by JoAnn Ross
She’d also be furious that he’d interfered, little mind the fact that she’d needed some help at the time. Especially since her egocentric supervisor was obviously not only a bully, but an incompetent idiot to boot.
“I said pretty much the same thing to them I did to Parsons.” He forced himself to meet her lovely, serious eyes. “I suggested this week was going to be long and tough enough to get through without complicating things with useless feuds.
“I also mentioned that since management, in its own ignorance, tended to take things like this ridiculous corporate challenge week seriously, it made sense to save their differences for the creative arena where it mattered, bury their individual hatchets and cooperate by trying to win the thing together.”
“I’m impressed.”
“It’s not that big a deal.”
It was the truth, so far as it went. What he’d failed to mention was that he’d also told the two combatants that if they didn’t shape up and do their best to make this week a success, he’d throw them both off the cliff. Then drown them.
Although they’d resorted to bluster, from the uneasiness in their eyes, he realized that they’d half believed he might actually do it. And, although he wasn’t violent, such behavior was undeniably tempting. If it helped Amanda.
Watching her today, seeing how seriously she took her work, understanding how important it was to her that she pull off this week, Dane knew that in order to get what he wanted, he would have to see that Amanda got what she wanted. And what she wanted, it seemed, was Greg Parsons’s job. That being the case, he intended to move heaven and earth—and a portion of the Oregon coast, if necessary—to ensure her success.
“Believe me, Dane, it was a very big deal.” Thinking back on what he’d done for her—for no other reason than that he’d wanted to help—Amanda felt guilty. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
Her hand was on his arm. Dane covered it with his. “You were right. I haven’t exactly been the most forthright guy in the world the past couple of days. But I never meant to hurt you. Or to make you feel I was having fun at your expense.”
His hand was darker than hers. Larger. And warmer. When she began imagining it moving over her body, touching her in places that were aching for just such a sensual touch, Amanda knew that no matter how hard she tried to deny it, Dane was right. Before this week was over, they would become lovers.
That idea was thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” she murmured.
“What’s that?”
“What made you decide to buy the inn? After swearing that you couldn’t wait to get away from Satan’s Cove, I’m surprised to find you still here.”
“Not still.”
“Pardon me?”
“I said, I’m not still here. I’m back.”
“Oh.” That made a bit more sense, she supposed. “What did you do in between?”
Dane took encouragement from the fact that she cared about how he’d spent his life during those intervening years. “A little of this. A little of that.”
“That’s not very enlightening.”
“I suppose not.” He gave her a long look. “I guess I just can’t figure out why you’d care. Since you’ve already said you haven’t thought about me since that summer.”
“I may have thought of you,” she admitted, realizing that there was no way she’d be able to keep up the subterfuge. “From time to time.”
Dane didn’t answer. He just stood there, looking down at her, a frustratingly inscrutable look on his face, as the tension grew thicker and thicker between them.
“All right!” She threw up her hands in surrender. “I lied. I thought about you a lot, Dane. More than I should have. More than I wanted.
“Every man I’ve ever gone out with, I’ve ended up comparing to you. Once I dated a man for six months because, believe it or not, if I closed my eyes, his voice reminded me of yours.
“I go to work, and if I’m not careful, my mind will drift and I’ll think of you and wonder where you are, and what you’re doing. And at night—” On a roll now, she began to pace. “At night I’ll lie in bed, and you’ll be lying there beside me, kissing me, touching me, loving me.
“And then I’ll wake up, and realize it was only a dream. But it doesn’t seem like a dream, damn it. It seems real! And then, last night, I was tired and cranky, and worried, and all of a sudden I heard this voice I’ve dreamed about time and time again, and I turned around and there you were, and this time you weren’t a dream.
“You were real. Wonderfully, marvelously real! And it was all I could do not to throw myself in your arms and beg you to make love to me—with me—for the rest of my life!
“So, there.” She stopped in front of him, close enough that he could see the sheen of tears in her expressive blue eyes. “Now you know. Is that what you wanted to hear me say? Is your almighty male ego satisfied now?”
She was trembling. Once again the need to comfort warred with the desire to seduce. Once again comfort won out. “Yes. It’s what I wanted to hear.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him. And although she remained stiff, she wasn’t exactly resisting, either.
He cupped her chin again. “But only because it’s a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.”
Amanda read the truth in his warm, loving gaze and felt even more like weeping. Her emotions were in a turmoil. She couldn’t think straight. She could only feel. She wrapped her arms around his waist and clung. “Really?”
“Really.” His smile was that crooked, boyish one that had once possessed the power to make her young heart turn somersaults. It still did.
“And if you think it’s dumb dating a guy for six months because he sounds like someone else, how about marrying someone because she has the same laugh as a girl you once loved?”
“You didn’t!”
“Guilty.” His grin turned sheepish. “I was young and determined to get you out of my system when I met Denise.”
Denise. Dane had been married to a woman named Denise. A woman with her laugh. Amanda hated her. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m not in any hurry to be anywhere.” On the contrary, a very strong part of Amanda wished she could stop time and make this night last forever.
