by Unknown
His persuasiveness was the reason his consoling her after her father’s death had gradually turned into dates. She’d tried for the past three days to talk to him, but he was always too busy. Today she planned on pinning him down.
She threw a quick glance at the attaché case on the seat beside her as she pulled up to the downtown Atlanta hotel and stopped in front of the valet stand. Today there would be no excuse. She was giving the bracelet back. It wasn’t fair to him to keep it and hope her feelings would deepen when she knew there was no chance of that happening.
Slipping the car’s claim ticket into the pocket of her jacket, she entered the hotel lobby, searching for Russell. Last night he’d told her he had an early-morning golf game with two clients who were staying at the hotel. She’d called the country club and was told Russell wasn’t on the course. If she was lucky, or perhaps unlucky, she’d catch him. Being punctual and fastidious, he would drop off his clients, then go straight home to shower and change for the luncheon.
Directly in front of Paige, one of the six elevator doors opened on the other side of the opulent lobby. People piled out. She paused when she saw Russell. He was one of the last two people to emerge. The other passenger was a voluptuous fair-skinned woman in a tight pink dress, black stiletto heels, and a pink-and-black Chanel bag. Something about the woman seemed familiar to Paige.
“Excuse us,” said a male voice from behind her.
Paige murmured an apology to the large group trying to pass to get to the elevator and quickly moved aside. By the time they had moved past her, Russell was heading in her direction.
As he crossed to her, one hand negligently in the pocket of his golf pants, she had to admire his erect posture, the trim leanness of his body that he worked so diligently to maintain, the boyish handsomeness that had a couple of women turning to watch as he passed.
She couldn’t help the traitorous thought that the number watching Shane would be significantly higher. Groaning, she massaged her temple with unsteady fingers. Thoughts like that would only lead to problems, and she already had enough.
“Paige?” Russell greeted, surprised delight in his face, his voice, just before he gently took her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Not one current or one tiny jolt coursed through her. The sixty-two-year-old gardener who had been in her family’s service since she was a teenager might as well have kissed her. “You must have missed me as much as I’ve missed you.”
His statement made her feel worse. “Russell, we need to talk.”
He must have caught the seriousness in her voice, seen it in her face, because his smile slowly died. “What is it? Can I help?”
Why couldn’t she be attracted to a man who was so kind and caring? she thought. “Let’s talk over here.” She pulled him to a quiet corner, thankful most of the people were rushing out for sightseeing or other business. Placing the attaché case on a small table, she opened it and picked up the bracelet. “I can’t keep this.”
His brown eyes, always so gentle, narrowed on her face. He barely looked at the bracelet. “Why?”
There were probably many ways to explain things to him, but she knew only one. “Because, despite how much I want my feelings for you to deepen beyond those of a friend, they haven’t and I don’t think they will.”
Distress tautened his face. His hands lifted, closing on her upper forearms. “Don’t say that. I lo—”
“Russell, please.” She bit her lip. She didn’t want him vowing love when all she could give was friendship. She didn’t want another failure.
His hands flexed on her arms. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he looked almost desperate. “I care about you. Your father wanted us together. It was one of the last things we talked about the day we lost him. He was so pleased that I was going to ask you out, that we weren’t going to disappoint him or my family.”
The weight of his words slammed her into the chest, almost bringing her to her knees, where she’d spent too much of her life already. Repenting for being a failure.
How many times had her father told her over the last years after they’d gotten closer that he didn’t want her to disappoint him the way her brother and others had. And although she loved her brother, Zach, to her shame, she had stopped trying to defend him. When she did, her father had ways of showing his disapproval that made her feel insignificant and inept, the same way she used to feel before he’d finally loved her the way she had always wanted.
Zach said it didn’t matter, to save her breath. He and his father hadn’t seen eye-to-eye since he’d graduated from high school and didn’t go to Stanford as his father had demanded. The tension between them had grown worse after Zach began producing music. Her brother letting her off the hook hadn’t stopped the guilt or her feeling like a coward.
