Girl Gone Wild

by Joanne Rock

  “Do you want to have a seat?” She gestured to the chair across from her at the small table. “Or we could take another walk outside…”

  Hugh wanted to be in one particular place with this woman, but he suspected this wasn’t the time to mention the Pleasure Parthenon. “Anywhere private.”

  Giselle’s eyes moved to the two apron-clad men mopping the floor nearby. “Maybe we could go upstairs for a few minutes. But I can’t talk for long because I still need to do some prep work for tomorrow and I have to make sure things are running smoothly in the lounge and—”

  “That’s fine.” He reached for her hands that moved restlessly as she spoke. She seemed nervous. Edgy. Anxious. Had she changed her mind about wanting to be with him? Hard to believe from the way her pulse thumped insistently under his thumb where he held her hand. “Let’s go.”

  She picked up her notebook, hugging it to her like a freshman on the first day of school. What happened to the confident, sensually aware woman he’d met yesterday? She’d obviously retreated, leaving in her place a nervous twin. Even her wardrobe had changed. She’d exchanged yesterday’s bright red, flirtatious dress for a more businesslike yellow blouse and tan skirt.

  He followed her out of the kitchens to the elevator in silence, content to soak up the vibes from this more reserved Giselle while he shuffled the pieces from their conversations in his mind to make some sense of what had shifted between them since yesterday morning.

  She’d tried to tell him something but he hadn’t been able to listen.

  Amazing how the answer blared across his brainwaves loud and clear when he wasn’t thinking about her sleep-warmed voice enticing him to slide into bed with her.

  “We need to talk.” He faced her as they rode the elevator to the second floor by themselves. “I’m sorry we got cut off on the phone today, but I had to follow through on the pilot’s orders. You had wanted to tell me something then?”

  She glanced away as the elevator doors opened again, leading him out onto the sandstone-colored tile covered with occasional bronze and red Persian carpets. “I might have had some things to tell you, but I also had questions about your story, too.”

  Interesting.

  “What sort of questions?” Could he help it if he slipped into journalist mode a bit too easily? He gave her plenty of elbowroom while she opened the door labeled Pleasure Parthenon in discreet lettering on a plaque beside the archway.

  Stepping inside the suite, Giselle flicked on the lights. Hugh peered around the living area decorated with white Doric columns sculpted against creamy-colored walls. The white marble floor gleamed with a shiny veneer long since vanished on any of the Greek ruins he’d ever visited. Sparse furnishings dotted the room. A silver fountain gleamed in one corner near a cluster of bright sectional furniture joined at odd angles as if ready to house the next wild orgy or Dionysian revel. The image was enhanced by a ceiling painted glossy sky blue and covered with frescoes of lush-bodied goddesses peering down at the room’s inhabitants.

  “Nice.” He allowed his other question to languish unanswered while he took in the layout of the suite with a kitchen off to one side and a closed door that could only be leading to a bedroom on the other.

  Maybe Giselle would relax now that they had sought out this private haven and could speak freely. Because as much as Hugh wanted to find out what secrets hid behind this woman’s mysterious manner, he also wanted to move beyond game-playing to the open, honest connection they’d experienced yesterday.

  And heaven help him, if he caught so much as a glimpse of the bed she’d been laying naked in that afternoon, he would be tempted to make her remember the sizzling phone call that had replayed in his mind all day.

  GISELLE TRIED NOT TO THINK about the fact that she was in the middle of a seductive paradise with the hottest man she’d ever met. Sneaky women seeking information did not seduce their sources, after all. It had to be some sort of rule in the honorable sneaky woman’s handbook.

  So instead of thinking about how badly she’d like to tackle her quiet companion with his intense eyes and skillful mouth, she scrambled for safer terrain.

  “This is one of our newest suites.” She stepped out of her shoes and wandered deeper into the expansive room across cool marble tiles. “But the Pleasure Parthenon hasn’t been opened to guests yet because we’re still waiting for some custom tiles to finish the bathroom. I lucked into staying here until the work is completed.”

  “This is where you were when I called earlier?” Hugh followed her toward the grouping of sectional furniture, his step surprisingly light across the tile. She hadn’t realized he loomed so close until his voice sounded only a few feet away.

  Something about his observant nature and his insightful conversation appealed to her. Hugh seemed to embody the idea of still waters running deep, and Giselle wanted nothing more than to dive right in.

  “I was in this suite, but I was in the bedroom at the time.” A place she definitely wouldn’t revisit now that she had another agenda in her relationship with Hugh. She dropped to the red cushions of the multi-colored sectional sofa before she changed her mind about the bedroom. “Which brings me to some of the questions I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Ask away.” Hugh lowered himself to a sapphire-colored cushion beside her, close enough for her to catch a brief hint of musky aftershave. His khakis stretched along muscled thighs as he sat, while one of his knees brushed invitingly close to her. His casual blue shirt looked like it had never been completely buttoned, as if he’d been at the beach more than he’d been indoors today. The hint of his tanned chest in the open V of his shirt seemed to beg for her touch. Her kiss.

