by Nina Bangs
A polite cough drew their attention to the drawbridge and the man standing there.
"You will simply explain that you always sweat blood for your employer. An admirable employee trait, I'm sure." The man strode to them and offered his hand to an openmouthed Mandy. "I'm Holgarth, and you are Ms. Harcourt, I assume."
"Yes, I'm—"
"You're late, Ms. Harcourt. I do insist on punctuality. So if you must play in the water, please refrain from doing it on company time. Now, if you'll follow me, we'll go inside where it's cooler." Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked toward the castle.
From where Con stood, it seemed like Mandy's eyes took up half her face as she turned to look at him.
"Tell me he's not dressed like a wizard."
CHAPTER TWO
"A wizard with a law degree? Scary concept. What does he do if a jury doesn't buy his closing argument?" Amanda stared at Holgarth's back as he led them across the outer courtyard. "No, don't tell me. I don't want to know." She paused as Holgarth approached the massive castle doors. Con and Deimos stopped beside her.
Amanda would keep concentrating on Holgarth. She would not think about Con's explanation for what he'd done ten years ago. The past had to stay in the past.
Con pulled his black T-shirt over his head, covering that yummy chest. "He's a lawyer. He's a wizard. He multitasks. What's the big deal? Oh, and your jury question? I think we're talking a sudden jump in the frog population."
She looked to see if Con was laughing. He wasn't. "You're kidding, right?" Amanda glanced down at the cat who looked back at her with a contemptuous unblinking stare. "And what's
with you, cat? Why're you still here?" Deimos didn't deign to answer.
Con moved closer, touching her with heat and his remembered scent. Oooh yes, it was all coming back to her now, along with the wonder of his black rose. Taking a deep breath, she moved away from him. She didn't need to be anywhere near the sexual force field he created so easily.
"Holgarth was wearing that blue robe and pointed hat the first time I met him. He said he was a wizard, and as long as he keeps paying me, he can be the tooth fairy for all I care. Hey, I'm open to all kinds of possibilities." Con speared her with an intent stare. "See, we have something in common. We both agree it's all about the money. But as far as possibilities go, you need to be way more flexible."
Amanda shrugged away a momentary twinge of guilt. She'd sort of lied about the money thing. If she were really honest with herself, she'd admit it was about acceptance. Everything in her life had been about acceptance. And coming back to her hometown to do a high profile job like this was the ultimate feel-good moment. She'd never admit that to anyone. Most of the time she didn't even admit it to herself.
"I'm not inflexible. I'm just focused on my goals. And wizards don't fit into my career planning." She narrowed her gaze on Holgarth, the walking stereotype. Sheesh, he even had glittery suns, moons, and stars on his tall conical hat. Amanda blinked as he pulled what looked like a wand from beneath the folds of his robe. "Is that a wand or a new kind of mosquito whacker?"
Con didn't have a chance to answer. Holgarth raised his wand and a crack of thunder shattered the perfectly sunny day. The castle doors swung open and Holgarth swept inside with a majestic swish of his robes. He didn't glance behind him to see if they followed.
Amanda did some mental eye-rolls. Give me a break. So the castle had a few neat special effects. Once inside, she turned in a slow circle, trying not to be impressed by what she assumed was the great hall. The vaulted ceiling, the huge fireplace, the raised platform for the lord's table. Yes, the room had lots of potential. And thank the gods of good taste, there was no red, lime green, or neon orange anywhere in the room. Just pristine white walls. It was Con-free for the moment, and she intended to keep it that way.
"I didn't need the wand, you know." Holgarth.
"What?" She turned to look at him.
"I do so enjoy a dramatic moment, but I really didn't need a wand to create the thunder or open the doors." He slowly stroked his long pointed beard while he watched her.
She'd just bet he practiced long and hard on his piercing stare. So many little kids to scare, so little time. Thin, short, and gray-haired, with lips that looked like they were perpetually pursed, Holgarth needed an Extreme Makeover to capture the now wizardy look.
