Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  She didn’t flinch. Just lifted her red wineglass and toasted them, raising it high enough to be seen over the intricately rolled and spiraled cabbage leaves that made up the centerpiece.

  “Because I’m an old bat and no one speculates about my sex life.” She took a delicate sip and set her glass down.

  Maxie giggled loudly before clapping a hand over her mouth and letting her eyes dance between mother and son.

  Maybe this evening would be more entertaining than she’d thought.

  * * *

  “Mother.” Before Nick could continue, Alfie waved him off and turned to the man to her left, an attorney with whom Nick had done business before. She interrupted his conversation and demanded that he explain to her why she couldn’t sue her butcher for running out of Wagyu beef before her dinner party.

  Nick reached for one of his own wine glasses and threw back a healthy slug.

  “She’s a trip,” Maxie said, putting her hand on his sleeve.

  “She’s something, all right.” He didn’t look her in the eye when he spoke, but he knew she could feel the tension in his forearm. She left her hand where it was, but after a moment he sat back, separating himself from her.

  “Your father?” she asked after a moment. Nick stared at the centerpiece and contemplated how much more fun planning a hostile takeover would be than participating in a conversation about his parents.

  “Long gone, thank god.” He shook himself briefly, the muscles in his jaw aching as he tried to resist grinding his molars together. “Although it’s also possible that he and the current Mrs. Drake are here tonight.”

  Maxie turned and scanned the crowd reflexively. He wondered who she was picturing as she looked around the room for his father and his current “stepmother.” Not that he’d met the woman. But he’d seen photos in the gossip columns.

  Did she imagine a refined silver-haired businessman accompanied by a woman of appropriate age and dress?

  Not hardly.

  “He’s on his fourth? I think it’s his fourth wife now. They’re usually in Monte Carlo for the races this time of year. He’s part owner of a car. But if he is in town, this would certainly be his kind of event.” He spun the stem of his wineglass between his fingers, watching the burgundy liquid swirl up the sides and rebound on itself when he spun it back in the other direction. “Lots of conspicuous displays of net worth here.”

  “Oh, well, Monte Carlo sounds like fun.” She was clearly at a loss. International race-car driving and thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraisers weren’t Maxie’s usual milieu. Not that she couldn’t slip right into this crowd—any crowd—as if she’d been born there.

  “The current Mrs. Drake is a young woman who dropped the start flags at an underground drag-racing club in Berlin.” He tilted his head back and swallowed the last of his red wine, placing his hand over the glass when the nearest server instantly approached to refill it. “I learned about my father’s latest marriage via a business reporter who was interviewing me for a Time magazine piece. He asked me if I’d attended the wedding. He was thrilled to get a quote for his article wherein I admitted that I hadn’t known about my father’s latest plunge into matrimony.” Of course, it was the same reporter who was pissed at him and looking to embarrass him in the press. Nick wished he’d never bothered to publicly correct the man for reporting on his supposed engagement to Elizabeth. When he turned to look at Maxie again, the remembered humiliation burned like fire under his skin and his eyes didn’t come anywhere near her face. “I’m still dodging calls from that guy—he’s local, too, unfortunately—asking what I think about the pictures of my ‘stepmom’ going topless on the beach in France. If she were here, there would undoubtedly be even less to her dress than there is to yours.”

  Maxie snapped her head back as if he’d slapped her and yanked her hand off his arm. It took her a moment to form a coherent response.

  “That was a shitty thing to say.”

  He flinched. She was right. His crappy relationship with his parents wasn’t her fault, and she didn’t deserve for him to take out his frustration on her. Shit. Hard to believe he was considered a smooth talker in some circles. Nick mustered up the grace to look her in the eyes and apologize.

