High-Stakes Bachelor

by Cindy Dees

  Jackson stopped in front of a door and chuckled quietly to himself. “In here,” he directed her.

  The room he led her into was spacious and bright, with huge picture windows looking out over the ocean. The furniture was pickled pine, the fabrics creams and yellows. The view drew her to it and she stared down in awe at the majesty of the ocean and rocky cliffs below. “I can’t see a single house from here.”

  Jackson spoke quietly beside her. “I own the land all the way to that point on the right. I bought all the neighboring properties as they went up for sale and knocked the houses down. Restored the coastal habitat.”

  Wow. Such wealth was unimaginable to her. First this palatial layout, and now his own movie production company. She was just hoping to get steady work, enough to pay off her student loans and maybe make a modest living in the industry someday, not end up richer than Croesus.

  More intimidated than she cared to admit, she asked him, “Is there somewhere I can wash up? And if it’s not too big an imposition, can I borrow a clean T-shirt or something? This sweater’s pretty trashed after I rolled around on the ground in it.”

  He looked down at her chest and his pupils dilated noticeably. Alarmed, she glanced down. The sweater was more shredded than she’d realized and her beige camisole, now gray with dust, peeked through in multiple locations.

  “Uh, sure. I’ll go get some clothes for you.” He spun away sharply as if it had just dawned on him he was both staring at and talking to her chest.

  Huh. So Jackson had embraced the fact that she was a girl and not just a fight buddy, had he? A foreboding washed through her that his seeing her as a woman would open some doors between them that she didn’t know how to handle.

  So what if he noticed she was a girl? He was her boss, for crying out loud.

  “Bathroom’s in here. Towels are in that cabinet.”

  She stepped into a Victorian bathroom and sighed in delight at the gigantic claw-foot tub sitting in front of the window. Surf crashed into the rocks below, the foam white against the blackness of rocks and sea and night.

  “It’s one-way glass so no one can see in here from the veranda,” he informed her. “If you want to jump in the tub, I’ll go get some clean clothes for you.”

  “Deal.”

  He hesitated in the doorway and she looked up at him questioningly.

  He said low, “I’m glad you’re okay, Ana.”

  “Me, too. Thanks for rescuing me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  She cut him off. “Yes. You did. And we both know it.”

  His gaze skittered away as if he was embarrassed.

  She took pity on him and declared, “Scram. I want to go for a swim in that gigantic tub.”

  “Right.” He spun away fast, but not so fast that she didn’t spot the stain of color on his cheeks. Jackson Prescott was capable of blushing? Would wonders never cease?

  She poked around the bathroom as the tub filled, and found a new toothbrush still in its wrapper, a hair brush, shampoo and conditioner, and even some simple cosmetics. Wow. Talk about the hostess who thought of everything. Minerva must have brought this stuff in here while Jackson had showed her the rest of the house.

  Ana lit the half dozen pillar candles clustered beside the tub, poured some of the bath salts she found into the steaming hot water and sighed in pleasure as she stepped into the tub. She sank up to her armpits in the hot embrace and luxuriated in melting bliss. It was wild to think about how, three hours ago, she had been praying for her life, and here she was now, surrounded by this sartorial splendor. The mental whiplash was a little much to take in.

  She refreshed the bath with hot water several times and just couldn’t seem to drag herself out of this perfect interlude. The rhythmic pounding of waves rolling ashore lulled her into the best semicoma ever. How long she sat there just soaking, she had no idea.

  The bathroom door burst open.

  She plunged to her neck in the water and it sloshed over the side of the tub. “Jackson!”

  “Crap! Sorry. Thought you already went downstairs. Clothes. I’ve, um, got some. They’re Gran’s, but she said they would fit you. Sorry. I’ll just put them on your bed....”

  “Get out, Jackson,” she said firmly enough to cut across his babbling.

  “Right. Out.” But his gaze had riveted on the damned tub. And as tall as he was, he no doubt had a great view of her naked body. Which abruptly felt on fire from pretty much her neck to her toes.

  “Go. Now,” she ordered him.

  “Sorry. Gone.” Finally, he tore his gaze away from her and spun. He all but ran out of the bathroom and looked so silly doing it she had to laugh. Guy acted like he’d never seen a naked female before. Who’d have thought a hunk like him would be so self-conscious around women? She wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.

  The tranquility of her bath destroyed, she rinsed the last of the soap out of her hair with the detachable showerhead thingie. She stood up to dry off and it felt decadent to stand naked before that huge window with all of nature’s glory right outside.

  She glanced down onto the broad stone veranda below and started. Jackson was staring up at her, transfixed. The glass was one-way, wasn’t it? If he’d lied about that, she was going to kill him!

  Wrapping a towel around herself fast, she backed away from the window and dried off hastily. Using the blow-dryer she found in the big armoire where the towels and shampoo had been, she dried her hair into its usual shoulder-length frame of her face.

  She actually dug into the makeup Minerva had put in the medicine cabinet and applied mascara, blush and lip gloss. Only time she usually wore the stuff was when she had a date, which happened exactly never. Tonight, though, it gave her the confidence boost she needed to go downstairs and face Jackson after he’d accidentally invaded her bath. That had been an accident, hadn’t it?

