A woman who had forgotten that the nearness of a man could be more intoxicating than even champagne.
"More?"
"I haven't finished –" She looked at her empty glass and shrugged. "Well, maybe I will."
He leaned over to pluck the bottle from the stand next to him. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and as he reached, his shirt strained across his muscular chest.
It didn't take a great leap of imagination to recall exactly how muscular that particular chest was, or how the whorl of dark curls felt against her cheek, or how warm and resilient his skin had seemed against her lips . . . .
What she wanted to do was reach into the ice bucket, grab a cube, and placed it against her pulse points before she went up in flames.
What she did was hold out her glass for a refill and take a long, steadying sip.
"She went to Kenny's Steak & Ale and bought up all their prime ribs."
"She did what?"
So that was how to break his concentration.
Maggie waved her hand impatiently in the air. "Rachel. She went to Kenny's and bought up the prime ribs." She waited. He still looked confused. "For dinner at The White Elephant. Remember? You were going to learn from my mistakes."
"Who is Rachel?"
Maggie polished off her second glass of champagne. "My mother-in-law."
Despite the friendly champagne haze cushioning her brain, Maggie knew a pregnant pause when she heard one.
"You're married." It was a statement, not a question. "Maybe we should have dinner."
"I was married," Maggie corrected him, wishing he'd offer her a third glass of champagne. "My husband died."
"Accident?"
"No." She extended her empty glass. "I'd love a little more."
He emptied the rest of the bottle into her glass, but it wasn't nearly enough to deaden the sudden stab of pain.
Tyler was watching her. Those golden eyes seemed to zero right in on her weak spots.
"Rick died of cancer." Her voice was low and controlled. "He shouldn't have, but he did just the same. It was slow, ugly, and painful, and when it finally happened it was almost a relief." Damn the champagne. She'd said more to this stranger than she had to her own uncle on the topic.
Tyler walked over to the bar, poured himself a whiskey and downed it in one gulp.
"Serves you right," she said, resting her empty glass on the Chippendale. "You shouldn't have asked."
He leaned against the bar, palms down, arms extended. "I had to ask."
That same intense energy she'd experienced the moment he entered the Bronze Penguin – was it only yesterday? – resurfaced and caused her to throw discretion to the four winds. "You had to ask if I was married?"
"Yep. No choice involved."
"It makes a difference?"
He nodded, his face unreadable. "A big difference."
"Married women can't save your life?"
"That's not what I meant."
She didn't think so, not really. "I think it's time for dinner."
He stepped out from behind the bar and walked toward her, his big body loose and athletic beneath the dismaying confines of his suit. He had no business wearing a suit like that. Suits were for men like her Uncle Alistair who rode around in silver Rolls-Royces and dined in places like Le Cirque and Lutece.
Tyler should be wearing faded jeans that dipped low over his navel and a cotton work shirt open to the waist.
If he had any decency at all, he would turn himself into the kind of man she fantasized about.
But he was clearly a dyed-in-the-wool executive type whose diapers had probably been lined with The Wall Street Journal and whose first word had been "dividend."
"Stand up," he said as he stopped in front of her.
"Get lost," she said mildly.
He extended his hand. "Stand up," he repeated.
"I don't take orders."
He started to laugh. "You can't stand up, can you?"
"Of course I can." She started to rise, but the effort made her head spin. "At least I thought I could." She sat back down and rested her head against the arm of the couch. "I don't believe this! Thirty-four years old and I can't handle two lousy glasses of champagne!"
"Three glasses," he said, "not that we're counting. And that's the first time I've heard anyone call Taittinger 'lousy.'"
The room tilted at an alarming angle, and she closed her eyes. "Don't be difficult. I'm feeling too awful to be made fun of."
"No one's making fun of you, Maggie." His voice came at her from at least three different directions. "Have you eaten yet?"
She opened her eyes and tried to remember, but her mind was like overstretched taffy. "Did you serve dinner yet?"
"Not yet."
She closed her eyes again. "Then I haven't eaten."
"What about lunch?"
"I don't know. But I know about breakfast. I hate it. Runny eggs, raw bacon, burned toast –" She shivered. "Awful meal."
"You mean you haven't eaten at all today?"
Her bare shoulders slid down against the silky couch cover and she shrugged. "Guess not," she managed. "Who has time?"
"Three glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. I'm surprised you know your name."
She drooped even lower as his large hands closed around her ankles, and he put her feet up on the couch.
"Are you going to take advantage of me?" she asked, opening one eye. Spies often did things like that.
"Not this time."
"I'm too inebriated to defend myself."
"I know," he said. "That's why."
"I thought you would at least kiss me again."
"Oh, I'm going to kiss you again, Maggie Douglass, but when I do, I want you to know about it."
"In the interest of fairness," she said, her voice slurring the words together in a champagne fog, "I should tell you you're not my type."
"Oh, yeah?" He sounded amused. Normally that would have enraged her, but she was simply too tired to care. "Take a nap, and we'll talk about that later."
