots controlled the outcome of a major deal? And what was that in her right nostril? A stud? Or a speck of glitter? He couldn’t tell from where he sat but he’d guess it was a stud—the woman certainly had an affinity for making holes in her body.
“So, you’re Cecilia’s niece?” Probably the black sheep of the family.
“Yes. Aunt Ceci is my father’s sister.”
“Are you any relation to Roberta Revito?” He’d read an article in Newsweek a few years back about a child prodigy who’d entered college at sixteen and earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics before her twenty-first birthday. Now there was a real woman.
The red-headed pixie sitting next to him squirmed and looked away. “She’s my cousin but we don’t speak.”
Probably because you can’t understand her. “Too bad. That woman’s a genius. Mankind needs more of those people.”
She flashed him an angry look and narrowed her eyes until all he s
aw was eyeliner. “Too many brains can provide their own source of misery.”
As if she would know. “I’ve never seen where that’s the case.”
“Then you’ve never looked.”
Rhyder scanned her short red spikes, ball earrings—were those really bowling balls?—teeny sweater hugging tiny breasts, pink pleather mini and thigh-high black boots. An interesting comment from someone like her. And then another thought hit him. “Are you saying your cousin was miserable being brilliant?”
She shrugged and shook her spiked head.
“What then?” He shifted in his chair. From the time he calculated his first algebraic equation at the age of six, he’d been called brilliant. He’d enjoyed that title, relished the knowledge that no problem existed he couldn’t solve. Better to be brilliant than charming. How many times had he used that line? But little Ms. Roxie Revito of the spiked, red-headed, multi-pierced crowd thought differently.
“Even light bulbs dull over time.”
“What does that have to do with this conversation?” It was obvious her cousin had inherited the majority of gray matter in the Revito family.
She waved a hand at him. “You know, light bulbs illuminate brilliance? Brilliance fades over time? Light bulb dulls then dies out? Get it?”
The woman had the audacity to sound annoyed. He had no interest in debating the issue with this woman. Her cousin, on the other hand, would offer up a lively discourse. “You know, I’d love to meet this cousin of yours, discuss the book she wrote, anything to witness her brain in action.”
“She wouldn’t be interested.”
Now he was offended. “Why not?”
Roxie Revito thrust a finger at him and started wagging it. “You’re too full of yourself, too arrogant, too condescending. Shall I go on?”
He stared at her. Hard. And then he started laughing.
The man was a complete imbecile. She’d known far too many of his type at MIT: brilliant, self-absorbed know-it-alls. If she hadn’t promised C.C. to get the scoop on him, she’d tell him to take his fancy degrees and stuff them.
“You find my observations amusing?” She could see why this Max Jerrnigan’s ex-girlfriend didn’t get along with the guy. He was a jerk.
