Her Frog Prince

by Shirley Jump

  "It's not that simple. If it were, I'd have done it years ago. There are complications. Strings attached."

  "And you're not a man who likes strings, are you? Out there on your boat all day, calling your own shots, making your own hours. You like that life." She took a step forward, fingering his lapel, watching his eyes widen when she did. "And if you had a sexy woman who came up to you and said she wanted to tie a few strings with you, maybe one around a white picket fence and a house with a two-car garage, you'd probably run for the hills."

  "Are you offering?"

  "Are you accepting?"

  His jaw steeled. "No."

  "See, proves my point. You are not as perfect as you'd like to think. So don't go telling me how to live my life."

  She noticed she was still holding his lapel. At the same moment, he seemed to notice, too, and the silence between them stretched from milliseconds to seconds to a half minute. Their gazes connected, held, and something tightened between them, as powerful as the lure of the moon against the tide. She opened her mouth to say something, realized there wasn't a word in her head, and shut it again, breathless and mute.

  "You make me crazy." Brad's voice was low and dark.

  "You do the same to me." Her vocal cords strained to be heard, the words coming at a whisper.

  "What do you think you're doing, walking on the beach in this suit?" He fingered the edge of her jacket, slipping the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, the bright green material sliding smooth as velvet against his skin. "You've come undone, Parris Hammond."

  "I wanted to catch up to you."

  "And give me a piece of your mind?"

  She nodded. "Yeah."

  "Anything else?"

  She didn't dare respond. She wanted to shake her head no. There was nothing else she wanted to give him. This was a man who infuriated her at every turn, who seemed to have ready answers for her life, when he didn't apply a single one of them to his own.

  And yet, with his hazel eyes on hers and his fingers running up and down her jacket like they were caressing her skin, she found herself unable to say a word.

  They were virtually alone, caught behind some palms, shaded from the beach and blocked from the resort. The grove of trees suddenly seemed smaller, tighter, darker.

  "You make me crazy," he said again, in a whisper, and leaned forward, covering her mouth with his own.

  Oh, Lord. Her senses exploded.

  This was what she wanted. This was what she'd come after him for. This was what her body had needed and what her mind told her to run from.

  Because trusting a man, loving a man, relying on a man, led to heartache. Empty promises. Broken dreams.

  Oh, how she wanted to believe Brad was the kind of man who would be different. Who wouldn't turn tail and run after it was too late—

  And her heart had already been ensnared like a dolphin caught in a tuna net.

  His arms went around her, sneaking under the jacket, slipping against the soft fabric of her camisole, sending music up her spine. She leaned into him, not feeling the roughness of his beard on her face anymore. She opened her lips to him, inviting his tongue in, asking him to play.

  He moaned and tilted his head, nibbling along her chin, her neck. Everything inside her gut went hot and molten with desire. She reached beneath his tank top, caressing his rock-hard muscles, slipping her hands over the planes of his chest, roaming to his back and then again to his torso. His hands echoed hers, slipping up the front of her shirt. For a second, their knuckles brushed between the fabric, twin thoughts serving only to stoke the flame between them.

  When he cupped her breasts, she gasped, arching against him, wanting to become putty in his hands, wanting to throw her doubts into the ocean and let them wash away.

  And yet at the same time realizing how that would risk her heart if she did.

  "I can't," she said, breaking away from him. "I can't."

  Then she fled, taking her regrets with her.

  Chapter Eight

  Merry ducked behind the palm tree and pressed a hand to her heart. For the second time today, her cardiac chambers were doing the mambo. First the Phipps-Stovers, now Brad and Parris. She needed to catch her breath and stop panicking.

  It wouldn't do to have a heart attack on the back lawn of the resort and be caught spying. The two of them were like a pair of Ping-Pong balls flying fast and furious from love to hate.

  What was wrong with these two? Couldn't they see a fairy tale when it smacked them in the face? With the Phipps-Stovers feuding and Brad and Parris refusing to fall in love, her youthful self had never seemed so far away.

