by Cat Johnson
One blond curl hung over Missy’s eye. He reached up and brushed it to the side as her gaze met his. He glanced at her parents and saw the interested looks he and Missy were getting from them. No doubt his own parents wore similar expressions. Maybe it was time to go spread the love around.
“I suppose we should say hello to my mother and father and then sit down for dinner. I’ve kept Missy busy all afternoon and haven’t fed her a thing aside from a cup of coffee and that drink in her hand.” Zane sent his most charming smile to Mrs. Greenwood.
She allowed him to kiss her one more time on the cheek as she said, “Of course. Sit. It was good seeing you.”
“You as well, ma’am.” Zane turned from Missy’s mother to her father. “Enjoy your dinner, sir.”
“You too. Good to talk to you, son. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.” After another hearty handshake from Senator Greenwood, Zane and Missy were finally making their way across the dining room.
“Now it’s my turn.” Missy said it low enough that only he could hear, before she stepped forward with both hands extended to his parents. “Mrs. Alexander. Lovely to see you.”
“Missy, darling. What a surprise seeing you here with Zane.”
“We’re having dinner. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No, he didn’t, but it’s wonderful seeing you two are catching up.”
“It is nice to catch up after so many years.” She shot him a glance and he heard the remonstration in her tone.
It had been too many years since he’d seen or talked to her and Missy wasn’t letting him get away with it. This new strong side was one of the traits he was finding he liked best about her.
Missy moved to his father and kissed his cheek. “Mr. Alexander, I heard you bested my father on the course last weekend. He might never recover.”
“Eh, he’ll get over it.” Old Georgie treated Missy to such a genuine smile that it took Zane aback. “Besides, he’s got a few other things on his mind with the campaign.”
“That he does, but shh. Remember, he hasn’t made the official announcement yet.”
George nodded. “Right. Well I’ll be the first one to back him when he does.”
“And I know he appreciates your support. But I should let you two get back to your dinner. We’re interrupting.”
His mother waved away Missy’s concern. “Not at all. We haven’t even ordered yet. You should join us.”
Missy glanced back at Zane with a sly expression. “Zane, did you want to join your parents for dinner? I know you don’t have the pleasure of seeing them as often as you’d like.”
The little minx knew exactly how he felt about spending time with his father. She was getting back at him for dragging her over to see her parents. He smiled. “As lovely as that would be, I’m going to be selfish. Mother, Father, with all due respect, I want Missy’s undivided attention this evening. Did you know she’s leaving soon for three months in Africa where she’ll be teaching at a school?”
“No. I didn’t know.” His mother frowned and turned to his father. “George, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.” Georgie frowned and shot Zane a look filled with suspicion. As if he was lying to get out of their deal.
“I think my parents keep hoping I’ll change my mind about going. I guess they think if they don’t tell anyone, I’ll back out.”
Zane let out a snort. “I can’t blame them there.”
“Zane, I want to go.”
“I know you do, but that means we don’t have much time to spend together before you do, which is why we’ll respectfully take our leave now. If you’ll excuse us, the maître de should have our table waiting.”
His mother, sweet as always, reached out to squeeze his hand. “Of course. You two go and enjoy your evening. We understand. It was so nice talking with you, Missy.”
“You too, Mrs. Alexander. Mr. Alexander.” She smiled, charming even a hard man like his father.
It was obvious Missy had been born into this life. She was the quintessential politician’s daughter. Good at small talk. Quick to smile. Always knowing the right thing to do and say to everyone. She was pretty much the polar opposite of Zane.
She’d stuck it out in this world. He had to think it took more strength for her to stay than it had for him to leave.
“Zane, will you be staying at the house tonight.” Georgie eyed him before he could get away.
“Yes, sir. Unless I get called back to base.”
“Then I expect we’ll talk later back at the house.” The man’s tone left no doubt that they would.
“I expect we will. Mother, I’ll see you later.” Zane forced a smile and, with a hand on Missy’s back, guided her away from the table. He leaned toward her when they were out of earshot. “Did you enjoy that?”
“Enjoy what?” Her voice lilted with laughter.
“Torturing me.”
“Oh, come now. It wasn’t that bad. Your mother is a darling.”
“Yes, my mother is.”
His mother wasn’t the issue. It was the accusation in his father’s eyes and the tone of his words that had pushed Zane’s blood pressure higher. When he pushed the simmering anger aside, there was something else that had been revealed during the brief conversation with his parents that continued to nag at his brain.
He waited until the maître de had shown them to their table and they were alone before he asked, “What campaign is your father about to announce?”
When Missy glanced around them and then leaned forward before she answered, Zane had to assume this wasn’t simply about reelection for his current senatorial seat.
“Only a handful of people know. . .” She paused.
Zane lifted his brow. “Missy, do you know what level of clearance I have? Believe me, you can trust me to keep a secret.”
“Of course, I trust you.” She leaned in even closer. “He’s hoping to get the nomination at the Republican convention. He’s making a bid for president.”
