She kept expecting Cooper to cut Mrs. Mulvaney off and tell her the house really wasn’t his style. But he looked it over thoroughly.
“I’ll take it,” he said, surprising her. “I’ll read the rental agreement tonight and bring it back in the morning. My furniture should arrive next week.”
“Great! I’m sure you two will be very happy.” She looked not at Sara, who had taken a much more active role in touring the house, but at Allie.
“It’s just me,” Cooper said hastily.
“I’m not living here,” Allie said at the same time. How in the world had this woman gotten the idea Cooper and Allie were a couple?
“Oh, sorry,” Mrs. Mulvaney backpedaled. “I just assumed…It’s such a family-type of house, I thought…”
“It’s only temporary, until I find a place to buy,” Cooper said smoothly. But the woman had echoed the same thoughts Allie had. Why would Cooper want to rent here? Any number of rental condos were available with all the conveniences.
Sara had expressed enthusiasm for the house. Maybe he was trying to impress her. Maybe he had a thing for Sara.
Then Allie remembered the way Cooper’s eyes had lit up when she’d emerged from the dressing room in the white outfit, and she felt another blush coming on. His gaze had held enough heat to kindle a campfire without matches.
She could deny it all she wanted, tell herself she’d imagined it or that it was impossible, but in her heart, she knew. Cooper wanted her, not Sara.
She wondered if there was any way to use his lust to her advantage, then was ashamed of herself. She had no need to come up with any tricks. She had right on her side.
Anyway, however much he might harbor lustful feelings for her, she had it at least as bad. She hadn’t slept a good night’s sleep since the morning he’d boarded the Dragonfly uninvited. She’d spent way too much time covertly studying him whenever he was within eyesight.
How unfair that the one guy she’d shared chemistry with in a very long time was the one guy in the world she could never be with.
“YOU RENTED A HOUSE?” Max’s mouth hung open in surprise.
“You’ll have to mow the grass,” Reece pointed out. “And fix stuff when it goes wrong.”
“I can hire people to do that sort of thing, if I find I can’t handle it myself.” He’d been surprised himself at his decision to rent the Mulvaney home. It was bigger than he needed, and since it was more than forty years old, it would require a lot of maintenance.
He’d lived in Manhattan apartments all his life. He’d never had a lawn, or a backyard, or a tree to climb. He’d never had a bike.
Not that he would go climbing trees or riding bikes now. But he’d been intrigued by the idea of living in a real house. In the end he probably would buy a condo or a townhouse. Max had already found one he liked in a brand-new complex with a golf course and an ocean view.
“It’s just for a few months, till I find something to buy. Hey, it was clean, the price was right, and I don’t have time to waste apartment hunting. I’ve got to be ready for a trade show in three days.”
Max just shook his head. “Whatever.” He lowered his voice. “Did you get our booth bunny outfitted?”
Cooper nodded. “She’ll clean up nice.” More than nice, actually. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t so sure he wanted hundreds of men ogling her, even if it did mean traffic for their booth.
Though Allie had been on her own for a long time, he’d come to realize she wasn’t particularly sophisticated. She didn’t even know how to walk in high heels. His image of her as a femme fatale was wavering. He wondered how well she would handle the inevitable flirtations and outright come-ons she was bound to get.
Of course, if anyone got too familiar and she was unable to discourage the jerk on her own, he’d be there to protect her. What worried him more was, what if she didn’t want his protection? She might view an all-expenses paid weekend in Houston as a chance to kick up her heels and have a wild night with some guy she’d never see again.
The possibility made his blood boil.
Oh, Lord, he was in trouble. Yeah, he’d found her attractive from the first minute he’d seen her, her green eyes shooting every kind of warning at him.
But when he’d seen her in those new clothes-nothing even that overtly sexy-something in him had shifted. With a little polish, she would give Heather a run for her money. Even his mother would like her.
Well, maybe not his mother.
He’d booked a suite for himself and Allie at a small, historic hotel near the convention center. It had two bedrooms and two baths, so he wasn’t worried that she would object. But he wondered, now, if completely separate rooms wouldn’t have been a better idea.
Maybe in separate hotels.
Chapter Eight
Allie gawked at the lobby of the Hotel Alexander as Cooper registered them. She knew she was acting like the rube she was, but honest to pete she’d never seen anything like this. With its ornate ceilings, inlaid marble floors and chandeliers, it reminded her of something she might have seen on that old show Dynasty when she was a kid.
She remained mute as they rode up the gold-gilded elevator to the top floor, and her shock continued as the bellman opened the door to their suite. As she eyed the Oriental rugs and the heavy silk draperies and the coffee table made of some rich, dark wood, her first thought was that this room was fit for a honeymoon-lovers-not antagonistic co-workers on a business trip.
Her second thought was that it must be costing Cooper a fortune.
The bellman carried her small suitcase-borrowed from Miss Greer-to her bedroom and placed it on a luggage rack. He did the same for Cooper’s bags. Cooper tipped him and he disappeared.
“What do you think?” Cooper asked, as if her approval meant something. “Nice, huh?”
Allie sank experimentally into a tufted, antique-looking chair. “Uh, yeah. I know you’re more accustomed to luxury than me, but aren’t you the least bit worried about the bottom line? Trade shows are expensive, and, yes, we’ll probably get a few bookings from it, but enough to cover all this?”
“Actually, Remington Industries owns this hotel,” Cooper admitted. “I can stay here for free.”
“Ah.” That explained why he’d been treated like a major VIP the moment he’d walked into the place. “What else does this little family company of yours do?”
He perched on the arm of the sofa and toyed with the tassel on one of half-a-dozen throw pillows. “It owns controlling shares of an amusement park and a commuter airline, a plastics factory, a chain of ice cream parlors-”
“Does that mean we get free ice cream?” she asked hopefully.
“If you want to drive a thousand miles to the northeast.”
“Darn, I love ice cream. What else?”
He shrugged. “Real estate development. We started out strictly manufacturing, but over the past fifty years we’ve diversified-makes us almost recession-proof.”
“And you left all that to run a two-bit fishing charter business. I don’t get it.”
“You’re not the only one,” he said with a grin. “My parents think I’ve lost my marbles. But I’m tired of corporate law. It’s just the same thing, over and over, trying to cover everyone’s butts and protect them from liability, then bailing them out when they get sued.
“Besides,” he added, “I’ve advanced as far as I can. When my father retires as head of the legal department, my older brother will move into that job. I’m pretty much stuck doing what I’ve been doing for the past eight years. I can’t see that as my life for the next thirty years. Can’t do it.”
Allie couldn’t blame him there. “What if you get tired of fishing?” she asked. “It’s not an easy life.”
“No, I’m beginning to see that I’ve been a bit idealistic. But it’s a challenge. And it doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it. If we bring in enough business, we can hire staff and not get burned out. I have put some thought into this-it’s not a lark. I knew as soon as I set foot on the Dragonfly that I’d made the right decision.”