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“Mind if I use your phone?” he asked, reaching into the canvas bag beside her.
“Not at all,” she said, but he’d already clicked it on and was punching out the numbers.
While he stood next to her, waiting for his party to answer, she stared at her toes, half buried in the sand. Men like Reese and moments like these only existed in James Bond movies. Didn’t they? She pressed her lips together to suppress a giggle. She wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this. Shoving her toes deeper into the sand, she tried putting his surprise visit into perspective, but making sense of the last few minutes wasn’t easy. She had serious business to attend to, yet here she was dressed in a scandalously small thong bikini, listening to a drop-dead handsome man having a conversation in French on her cellular phone, and she was on the verge of having a full-blown fit of nervous laughter. This was unreal. What would her sister think of her lazing on this beach below her very own villa next to…him? Sliding her sunglasses down her nose, she glanced up at Reese, then shook her head. Teddy would definitely eat this with a silver spoon.
Leaning back in the chair, Beth laced her fingers across her middle and pretended to relax, while Reese continued his conversation. By the time he dropped the phone in the bag, she was certain she had herself under control again.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes. They’re expecting us for dinner at ten tonight.”
“They? Us?” Grasping the arms of her beach chair, she planted her feet flat in the sand. “Dinner?” Twisting her head to look up at him, she hadn’t realized he was already moving away. “What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t think I came all the way over here just to deliver your pearl?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I assumed that was a random act of kindness.”
“Not when I was delivering it to someone as senselessly beautiful as you are.”
“You know, you are a little presumptuous.”
“Sooner or later one of us had to be, Beth. I’ll pick you up at your front door at nine,” he said, sloshing back into the water.
She was on her feet and running after him. “Hold on.”
“Can’t. I have a tennis match in half an hour.” He kept on walking away, his powerful legs stirring the water into a churning froth of bubbles.
“What makes you think I’m going out with you tonight?”
“Because we have so much to talk about,” he said, raising his voice for her to hear.
“Is that so? Like what?” she shouted as she waded in ankle-deep.
“Like why you’ve been following me around town for the past four days,” he said, before diving beneath the surface.
Two (#ulink_4a8bfe57-4299-5095-92c8-7824d52de2b9)
After several well-aimed spritzes, Beth thunked the crystal perfume atomizer onto the vanity, then leveled a warning look at the mirror. Under no circumstances was she allowing Reese Marchand to get under her skin again. The humiliating moment at the casino when she’d panicked at his touch should have been lesson enough. Obviously it wasn’t, or he wouldn’t have been able to catch her off-guard at the beach this morning and then make matters worse by leaving her standing there slack jawed and speechless a few minutes later.
“You’re not seven years old anymore,” she murmured as she reached for the gold watch beside the perfume. Her heart fluttered as she noted the time. Reese Marchand was due in five minutes, and she was going to be just fine. Snapping on the watch, she centered the mother-of-pearl face on her wrist, then fingered the bracelet-styled band. Expensive but understated, the watch, like the rest of the jewelry Eugene Sprague sent with her, was exquisite. When she caught the beginning of her smile in the mirror, she dropped her hands to her sides and glared at her reflection. “This is not your first visit to the county fair, Beth. This is work.”
Grabbing her evening bag from the vanity, she hesitated before starting toward the front hall of the villa. Her work clothes never looked like this. Staring into the mirror again, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. She owned evening clothes, too, but they were all bought off the sale racks, for crowded campaign banquets and stuffy receptions. None of those clothes made her look and feel this way. This sexy. This powerful.
Mesmerized by her new image, she slowly traced the swells of her breasts above the plunging neckline of the designer dress. Turning around, she looked over her shoulder at the way the dress flattered her slender curves. The simple white lace number with the saucy kick pleat sent out sixty different messages. Demure, devastating, capable, sweet, sophisticated, ready…the list went on. All Reese Marchand had to understand was one message—she’d dressed with him in mind.
Heading for the entry hall, she felt a surge of confidence that wiped away any niggling doubt about her ability to deal with Reese. Whatever that challenge that she’d seen in his eyes was, she would be ready for it. Thrill for thrill, she would match him, and when the opportunity arose, she would do her best to surprise him. Delight him. Entice him. And maybe seduce him. When she finally gained Reese’s confidence she would find a way to the truth about his relationship to Harrison Montgomery. And she would do it all, because as outrageous as it sounded, sometimes the ends justified the means. If it took the scandal of an illegitimate son to derail Montgomery’s campaign, then this was one of those times.