Senator Greenwood—running for President of the United States. Of course George Alexander would want to ride the coattails of the politician who could become the most powerful man in the free world. It all made sense now why his father was so interested in joining the Alexanders and the Greenwoods with the bonds of matrimony.
“Zane?”
He’d gone quiet, lost in his own thoughts, and Missy had noticed. He smiled and glanced at the stage where a piano player had started playing background music. “Since when do they have live music during dinner? That’s new.”
“No, it’s not new at all. It started about the time you were in college but you always snuck out by the time the music started.” She smiled.
“My loss.” He stood and extended his hand to her. “Dance?”
After a look of surprise, she placed her hand in his. “I’d love to.”
The feel of having a woman in his arms wasn’t unfamiliar to Zane, but that they were on the dance floor and fully dressed at the time certainly was. So was the fact that Missy was a friend. He hadn’t realized how much of one until today.
Way back when, she’d been a tag-a-long. Her one and only sibling, a brother, was much older. He’d married and had moved away twenty years ago, so Zane always figured he’d been a substitute brother for a girl who was being raised more like an only child.
Today had shown him they really did have a shared past. He knew her as well as she knew him, then and surprisingly now too. Deep down he was still that same rebellious son quick to want to do the opposite of his father’s wishes . . . except for asking Missy out. But Zane had done that not for Georgie, but for Jon. And for Rick and Chris and GAPS.
As Zane steered Missy in slow motion around the dance floor, he appreciated the feel of her beneath his hands. Her warmth. Her curves. Complying with his father’s wishes aside, this had to be the easiest assignment he’d had in a long time. He was having no problem taking one for the team.
In her sexy as sin high-h
eeled boots, which he didn’t dare think about too hard while pressed this closely to her, she came up to just above his chin. He detected a fresh, clean aroma. Apples maybe? He leaned lower, resting his cheek against her hair as he breathed in the scent of her.
She leaned into him, lost in the moment, the music, and possibly the martini she’d downed fast enough that it had probably gone to her head.
Not so for Zane. He’d been sipping his one beer, mainly in case he got called in and needed to drive back to base tonight. Of course, there was one other consideration. Too much alcohol made a man do foolish things, such as forget himself. Forget that he shouldn’t be taking advantage of the sweet young thing he’d watch grow from a child in pigtails, to a teen in braces, to the woman in his arms who he wasn’t going to allow himself to think of as a woman.
If this were any other female and this any other situation he’d be buying her another drink or two and booking a room at a hotel. But this was good old Missy. This was also presidential candidate Greenwood’s daughter who Georgie had his eye on to expand the Alexander dynasty.
Zane didn’t need any more reasons than that to put Missy firmly in the hands-off category, though doing so would be far easier if his hands weren’t currently on her.
His palm braced low on her back, steering her movements, but more keeping her close. His other hand held hers. It felt small and delicate in his, reminding him that this girl wasn’t nearly equipped to be alone in Nigeria. She’d spent her life living amid the dangers of the rich and powerful, but that wasn’t any kind of training for what she could face on the other side of the world if things went bad.
His protective side was kicking in hard. Considering he didn’t have anyone of his own to worry about, at least no one who belonged to him, this was a new and unpleasant feeling. One he had every intention of tamping down and ignoring.
Yes, he was prepared to kill or die in the course of his job on any given day, but that was simply cold hard reality. His career. His life.
This, with Missy, felt more personal. At the moment, with her pressed against him, he couldn’t seem to dig down deep enough to find that efficient impersonal machine he’d become from a decade of doing what he did. Instead, he felt warm, soft, human. He didn’t like it.
The song ended and another began. Missy lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him with heavily lidded eyes. Eyes he needed to steer clear of if he was going to keep his head on straight.
Time to get this date back on track. The track Zane had decided it should be on. They’d eat. He’d send her home, with her parents if she couldn’t drive, then he’d go back to the house and deal with his father. That would help Zane get his damn act together.
“We should sit back down and order dinner.” Zane needed to get some food in Missy’s stomach. Make sure she was good and sober. Maybe then she’d look less tempting, because if she sent one more look in his direction like that last one, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist her.
CHAPTER 9
Missy sighed as Zane asked her the same question for the second time in less than ten minutes. “I swear I can drive.”
“Are you sure?” He eyed her with concern as they stood outside beneath the electric glow of the exterior lights in front of the clubhouse.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Zane drew in a deep breath, and her gaze dropped to watch his chest rise and fall beneath the crisp, cotton button-down shirt he’d changed into for dinner. He shook his head. “I’m not. I wish you would have gone home with your parents and left your car here.”
She hadn’t wanted to go home with her parents and leave her car there because that would have meant she was also leaving Zane there, and she wasn’t quite ready for this night to end.
Two martinis over the course of more than two hours and a huge meal—she should be able to drive the couple of miles to her house. But that was the last thing she wanted to do with her insides feeling all warm and squishy from the alcohol and Zane’s proximity.
