Uninhibited
Uninhibited
Candace Schuler
Renowned for her sensual writing, Candace Schuler defines hot in this sizzling encounter between a tantalizing free spirit called Zoe Moon and the very proper, very controlled grandson of her mentor.Reed Sullivan doesn't know what's hit him when Zoe and his grandmother combine forces to loosen him up. But Zoe alone is enough to trigger a meltdown! And that's really sexy.
“You feel the heat, don’t you, Zoe? The fire. You feel it.”
Oh, yes, she felt it all right. His heat. Her heat. Their heat. It scorched her nerve endings, setting her whole body ablaze with desire. She bit back a moan.
“I know,” Reed murmured soothingly. “It burns, doesn’t it? It makes you ache inside.”
The words were spoken a hairsbreadth away from her lips, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. “But we have to wait to put the fire out. It will be better that way. When we finally give in to it and come together, we’ll know why.”
“Why?” Zoe breathed. The word was little more than a whimper.
“Lust,” he growled. “We’re going to burn each other up and it’s going to be glorious. But until that time comes—” with superhuman effort he pushed away, releasing her from the spell he’d woven with his words and his body and the hot, dangerous look in his eyes “—we aren’t going to take any chances.”
Uninhibited
Candace Schuler
To my editor, Susan Sheppard,
who has the patience of a saint
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR…
Ever since I left Reed Sullivan standing at the altar in Easy Lovin’ (Temptation #331), I’ve been looking for the right woman for him. I always thought he was a pretty nice guy, with all the basic ingredients of a perfect hero. I mean, what’s not to like, right? He was sexy, suave, sinfully good-looking, filthy rich and extremely well mannered. If he had any flaw, it was that he was, perhaps, just a bit too perfect. Too polished. Too much the proper Bostonian aristocrat. In short, my perfect hero was in a perfect rut—and what he needed was someone to blast him out of it.
Zoe Moon proved to be the perfect stick of dynamite. A flamboyant, free-spirited, uninhibited Boston bohemian, she is the antithesis of everything he thought he wanted in a woman.
It was great fun putting them together and watching the sparks fly. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Best wishes,
P.S. I love hearing from readers. You can reach me at my Web site at CandaceSchuler.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
1
REED SULLIVAN ASCENDED the wide brick steps of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion with nearly the same trepidation as he had shown the first time she had summoned him to share her afternoon tea.
The weekly ritual had started as a lesson in deportment, a continuation of the Wednesday afternoon torture known as Miss Margaret’s Dance Academy for Young Ladies and Gentlemen. Moira Sullivan had seemed ancient to his eight-year-old self, with her snowy hair swept up into what he now knew was a Gibson girl topknot, and her elegant afternoon suits, which he now knew were Chanels. He’d been tongue-tied and uncomfortable at first, painfully aware that he was supposed to be on his best behavior, and itching for the whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible.
His great-grandmother had graciously invited him to stuff himself with frosted petits fours without regard for how they might ruin his dinner, all the while skillfully encouraging him to vent about the indignity of actually having to put his arms around a girl and attempt to waltz her around the room in front of his giggling friends. And then she’d rolled back a corner of the Aubusson carpet covering the gleaming parlor floor, placed a small needlepoint pillow beneath her knees and beat him in a hotly contested game of ringer. He’d lost his prized Indian lutz to her, the one he’d traded two peppermint swirls and a blue clearie for.
After that, the visits to his great-grandmother became, if not the highlight of his week, then an eagerly anticipated part of it—if only because they offered him the ongoing opportunity to reclaim his Indian lutz. Even during his teen years, when girls and cars and being cool were the focus of his existence and marbles were the last thing on his mind, he still found time for the weekly visits. In the nearly two decades since then, all through the time he spent earning both a law degree and an M.B.A. from Harvard, through the long days spent toiling at his first lowly job in the family firm to the even longer days required by the high powered position he now held, through schoolboy crushes, discreet love affairs and the very public embarrassment of a broken engagement, the weekly ritual had endured. Sharing tea and conversation with his great-grandmother was still one of the highlights of his week.
They were an unlikely pair, perhaps, the oldest living Sullivan and the thirty-three-year-old heir apparent. Although they were separated both by gender and generations, with nearly sixty years of living between them, they clicked on some instinctive level that had nothing to do with experience or age. Sitting in Moira Sullivan’s front parlor, sipping tea, trading benign gossip and bits of personal news, Reed wasn’t the senior vice president in charge of international investments; he wasn’t the head of any high-profile committee; he wasn’t the heir to the vast fortune and responsibilities of the Sullivan business empire. He was simply Moira’s favorite great-grandchild. And there was nothing that great-grandchild wouldn’t do for his beloved granny.
Or almost nothing.
Lately, she’d been testing the limits of his affection and forbearance.
Well, forbearance, anyway, he amended, absently fingering the smooth Indian lutz marble in the trouser pocket of his navy, worsted flannel suit. There were no limits on his affection for her.
With a sigh, he slipped his hand from his pocket and lifted it to press a well-manicured index finger against the bell on Moira Sullivan’s front door. It opened before the sound of the chimes had drifted away on the cool September air.
“Good afternoon, Eddie,” Reed said, handing his briefcase and gym bag to the strapping young man who’d answered his summons. “Is she alone today?”
Eddie grinned and shook his head. “Got a luscious little redhead in there with her.”
Reed groaned.
“Wait till you see her before you start complaining, man,” Eddie counseled as he skillfully relieved Reed of his camel hair overcoat before Reed could do it for himself. “She’s better than the last three, for sure.”
Reed raised an eyebrow, then lifted his hand in response to the twinge of discomfort that accompanied the motion, absently smoothing the small butterfly bandage bisecting his brow with one finger as if to make sure it was still secure. “Better how?” he asked.
Eddie’s grin turned into an appreciative leer. “Big brown eyes. Soft, sexy mouth. Lots of wild, curly hair hanging halfway down her back. Killer body. She’s got style, too. Dresses real funky.”
“Funky?”
“Think Annie Hall meets Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said over his shoulder as he hung the overcoat in the hall closet. The briefcase and gym bag were neatly stowed on the floor beneath it.
“Annie Hall meets…” Reed shuddered at the thought. His taste ran toward the sophisticated Grace Kelly type. Cool, understated and elegant—that was his kind of woman. Badly dressed waifs with untidy hair, no matter how well endowed, were not his cup of tea.
“Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said helpfully as he curled his meaty fingers around the curved brass handles on the elaborately carved double doors leading into the parlor. “You know, the blond babe with the prodigiously fine hooters.” He pushed the doors open with a flourish. “Mr. Sullivan has arrived, ma’am,” he intoned sonorously, bowing slightly toward his employer, as stiff and proper as if he had never uttered the word hooters—nor even knew what it meant.
The two women sitting on the pale blue brocade Victorian settee looked up expectantly. Moira Sullivan appeared much the same as she had the first time Reed had taken tea with her, nearly twenty-five years ago. She was wearing one of her elegant afternoon suits, a deep wine-colored bouclé that was immensely flattering against her pale skin and soft white hair. A triple strand of milky pearls adorned her neck. A large, square-cut sapphire sparkled on her right hand, complement to the impressive sapphire-and-diamond wedding set on her left. But it was her eyes that caught and held Reed’s attention. Bluer than the sapphires she wore, they were full of warmth and welcome, as always, with an undisguised hint of excitement and anticipation lurking in their depths.
“Hello, Gran,” he said cautiously, his gaze shifting to the young woman who sat beside his elegant, aged, conniving relative.
The redhead’s eyes were as big and brown as Eddie had said they were, wide set and heavily lashed beneath thick, sharply arched auburn brows. Her hair was a riotous mass of corkscrew curls that tumbled well past her shoulders. Her clothes were a colorful hodgepodge of fabric and style.
More gypsy than waif, Reed decided in that first comprehensive glance.
She wore a man’s soft white tuxedo shirt with a wing collar and an intricate Celtic brooch at the throat. Fanciful earrings of twisted metal and shiny stones dangled from her ears, glittering through the mass of springy curls. Dark forest-green, velvet pants were tucked into purple suede half-boots. A knitted mohair shawl in deep, rich shades of gold, brown and aubergine slipped off one shoulder to pool on the brocade settee beside her, its soft, nubby folds spilling over the edge toward the floor. Reed couldn’t tell anything about her alleged killer body because of that shawl and the large tapestry bag she held open on her lap, but her mouth was…well, soft and sexy didn’t even begin to describe it, he decided after a moment’s absorbed reflection.
Her lips were full and beautifully sculpted, as pink and glossy and moist as if she’d just finished eating a raspberry Popsicle. It was the kind of mouth made for heated, heedless kisses and breathless promises whispered in the dark across a satin pillow. Not a waif’s mouth, but a gypsy’s.
And he didn’t date gypsies—not even gorgeous, sexy gypsies—any more than he dated waifs. He dated nice, normal, conventional, well-bred women; the kind of women the men in his family had been dating and marrying for generations; the kind of women who were exactly like the last three women he’d met in Moira’s parlor over the past couple of months. The kind of women, in fact, who were exactly like the kind of woman he thought he’d been engaged to a couple of years ago.
It had turned out that his ex-fiancée hadn’t been all that conventional, after all, when it came right down to it. After a five-year engagement, she’d more or less left him standing at the altar and run off to New Orleans to work in a friend’s lingerie shop while she decided whether or not she really wanted to get married. She decided she did—to a laid-back New Orleans hairdresser rather than Reed’s illustrious self.
He’d put a good face on it—Sullivans always put a good face on things—but it had been quite a blow. To his pride, if nothing else. And truth be told, after all the dust had settled, he’d realized it was only his pride that had suffered any real damage; his heart had remained completely unscathed. In retrospect, he realized that Katherine had been absolutely right to run out on him because what he’d felt for her—what they’d felt for each other—had been nothing more than lifelong friendship coupled with a desire to satisfy family expectations. Reed still intended to satisfy his family’s expectations, and his own, as well. Eventually.
So what in hell was his dear granny up to?
It certainly couldn’t be matchmaking, not with this woman.
Could it?
“Shall I get the tea cart now, ma’am?” Eddie asked, his voice jolting Reed out of his absorption with Moira’s flamboyant guest and the likely reason for her presence in his great-grandmother’s front parlor.
“Yes, please, Eddie.” The whisper of an Irish lilt enhanced Moira Sullivan’s voice, adding piquancy to her upper-crust Boston accent. “And remind Mrs. Wheaton that there should be plenty of scones on the tray, won’t you?” She flashed a warm smile at the young woman sitting next to her. “I promised our guest a traditional tea with scones and clotted cream and strawberry preserves.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Eddie bowed again and backed out of the room, pulling the doors closed behind him.
Moira lifted her hand, extending it toward her great-grandson. “Reed, dear,” she said, her voice overflowing with delight. “Come and meet my new friend. This is Zoe Moon.” She flashed a warm, approving smile at the young woman sitting beside her. “Miss Zoe Moon,” she added, beaming like a proud mother showing off her new baby.
Reed stifled a sigh. No doubt about it now. As unlikely as it seemed, he’d just been introduced to yet another candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV. It had been almost three years since his aborted trip down the aisle, and obviously his dear old granny was getting desperate to see him take that walk again. After all, he’d be thirty-four soon and no other Sullivan male in documented history had made it past thirty unwed. For him to have crossed that benchmark still a bachelor was looked upon as not quite proper—suspect, even—by the more conservative members of the family. Which was nearly all of them.
Plastering a polite smile on his face, Reed moved across the carpet to take his great-grandmother’s outstretched hand, resigned to enduring the next two hours of her relentless matchmaking efforts with all the charm and good grace at his command.
“How are you, sweetheart?” he said, bending to kiss Moira’s cheek. He nodded at the young woman sitting next to her as he straightened. “Miss Moon.”
“Call me Zoe, please,” she said as she extended her hand to him.
The scent of violets, incongruously sweet and old-fashioned, drifted up to meet him as he reached out to shake her hand. Her palm was cool and small against his, the fingers long and tapering, delicate but not fragile. Her nails were painted a gleaming coppery color and she wore several narrow rings of various metals, some with glittering stones like the ones in her ears.
Reed had a brief, heated image of those slender, bejeweled hands on his bare back, the gleaming nails pressing into hard muscle as she arched under him and begged for more. He withdrew his hand from hers.
“Reed Sullivan,” he murmured politely, wondering if she was available for anything other than the matrimonial bliss his great-grandmother was so dead set on.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Zoe Moon’s voice was throaty and melodious, as seductive as the rest of her. The look in her eyes as she smiled up at him was friendly, curious and just slightly speculative, as if she were sizing him up.
As possible husband material, no doubt, he thought cynically.
“Moira has told me so much about you,” Zoe Moon said.
“Really?” He shot a cool, amused glance at his great-grandmother and seated himself in the wing chair opposite the settee. A low piecrust table, its gleaming surface decorated with an arrangement of golden button mums in a crystal bowl, occupied the space between them. “She hasn’t said a word about you to me.”
“That’s because Zoe and I only just met this past Monday,” Moira informed him.
Oh, great, he thought, now she’s parading complete strangers under my nose!
“Zoe’s an entrepreneur.”
“Really?” Reed murmured, polite but not encouraging. “In what field?”
“Cosmetics,” Moira said before Zoe could answer. She gestured at the table between them. “She was just showing me a few of her wonderful products.”
Reed glanced at the table. Half-hidden behind the arrangement of mums were several small jars and bottles. At least half of them were open, perfuming the air with the faint, fresh scent of flowers and aromatic herbs. He’d noticed the fragrance when he came into the parlor, but hadn’t thought anything about it, unconsciously assuming it came from the crystal bowls of potpourri Moira always kept scattered around the house.
On the settee next to Moira were a couple of shoe boxes he hadn’t noticed before, either, and a large Betsey Johnson shopping bag on the floor between the two women’s feet. Either Miss Moon had made a stop on Newbury Street before she called on Moira, or she was carting her wares around like a well-heeled bag lady. Whichever, someone really ought to tell her how unprofessional it made her appear.
“Then Miss Moon is…what?” He arched an eyebrow, ignoring the accompanying twinge as the butterfly bandage tugged at the fine hairs. “An Avon lady?”
“No, she’s not an Avon lady. She’s an entrepreneur.” Moira stressed the word as if he might not have understood it the first time. “She doesn’t sell other people’s cosmetics. She sells her own.”
“Well, not cosmetics, exactly,” Zoe Moon demurred with a smile. “Just lotions, body oils and sachets. So far, at least.”
“They’re not just anything,” Moira objected. She plucked a slender, frosted-green-glass bottle off the table. The words New Moon were hand-lettered in elegant calligraphy across the label, superimposed over a line drawing of a pale crescent moon. “Zoe makes them herself, right in her own kitchen, using only the purest, most natural ingredients.” Moira twisted the top off of the bottle and held it across the table toward Reed. “Try this,” she ordered. “It’s the most exquisite hand lotion I’ve ever used. Makes your skin feel as soft as water.”
Zoe extended her hand and intercepted the bottle before Reed could stir himself to reach for it. “I’m sure Mr. Sullivan—” she gave him a slanting, sideways look as she said his name, both her expression and her tone letting him know she’d noticed and was…amused, he decided, by his insistence on the formality of address “—doesn’t want to go back to the office smelling like a flower garden.”
Both puzzled and just a bit disgruntled by her attitude, he watched her recap the bottle and set it on the piecrust table. As one of Boston’s wealthiest and most eligible bachelors, Reed was accustomed to a great deal of respect, even awe, from the opposite sex. Women didn’t usually laugh at him, not even silently.
“Oh, Reed won’t go back to the office from here, will you, dear?” Moira said, apparently oblivious to the byplay between her guests.
Which was decidedly odd, Reed thought. Despite her advanced age, his great-grandmother prided herself on knowing exactly what was going on at all times.
“He always heads off to rugby practice after tea.” Moira smiled in the direction of her great-grandson without actually taking her eyes off Zoe. “So I’m sure he doesn’t care what he smells like.”
Zoe Moon slanted Reed another glance, taking in the small white bandage on his eyebrow, skimming the width of his shoulders, sweeping the length of his legs beneath the worsted flannel of his navy slacks as if assessing his fitness for the sport…or something else. Only sheer strength of will kept him from squirming like an inexperienced adolescent under her frank, unabashed scrutiny. He managed to meet her gaze, when she brought it back to his, with a cool expression and an elegantly raised eyebrow, the epitome of masculine aplomb.
She didn’t even have the grace to blush at being caught checking him out so blatantly. She simply smiled and looked away, turning her attention back to her hostess.
“I don’t imagine his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a…” Her gaze flickered back to Reed. “What do you call that group hug in the middle of a game?”
He scowled at the teasing note in her voice. She was definitely laughing at him! “A scrum,” he growled, all but biting off the word in irritation.
Zoe Moon didn’t seem to notice the warning edge in his tone. “A scrum. Thank you.” She nodded, smiling, and turned her gaze back on Moira.
His scowl deepened.
If she was vying to become a candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV, she was sure as hell going about it the wrong way. Not that she was in the running, anyway, of course. Not that anyone was in the running. But still… Didn’t she know that bank presidents and highly placed corporate executives had been known to tremble in fear when he scowled at them?
“I don’t think his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a scrum,” she said to Moira, completely oblivious to Reed’s growing annoyance. “It would interfere with the smell of fresh blood and manly sweat.”
“Well…perhaps you’re right,” Moira agreed, not seeming to notice Reed’s annoyance, either. “But, still, it’s important that he be familiar with the products, don’t you think?”
“He could look at my formulas.”
“Yes, of course. That’s a splendid idea.” Moira picked up one of the shoe boxes near her hip, removed the lid and began shuffling through the contents.
Not shoes or cosmetics, Reed noted sourly, but papers. Untidy stacks of papers, shoved every which way into the shoe box.
“Now, where are they?” Moira murmured, half to herself. “I had the one for your wonderful lotion in my hand not more than ten minutes ago.”
“Why the he—” Reed caught himself before he uttered the profanity in front of his aged relative. “Why in the world would I need to look at the formula for some hand lotion?” he asked. “I’ll look at it, of course, if you want me to,” he amended when Moira glanced up with a delicately raised eyebrow that showed their kinship more clearly than the brilliant blue of their eyes, “but why would you want—”
The parlor doors opened. “Tea, ma’am.” Eddie rolled the two-tiered cart into the room.
“Oh, wonderful.” Moira beamed at her butler. “I’m sure everyone must be as parched as I am. All this talk of business has worked up a thirst in all of us, I’m sure.”
“Business?” Reed said. Had he missed something here? “What bus—”
“Put it right there, please, Eddie.” Moira motioned to a spot in front of the Adams mantel, halfway between Zoe’s end of the settee and the wing chair where Reed sat. “You can just leave it,” she instructed when Eddie began to fiddle with the delicate cups and saucers. “We’ll serve ourselves today.”
“Very good, ma’am.” Eddie bowed himself out of the room.
Moira gestured toward the tea cart. “Zoe, dear, would you mind pouring, please? I’m afraid my wrists aren’t up to managing that heavy teapot these days.”
