“Do you want to shower first or should I?”
“Go ahead,” she said, sitting on top of the air-conditioner vent. “I’m set for a while.”
Her long, slender legs were splayed out before her. The other bathing suit strap fell down. His eyes grazed down her neck and onto her bare shoulders. He swallowed and attempted to look in the other direction, then yanked off his shirt.
“You’re not going to get undressed right here, are you?” she asked.
“No.” In fact, he wasn’t thinking about undressing himself, but her. What the hell was going on here? This was a business relationship. She was Alessandra Lawrence, the chairman of the board. The one who had fired him.
So why did he want to rip off her suit and take her right on the bed? Because Alessandra Lawrence just happened to be a beautiful woman. He always suspected as much, of course. But with her conservative suits and reserved manner, he’d never seen her as anything more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’d had her pegged as an uptight prude. He had not expected a spirited and feisty athlete. Nor had he ever expected her to look so good in a string bikini.
But there was something else that gave him pause. She had a quality, a way about her. There was a spark there. A connection. But whatever it was, it needed to be ignored. She was off-limits. Forever and always. This whole thing was make-believe. And he needed to keep it that way.
He let the freezing cold water of the shower pound against him as he shut his eyes, trying not to notice his body’s reaction to the woman just outside the door.
What had she gotten herself into? She was alone in a hotel room, ogling Rick Parker. She was-God help her-attracted to him. But how could she help it? They had spent the afternoon playing boyfriend and girlfriend. She had run her fingers over his raw muscles, felt the power of his kiss. And now here she was, only one closed door away from a naked Rick.
But, she attempted to reassure herself, it was normal, completely normal, that she feel some sort of attraction. After all, he was a good-looking man. Very good-looking. And she had a history with him. Like she had told Sabrina, she had suffered a painful crush.
But she couldn’t allow herself to get confused. He was a business associate and that was all, one whom she did not even like. So why did a part of her wish that perhaps they were truly lovers? Why did a part of her wish that all their kissing and cuddling could lead to something else?
She would simply block it from her mind. She closed her eyes. Just breathe, she told herself. And again…
But she couldn’t stop thinking about Rick. She remembered overhearing a conversation about him in the ladies’ room a while ago. A woman in a neighboring stall had apparently known someone whom Rick had dated. Not realizing that Lessa was in the bathroom as well, the woman had said to her friend, “She said Rick told her on their first date that he didn’t want any commitment.”
“So what happened?” the other woman had asked.
“She slept with him anyway,” the woman had said.
“Did he call her after that?”
“Nope. She was disappointed, of course. You know how it is. We all want to believe we’re ‘the one.’ But she said it was worth it. She said he’s great in bed.”
“Great in bed?”
“Between you and me,” the woman said, “I made a pass at him right after that.”
“And?”
“He said no. He was very nice about it, but he said we work together. You know, he didn’t want an office affair.”
Great in bed…
Lessa turned up the air conditioner, as if a blast of cold air might cool her off. She had to stop thinking like this. Maybe if she had more of a social life, maybe if she had a social life, she wouldn’t even notice Rick.
Unfortunately, it had been years since she’d been intimate with a man. And her last date had been months earlier, when her aunt had fixed her up with a friend’s grandson. On paper he had sounded great, an engineer and part-time pro at a tennis club in the city. But it had been a disaster, right down to the three gold chains around his neck and the way he’d referred to every woman they’d encountered-the waitress, the hostess, the old lady whose cab he’d tried to steal-as “doll.” The icing on the cake had been when he’d told her that for a businesswoman she had a “nice rack.” And he should know, he’d added, because he’d “known”-big wink-a lot of businesswomen.
She knew her aunt blamed her long hours for her lack of a social life, but Lessa knew the problem was more complicated than that. After all, what twenty-six-year-old woman these days had only slept with one man? One sexual affair to her credit and that had ended five years ago. Since then, she hadn’t dated anyone longer than a week or two. And it wasn’t just her love life that was suffering. Her entire social life was lacking. She had tried to make friends since she had come to New York to work for Lawrence, but it was difficult. Everyone she met was connected with Lawrence. Men were intimidated by her position and women tended to avoid her like the plague. One time she had invited a potential friend out for coffee only to find that the woman had not slept the night before, so worried was she that Lessa’s invitation had been a ruse to fire her.
The truth of the matter was that Lessa didn’t fit in with people her own age any more than she fit in with her fellow board members. Patience, her aunt had told her. It will all change with time.
But how could it when she spent all of her time at work? There was no way around it: She was lonely. It had gotten so bad that lately she had begun to wonder if perhaps she was destined for a life without love.
“It’s freezing in here.”
At the sound of Rick’s voice, she turned. The sight of him, standing in the doorway with a mere towel around his waist, was enough to take her breath away. “You couldn’t get dressed?” she asked, quickly averting her eyes.
“Not without my clothes.”
She hurried past him and into the bathroom. He had left the shower running for her. She hurriedly took off her suit and stepped into the warm water. Only then did she realize that her clothes were still in the other room. She had been so flustered when Rick had come out in a towel that she had neglected to get her things. Now she had no choice but to do the same thing she had faulted Rick for-parade through the room in a towel. She finished her shower and grabbed the sole remaining towel, drying off and wrapping it tightly around her. Sabrina’s decor might be nice but her towels left a lot to be desired. Thin and small, it barely covered Lessa’s backside.
She opened the door and took a deep breath. What was the big deal? Rick had seen her in a bathing suit, and the towel covered more than that did. She glanced at her clothes on the chair and quickly calculated the amount of time she would be half-naked in front of Rick. To walk over and grab them, twenty seconds max. The key was to act as if she weren’t embarrassed. To appear cool and in control.
Rick glanced up when the door opened. And there she was, wrapped only in a towel. For a split second he thought that perhaps she had come out to seduce him. But when she didn’t look at him, when she walked right past him, he realized what had happened. She, like him, had forgotten her clothes. But if nothing else, he was a gentleman. He pulled a contract out of his briefcase and perused it, trying not to notice the way the towel slid open, revealing her leg. The way her plump white breasts peeked out of the top.
She hurried back inside the bathroom and when she came out again, she was dressed in her suit skirt and sleeveless blouse, holding her jacket in her hand.
She tossed her jacket on the bed and checked her watch. “Should we go?” Without waiting for him to answer, she walked outside.