by Lisa Hendrix
“Damn it,” said Miranda. “They’re bailing.” She headed for the door, Todd at her heels.
“Miranda.” Philip joined the pack halfway.
“Sorry, can’t talk.”
“You almost got my nose broken.”
“I know, sweety, and it’s such an expensive nose, too. I’m sorry. I’d buy you a drink as compensation, but I really have to run.”
She darted around a knot of chatters gathered on the landing and ran down the stairs. A glare from the woman behind the concierge desk slowed her down through the lobby. She hit the door just in time to see the taillights of Mason’s car disappear onto University.
*
Eleven
« ^ »
It was probably just as well that Paul had been promised to Mother and Miranda for the evening, thought Mason as he made the turn onto Sixth Avenue
and headed out of downtown. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do if he had to sit in the backseat with Raine and had nothing to do with his hands.
Of course, if Miranda were around, he’d just wrap his fingers around her traitorous neck, but thanks to liberal tipping of valets, she wasn’t. Besides, he didn’t want her dead until he found out how she’d gotten so many men to give up dances with their dates just to keep him from dancing with Raine.
She’d done a good job of that, but if her goal had been to keep him from becoming aroused, she’d certainly blown it. Not being able to dance the slow dances, or rather, having just that brief moment of swaying with Raine so close he could feel her heart beat, had left him frustrated beyond words, literally aching to hold her. If he hadn’t had the driving to hold his attention and the steering wheel and gear stick to occupy his hands, he would undoubtedly be getting himself slapped.
Or would she slap him?
He glanced at Raine. She was watching him, her lips in a soft curve of amusement or… “What?”
“That was a very James Bond moment,” she said. “Double-oh-seven grabs the lady of the moment and dashes out of the Grand Casino to escape the evil Blofeld, making his getaway in his classic Jaguar.”
Mason laughed. “Bond drives an Aston Martin DB5, and I’m hardly Sean Connery.”
“No. More like Pierce Brosnan,” she said. “How did you manage to have the car waiting right in front of the door with the engine running?”
“I went downstairs while Phil Watts was commanding your attention.”
“Ah. And where are we going now that we’ve escaped?”
“Back to the house, unless you have something else in mind.”
She lifted one eyebrow. “You did this whole Bond thing just to go home?”
“I was tired of not dancing with you. The mad dash was mostly to yank Miranda’s chain.”
“Aren’t you afraid Angus will be at the house?”
“I doubt Miranda or Mother will let that happen.”
She rolled down the window and closed her eyes, letting the breeze wash over her, ruffling her hair and billowing the chiffon of her dress so that shadows danced over the high, sweet curves of her breasts.
“It’s been the most beautiful night, in spite of Miranda. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The words were thick in his throat. He had to remind himself to look at the road. Remind himself that he was only dating Raine to teach his mother and sister a lesson, and that she was only sitting beside him because he was paying her. Remind himself that five thousand dollars didn’t buy him sex. Remind himself that he was going to marry Caroline Wickersham, a woman infinitely more suited to his world and his bank account.
Damn Miranda and her plotting, anyway, getting him into this position, into this state.
He spent the rest of the trip home contemplating his sister’s perfidy, which was a damned sight more productive than lusting after a woman he couldn’t have.
*
“Oh, shit.” Miranda hiked her skirts, gathered the excess fabric over her arm, and sprinted for the gray hulk she knew was the Rolls.
She yanked the door open before Paul had time to react. “I’ve got to catch up with Mason.” She started to pull the door shut, but a foot got in the way. The foot was followed by Todd, who slid in beside her.
“Can’t leave without me, sweets. You know how much I like a good chase.”
Paul raised an eyebrow.
There went the last of that daydream—like she had any business falling for her brother’s driver anyway.
“It’s okay, Paul. He’s with me. Let’s go.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no, miss. I have answered your questions. I have given you information you shouldn’t have. I have lied for you. But I draw the line at chasing your brother through the streets of Seattle just because you don’t approve of his girlfriend.”