“Yes, of course. I’d be glad to.” Zoe shifted the tapestry bag from her lap to the floor, shrugging the enveloping shawl from her shoulders as she rose to her feet.
The question Reed had been about to ask about his great-grandmother’s supposedly weak wrists died on his tongue due to a sudden and complete lack of moisture.
Killer body, indeed.
Zoe Moon was built like a goddess…an Amazon…a Playboy Playmate of the Year…. Hell, of the decade!
She was all lush, tempting curves and intriguing hollows: high, round breasts swelling luxuriantly against the front of the mannish tuxedo shirt; an impossibly tiny waist set off by a narrow, gold leather belt; sleekly rounded hips and slender thighs lovingly outlined beneath the caress of forest-green velvet.
What was the word Eddie had used to describe her?
Luscious.
Reed actually felt his mouth begin to water as he watched her pour tea into one of his great-grandmother’s delicate Spode cups.
He swallowed.
Twice.
“Sugar? Lemon?” Zoe asked, her limpid, brown-eyed gaze fixed attentively on her hostess. “Milk?”
Moira glanced up from the open shoe box on her lap. “Oh, nothing in the tea, thank you. But I will have one of those butter cookies on the side, if you’d be so kind,” she answered. “You can just put it on the table there.” She indicated a spot on the piecrust table in front of her with a nod. “There’s a dear,” she said approvingly before returning her full attention to the papers in the shoe box. “I know it’s here….” she murmured vaguely as she rifled through them.
“Just what are you looking for, Gr—”
“And you, Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe asked, turning to him with an empty cup in her hand. “What would you like?”
You, he thought in that split second before he could censor himself. Naked. In bed. Under me. Moaning my name in mindless ecstasy.
Zoe smiled and shook her head. “In your tea,” she chided softly, as if he’d spoken his desire aloud.
Reed Sullivan IV, scion of the Sullivan empire, financial wunderkind, experienced man of the world, suddenly felt exactly the way he had the time he’d been caught by Sister Madeline Marie, trying to look up Patsy Flannery’s dress on the jungle gym during recess. Now, as then, he opened his mouth to answer, but the words got stuck in his throat. He could only hope he wasn’t blushing, too.
“Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe prompted, as she stood holding a cup of tea in one slender, beringed hand and the silver sugar tongs in the other.
He had a sudden, searing vision of her standing there naked, in exactly the same position. No…not naked. In his mind’s eye she was wearing stiletto heels and a frilly little apron made of sheer net and black lace, and—
“Mr. Sullivan,” she said sharply, as if she had read his thoughts.
Or maybe it was just his guilty conscience that made her sound so much like Sister Madeline Marie had that day on the playground.
“One sugar, please,” he croaked.
“One sugar it is.”
She bent her head to her task, using the silver tongs to pluck a sugar cube from the bowl and drop it into his cup, lifting a tiny teaspoon to stir the hot liquid and melt the sugar, tapping the spoon lightly against the rim of the cup before placing it gently back on the silver spoon rest. The back of her hand brushed against a frosted petit four and she lifted her hand to her mouth, absently licking at one knuckle.
Reed sat mesmerized, watching every precise, delicate movement. Her tongue was nearly as pink as the frosting. And probably sweeter, too…
“Your tea, Mr. Sullivan.”
He snapped out of a brief, delicious fantasy of licking frosting off of her fingers—and various other places—to find her standing in front of his chair, the cup of tea held practically under his nose. He tried not to picture her naked again—he really did—but it was a hopeless endeavor; she was the kind of woman who inspired lustful fantasies. He wondered how she’d look in one of those skimpy bits of satin and lace that graced the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Something black with garters, he thought, decorated with little rosettes the color of the frosting on the petits fours.
“I hope it’s the way you like it,” she said.
“I’m sure it is,” he managed to answer suavely, years of good manners and lessons in deportment coming to his rescue despite the lascivious pictures forming in his mind. “Thank you.”
Their fingers touched.
Heat sizzled up his arm and straight into his brain cells, frying untold millions of nerve endings and sending alarm signals to points south. Her gaze lifted to his, eyes widened, startled, as if she felt something, too. And then she released her hold on the saucer and turned away. His fingers were suddenly so unsteady he had to reach up with his free hand to anchor the fragile cup in its saucer to keep from spilling hot tea in his lap.
“Ah, here it is!” Moira’s voice was triumphant. “I knew I’d seen it in this box.”
“Seen what, Gran?” Reed asked, without taking his eyes off of Zoe.
She stood with her back to him now, calmly pouring out her own cup of tea, as if that charged moment had never happened. Her wild tumble of hair was so long it brushed against the wide leather belt encircling her impossible waist.
“The formula,” Moira said.
“The what?” he murmured, wondering how all that glorious hair would look cascading down Zoe Moon’s naked back…wondering how it would feel if he reached out and grasped a handful…wondering if the curls between her slender thighs were the same flame-hot color as the ones on her head.
“The formula I want you to look at, dear,” Moira said. “I found it.”
Reed managed to tear his eyes away from Zoe long enough to glance at his great-grandmother. “What formula is that, Gran?”
“For Zoe’s wonderful hand lotion. Haven’t you been paying attention? Reed?” Her voice rose slightly in reprimand. “Reed, are you listening to me, young man?”
“I’m sorry.” He turned his head toward his great-grandmother, refocusing his attention with superhuman effort. “You have my full attention.” Or she would when Zoe sat down beside her again so he didn’t have to strain to keep her in his peripheral vision. “What do you want me to look at, sweetheart?”
“This formula, for starters.” Moira tapped the side of the shoe box with the tip of one finger. “And the rest of the papers, too, of course.”
“The rest of the papers?” His glance darted sideways as Zoe reseated herself in the corner of the settee.
She brushed a long, springy tendril of hair back with one hand, casually sweeping it behind her shoulder, and crossed her legs—her long, slender, velvet-sheathed legs—balancing her teacup and saucer on her knee.
“What, ah…” Reed swallowed and forced himself to look back at his great-grandmother. “What kind of papers?”
“Oh…” Light glittered off the sapphire on Moira’s right hand as it fluttered through the air. “Receipts and bills and things,” she said vaguely, finally claiming her great-grandson’s attention completely.
Moira Sullivan was never vague about anything. Ever.
“Zoe brought all her files as well as her formulas.” She smiled approvingly at the younger woman. “You did bring everything with you, didn’t you, dear?”
“Everything I thought might be useful to the discussion.” Zoe gestured at the tapestry bag on the floor. “What’s not in shoe boxes is in there.”
“Useful to what discussion?” Reed leaned forward and carefully set his teacup and saucer on the little piecrust table so he could give his full attention to the conversation. He had the uneasy feeling that he’d missed something vitally important in his libidinous preoccupation with the luscious Miss Moon. “Just what are we talking about here?”
“Well, my goodness, Reed,” Moira admonished him, “haven’t you been listening? I want you to look at Zoe’s papers for me.”
“Yes, I got that part. Why?”
“Because I’m going to give her the money to expand her company, that’s why. And I want you to tell me the best way to do it.”
2
“YOU STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU are, Gran.” Reed rose to his feet as he spoke. “Miss Moon and I can see ourselves to the door.”
Moira relaxed back onto the settee without even a token murmur of protest. “Thank you, dear. I’d appreciate that. These old bones of mine are a bit creaky and uncooperative these days.” She held her hand out to Zoe. “I’m looking forward to getting started on our project,” she said when Zoe reached out and clasped her fingers. “It’s going to be so exciting. As soon as Reed gets all the paperwork done we’ll have a little party to celebrate.” Her eyes twinkled at the thought. “A sit-down dinner, I think, with the men in black tie so we ladies can get all gussied up. And lots of champagne. Do you like champagne, Zoe?”
“I love champagne.” Impulsively, obeying her instincts as she always did, Zoe bent and kissed her hostess’s cheek. It was soft and papery beneath her lips, and smelled sweetly of expensive face powder and Chanel No. 5. “Thank you,” she whispered, and gently squeezed the fragile hand in hers.
“No, thank you.” Moira returned the squeeze with surprising strength from someone with creaky old bones. “I haven’t looked forward to anything half so much in a long time. It’s going to be such fun.” She smiled up into her great-grandson’s face, her own alight with an almost childlike joy. “Isn’t it going to be fun, dear?”
Zoe didn’t think fun was exactly the word Mr. Reed Sullivan IV would have used to describe the situation. Unless she was very much mistaken, he hadn’t been the least bit amused when he finally realized what his great-grandmother was planning to do. He’d been…well, appalled was the only word for the look that had flashed, ever so briefly, in his cool blue eyes.
“We’ll see,” he said stoically, confirming Zoe’s supposition. “It’s a little too early in the game to be making predictions.”
He reached out as he spoke, touching his fingers to the small of Zoe’s back as if to hurry her along, then drew back sharply. Zoe felt a small jolt and her skin rippled, chill bumps racing up her spine. She took a half step to the side, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. “Lots of static electricity in the air this time of year,” she said with a tight little smile.
“Yes,” Reed agreed as he took a step back from her. “That must be it. Static electricity. You should have Eddie check the setting on your humidifier, Gran. It might need to be turned up a notch or two. Miss Moon?” He extended his hand in a gesture that indicated she should precede him toward the double doors.
Though he was excruciatingly polite about it, the man obviously couldn’t wait to get her out of his great-grandmother’s parlor…away from his great-grandmother’s wallet. Oh, he hid his impatience behind a patrician air and the same sort of bland, noncommittal smile she’d seen on the faces of half a dozen bankers over the last couple of months, but she knew exactly what he was thinking. If it were up to him, she wouldn’t get the money. Thank goodness it wasn’t up to him.
“I hope,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
Zoe shook her head at him. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
“Then.” He extended his hand again, polite, implacable, expecting to be obeyed. “After you.”
Zoe abruptly decided it would do him good to be forced to hold his horses for a minute or two. She got the impression that he wasn’t often required to wait for much of anything, and patience was a virtue, after all. She dropped her heavy tapestry bag to the floor and unhooked one of the handles of the Betsey Johnson shopping bag from the crook of her arm, letting it swing open.
“Why don’t I leave a sample of my hand cream with you,” she said to Moira as she dug through the bag. “That way you can compare the two—the lotion versus the cream.” She extracted a small, squat, green glass container from the bag and presented it to Moira on the flat of her hand. “Use one on each hand for a week or so and see which you like better. Sort of our own form of, ah…” she glanced over her shoulder at Reed with a wide, guileless smile “…market research?” she said, all but batting her lashes at him. “Is that the right term?”
He gave her a slight nod. “It is,” he said civilly.
She had to hand it to him. The man really did have lovely manners and truly impressive self-control. He stood there in his understated silk tie and his expensive navy blue suit—custom-made, no doubt—looking all cool and unconcerned, as debonair as James Bond at the baccarat table, while underneath she knew he wanted nothing more than to grab her by the scruff of the neck and toss her into the street. She’d been aware of his gaze on her all during their oh-so-civilized tea, sensing the disapproval lurking just beneath the surface of his cool, unruffled calm even before he realized what his great-grandmother meant to do.
Which didn’t make any sense.
Zoe was well aware of her effect on most men. Just the sight of her was often enough to turn the weak-minded among them into slobbering, adoring idiots. Not that she thought Reed Sullivan was weak-minded but…well, even strong-minded men were usually inclined to look favorably on her, at least at first sight. It wasn’t something she exploited—not often, anyway, not unless she really had to—but it was something she counted on to be there, kind of like the sun rising in the east every morning. Fair or not, her looks gave her an edge she had come to depend on in her dealings with men.
Instead of looking favorably on her, though, Reed Sullivan had been suspicious and disapproving from the minute he walked into the cheery, sunlit parlor and saw her sitting on the settee beside his great-grandmother. Her initial offer of friendliness— “Call me Zoe, please”—had been rebuffed in no uncertain terms. Very politely, of course, and oh-so-charmingly, but rebuffed nonetheless.
His attitude had puzzled her at first, even beyond his lack of a favorable response to her physical self. What could she, a stranger, have done in those first few moments that he could possibly disapprove of? Maybe he was having a bad day and the disapproving air didn’t have anything to do with her, she’d thought charitably. Or maybe she’d intimidated him; it wasn’t unknown for a certain type of man to get shy and tongue-tied in her presence. Although, admittedly, Reed Sullivan didn’t strike her as either shy or inarticulate, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So she’d tried teasing him, gently, smiling to let him know she was harmless. Most men, strong-minded or not, went a little slack-jawed when she gave them her slanting, sideways glance, that whisper of a smile that tacitly invited them to share the joke. Reed Sullivan had narrowed his brilliant blue eyes and looked down his aristocratic nose at her, as if she were an impertinent employee who’d overstepped her bounds.
Zoe had distinctly felt her hackles rise. How dare he disapprove of her! Just because he was wealthy and pedigreed, and belonged to what she was sure were all the right clubs, and she was…well, okay, she was there with her hand out, more or less, hoping for a loan from his great-grandmother. But that was no reason for him to look at her as if she were some kind of panhandler who’d accosted him in the street. Moira Sullivan had invited her to tea specifically to discuss the possibility of investing in New Moon.
Zoe began to needle him subtly, mocking his pretensions with a provocative little smile, using her expressive eyes and her centerfold body in an effort to make him squirm, trying to find some way to pierce that polished facade of urbane civility. A couple of times there, she’d thought she’d succeeded. Almost. He’d looked distinctly guilty at one point, as if whatever he was thinking at that particular moment probably wouldn’t have borne the light of day. And then, a minute or two later, there’d been a certain betraying light in his eyes as he’d looked at her—not disapproving just then at all, oh no, but speculative, absorbed…fascinated, almost. She’d handed him his tea, wondering exactly what was going on behind that distant, glazed look, feeling the tiniest bit triumphant at having rattled him at last.
And then their fingers had touched.
And their eyes had met.
And she’d felt as if every nerve ending in her body had been scorched.
She’d had to turn away, trying not to fumble as she poured her own tea, taking several slow, calming breaths while she tried to compose herself. And as she regained her composure, the budding feeling of triumph returned along with it. He’d shaken her, yes, but she’d shaken him, too. She was sure of it. He wasn’t as cool as he pretended. As unaffected. Not if that hot, glittering look that had flickered in his eyes when his gaze met hers was anything to go by.
Telling herself to be satisfied with that small victory, she’d reseated herself on the settee with what she felt was a convincing nonchalance, managing, finally, after a long, fidgety moment, to glance casually toward Reed to see how he was reacting to whatever it was that had flashed between them.
Mr. Nose-in-the-air Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV was leaning forward in his chair, his teacup on the gleaming piecrust table, his eyes focused intently on his great-grandmother, calmly talking business! New Moon business, true, but still…
Zoe wondered if anything had ever ruffled that insufferable, infuriating poise of his for more than a second. Wondered, too, what that anything might be. It certainly couldn’t have been a woman! Money, maybe. No, probably, she decided peevishly. He was obviously the bloodless, cold-fish type who couldn’t get worked up about anything except money.
Well, she could oblige him there.
“Why don’t you just take all my samples,” she said to Moira, as if the idea had just occurred to her. Which it had. “Use them yourself. Give them to all your friends and female relations.” She continued to dig through her shopping bag as she spoke, putting small jars and bottles and plump satin sachets back on the piecrust table from where she had picked them all up a few minutes ago. “That way we can expand our research and make it a real survey. After all, it’s women like you and your wealthy friends who have the money to spend that will make New Moon profitable.”
She glanced at Reed out of the corner of her eye to see how he was taking it. His countenance hadn’t changed except for a slight narrowing of his eyes and a too-tight something about his jaw, as if he were clenching his teeth. Encouraged, Zoe rattled on.
“Maybe we could hold a sort of informal market focus group,” she said recklessly, tossing ideas out off the top of her head. “You know, invite your friends over some evening and let them sample the products and tell us what they think about each of them. I could even give minifacials or—oh, I know!” She snapped her fingers as inspiration struck. “How about massages with my scented body oils? My friend Gina is a massage therapist and she’d lend me her table. We could set it up right here in the parlor. Gina might even come along to give the massages herself, if she’s free. She’s very good. Very much in demand. In fact, she has scads of clients right here on Beacon Hill. Probably some of your friends, even. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Gina Molinari? No? Well, anyway, I’m sure she wouldn’t charge too much, as a favor to me. Although, with your money, I don’t guess you’d worry about that.”
Zoe tossed another quick look over her shoulder. Reed Sullivan was still standing there, a bland look on his face, seemingly at ease as he patiently waited for his great-grandmother’s guest to be ready to leave…but a tiny, telltale muscle in his chiseled jaw had begun to twitch, ever so slightly. Zoe smiled brightly and plunged ahead.
“If that goes well, we could do something more formal. Well, not exactly formal, but more, um…” she tapped a forefinger against her chin, parodying someone deep in thought “…businesslike,” she decided, the word forming on her lips as if she wasn’t quite sure of its pronunciation, or exact meaning. “We could widen the survey. You know, pay different people to come in off the street to try the products, with questionnaires afterward to see what they like and don’t like. I’ve participated in dozens of focus groups like that when I’ve been between jobs, and they’re all pretty much run the same way,” she said confidingly. “I even worked as a researcher myself once, on one of my temp jobs, so I know how it’s done. So. How does that sound to you? Just to start, I mean?”
“Well, ah…” Moira’s gaze flickered from Zoe’s flushed face to her great-grandson’s stony countenance and back again. She smiled. “That sounds like quite an ambitious plan, my dear.” She nodded emphatically. Approvingly. “Quite ambitious.”
“Oh, I’m ambitious, all right.” Zoe slanted another quick glance at Reed. The muscles in his jaw were bulging now, as if he’d gone beyond clenching his teeth to grinding them. Zoe felt a surge of pure adrenaline and went in for the kill. “Extremely ambitious.” She leaned over slightly, reaching out to clasp one of Moira’s hands in both of hers. “Why, with all your lovely money behind me there’s no telling what I can—” She broke off, startled, as Reed’s long fingers wrapped themselves around her biceps. She dropped Moira’s hand as he pulled her upright with something very close to a jerk.
“We can talk about what you can or can not do with all Gran’s lovely money at some other time,” Reed said quietly, through his teeth.
Zoe’s protest was automatic. “But I haven’t fin—”
“I hate to rush you, but I’m running late, Miss Moon.” He glanced pointedly at his watch, turning his wrist without letting go of her. “If you want a lift home, we’ll have to leave right now.”
“Late for what? Oh. Your rugby practice,” she said, realizing belatedly that her hostess’s great-grandson was actually teetering on the edge of losing his cool. He’d never have laid hands on her, otherwise. “Well, don’t worry about me, then.” She gave him a bright, saccharine smile meant to push him clean over the precipice. “I can take the T home when I’m ready to go.” She shrugged dismissively, trying to dislodge his hand. “Moira and I have lots more to discuss and—”
His fingers flexed on her arm. “I really must insist, Miss Moon.”
“No, thank you. I appreciate the gesture but—”
“I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m afraid Gran is getting tired.” The look he turned on Moira was one of filial concern. “Aren’t you, Gran?”
“Nonsense. I’m not the least—” Moira began.