Con joined her. "Look, Holgarth, Mandy and I have to know the rules. I don't think we share the same vision for this place. Who's in charge of what? And why can't we talk to the owner?"
Holgarth looked down his long nose at both of them. This must be his you-are-dirt-beneath-my-platform-shoes stare. Amanda waited expectantly for his eyes to cross.
"The owner wishes to remain anonymous. He, she, or possibly it has put me in charge of seeing that the readying of the castle runs smoothly." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I can't be bothered with minor details. Work things out between you." Once again, he glanced at his watch. "I'm interviewing candidates to manage the castle. The owner wants three of them—heaven knows why—and insists they be `more than men.' Do you know how hard it is to get any good help nowadays let alone find ones who are `more than men?"
He offered a long-suffering sigh. "But I live to serve, so I'll start interviewing. Oh, I have the key to your room. I'm so glad you chose to stay in the castle." He searched beneath the folds of his robe.
Was he for real? Amanda hoped not. "What choice? You wrote it into the contract."
"A dedicated employee would always choose to be on call. Southeast tower, fourth floor. It's the Sleeping Princess room. I'll have someone get your luggage from your car and bring it up to you. The owner intends to rename all the rooms, but for now we must suffer. If you wish to purchase anything, Ms. Harcourt, you may charge it to the park." He handed her a large old-fashioned-looking key. That would keep the bad guys out. Not.
Turning his back on them, he hurried away leaving Amanda with her mouth open ready to ask the first of her, oh say, five hundred questions.
Disbelieving, she turned to Con. "I don't get it. Do you get it?" Amanda didn't give him a chance to answer. "How can this work? We don't even have the same tastes. In anything." Well, maybe in one thing, but sexual compatibility wouldn't help them agree on wall colors. She threw him a baleful glare. "I'm not even sure you have any taste. What kind of owner sits back and lets the employees engage in open warfare?"
"One with a sense of humor?" The beginning of a smile tipped up the corners of his expressive mouth. "By the way, do you have any idea why our mysterious owner chose you for the job?" Laying his arm across her shoulders, he guided her toward a door on the other side of the room. "I assumed the owner chose me because the Maguires have a reputable name in Galveston."
Amanda's breath escaped her in a small hiss at the unexpected touch of his arm. It had to be escaping steam, because she was definitely boiling on several levels. First off, she couldn't use her decorating skills if a man who was in love with lime green was constantly undermining her.
Secondly, Con was still summer heat lightning and distant thunder on her sensual horizon. If she spent too much time with him, she might be flattened by the storm. The collateral damage could be ugly. It would be hard to ignore the erotic connection she'd always felt when he was near. And here she'd thought she would outgrow Conleth Maguire. Silly her.
She needed her anger. It was her shield. With it she could do her job and return to New York untouched. He'd dented her shield a little with his explanation of what happened ten years ago. But she could get mad again. He was attempting to interfere with her job. Yes, Conleth Maguire was the one man she couldn't hook up with again. So she'd just stay mad at him.
"When Holgarth contacted my office in New York, he said my work had impressed the owner, and I had Galveston roots. He was big on the Galveston roots. Holgarth sweetened the pot by offering me an obscene amount to take the job and promising my work would be promoted in the national media. I'm still building my reput
ation, and I need all the exposure I can get." She tried to unobtrusively slip from under Con's arm, but it was a no-go. The weight and heat of him remained Super-Glued to her shoulders, a small reminder of the weight and heat of other parts of him. He'd be surprised to know how much she did remember about his body.
Con opened the door and led her to an elevator. "The castle has the prerequisite narrow winding stone steps, but I didn't think you wanted to experience all that authenticity right now." He waited for her to enter the elevator and then hit the button for the top floor of the tower.
When the elevator doors slid open, she burst out ahead of him and exhaled the breath she'd been holding all the way up. It was tough not to breathe for three hours. At least that's how long the ride had seemed crowded into a tiny space with Con and his army of sensual weapons. His pheromone attack had failed because she'd stopped breathing, but sexual awareness had squeezed her into a corner while superheated memories attacked her in waves.