  "Troubled, dear goddaughter?"

  Merry stepped away from the tree and turned to face her godmother, who'd come up behind her, silent as the wind. "How do you do that? I never even heard you."

  "I'm nimble." Lissa smiled.

  "I used to be, too, before you cursed me. Don't you think I've learned my lesson yet?" Merry threw up her hands. "I get it! True love is wonderful. People live happily ever after. They appreciate each other, etcetera, etcetera."

  Lissa's smile turned into a frown. "Meredith."

  Merry let out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I'm in a bad mood. Parris and Brad refuse to be happy together, no matter what I do."

  Lissa shrugged. "Then don't do anything at all."

  Merry's heart fluttered like a butterfly that had overdosed on nectar. "Are you saying let Nature take its course?"

  "Well, it works for millions of other couples."

  "No way. I don't want to be an old lady one more second than I have to. If I have to wrap these two in a magic bubble and send them off—"

  Lissa tick-tocked a finger at her. "Now, Meredith, you know you can't do that."

  "I'll do whatever it takes."

  Lissa gave her a quick, one-armed hug. "Then get in there and help Jackie and Parris pull off an amazing auction. Relieve her stress and maybe she'll be more inclined to fall in love."

  Merry scowled. "You know how I feel about Parris. I never liked her when we went to school together. Now you want me to help her?"

  "All the more reason for you to get to know her now. See how much she's grown and changed." Lissa gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the resort. "It will do you both some good."

  Merry harrumphed. "All I need is for Parris and Brad to stop righting the happy ending I'm bound and determined to make them have."

  Merry marched off across the sand. Well, marched as well as one could in support hose and orthopedic shoes.

  The auction was in full swing by the time Brad arrived, this time wearing the second suit his mother had sent him, since he'd torched the tie that went with the first one. He'd done an equally bad job of botching the neckwear the second time around and gave up when he realized he was already twenty minutes late.

  His mother had, as promised, sent over a ticket for him to sit beside her at the head table. He wasn't going to go until he'd seen the program booklet she'd included and read the last-minute changes printed on a sheet inserted into the fancy paper. One little addition to the auctioned items list—a replacement for the contentious Phipps-Stover painting—caught his eye and sent him scrambling for the second confining Brooks Brothers suit. He'd called Jerry, run his plan by him, gotten an enthusiastic shout of support, then struggled into the suit.

  "Bradford! You came!" His mother rose from her seat and clasped both his hands.

  Brad kissed his mother on the cheek, catching the scent of Chanel No. 5 as he did, then sat as she retook her chair. "You did send a ticket."

  "You can represent the family interests then, darling. I'll add you to—"

  He put up a hand to stop her before she had him in a corner office with a prime parking space. "Mother, I'm here because I'm your son and because I'm a marine biologist. I'm supporting the aquarium because it's going to be a place where people can learn about aquatic life."

  "Oh." His mother gestured toward a table of suited men. All of them h
ad gray hair, as if years of working behind a desk had taken a toll. "But don't you want to meet the members of the Smith Company board? They all flew down for my event. There's John Becker, the CEO of—"

  "No, Mother. I don't." He clasped his mother's hand. "I'm here to see you and bid on something at the auction."

  "You're going to bid?" She arched a brow. "With what?"

  "I have money." The last of his grant, and every penny he could cobble together, with Jerry's blessing.

  "From what?" She let out a laugh. "You don't earn money catching dead fish for a living, dear."

  "That's not what I do, Mother. If you'd just—"

  "Hush now. The auction's about to start." She motioned to him and swiveled her attention toward the podium at the center of the stage.

  The auctioneer, a rotund man with a booming voice, stood there in a tux, holding up a Jackson Pollock painting. But Brad didn't notice the effusion of colors and lines the artist was renowned for, nor did he hear the frenzied bidding that began the minute the auctioneer announced the starting bid.

  All he saw was the woman standing against the wall on the far side of The Banyan Room, wearing a long pink sparkly dress, her hair swept up into a loose chignon, tiny ringlets tickling against her neck.