  “What did you find out today?” Even if Lainie hadn’t coerced her into trying to get Hugh to back off his story, Giselle would have asked him what happened. She’d been thinking about Hugh and his article all day.

  “I didn’t see Flynn, but he’s definitely there. If I’d had more time, I would have waited for him to come home so I could have spoken to him directly. He was out all afternoon.”

  “You know where he lives?” Somehow Giselle had envisioned Robert operating in an alternate universe so far away he could never touch her life again. She couldn’t quite conceive of Hugh digging up her past so quickly.

  “I confirmed it with a few sources using photos from the Herald archives.” He withdrew a piece of paper the size of a credit card from his breast pocket and flashed her a black-and-white picture of her worst mistake. “And while I wouldn’t mind doing an in-depth interview with him for a follow-up story, my main objective this time out was simply to fuel an old fire and see what happens. Sometimes this kind of press forces action on an inactive case.”

  “You don’t want to do that.” She would have blurted as much even if she didn’t have Lainie’s angry glare from earlier in the day still etched in her mind. No one in the Cesare family had ever been particularly adept at biting their tongues. And heaven knew, Giselle didn’t want Flynn back in their lives any more than his estranged wife.

  “Of course I want to do that.” Hugh shifted on the sectional, draping one long arm across the back of the couch cushions and swiveling to confront her. “That’s what I do best. My editor was pissed I took the company jet down there until I explained the story I was working on. She ended up holding the presses for nearly an hour so they could run the article for tomorrow.”

  Giselle nearly swallowed her tongue as she peered down at her watch. “Tomorrow? As in later today?”

  Hugh reached for her hand, his warm finger brushing her arm as he read the time. “First edition hits newsstands in five more hours.”

  “You don’t understand. You’ve just effectively stuffed explosives beneath my life and lit the fuse.” Levering herself up off the sofa, Giselle tried to pace off a double dose of nerves by walking the length of the suite.

  “He can’t touch your business,” Hugh argued, leaning forward on the couch, his elbows balanced on his khaki-clad kne
es. “And if he was smart enough to pull off an embezzlement scheme of such magnitude, he’s smart enough to know he can’t stake any sort of claim in the new resort’s success.”

  “It’s not my business life I’m worried about. At least, not in the way you think.” She had no choice but to come clean about her past with Flynn. An eagle-eyed reporter like Hugh would no doubt spy any holes in her story if she left out important details anyhow.

  Giselle had been ignoring the past and hoping for the best for too long.

  “Are you suggesting this guy can make problems for you personally?” Hugh rose and stalked closer, no longer resembling a passive observer.

  She recognized the deceptively soft hint of leashed anger in his voice. She’d heard her brothers in protective mode too many times over the years not to notice the signs of a man ready to leap to her defense. Funny how the thought of Hugh wanting to defend her warmed her, whereas her brothers’ protectiveness had driven her out of her mind for ten years and running.

  But would Hugh still want to defend her when he learned what she’d done?

  “Robert Flynn will definitely make trouble for me personally.” She sank onto a sunburst-yellow ottoman, unable to run from the truth any longer. “We had an affair while he was one of the managers of Club Paradise in its former incarnation.”

  She paused there, letting that much sink in before dropping the second bomb.

  Hugh pulled up one of the other sectional seats and rolled it into position directly in front of her. “Wasn’t he married?”

  Apparently he was already familiar with bomb number two. “Yes. And I know it sounds either horribly trite or ridiculously naive, but I swear I had no idea he had a wife. Which made me all the more of an idiot since I had met his spouse on a few occasions.” Sophisticated and glamorous, Lainie Reynolds had always snagged Giselle’s eye any time she showed up at Club Paradise. And although Giselle knew the woman held a few shares of the resort, she’d never realized that she’d purchased them because her husband was one of the managers. Giselle had merely seen a woman who was independent and successful—the kind of person she’d always wanted to be.

  She shrugged her shoulders stiffly, still angry with herself nearly a year later. “They had different last names, so it never even occurred to me they were a couple. Can you imagine?”

  God, she was so clueless. And so damn overprotected by the whole Cesare clan that she didn’t even know the first thing about being streetwise when it came to men.

  “I can imagine all too well.” Hugh feathered his fingers over her cheek, smoothed along her jaw with his thumb. “Guys like Flynn are players in every aspect of their lives. He didn’t embezzle for the money, he did it for the challenge. No doubt, he cheated on his wife for the same reason. Because he prides himself on being able to get away with anything, he covered his tracks thoroughly.”

  She hadn’t thought she could feel much worse about her relationship with Robert, but having Hugh explain away another man’s attraction to her as a simple challenge delivered a blow to the ego she hadn’t been anticipating. Still, Hugh had offered her an out she hadn’t really considered before.

  “You think I’m not the only moron in the free world who wouldn’t have realized he had a wife?” She looked up into his eyes and found only empathy, concern.

  “He’s a professional scam artist, isn’t he? His talent for fooling people allowed him to rip off investors from all over the country and get away with it.” His hand sifted through her hair to fall onto her shoulder as he smiled. “For now.”