  “I apologize. You’re right. That was a shitty thing to say. And I love my parents. Usually.” He rubbed his hand across his forehead, trying to smooth the lines that felt too deep to erase. He lowered his voice. “But you see how my mother is. She and my father are the same. They always have to be the center of attention. They demand it, and neither of them cares how embarrassing it is for me. It’s been like that for my entire life.” Alfie hadn’t come up for air ever since she’d thrust herself into her tablemates’ conversation. The two men—a couple, Nick knew—sat with glazed looks on their faces, as if they’d long since given up on getting a word in edgewise. Eventually, as always, he’d have to rescue them by distracting his mother. He pleaded with Maxie to understand. “Do you have any idea how much I loathe having people stare at me? How tired I am of explaining away their actions? All I want is a night where I’m not in the middle of some spectacle.”

  “Wow. I have absolutely no idea what you’re doing with me.” She balled up her napkin and stood, dropping it in a heap on her seat, shoving her chair in hard enough to jar the table.

  Okay, so that hadn’t been the most sensitive explanation on his part. But still, was she seriously going to make a scene after he’d just explained how tired he was of having to deal with the attention from that type of behavior?

  “Are you storming out?” By now, his jaw was twitching.

  “No, Nicholas, I am not storming out. You know why?” Maxie kept her voice low and under control, but she was clearly irritated with him. “Because I’m not twelve.”

  He shot a glance at his mother across the table. In his experience, age was no guarantee of sensible behavior.

  “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not your mother, either. Although if I were, I’d tell you to grow up.” She looked as though she wished she could incinerate him with her eyes. If mutant superpowers were a real thing, he’d be a pile of ash on a fabric-draped catering chair. Maxie straightened her spine until a cotillion instructor would have beamed with pride and stared down her nose at him. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’ll be back when I think I can sit next to you without completely ignoring you for the rest of the night.”

  With that, she strode away from the table and heads did indeed turn, though he was sure most of the stares were admiring ones. If only because the majority of heads that had turned were male.

  Nick sat motionless in his seat, staring straight ahead at the centerpiece. He thought about a wildlife documentary he’d watched at 2:00 a.m. one night while suffering from insomnia. The field biologist had gone on at great length about how white-tailed deer fawns froze when under threat to avoid detection. Maybe if he followed the same principle, he could avoid any further drama this evening.

  After five minutes, he felt pretty confident that baby deer had nothing on him. He imagined describing his strategy to Maxie and making her laugh.

  After ten minutes, he wondered if Maxie was coming back at all. Nick glanced across the table. His mother was half an inch from sitting in the lap of the attorney next to her as she leaned across him to lecture his companion with much finger-wagging and dramatic gesturing.

  Maxie announced her return to the table by trailing her hand across Nick’s shoulders as she slid back into her seat, fingertips brushing the short hairs at his nape. He regretted that he’d missed the chance to watch her walk across the room. Before he could apologize again for being a jerk, she was already talking.

  “The bathroom attendant’s name is Maisey.” He blinked at the non sequitur. “She reminded me that almost no one is at their best when they are around their parents.” Maxie shifted her posture and for a moment he could see a grandmotherly woman in front of him. Her impersonation was spot-on, he imagined. “‘Even a grown-up starts act
ing like a kid sometimes when their momma is in the room.’” Another shift and Maxie was sitting next to him again, her lip gloss distractingly shiny.

  “So, that was a good reminder from Maisey. Thanks,” she said. He’d shifted her wine glass so that the server delivering the appetizer course could set a plate in front of her. “Bathroom thoughts are usually pretty insightful—” In response to his cocked head, she bunched her eyebrows together, looking confused. “What, don’t you do that? Have really interesting thoughts when you go to the bathroom in bars and restaurants and you have to wait to share them until you get back to your table?”

  He couldn’t believe she was so effortlessly defusing all of their built-up tension, but the grin that was making his cheeks ache couldn’t be denied. “I don’t think my brain is nearly as clever or as interesting as yours, Maxie.”