“She’ll never admit it, of course,” Reed continued smoothly, talking over his great-grandmother’s protest, “but it’s been a long afternoon for her. She usually takes a nap right after tea, and we’re keeping her from it.” He lowered his voice, putting his lips very near Zoe’s ear as if to keep Moira from overhearing. “She is ninety-two, you know.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course. How thoughtless of me.” Guilt pierced Zoe’s tender heart, instantly chasing away all thought of goading Reed. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’ve been so kind to me,” she said to Moira, “and here I am, keeping you up when you should be resting. Just let me grab my purse and—”
“Got it.” Reed bent down, scooped the tapestry bag off the floor by its braided leather straps with his free hand and swung it toward her.
Zoe grabbed at it awkwardly, fumbling to hold on to it without upending the precariously gaping shopping bag hanging from her arm. She felt her shawl begin to slip, and hunched her shoulder, trying to boost it back into place.
“Dinner here after practice?” Reed said to his great-grandmother as Zoe grappled with her belongings.
“Dinner? Well, actually, I—”
Reed stared down his nose at her and waited.
“Yes, of course, dear. Dinner here,” Moira agreed demurely. “If you like.”
“I like.” He bent and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back around eight-thirty, if that’s all right with you?”
Moira nodded. “Eight-thirty will be fine.”
“Good.” He nodded, once. “That’s settled, then.” His hand tightened on Zoe’s arm. “Miss Moon?”
Zoe braced herself against the pressure. “Thank you for a lovely tea, Moira. I really enjoyed it.”
“So did I, dear,” Moira said. “Immensely. I’ll call you about the market research party early next week and we can discuss the details at more length.”
Reed mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Over my dead body” under his breath.
“What was that, dear?” Moira asked. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“I said, I’ll take care of all the details.” He looked down at Zoe, smiling at her through gritted teeth. “Ready, now?”
Without waiting for either assent or refusal, he propelled her into motion, steering her around the piecrust table and across the Aubusson. It was either stumble along beside him as best she could or fall flat on her face and let him drag her. Zoe stumbled along, the shopping bag dangling from her arm, her purse clutched to her chest, her soft, knitted shawl slipping farther and farther off her shoulder. She had to quickstep to keep up with his long-legged, no-nonsense stride as he headed toward the tall double doors. The doors opened outward just as they reached them, and Eddie stepped back, bowing them into the foyer with a nod of his head.
“Sir?” he said in the same formal, sonorous tone he had used before. The word and the tone contrasted incongruously with the bright red shorts and red-and-yellow color-block rugby shirt he was wearing. No one paid any attention to the fact that he must have been listening at the keyhole to have opened the doors so promptly.
“Grab my things, please, Eddie,” Reed said he marched across the marble foyer, towing Zoe in his wake. She was nearly on tiptoes now, and the shawl had slipped entirely off of one shoulder and was dragging on the floor. “I’m running late.”
Eddie already had Reed’s things laid out in readiness, the overcoat draped across the top of a tufted velvet Victorian bench, the briefcase and gym bag side by side on the floor in front of it. He grabbed them up along with his own gym bag and fell in step behind the two scurrying figures.
“I take it you’re not going to change here as usual?” he asked pleasantly, as if the sight of his employer’s great-grandson quickstepping a guest out of the house wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
“No,” Reed said shortly. “No time. We have to drop Miss Moon off at her apartment on our way.” He yanked the front door open with his free hand before Eddie could maneuver around to do it for him. “I’ll change at Magazine Beach.”
I really ought to let him drive me home, Zoe thought vindictively as he all but dragged her over the threshold and out onto the front steps. Considering his final destination, a detour to the North End during rush hour traffic would make him really late. But it would make Eddie late, too, and Eddie wasn’t the one giving her the bum’s rush. And besides, she wasn’t in the mood to go anywhere with Mr. Stuffed Shirt!
“You don’t have to drop Miss Moon at her apartment,” she said between her teeth, digging in her heels and rearing back as he reached for the door handle of the sleek black Jaguar XJ6 parked—wouldn’t you just know it!—at the curb directly in front of the house. “You don’t have to drop Miss Moon anywhere, because Miss Moon will take the T. Now let go of my arm!”
She yanked her arm out of his grasp and turned to face him, there on the sidewalk in front of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion.
“Boy, I sure don’t know what your problem is, mister.” Huffily, head down, Zoe wrestled with the handles of both shopping bag and purse, settling them securely over her arm. “And I don’t particularly care.” She hitched her shawl up over her shoulder with a jerk, draping the excess over her forearm. “But I definitely do not appreciate being treated like some kind of two-bit street hustler who’s out to make a quick buck off a sweet old lady.”
“If a quick buck was all you were after, there wouldn’t be any problem, would there?” Reed said mildly, his tone as urbane and civil as if he hadn’t just dragged her out of his great-grandmother’s house by the scruff of the neck.
Zoe found it really annoying that he could sound so cool, as if that mad dash across the marble foyer and down the wide brick steps hadn’t happened, while she was left feeling frazzled, put-upon and decidedly ill used. “Then just what is your problem?” she demanded.
“My problem is your brazen effort to bilk a sweet old lady out of a small fortune to finance some fly-by-night cosmetic company.”
“Fly-by—” Zoe’s mouth gaped open and she stared at him like a hooked fish for a full five seconds. “New Moon is not fly-by-night!” she exclaimed furiously, and then clamped her mouth shut. Shouting at the top of her lungs might be all well and good in the North End, but Beacon Hill called for a little more decorum. Besides, if she lost her temper, Mr. Stuffed Shirt would win. And she’d implode before she’d let that happen. “I’ve been selling New Moon products to individual clients for over three years, and commercially, on a commission basis, for almost two,” she said with quiet dignity. “I have steady retail customers in two shops in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace and several locations in the Back Bay, including one in a very exclusive boutique on Newbury Street, which, for your information, is where I met your great-grandmother. I’d hardly call that fly-by-night.”
“Regardless of what you’d call it, Miss Moon, you’re not getting any money from my great-grandmother to expand your little…enterprise.” His slight hesitation made the word sound distinctly unsavory.
“Why not?” Zoe demanded, truly puzzled by his attitude. “Moira told me she invests in all kinds of businesses. And with your blessing, too. So just what have you got against me and New Moon?”
“Let’s just say I have a constitutional aversion to con artists and leave it at that, shall we?”
“Con artists!?” She had to fight to keep her voice even. “But I just told you, I’m not trying to con any— Moira’s the one who invited me to tea and I— Oh, forget it! It’s obvious you’ve already made up your mind,” she accused, ignoring the fact that her little act in his great-grandmother’s parlor might have had something to do with his poor opinion of her. “And you aren’t about to change it, are you? No matter what I say.”
Zoe lifted her chin. “All I can say is that you’re cheating your great-grandmother out of a wonderful investment opportunity. New Moon is going to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars some day. Millions, even.” She picked up the end of her shawl and tossed it across the opposite shoulder, haughty as an affronted queen. “It’s going to be bigger than Estee Lauder. And you’re going to be very, very sorry.”
With that, she turned and stomped off down the street, her mass of fiery, corkscrew curls swaying against her back, her purse and shopping bag bouncing against her hip, the heels of her purple suede boots clicking like castanets against the venerable old Boston street.
For once in her life, she had come up with the perfect exit line. Perfect! She hadn’t said too much, or too little. She hadn’t lost her temper. She’d been cool, calm and composed. It took all of her willpower not to ruin it by turning around and rudely thumbing her nose at Mr. Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV.
“Well,” Eddie said. “That was certainly interesting.”
“Yes,” Reed said slowly, his eyes on her retreating back. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, wondering why it felt so hot and…twitchy. “Wasn’t it.”
3
“BUT I WANT TO INVEST in Zoe’s business, Reed.”
“Gran, sweetheart, be reasonable. Whatever New Moon is, it can hardly be called a business. She doesn’t have a business plan. Nor a P&L. Not even a simple, basic set of books to track income and expenses.” He dug his hand into one of the shoe boxes on the table between them and grasped a sheaf of papers to illustrate his point. “Just this disorganized mess.” Which, he noted, smelled disconcertingly of violets. He lifted them halfway toward his nose before he realized what he was doing, and stuffed them back into the box with a disgusted snort. “You can’t run a business, let alone expect people to give you money to expand it, if you don’t keep decent records.”
“Well, there, you see.” Moira smiled at him approvingly. “That’s just the kind of advice Zoe needs. I knew you could help.”
“Gran, you can’t really be serious about this.” He looked at her over the top of his reading glasses. “Can you?”
“Dead serious,” she assured him with an emphatic little nod of her regal head.
“Well, I’m dead set against it.” He took his glasses off and tossed them down on the table like a gauntlet. “I don’t approve of the idea at all. Not at all.”
Moira’s brows lifted at his tone. “May I remind you, young man, that it happens to be my money we’re discussing, not yours. And as I have been legally of age for quite some time now and am in full possession of my faculties, I am perfectly free to do as I please with it.” She lifted her chin and looked down her elegant nose at him. “Whether you approve or not.”
Reed abandoned his high horse. It never worked with his great-grandmother, anyway; nobody had ever been able to dictate to Moira Sullivan, not even her dear departed husband. “But why, Gran? Can you at least answer me that? Why on earth do you want to invest in that woman’s business?”
“Her products are wonderful,” Moira said promptly. “And I like her.”
“You hardly know her,” he countered. “You said yourself you only met her this past Monday and—” He broke off as a thought occurred to him. “How exactly did you happen to meet her, anyway?”
“She didn’t maneuver an introduction or try to ingratiate herself in any way, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Moira chided him gently. “I overheard her talking to the proprietor of The Body Beautiful about the difficulties she’s been having getting financing to expand her business, and I interrupted their conversation and introduced myself to her.”
“And you say she didn’t maneuver it,” he scoffed.
Moira stiffened ever so slightly and her chin came up again. “Despite my advanced years, I am not some poor senile old lady who doesn’t know which end is up,” she said with quiet, reproachful dignity.
Reed was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Gran. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I never meant to suggest that you—”
“Neither am I gullible or easily misled,” Moira went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know very well when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. And when they aren’t. And I assure you, my dear Reed, Miss Moon had no idea I was listening to her conversation in that shop until I interrupted her.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Reed agreed. “You know I have the utmost faith in your judgment. I always have and always will. I just…” He paused and reached for his discarded glasses, twisting one stem as he searched for the words to say what he meant without insulting his great-grandmother again. “All question of how you met aside, the fact remains that you’ve known her—and I use that term loosely!—three days. Barely. And yet you say you like her. Three days isn’t enough time to make that kind of decision about a person. It’s not enough time to make any kind of decision about a person, especially if you’re contemplating lending that person a great deal of money.”
“You’ve known her—and I also use the term loosely—less than a day, and you’ve already decided you dislike her. Why is that, I wonder?”
“I don’t dislike her,” Reed objected, which was the strict truth. His reaction to the luscious Zoe Moon was a little more complicated than mere like or dislike. It was…well, he didn’t know what it was exactly. “And this isn’t about me, anyway. It’s about you. So quit trying to change the subject and answer my question. Please,” he added when she raised an eyebrow at him. “Give me a little insight into why you decided it’s a good idea to lend money to a woman you’ve known for barely three days.”
Moira sighed. “I decided I wanted to marry your great-grandfather after only an hour in his company.”
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
“True,” Moira agreed. “Marriage is a much more serious matter. With much more serious consequences if you’re wrong. But the basic principle is the same. Trust.”
“Are you telling me you trust Zoe Moon?”
“Yes, I do. She appears to me to be an eminently trustworthy young woman.”
“Good Lord, Gran!” Reed just barely managed to keep his voice at a reasonable level. One didn’t shout at Moira Sullivan with impunity. Not if one wanted to get anywhere with her. “Didn’t you hear a word she said this afternoon?”
“I’m not deaf, dear. Certainly I heard her. She has a lovely, soothing voice, don’t you think?”
“Oh, lovely,” he agreed with a snort. Soothing, however, it was not. Now, if she’d said arousing… He deliberately veered away from that line of thought. “But that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“What did you mean, dear?”
“‘Women like you and your wealthy friends’,” he quoted. “‘All your lovely money…’ ‘With your money, you wouldn’t worry about that….’ The woman obviously came to tea today for one thing and one thing only.”
Moira gave a little gurgle of laughter. “Well, of course she did! For goodness sake, Reed, I asked her to tea specifically to talk about the possibility of lending her the money to expand her business. I expected her to talk about it. That was the whole point.”
Reed remembered Zoe Moon trying to tell him something along the same lines, out there on the sidewalk in front of the house. But he hadn’t bought it then, and he wasn’t buying it now. “It’s the way she talked about it that I object to.”
“The way?”
“As if it were a done deal and the money were already hers. Good manners, if nothing else, should have kept her from acting as if you’d already signed on the dotted line.”
“Well, perhaps, but…”
Reed jumped on her hesitation. “Come on now, Gran,” he cajoled. “Admit it. Didn’t she sound like a greedy, money-grubbing little mercenary out to take you for all she could get?” And why was he attracted to her, despite that?
“Really, dear.” Moira shook her head. “Isn’t that a bit harsh?”
“A bit, maybe,” he conceded, disposed to at least try to be fair now that he could see his great-grandmother starting to come around to his way of thinking. “But I notice you didn’t deny it.”
“She was nervous,” Moira said. “It made her babble and say things awkwardly, is all. She’s really a lovely, gracious young woman. And very sweet, too.”
“Nervous?”
“Well, anyone would have been, with you glowering at them across the tea table.”
“I don’t glower.”
“You’re glowering right now, dear,” Moira informed him. “If I were a sensitive young woman like Zoe, I’d be babbling, too.”
“You’ve never babbled in your life,” Reed scoffed.
She laughed softly. “Oh, I babbled a bit more than I like to remember in those early days with your great-grandfather.” The laughter faded into a fond smile. “You’re very like him, you know. It quite takes me back sometimes, just to look at you. He could be very intimidating, too, when he chose.”
“Are you saying I made her nervous?” Reed asked incredulously. The mere thought was almost laughable. The bold, red-haired gypsy who’d looked him up and down with that provocative gleam in her big brown eyes didn’t strike him as the nervous type. Lovely, yes, he’d grant her that. But gracious? Sweet? Nervous? His eyes narrowed. “Now wait a minute here, Gran. You’re not suggesting…” He leaned across the mahogany table, his expression wary and accusing, wondering if he’d been right in his first assessment, after all. “This isn’t some kind of crazy, harebrained matchmaking scheme, is it? Because if it is, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Matchmaking? You thought I was matchmaking?” A soft gurgle of laughter bubbled up and was quickly suppressed. “Well, really, Reed.” The look she gave him was full of amused indignation. “At least give me credit for having the sense God gave a goose. I know perfectly well Zoe isn’t even remotely your type.”
Placated, Reed leaned back in his chair. “I’m glad you realize that.”
“Nor are you hers, I might add. Zoe is the kind of woman who would be drawn to someone with a little more…” one soft white hand fluttered through the air as if groping for the words “…joie de vivre.”
“I enjoy life,” Reed objected.
“Oh, I’m sure you do, in your own way. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. It’s just that I’m afraid you’re a bit, oh…staid, shall we say?…for someone like Zoe.”
“Staid?” he murmured, vaguely insulted by the word.
“Dignified. Proper,” Moira clarified with a fond smile. “You’re a credit to the Sullivan name, Reed. I’ve always thought so, ever since you were a baby.”
“Well, thank you. I think,” he said, wondering why he suddenly felt like a priggish, self-satisfied boor. His great-grandmother had just complimented him, hadn’t she? “Now, if you don’t mind.” Reed rapped a knuckle against the papers on the table. “Could we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Certainly.” Moira folded her hands on top of the table, like an eager little girl at lessons. “What’s the next step?”
Reed sighed. “Do you really mean to pursue this, Gran? No matter what I say?”
Moira nodded. “I do.”
“And if I refuse to have anything to do with it?”
“I’ll be disappointed, of course. But I’m sure I can find someone else to handle the paperwork for me.”
“Not at Sullivan Enterprises, you won’t,” he warned her, his financier’s scowl firmly in place. “Not if I advise against it. And, be assured, I will.”
But Moira Sullivan wasn’t easily intimated, especially not by her own great-grandson. “Well, then, I’ll just have to go outside the family business, won’t I?” She tilted her head, giving him a considering look from under her lashes. “I’ve heard young Andrew Hightower is making quite a name for himself in financial circles these days.”
Andrew Hightower was Reed’s ex-fiancée’s youngest brother. A nice enough kid, but… It galled Reed to realize that the mere mention of the Hightower name struck a sore spot he hadn’t known he had. “You wouldn’t.”
“Yes,” Moira said. “I most definitely would. I intend to arrange for Zoe Moon to have the funds she needs to expand her business. I’d like for you to help me find the best way to do that, so that everyone’s interests are properly looked after. But if you can’t or won’t, well…” she lifted her shoulders in an eloquent little shrug “…I’ll find someone who will, be it Andrew Hightower, or someone else entirely. Or maybe I’ll just give her the money outright,” she said consideringly. “It might be simpler all around that way.”
Reed knew when he was beaten. “All right, Gran. You win. I’ll see what I can do about getting Miss Moon her financing.”
IT WAS NEARLY NINE-THIRTY that night before Zoe heard her next-door neighbor banging around outside in the hallway. Zoe put down the glass of pink grapefruit juice she’d just poured for herself and rushed toward the front door, nearly bursting with the need to vent.
A petite, slender young woman with a short, sleek cap of dark hair and even darker eyes looked up and smiled as Zoe all but exploded into their mutual hallway. “Ciao, Zoe. How’s it goin’?”
“Gina! I thought you’d never get home. Where on earth have you been this late?”
“Same place I’ve been every Wednesday night for the past couple of months. That new client with the arthritis, remember? I told you about him.” She set the edge of her massage table on the floor and let go of the handle, tilting it toward Zoe. “Hold on to this for a minute while I get the rest of my stuff. I left it at the bottom of the stairs.”
“You aren’t going to believe what happened today,” Zoe hollered at her friend’s retreating back. “I had tea with Moira Sullivan. Remember, the woman I told you about? The one I met at The Body Beautiful on Monday?”
“The one who’s going to lend you the money for New Moon, right?” Gina said as she came back up the steps with her equipment bag slung over one shoulder and a bulging sack of groceries in her arms.
Zoe leaned the massage table against the wall and reached for the grocery sack, freeing Gina so she could unlock her front door. “Well, she was going to lend me the money.” Zoe’s lush mouth screwed up in a grimace. “But I think we can kiss that idea goodbye.”
“Oh, no.” Gina turned in the open doorway, automatically reaching out to offer comfort. “She turned you down, after all? I’m so sorry.” She squeezed Zoe’s arm, her sympathy swift and sincere. “I know how much you were counting on this.”
“Oh, she didn’t turn me down.” Zoe moved past her friend into a small studio apartment that was the exact duplicate of her own floor plan, except in reverse, and dropped the grocery sack on the kitchen counter. “He did.”
“He who?”
“Mr. Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV, that’s who.”
“Her husband?”