“If you’re that concerned, perhaps you should drive me home.” Missy rested her hands on his chest. Damn. She could feel how big and solid his muscles were clear through the shirt.
He dropped his gaze to where her palms pressed against him, his nostrils flaring as he drew in a deep breath. He nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.”
He didn’t sound very enthusiastic. She drew her brows low in a frown. “Is it a problem?”
Zane let out a laugh and shook his head. “It shouldn’t be a problem, no.”
He’d said the words as if he hadn’t meant them. “Zane, if you have somewhere you need to be—”
“No, I don’t have anywhere I need to be. Is your car all locked up?” He glanced at her vehicle.
They’d stayed so long the valet had left for the night, but he’d parked her car close to the clubhouse and had brought the keys in to her in the dining room.
Missy aimed her keys at the car and clicked. The vehicle’s lights flashed and the horn let out a single honk, proving the doors were locked. “Yes.”
“Then come on.”
She didn’t like this change in him. He’d been attentive all night. His eyes had barely left her. His attention had never wavered. Now, he was treating her like she was thirteen again and he’d gotten stuck driving her home. That had actually happened once, and she’d felt the same way as she did now. Like she was a burden to Zane.
“No. I can drive myself—”
“Dammit, Missy. Stop. I’m driving you.” To insure that, Zane reached out and snatched the keys she still held in her hand.
“But you don’t have to.”
“But I want to.” He smirked down at her as he steered her toward the side lot where he’d parked his car. “Button up your coat.”
“I’m fine.” Missy frowned as Zane began to remind her of her mother and her obsession with her wearing a winter coat in case it got cold.
He paused next to the sexy sports car that was so befitting the youthful playboy he’d been when he’d been a daily fixture in her life. “You’re fine now. You’re going to get cold in a minute. I only drive my car with the top down, unless I’m out and get caught in a rainstorm.”
There was a storm, all right, but it was her roiling emotions, not the clear night with the stars twinkling above them as he turned to yank the sides of her coat together. He buttoned the two middle buttons as she stood and waited.
A moonlit drive with Zane was her teenaged self’s dream come true, and now that it was happening he was buttoning up her coat like she was a toddler. When he reached the top button she frowned deeper. “Zane. Stop.”
He leaned down. “Let me take care of you while I can, please. Soon you’ll be on the other side of the world.”
“With a big scary knife to protect myself with, thanks to you.” At her comment, the corner of his mouth tipped up with the hint of a smile.
“Not as big as I would have liked it to be, and I’d be happier if it was in my hand while I protected you, rather than in yours.” He reached down and laced his fingers through hers.
This man with his constantly changing disposition toward her was enough to give Missy whiplash. She could chair a not-for-profit board meeting, run a million dollar fundraiser, and play hostess at a party with guests that included the leaders of the free world, all with confidence, but with Zane she had no clue where she stood.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“No.” She wasn’t ready yet. In five minutes they’d be at her house and he’d be saying goodnight and driving away. Then who knew when she’d see him again.
He raised one sandy brow. “No?”
She stifled a sigh. “Just kidding. We can go.”
“All right.” He nodded and walked around to the passenger side to open the door for her.
Reluctantly, she followed. She’d be pouting like a child soon if she didn’t watch it.
A vicious circle, this thing with Zane. It was like she was living in
two worlds simultaneously. That of a teenaged girl and that of an adult woman. When he treated her like a child, she started acting like one.
Then there were times when he touched her like he wanted more, and that one touch was enough to have her insides turn molten. But the moment passed and then he acted like it had never happened.
Zane settled her in the seat, and even stretched out the seatbelt and handed it to her before he strode around the car and got into the driver’s side.
He was just putting the roof down, since he’d had it up while they’d been inside, when he glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that you’re frowning so hard you’re going to get wrinkles if you don’t stop.” Leaning closer, Zane reached out and ran one finger between her brows.
There he went again. Confusing her with his little touches.
“Remember that summer you were a junior in college?”
“I guess.”
“You were dating one of the waitresses.” Missy used the word dating as a euphemism for what Zane had really been doing with the girl.
He smiled. “Yeah, I remember now.”
“I saw you getting into your car with her one night. My mother had asked me to run out to our car to get her sweater because the A/C in the dining room was so cold and we were sitting right under the vent. Anyway, sitting here in the car with you . . . it just reminded me of that time.”
Except for the fact Zane hadn’t been able to keep his hands off the waitress. He’d been pawing at her during the walk to the car, and hadn’t stopped once they’d sat inside. Missy was sure they didn’t make it much farther than the driveway that led to the stables before he’d pulled off the road to have sex with her. Yet with Missy, he was more concerned with making sure her coat was buttoned up tight and her seatbelt fastened.
“I’d completely forgotten about her. Funny, I can’t even remember her name.” Zane shrugged, and slid the key into the ignition as he glanced at Missy. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.” She was ready to be away from the scene of that memory. Maybe then she’d stop comparing the way he’d been with the waitress, compared to the way he was with her now.