  Naked, she moved out into the bedroom and smiled at the simple navy knit dress laid out on the bed. Its lines were high-end designer all the way. The lingerie lying beside it made her simultaneously blush and sigh with pleasure. Jackson’s grandmother wore silk thongs and see-through lace bras? Go, granny!

  She’d secretly wished to own stuff like that over the years, but a combination of no one to wear it for and scraping by so she could pay her college tuition meant she’d never indulged the fantasy.

  The sexy lingerie was a decent fit. She was more endowed up top than Minerva, which meant her bra cups ranneth over in a rather spectacular display of cleavage. But it was better than crawling back into her dirty, smelly camisole.

  She pulled the casual knit dress over her head and the kitten-soft fabric caressed her body like a whisper. It was snug to the hips and then flared into swirls around her legs. The overall effect was to accentuate her curves until she looked like some kind of sexy vamp.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. Who knew she could look so good in the right cut of clothing? Jackson’s eyeballs were going to fall out his head when he got a load of this plunging neckline and bulging boobage. A sneaking suspicion that Minerva had laid out this dress for that exact reason crept into her mind. So. Granny was machinating to throw the two of them together, huh? Fascinating. Jackson wasn’t lying when he’d said his grandmother was pushing him to settle down and start a family.

  She wished the woman luck but held out no real hope of Minerva succeeding. After all, Jackson had been a superstar for nearly five years and could have had pretty much any woman on the planet in that time. But he’d never shown the slightest inclination to get married. There was no reason to think things would change at this late date.

  Still, she gave the neckline one last downward tug before heading downstairs. Next to the library was a music room with a grand piano dominating the space. On a shelf behind it, she spotted...

  Oh, my God. Is
that an Oscar? She moved into the room and stopped before the famous statue on the mantle over a huge fireplace.

  “I won that for being a coproducer on a documentary last year. I’d like to win another one with the new production company,” a male voice said from behind her.

  She whipped around to face Jackson, the skirt swirling around her hips.

  His eyes went wide as he stared at her. “Ana, what happened to you?”

  Alarm slammed through her. She reached for her hair, her face. “What? What’s wrong?” She hadn’t seen any major bruising when she’d checked herself in the mirror before she came downstairs. Most of her scrapes and scratches were on her arms and hands. Amazing really, considering what she’d been through.

  “You’ve got—” He broke off. “You’re—”

  Her alarm escalated to panic. “What the hell’s wrong, Jackson? I’ve got what?”

  “Uh. Breasts.”

  She stared back at him. “I know. But what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled. “You just look...”

  She strode over to him and stared up at him. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s going on, right now.”

  “Jesus, Ana. Nothing’s wrong. You just look like...a...a woman. A hot one. With great...well...cleavage. That dress... You in it... Christ...” he mumbled.

  Oh. She stood down from threat mode, letting out the breath she’d been holding. He’d scared the hell out her for a minute there. A little irked, she said, “I’ve been a woman all day, you know.”

  “Well, yeah. But you weren’t wearing stuff like that when we were fighting.”

  “The operative word being fighting,” she retorted. “Kinda hard to do that in heels and a French manicure.”

  He cleared his throat and finally managed to tear his gaze away from her chest. She owed Minerva a big thanks later. At least the guy had finally figured out she was not only a girl, but a marginally attractive one. For him, that was apparently a big breakthrough.

  “How about that tour of the rest of the house now?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  He guided her through the mansion. It was a fairly simple layout, actually. A series of spacious rooms opened off the original central hall that ran from front to back. She gathered a kitchen was beyond the dining room he showed her and servant quarters were off in another direction. The entire back of the house was new and boasted big picture windows looking out on the ocean. The blend of old and modern was seamless and comfortable.

  “There’s Gran on the veranda. Looks like Rosie’s got dinner ready.”

  “Rosie?”

  “Gran’s housekeeper, cook, companion and second-in-command around here. Be warned, she runs a tight ship. Don’t cross her.”

  A tiny, gray-haired woman stepped into the family room just then. “Jackson Prescott. What lies are you telling your lady friend about me?”

  “Rosie, this is Ana. And this is the infamous Rosie McKay.”

  Wow. She was used to being the shortest person in a room, but Rosie barely reached her nose. The woman must not top four foot ten. But her eyes sparkled brighter than a sparrow’s and she looked ready to take on the world.

  “Don’t listen to a thing that boy says about me,” Rosie declared. “Lies. All of it.”

  Ana grinned. “I won’t listen to what he says about you if you won’t listen to what he says about me.”

  “Agreed. Now head on outside. Supper’s served, and don’t you dare let my famous fried chicken get cold.”

  She shooed them out through the French doors. Ana sank into the wrought-iron chair Jackson held for her, acutely aware that from his vantage point he was getting a great look down the front of her dress. She hoped he liked what he saw.