“Her great-grandson.”
“What does he have to say about it?”
“Plenty, apparently.” Zoe leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, waiting while Gina deposited her equipment bag on the sofa bed and retreated back into the narrow hall to retrieve her massage table. “And none of it good,” she said, when the other woman came back into the room and deftly slid the folded table into its accustomed place behind the sofa.
“Tell me what happened while I put my groceries away,” Gina said, moving toward the kitchen area without bothering to close the front door.
Directly across the hall, Zoe’s door stood wide open, too. Theirs were the only two apartments above the family-owned Italian restaurant on the first floor. The bottom of the stairway was protected by a tall iron security gate that blocked any unauthorized access to the second floor apartments.
“Out.” Gina flapped a hand at Zoe, waving her away as she began to help unload the groceries. “It’s too crowded in here with two of us.”
Zoe moved to one of the two stools on the other side of the counter and plopped down with a dejected sigh. “Things were really going great at first,” she said morosely, watching Gina as she moved around the tiny kitchen. “Moira Sullivan is a wonderful old lady. Very charming and elegant, but really sweet and down-to-earth, too. Not snobbish or stuck-up in the least. She was interested in everything I’d brought her and was talking about what I could do when I had the money, not if. And asking how much and did I think it was enough. And then he walked in.”
“He being the stuffed shirt?”
“Yes. And right from the first…from almost the second he walked in and saw me sitting there next to his great-grandmother…I could tell he didn’t like me.”
Gina turned to face her, a package of spaghetti in one hand, eyes rounded in disbelief, her lips parted in astonishment. “He didn’t like you?”
“Nope.”
“But, Zoe, men always like you. They can’t help it. It’s—” she extended her free hand, palm up, moving it in an expressive gesture that encompassed the half of Zoe’s body that was visible above the counter “—hormonal.”
“He didn’t.”
“Well. My goodness,” Gina murmured, momentarily at a loss for words. She opened a cupboard and put the package of spaghetti away, then turned around with a thoughtful expression on her face, her hand still on the cupboard door. “Is he gay?”
“Definitely not,” Zoe said, shivering a bit as she remembered the way he’d looked at her, and the spark, or whatever it was, that had sizzled between them. She’d had a good long time to think about it, sitting alone in her apartment, fuming, as she waited for Gina to get home so she could discuss it with her. The conclusions she’d drawn left her almost as angry as she’d been when she’d stomped away from him that afternoon. Almost. “I’m pretty sure he’s got the hots for me.”
“The hots? Well, then…” Gina’s eyebrows rose into spiky bangs on her forehead. “You’ve lost me.”
“He likes my body—a lot—but he disapproves of me.”
“Aaah.” Gina nodded her head knowingly. “One of those.”
“Yes, definitely one of those. He practically undressed me with his eyes. Oh, very politely, of course—the man could give etiquette lessons to Miss Manners—but his eyes were anything but! Polite, I mean,” she clarified when Gina just stood there, staring at her. “They’re like blue laser beams. Very cool on the surface, but intense underneath, like a volcano. Very focused, you know? He gave me this one look that practically scorched me all the way to my toes.”
“Scorched?”
Zoe chose not to respond to the question in Gina’s voice. “And then he had the nerve to call me a con artist—me! a con artist!—and accused me of trying to swindle that sweet old lady out of a fortune.”
“In front of her?”
“No, not in front of her. Well,” she amended, “the hot looks were in front of her, but I don’t think she noticed. She’s ninety-two, you know. He waited until we were outside before he started calling me names. That’s when he called New Moon a fly-by-night operation—” her voice rose indignantly at the remembered slur on her company “—and said I could just forget getting any money from his great-grandmother to finance my little enterprise.” She curled her upper lip, giving the word the same unsavory implication he had.
“Jeez.” Gina folded the grocery sack and bent down to put it under the sink. “That sounds a little extreme, even for the repressed type. They usually content themselves with blaming you for arousing their libido, and let it go at that.” She reached for the bright red teakettle on the stove, then hesitated, head tilted as she considered her friend. “Wine or espresso? I’ve got some plain biscotti that would go with either.”
“Espresso,” Zoe said. “Wine would only make me get all weepy and maudlin.”
Gina nodded and turned on the faucet, her gaze lowered as she watched the kettle fill. “What on earth made him think you were some kind of con artist?”
Zoe shrugged. “Beats me.”
Gina lifted her gaze from the kettle to Zoe’s face.
“Honest, I have no idea why he would think that.”
“You want to look me in the eyes when you say that?”
Zoe sighed, knowing she was caught. “Okay. So maybe I, um…influenced his opinion in that regard. A little.”
Gina set the kettle on the stove and turned the heat on. “Influenced?” she murmured encouragingly.
“Well, he made me so darn mad. Staring at me as if he were imagining me naked one minute, and then looking down his nose at me the next, all superior and disapproving, as if it were my fault he was having lewd fantasies in his great-grandmother’s parlor. But I swear, Gina, I didn’t do one thing—not one darned thing—to encourage him. Not at first, anyway,” she admitted, making a clean breast of it. Gina would know if she lied, anyway, just by looking at her. “It was only after he made me so mad that I, well…” She shrugged. “You know how I get sometimes when I lose my temper.”
“I know, sweetie, and it’s not your fault this time. Some men are just pigs,” Gina said sympathetically. “You aren’t responsible for what goes on in their tiny little minds.” She reached across the kitchen counter and patted Zoe’s hand. “So, tell me what you did to make him think you were after his dear old granny’s fortune.”
“Well, Moira had told him she wanted to lend me the money for New Moon, and he was looking at me like he thought I was going to steal the silver on my way out or something, so I sort of—” she shrugged, her lips turning up in a little shamefaced grin “—lived down to his expectations, you might say. You know how I get sometimes, putting my mouth in gear before I’ve engaged my brain.”
Gina nodded sagely. “And what did he do then?”
“He clamped his hand around my arm and hustled me out of there so fast you’d have thought the house was on fire. And then he called me a con artist and said New Moon was a fly-by-night cosmetic company and accused me of trying to bilk—bilk!—his great-grandmother out of a fortune.”
“Cazzone cafone.”
“Yeah, well, he was kind of a jerk, but…” She shrugged again, and the shamefaced look was back. “I guess I can’t really blame him completely.”
“Zoe! He acted like a pig.”
“Oh, I blame him for the pig part,” she assured her friend, “but not what came after. I mean, at the end there, I did act like all I was interested in was the money. And you can’t really blame a guy for trying to protect his sweet old granny from being taken to the cleaners.”
“I can,” Gina said loyally.
Zoe smile at her. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I’ve got to face facts. I lost my temper and blew it, big time. There’s no way Moira Sullivan’s going to be investing in New Moon. Not if her great-grandson has anything to say about it. And it’s my own darn fault.”
“You’ll find another investor. There’s bound to be someone out there who has the vision to see what a great investment New Mo—” Gina cocked her head, listening. “Is that your phone?”
ZOE WAS BACK in her friend’s apartment less than ten minutes later. “You’ll never guess who that was.”
Gina didn’t look up from the tiny cups she was filling with thick, black espresso from the coffee press. “Who?”
“Mr. Stuffed Shirt himself.”
Gina put the coffee press down. “And?” she said carefully, her eyes on Zoe’s face.
“And he apologized for what he said this afternoon.” A big grin turned up the corners of Zoe’s mouth. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation and renewed hope. “He wants to meet with me as soon as possible to discuss investing in New Moon.”
4
“WHICH ONE’S THE STUFFED shirt?”
Zoe brushed the blowing tendrils of her hair out of her eyes with one hand, scanning the rugby field as they approached the sidelines. “There,” she said, unerringly zeroing in on him among all the identically clad men. “The tall one with the dark hair in the second row of that huddle.” She pointed at him with the straw sticking out of the top of her iced latte. “On the red team with the number five on his shirt.”
“Scrum,” Gina corrected, standing on tiptoe to get a better look. “It’s a scrum, not a huddle.” She sank back onto her sneakered heels as the men lowered themselves into an interlocking mass of humanity and started to move like some kind of giant multiheaded crab as they scrambled for possession of the football. “You didn’t tell me he was gorgeous.”
“Is he?” Zoe shrugged and poked her straw into the bottom of her drink cup. “I didn’t notice.”
“And when did you start losing your eyesight, Ms. Moon?”
“Well, I didn’t,” Zoe said defensively. It wasn’t exactly a lie; last Wednesday she’d been more concerned with the look in his eyes than his looks. Not that she hadn’t noticed those, too, but… “I had other things on my mind, if you’ll recall.”
Gina snorted inelegantly. “Don’t waste that big-eyed innocent look on me,” she advised dryly. “I haven’t got enough testosterone for it to work.”
“Fine.” Zoe jabbed her straw into the ice at the bottom of her cup again. “Think whatever you want.”
“He’s really got you rattled, doesn’t he?”
“Well, of course he does. He’s only holding the future of New Moon in his hands.”
But it was more than that.
Her cheeks were flushed and warm, despite the cool September breeze blowing across the field from the Charles River. Her palms were damp. Her nerve endings tingled, making her feel jittery and on edge, almost expectant, like a child sitting in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve waiting for something wondrous to happen. And it had absolutely nothing to do with what he could mean to the future of New Moon.
Zoe sighed.
She wasn’t usually stupid about men. She was, in fact, never stupid about men. She’d learned early that a woman who let herself get all excited and moony-eyed over a handsome face or a charming manner invariably ended up paying for her gullibility in heartache and broken dreams. Her mother, who’d been married and divorced as many times as any Hollywood movie star, had taught by unwitting example what not to do in relationships with men, and Zoe had taken the lessons to heart. She knew, all too well, that to let herself start weaving silly little romantic fantasies about Reed Sullivan was stupid in the extreme.
Oh, sure, he’d apologized for what he’d said out there on the sidewalk in front of his great-grandmother’s house, but that didn’t negate his attitude while they were inside. As Gina had so wisely remarked, his attitude and actions identified him as “one of those,” meaning the kind of man who based his opinions of women on how they looked.
It wasn’t that Zoe minded being thought of as attractive, or having men think she was sexy or beautiful. Or even having them say so. That would have been stupid, because she was all of those things. And she liked being those things. Most of the time. No, what she objected to were men who thought what was on the outside was the sum total of what was on the inside. Or men who thought her spectacular physical attributes constituted a deliberate come-on, and got bent out of shape when she failed to deliver on what they thought she had promised, simply by being.
Not that Reed Sullivan actually fit either of those profiles, precisely. But he’d disapproved of her at first sight, on the basis of her looks alone, and that was enough to condemn him in her eyes.
Or should have been.
It was just the tiniest bit distressing that she couldn’t seem to work up the proper contempt for his sexist attitude, not with him running up and down the field in those little red shorts and the bright color block jersey with the word Bulldogs emblazoned across his broad chest.
Which meant, Zoe realized, totally amazed at herself, that she obviously had a few sexist attitudes of her own to address.
“What are you standing there looking so pensive about?” Gina asked, breaking into her reverie.
Zoe shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, her eyes still focused on the playing field.
Gina followed the direction of her gaze. “He’s got great thighs, doesn’t he?”
“Mmm,” Zoe murmured, absently reaching up to tuck a blowing tendril of hair behind her ear. “Great thighs.” They were long, tanned and heavily muscled, the rock-hard thighs of a dedicated athlete. It was amazing what that expensive navy-blue suit had kept hidden.
“And a really cute little ass,” Gina said. “World class, I’d say.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely world—” Zoe broke off guiltily. Her hand stilled at the back of her head, and she cut her friend a quick, sideways glance.
Gina smirked. “Gotcha.”
“I was talking about that blond Adonis.” Zoe gave a final pat to her hair and lowered her hand. “The one with the shoulders and the stubby little ponytail.”
Gina’s derisive jeer was good-natured. “Sure you were.”
“I was. I—”
“Heads up!” somebody yelled.
Both women ducked as the football came sailing over their heads into the crowd where they stood. By the time they’d straightened up and turned backed to the field to see what had happened, men from both teams were rapidly converging in front of the nearest set of goalposts.
“What’s happening?” Zoe tried to stay out of the way as players who’d been standing on the sidelines rushed onto the field to join their teammates. “Is it a fight?” she asked, and then realized that no one was swinging fists. Instead, the men formed a loose circle and began to chant.
“Is the game over?”
“Yes, the game’s over.” Gina laughed. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s a Zulu dance.”
“A what?”
Gina waved at the action on the field. “Watch.”
“Watch what? Oh, my goodness. Is he taking his clothes off? He’s taking his clothes off!”
The blond Adonis Zoe claimed to have been admiring was stripping down, egged on by the rhythmic chanting of both teams. Shirt, shorts, jockstrap, everything but his cleated shoes and heavy white athletic socks came off in turn. Each garment was grabbed by a teammate as the Adonis discarded it, and flung up over the crossbar on the goalposts. And then, as naked as a newborn baby except for his footwear, the player began climbing up after his clothes. The crowd cheered and clapped, taking up the players’ chant.
“Is that some bizarre kind of penalty?” Zoe asked, her eyes on the bare white bottom of the naked rugby player as he wriggled up the goalpost.
“No, it’s not a penalty. It means he scored his first try.”
“Try?”
“Like a touchdown in the NFL,” Gina explained. “The team gets five points when the ball is kicked or carried over the try line and touched down.”
“And for that the poor man is publicly humiliated?”
“The Zulu dance is a time-honored tradition. Every player does it after he scores his first try.”
“Every player?” Zoe’s glance darted over the men in the field. Over one man in particular. “Every time he makes a touchdown?”
“Try, not touchdown,” Gina corrected. “And only the first time he does it.” She followed the direction of Zoe’s gaze and grinned knowingly. “I’m afraid you missed your chance there,” she said. “Judging by the way he played today, the stuffed shirt isn’t new at the game. He probably scored his first try years ago. You’re going to have to figure out some other way to see him naked.”
“I have no desire to see Reed Sullivan naked,” Zoe said, but it was a lie.
And they both knew it.
Any healthy, red-blooded, heterosexual woman in the world would have paid good money to see this Reed Sullivan naked, whatever they might have thought of the stuffed shirt. This Reed Sullivan was all-male: tousled and grass-stained and sweaty, his big hands clapping in time to the deep-throated masculine chant, his head thrown back, laughing, triumphant, as he watched his teammate struggle to climb out onto the crossbar and retrieve his clothes. Blood trickled down the right side of Reed’s face, evidence that the cut bisecting his eyebrow had come open. One of the shoulder seams of his rugby jersey had been torn and the sleeve was hanging down, exposing his arm from the rounded bulge of his shoulder to the swell of his heavily muscled biceps.
That tailored blue suit, Zoe found herself thinking again, had covered up a lot, including a good deal of his…uh, personality. This Reed Sullivan wasn’t poised and polished. He certainly wasn’t repressed. He didn’t even look quite civilized. He looked basic and elemental and male, like a man who’d know how to appreciate a beautiful woman. Or any woman at all, for that matter. A man who’d know exactly what to do with one if he ever got his hands on her.
He turned his head just then, catching her staring at him, staring back, registering no surprise at seeing her there even though they weren’t scheduled to meet again until Monday morning at his office in the Sullivan Building. Even with half the width of the field between them Zoe could see the change in his eyes—the laughter fading, the heat slowly building, the blatant, unabashed, purely masculine speculation in his gaze. It was a scorching, searching look, akin to the one he’d given her when she’d handed him his tea in his great-grandmother’s parlor, only more so. And this time she had no trouble reading it.
What was she doing here?
Was she available?
Would she let him take her?
When?
Zoe couldn’t look away. She didn’t even want to. She’d never been the focus of that much heat before, the center of that much concentrated sexual intensity. It was as if the world had suddenly narrowed down to only two. Him and her. Man and woman. Everything else faded into insignificance. She forgot all about the laughing, cheering crowd. Gina. New Moon. His disapproval of her. His perfunctory, albeit charming, apology over the phone. Her own doubts and misgivings about what she might be getting herself into. She forgot everything except the look in his eyes and the thrilling, exhilarating, frightening sense of anticipation and excitement it generated in her.
Then the men turned, seemingly en masse, and headed for the sidelines. He was coming right toward her, that heat still in his eyes, his eyes still on her face, purpose in every step.
Hail the conquering hero, she thought inanely, fighting the urge to shrink back behind Gina like some trembling Victorian virgin.
What had happened to the stuffed shirt?
She could handle the stuffed shirt with one hand tied behind her back.
She couldn’t handle this man with a whip and a chair.
Zoe managed to look away, finally—to the ground first, and then, panicked, at Gina. But Gina wasn’t any help. She was staring at Reed, too. Or at least in Reed’s direction.
“Who’s the yummy Italian stallion with him?” she asked.
Zoe ducked her head, her lashes protectively lowered, sucking air and melted ice from the bottom of her cup as if getting the last drop of creamy iced coffee was the most important thing in the world at the moment. “Him who?”
Gina rolled her eyes. “The stuffed shirt. Who’s the guy with him?”
“How should I know?” Zoe mumbled, without looking.
“Well, he seems to know you,” Gina said. “He just waved.”
Zoe darted a quick glance from under her lashes without lifting her head. “That’s Moira Sullivan’s butler. Eddie something.”
“The stuffed shirt plays rugby with his great-grandmother’s butler?” Gina’s expressive eyebrows lifted like twin arches. “How democratic of him. I guess maybe he’s not quite so stuff— Hi, there, fellas. Great game.” raspberry lips pursed Reed automatically checked his stride to avoid running into the brunette who suddenly stood in his way. “Thanks,” he murmured absently, his gaze still riveted on the object of his rampaging…affections.
Apparently oblivious to his presence, she was standing half-hidden behind her pint-size friend, her lids lowered, her lusious raspberry lips pursed around the straw protruding from the plastic lid of a paper cup. No one looking at her would believe she’d just been staring at him as if they were gazing at each other across the width of a rumpled bed rather than a rugby field. He almost didn’t believe it himself except there was something just a bit too studied and deliberate about the way she stood there, not looking at him. Something that told him she was as aware of him as he was of her. Something that made him think…hope…wish…that if he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, she’d melt against him in total surrender and beg him to take her. Repeatedly.
“I’m Gina,” the brunette said. “You must be Reed.”
“Uh…yeah.” Reed tore his gaze away from Zoe’s averted face, gathering himself together with a Herculean effort. The rugby field was no place to indulge in ridiculous sexual fantasies. “Yes, I’m Reed.” Belatedly, remembering his manners, he extended his hand to her. “Reed Sullivan,” he said politely, somehow managing to sound as calm and unaffected as if they were standing in his penthouse office. As if his blood wasn’t roaring through his veins like an out of control locomotive on a downhill grade. As if he weren’t still fighting the insane urge to toss the luscious Miss Moon over his shoulder and keep right on walking—preferably straight to the king-size bed in the master bedroom of his Back Bay town house. “And you’re Gina…” he did a quick scan of his memory banks “…Molinari, isn’t it?”