“Where do you get off talking to her that way?” demanded Todd.
“Shut up, Todd.” Miranda glared him into silence, then turned back to Paul. “Angus Wickersham is probably at the house. If Mason walks in with Raine—”
“Then he’ll have some explaining to do. Mr. Alexander is very articulate. I’m sure he can handle it.” Paul pulled the keys out of the ignition and pushed his door open. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee, after which I will be happy to drive you home.” His gaze met hers, then flickered to Todd. “Or wherever you want to go.”
The door slammed, leaving her and Todd alone in the silence of the big car.
“Arrrgh.” Miranda screamed in frustration and embarrassment. Her cheeks burned as though Paul had slapped her, and she felt like a fool.
Todd put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “There, there. Whatever’s wrong, old Toddy will fix it.” He feathered a few kisses across her brow. “I’ll have the valet get my car.”
“It’s too late,” said Miranda. “They’ll be home before we even get started. Hand me the phone.”
She punched in her home number and fidgeted until her mother answered.
“Thank goodness you’re there.” A quick explanation earned Tish’s promise that Angus would be gone before Mason got there. Miranda returned the phone to its cradle. Stupid. She should have just phoned in the first place, before she’d embarrassed herself so thoroughly.
“There,” said Todd. “Now, whatever that was about, you’ve taken care of it. We’ll get my car and go over to my place.”
Miranda lifted an eyebrow. “Your place?”
“Sure. You know you don’t want to go home to face Mason.” He kissed her again, this time on the lips.
Todd always had been a good kisser—a good lover, in fact, part of the reason Miranda had put up with his philandering ways for much longer than she should have. She let herself dissolve into his arms.
Todd kissed his way down her neck and across her bare shoulder. “Love these strapless things,” he murmured. His fingertips played across her breasts, just above the top of her gown.
This was it. This was what she needed, to get Paul off her mind.
Paul. Oh, damn, it was Paul she wanted, not this bozo. Todd not only wasn’t second best, he wasn’t even on the list. Talk about stupid.
She sat up and pushed Todd’s hand away. “Sorry, Todd. This was a mistake.”
“No, it wasn’t, baby.” He reached for her breasts again. “You know we’re good together. You just need a reminder.” His fingertips brushed over her nipples with practiced ease. A shiver ran up and down her spine, reflex to a familiar touch.
“You’re good with everybody. That’s the problem.” She shifted away.
He followed, persistent. “Come on, Miranda. You’ve been giving me signals all evening. You said you needed a place to sleep. I’m all warmed up for this. You’ve got me hot and bothered.” He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his crotch. He was hot and bothered, all right.
She yanked her hand away. “For God’s sake, Todd. I changed my mind. Turn me loose and get out of the car.”
“Give me five minutes to c
hange your mind back again.”
Things quickly degenerated into a wrestling match. Somehow he got a hand up under her skirt.
“Todd. Damn it.” She planted both hands in the middle of his chest and shoved, just as his door popped open. Todd went over, then sailed out of the car backward, as though lifted by an invisible hand. All she could see was the bottom of his feet, flailing as he tried to get them planted on the ground.
“Let go, you son of a bitch.”
There was the sound of a scuffle, and then the unpleasant smack of flesh against flesh.
Miranda pushed her skirt down and scrambled across the seat to stick her head out.
Paul had Todd by the collar and one arm, and was hauling him across the Grand Motor Entrance. Blood streamed from Todd’s nose, spattering the polished granite with scarlet as five valets, the doorman, and two bellmen stood watching, unsure what to do.
Paul deposited him in front of the doorman, stood him on his feet, and dusted his lapels. Todd, ever the jerk, took one last swing. Paul blocked it and drove his fist into Todd’s stomach, crumpling him like an old paper bag.