As she entered the intricately-styled entry hall the doorbell began ringing. She reached for the door, but stopped short when her stomach began doing flip-flops. Strange flip-flops. The kind tinged with misgiving…and maybe a little guilt. What was she up against, really? According to his file, a high-society, highly successful champagne executive with stellar connections and a penchant for high-risk sports. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them to look around the pink-and-yellow hall with the wedding-cake trim. If she was going to pull off this charade with Reese Marchand, she had to put everything else out of her mind and start playing the palace princess. Now.
The bell rang again as she was opening the door. Reese had casually leaned his six-foot-plus, tuxedo-clad body against the doorjamb, crossed his arms loosely over his waist and was giving her a killer wink. At first glance, the light from the portico’s lamp seemed to shine only on him. And why not? He looked as if he’d been ripped from the pages of GQ.
Courage.
Coaxing a tiny smile onto her lips, Beth let it linger as she gave him a slow once-over that started and ended on those smoky topaz eyes of his. His steadily growing smile told her he liked her bold stare. And then he took his turn. Slowly and with lingering intensity, he drank in every detail available to his eyes, and some, she guessed, that weren’t. The moment was both mellow and electrifying, sending tiny tremors of awareness through her. As he opened his mouth, every intimate part of her quivered with anticipation.
“So, Beth Langdon, why have you been following me for the past few days?”
Pressing her evening bag against her collarbone, she widened her eyes and gave him the answer she’d been rehearsing all day. “Me following you? I think you were the one following me.” She shook her finger at him. “It’s true. Walking in the old city…along the harbor…at the Café de Paris…well, everywhere I went, there you were. Imagine my surprise when we bumped into each other at the casino last night.” Smiling, she held her breath to see if he would buy it.
He didn’t.
Nodding once, he stood away from the door and studied her. “That was very good,” he said, pretending good-naturedly to be impressed with the way she’d fielded his question.
Off the hook for the moment, Beth let her gaze drift away from him. The confident smile she’d kept on her face suddenly disappeared when she saw the Jaguar convertible parked in the portico. “We’re going in that?” she asked in a whisper of unmistakable admiration.
“We could catch a bus,” he said teasingly, as she pulled the front door closed. He patted his pockets. “Oops, I don’t have my schedule with me.”
“I was joking,” she murmured, walking past him to the car. She ran her hand along the gleaming door, then reached over and gave the leather seat a testing push. “Mmmmm.” Soft as a marshmallow. Stretching, she drew her fingertips around the top of the wooden steering wheel and then along the dash. Richly grained walnut, she was sure of it. If there was ever an automobile she’d secretly coveted, this was the one. And Reese had even selected her favorite color combination: a highly polished, deep green body with a light, buttery tan leather interior. Braced and leaning over the Jaguar, she thought about her secondhand car back in Bethesda. Dented and badly in need of a paint job, the economy model took up far less space than this one, didn’t require gourmet gasoline and in six more payments she would own it.
“Careful,” he said, moving up behind her. “Stroking it like that may get it excited.”
Biting back a laugh, she removed her hand from inside the car and pushed herself away. It was just a car, she reminded herself. And she was after far more important information about Reese Marchand than his taste in automobiles. Still, if there was such a thing as a sexy automobile, Reese owned one. She turned to get a peek at the side mirror and tapped her fingernails on the polished exterior and sighed. There was no denying it, luxury felt awfully good. “You know, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to ri—” Withdrawing her hand as if she’d been caught with it in the cookie jar, Beth moved two steps back this time. “What I meant to say was, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to drive one of these.”
Slipping his hands into his pockets, Reese kept on watching her as he rested his backside against the car. As much as he enjoyed her overt flirting, her unstudied reactions charmed him on a whole different level. Removing his key ring from one pocket, he held it to his chest. “Beth, it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
Rattling his keys, he tossed the ring into the air. “To drive one. Catch.”
She caught the keys somewhere near her knees. Staring at them, she adjusted the strap of her evening bag before she stood up and looked up. “Are you serious?”