  She raised one elegant eyebrow and drawled, “Few brains are.” Then winked at him. “Ooh, scallops. Yummy. Look, obviously, being around your mother makes you tense. I can respect that, even if I can’t identify. I realized in the bathroom that my mother’s never been anything other than a source of pride for me. She came to my school in the middle of the day once and my friends were all—” She opened her eyes extra wide and raised her eyebrows to her hairline. “No one else’s mom looked as glamorous as mine. Actually, I called her from the bathroom to say thank you for that. Sorry I took so long.

  “So a mom as a source of embarrassment? That’s new. But I remember how ashamed my brother-in-law was of his parents when we were kids.” Maxie had lowered her voice. At Nick’s inquiring look, she explained, “They were both drunks who brawled with each other in the street. Or passed out there.” She bit her lip and rested her hand on his arm for a moment. It felt like an apology. “I know. It’s not the same. But I remember how he never talked about it. You could tell he was praying we’d just ignore it, but we all knew he wasn’t spending so much time at our house just because he and my brother were best friends.”

  “I never had to deal with that kind of conflict.” He shut his mouth, squelching the urge to explain exactly how unhappy he was sometimes.

  But Maxie nodded, as if she’d heard the words he hadn’t said. “Not getting what you need from the people you love isn’t a contest, Nick. It all hurts.”

  She seemed to understand so much intuitively, this stunning, commanding, exasperating woman. He wondered if she already understood him better than anyone he’d ever introduced to his family before. “I come to these events…”

  Her smile was sunny as she finished his sentence for him. “Because you love your mom. And you watch over her investments and make sure people don’t take advantage of her, even if she sometimes embarrasses you. It’s more than a little sweet, actually.”

  “I am not sweet.”

  “God knows I’m not exactly drama-free myself.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him like Groucho Marx. “Maybe you’re better suited to handle me than you think.”

  A flash of heat swept over him at the memory of her back arching underneath him on the hotel bed. His voice sounded as though he’d swallowed gravel when he spoke. “I think handling you suits me just fine.”

  Maxie’s grin looked dirtier than hell. “In business negotiations, do you ever scrap everything you’ve worked on and start over from scratch?” She swiveled in her seat, her knees angled toward him. When she crossed her legs, her foot brushed against his pants.

  Nick grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips as he watched her.

  “Sometimes. It seems as if I’ve forgotten a few rules tonight, like always compliment your opponent if she’s wearing a stunning dress.” He lowered her hand, but hung on to it. “Especially if you’ve been a rude jackass. Bad business.” He smiled but kept his voice serious.

  She squeezed his fingers.

  “Opponent. Hmm. Such an antagonistic word, don’t you think?” The murmur of her voice hummed against his skin, and his mouth dried out in an instant. He grabbed his water and swigged it, wishing he hadn’t blocked the server from refilling his wine. Maxie rubbed her thumb over his knuckles and he felt it in his dick. “Don’t you ever go into a deal thinking it can be a win for both sides?”

  “No.” In response to her raised eyebrow, he shrugged. “It might end up being good for the other guys or it might not. But I don’t think about that. It’s not my job. They’re supposed to look out for themselves.”

  “Huh.” Nothing dropped the hammer on a nice little line of flirtatious metaphors quite like the cold, hard truth. “Well, that line of conversation was not as fun as I’d hoped, but I’m sure we can find another double entendre that will do the trick. Negotiations, power play, who comes out on top…”

  He pulled her hand into his lap and dropped it on his thigh before covering it with his own. He caught himself wishing that she’d ignore his comments about public drama and move her hand higher.

  As if she’d read his mind, her palm slid two inches up his thigh and his tolerance for risk plummeted in the face of reality. He pinched the back of her hand and then smoothed it over with his thumb. “Behave.”

  She laughed. “Have you met me at all?”

  He moved his other hand behind her and began trailing his fingertips up and down the bumps of her spine, vertebra by vertebra. She shivered and arched her lower back.

  There was so very much naked skin for him to play with.

  He leaned in close to her ear, scraping his fingernails high and then low on her back. So low that he wondered if he’d discover whether or not she had underwear on beneath that dress. “Behave and after dinner I’ll take you to a hidden balcony on the second floor.”