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Candace Schuler
Renowned for her sensual writing, Candace Schuler defines hot in this sizzling encounter between a tantalizing free spirit called Zoe Moon and the very proper, very controlled grandson of her mentor.Reed Sullivan doesn't know what's hit him when Zoe and his grandmother combine forces to loosen him up. But Zoe alone is enough to trigger a meltdown! And that's really sexy.
“You feel the heat, don’t you, Zoe? The fire. You feel it.”
Oh, yes, she felt it all right. His heat. Her heat. Their heat. It scorched her nerve endings, setting her whole body ablaze with desire. She bit back a moan.
“I know,” Reed murmured soothingly. “It burns, doesn’t it? It makes you ache inside.”
The words were spoken a hairsbreadth away from her lips, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. “But we have to wait to put the fire out. It will be better that way. When we finally give in to it and come together, we’ll know why.”
“Why?” Zoe breathed. The word was little more than a whimper.
“Lust,” he growled. “We’re going to burn each other up and it’s going to be glorious. But until that time comes—” with superhuman effort he pushed away, releasing her from the spell he’d woven with his words and his body and the hot, dangerous look in his eyes “—we aren’t going to take any chances.”
Uninhibited
Candace Schuler
To my editor, Susan Sheppard,
who has the patience of a saint
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR…
Ever since I left Reed Sullivan standing at the altar in Easy Lovin’ (Temptation #331), I’ve been looking for the right woman for him. I always thought he was a pretty nice guy, with all the basic ingredients of a perfect hero. I mean, what’s not to like, right? He was sexy, suave, sinfully good-looking, filthy rich and extremely well mannered. If he had any flaw, it was that he was, perhaps, just a bit too perfect. Too polished. Too much the proper Bostonian aristocrat. In short, my perfect hero was in a perfect rut—and what he needed was someone to blast him out of it.
Zoe Moon proved to be the perfect stick of dynamite. A flamboyant, free-spirited, uninhibited Boston bohemian, she is the antithesis of everything he thought he wanted in a woman.
It was great fun putting them together and watching the sparks fly. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Best wishes,
P.S. I love hearing from readers. You can reach me at my Web site at CandaceSchuler.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
1
REED SULLIVAN ASCENDED the wide brick steps of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion with nearly the same trepidation as he had shown the first time she had summoned him to share her afternoon tea.
The weekly ritual had started as a lesson in deportment, a continuation of the Wednesday afternoon torture known as Miss Margaret’s Dance Academy for Young Ladies and Gentlemen. Moira Sullivan had seemed ancient to his eight-year-old self, with her snowy hair swept up into what he now knew was a Gibson girl topknot, and her elegant afternoon suits, which he now knew were Chanels. He’d been tongue-tied and uncomfortable at first, painfully aware that he was supposed to be on his best behavior, and itching for the whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible.
His great-grandmother had graciously invited him to stuff himself with frosted petits fours without regard for how they might ruin his dinner, all the while skillfully encouraging him to vent about the indignity of actually having to put his arms around a girl and attempt to waltz her around the room in front of his giggling friends. And then she’d rolled back a corner of the Aubusson carpet covering the gleaming parlor floor, placed a small needlepoint pillow beneath her knees and beat him in a hotly contested game of ringer. He’d lost his prized Indian lutz to her, the one he’d traded two peppermint swirls and a blue clearie for.
After that, the visits to his great-grandmother became, if not the highlight of his week, then an eagerly anticipated part of it—if only because they offered him the ongoing opportunity to reclaim his Indian lutz. Even during his teen years, when girls and cars and being cool were the focus of his existence and marbles were the last thing on his mind, he still found time for the weekly visits. In the nearly two decades since then, all through the time he spent earning both a law degree and an M.B.A. from Harvard, through the long days spent toiling at his first lowly job in the family firm to the even longer days required by the high powered position he now held, through schoolboy crushes, discreet love affairs and the very public embarrassment of a broken engagement, the weekly ritual had endured. Sharing tea and conversation with his great-grandmother was still one of the highlights of his week.
They were an unlikely pair, perhaps, the oldest living Sullivan and the thirty-three-year-old heir apparent. Although they were separated both by gender and generations, with nearly sixty years of living between them, they clicked on some instinctive level that had nothing to do with experience or age. Sitting in Moira Sullivan’s front parlor, sipping tea, trading benign gossip and bits of personal news, Reed wasn’t the senior vice president in charge of international investments; he wasn’t the head of any high-profile committee; he wasn’t the heir to the vast fortune and responsibilities of the Sullivan business empire. He was simply Moira’s favorite great-grandchild. And there was nothing that great-grandchild wouldn’t do for his beloved granny.
Or almost nothing.
Lately, she’d been testing the limits of his affection and forbearance.
Well, forbearance, anyway, he amended, absently fingering the smooth Indian lutz marble in the trouser pocket of his navy, worsted flannel suit. There were no limits on his affection for her.
With a sigh, he slipped his hand from his pocket and lifted it to press a well-manicured index finger against the bell on Moira Sullivan’s front door. It opened before the sound of the chimes had drifted away on the cool September air.
“Good afternoon, Eddie,” Reed said, handing his briefcase and gym bag to the strapping young man who’d answered his summons. “Is she alone today?”
Eddie grinned and shook his head. “Got a luscious little redhead in there with her.”
Reed groaned.
“Wait till you see her before you start complaining, man,” Eddie counseled as he skillfully relieved Reed of his camel hair overcoat before Reed could do it for himself. “She’s better than the last three, for sure.”
Reed raised an eyebrow, then lifted his hand in response to the twinge of discomfort that accompanied the motion, absently smoothing the small butterfly bandage bisecting his brow with one finger as if to make sure it was still secure. “Better how?” he asked.
Eddie’s grin turned into an appreciative leer. “Big brown eyes. Soft, sexy mouth. Lots of wild, curly hair hanging halfway down her back. Killer body. She’s got style, too. Dresses real funky.”
“Funky?”
“Think Annie Hall meets Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said over his shoulder as he hung the overcoat in the hall closet. The briefcase and gym bag were neatly stowed on the floor beneath it.
“Annie Hall meets…” Reed shuddered at the thought. His taste ran toward the sophisticated Grace Kelly type. Cool, understated and elegant—that was his kind of woman. Badly dressed waifs with untidy hair, no matter how well endowed, were not his cup of tea.
“Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said helpfully as he curled his meaty fingers around the curved brass handles on the elaborately carved double doors leading into the parlor. “You know, the blond babe with the prodigiously fine hooters.” He pushed the doors open with a flourish. “Mr. Sullivan has arrived, ma’am,” he intoned sonorously, bowing slightly toward his employer, as stiff and proper as if he had never uttered the word hooters—nor even knew what it meant.
The two women sitting on the pale blue brocade Victorian settee looked up expectantly. Moira Sullivan appeared much the same as she had the first time Reed had taken tea with her, nearly twenty-five years ago. She was wearing one of her elegant afternoon suits, a deep wine-colored bouclé that was immensely flattering against her pale skin and soft white hair. A triple strand of milky pearls adorned her neck. A large, square-cut sapphire sparkled on her right hand, complement to the impressive sapphire-and-diamond wedding set on her left. But it was her eyes that caught and held Reed’s attention. Bluer than the sapphires she wore, they were full of warmth and welcome, as always, with an undisguised hint of excitement and anticipation lurking in their depths.
“Hello, Gran,” he said cautiously, his gaze shifting to the young woman who sat beside his elegant, aged, conniving relative.
The redhead’s eyes were as big and brown as Eddie had said they were, wide set and heavily lashed beneath thick, sharply arched auburn brows. Her hair was a riotous mass of corkscrew curls that tumbled well past her shoulders. Her clothes were a colorful hodgepodge of fabric and style.
More gypsy than waif, Reed decided in that first comprehensive glance.
She wore a man’s soft white tuxedo shirt with a wing collar and an intricate Celtic brooch at the throat. Fanciful earrings of twisted metal and shiny stones dangled from her ears, glittering through the mass of springy curls. Dark forest-green, velvet pants were tucked into purple suede half-boots. A knitted mohair shawl in deep, rich shades of gold, brown and aubergine slipped off one shoulder to pool on the brocade settee beside her, its soft, nubby folds spilling over the edge toward the floor. Reed couldn’t tell anything about her alleged killer body because of that shawl and the large tapestry bag she held open on her lap, but her mouth was…well, soft and sexy didn’t even begin to describe it, he decided after a moment’s absorbed reflection.
Her lips were full and beautifully sculpted, as pink and glossy and moist as if she’d just finished eating a raspberry Popsicle. It was the kind of mouth made for heated, heedless kisses and breathless promises whispered in the dark across a satin pillow. Not a waif’s mouth, but a gypsy’s.
And he didn’t date gypsies—not even gorgeous, sexy gypsies—any more than he dated waifs. He dated nice, normal, conventional, well-bred women; the kind of women the men in his family had been dating and marrying for generations; the kind of women who were exactly like the last three women he’d met in Moira’s parlor over the past couple of months. The kind of women, in fact, who were exactly like the kind of woman he thought he’d been engaged to a couple of years ago.
It had turned out that his ex-fiancée hadn’t been all that conventional, after all, when it came right down to it. After a five-year engagement, she’d more or less left him standing at the altar and run off to New Orleans to work in a friend’s lingerie shop while she decided whether or not she really wanted to get married. She decided she did—to a laid-back New Orleans hairdresser rather than Reed’s illustrious self.
He’d put a good face on it—Sullivans always put a good face on things—but it had been quite a blow. To his pride, if nothing else. And truth be told, after all the dust had settled, he’d realized it was only his pride that had suffered any real damage; his heart had remained completely unscathed. In retrospect, he realized that Katherine had been absolutely right to run out on him because what he’d felt for her—what they’d felt for each other—had been nothing more than lifelong friendship coupled with a desire to satisfy family expectations. Reed still intended to satisfy his family’s expectations, and his own, as well. Eventually.
So what in hell was his dear granny up to?
It certainly couldn’t be matchmaking, not with this woman.
Could it?
“Shall I get the tea cart now, ma’am?” Eddie asked, his voice jolting Reed out of his absorption with Moira’s flamboyant guest and the likely reason for her presence in his great-grandmother’s front parlor.
“Yes, please, Eddie.” The whisper of an Irish lilt enhanced Moira Sullivan’s voice, adding piquancy to her upper-crust Boston accent. “And remind Mrs. Wheaton that there should be plenty of scones on the tray, won’t you?” She flashed a warm smile at the young woman sitting next to her. “I promised our guest a traditional tea with scones and clotted cream and strawberry preserves.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Eddie bowed again and backed out of the room, pulling the doors closed behind him.
Moira lifted her hand, extending it toward her great-grandson. “Reed, dear,” she said, her voice overflowing with delight. “Come and meet my new friend. This is Zoe Moon.” She flashed a warm, approving smile at the young woman sitting beside her. “Miss Zoe Moon,” she added, beaming like a proud mother showing off her new baby.
Reed stifled a sigh. No doubt about it now. As unlikely as it seemed, he’d just been introduced to yet another candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV. It had been almost three years since his aborted trip down the aisle, and obviously his dear old granny was getting desperate to see him take that walk again. After all, he’d be thirty-four soon and no other Sullivan male in documented history had made it past thirty unwed. For him to have crossed that benchmark still a bachelor was looked upon as not quite proper—suspect, even—by the more conservative members of the family. Which was nearly all of them.
Plastering a polite smile on his face, Reed moved across the carpet to take his great-grandmother’s outstretched hand, resigned to enduring the next two hours of her relentless matchmaking efforts with all the charm and good grace at his command.
“How are you, sweetheart?” he said, bending to kiss Moira’s cheek. He nodded at the young woman sitting next to her as he straightened. “Miss Moon.”
“Call me Zoe, please,” she said as she extended her hand to him.
The scent of violets, incongruously sweet and old-fashioned, drifted up to meet him as he reached out to shake her hand. Her palm was cool and small against his, the fingers long and tapering, delicate but not fragile. Her nails were painted a gleaming coppery color and she wore several narrow rings of various metals, some with glittering stones like the ones in her ears.
Reed had a brief, heated image of those slender, bejeweled hands on his bare back, the gleaming nails pressing into hard muscle as she arched under him and begged for more. He withdrew his hand from hers.
“Reed Sullivan,” he murmured politely, wondering if she was available for anything other than the matrimonial bliss his great-grandmother was so dead set on.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Zoe Moon’s voice was throaty and melodious, as seductive as the rest of her. The look in her eyes as she smiled up at him was friendly, curious and just slightly speculative, as if she were sizing him up.
As possible husband material, no doubt, he thought cynically.
“Moira has told me so much about you,” Zoe Moon said.
“Really?” He shot a cool, amused glance at his great-grandmother and seated himself in the wing chair opposite the settee. A low piecrust table, its gleaming surface decorated with an arrangement of golden button mums in a crystal bowl, occupied the space between them. “She hasn’t said a word about you to me.”
“That’s because Zoe and I only just met this past Monday,” Moira informed him.
Oh, great, he thought, now she’s parading complete strangers under my nose!
“Zoe’s an entrepreneur.”
“Really?” Reed murmured, polite but not encouraging. “In what field?”
“Cosmetics,” Moira said before Zoe could answer. She gestured at the table between them. “She was just showing me a few of her wonderful products.”
Reed glanced at the table. Half-hidden behind the arrangement of mums were several small jars and bottles. At least half of them were open, perfuming the air with the faint, fresh scent of flowers and aromatic herbs. He’d noticed the fragrance when he came into the parlor, but hadn’t thought anything about it, unconsciously assuming it came from the crystal bowls of potpourri Moira always kept scattered around the house.
On the settee next to Moira were a couple of shoe boxes he hadn’t noticed before, either, and a large Betsey Johnson shopping bag on the floor between the two women’s feet. Either Miss Moon had made a stop on Newbury Street before she called on Moira, or she was carting her wares around like a well-heeled bag lady. Whichever, someone really ought to tell her how unprofessional it made her appear.
“Then Miss Moon is…what?” He arched an eyebrow, ignoring the accompanying twinge as the butterfly bandage tugged at the fine hairs. “An Avon lady?”
“No, she’s not an Avon lady. She’s an entrepreneur.” Moira stressed the word as if he might not have understood it the first time. “She doesn’t sell other people’s cosmetics. She sells her own.”
“Well, not cosmetics, exactly,” Zoe Moon demurred with a smile. “Just lotions, body oils and sachets. So far, at least.”
“They’re not just anything,” Moira objected. She plucked a slender, frosted-green-glass bottle off the table. The words New Moon were hand-lettered in elegant calligraphy across the label, superimposed over a line drawing of a pale crescent moon. “Zoe makes them herself, right in her own kitchen, using only the purest, most natural ingredients.” Moira twisted the top off of the bottle and held it across the table toward Reed. “Try this,” she ordered. “It’s the most exquisite hand lotion I’ve ever used. Makes your skin feel as soft as water.”
Zoe extended her hand and intercepted the bottle before Reed could stir himself to reach for it. “I’m sure Mr. Sullivan—” she gave him a slanting, sideways look as she said his name, both her expression and her tone letting him know she’d noticed and was…amused, he decided, by his insistence on the formality of address “—doesn’t want to go back to the office smelling like a flower garden.”
Both puzzled and just a bit disgruntled by her attitude, he watched her recap the bottle and set it on the piecrust table. As one of Boston’s wealthiest and most eligible bachelors, Reed was accustomed to a great deal of respect, even awe, from the opposite sex. Women didn’t usually laugh at him, not even silently.
“Oh, Reed won’t go back to the office from here, will you, dear?” Moira said, apparently oblivious to the byplay between her guests.
Which was decidedly odd, Reed thought. Despite her advanced age, his great-grandmother prided herself on knowing exactly what was going on at all times.
“He always heads off to rugby practice after tea.” Moira smiled in the direction of her great-grandson without actually taking her eyes off Zoe. “So I’m sure he doesn’t care what he smells like.”
Zoe Moon slanted Reed another glance, taking in the small white bandage on his eyebrow, skimming the width of his shoulders, sweeping the length of his legs beneath the worsted flannel of his navy slacks as if assessing his fitness for the sport…or something else. Only sheer strength of will kept him from squirming like an inexperienced adolescent under her frank, unabashed scrutiny. He managed to meet her gaze, when she brought it back to his, with a cool expression and an elegantly raised eyebrow, the epitome of masculine aplomb.
She didn’t even have the grace to blush at being caught checking him out so blatantly. She simply smiled and looked away, turning her attention back to her hostess.
“I don’t imagine his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a…” Her gaze flickered back to Reed. “What do you call that group hug in the middle of a game?”
He scowled at the teasing note in her voice. She was definitely laughing at him! “A scrum,” he growled, all but biting off the word in irritation.
Zoe Moon didn’t seem to notice the warning edge in his tone. “A scrum. Thank you.” She nodded, smiling, and turned her gaze back on Moira.
His scowl deepened.
If she was vying to become a candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV, she was sure as hell going about it the wrong way. Not that she was in the running, anyway, of course. Not that anyone was in the running. But still… Didn’t she know that bank presidents and highly placed corporate executives had been known to tremble in fear when he scowled at them?
“I don’t think his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a scrum,” she said to Moira, completely oblivious to Reed’s growing annoyance. “It would interfere with the smell of fresh blood and manly sweat.”
“Well…perhaps you’re right,” Moira agreed, not seeming to notice Reed’s annoyance, either. “But, still, it’s important that he be familiar with the products, don’t you think?”
“He could look at my formulas.”
“Yes, of course. That’s a splendid idea.” Moira picked up one of the shoe boxes near her hip, removed the lid and began shuffling through the contents.
Not shoes or cosmetics, Reed noted sourly, but papers. Untidy stacks of papers, shoved every which way into the shoe box.
“Now, where are they?” Moira murmured, half to herself. “I had the one for your wonderful lotion in my hand not more than ten minutes ago.”
“Why the he—” Reed caught himself before he uttered the profanity in front of his aged relative. “Why in the world would I need to look at the formula for some hand lotion?” he asked. “I’ll look at it, of course, if you want me to,” he amended when Moira glanced up with a delicately raised eyebrow that showed their kinship more clearly than the brilliant blue of their eyes, “but why would you want—”
The parlor doors opened. “Tea, ma’am.” Eddie rolled the two-tiered cart into the room.
“Oh, wonderful.” Moira beamed at her butler. “I’m sure everyone must be as parched as I am. All this talk of business has worked up a thirst in all of us, I’m sure.”
“Business?” Reed said. Had he missed something here? “What bus—”
“Put it right there, please, Eddie.” Moira motioned to a spot in front of the Adams mantel, halfway between Zoe’s end of the settee and the wing chair where Reed sat. “You can just leave it,” she instructed when Eddie began to fiddle with the delicate cups and saucers. “We’ll serve ourselves today.”
“Very good, ma’am.” Eddie bowed himself out of the room.
Moira gestured toward the tea cart. “Zoe, dear, would you mind pouring, please? I’m afraid my wrists aren’t up to managing that heavy teapot these days.”
“Yes, of course. I’d be glad to.” Zoe shifted the tapestry bag from her lap to the floor, shrugging the enveloping shawl from her shoulders as she rose to her feet.