“Just give it time,” Russell continued. “You’re still grieving. Your feelings are mixed up.”
Not mixed up enough that she wasn’t attracted to her mother’s houseguest, and that embarrassed her. Her head lowered.
“Sweetheart,” Russell murmured, drawing her into his arms. “Everything will be all right. I’ll keep the bracelet if it will make you feel less pressured. I’d do anything for you.”
Her mind was in turmoil. One hand fisted on his chest, the other clenched the platinum bracelet. Everything wouldn’t be all right, but he wasn’t listening, and she was too big of a coward to make him listen. She reverted to type, going along to get along. Her head lifted, she stepped back and handed him the bracelet. “Thank you.”
Taking the bracelet, he slipped it into his pocket. “When you change your mind it will be waiting for you.” He kissed her on the cheek before she could tell him that wasn’t going to happen. He closed her attaché and handed it to her. “You better get moving or the luncheon guests will arrive before you.”
She glanced at her watch and knew she didn’t have time to argue. This time he was right. “See you later.” Paige hurried toward the revolving front door, never looking back.
If she had, she might have seen the woman in the pink dress crook her finger toward Russell. After one panicked look at Paige going out the door, he hurried toward the woman with a wide grin on his face.
Chapter 3
Most people didn’t realize all the behind-the-scenes hard work and synchronization needed for large events to go off flawlessly. Paige wasn’t one of them.
From short wait staff, to misdelivery of items needed for the meal, to errors in the programs, things could and did go wrong. When it happened, people looked at her as manager of special events and fund-raising to quickly solve the problem. It was her job to see that everything ran smoothly. She prided herself on excelling.
In the kitchen just off the Majesty Ballroom where five hundred guests expected dessert after their meal, she made a slight adjustment after only half of her order was delivered. If the serving of cheesecake was small, there might be a few comments, but with so many women dieting or off dairy products, there were always desserts left.
She smiled at a passing couple, pleased to see that the elegant tables set with crystal, sterling, and beautiful pink and white lily flower arrangements were filling up nicely. No matter how many times she chaired an event she was always afraid that people wouldn’t show up. A case in point was her guest speaker. His plane had taken off late from Detroit. Luckily he wasn’t due to speak until after lunch, so there was still time.
She glanced around the crowded room and her breath snagged. Shane. Although he was a big man with broad shoulders and long, muscular legs, he moved easily through the throng. He didn’t seem to notice the blatant stares of the women. Instead he appeared to be searching for something. Or someone.
Their gazes met. Clung. She went hot, then cold, from the sizzling impact. The noise of the room receded, yet she would have sworn her senses were more alive, more attuned. A moment later she knew they were. To Shane.
“Paige.”
Caught ogling, Paige flushed and swung around, and barely
missed bumping into a passing waiter with a pitcher of tea. She always had a horror of making a misstep in public and embarrassing her family.
“I’m sorry,” she told the waiter, but he’d already moved away.
“No harm done,” Jackie said. “My fault for startling you.” She leaned over and whispered, “I don’t blame you, though. Eye candy at its finest.”
Paige couldn’t keep another flush from her face. Denial was impossible. Jackie smiled in that warm, nonjudgmental way of hers. They’d hit it off from the moment Paige had been hired at the agency. Jackie was good at what she did, helping others be the best they could. In her early fifties, she had stylishly cut red hair, freckles, and a creamy complexion. She was committed to her job as president of the nonprofit organization.
“Since I’m a newly engaged woman I shouldn’t have been looking, but he’s kind of hard to miss or ignore,” Jackie continued, with a grin on her pretty face.
“He’s my mother’s houseguest.” Paige said the only thing she could, but Jackie had never been more on target. Shane in a suit was devastatingly male. “He’ll be sitting at our table.”