  He could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth. There was a Gold Coast urban legend about a couple getting busted having sex in the coatroom at the Lyric decades ago. After too many brandies late one night in his youth, Nick’s father had proudly laid claim to being one of the original miscreants, along with Nick’s mom.

  Not even a gallon of brain bleach could scrub that image from hell out of his mind. The idea that he might be imitating them threatened to derail his sudden dark impulse.

  “How hidden?” The sight of Maxie’s nipples peaking against the vibrant dark orange fabric that barely covered her breasts as she leaned toward him renewed his sense of purpose just fine.

  He let his fingers rove deeper down the back of her dress, hidden between her torso and the chair back, until he brushed the top of her ass.

  Maxie rocked her hips a tiny bit. Her cheeks were flushed, her face glowing. He continued the feather-light touches on her back. The idea of putting his hands on her in a hidden corner of this very proper event had his heart thumping.

  “Maxine, darling. Come and sit by me,” Alfie interrupted, shifting her laser-beam focus to them with her typical disastrous timing. “You must tell me absolutely everything about Smith and how glorious his play is going to be.”

  “Mother, Maxie isn’t here to work tonight. No grilling.” Maxie had started to stand automatically, but his grasp on her hand held her in place.

  “Don’t be silly. She can talk to you anytime, but she doesn’t get to talk to the show’s backer every minute of the day.” His mother patted the seat of the chair next to her. “She could be hitting me up for more funding already if you’d let go of her hand, you big baby.”

  Heat crept up from his collar to his cheekbones as Maxie squeezed his hand again and slid out of her seat.

  “This is me, behaving.” She patted his shoulder as she passed him, rounding the table to join his mother. “You see? Your incentive is working already.”

  His laugh was a short bark. She cast a glance back over her shoulder at him and, catching his eye, winked.

  No worries. I got this.

  Two seconds after she sat down next to Alfie, his mother was scribbling a note with a fountain pen on one of the matchy-matchy napkins. That wasn’t going to come out in the wash.

  “You look flushed, dear. You know, these parties a
ren’t what they used to be. There’s no life to them anymore, no one willing to have a little fun.” She finished her note and waved a server over. A folded bill exchanged hands before the server took the impromptu message away for delivery. Alfie turned back to her newest quarry with an intense stare.

  Maxie rested a discreet hand on her breastbone as if checking to make sure everything was still secure and where it ought to be. Tasteful side boob. No nipplage.

  Alfie wasn’t nearly finished.

  “Richard and I were quite the talk of the ball the year before Nicholas was born, and you can blame it entirely on the overly strict monitoring of the coat closets. Of course, his current bit of fluff doesn’t even bother to try and find a closet. Those photos from the Riviera. Shocking.” She sighed and smoothed the ends of her ash-blond bob into place. Nick decided that drinking heavily might help get him through this conversational nightmare and lifted his glass. “It’s gotten so that there’s nowhere good for public nookie these days.”

  Nick choked on his wine. What did you say to that?

  I beg to differ…I still know of one good spot?

  Perhaps not.

  “I’m, uh, sure there’s still some public nookie going on somewhere,” Maxie answered cheerfully, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes round. “Not here, of course. And definitely not involving me. I’m definitely a private nookie kind of girl.” He didn’t think she realized that the wine glass she grabbed was one of his mother’s before she knocked back the rest of it. “So, have you talked to Smith lately?”

  Nick was certain Maxie would never normally bring up something like that with a backer, if only because it might lead them to believe that she valued their opinion on anything other than where to sign their name on the checks. But, like flipping a switch, the conversation instantly turned to the current status of the production.

  Maxie held her own—and kept her patience, which surprised him—as his mother grilled her about every detail that Maxie had already reviewed with Nick during their night at the hotel. He was vividly aware of his erection, which wasn’t going anywhere as long as she was in front of him in that dress. He didn’t bother to engage in conversation with any of the guests at their table. Instead, he watched her.