The question Reed had been about to ask about his great-grandmother’s supposedly weak wrists died on his tongue due to a sudden and complete lack of moisture.
Killer body, indeed.
Zoe Moon was built like a goddess…an Amazon…a Playboy Playmate of the Year…. Hell, of the decade!
She was all lush, tempting curves and intriguing hollows: high, round breasts swelling luxuriantly against the front of the mannish tuxedo shirt; an impossibly tiny waist set off by a narrow, gold leather belt; sleekly rounded hips and slender thighs lovingly outlined beneath the caress of forest-green velvet.
What was the word Eddie had used to describe her?
Luscious.
Reed actually felt his mouth begin to water as he watched her pour tea into one of his great-grandmother’s delicate Spode cups.
He swallowed.
Twice.
“Sugar? Lemon?” Zoe asked, her limpid, brown-eyed gaze fixed attentively on her hostess. “Milk?”
Moira glanced up from the open shoe box on her lap. “Oh, nothing in the tea, thank you. But I will have one of those butter cookies on the side, if you’d be so kind,” she answered. “You can just put it on the table there.” She indicated a spot on the piecrust table in front of her with a nod. “There’s a dear,” she said approvingly before returning her full attention to the papers in the shoe box. “I know it’s here….” she murmured vaguely as she rifled through them.
“Just what are you looking for, Gr—”
“And you, Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe asked, turning to him with an empty cup in her hand. “What would you like?”
You, he thought in that split second before he could censor himself. Naked. In bed. Under me. Moaning my name in mindless ecstasy.
Zoe smiled and shook her head. “In your tea,” she chided softly, as if he’d spoken his desire aloud.
Reed Sullivan IV, scion of the Sullivan empire, financial wunderkind, experienced man of the world, suddenly felt exactly the way he had the time he’d been caught by Sister Madeline Marie, trying to look up Patsy Flannery’s dress on the jungle gym during recess. Now, as then, he opened his mouth to answer, but the words got stuck in his throat. He could only hope he wasn’t blushing, too.
“Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe prompted, as she stood holding a cup of tea in one slender, beringed hand and the silver sugar tongs in the other.
He had a sudden, searing vision of her standing there naked, in exactly the same position. No…not naked. In his mind’s eye she was wearing stiletto heels and a frilly little apron made of sheer net and black lace, and—
“Mr. Sullivan,” she said sharply, as if she had read his thoughts.
Or maybe it was just his guilty conscience that made her sound so much like Sister Madeline Marie had that day on the playground.
“One sugar, please,” he croaked.
“One sugar it is.”
She bent her head to her task, using the silver tongs to pluck a sugar cube from the bowl and drop it into his cup, lifting a tiny teaspoon to stir the hot liquid and melt the sugar, tapping the spoon lightly against the rim of the cup before placing it gently back on the silver spoon rest. The back of her hand brushed against a frosted petit four and she lifted her hand to her mouth, absently licking at one knuckle.
Reed sat mesmerized, watching every precise, delicate movement. Her tongue was nearly as pink as the frosting. And probably sweeter, too…
“Your tea, Mr. Sullivan.”
He snapped out of a brief, delicious fantasy of licking frosting off of her fingers—and various other places—to find her standing in front of his chair, the cup of tea held practically under his nose. He tried not to picture her naked again—he really did—but it was a hopeless endeavor; she was the kind of woman who inspired lustful fantasies. He wondered how she’d look in one of those skimpy bits of satin and lace that graced the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Something black with garters, he thought, decorated with little rosettes the color of the frosting on the petits fours.
“I hope it’s the way you like it,” she said.
“I’m sure it is,” he managed to answer suavely, years of good manners and lessons in deportment coming to his rescue despite the lascivious pictures forming in his mind. “Thank you.”
Their fingers touched.
Heat sizzled up his arm and straight into his brain cells, frying untold millions of nerve endings and sending alarm signals to points south. Her gaze lifted to his, eyes widened, startled, as if she felt something, too. And then she released her hold on the saucer and turned away. His fingers were suddenly so unsteady he had to reach up with his free hand to anchor the fragile cup in its saucer to keep from spilling hot tea in his lap.
“Ah, here it is!” Moira’s voice was triumphant. “I knew I’d seen it in this box.”
“Seen what, Gran?” Reed asked, without taking his eyes off of Zoe.
She stood with her back to him now, calmly pouring out her own cup of tea, as if that charged moment had never happened. Her wild tumble of hair was so long it brushed against the wide leather belt encircling her impossible waist.
“The formula,” Moira said.
“The what?” he murmured, wondering how all that glorious hair would look cascading down Zoe Moon’s naked back…wondering how it would feel if he reached out and grasped a handful…wondering if the curls between her slender thighs were the same flame-hot color as the ones on her head.
“The formula I want you to look at, dear,” Moira said. “I found it.”
Reed managed to tear his eyes away from Zoe long enough to glance at his great-grandmother. “What formula is that, Gran?”
“For Zoe’s wonderful hand lotion. Haven’t you been paying attention? Reed?” Her voice rose slightly in reprimand. “Reed, are you listening to me, young man?”
“I’m sorry.” He turned his head toward his great-grandmother, refocusing his attention with superhuman effort. “You have my full attention.” Or she would when Zoe sat down beside her again so he didn’t have to strain to keep her in his peripheral vision. “What do you want me to look at, sweetheart?”
“This formula, for starters.” Moira tapped the side of the shoe box with the tip of one finger. “And the rest of the papers, too, of course.”
“The rest of the papers?” His glance darted sideways as Zoe reseated herself in the corner of the settee.
She brushed a long, springy tendril of hair back with one hand, casually sweeping it behind her shoulder, and crossed her legs—her long, slender, velvet-sheathed legs—balancing her teacup and saucer on her knee.
“What, ah…” Reed swallowed and forced himself to look back at his great-grandmother. “What kind of papers?”
“Oh…” Light glittered off the sapphire on Moira’s right hand as it fluttered through the air. “Receipts and bills and things,” she said vaguely, finally claiming her great-grandson’s attention completely.
Moira Sullivan was never vague about anything. Ever.
“Zoe brought all her files as well as her formulas.” She smiled approvingly at the younger woman. “You did bring everything with you, didn’t you, dear?”
“Everything I thought might be useful to the discussion.” Zoe gestured at the tapestry bag on the floor. “What’s not in shoe boxes is in there.”
“Useful to what discussion?” Reed leaned forward and carefully set his teacup and saucer on the little piecrust table so he could give his full attention to the conversation. He had the uneasy feeling that he’d missed something vitally important in his libidinous preoccupation with the luscious Miss Moon. “Just what are we talking about here?”
“Well, my goodness, Reed,” Moira admonished him, “haven’t you been listening? I want you to look at Zoe’s papers for me.”
“Yes, I got that part. Why?”
“Because I’m going to give her the money to expand her company, that’s why. And I want you to tell me the best way to do it.”
2
“YOU STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU are, Gran.” Reed rose to his feet as he spoke. “Miss Moon and I can see ourselves to the door.”
Moira relaxed back onto the settee without even a token murmur of protest. “Thank you, dear. I’d appreciate that. These old bones of mine are a bit creaky and uncooperative these days.” She held her hand out to Zoe. “I’m looking forward to getting started on our project,” she said when Zoe reached out and clasped her fingers. “It’s going to be so exciting. As soon as Reed gets all the paperwork done we’ll have a little party to celebrate.” Her eyes twinkled at the thought. “A sit-down dinner, I think, with the men in black tie so we ladies can get all gussied up. And lots of champagne. Do you like champagne, Zoe?”
“I love champagne.” Impulsively, obeying her instincts as she always did, Zoe bent and kissed her hostess’s cheek. It was soft and papery beneath her lips, and smelled sweetly of expensive face powder and Chanel No. 5. “Thank you,” she whispered, and gently squeezed the fragile hand in hers.
“No, thank you.” Moira returned the squeeze with surprising strength from someone with creaky old bones. “I haven’t looked forward to anything half so much in a long time. It’s going to be such fun.” She smiled up into her great-grandson’s face, her own alight with an almost childlike joy. “Isn’t it going to be fun, dear?”
Zoe didn’t think fun was exactly the word Mr. Reed Sullivan IV would have used to describe the situation. Unless she was very much mistaken, he hadn’t been the least bit amused when he finally realized what his great-grandmother was planning to do. He’d been…well, appalled was the only word for the look that had flashed, ever so briefly, in his cool blue eyes.
“We’ll see,” he said stoically, confirming Zoe’s supposition. “It’s a little too early in the game to be making predictions.”
He reached out as he spoke, touching his fingers to the small of Zoe’s back as if to hurry her along, then drew back sharply. Zoe felt a small jolt and her skin rippled, chill bumps racing up her spine. She took a half step to the side, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. “Lots of static electricity in the air this time of year,” she said with a tight little smile.
“Yes,” Reed agreed as he took a step back from her. “That must be it. Static electricity. You should have Eddie check the setting on your humidifier, Gran. It might need to be turned up a notch or two. Miss Moon?” He extended his hand in a gesture that indicated she should precede him toward the double doors.
Though he was excruciatingly polite about it, the man obviously couldn’t wait to get her out of his great-grandmother’s parlor…away from his great-grandmother’s wallet. Oh, he hid his impatience behind a patrician air and the same sort of bland, noncommittal smile she’d seen on the faces of half a dozen bankers over the last couple of months, but she knew exactly what he was thinking. If it were up to him, she wouldn’t get the money. Thank goodness it wasn’t up to him.
“I hope,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
Zoe shook her head at him. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
“Then.” He extended his hand again, polite, implacable, expecting to be obeyed. “After you.”
Zoe abruptly decided it would do him good to be forced to hold his horses for a minute or two. She got the impression that he wasn’t often required to wait for much of anything, and patience was a virtue, after all. She dropped her heavy tapestry bag to the floor and unhooked one of the handles of the Betsey Johnson shopping bag from the crook of her arm, letting it swing open.
“Why don’t I leave a sample of my hand cream with you,” she said to Moira as she dug through the bag. “That way you can compare the two—the lotion versus the cream.” She extracted a small, squat, green glass container from the bag and presented it to Moira on the flat of her hand. “Use one on each hand for a week or so and see which you like better. Sort of our own form of, ah…” she glanced over her shoulder at Reed with a wide, guileless smile “…market research?” she said, all but batting her lashes at him. “Is that the right term?”
He gave her a slight nod. “It is,” he said civilly.
She had to hand it to him. The man really did have lovely manners and truly impressive self-control. He stood there in his understated silk tie and his expensive navy blue suit—custom-made, no doubt—looking all cool and unconcerned, as debonair as James Bond at the baccarat table, while underneath she knew he wanted nothing more than to grab her by the scruff of the neck and toss her into the street. She’d been aware of his gaze on her all during their oh-so-civilized tea, sensing the disapproval lurking just beneath the surface of his cool, unruffled calm even before he realized what his great-grandmother meant to do.
Which didn’t make any sense.
Zoe was well aware of her effect on most men. Just the sight of her was often enough to turn the weak-minded among them into slobbering, adoring idiots. Not that she thought Reed Sullivan was weak-minded but…well, even strong-minded men were usually inclined to look favorably on her, at least at first sight. It wasn’t something she exploited—not often, anyway, not unless she really had to—but it was something she counted on to be there, kind of like the sun rising in the east every morning. Fair or not, her looks gave her an edge she had come to depend on in her dealings with men.
Instead of looking favorably on her, though, Reed Sullivan had been suspicious and disapproving from the minute he walked into the cheery, sunlit parlor and saw her sitting on the settee beside his great-grandmother. Her initial offer of friendliness— “Call me Zoe, please”—had been rebuffed in no uncertain terms. Very politely, of course, and oh-so-charmingly, but rebuffed nonetheless.
His attitude had puzzled her at first, even beyond his lack of a favorable response to her physical self. What could she, a stranger, have done in those first few moments that he could possibly disapprove of? Maybe he was having a bad day and the disapproving air didn’t have anything to do with her, she’d thought charitably. Or maybe she’d intimidated him; it wasn’t unknown for a certain type of man to get shy and tongue-tied in her presence. Although, admittedly, Reed Sullivan didn’t strike her as either shy or inarticulate, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So she’d tried teasing him, gently, smiling to let him know she was harmless. Most men, strong-minded or not, went a little slack-jawed when she gave them her slanting, sideways glance, that whisper of a smile that tacitly invited them to share the joke. Reed Sullivan had narrowed his brilliant blue eyes and looked down his aristocratic nose at her, as if she were an impertinent employee who’d overstepped her bounds.
Zoe had distinctly felt her hackles rise. How dare he disapprove of her! Just because he was wealthy and pedigreed, and belonged to what she was sure were all the right clubs, and she was…well, okay, she was there with her hand out, more or less, hoping for a loan from his great-grandmother. But that was no reason for him to look at her as if she were some kind of panhandler who’d accosted him in the street. Moira Sullivan had invited her to tea specifically to discuss the possibility of investing in New Moon.
Zoe began to needle him subtly, mocking his pretensions with a provocative little smile, using her expressive eyes and her centerfold body in an effort to make him squirm, trying to find some way to pierce that polished facade of urbane civility. A couple of times there, she’d thought she’d succeeded. Almost. He’d looked distinctly guilty at one point, as if whatever he was thinking at that particular moment probably wouldn’t have borne the light of day. And then, a minute or two later, there’d been a certain betraying light in his eyes as he’d looked at her—not disapproving just then at all, oh no, but speculative, absorbed…fascinated, almost. She’d handed him his tea, wondering exactly what was going on behind that distant, glazed look, feeling the tiniest bit triumphant at having rattled him at last.
And then their fingers had touched.
And their eyes had met.
And she’d felt as if every nerve ending in her body had been scorched.
She’d had to turn away, trying not to fumble as she poured her own tea, taking several slow, calming breaths while she tried to compose herself. And as she regained her composure, the budding feeling of triumph returned along with it. He’d shaken her, yes, but she’d shaken him, too. She was sure of it. He wasn’t as cool as he pretended. As unaffected. Not if that hot, glittering look that had flickered in his eyes when his gaze met hers was anything to go by.
Telling herself to be satisfied with that small victory, she’d reseated herself on the settee with what she felt was a convincing nonchalance, managing, finally, after a long, fidgety moment, to glance casually toward Reed to see how he was reacting to whatever it was that had flashed between them.
Mr. Nose-in-the-air Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV was leaning forward in his chair, his teacup on the gleaming piecrust table, his eyes focused intently on his great-grandmother, calmly talking business! New Moon business, true, but still…
Zoe wondered if anything had ever ruffled that insufferable, infuriating poise of his for more than a second. Wondered, too, what that anything might be. It certainly couldn’t have been a woman! Money, maybe. No, probably, she decided peevishly. He was obviously the bloodless, cold-fish type who couldn’t get worked up about anything except money.
Well, she could oblige him there.
“Why don’t you just take all my samples,” she said to Moira, as if the idea had just occurred to her. Which it had. “Use them yourself. Give them to all your friends and female relations.” She continued to dig through her shopping bag as she spoke, putting small jars and bottles and plump satin sachets back on the piecrust table from where she had picked them all up a few minutes ago. “That way we can expand our research and make it a real survey. After all, it’s women like you and your wealthy friends who have the money to spend that will make New Moon profitable.”
She glanced at Reed out of the corner of her eye to see how he was taking it. His countenance hadn’t changed except for a slight narrowing of his eyes and a too-tight something about his jaw, as if he were clenching his teeth. Encouraged, Zoe rattled on.
“Maybe we could hold a sort of informal market focus group,” she said recklessly, tossing ideas out off the top of her head. “You know, invite your friends over some evening and let them sample the products and tell us what they think about each of them. I could even give minifacials or—oh, I know!” She snapped her fingers as inspiration struck. “How about massages with my scented body oils? My friend Gina is a massage therapist and she’d lend me her table. We could set it up right here in the parlor. Gina might even come along to give the massages herself, if she’s free. She’s very good. Very much in demand. In fact, she has scads of clients right here on Beacon Hill. Probably some of your friends, even. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Gina Molinari? No? Well, anyway, I’m sure she wouldn’t charge too much, as a favor to me. Although, with your money, I don’t guess you’d worry about that.”
Zoe tossed another quick look over her shoulder. Reed Sullivan was still standing there, a bland look on his face, seemingly at ease as he patiently waited for his great-grandmother’s guest to be ready to leave…but a tiny, telltale muscle in his chiseled jaw had begun to twitch, ever so slightly. Zoe smiled brightly and plunged ahead.
“If that goes well, we could do something more formal. Well, not exactly formal, but more, um…” she tapped a forefinger against her chin, parodying someone deep in thought “…businesslike,” she decided, the word forming on her lips as if she wasn’t quite sure of its pronunciation, or exact meaning. “We could widen the survey. You know, pay different people to come in off the street to try the products, with questionnaires afterward to see what they like and don’t like. I’ve participated in dozens of focus groups like that when I’ve been between jobs, and they’re all pretty much run the same way,” she said confidingly. “I even worked as a researcher myself once, on one of my temp jobs, so I know how it’s done. So. How does that sound to you? Just to start, I mean?”
“Well, ah…” Moira’s gaze flickered from Zoe’s flushed face to her great-grandson’s stony countenance and back again. She smiled. “That sounds like quite an ambitious plan, my dear.” She nodded emphatically. Approvingly. “Quite ambitious.”
“Oh, I’m ambitious, all right.” Zoe slanted another quick glance at Reed. The muscles in his jaw were bulging now, as if he’d gone beyond clenching his teeth to grinding them. Zoe felt a surge of pure adrenaline and went in for the kill. “Extremely ambitious.” She leaned over slightly, reaching out to clasp one of Moira’s hands in both of hers. “Why, with all your lovely money behind me there’s no telling what I can—” She broke off, startled, as Reed’s long fingers wrapped themselves around her biceps. She dropped Moira’s hand as he pulled her upright with something very close to a jerk.
“We can talk about what you can or can not do with all Gran’s lovely money at some other time,” Reed said quietly, through his teeth.
Zoe’s protest was automatic. “But I haven’t fin—”
“I hate to rush you, but I’m running late, Miss Moon.” He glanced pointedly at his watch, turning his wrist without letting go of her. “If you want a lift home, we’ll have to leave right now.”
“Late for what? Oh. Your rugby practice,” she said, realizing belatedly that her hostess’s great-grandson was actually teetering on the edge of losing his cool. He’d never have laid hands on her, otherwise. “Well, don’t worry about me, then.” She gave him a bright, saccharine smile meant to push him clean over the precipice. “I can take the T home when I’m ready to go.” She shrugged dismissively, trying to dislodge his hand. “Moira and I have lots more to discuss and—”
His fingers flexed on her arm. “I really must insist, Miss Moon.”
“No, thank you. I appreciate the gesture but—”
“I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m afraid Gran is getting tired.” The look he turned on Moira was one of filial concern. “Aren’t you, Gran?”
“Nonsense. I’m not the least—” Moira began.
