One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Presents

by Penny Jordan

  ‘It is to me.’ He could see by the stubborn tilt of her chin she wasn’t kidding.

  She tried to wrestle her arm free. He held firm. No way was she skipping out on him until they got this settled.

  ‘Will you let go of my arm?’

  He softened his grip, but kept her in place. ‘Not until you tell me what the problem is.’

  ‘It’s simple. I don’t accept money from men I don’t know.’

  ‘First off,’ he said, pulling her closer, ‘you do know me. After what we did last night you know me pretty damn well.’ He felt a stab of satisfaction when she blushed a vivid red. ‘Second off, the five hundred wasn’t payment for sexual favours.’ Now he thought about it, he was pretty damned insulted himself. ‘I’ve never paid for sex and I never will.’

  The blush intensified, but her arm relaxed. ‘Okay.’ Her breath gushed out and the rigid line of her shoulders softened. ‘I’m sorry I accused you of that. It’s just…It looked…I don’t know—it looked funny.’

  ‘It was a gift between friends.’

  She nodded. ‘All right, but I still can’t accept it.’

  Now she was just being stubborn. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t,’ she said, her voice rising to match his.

  Her lips puckered up into the defiant pout he’d admired the day before. He wasn’t admiring it so much any more.

  ‘Look, calm down, okay?’ He ran his palm down her bare arm, struggling to soothe while his own emotions were in turmoil. He could see the hot flash of temper in her eyes, but beneath it was something else that looked suspiciously like hurt. It bothered him he might have caused it.

  He tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong. How things had got messed up so fast.

  Everything had been great when he’d woken up, his body still humming from one incredible night of mind-blowing sex. He’d spent the next ten minutes lying in bed, the hazy dawn sunlight streaming over him while he’d breathed in the lingering scent of Kate’s perfume overlaid with the smell of freshly percolating coffee and enjoyed some inventive fantasies about what they could do for the rest of the day.

  When he’d found Kate in the kitchen, clutching Joey’s Pop Tarts, the soft blonde hair he now knew was natural still damp from her shower and that sexy dress stretched across her lush rear end, he’d figured it wouldn’t take him long to start making his fantasies reality. The next few days had spread out before him like a smorgasbord of sexual pleasures and he’d had every intention of digging in.

  Then she’d started babbling on about Pat and employment paperwork and money and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Well, she could forget about working here. He didn’t want her working for him, he wanted her with him—in bed as well as out—for the next couple of days, but he could see he was going to have to change tactics to get what he wanted.

  ‘Kate, this is dumb.’ He forced reason and logic into his voice. ‘We hit it off last night. I’ve got a couple of days before I have to head out to California.’ He stroked his thumb across the inside of her elbow, encouraged by her shiver of response. ‘We could have a lot of fun in that time.’ She didn’t say anything so he pressed on. Surely she could see this was the smart option. ‘You can stay here as my guest and then I’ll buy you a ticket home to London when I leave. How does that sound?’

  Kate didn’t think she’d ever been more humiliated in her whole life. This was worse than being turfed out into a hotel corridor in her underwear. She stepped away from Zack, humiliated all over again by the terrible yearning that seized her. That her body was clamouring for her to say yes to his insulting proposal only made the situation that much more unbearable.

  ‘I pay my own way. I always have and I always will.’ She tightened her arms across her breasts, willing herself to stop trembling. ‘And I’m very sorry, but, as much fun as we had last night, I’m not prepared to be your paid plaything for the next few days.’

  He cursed softly. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

  ‘Mrs Oakley’s offered me a job here and I’m taking it,’ she continued, grateful when he made no move to touch her. ‘If you don’t want me working in your hotel you can have me fired, that’s certainly your prerogative.’ She prayed he wouldn’t do that, but she wasn’t about to beg. ‘But you don’t have to worry about sleeping with the staff, because we’re not sleeping together any more. How does that sound?’

  He swore again, his big body rigid, his hands fisted by his sides. The frustration was coming off him in waves but he didn’t say a word.