“And you were trying to catch his attention to ensure he found it,” Jackie said in understanding. “Well, why don’t we make sure he does, and on the way you can tell me how much longer it will be before our guest speaker arrives?”
“I wish I knew.” Paige and her boss got along so well because they were honest and respected each other. “His plane should have landed twenty minutes ago. All I’m getting from the airport is that there has been a flight delay.”
Jackie lifted her thinly arched brow. “I guess we could always let you stand in.”
Paige stopped and stared at Jackie before she realized the other woman was teasing. In small crowds Paige had no problem, but even Toastmasters hadn’t been able to get her over her fear of public speaking. “For that, I might tell Aaron you’re a grouch before your three cups of coffee in the morning.”
“He already knows that and loves me anyway,” Jackie replied, a dreamy smile on her face.
“That he does,” Paige replied just before they reached Shane, wondering again what it must feel like to be loved and be in love.
“Hi, Paige. Miss.” He dipped his dark head, a smile tugging the sensual corner of his mouth. “Quite a gathering you have here. Your mother said you were good at this.”
“Thank you.” One thing she never doubted despite the uneasiness between them was her mother’s support of her. “Jackie Weaver, president of Carl D. Rowe Foundation and my boss, meet Shane Elliott, my mother’s houseguest.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Weaver.” Shane extended his hand.
“My pleasure, and please call me Jackie.” She glanced around the room, bustling with guests and wait staff, and whispered, “I have a birthday coming up, and calling me Ms. Weaver will only remind me of it more.”
“If you’ll call me Shane.” He leaned over and whispered, “I don’t know the birthday number, but you’re too attractive to have to worry about it.”
Jackie laughed aloud. “If my fiancé wasn’t heading this way, I might hug you.”
“There’ll be no hugging except for me.” Aaron Baskin joined them, slipping his arm easily around Jackie’s rounded waist. He was tall, thin, and several inches taller, and the opposite in body build. Their love was evident in the little touches, the warm looks they exchanged when they were around each other.
Paige introduced him to Shane, still marveling that he had so easily charmed Jackie. Perhaps Paige should be worried about her mother.
“Are you all right?” Shane asked.
“Yes,” she answered, frowning at him. She would have sworn his full attention was on Aaron.
“You looked like a woman with something on her mind,” he said, his gaze so piercing that she was afraid she might have spoken her thought aloud.
“Probably hunger,” Jackie said. “At these events she never eats before or during the event, and seldom, if ever, sits down.”
“Then why don’t we take our seats and see if this can be one of those times she eats?” Shane’s long fingers curved easily around Paige’s forearm. “Shall we?”
The heat from his hand burning through her light jacket was overpowering, and so was the command in his voice. A frown flittered across her brow.
“You’re frowning again.”
“Hunger,” Jackie repeated, and headed toward table five. “Let’s take our seats.”
Paige glanced away from the sharp look in Shane’s eyes. For a moment, just a moment, there was something in his voice that tugged at her memory of a time she didn’t want to think about. Of a time another voice had been commanding, and made her feel like a foolish child.
“We’re right behind you.” Shane followed with her arm still in his grasp and, although it wasn’t threatening, she had a feeling his hands could be.
“Is this all right?” Shane asked, his hand on the chair beside Jackie.
No. What she really needed was a moment to sort out why she was reacting so strongly to him. “I need to—”
“Sit,” Jackie ordered, sliding into the chair Aaron held for her. “I’m pulling rank on you. Perhaps a full stomach will help us think better.”
Paige doubted it, but she took her seat, then introduced Shane and Aaron to the other three people sitting there, a bank president, his wife, and their teenage daughter, who had looked bored earlier but perked up considerably on seeing Shane at their table.
“Anything I can do to help?” Shane asked, spreading his napkin on his lap.
“Not if you aren’t Houdini,” Paige answered, trying to be witty. Not her strong suit.