"Dinner," she said, already drifting toward sleep. "You promised me dinner. . . "
"Sleep, Maggie. You're going to need it."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
For one brief lucid moment, Maggie knew that if she didn't get up off that couch and get back home, her life would never be the same again.
She should get up and search for secret documents and phone scramblers and sophisticated transmitters so powerful they could pick up her heartbeat.
She should at the very least sit up and stay awake.
The man was obviously a dangerous spy set on using his sex appeal to torture PAX's secrets out of her poor champagne-addled brain.
All in all, it didn't sound half-bad.
She was asleep before he left the room.
#
John walked through the hallway, elbowed his way past a cluster of newlyweds in the lobby, then flung open the front door.
The evening air was still heavy with the day's heat, but he didn't notice it.
He tore around to the side of the main house, grabbed the hose Raymond used to water the herb gardens, then turned it full force on himself.
Icy water dripped down his face and onto his expensive suit.
He didn't give a damn.
He deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Croix de Guerre and the Purple Heart for what he did back there in the sun room.
Correction: for what he didn't do.
What red-blooded, heterosexual American male would have turned away from Maggie Douglass?
Even now, with the cold water doing its damnedest to bring his overheated libido back within range, he couldn't help wondering if another man would have ignored the delicacy of the situation and turned too much champagne into something more interesting.
Hell, ten or fifteen years ago, John would have been one of them.
He'd left the Mr. Nice Guy image behind, right along wi
th the dreams he'd lost when Laura married another man.
If a woman like Maggie Douglass had appeared before him, vulnerable and beautiful, he wouldn't have hesitated longer than it took to whisper the words "trust me" in the curve of her ear.
Okay, so maybe he'd been a slow learner, maybe he'd taken a hell of a lot longer than normal to learn that life didn't always provide a happy ending for those who wait. Maybe for a while there he had taken a walk on the wild side.
And discovered he wasn't the type.
You couldn't be descended from John and Abigail, the original American romantics, and be anything but marriage material. It was in his blood and in his bones and, sexual revolution or no sexual revolution, he wanted the same happily-ever-after ending his parents and his parents' parents had wanted.
So he'd waited and he'd looked and, on occasion, he'd sampled, but he hadn't found the other half of his heart until he met Maggie.
He thought about how she looked, stretched out on his silk-covered sofa, her long hair drifting across her shoulders and breasts like a mantle of fiery gold. She had the face of an angel and the body of – hell, she had the kind of body men dream about.
She also had wit and intelligence and ambition, and everything else wonderful in a woman.
This was Kismet.
This was destiny.
This was every sappy line from every sappy love song come to life right here in East Point.
And the end of the month there'd be a wedding, or he'd know the reason why.
Chapter Nine
"I should be humiliated," Maggie said for the tenth time as she polished off the rest of her raspberry soufflé.
Across the table, John poured them each more coffee. "There's cheesecake in the fridge if you're interested."
Maggie groaned and pushed her chair away from the table. "I'm interested," she said, trying valiantly to ignore the untouched piece of chocolate pie on John's plate, "but I shouldn't add gluttony to my list of transgressions."
"The food meets with your approval?"
She tried to smother a smile but failed miserably. "It's not sloppy joes, but you can't have everything."
"We try," he said, pushing his pie toward her.
As much as she hated to admit it, the food at Hideaway Haven was superb.
Oh, go all the way, Douglass, she thought, glancing at the miniature roses in the centerpiece, the candles twinkling from silver sconces on the wall, the lustrous Oriental carpet underfoot.
Everything about Hideaway Haven was first-rate.
She glanced at John, then looked away.
Including her dinner companion, a man who bore little resemblance to the cool, worldly businessman who'd greeted her at the door.
Magically the multimillionaire owner of half the Poconos had disappeared while she slept on his couch and, in his place, was a somewhat rumpled, and dangerously sexy man.
She'd enjoyed a deep and wonderful sleep. Who wouldn't have with the French doors open onto the lake, the soft evening breezes feathering across her while the moon rose silver over the pine trees?
She awoke after a time to find him standing near those doors, watching her. He no longer wore the suit. He had changed into a pair of dark pants and a cotton fisherman's sweater. His hair looked freshly washed. Where it grew down over his collar in the back, the strands were dark and wet.
Her resolve slipped another notch.
"Are you sure you don't want a little cheesecake?" John asked as she sipped her after-dinner coffee.
"You're tempting me."
"That's the general idea."
"No," she said, conjuring up visions of PAX and hidden microphones and her glowering uncle. "I'm good at resisting temptation."
"I'm not," he said, his golden eyes glittering in the candlelight. "Put temptation in my path, and I'll fall every time."
"I'm made of sterner stuff," she said, not at all certain she could fool him. "Denial is good for the soul."
"We could debate that issue."
"I'd rather not. Temptation is like politics and religion – not great dinnertime conversation." She raised her coffee cup to her lips.
"Sex," said John.
The coffee missed her mouth and dribbled down her chin. "I beg your pardon?"
"Sex," said Tyler, not missing a beat. "It's sex, politics, and religion."