  She walked down the hallway to the elevator with as much dignity as she could muster and stabbed the call button.

  ‘Have it your way, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice brittle, before she heard the door slam shut behind her.

  Her shoulders slumped in a cruel mixture of relief and regret. The lift pinged its arrival, the sound reverberating round the empty lobby like a mission bell.

  As Kate stepped into the private car she spotted her gold sandals where they had fallen the evening before. The lurid memory of being wrapped around Zack, her body quivering with anticipation, made her tense as she bent to pick up the shoes.

  The lone teardrop glittered as it splashed onto the golden leather.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING me.’ Zack scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling weary. ‘She was coming to California with me. How am I going to get another PA so soon?’ And how could a day that had dawned with such promise have turned into this nightmare?

  ‘Seems Jill didn’t take too kindly to your attitude this afternoon. She said you shouted at her,’ Monty said from the other side of the booth. His friendly cockney accent rubbed Zack’s last nerve raw.

  ‘I did not shout at her,’ Zack said firmly, pretty sure he hadn’t. He could barely remember the incident with his PA. He’d been fixated on a certain blue-eyed temptress most of the day. ‘She did a half-baked job on the report I asked for on The Grange’s customer profile. All I did was point it out.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe next time you could point it out with a few less decibels,’ Monty replied amiably, lifting the bottle of beer to his lips.

  Zack watched his business manager. ‘Fine.’ He took a swallow of his own beer, let the chilled amber liquid ease down his throat and forced his shoulders to relax. ‘Point taken.’

  Jill Hawthorne’s resignation wasn’t worth getting worked up about. He expected one hundred and ten per cent from his staff and paid them the salaries to match. Jill hadn’t been up to the job since the day he’d hired her. It was just bad timing she’d picked today to walk off in a snit. He could have done without the aggravation.

  Monty straightened in his chair and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. ‘What were you doing in the office anyhow? I thought you were taking a couple of days off before you headed out to Cally?’

  That had been the original plan, thought Zack, aggravated all over again. Until a certain Kate Denton had walked out on him bright and early this morning. After that, he hadn’t been in the mood to hang out in his penthouse. Every place he looked brought back memories of her lush, sexy body and the incredible things they’d been doing to each other most of the night.

  ‘Plans change,’ he said dismissively. He wasn’t about to get into a blow by blow of what an idiot he’d been with Monty. He still wasn’t sure how he’d let Kate get under his skin the way she had. ‘I should let you get home to Stella,’ he added reluctantly, mentioning Monty’s wife. ‘She’ll give me the look next time I see her if I keep you out drinking on your first night back.’

  Monty had returned to Vegas late that afternoon after a week of meetings with Harold Westchester, the owner of the hotel Zack was buying out in California. It had been Zack’s idea to meet up in the loud, lively and informal surroundings of the Sports Bar. He and Monty had spent the last half an hour going over the details of the negotiations together before Monty had dropped his bombshell about Zack’s PA.
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br />   ‘No worries,’ said Monty. ‘Stel understands you wanted the low-down on how things went with Westchester.’

  Truth be told, the meeting could have waited till tomorrow, but Zack hadn’t been in any great hurry to go back to his bed alone tonight. And Monty was always good company. They’d been best buddies ever since their early teens, when Monty had tried to pull a short con on Zack one rainy afternoon on London’s Oxford Street.

  ‘I guess we’ve covered everything for today,’ Zack said. ‘Why don’t you go on home? Tell Stella I said hi,’ he finished, not quite sure where the ripple of envy came from as he said it. Sure, Monty had a beautiful wife in Stella and a real little pistol of a kid in Joey, but that kind of wedded bliss had never been what Zack was looking for in life.

  ‘I’m good for another round, yet,’ Monty said, glancing at his watch. ‘Look, Zack, there is one other thing I wanted to sound you out on with The Grange buyout.’

  ‘What?’ Zack asked.

  ‘Why don’t you tell Westchester who you really are?’

