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“Well, keep it to yourself, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, give me the details of why you need the Dundee jet so I can fill out all the paperwork.”
DOM ARRIVED at the Palm Beach Classico Hotel at six-thirty, inquired about Ms. Perkins and was told the lady was out, but he could leave a message. No amount of persuasion—even a hint of hard, cold cash—rendered any other information.
“I’ll wait for her,” he’d said and taken a seat that gave him a view of the main entrance as well as the bank of elevators.
It was now six-fifty-five and he was still waiting. He would wait one hour, then he’d try his luck at garnering information from other members of the hotel staff. By nature, Dom was an impatient man. He hated wasting time, his own or someone else’s; but his years spent as a SEAL had taught him many things, including, to some degree, patience.
At seven-oh-three, a small redhead, weighed down by shopping bags, entered the lobby. Dom removed the photo of Audrey Perkins from his pocket, took a good look at it, and then scanned the young woman walking past him. Similar coloring, similar height and build, but different facial features. Apparently, Bedell’s elder daughter had undergone some minor plastic surgery since this picture was taken.
“Do you need some help, Ms. Perkins?” one of the bellhops asked as he scurried toward her.
“No, thanks, I can manage,” she replied, her voice soft, ultra feminine and Southern sweet.
Dom studied her intently, then glared at the photo. In person she was even prettier. Thanks to plastic surgery? And she most definitely had a new hairdo. In the studio photograph Edward Bedell had given Dom, Audrey wore her straight, shoulder-length, red hair in a smooth pageboy. Today a mane of thick, unruly, dark strawberry blonde curls fanned out and down almost to her shoulder blades.
When she brushed off the bellhop and went straight to the nearest elevator, Dom jumped to his feet and rushed after her, catching up just as the elevator door started to close.
“Wait up,” he called as he dove toward her. He managed to stop just short of knocking her down, his body colliding with the bags she held in front of her. “Sorry.” He stepped back, looked into a pair of startled, moss-green eyes and smiled involuntarily.
Without hesitation, she smiled back at him, then glanced away, as if she’d just realized her smile could mistakenly be construed as flirting with a stranger. Odd, Dom thought, that a woman with Audrey Perkins’s reputation would care.
“Need some help with those packages?”
“No, thank you.”
That voice should be illegal. It was the kind that gave a guy ideas. Hot, sweaty, body-heat ideas.
“Have you been in Palm Beach long?” he asked.
“Two days,” she replied, then lifted her gaze and connected with his.
This time neither of them looked away, and she smiled at him again. Tentatively. Almost shyly. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her and it wasn’t simply because she was a damn good looking woman. There was something about her, an air of vulnerability, a hint of wariness.
She was lovely. No doubt about that fact. Creamy smooth skin, with only a hint of freckles across her small nose and over her high, sculpted cheekbones. Full red lips that made a man want to kiss her or made him think about all the wicked things that gorgeous mouth could do to him. But it was her eyes that drew Dom to her and held him enthralled.
As a connoisseur of women, he found the opposite sex utterly fascinating. He’d been a ladies’man since puberty and had endured years of kidding from his brother Rafe.
“All the girls have the hots for you, little brother, because you’re so damn pretty. Heck, you’re prettier than our sisters and almost as pretty as Mama.” Rafe had inherited their father’s rough, rugged looks, even Dad’s Irish blue eyes and ruddy complexion; whereas, except for the Shea height and broad shoulders, Dom’s basic appearance was a replica of their beautiful Mexican mother.
Dom had known his share of lovely, fascinating women, but he couldn’t recall ever being as instantly attracted to a lady as he was to Audrey Perkins.
Hell, man, you’re a damn fool. The lady is not only married, she’s a rich, spoiled brat. And a slut to boot.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Dom suddenly realized that she’d been talking to him and he hadn’t responded, that he’d been too busy drooling over this small, elegant piece of fluff.