Paul straightened, adjusted his own jacket, and reached into his pocket. He pressed a bill into the doorman’s hand, then turned smartly and marched back to Miranda.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. She wanted to hug him. Even more, she wanted him to hug her, to tell her he didn’t think she was the fool she knew she was. If she leaned forward, just an inch or two, he’d have to put his arms around her to steady her. It would be easy.
“You didn’t get your coffee,” she said instead. Her voice quavered on the edge of tears.
“Yes, I did.” He reached over her head and took a squat, white paper cup off the top of the car where he’d apparently set it before saving her questionable virtue. “Here. You look like you could use it.”
She nodded and took the cup.
Her knees started to shake, and she crumpled back on the seat with no grace at all, coffee sloshing onto the skirts that billowed around her. She wrapped her fingers around the cup, suddenly cold despite the warm night air.
Paul shrugged out of his jacket and leaned into the car to wrap it around her shoulders.
“I’ll take you home now.” Paul hit the lock on the door, shut it, then walked around the car.
As he got in, she heard Todd’s voice, angry, complaining, coming through the open door, and another man, the doorman perhaps, trying to soothe him. Then Paul closed his door and it was just the two of them as he quietly drove her home.
*
Relief made Tish giddy as she watched the taillights of Angus’s car disappear up the drive.
He’d been a bear to pry loose, his penchant for storytelling well lubricated by several glasses of bourbon and branch over the course of the evening. Not that the storytelling was bad. She’d enjoyed listening to him, right up to the point when he’d brought her home. Then she’d been so conscious of the need to get him out of the house before Mason came home, that anxiety had begun to outweigh the amusement factor of his stories.
Even so, she had let him tell a couple more about his days as a roustabout until Miranda’s phone call had made chasing him off imperative. She’d finally pled a vicious return of her headache and shooed him out the door despite a tempting last-minute offer of a neck massage.
It would have been lovely, she was sure; Angus had such nice, strong-looking hands, big and square, like the rest of him. It had been a long time since anyone had given her a massage and not expected a tip.
She closed the front door and strolled back to the living room, and settled in to wait for Mason and Miss Hobart.
She didn’t have to wait long. A puff of night air carried them in about ten minutes after Angus left, so close they might have passed his car on the way into the Highlands.
“Mother. How nice of you to wait up.”
“I hadn’t been planning to,” she said as Mason came over and kissed her cheek. She marked the book she was reading with a ribbon and laid it aside. “You’re very early. Was the party a bore?”
“Far from it.” He winked at Raine, some secret between them.
“Good evening, Mrs. Alexander.” She pretended to ignore him, though Tish noticed the flash of a smile.
“Miss Hobart. Is Miranda coming home, too?”
“I suspect she’ll be along soon,” said Mason. “If Todd didn’t distract her.”
“Todd. Todd Dennison? Oh, don’t tell me.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What could she be thinking?”
Mason shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure she is.”
“It seems to be a common problem these days,” said Tish, and pursed her lips when Mason glared her direction. “So, what do you two have planned for the rest of the evening?”
As if she had to ask. It was written all over them, in every self-aware move either of them made. Miss Hobart was particularly bad, standing there on the verge of a blush, looking up at him through her eyelashes, and apparently completely unaware of what she was doing, too.
Mason tugged his bow tie loose. “I don’t know. Backgammon? Tennis?”
Raine pinked up a little more, still not quite a blush, just a glow. “Swimming?”
Another of their personal jokes. Tish cleared her throat. “I was just about to have some tea.”
“I asked Lawrence to put a bottle of champagne on ice before he left for the evening,” said Mason.
“I’d like that,” said Raine.
Am I even part of this conversation? Tish wondered. “Is that a good idea? If Miranda doesn’t get back with Paul, you’ll have to drive Miss Hobart home.”
“She’s staying here. I had Lawrence see to the guest room.”