Each floor of the castle's towers only had two rooms. Not much of a choice on this floor, Sleeping Princess or Brave Prince. Ugh. She was going to earn her money whipping this place into shape. Unlocking the Sleeping Princess door, she pushed it open and stepped inside. Behind her, she sensed Con waiting for her reaction.
She didn't disappoint. "Ack!" Bright pulsating pink and bleached-bones white. No wonder the princesses who stayed here slept so much.
Con moved over to the white canopy bed with the gauzy pink hangings. "The two rooms on this floor are the only ones left from the castle's previous incarnation. The owner hired Dad to do the renovations, and he's gutted all of the other rooms."
"I want to marry your dad." Weary, she looked for a chair. No chair. No way would she sit on the bed while Galveston's sexual magnet was looming over it. All he'd have to do is lean close enough to draw her into his magnetic field and she'd be stuck to his delicious body for the rest of the night.
Besides, sitting on a bed with Con in the room would invite memories—his powerful body, bare and poised above her, her cries of . . . nope, didn't want to think of that. She sat down instead on the fuzzy white carpet. Slipping off her sandals, she stretched her legs out in front of her, wiggled her toes, and leaned back against the pink-striped wall.
Turning her head, she came face-to-face with Deimos's interested stare. "Where'd he come from?"
"He must've run up the stairs and slipped in when you opened the door." Con picked up her shoes and headed for what she assumed was the bathroom. He was silent for a moment, and all she heard was water running into the sink.
"Have you noticed anything strange about Deimos?" he asked from the bathroom.
She glanced into the cat's yellow eyes. Nope, no demon lights there. "Seems like just a cat to me. Okay, a clumsy cat and maybe a little obsessed with human companionship, but nothing else out of the ordinary. Why?"
"No reason." His tone said there was a reason, but he wasn't ready to talk about it. "What're your plans for the castle?"
"I want the place to have mellow old-world charm. Light-colored walls, dark wood furniture, and jewel-toned accessories. And of course authentic. It has to look authentic. I'll need some ancient-looking weaponry and tapestries with a medieval flavor to enhance the authentic feel." She narrowed her gaze on a white table where a sadly limp plant sat in a pale beam of sunlight. The table was pushed against the wall under an arrow slit that passed for a window. Poor droopy plant. It was a tiny island of green floating in a vast sea of putrid pink.
"I don't know about the walls." He came out of the bathroom holding her now clean sandals. "This is the Castle of Dark Dreams. Remember? I'm thinking dark walls, gargoyles, fetid dungeons, maybe even a murder hole. One of the castle guardians can stand on the battlements and pour boiling oil down on guests who try to sneak off without paying their bills."
She'd never been speechless. She was pretty sure that on the night she was born, when the doctor slapped her bottom, instead of crying she'd calmly pointed out the hospital's unfortunate color scheme.
She was speechless now. A slipstream of nightmare images trailed behind her careening imagination. Black walls. Velvet paintings accented in blood. Fake fur bedspreads. Lava lamps.
Ignoring her openmouthed horror, he sat on the floor facing her. He trapped her legs between his and then pulled her bare foot more snugly between his thighs as he prepared to put her sandals back on her feet. His gaze lifted to meet hers.
Amanda was still speechless, but for a completely different reason now. She remembered. They'd sat this way on the beach that night. She curled her toes reflexively, feeling again the cool wet sand beneath her feet, the even cooler breeze off the Gulf. But none of that chill could lower the heat they were generating or hold back the flames. Desire was the perfect combustible.
Swallowing hard, she tried to find her voice. She must have a deer-in-headlights expression. Who would've guessed she'd be ambushed by hot memories in the Sleeping Princess room?
Con's gaze darkened, and his lips parted slightly. He remembered, too. Of course, she didn't want him to remember anything that would interfere with their business relationship. Uh-huh, and you're a pitiful liar.
"We have unfinished business, sweet-heat." His voice was a husky murmur of erotic promise.
Amanda opened her mouth knowing there was a very real possibility nothing but a panicked squeak would emerge. What had happened to all that self-assurance she'd cultivated over the years? She mentally got down on her hands and knees searching for it. Here, backbone. Come to Mama. Nope, her backbone had left the building.