“She’ll never admit it, of course,” Reed continued smoothly, talking over his great-grandmother’s protest, “but it’s been a long afternoon for her. She usually takes a nap right after tea, and we’re keeping her from it.” He lowered his voice, putting his lips very near Zoe’s ear as if to keep Moira from overhearing. “She is ninety-two, you know.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course. How thoughtless of me.” Guilt pierced Zoe’s tender heart, instantly chasing away all thought of goading Reed. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’ve been so kind to me,” she said to Moira, “and here I am, keeping you up when you should be resting. Just let me grab my purse and—”
“Got it.” Reed bent down, scooped the tapestry bag off the floor by its braided leather straps with his free hand and swung it toward her.
Zoe grabbed at it awkwardly, fumbling to hold on to it without upending the precariously gaping shopping bag hanging from her arm. She felt her shawl begin to slip, and hunched her shoulder, trying to boost it back into place.
“Dinner here after practice?” Reed said to his great-grandmother as Zoe grappled with her belongings.
“Dinner? Well, actually, I—”
Reed stared down his nose at her and waited.
“Yes, of course, dear. Dinner here,” Moira agreed demurely. “If you like.”
“I like.” He bent and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back around eight-thirty, if that’s all right with you?”
Moira nodded. “Eight-thirty will be fine.”
“Good.” He nodded, once. “That’s settled, then.” His hand tightened on Zoe’s arm. “Miss Moon?”
Zoe braced herself against the pressure. “Thank you for a lovely tea, Moira. I really enjoyed it.”
“So did I, dear,” Moira said. “Immensely. I’ll call you about the market research party early next week and we can discuss the details at more length.”
Reed mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Over my dead body” under his breath.
“What was that, dear?” Moira asked. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“I said, I’ll take care of all the details.” He looked down at Zoe, smiling at her through gritted teeth. “Ready, now?”
Without waiting for either assent or refusal, he propelled her into motion, steering her around the piecrust table and across the Aubusson. It was either stumble along beside him as best she could or fall flat on her face and let him drag her. Zoe stumbled along, the shopping bag dangling from her arm, her purse clutched to her chest, her soft, knitted shawl slipping farther and farther off her shoulder. She had to quickstep to keep up with his long-legged, no-nonsense stride as he headed toward the tall double doors. The doors opened outward just as they reached them, and Eddie stepped back, bowing them into the foyer with a nod of his head.
“Sir?” he said in the same formal, sonorous tone he had used before. The word and the tone contrasted incongruously with the bright red shorts and red-and-yellow color-block rugby shirt he was wearing. No one paid any attention to the fact that he must have been listening at the keyhole to have opened the doors so promptly.
“Grab my things, please, Eddie,” Reed said he marched across the marble foyer, towing Zoe in his wake. She was nearly on tiptoes now, and the shawl had slipped entirely off of one shoulder and was dragging on the floor. “I’m running late.”
Eddie already had Reed’s things laid out in readiness, the overcoat draped across the top of a tufted velvet Victorian bench, the briefcase and gym bag side by side on the floor in front of it. He grabbed them up along with his own gym bag and fell in step behind the two scurrying figures.
“I take it you’re not going to change here as usual?” he asked pleasantly, as if the sight of his employer’s great-grandson quickstepping a guest out of the house wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
“No,” Reed said shortly. “No time. We have to drop Miss Moon off at her apartment on our way.” He yanked the front door open with his free hand before Eddie could maneuver around to do it for him. “I’ll change at Magazine Beach.”
I really ought to let him drive me home, Zoe thought vindictively as he all but dragged her over the threshold and out onto the front steps. Considering his final destination, a detour to the North End during rush hour traffic would make him really late. But it would make Eddie late, too, and Eddie wasn’t the one giving her the bum’s rush. And besides, she wasn’t in the mood to go anywhere with Mr. Stuffed Shirt!
“You don’t have to drop Miss Moon at her apartment,” she said between her teeth, digging in her heels and rearing back as he reached for the door handle of the sleek black Jaguar XJ6 parked—wouldn’t you just know it!—at the curb directly in front of the house. “You don’t have to drop Miss Moon anywhere, because Miss Moon will take the T. Now let go of my arm!”
She yanked her arm out of his grasp and turned to face him, there on the sidewalk in front of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion.
“Boy, I sure don’t know what your problem is, mister.” Huffily, head down, Zoe wrestled with the handles of both shopping bag and purse, settling them securely over her arm. “And I don’t particularly care.” She hitched her shawl up over her shoulder with a jerk, draping the excess over her forearm. “But I definitely do not appreciate being treated like some kind of two-bit street hustler who’s out to make a quick buck off a sweet old lady.”
“If a quick buck was all you were after, there wouldn’t be any problem, would there?” Reed said mildly, his tone as urbane and civil as if he hadn’t just dragged her out of his great-grandmother’s house by the scruff of the neck.
Zoe found it really annoying that he could sound so cool, as if that mad dash across the marble foyer and down the wide brick steps hadn’t happened, while she was left feeling frazzled, put-upon and decidedly ill used. “Then just what is your problem?” she demanded.
“My problem is your brazen effort to bilk a sweet old lady out of a small fortune to finance some fly-by-night cosmetic company.”
“Fly-by—” Zoe’s mouth gaped open and she stared at him like a hooked fish for a full five seconds. “New Moon is not fly-by-night!” she exclaimed furiously, and then clamped her mouth shut. Shouting at the top of her lungs might be all well and good in the North End, but Beacon Hill called for a little more decorum. Besides, if she lost her temper, Mr. Stuffed Shirt would win. And she’d implode before she’d let that happen. “I’ve been selling New Moon products to individual clients for over three years, and commercially, on a commission basis, for almost two,” she said with quiet dignity. “I have steady retail customers in two shops in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace and several locations in the Back Bay, including one in a very exclusive boutique on Newbury Street, which, for your information, is where I met your great-grandmother. I’d hardly call that fly-by-night.”
“Regardless of what you’d call it, Miss Moon, you’re not getting any money from my great-grandmother to expand your little…enterprise.” His slight hesitation made the word sound distinctly unsavory.
“Why not?” Zoe demanded, truly puzzled by his attitude. “Moira told me she invests in all kinds of businesses. And with your blessing, too. So just what have you got against me and New Moon?”
“Let’s just say I have a constitutional aversion to con artists and leave it at that, shall we?”
“Con artists!?” She had to fight to keep her voice even. “But I just told you, I’m not trying to con any— Moira’s the one who invited me to tea and I— Oh, forget it! It’s obvious you’ve already made up your mind,” she accused, ignoring the fact that her little act in his great-grandmother’s parlor might have had something to do with his poor opinion of her. “And you aren’t about to change it, are you? No matter what I say.”
Zoe lifted her chin. “All I can say is that you’re cheating your great-grandmother out of a wonderful investment opportunity. New Moon is going to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars some day. Millions, even.” She picked up the end of her shawl and tossed it across the opposite shoulder, haughty as an affronted queen. “It’s going to be bigger than Estee Lauder. And you’re going to be very, very sorry.”
With that, she turned and stomped off down the street, her mass of fiery, corkscrew curls swaying against her back, her purse and shopping bag bouncing against her hip, the heels of her purple suede boots clicking like castanets against the venerable old Boston street.
For once in her life, she had come up with the perfect exit line. Perfect! She hadn’t said too much, or too little. She hadn’t lost her temper. She’d been cool, calm and composed. It took all of her willpower not to ruin it by turning around and rudely thumbing her nose at Mr. Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV.
“Well,” Eddie said. “That was certainly interesting.”
“Yes,” Reed said slowly, his eyes on her retreating back. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, wondering why it felt so hot and…twitchy. “Wasn’t it.”
3
“BUT I WANT TO INVEST in Zoe’s business, Reed.”
“Gran, sweetheart, be reasonable. Whatever New Moon is, it can hardly be called a business. She doesn’t have a business plan. Nor a P&L. Not even a simple, basic set of books to track income and expenses.” He dug his hand into one of the shoe boxes on the table between them and grasped a sheaf of papers to illustrate his point. “Just this disorganized mess.” Which, he noted, smelled disconcertingly of violets. He lifted them halfway toward his nose before he realized what he was doing, and stuffed them back into the box with a disgusted snort. “You can’t run a business, let alone expect people to give you money to expand it, if you don’t keep decent records.”
“Well, there, you see.” Moira smiled at him approvingly. “That’s just the kind of advice Zoe needs. I knew you could help.”
“Gran, you can’t really be serious about this.” He looked at her over the top of his reading glasses. “Can you?”
“Dead serious,” she assured him with an emphatic little nod of her regal head.
“Well, I’m dead set against it.” He took his glasses off and tossed them down on the table like a gauntlet. “I don’t approve of the idea at all. Not at all.”
Moira’s brows lifted at his tone. “May I remind you, young man, that it happens to be my money we’re discussing, not yours. And as I have been legally of age for quite some time now and am in full possession of my faculties, I am perfectly free to do as I please with it.” She lifted her chin and looked down her elegant nose at him. “Whether you approve or not.”
Reed abandoned his high horse. It never worked with his great-grandmother, anyway; nobody had ever been able to dictate to Moira Sullivan, not even her dear departed husband. “But why, Gran? Can you at least answer me that? Why on earth do you want to invest in that woman’s business?”
“Her products are wonderful,” Moira said promptly. “And I like her.”
“You hardly know her,” he countered. “You said yourself you only met her this past Monday and—” He broke off as a thought occurred to him. “How exactly did you happen to meet her, anyway?”
“She didn’t maneuver an introduction or try to ingratiate herself in any way, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Moira chided him gently. “I overheard her talking to the proprietor of The Body Beautiful about the difficulties she’s been having getting financing to expand her business, and I interrupted their conversation and introduced myself to her.”
“And you say she didn’t maneuver it,” he scoffed.
Moira stiffened ever so slightly and her chin came up again. “Despite my advanced years, I am not some poor senile old lady who doesn’t know which end is up,” she said with quiet, reproachful dignity.
Reed was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Gran. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I never meant to suggest that you—”
“Neither am I gullible or easily misled,” Moira went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know very well when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. And when they aren’t. And I assure you, my dear Reed, Miss Moon had no idea I was listening to her conversation in that shop until I interrupted her.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Reed agreed. “You know I have the utmost faith in your judgment. I always have and always will. I just…” He paused and reached for his discarded glasses, twisting one stem as he searched for the words to say what he meant without insulting his great-grandmother again. “All question of how you met aside, the fact remains that you’ve known her—and I use that term loosely!—three days. Barely. And yet you say you like her. Three days isn’t enough time to make that kind of decision about a person. It’s not enough time to make any kind of decision about a person, especially if you’re contemplating lending that person a great deal of money.”
“You’ve known her—and I also use the term loosely—less than a day, and you’ve already decided you dislike her. Why is that, I wonder?”
“I don’t dislike her,” Reed objected, which was the strict truth. His reaction to the luscious Zoe Moon was a little more complicated than mere like or dislike. It was…well, he didn’t know what it was exactly. “And this isn’t about me, anyway. It’s about you. So quit trying to change the subject and answer my question. Please,” he added when she raised an eyebrow at him. “Give me a little insight into why you decided it’s a good idea to lend money to a woman you’ve known for barely three days.”
Moira sighed. “I decided I wanted to marry your great-grandfather after only an hour in his company.”
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
“True,” Moira agreed. “Marriage is a much more serious matter. With much more serious consequences if you’re wrong. But the basic principle is the same. Trust.”
“Are you telling me you trust Zoe Moon?”
“Yes, I do. She appears to me to be an eminently trustworthy young woman.”
“Good Lord, Gran!” Reed just barely managed to keep his voice at a reasonable level. One didn’t shout at Moira Sullivan with impunity. Not if one wanted to get anywhere with her. “Didn’t you hear a word she said this afternoon?”
“I’m not deaf, dear. Certainly I heard her. She has a lovely, soothing voice, don’t you think?”
“Oh, lovely,” he agreed with a snort. Soothing, however, it was not. Now, if she’d said arousing… He deliberately veered away from that line of thought. “But that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“What did you mean, dear?”
“‘Women like you and your wealthy friends’,” he quoted. “‘All your lovely money…’ ‘With your money, you wouldn’t worry about that….’ The woman obviously came to tea today for one thing and one thing only.”
Moira gave a little gurgle of laughter. “Well, of course she did! For goodness sake, Reed, I asked her to tea specifically to talk about the possibility of lending her the money to expand her business. I expected her to talk about it. That was the whole point.”
Reed remembered Zoe Moon trying to tell him something along the same lines, out there on the sidewalk in front of the house. But he hadn’t bought it then, and he wasn’t buying it now. “It’s the way she talked about it that I object to.”
“The way?”
“As if it were a done deal and the money were already hers. Good manners, if nothing else, should have kept her from acting as if you’d already signed on the dotted line.”
“Well, perhaps, but…”
Reed jumped on her hesitation. “Come on now, Gran,” he cajoled. “Admit it. Didn’t she sound like a greedy, money-grubbing little mercenary out to take you for all she could get?” And why was he attracted to her, despite that?
“Really, dear.” Moira shook her head. “Isn’t that a bit harsh?”
“A bit, maybe,” he conceded, disposed to at least try to be fair now that he could see his great-grandmother starting to come around to his way of thinking. “But I notice you didn’t deny it.”
“She was nervous,” Moira said. “It made her babble and say things awkwardly, is all. She’s really a lovely, gracious young woman. And very sweet, too.”
“Nervous?”
“Well, anyone would have been, with you glowering at them across the tea table.”
“I don’t glower.”
“You’re glowering right now, dear,” Moira informed him. “If I were a sensitive young woman like Zoe, I’d be babbling, too.”
“You’ve never babbled in your life,” Reed scoffed.
She laughed softly. “Oh, I babbled a bit more than I like to remember in those early days with your great-grandfather.” The laughter faded into a fond smile. “You’re very like him, you know. It quite takes me back sometimes, just to look at you. He could be very intimidating, too, when he chose.”
“Are you saying I made her nervous?” Reed asked incredulously. The mere thought was almost laughable. The bold, red-haired gypsy who’d looked him up and down with that provocative gleam in her big brown eyes didn’t strike him as the nervous type. Lovely, yes, he’d grant her that. But gracious? Sweet? Nervous? His eyes narrowed. “Now wait a minute here, Gran. You’re not suggesting…” He leaned across the mahogany table, his expression wary and accusing, wondering if he’d been right in his first assessment, after all. “This isn’t some kind of crazy, harebrained matchmaking scheme, is it? Because if it is, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Matchmaking? You thought I was matchmaking?” A soft gurgle of laughter bubbled up and was quickly suppressed. “Well, really, Reed.” The look she gave him was full of amused indignation. “At least give me credit for having the sense God gave a goose. I know perfectly well Zoe isn’t even remotely your type.”
Placated, Reed leaned back in his chair. “I’m glad you realize that.”
“Nor are you hers, I might add. Zoe is the kind of woman who would be drawn to someone with a little more…” one soft white hand fluttered through the air as if groping for the words “…joie de vivre.”
“I enjoy life,” Reed objected.
“Oh, I’m sure you do, in your own way. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. It’s just that I’m afraid you’re a bit, oh…staid, shall we say?…for someone like Zoe.”
“Staid?” he murmured, vaguely insulted by the word.
“Dignified. Proper,” Moira clarified with a fond smile. “You’re a credit to the Sullivan name, Reed. I’ve always thought so, ever since you were a baby.”
“Well, thank you. I think,” he said, wondering why he suddenly felt like a priggish, self-satisfied boor. His great-grandmother had just complimented him, hadn’t she? “Now, if you don’t mind.” Reed rapped a knuckle against the papers on the table. “Could we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Certainly.” Moira folded her hands on top of the table, like an eager little girl at lessons. “What’s the next step?”
Reed sighed. “Do you really mean to pursue this, Gran? No matter what I say?”
Moira nodded. “I do.”
“And if I refuse to have anything to do with it?”
“I’ll be disappointed, of course. But I’m sure I can find someone else to handle the paperwork for me.”
“Not at Sullivan Enterprises, you won’t,” he warned her, his financier’s scowl firmly in place. “Not if I advise against it. And, be assured, I will.”
But Moira Sullivan wasn’t easily intimated, especially not by her own great-grandson. “Well, then, I’ll just have to go outside the family business, won’t I?” She tilted her head, giving him a considering look from under her lashes. “I’ve heard young Andrew Hightower is making quite a name for himself in financial circles these days.”
Andrew Hightower was Reed’s ex-fiancée’s youngest brother. A nice enough kid, but… It galled Reed to realize that the mere mention of the Hightower name struck a sore spot he hadn’t known he had. “You wouldn’t.”
“Yes,” Moira said. “I most definitely would. I intend to arrange for Zoe Moon to have the funds she needs to expand her business. I’d like for you to help me find the best way to do that, so that everyone’s interests are properly looked after. But if you can’t or won’t, well…” she lifted her shoulders in an eloquent little shrug “…I’ll find someone who will, be it Andrew Hightower, or someone else entirely. Or maybe I’ll just give her the money outright,” she said consideringly. “It might be simpler all around that way.”
Reed knew when he was beaten. “All right, Gran. You win. I’ll see what I can do about getting Miss Moon her financing.”
IT WAS NEARLY NINE-THIRTY that night before Zoe heard her next-door neighbor banging around outside in the hallway. Zoe put down the glass of pink grapefruit juice she’d just poured for herself and rushed toward the front door, nearly bursting with the need to vent.
A petite, slender young woman with a short, sleek cap of dark hair and even darker eyes looked up and smiled as Zoe all but exploded into their mutual hallway. “Ciao, Zoe. How’s it goin’?”
“Gina! I thought you’d never get home. Where on earth have you been this late?”
“Same place I’ve been every Wednesday night for the past couple of months. That new client with the arthritis, remember? I told you about him.” She set the edge of her massage table on the floor and let go of the handle, tilting it toward Zoe. “Hold on to this for a minute while I get the rest of my stuff. I left it at the bottom of the stairs.”
“You aren’t going to believe what happened today,” Zoe hollered at her friend’s retreating back. “I had tea with Moira Sullivan. Remember, the woman I told you about? The one I met at The Body Beautiful on Monday?”
“The one who’s going to lend you the money for New Moon, right?” Gina said as she came back up the steps with her equipment bag slung over one shoulder and a bulging sack of groceries in her arms.
Zoe leaned the massage table against the wall and reached for the grocery sack, freeing Gina so she could unlock her front door. “Well, she was going to lend me the money.” Zoe’s lush mouth screwed up in a grimace. “But I think we can kiss that idea goodbye.”
“Oh, no.” Gina turned in the open doorway, automatically reaching out to offer comfort. “She turned you down, after all? I’m so sorry.” She squeezed Zoe’s arm, her sympathy swift and sincere. “I know how much you were counting on this.”
“Oh, she didn’t turn me down.” Zoe moved past her friend into a small studio apartment that was the exact duplicate of her own floor plan, except in reverse, and dropped the grocery sack on the kitchen counter. “He did.”
“He who?”
“Mr. Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV, that’s who.”
“Her husband?”
“Her great-grandson.”
“What does he have to say about it?”
“Plenty, apparently.” Zoe leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, waiting while Gina deposited her equipment bag on the sofa bed and retreated back into the narrow hall to retrieve her massage table. “And none of it good,” she said, when the other woman came back into the room and deftly slid the folded table into its accustomed place behind the sofa.