"I was paraphrasing."
"Actually you were equivocating."
"If you'll recall, I was talking about cheesecake, not a weekend in the country with Harrison Ford."
"I wouldn't mind talking about a weekend in the country."
She arched her brows. "With Harrison Ford?"
"With you."
"I'm sure you wouldn't," she said smoothly, despite the sudden acceleration of her heart. "You own most of the countryside around here."
"So we're back to business again?"
"Why not? You said yourself that we should learn from our competition."
"Sometimes I talk too much." He polished off the rest of his coffee, then stood up. "Let's get the guided tour out of the way."
"Be still, my heart!" She feigned a swoon. "The inside of the pleasure palace. I'll never be the same again."
"If you're lucky, you won't be." He extended his hand to her.
"Aren't you worried I might steal the secrets of your success?" Her hand disappeared within his. It felt better than it should.
"Not at all."
"No skeletons in your closetr."
"No skeletons."
He looked as if he were telling the truth, and Maggie had to remind herself that at PAX everyone looked as if they were telling the truth, even when they were concocting the most outrageous lies.
"I warn you I'm incredibly nosy," she said, as they left the private dining room. "Nothing escapes my notice."
"I'll keep that in mind." His grip on her hand grew stronger while her reserve grew weaker.
She'd already discovered that the lobby was indeed a rosy pink from ceiling to carpet, so the second time around it didn't faze her quite as much. He led her up a winding open staircase.
"Sexist," she muttered. "If anyone were sitting down there I could be arrested for indecent exposure."
"You just don't understand the rationale behind the Poconos, do you?"
She followed him up another flight of stairs. "Philosophy from a man whose idea of culture is a vibrating water bed."
"You ever tried one?"
"I've led a sheltered life."
"Too bad. You might find you like it."
"I'm holding out for class."
"You're holding out for bankruptcy."
He took her hand again and propelled her down the length of the third-floor hallway. The pink plush carpet was so thick she felt as if she were running in quicksand.
She wished she could kick off her heels and sink barefoot into that decadent luxury; however, a move like that would be a dead giveaway, and she didn't want to give Tyler the satisfaction.
He stopped in front of a pair of double oak doors at the end of the hallway and inserted a key in the lock on the right-hand side.
The words Garden of Eden were emblazoned across the top rail in shiny brass letters, and she was wondering how many people he had on staff to polish the nameplates on two hundred and fifty rooms just like this one when he flung the door open and unceremoniously yanked her inside.
"Just what do you think you're –" Her protest died on her lips as she took in her surroundings.
"So what do you think?" Tyler's chest was puffed out with the pride of a new father showing off his infant son. "This was the prototype for the Love Cottages."
Maggie gawked at her surroundings. "I'm in shock," she managed finally. "I'm beyond conscious thought."
Oh, she'd seen Margo Wayne's Pocono Playpen and Ed Gianelli's Roman tubs with their ultra-special double-bubble baths but she'd never seen anything close to this.
John Adams Tyler did things on a grand scale, even in prototype. Mirrors of smoked g
lass reached from the plushly-carpeted floor to the cathedral ceiling, reflecting the lush, throbbing pinks, reds and purples of the décor.
The windows were draped in heavy folds of purple velvet that matched the curtains draping the bed. Closed, the effect would be almost womblike, a deep comforting effortless sensation of sensuality and privacy.
From the massive round water bed to the Jacuzzi, everything in the three-room suite had been created with one purpose, and one purpose only.
"This is a candy store for adults," she said finally. "A sexual Disneyland."
"I knew you'd like it."
She shot him a look that was reflected back at her in the wall of smoked glass mirrors. "I never said I liked it. This place is crass and vulgar and –"
"Booked solid. You can't fight success, Maggie. Give the public what it wants, and they'll build a highway to your door."
"It looks like a hot sheet motel, Tyler. Five dollars for five hours."
He picked up a champagne glass from the marble bar near the fireplace. "You don't find Waterford crystal in a hot sheet motel."
"Big deal," she countered, mesmerized by the way the water bed moved with a Jello-like life of its own. "I still don't like it."
"That's why you're going out of business."
"The hell I am, Tyler. I'm in the process of revitalizing The White Elephant."
"You're in the process of hanging on by your manicured fingernails."
"And I suppose mirrored ceilings are the answer to my prayers?"
"Could be."
"Why is it I have the feeling you're not talking about your fiscal health anymore?"
He touched a button on a console near the bar, and music, soft and low and dangerously romantic, filled the room.
"Because you're as bright as you are beautiful, Maggie." His arms went around her, and he drew her close. "Because you know something's happening between us."
"Because I'm losing my mind." Her head found the perfect resting spot on his broad shoulder as they began to sway gently to the music.
"Admit it's getting to you." His breath was warm against her ear. "The music, the lights, the scent of roses in the air."
It was getting to her, all right. Her mind was turning into cotton candy, and this time she couldn't blame champagne. "It's tacky," she managed, her voice low and husky.
Honeymoon Hotel Page 8