There’d been a moment, during her passionate speech about how many times she’d thought of him over the intervening years, that Dane had thought perhaps tonight would turn out to be the night he finally made love to Amanda. Now that he’d made the mistake of bringing up his ex-wife, he knew he’d have to remain patient a bit longer.
Reminding himself that Amanda was worth waiting for, Dane took her hand and led her over to a rowboat tied to the pier.
“We may as well get reasonably comfortable,” he said. “Because this is going to take a while.”
7
Dane’s fingers curved around her waist as he lifted her easily into the boat. Amanda sat down on the bench seat, leaned back against the bow and waited.
Dane sat down beside her. When he began talking, his words were slow and measured.
“I liked Denise from the moment I met her. Along with the all-important fact that she had your laugh, she was also beautiful and smart and sexy. And the only woman I’d ever met who was every bit as driven to succeed as I was.”
“She sounds like an absolute paragon.”
Dane would have had to be deaf not to hear the female jealousy in Amanda’s dry tone. He chuckled as he put his arm around her shoulder, encouraged when she did not pull away.
“Unfortunately, except for our work, we didn’t have a single solitary thing in common. Six months later, when neither of us had much to laugh about, we decided to call it quits before our disastrous marriage ruined a very good working relationship.”
“I can’t imagine working with an ex-husband.”
Dane shrugged. “It hadn’t been a typ
ical marriage from the beginning. I’d married her to get over you and she married me on the rebound after her divorce from a miserable first marriage. Right before the split, I was promoted into a position that involved a lot of traveling. After a time, it was as if our marriage had never happened and we found we could be friends again. Two years ago, I introduced her to an old college friend of mine who’s a stockbroker in San Francisco. They clicked right off the bat, got married, and I got a note from her last week announcing her pregnancy. So things worked out for the best.”
“You said you were young?”
Dane sighed. Although he’d overcome any regrets he’d once harbored over his marriage, revealing such irresponsible behavior to the one woman he wanted to impress was proving more than a little embarrassing.
“I graduated from University of Oregon the summer after I met you,” he said. “Mom was there, of course, along with Denise—who was my supervisor during my apprentice program at Whitfield. We went out to dinner, then after I took Mom back to her hotel, Denise invited me out for a drink to celebrate.
“One toast led to another, and another, and a few more, then we bought a bottle of champagne—a magnum—and the next thing I remember we were waking up in a motel room in Reno, Nevada.
“Denise couldn’t remember much of anything, either, but the signed certificate from a justice of the peace on the dresser spoke for itself, so after several cups of strong coffee and a great many aspirin, we figured, since we’d always gotten along so well at the office, we might as well try to make a go of it.”
Amanda didn’t know which part of the story—so unlike the Dane she’d known who’d driven her crazy with his selfcontrol—she found most amazing. “You actually married your boss?”
This time his grin was more than a little sheepish. “Women aren’t the only ones who can sleep their way to the top of the company.”
Since she knew he was joking, Amanda overlooked his blatantly chauvinistic remark. “She must have been older.”
“About twelve years. But that didn’t have anything to do with the breakup. We were just mismatched from the getgo.”
In all his travels around the world, Dane had met a great many chic women, but none of them had oozed sophistication like his former wife. Denise preferred Placido Domingo to Garth Brooks, champagne cocktails at the symphony to hot dogs at the ballpark, and given the choice between spending an afternoon at a stuffy art museum with her uptown friends or fly-fishing on a crystal-clear Oregon river, she’d choose Jackson Pollack over rainbow trout any day.
Dane had often thought, over these past months since his return to Satan’s Cove, that if he and Denise hadn’t broken up that first year, they definitely would have divorced over his need to leave the city for this wildly beautiful, remote stretch of Oregon coast. Since there could have been children involved by this point, he was grateful they’d cut their losses early.
So stunned was Amanda by the story of Dane’s marriage, it took a while for something else he’d said to sink in.
“You said she was your supervisor at Whitfield. Whitfield as in the Whitfield Palace hotel chain? ‘When Deluxe Will No Longer Do’?” she asked, quoting the world-famous slogan. “That’s where you were working?”
“I was in the intern program at Whitfield while I was in college and they hired me full-time after graduation.”
This was more like it. This fit the burning need Dane had professed to escape Satan’s Cove. This was the man, when she’d daydreamed about Dane, she’d imagined him to be. “What did you do there?”
“A bit of everything. Whitfield makes its managerial prospects start at the bottom and work in all the different departments. I was assigned to the custodial department my sophomore year at U of O, worked my way up to housekeeping my junior year, reservations my senior year, then spent the summer after graduation in the kitchen.”
“That’s the summer you were married.” Even knowing that it hadn’t worked out, Amanda realized that she hated the idea of any other woman sharing Dane’s life. Let alone his bed.
It should have been her, Amanda thought with a surprisingly furious burst of passion. It could have been her, if her parents hadn’t manipulated things to keep them apart. Or if her feelings hadn’t been so wounded and his pride so stiff.