  Zack slapped his beer bottle back on the table with more force than was strictly necessary. ‘I told you before. No way.’

  ‘We could get a better deal out of him. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’ Zack had been after The Grange for two solid years—the fact that Westchester had no knowledge about their prior connection had been paramount to the old guy agreeing to the deal in the first place, Zack was sure of it. ‘Westchester and my old man didn’t exactly hit it off together. I’m not risking the deal on—’

  ‘How do you know he blames you for what JP did?’ Monty butted in.

  ‘Drop it, Mont.’ Just thinking about telling Westchester made Zack feel edgy.

  ‘Fine, I tried.’ Monty threw up his hands. ‘It’s your choice.’

  ‘That’s right. It is. Now, do you want another beer or not?’

  ‘Just one. Then I better shoot off.’

  Zack picked up a handful of mini-pretzels from the bowl of bar snacks, glad to have at least one thing settled. He turned to signal their waitress when something caught his eye across the darkened bar. He stared in the half-light.

  Another waitress was dishing out drinks to a group of guys over by the pool tables, her blonde hair shone white in the harsh neon light. He squinted, trying to focus. It couldn’t be, could it?

  She walked back towards the wait-station, her empty tray dangling from one hand. Her voluptuous figure looked ready to spill right out of the uniform all the female bar staff wore.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he murmured.

  He’d recognise the soft, seductive sway of those hips anywhere.

  Kate was floating. At least, that was what she tried to tell herself as she pushed through the crowd of people at the bar, her head throbbing in time to the electric guitar whining from the sound system and her heels and toes burning in the shoes she’d borrowed for the evening. She’d gone past exhausted about an hour ago, entering an alternative reality where her many aches and pains were buffered by a sea of numbness—sort of.

  She dumped her tray on the wait-station and shouted out her latest order to Matt, the barman. Matt waved, not even attempting to be heard above the din, and went off to fill it.

  Pushing an annoying tendril of hair behind her ear, Kate swayed slightly. She gripped the bar, steadied herself, forcing her knees to lock, and took another glimpse at the clock above the bar. The stupid thing had to be broken—the hands had barely moved since the last time she looked. Still over an hour to go till her shift ended.

  She groaned, the next couple of weeks spreading out before her in a never-ending kaleidoscope of spilled drinks, overeager hands, dirty toilets and unmade beds.

  Kate forced back the depression settling over her like an impenetrable fog. It could only be tiredness. So the next few weeks were going to be murder while she held down the two jobs she’d talked her way into. She’d worked this hard before. When she’d been seventeen, and newly free of her father’s influence, she’d held down three jobs to keep afloat. She could do it again. All she needed was a decent night’s sleep.

  Thanks to the night flight two days ago, the bedroom Olympics she’d indulged in with the very creative Zack Boudreaux last night, a day spent changing sheets and cleaning toilets and the last four hours spent tottering around on heels that were two sizes too small, Kate reckoned she’d managed about four hours sleep in the last forty-eight.

  She glared at the clock again, willing the hands to move faster.

  Extreme fatigue was the only reason the picture of Zack and his insatiable body kept popping back into her brain. She didn’t regret her decision to turn down his insulting offer one bit. She would never be any man’s kept woman, no matter how gorgeous he looked or how fantastic he might be in bed. Her mother had done that and look what had happened to her.

  She let go of the bar. When she stayed upright, she pulled a long fortifying breath into her lungs. Only an hour to go, then she could collapse into bed. She vowed she wouldn’t so much as twitch her little finger until ten minutes before her housekeeping shift started at six tomorrow morning.

  ‘Katie, Katie.’ Marcy, Kate’s fellow waitress, elbowed her way towards Kate on ice-pick heels, her chocolate-brown eyes beaming. How did she walk in those shoes, Kate wondered, without dislodging a kidney?

  ‘Honey, you hit the jackpot.’ Marcy slapped her tray down on the bar and snapped the gum she was chewing.