"The only business we have together is getting this castle ready for the public." Take that, Conleth Maguire.
His smile was slow, sensual, and said that no matter how good she'd been at handling everything else in her life, she'd never been any good at all when it came to handling him.
Handling him. Oops. Freudian slip. "Just put my damned shoes on so I can get up." Good. A healthy "damned" always made an assertive statement.
"No."
Checkmate. Now what? Wrestling him for her shoes lacked dignity, and she was all about dignity. Besides, initiating physical contact would just play into his hands. Literally.
Con watched her, seeing every one of her thoughts in her eyes. He laughed softly. "Come and get them, Mandy." And wondered at what point his mouth had parted company with his brain. But it wasn't his brain that was driving him now. It was a primitive part of him that bypassed thinking in favor of pure sensation, a part that had never forgotten sex with Amanda Harcourt.
For a moment, he thought she'd jerk her foot away, stand, and then start tacking up paint chips on the wall. She surprised him.
"I can make you give them back." Her smile held the remembrance of what they'd done ten years ago and how good it had been. "Don't make me resort to the foot torture."
"A threat? Intriguing." Con dropped his gaze as she moved her bare foot from his grasp and pressed it against his sex. He bit back a gasp as his body took notice of the pressure and reacted with positive growth.
Her eyes darkened, and he knew she felt him growing hard. This was probably not the best way to start a business relationship, but it was fourth and goal, and he wanted to score. That at least hadn't changed in ten years.
"I still remember that night, Mandy." He almost groaned as she pressed harder. "We were both naked, sitting like this. You put your foot against me and then ..."
Her smile was wicked anticipation. "And then I did this." She slowly rubbed her foot up and down against his erection, and when he figured he couldn't get any harder, she curled her bare toes into him. He closed his eyes and almost panted to keep from dragging her beneath him, having crazy sex with her, and then promising she could paint the walls any damned color she wanted.
With his last bit of self-control, he grasped her ankle and stilled her effort to visit death by foot massage on him. With his free hand, he handed her the sandals. "Your foot should be registered as a lethal weapon, lady."
"Yes, well, it sort of went off and did its own thing. I mean, I don't want you to think that foot was me. Those toes were out of control." She was all wide-eyed shock and disbelief. He wondered how long it had been since she'd let herself wander out of the neutral zone. "I'll bet my foot was kidnapped by aliens. They must've done horrible experiments on it, and then programmed it to make you a sexual minion who would help them conquer Earth." Lowering her gaze, she concentrated on putting her shoes back on. "I can't believe I just said that. I don't usually babble."
Con grimaced. Right now, his body was howling its rage. Sexual organs didn't take deprivation well. He'd leave his cock to work out its own painful destiny. He switched his brain back into reasoning mode. "Hey, we were both into the moment."
She stood. "It won't happen again."
"Sure." It would happen again.
Gingerly, she sat on the bed. "Did they prosecute the person who decorated this room?"
Amazing that for ten years he'd gone about his life like a normal man, not obsessing about any particular woman, just enjoying what came his way. He tried not to sweat anything.
Life was too short. Mandy never could've understood his laid back attitude. It would've annoyed the hell out of her.
Thirty minutes with Mandy had destroyed that man. He wasn't quite sure what he was morphing into, or even if he'd like the final product, but he couldn't stop it, didn't want to stop it. "By the way, I have a new take on the Castle of Dark Dreams."
Mandy raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Thank you, God."
"I think we're talking dark as in sensual." He leaned back on his elbows, trying to bring visuals into focus.
"Sensual?" Mandy looked wary.
And well she should. "Yeah." He could see it now, deep red walls and erotic murals. He'd keep the murals as a surprise. She thought he was one-dimensional.
"I don't think the owner had that in mind. I'm not trying to restart our argument here, but the owner hired me to decorate the castle, and that includes wall colors. I've been trained for this. It's what I do. I'm willing to take your ideas into consideration, though." She smiled stiffly.