  Parris.

  His stomach did a flip-flop, as if a team of acrobats had invaded his intestines. He pushed his plate away, food untouched. His mind drifted away again, going to Parris. To the fluid way she moved across the room, talking with guests, taking care of details as she chatted with a busboy and made sure a mess got cleaned up. She straightened a floral arrangement, tucking a stray sprig of hibiscus behind her ear as she did.

  Oh God. Now she looked as pretty as the most picturesque spot on the island, more delicate than the frozen fruit concoctions the waiters were dispensing. He wanted to tear out of his seat and race down there, take that flower from her hair and trail it down her long, tempting neck, along every valley of her body, until the pale petals merged with the pastel of her dress and he was lost in the scent and feel of Parris.

  Damn his hormones. He should hang them for treason.

  The auctioneer brought up a guitar autographed by some celebrity, but Brad's eyes remained on Parris, now laughing at something one of the guests had said to her. "She's beautiful," his mother said in his ear, "isn't she?"

  "Who?"

  "Parris Hammond. She's been a wonder to work with, her and her sister."

  "That's because she's smart. And organized."

  His mother turned to face him, a half smile on her face. "You like her, don't you?"

  Brad tore his attention away from Parris. With reluctance. "Where is this going?"

  She shrugged. "Nowhere."

  "Did you talk to Parris about bringing me back into the company fold?"

  Victoria toyed with her fork. "I might have mentioned it."

  "Did you pressure her, like you do everyone else? Promise her great things for her business, if she did what you asked?"

  She swirled a bite of chicken in the marsala sauce but didn't eat it. "I told her I know a great deal of influential people. They all like to use consultants for their events. That's all. Just networking, darling, everyone does it."

  "Not that kind of networking, they don't." Brad scowled and turned away.

  Although his mother's interference annoyed him, he now saw Parris with renewed eyes.

  He'd be damned. Parris had been offered the business of a lifetime. All she'd had to do was push him into the family business. And she'd clearly not done it. If anything, Parris had stayed as far away from trying to make him into a corporate type as she could. She'd refused to help him get made over into a suit-and-tie guy, leaving him to flounder with the damnable Windsor knot on his own.

  He'd be willing to bet every dime in his pocket it was because she liked him. Jackie had been right. Parris was a softie.

  "Why are you smiling?" Victoria asked.

  "She didn't do it, Mother. She didn't do what you asked."

  "And how is that good?"

  "That's the best damned thing I've ever heard."

  Brad said, tossing his napkin to the table and rising. "I think I've just upped my opening bid."

  "Going once. Going twice. Sold to number twenty-eight for seven thousand dollars." The auctioneer gestured toward Morton Kingman and then at a six-foot-high porcelain dolphin sculpture. "Thank you, sir."

  "No, thank you. That's going to look wonderful beside my glass manatee in the dining room." Mortie beamed and clasped Candy's hand.

  Parris smiled. The auction was going well. The bids were coming in just a little higher than expected and the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves, with a little good-natured ribbing peppered in among the more competitive bids.

  Two of the guests, Jane and Richard Worth, came up to her. "Wonderful auction," Richard said. His blue eyes sparkled with the delight of outbidding another competitor. "That vase I bought will look nice in the entryway of my company. It's almost as beautiful as my wife." He gave Jane a one-armed hug.

  "Then you should have bought the vase for me," Jane said with a tease in her eyes. "But I'm sure I'll see something else I like before the end of the night."

  "She's going to help me empty my checkbook tonight," Richard said, laughing.

  "That's what we're hoping for," Parris joked back. The duo returned to their seats, already discussing the next items up for bid. Parris was happy to see the guests so happy. From across the room, Victoria Catherine Smith gave her a triumphant smile. Good. The client was pleased, too.

  Brad had left his seat at the head table. She'd seen him there, beside his mother, a few minutes earlier. He'd been wearing a second suit—dark gray this time—but not looking much more comfortable than the first time. His collar hadn't won the battle against the iron and his tie— Well, the tie looked like it was trying to commit hari-kari.