  ‘Oh really?’ Kate said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. She liked Marcy. She was so perky she made Mary Poppins look like a killjoy. But right at the moment Kate could barely string a coherent sentence together, let alone have a conversation with someone as full-on as Marcy.

  ‘Oh, yes, really,’ Marcy said, mimicking Kate’s accent, her smile so bright it was practically radioactive. ‘You’ll never guess who’s in my Number Four booth and just asked to have you serve him his next beer?’

  ‘Who?’ Kate asked, sure she didn’t want to know unless the guy was Rip Van Winkle.

  ‘Give me a minute.’ Marcy winked and shouted out an order to Matt for two bottles of premium beer. She turned back to Kate, her face still beaming excitement. ‘Only the big boss man.’ Marcy pointed out one of the booths near the entrance. ‘He’s over there with Monty Robertson, his business manager.’ Marcy touched Kate’s arm. ‘Mr Zack “Gorgeous Butt” Boudreaux, no less.’

  At the mention of his name, Kate felt the headache gnawing at her temples roar into life. Then her stomach rolled over, the burn in her feet flared up and the dull ache in her back shot straight up her spine. So much for numbness.

  ‘Honey, he’s taken a real shine to you. He asked for you special.’ Marcy nudged her, still talking a mile a minute, but the words barely registered on Kate.

  ‘Here you go, babe, three margaritas.’ Matt placed the drinks Kate had ordered on her tray. As Kate thanked Matt Marcy whisked the tray away.

  ‘I’ll take care of these for you.’ Marcy checked the tab and hefted the tray onto her shoulder. ‘You take the beers over to Boudreaux’s booth when they get here.’ She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, grinned. ‘This could be your lucky night, hon.’

  Before Kate could form a protest, Marcy waltzed off, weaving expertly through the crowd as she balanced the tray of margaritas on one hand. Kate stared dumbly at Marcy’s back, her jaw clenched so tight it was a miracle she didn’t crack a tooth.

  ‘If I get any more lucky, I might as well shoot myself,’ she grumbled.

  Zack was fuming, but he was keeping a lid on it.

  What was she doing working tables in the Sports Bar? If she had set out to torment him she couldn’t have done a better job. Just when he was trying to get her off his mind there she was, all hot and luscious in a skimpy skirt that showed her panties every time she moved and a too-tight V-neck sweater that pumped up her breasts. She might as well have been naked, the amount of flesh she was displaying to the whole bar. Watching her walk towards him
and Monty, the tray of beers held high, her head down and tantalising little wisps of hair framing her cheeks, Zack had to force his eyes to stay on her face. He guessed he must be the only guy in the place who wasn’t staring at her butt.

  ‘Wow, she’s built,’ Monty murmured, confirming Zack’s suspicions.

  ‘Keep your eyes to yourself,’ Zack snapped, ‘or I’ll tell Stella you’ve been checking out other women.’

  ‘I wasn’t checking her out,’ Monty said, sounding offended. ‘I was just stating the obvious. What’s between you two anyway?’ Monty wasn’t dumb—he’d already asked the question twice since Zack had called their waitress over and asked her to send Kate back with their beers.

  ‘Nothing,’ Zack said, determined to prove himself right, even if his mouth was drying up and his muscles tensing the closer she got. The ache in his crotch didn’t mean a thing either. It was just residual heat from last night. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle, making his eyes go blank as she stepped up to the booth and slid the tray onto the table.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ he said, his voice as bland as a slice of white bread.

  ‘Hello.’ Kate gave him a brief look before concentrating on putting the bottles on the table without spilling them.

  Even in a plain black T-shirt and worn jeans the aura of power pulsed around him, intimidating her. But worse than that was the wet heat that had pooled between her thighs and the parched feeling in her throat brought on by the sight of his lean, solid length relaxed against the leather bench seat.

  Her eyes connected with his. She must not show any weakness. He was watching her, the handsome planes of his face defined by the light coming from behind her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in a slow, measured voice as if he wasn’t really all that interested in her reply. ‘I thought you were working for Pat today?’