Unaware of her thoughts, Dane nodded. “That’s it. By Christmas I was on my way to being single again.”
Denise’s petition for divorce—they’d agreed she’d be the one to file—had arrived at his office on December 23. He’d spent the next two days in Satan’s Cove with his mother.
The morning after Christmas, he was on a plane to Paris. And after that Milan. Then Zurich. And on and on until he was spending so much of his life at 30,000 feet, he’d often joked—not quite humorously—that he should just give the postal service his airline schedule.
“And then you began traveling.” Amanda recalled the earlier condensed version. “Still for Whitfield?”
“When Denise and I split, I’d just gotten promoted to assistant director of guest relations, working out of the New Orleans headquarters. Essentially, it was my job to visit each hotel at least twice a year and pull a surprise inspection.”
“You must have been popular,” Amanda said dryly.
“I like to think I bent over backward to be fair. But I will admit to being tough. After all, guests pay big bucks to stay at a Whitfield Palace. It’s important they feel they’re getting their money’s worth.”
“I stayed at the Park Avenue Whitfield last month,” Amanda revealed, “on a trip back to Manhattan. The New York agency handles their advertising account.” With luck and Dane’s help, Greg Parsons would soon be transferring to those renowned Madison Avenue offices. “It really was like being in a palace.”
Although she’d grown up with wealth, Amanda hadn’t been able to keep from staring at the sea of marble underfoot or the gleaming crystal chandeliers overhead. She’d had the impression that at any minute, Princess Di would suddenly appear from behind one of the gilded pillars.
“That’s the point,” Dane said.
“True.” Whoever had named the worldwide hotel chain had definitely hit the nail right on the head.
Amanda also remembered something else about her stay at the flagship hotel that Ivana Trump was rumored to have used as a model for her refurbishing work on the Plaza. Her room, furnished with genuine antiques and boasting a view of the leafy environs of Central Park, had been comfortably spacious. And the marble bathrooms had an amazing selection of French milled perfumed soaps, shampoos and lotions. In addition, the staff had been more than accommodating. Still, even with all that, Amanda had felt vaguely uncomfortable during her three-day stay.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “as luxurious as the Park Avenue Whitfield is, I like what you’ve done with Smugglers’ Inn better. It’s more comfortable. Cozier.”
His slow, devastating grin reached his eyes. “That’s the point.” Dane was undeniably pleased that she understood instinctively the mood he’d wanted to create. “I’m also glad you approve.”
“I really do.” He was looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her again. Her heart leaped into her throat. Then slowly settled again. “It’s lovely, Dane. You should be very proud.”
The sea breeze fanned her hair, causing it to waft across her cheek. Dane reached out to brush it away and ended up grabbing a handful. “Speaking of lovely…”
He pulled her closer with a gentle tug on her hair.
“It’s too soon,” she protested softly.
Personally, Dane thought it was about ten years too late. “Just a kiss.” His mouth was a whisper from hers. “One simple kiss, Amanda. What could it hurt?”
She could feel herself succumbing to the temptation in his dark eyes, to the promise of his silky breath against her lips, to the magic in the fingers that had slipped beneath her hair to gently massage the nape of her neck.
A simple kiss. What could it hurt?
“Just a kiss,
” she whispered in a soft, unsteady breath. Her lips parted of their own volition, her eyes fluttered shut in anticipation of the feel of his mouth on hers. “You have to promise.”
He slid the fingers of his free hand down the side of her face. “I promise.” He bent his head and very slowly, very carefully, closed the distance.
The stirring started, slow and deep. And sweet. So achingly, wonderfully sweet.
There was moonlight, slanting over the sea, turning it to silver. And a breeze, feathering her hair, whispering over her skin, carrying with it the salt-tinged scent of the sea. Somewhere in the distance a foghorn sounded; the incoming tide flowed over the rocks and lapped against the sides of the boat that was rocking ever so gently on the soft swells.
His lips remained night-cool and firm while hers heated, then softened. Amanda’s hand floated upward, to rest against the side of his face as Dane drew her deeper and deeper into a delicious languor that clouded her mind even as it warmed her body to a radiant glow.
Although sorely tempted, Dane proved himself a man of his word, touching only her hair and the back of her neck. With scintillating slowness, and using only his mouth, he drew out every ounce of pleasure.
A soft moan slipped from between Amanda’s heated lips. No man—no man except Dane—had ever been able to make her burn with only a kiss. He whispered words against her mouth and made her tremble. He murmured promises and made her ache.
Dane had spent most of the day hoping that he’d overreacted to last night’s encounter. A man accustomed to thinking with his head, rather than his heart—or that other vital part of his anatomy that was now throbbing painfully—he’d attempted to make sense out of a situation he was discovering defied logic.
Despite all the intervening years, despite all the women he’d bedded since that bittersweet summer, Dane found himself as inexplicably drawn to Amanda as ever.
The first time they’d been together like this, his desire had been that of a boy. Last night, and even more so now, as he shaped her lips to his, forcing himself to sample their sweet taste slowly, tenderly, Dane knew that this desire was born from the age-old need of a man for his mate.