  And yet, there was still something about him that drew her eye again and again, like a lighthouse. She caught him looking at her as he left the table, his hazel gaze connecting with hers across the room.

  The vast, softly lit Banyan Room seemed to shrink in half. Her heart began to race and her lungs forgot to breathe. Was this what it would always be like when she looked at him?

  Always?

  What kind of thought was that? She did not want, did not need, did not have room for the word "always" in her vocabulary. And she'd never met a man who spoke it—and meant it—anyway.

  Brad was focused on his career. On finding the elusive, ugly-as-sin giant squid in the bottom of the ocean. He'd made it clear he didn't want anything more from her than wardrobe advice. And well, a few kisses.

  Okay, a lot of kisses.

  Very nice kisses.

  Very hot kisses.

  Kisses that made her, want to—

  So he made her heart beat a little faster. Big deal. A good roller coaster could do the same thing and do a lot less damage in the end.

  Jackie came into the room, dressed in a red chiffon dress and clutching her handbag with two white-knuckled hands. "How's it going?"

  "You should be in bed," Parris said, keeping her voice low, and moving them out of the brighter lights of the room and into the quieter area by the plants.

  "I've been there all day and still don't feel well." Her sister pressed a hand to her left temple. "Boy, when that headache hit, it hit like a semi without any brakes."

  "Go back to bed. I can handle this. Really."

  "I should be here. Helping with—" Jackie waved her hand vaguely "—whatever needs doing."

  Parris turned her toward the hall. "Go. Don't worry about anything. This is the easy part."

  Jackie gave her a weak smile. "You're a good sister."

  "I don't think you've ever said that before."

  "Well, I better start, because now I owe you at least a dozen favors. You pulled it off, Parris," Jackie said, surveying the room. "You really did."

  "No, we did. I couldn't have done it without y
ou, sis."

  "We make a great team." Jackie smiled. "Glad to have you as a partner."

  Yet when Parris looked at the room, she saw a hundred details she could have perfected, another twenty things she could have done to make the auction that much better. But in her sister's eyes, it was good. For a second, she allowed herself to enjoy the feeling. Parris felt the beginnings of hope that this could be a viable career.

  Jackie swiped a glass of water from a passing waiter's tray, taking a long sip. "Where did all these flowers come from? I thought the florist couldn't complete the order."

  "I picked them myself on the island today. I thought they'd give it a bit more atmosphere."

  Jackie smiled, clearly pleased with the choice. "It works. Really well."

  "Thanks. You'll never believe who helped me. That Merry, the resort manager. Though she did complain the whole time about how the heat was aggravating her. I swear, she reminds me of someone I used to know."

  "And probably didn't like," Jackie said with a laugh.

  Parris chuckled, too. "Most likely."

  "And how are things with Brad?"

  The one subject Parris didn't want to discuss. Brad wasn't as easy to deal with as a few missing flowers and a spoiled prime rib. "Shouldn't you be back in bed?"

  "Not until you tell me why you're over here and he's all the way over there by the hors d'oeuvres table, looking good enough to eat in that suit. Well, except for the beard and the tie…that is a tie, isn't it?"

  "Brad has neckwear issues."

  "I'd say so." Jackie grinned. "Still, why aren't you with him?"

  "I have an auction to run."

  "Seems to me it's running itself. Or so my older and wiser sister told me." Jackie laid a hand on her sister's arm. "I think you're more afraid of Brad being another Garrett Brickwater than anything else."

  Parris bit back her surprise at Jackie mentioning Garrett's name. He'd been a sore subject between the sisters, a moment in Parris's past that didn't exactly fill her with pride. After Garrett had dumped Jackie in favor of Parris, the sisters hadn't spoken to each other for years. Back then, Parris had been too self-centered to send him packing, too in love with what she thought Garrett was offering her to consider the long-term damage to her relationship with her only sibling.