“Really, Mason, you might have told me. Not that you’re not welcome, dear,” Tish added hastily. No reason to hurt the girl’s feelings. “It’s just a … surprise.” And a god-awful temptation, both of them under the same roof.
“I’ll get the champagne.” The hard leather soles of Mason’s dress shoes echoed across the oak floors as he headed for the kitchen.
As soon as the sound faded, Raine turned to Tish. “If it’s not convenient for me to stay, I can—”
“No, no. It’s fine, dear, truly. We have plenty of room, and house guests are in and out of here all the time. I just usually know about it first.”
“I’m sure Mason meant to tell you. He was so busy with that problem in Everett yesterday, it must have gotten away from him.”
“Yes. I’m sure that’s it.” So, he was talking to her about business, and she was apologizing for him to his mother. If the implications hadn’t been so appalling, it might have been endearing.
Clearly too nervous to sit, Raine circled the room slowly, her gaze wandering from object to object as though she were viewing items in a shop. Tish half expected her to do something crass, like comment on their value, but she refrained. That showed some breeding, at least.
Truth be told, the girl wasn’t as bad as Tish had first thought she’d be. She had a certain natural charm, and she really did polish up quite well. The dress Mason had bought her, for surely he had bought it, floated around her in a wash of watercolors that set off her skin and left her clear aqua eyes sparkling. She looked less like a beach baby and more like a well-heeled yachts-woman come to shore for the club dance.
“You really are quite lovely tonight,” Tish said aloud. “I saw you across the room earlier and was quite taken with the transformation.”
Raine smiled, if a bit warily. “Thank you. I’m sorry you couldn’t stay. It really was a wonderful evening.”
“Things don’t always work out the way we’ve planned.”
“They certainly don’t,” Raine said. Was that sadness in her voice?
Mason came back with the champagne, open, in one hand and three crystal flutes in the other, and conversation quickly shifted to gossip and a discussion of the evening’s most delicious incidents. T
ish missed having Miranda’s analysis of the worst dresses, but she could catch up on that later. Her main goal now was to keep these two awake and apart until one gave up and went to bed—without the other.
Miss Hobart obliged first, excusing herself just after midnight. “I’m tired, too,” said Tish quickly, before Mason had time to react. “I’ll just go up with you and make certain everything was taken care of in your room before I go to bed.”
Mason glared at her, clearly disgruntled, but Tish was relying on his inability to announce his intention to take the woman to bed in front of his mother, and he lived up to her expectations.
After a moment, he simply walked over to Raine. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“All right. Good night.”
He kissed her, sweetly, the kind of kiss a man gives a woman when his mother is watching, but nonetheless, sparks flared between them so hot that Tish, for all her sixty-four years, colored and had to look away.
“Sweet dreams,” he whispered.
“No question about that,” Raine answered.
“Well, shall we? I’m sure you want to get to bed. You’ve had such a long day,” said Tish. She led the way out into the foyer and up the stairs. Raine trailed behind, like tendrils of some clinging vine held her to Mason, but eventually she broke their grip and caught up with Tish.
Tish prattled nonsense as she checked the towels and paper goods and made sure a spare robe hung in the closet and that there were fresh flowers in the vase. There was no real reason she had to do this. The room was always changed out and restocked as soon as one guest left, and Lawrence always left things perfect for weekends, just in case, but it was force of habit. And she wanted to give Mason a few minutes to cool down and take himself off to bed.
“Do you need anything, dear?” Tish asked.
“Help with this zipper, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course, dear.” Tish undid the zipper, one of those fine, hidden things that would have been impossible without help. She wondered who had zipped it up, since Raine had clearly changed here sometime after Tish and Miranda had left. Perhaps all this foofaraw about keeping them apart was too little, too late. Had a maid straightened that bed?
No, of course not. If they’d stopped for sex, they wouldn’t have gotten to the hotel that early. They would have walked in during the middle of dinner, with that bedroom look all over them and Angus sitting right there. Thank the Goddess they’d avoided that particular scene.