“And if I were?” Shane asked, with all the assurance of a man used to doing the impossible.
Jackie cut into her special order of baked fish. “Tell him, Paige. We’re among friends. The foundation couldn’t survive without the generosity of Mr. Usher’s bank.”
The distinguished man in a charcoal-gray three-piece pin-striped suit nodded his thanks. “And we’re glad to do it.”
Strangely, Paige had been about to confide in Shane before Jackie told her to. There was something in the way Shane looked at her that made her want to open up to him, which was unusual. She was a private person. Quickly, she explained their problem with the missing guest speaker.
“Have you tried him lately?” Shane asked.
“Not in the last five minutes,” she answered, her finger fiddling with her flatware.
“Hello, everyone,” Russell greeted. The smile on his face died a quick death on seeing Shane sitting next to Paige. A hard frown on his face, he stared at Shane. Shane sent him a cocky grin and stared back.
Paige moistened her lips. For a moment she felt like a bone two dogs were about to fight over. A first. “Russell Crenshaw. Shane Elliott. Russell is a close friend of the family. Shane is Mother’s houseguest.”
Russell’s face cleared and he took the only seat left, between Aaron and the banker’s daughter. Paige liked the reserved table to seat eight instead of ten to give the honored guests more elbow room. She had never been less pleased about the seating arrangements.
Neither Russell, Aaron, nor the banker’s daughter seemed particularly pleased they were sitting together. Russell gazed at the plate of chicken on a bed of wild brown rice in front of him, and dismissed it with a look. “Plan on staying here long, Elliott?”
“Depends.” Shane cut into his chicken and forked in a bite.
Annoyance flattened Russell’s lips into a thin line. “You’re here on business then?”
“You might say.”
Paige didn’t know if Shane was giving such ambivalent answers to annoy Russell or because Russell was being rude and deserved them, but one of their main benefactors was at the table. “Shane’s mentor and Mother were roommates at Vassar. He’s a video game designer.”
“Wow!” The teenager perked up again, propping her arms on the table. “Cool. What’s the name of some?�
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“Unfortunately the company went into bankruptcy before they could be developed,” Shane explained.
“Bummer. I bet they were hot,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
“I’d like to think so,” Shane said, placing his fork on his plate. “One was a mind game where you were required to solve certain equations before you were allowed into the next level.”
“Then you’re jobless.” Russell flung the accusation.
A dangerous glint in his eyes, Shane slowly turned to stare at Russell. The condescending smile slid from his face. Paige blinked at the quick change in Shane. He might be charming, but he wasn’t a man to be slighted.
“You shouldn’t have any trouble finding employment here,” Aaron said into the charged silence. “Atlanta is growing with lots of opportunity.”
Russell, trying to regain his composure, picked up the printed program in front of his plate. “Aaron knows. Did your company do these?”
“It would have been a conflict since we’re engaged,” Jackie said, her voice cool.
Russell didn’t seem to notice. “Surely there should be extenuating circumstances since his company is so small. Two-man operation, isn’t it?” He turned to the bank president, dismissing Aaron as if neither he nor the answer mattered. “Since the foundation is about helping people, surely the sponsors would understand.”
“I certainly have no problem with Mr. Baskin working for the foundation,” Mr. Usher said, a benign smile on his face.
“There.” Russell turned, all smiles, as if he had healed the ills of the world. “You’ll be getting more business, Aaron, and we all could use more business. I was in Beijing last month and have to go again. Heading operations for ten states with over five thousand employees keeps me stretched thin.” He smiled across the table at Paige. “But whenever I go and no matter how busy, I never forget who I left behind.”
Shane grunted. Paige didn’t dare look at him. She was aware that Russell thought Jackie was marrying beneath her, but he had never been this condescending.
“But it’s worth it,” Russell continued. “Management isn’t for the faint of heart.” He looked pointedly at Shane. “Some people will always be the underlings, to do the bidding of others.”