“Tell me what happened while I put my groceries away,” Gina said, moving toward the kitchen area without bothering to close the front door.
Directly across the hall, Zoe’s door stood wide open, too. Theirs were the only two apartments above the family-owned Italian restaurant on the first floor. The bottom of the stairway was protected by a tall iron security gate that blocked any unauthorized access to the second floor apartments.
“Out.” Gina flapped a hand at Zoe, waving her away as she began to help unload the groceries. “It’s too crowded in here with two of us.”
Zoe moved to one of the two stools on the other side of the counter and plopped down with a dejected sigh. “Things were really going great at first,” she said morosely, watching Gina as she moved around the tiny kitchen. “Moira Sullivan is a wonderful old lady. Very charming and elegant, but really sweet and down-to-earth, too. Not snobbish or stuck-up in the least. She was interested in everything I’d brought her and was talking about what I could do when I had the money, not if. And asking how much and did I think it was enough. And then he walked in.”
“He being the stuffed shirt?”
“Yes. And right from the first…from almost the second he walked in and saw me sitting there next to his great-grandmother…I could tell he didn’t like me.”
Gina turned to face her, a package of spaghetti in one hand, eyes rounded in disbelief, her lips parted in astonishment. “He didn’t like you?”
“Nope.”
“But, Zoe, men always like you. They can’t help it. It’s—” she extended her free hand, palm up, moving it in an expressive gesture that encompassed the half of Zoe’s body that was visible above the counter “—hormonal.”
“He didn’t.”
“Well. My goodness,” Gina murmured, momentarily at a loss for words. She opened a cupboard and put the package of spaghetti away, then turned around with a thoughtful expression on her face, her hand still on the cupboard door. “Is he gay?”
“Definitely not,” Zoe said, shivering a bit as she remembered the way he’d looked at her, and the spark, or whatever it was, that had sizzled between them. She’d had a good long time to think about it, sitting alone in her apartment, fuming, as she waited for Gina to get home so she could discuss it with her. The conclusions she’d drawn left her almost as angry as she’d been when she’d stomped away from him that afternoon. Almost. “I’m pretty sure he’s got the hots for me.”
“The hots? Well, then…” Gina’s eyebrows rose into spiky bangs on her forehead. “You’ve lost me.”
“He likes my body—a lot—but he disapproves of me.”
“Aaah.” Gina nodded her head knowingly. “One of those.”
“Yes, definitely one of those. He practically undressed me with his eyes. Oh, very politely, of course—the man could give etiquette lessons to Miss Manners—but his eyes were anything but! Polite, I mean,” she clarified when Gina just stood there, staring at her. “They’re like blue laser beams. Very cool on the surface, but intense underneath, like a volcano. Very focused, you know? He gave me this one look that practically scorched me all the way to my toes.”
“Scorched?”
Zoe chose not to respond to the question in Gina’s voice. “And then he had the nerve to call me a con artist—me! a con artist!—and accused me of trying to swindle that sweet old lady out of a fortune.”
“In front of her?”
“No, not in front of her. Well,” she amended, “the hot looks were in front of her, but I don’t think she noticed. She’s ninety-two, you know. He waited until we were outside before he started calling me names. That’s when he called New Moon a fly-by-night operation—” her voice rose indignantly at the remembered slur on her company “—and said I could just forget getting any money from his great-grandmother to finance my little enterprise.” She curled her upper lip, giving the word the same unsavory implication he had.
“Jeez.” Gina folded the grocery sack and bent down to put it under the sink. “That sounds a little extreme, even for the repressed type. They usually content themselves with blaming you for arousing their libido, and let it go at that.” She reached for the bright red teakettle on the stove, then hesitated, head tilted as she considered her friend. “Wine or espresso? I’ve got some plain biscotti that would go with either.”
“Espresso,” Zoe said. “Wine would only make me get all weepy and maudlin.”
Gina nodded and turned on the faucet, her gaze lowered as she watched the kettle fill. “What on earth made him think you were some kind of con artist?”
Zoe shrugged. “Beats me.”
Gina lifted her gaze from the kettle to Zoe’s face.
“Honest, I have no idea why he would think that.”
“You want to look me in the eyes when you say that?”
Zoe sighed, knowing she was caught. “Okay. So maybe I, um…influenced his opinion in that regard. A little.”
Gina set the kettle on the stove and turned the heat on. “Influenced?” she murmured encouragingly.
“Well, he made me so darn mad. Staring at me as if he were imagining me naked one minute, and then looking down his nose at me the next, all superior and disapproving, as if it were my fault he was having lewd fantasies in his great-grandmother’s parlor. But I swear, Gina, I didn’t do one thing—not one darned thing—to encourage him. Not at first, anyway,” she admitted, making a clean breast of it. Gina would know if she lied, anyway, just by looking at her. “It was only after he made me so mad that I, well…” She shrugged. “You know how I get sometimes when I lose my temper.”
“I know, sweetie, and it’s not your fault this time. Some men are just pigs,” Gina said sympathetically. “You aren’t responsible for what goes on in their tiny little minds.” She reached across the kitchen counter and patted Zoe’s hand. “So, tell me what you did to make him think you were after his dear old granny’s fortune.”
“Well, Moira had told him she wanted to lend me the money for New Moon, and he was looking at me like he thought I was going to steal the silver on my way out or something, so I sort of—” she shrugged, her lips turning up in a little shamefaced grin “—lived down to his expectations, you might say. You know how I get sometimes, putting my mouth in gear before I’ve engaged my brain.”
Gina nodded sagely. “And what did he do then?”
“He clamped his hand around my arm and hustled me out of there so fast you’d have thought the house was on fire. And then he called me a con artist and said New Moon was a fly-by-night cosmetic company and accused me of trying to bilk—bilk!—his great-grandmother out of a fortune.”
“Cazzone cafone.”
“Yeah, well, he was kind of a jerk, but…” She shrugged again, and the shamefaced look was back. “I guess I can’t really blame him completely.”
“Zoe! He acted like a pig.”
“Oh, I blame him for the pig part,” she assured her friend, “but not what came after. I mean, at the end there, I did act like all I was interested in was the money. And you can’t really blame a guy for trying to protect his sweet old granny from being taken to the cleaners.”
“I can,” Gina said loyally.
Zoe smile at her. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I’ve got to face facts. I lost my temper and blew it, big time. There’s no way Moira Sullivan’s going to be investing in New Moon. Not if her great-grandson has anything to say about it. And it’s my own darn fault.”
“You’ll find another investor. There’s bound to be someone out there who has the vision to see what a great investment New Mo—” Gina cocked her head, listening. “Is that your phone?”
ZOE WAS BACK in her friend’s apartment less than ten minutes later. “You’ll never guess who that was.”
Gina didn’t look up from the tiny cups she was filling with thick, black espresso from the coffee press. “Who?”
“Mr. Stuffed Shirt himself.”
Gina put the coffee press down. “And?” she said carefully, her eyes on Zoe’s face.
“And he apologized for what he said this afternoon.” A big grin turned up the corners of Zoe’s mouth. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation and renewed hope. “He wants to meet with me as soon as possible to discuss investing in New Moon.”
4
“WHICH ONE’S THE STUFFED shirt?”
Zoe brushed the blowing tendrils of her hair out of her eyes with one hand, scanning the rugby field as they approached the sidelines. “There,” she said, unerringly zeroing in on him among all the identically clad men. “The tall one with the dark hair in the second row of that huddle.” She pointed at him with the straw sticking out of the top of her iced latte. “On the red team with the number five on his shirt.”
“Scrum,” Gina corrected, standing on tiptoe to get a better look. “It’s a scrum, not a huddle.” She sank back onto her sneakered heels as the men lowered themselves into an interlocking mass of humanity and started to move like some kind of giant multiheaded crab as they scrambled for possession of the football. “You didn’t tell me he was gorgeous.”
“Is he?” Zoe shrugged and poked her straw into the bottom of her drink cup. “I didn’t notice.”
“And when did you start losing your eyesight, Ms. Moon?”
“Well, I didn’t,” Zoe said defensively. It wasn’t exactly a lie; last Wednesday she’d been more concerned with the look in his eyes than his looks. Not that she hadn’t noticed those, too, but… “I had other things on my mind, if you’ll recall.”
Gina snorted inelegantly. “Don’t waste that big-eyed innocent look on me,” she advised dryly. “I haven’t got enough testosterone for it to work.”
“Fine.” Zoe jabbed her straw into the ice at the bottom of her cup again. “Think whatever you want.”
“He’s really got you rattled, doesn’t he?”
“Well, of course he does. He’s only holding the future of New Moon in his hands.”
But it was more than that.
Her cheeks were flushed and warm, despite the cool September breeze blowing across the field from the Charles River. Her palms were damp. Her nerve endings tingled, making her feel jittery and on edge, almost expectant, like a child sitting in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve waiting for something wondrous to happen. And it had absolutely nothing to do with what he could mean to the future of New Moon.
Zoe sighed.
She wasn’t usually stupid about men. She was, in fact, never stupid about men. She’d learned early that a woman who let herself get all excited and moony-eyed over a handsome face or a charming manner invariably ended up paying for her gullibility in heartache and broken dreams. Her mother, who’d been married and divorced as many times as any Hollywood movie star, had taught by unwitting example what not to do in relationships with men, and Zoe had taken the lessons to heart. She knew, all too well, that to let herself start weaving silly little romantic fantasies about Reed Sullivan was stupid in the extreme.
Oh, sure, he’d apologized for what he’d said out there on the sidewalk in front of his great-grandmother’s house, but that didn’t negate his attitude while they were inside. As Gina had so wisely remarked, his attitude and actions identified him as “one of those,” meaning the kind of man who based his opinions of women on how they looked.
It wasn’t that Zoe minded being thought of as attractive, or having men think she was sexy or beautiful. Or even having them say so. That would have been stupid, because she was all of those things. And she liked being those things. Most of the time. No, what she objected to were men who thought what was on the outside was the sum total of what was on the inside. Or men who thought her spectacular physical attributes constituted a deliberate come-on, and got bent out of shape when she failed to deliver on what they thought she had promised, simply by being.
Not that Reed Sullivan actually fit either of those profiles, precisely. But he’d disapproved of her at first sight, on the basis of her looks alone, and that was enough to condemn him in her eyes.
Or should have been.
It was just the tiniest bit distressing that she couldn’t seem to work up the proper contempt for his sexist attitude, not with him running up and down the field in those little red shorts and the bright color block jersey with the word Bulldogs emblazoned across his broad chest.
Which meant, Zoe realized, totally amazed at herself, that she obviously had a few sexist attitudes of her own to address.
“What are you standing there looking so pensive about?” Gina asked, breaking into her reverie.
Zoe shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, her eyes still focused on the playing field.
Gina followed the direction of her gaze. “He’s got great thighs, doesn’t he?”
“Mmm,” Zoe murmured, absently reaching up to tuck a blowing tendril of hair behind her ear. “Great thighs.” They were long, tanned and heavily muscled, the rock-hard thighs of a dedicated athlete. It was amazing what that expensive navy-blue suit had kept hidden.
“And a really cute little ass,” Gina said. “World class, I’d say.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely world—” Zoe broke off guiltily. Her hand stilled at the back of her head, and she cut her friend a quick, sideways glance.
Gina smirked. “Gotcha.”
“I was talking about that blond Adonis.” Zoe gave a final pat to her hair and lowered her hand. “The one with the shoulders and the stubby little ponytail.”
Gina’s derisive jeer was good-natured. “Sure you were.”
“I was. I—”
“Heads up!” somebody yelled.
Both women ducked as the football came sailing over their heads into the crowd where they stood. By the time they’d straightened up and turned backed to the field to see what had happened, men from both teams were rapidly converging in front of the nearest set of goalposts.
“What’s happening?” Zoe tried to stay out of the way as players who’d been standing on the sidelines rushed onto the field to join their teammates. “Is it a fight?” she asked, and then realized that no one was swinging fists. Instead, the men formed a loose circle and began to chant.
“Is the game over?”
“Yes, the game’s over.” Gina laughed. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s a Zulu dance.”
“A what?”
Gina waved at the action on the field. “Watch.”
“Watch what? Oh, my goodness. Is he taking his clothes off? He’s taking his clothes off!”
The blond Adonis Zoe claimed to have been admiring was stripping down, egged on by the rhythmic chanting of both teams. Shirt, shorts, jockstrap, everything but his cleated shoes and heavy white athletic socks came off in turn. Each garment was grabbed by a teammate as the Adonis discarded it, and flung up over the crossbar on the goalposts. And then, as naked as a newborn baby except for his footwear, the player began climbing up after his clothes. The crowd cheered and clapped, taking up the players’ chant.
“Is that some bizarre kind of penalty?” Zoe asked, her eyes on the bare white bottom of the naked rugby player as he wriggled up the goalpost.
“No, it’s not a penalty. It means he scored his first try.”
“Try?”
“Like a touchdown in the NFL,” Gina explained. “The team gets five points when the ball is kicked or carried over the try line and touched down.”
“And for that the poor man is publicly humiliated?”
“The Zulu dance is a time-honored tradition. Every player does it after he scores his first try.”
“Every player?” Zoe’s glance darted over the men in the field. Over one man in particular. “Every time he makes a touchdown?”
“Try, not touchdown,” Gina corrected. “And only the first time he does it.” She followed the direction of Zoe’s gaze and grinned knowingly. “I’m afraid you missed your chance there,” she said. “Judging by the way he played today, the stuffed shirt isn’t new at the game. He probably scored his first try years ago. You’re going to have to figure out some other way to see him naked.”
“I have no desire to see Reed Sullivan naked,” Zoe said, but it was a lie.
And they both knew it.
Any healthy, red-blooded, heterosexual woman in the world would have paid good money to see this Reed Sullivan naked, whatever they might have thought of the stuffed shirt. This Reed Sullivan was all-male: tousled and grass-stained and sweaty, his big hands clapping in time to the deep-throated masculine chant, his head thrown back, laughing, triumphant, as he watched his teammate struggle to climb out onto the crossbar and retrieve his clothes. Blood trickled down the right side of Reed’s face, evidence that the cut bisecting his eyebrow had come open. One of the shoulder seams of his rugby jersey had been torn and the sleeve was hanging down, exposing his arm from the rounded bulge of his shoulder to the swell of his heavily muscled biceps.
That tailored blue suit, Zoe found herself thinking again, had covered up a lot, including a good deal of his…uh, personality. This Reed Sullivan wasn’t poised and polished. He certainly wasn’t repressed. He didn’t even look quite civilized. He looked basic and elemental and male, like a man who’d know how to appreciate a beautiful woman. Or any woman at all, for that matter. A man who’d know exactly what to do with one if he ever got his hands on her.
He turned his head just then, catching her staring at him, staring back, registering no surprise at seeing her there even though they weren’t scheduled to meet again until Monday morning at his office in the Sullivan Building. Even with half the width of the field between them Zoe could see the change in his eyes—the laughter fading, the heat slowly building, the blatant, unabashed, purely masculine speculation in his gaze. It was a scorching, searching look, akin to the one he’d given her when she’d handed him his tea in his great-grandmother’s parlor, only more so. And this time she had no trouble reading it.
What was she doing here?
Was she available?
Would she let him take her?
When?
Zoe couldn’t look away. She didn’t even want to. She’d never been the focus of that much heat before, the center of that much concentrated sexual intensity. It was as if the world had suddenly narrowed down to only two. Him and her. Man and woman. Everything else faded into insignificance. She forgot all about the laughing, cheering crowd. Gina. New Moon. His disapproval of her. His perfunctory, albeit charming, apology over the phone. Her own doubts and misgivings about what she might be getting herself into. She forgot everything except the look in his eyes and the thrilling, exhilarating, frightening sense of anticipation and excitement it generated in her.
Then the men turned, seemingly en masse, and headed for the sidelines. He was coming right toward her, that heat still in his eyes, his eyes still on her face, purpose in every step.
Hail the conquering hero, she thought inanely, fighting the urge to shrink back behind Gina like some trembling Victorian virgin.
What had happened to the stuffed shirt?
She could handle the stuffed shirt with one hand tied behind her back.
She couldn’t handle this man with a whip and a chair.
Zoe managed to look away, finally—to the ground first, and then, panicked, at Gina. But Gina wasn’t any help. She was staring at Reed, too. Or at least in Reed’s direction.
“Who’s the yummy Italian stallion with him?” she asked.
Zoe ducked her head, her lashes protectively lowered, sucking air and melted ice from the bottom of her cup as if getting the last drop of creamy iced coffee was the most important thing in the world at the moment. “Him who?”
Gina rolled her eyes. “The stuffed shirt. Who’s the guy with him?”
“How should I know?” Zoe mumbled, without looking.
“Well, he seems to know you,” Gina said. “He just waved.”
Zoe darted a quick glance from under her lashes without lifting her head. “That’s Moira Sullivan’s butler. Eddie something.”
“The stuffed shirt plays rugby with his great-grandmother’s butler?” Gina’s expressive eyebrows lifted like twin arches. “How democratic of him. I guess maybe he’s not quite so stuff— Hi, there, fellas. Great game.” raspberry lips pursed Reed automatically checked his stride to avoid running into the brunette who suddenly stood in his way. “Thanks,” he murmured absently, his gaze still riveted on the object of his rampaging…affections.
Apparently oblivious to his presence, she was standing half-hidden behind her pint-size friend, her lids lowered, her lusious raspberry lips pursed around the straw protruding from the plastic lid of a paper cup. No one looking at her would believe she’d just been staring at him as if they were gazing at each other across the width of a rumpled bed rather than a rugby field. He almost didn’t believe it himself except there was something just a bit too studied and deliberate about the way she stood there, not looking at him. Something that told him she was as aware of him as he was of her. Something that made him think…hope…wish…that if he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, she’d melt against him in total surrender and beg him to take her. Repeatedly.
“I’m Gina,” the brunette said. “You must be Reed.”
“Uh…yeah.” Reed tore his gaze away from Zoe’s averted face, gathering himself together with a Herculean effort. The rugby field was no place to indulge in ridiculous sexual fantasies. “Yes, I’m Reed.” Belatedly, remembering his manners, he extended his hand to her. “Reed Sullivan,” he said politely, somehow managing to sound as calm and unaffected as if they were standing in his penthouse office. As if his blood wasn’t roaring through his veins like an out of control locomotive on a downhill grade. As if he weren’t still fighting the insane urge to toss the luscious Miss Moon over his shoulder and keep right on walking—preferably straight to the king-size bed in the master bedroom of his Back Bay town house. “And you’re Gina…” he did a quick scan of his memory banks “…Molinari, isn’t it?”
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Candace Schuler
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Renowned for her sensual writing, Candace Schuler defines hot in this sizzling encounter between a tantalizing free spirit called Zoe Moon and the very proper, very controlled grandson of her mentor.Reed Sullivan doesn′t know what′s hit him when Zoe and his grandmother combine forces to loosen him up. But Zoe alone is enough to trigger a meltdown! And that′s really sexy.