  The moon rose as they dug into the platter of chicken and fruit salad. The simple meal settled her stomach and made her feel better. There was just something comforting about home cooking. There hadn’t been a lot of it in her house growing up. She’d mostly fended for herself by the time she was in school full days.

  A chill crept into the air, and Ana was chagrined to feel her nipples puckering beneath the thin fabric of the dress and the thinner lace of the bra. God, did she have to go and starting nipping now?

  Darned if Jackson hadn’t noticed it, too. He took in the view unabashedly, and darned if Minerva didn’t take in him taking it in, as well. Ana couldn’t be sure, but she thought she caught a hint of a smirk in the older woman’s expression. Schemer.

  “So, dear. Do you feel like talking about today or would you rather not?”

  She shrugged at Minerva. “There’s not much to tell. I walked out to my car to meet Jackson for dinner and some guy jumped me from behind. I didn’t see his face. I fought and screamed, but he hit me in the side of the head and apparently knocked me out. Someone called the police and... I was lucky. Then Jackson came and rescued me from all those medical people and their needles in the emergency room.”

  “I did not—”

  She threw him a withering look. “We’ve already been over this. You rescued me. I’m grateful, and you can just get over it.”

  Minerva chuckled in delight. “Oh, I like her, Jackson.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Stay here as long as you’d like, dear. It’s entirely too much house for one person to rattle around in.”

  “What about me?” Jackson complained.

  “You’re always haring off to who knows where, and when you’re home you practically live over at that studio of yours. You’re gone more than you’re here.”

  Ana grinned. Salty, the woman was. She officially liked Minerva back. They finished the meal with Jackson glaring at his grandmother, Minerva smiling smugly and Ana privately enjoying his discomfort. He struck her as the type who was used to always being in control, always in charge, always self-contained. It was refreshing to know he was a real man with real feelings and not some kind of robot under all that movie-star perfection.

  Rosie came out to clear the dishes and Jackson jumped up to help her. He hauled in the heavy stuff while Minerva topped off Ana’s water and refilled her own wineglass.

  As Jackson disappeared inside the house, Minerva asked, “How long have you and Jackson been together?”

  “Uh, we’re not together. We just met today at an audition.”

  Minerva looked visibly startled. Not his style to bring home his casual conquests, huh? Ana added by way of explanation, and in defense of her own morals, “I don’t think he even noticed that I’m a girl until he saw me in this awesome dress.”

  “Oh, I noticed,” Jackson groused from the doorway. “Just because I was too professional to make a pass at you when I was lying on top of you in your audition doesn’t mean I didn’t notice.”

  Ana gulped as Minerva smiled archly. “She does wear that dress rather well, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. She does.” Jackson’s voice was low and deep. Sexy. Slid across her skin like velvet. “Would you like to see the beach, Ana?”

  “There’s a beach around here?”

  “I blasted one out of the rocks a while back.” He moved over beside her chair and held a hand down to her. “Let me show you.”

  He held out his hand to help her to her feet. She laid her palm in his and started at the heat of him. It permeated her flesh and drew her to him like a moth to a flame.

  “Have fun, you two,” Minerva said behind them, her words floating away on the muted roar of the ocean.

  “Interfering busybody,” Jackson muttered as he led her to a wooden staircase.

  “She means well.”

  “She just loves to meddle.”

  “She loves you.”

  Jackson snorted, but Ana would bet he knew she was right. Narrow steps wound down the cliff steeply. To a normal perso
n, the descent would probably be a little alarming. But after her stunt classes, it was kind of fun to navigate.

  They got to the bottom and stepped onto a tiny, secluded beach surrounded on three sides by towering cliffs and on the fourth by the ocean. White sand the consistency of sugar buried her toes. The whole beach probably wasn’t more than fifty feet wide and maybe half that deep.

  “It’s perfect,” she breathed.

  Jackson looked over at her in the moonlight. “Yup. Perfect.”

  She got the feeling he wasn’t talking about the beach. She spoke over the ocean soundtrack. “Your grandmother seemed to think we were a couple. Do you need me to pretend that we are for a while to get her off your back?”

  “You’d do that for me?” he blurted.

  “Why not? She’s a lovely woman and it would make her happy. I’d love to repay her in some way for her hospitality.”

  Jackson frowned doubtfully. “You don’t know her. This could backfire on both of us.”

  “How?”

  “No idea. But I know my grandmother. If there’s a way to make a fake girlfriend bite me in the butt, she’ll find it.”

  Ana grinned. “It’s a good thing I’m not going to take that remark out of context, Mr. Prescott.”

  Jackson laughed and snagged her around the waist, pulling her up against his delicious body laughingly. She tensed against him, and he turned her loose instantaneously.

  He spun away, shoving a hand through his hair. “God, I’m sorry,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “You were just attacked. Of course you wouldn’t want some guy to grab you....”

  “It’s not that,” she responded quickly. It was just that he was so darned gorgeous. So out of her league. So...perfect. And she was so...not. How to put that into words that wouldn’t make her sound like a total dork? She opened her mouth, mumbled incoherently and shut it again.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked, steamrolling right over her attempt at an explanation. “Anything. Just tell me what to do. I want to help.”