“Yeah, fine. My mind just wandered. Sorry. Business matters.”
“Are you here in Palm Beach on business?” she asked.
Dom nodded.
Without warning, the elevator doors opened and someone entered behind Dom and it was only then that he realized neither he nor Ms. Perkins had punched in a floor number. They’d been talking while the elevator rested at the lobby level.
“You two getting out?” the bald, middle-aged man asked.
Audrey giggled. “No. I—I’m going to the sixth floor.”
“What about you, buddy?” the guy asked after he punched in the fourth floor for himself and the sixth floor for Audrey.
“Seventh, thanks.” Since he wasn’t registered at this hotel, Dom said the first thing that came to mind.
The three of them remained silent as the elevator lifted; then after the man got off on the fourth floor and the elevator door closed, Dom and Audrey burst into laughter.
“We were just standing here in the elevator and hadn’t even punched in our floor numbers,” she said. “He must have thought we were crazy.”
“Probably.” Dom reached out and grasped two of her four large shopping bags. “Those look way too heavy for you. Let me carry them to your room. I swear you can trust me to be a gentleman.”
Her smile vanished instantly. “Thank you. They were getting a little heavy. But as far as trusting you…I don’t know you and I learned the hard way not to trust anyone.”
“You’re too young and beautiful—” he surveyed her from head to toe “—and rich to be so cynical.”
“Haven’t you heard? Money can’t buy happiness.”
“And are you unhappy, Miss—?”
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor.
“Ms. Perkins,” she told him as the door opened. “Audrey Perkins. And right this minute, I’m quite happy.”
Using his body as a wedge, Dom held the elevator door open until she exited; then, with shopping bags in hand, he followed her down the corridor.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she paused for a moment and asked, “Are you going to tell me who you are?”
He grinned. “Sure thing. I’m Domingo Shea.”
Audrey nodded, then continued down the hall until she reached the double doors that opened into a suite. “Here we are.” She rummaged in the pocket of her tailored beige slacks and retrieved a plastic entry key. After shoving the handle on one bag farther up her right wrist, she slid the key through the lock, opened the door and entered the suite. When Dom followed, she dumped her bags on the floor, and then turned and blocked his entrance.
He paused, offered her his most persuasive smile and inquired, “Not going to let me come in?”
She shook her head and held out her hands. “Thanks for your help. I can take those now.”
“You’re a mighty suspicious lady, aren’t you?”
She took the shopping bags from Dom, but didn’t close the door in his face, which he’d halfway expected. “Look, Mr. Shea, if you must know, I find you terribly attractive, but I’m not in the market for a one-night stand and I’m not—”
“How about dinner? No strings attached. No expectations.”
She eyed him speculatively, a hint of curiosity in those remarkable green eyes. “Just dinner?”
“I can come back at eight and escort you or we can meet at the restaurant, whichever you feel more comfortable doing. I assume they have a nice restaurant here in the hotel.”
“The Flamingo Room.”
“So, is it a date?”
She hesitated.
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the door-frame on either side of her and looked right at her. “Why not share a meal and get better acquainted?”
“Just dinner,” she told him.
“Just dinner.”
“You make the reservations and I’ll meet you downstairs at eight.”
He grinned broadly, then turned around and whistled to himself as he headed toward the elevator.
Maybe he should have simply told Ms. Perkins that he was a PI sent by her father and husband to bring her home. But if she put up a fuss and refused to return to Chattanooga, all he could do was call her father and tell him where she was. By the time the old man could get to Palm Beach, his darling daughter could well be on her way to Timbuktu. And he could hardly pick her up, kicking and screaming, then carry her down the hall, into the elevator and through the hotel lobby. She was, after all, over eighteen and had a legal right to go wherever she wanted to go, with or without her daddy’s approval.