  The jumbled knot of fears that had been lying dormant for a few minutes tightened all over again. “What do you mean, for now? You really think your story is somehow going to bring Flynn back to U.S. soil?” The idea seemed incomprehensible. “Why would he ever leave the safety of his hideaway now that he’s eluded the police?”

  “Ego. And the challenge.” He stroked a hand over her blouse, the heat of his palm soaking through the fabric to soothe her nerves and stoke other physical feelings she had no business experiencing when her life was on the verge of a huge explosion.

  “I don’t get it. How is his ego fed by getting hauled off to jail?” Although, now that she thought about it, hadn’t Summer suggested the same thing?

  “My story will remind him of the fame and fortune available to criminals who write their autobiographies or sell the rights to their stories for screenplays, docudramas, that kind of thing. The article puts Flynn back in the public eye, and the hint of fame awaiting him if he talks to the media might remind him how much he likes being the center of attention. He could come back here willingly because he thinks he’s too smart to get caught.” Hugh tugged her ottoman closer, wheeling her across the marble tile floor so that her legs tucked between his sprawled thighs where he sat.

  Her senses swam like the contents of a blender set to puree. She felt scared about what the future held, guilty about possibly trying to convince Hugh not to do any more with his story and even guiltier that she would be sleeping with the enemy if she gave into her most overwhelming feelings of all. Red-hot hunger for the globe-hopping journalist who could be out of her life on the next overseas flight if she didn’t grab her chance with him now.

  “Selfish as it may sound, I don’t want him to come back here.” Giselle’s hands reached for Hugh’s arms, as if somehow those square male shoulders could keep her upright when her world was spinning out of control. “And to be honest with you, my business partners—including Flynn’s ex-wife—had a powwow today about your story, and they asked me if I would communicate our fervent wish that you let sleeping dogs lie in this case.”

  At least she’d been honest about it. She wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye if she didn’t confess the ulterior motive that kept getting mixed up with her other desire to get close to him. She wouldn’t be so naive about men again.

  And she wouldn’t, couldn’t, be the sneaky informant Lainie had asked her to be.

  “Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away, Giselle.” His hands settled on the outside of her knees and skimmed their way up her thighs, pausing on her hips. “Just like this attraction isn’t going away if we pretend we don’t notice it today. I still want you, Giselle, and I don’t think I’d be going out on too much of a limb if I guessed you still want me, too.”

  “How can you say that when you know I’m rooting against your story?” Her eyes fluttered, longed to close so that she could simply concentrate on what Hugh’s hands made her feel instead of her overactive conscience. “You have to realize that I hope your tactics fail because I need Flynn to stay far, far away from me and the club.”

  “But how can he hurt you now?” Hugh’s fingers tightened on her hips, his voice tense with that male prickliness every man seemed to battle when discussing another owner of a Y chromosome, a potential enemy. “Your business is secure and you’ve moved on with your personal life. That is, unless…”

  “What?” She nudged aside the heat gathering and swelling in her belly, needing to focus on what she thought instead of what she felt. “Unless what?”

  Hugh’s hands slid away from her body, his jaw tightening as he met her gaze. “Unless you have unresolved feelings for this guy.”

  6

  ONE, ONE THOUSAND.

  Two, one thousand.

  The seconds ticked by like millenniums while Hugh waited for Giselle to make up her mind. He would endure the knife in the eye if she told him she still cared about this loser Flynn. But one way or another, he had to know.

  Now.

  “Giselle?”

  “Are you off your rocker?” She certainly stared at him as if he’d lost his marbles. “I’ve despised this man with every ounce of my being since I discovered he’d been lying to me for months. I’d only just barely recovered from the news that he was married when his wife showed up at my doorstep to ask if I knew where he’d gone with their life savings and the contents of her checking account. What unresolved feelings could I possib
ly have besides fury with no outlet?”

  Well, thank you, God, for that much anyway.

  He shrugged, unwilling to let her see how much her answer mattered to him. “It just occurred to me that maybe you wouldn’t be so upset about Flynn coming back here unless you still cared about him. But if you say you’re over him…”

  “I’m way over.” Her dark eyes glinted with a heat he hadn’t seen since they’d traded kisses on the beach. “And damn it, Hugh, if you weren’t determined to drag that two-timing cheat back into my life, I’d be very ready to move on right now.”

  By her sly arch of one delicate eyebrow, Hugh had a good idea what she’d be able to “move on” with. Damn it. He was already seriously regretting ever hearing Flynn’s name and his story hadn’t even hit newsstands yet. Why couldn’t he have just written a simple piece about the decline in South Beach tourism? For that matter, if he had any sense, he would have penned an in-depth review of all the erotic pastries in Giselle Cesare’s culinary repertoire.

  “What’s to stop you from moving on anyhow? Why put your whole life on hold for the sake of some loser you swear you’re over?”

  “But this isn’t just about an old relationship. This is about a threat to my business. All of the owners were so happy to put the negative publicity behind us. We don’t need to be dragged into the headlines and have the past rehashed like this.”