No, the best thing to do was wine and dine her first, then maybe take her on a moonlit stroll along the beach before presenting her with two alternatives. One: she went with him willingly to the airport and flew back to Chattanooga on the Dundee jet. Two: She telephoned her father and assured him she was well and happy and did not want to return home.
DOM HAD EXPECTED to be kept waiting at least half an hour, so when Audrey showed up promptly at eight, he was pleasantly surprised. Once again, the very sight of her stirred something sexual and predatory within him, something he wanted to deny, but couldn’t. She was so completely feminine that on a primeval level she appealed to all that was masculine in him.
If every man she met reacted to her the way he did, he could see how easily Audrey could lure men into her snare. He had to remind himself that she was not what she appeared to be. Behind all that beauty lay the ugliness of self-centeredness and betrayal.
When the maître d’approached them, Dom took her arm and draped it over his.
“You look lovely.”
That statement was no lie. She did look lovely. The bronze silk dress she wore made her fair skin radiant and her reddish blond hair shimmer with copper highlights.
Audrey didn’t reply. Instead she offered him a fragile smile that implied she was pleased with his compliment.
Once seated across the small, linen-covered table in a secluded corner of the dimly lit restaurant, Audrey lifted her gaze and looked directly at him. “Do you make a habit of picking up women in elevators?”
“Actually, you’re the first.”
“Am I?”
“You find that difficult to believe?”
She shrugged.
Why was she so leery of him? She had no idea he was a PI hired to track her down. He suspected that her distrust extended to all men, perhaps to people in general. Had she spent a lifetime trying to figure out who liked her for herself and who liked her because she was a wealthy heiress?
Don’t go making her into a victim, Dom warned himself. Audrey Bedell Perkins was a user, a taker, a woman who’d been unfaithful to her husband most of their six-year marriage.
After they ordered dinner and sat together sipping the merlot, Dom broke the silence with a risky question. “Your name seems familiar,” he said. “Your accent is decidedly Southern, but not deep South.”
She visibly tensed. “I’m from Tennessee.”
“Tennessee, huh? I live in Atlanta. Could I have seen your picture in the newspaper or read something about you in the society columns?”
She took a deep breath, forced a smile and replied. “I’m Audrey Bedell Perkins. It’s possible you’ve heard of my father.”
“You’re Edward Bedell’s daughter, aren’t you? Of course, you are. I wouldn’t have recognized you from the newspaper photographs I’ve seen. You’re far prettier in person.”
Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink. “Thank you.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re married, aren’t you?”
Nodding shyly, she set her wineglass down on the table and folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, I—I’m married.”
“And your husband isn’t here in Palm Beach with you?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Are you traveling alone?”
“Why so many questions, Mr. Shea? You aren’t a reporter, are you?”
Dom laughed. “Good God, no. I’m a businessman. And as for all the questions, let’s just say that I find you fascinating.”
“Do you find me fascinating or do you find the fact that I’m a wealthy heiress fascinating?”
“I suppose you want me to tell you the truth.”
“Yes.”
“Then the answer is both. If you didn’t have a dime to your name, I’d find you very interesting, but the fact that you’re Edward Bedell’s daughter simply makes you all the more intriguing.”
“I appreciate your honesty. It’s a rare quality these days.”
The waiter set their salads in front of them. Dom lifted his fork, then asked, “Will you answer a question for me and answer honestly?”
She scrutinized his face, as if hoping she could figure out just what he was getting at. “I’ll try.”
“Are you in the habit of accepting dinner invitations from every man who finds you fascinating?”
She studied him for a moment longer, then replied, “You’re referring to the fact that I’m a married woman, aren’t you? Would you be shocked if I admitted that I don’t feel very married, that you make me wish I wasn’t married.”
The knot in Dom’s stomach tightened. Shit! She was good. Damn good. She was playing him like a fiddle. How many times had she used that line on a guy? If he didn’t know her for what she was, he’d take her straight from dinner this evening to bed. And he’d keep her there all night and maybe all day tomorrow.