“Only if you’ll drive it with the top down,” he said, taking her evening bag and setting it in the back seat.
She pulled in a slow, deep breath as a smile grew on her face. “Now?”
“Now. I love that word. It has such an immediate feel to it,” he said, as he opened the car door and helped her into the driver’s seat. By the time he’d walked around the car and gotten in on the passenger side, she’d inserted the key, started the engine and was wrapping her fingers around the walnut gear-shift knob. “Are you always this eager for a new adventure?” he asked, as he connected his seat belt.
She pumped the gas once and the purring engine roared with promise. “I am since I met you.”
Adjusting the hem of her dress on her thigh, she shifted smoothly, then eased off the clutch. As the convertible rolled to the end of the lit driveway, her hair was already lifting in the breeze. Looking left, then right, she gunned the motor to a ripping roar this time. Her eyes brightened and a smile flashed across her face at the animal sound. “Ready?”
“Ready,” he said, giving her a thumb’s-up.
A shot of adrenaline buzzed through his veins as she pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the main road. Easing back in the passenger seat, he let out a hopeful sigh. With Beth Langdon beside him he could legitimately excuse himself from any more business talk with Duncan for tonight. Good friend or not, Duncan had to get the message soon. Reese was not going to the United States to sell his champagne. At least, not this year, when Harrison Montgomery was claiming half the sound bites on CNN. Reese rubbed his face in quiet frustration. The senator’s familiar image was everywhere these days, but there was one place he could happily escape it. Turning his attention to the woman beside him, he smiled.
With her hair whipping around her head in a wild halo of spun gold, she smiled back. Her fresh, unstudied reaction delighted him beyond reason. He didn’t know a thing about her, except that she appeared not to have a care in the world. And suddenly he was sharing that sentiment.
“How does it feel?” he asked, as enchanted with her as she was with the car.
“Like heaven on wheels,” she said, competently shifting down when a service van pulled out from a side road in front of them.
As she slowed the Jaguar, Reese angled his body toward her. He hadn’t seen anyone enjoy the simple act of driving a car as much as she was. She alternately stroked the wheel with her thumb and glided her palm along its curve. He imagined that same smile on her as a teenager with her first car. In typical American tradition, she’d probably named it.
When she began lightly tapping her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently, he nudged the side of her thigh. “Time to make a move, Beth.”
She gave him a quick questioning look, then returned her gaze to the road. “What do you mean?”
“It’s pretty much a straightaway for several miles.” He leaned closer, resting his hand on his knee near the gear shift. “Pass the van. I’ll watch you.”
Maneuvering the car a foot to the left, she checked up the road for oncoming traffic.
“Clear?”
“I can see all the way to Italy,” she said teasingly. Holding her hair away from her face, she added, “Now?”
Reese braced his hand on the dash close to the gearshift knob. “Now.” She steered the car smoothly into the opposite lane. “Excellent.” Glancing down the road, he could see a set of headlights cresting over a rise. “You’re fine, just give it more gas.”
Her chin rose a fraction of an inch, the only sign of her increased concentration. He could sense her excitement and rode with it like a tail wind. “A little faster.” At that moment the service van driving beside them began speeding up. Wrapping her hands more firmly around the knob, she stepped into the clutch, pulled back on the stick and missed the gear. The approaching car blinked its headlights in warning. His first instinct was to take over. “Get ready on the clutch,” he said, attempting to remove her hand from the knob.
“Trust me. I’ve got it,” she said, her voice steady, determined, her grip sure.
In that tense and vital moment, he found himself ignoring his first impulse. Something deep inside told him to let go. To trust her. He did, and a second later, she maneuvered the stick into gear, pressed down on the accelerator and slipped the car back into their lane ahead of the van. With only seconds to spare, the oncoming car whizzed passed them.
Several wordless moments passed, with only the purring motor and his thumping heart filling the silence. “Ange polisson, you give a wild ride,” he said, before bowing his head in slightly exaggerated relief. After a respectful moment, he made the sign of the cross, then looked at her with mischief in his eyes. “I feel as if we should be sharing a cigarette.” Before she could respond, he pointed to a restaurant sign partially hidden in shrubbery a short way up the road. “The answer to my prayers. We’re here.”
Pulling into the parking lot, she parked the car and removed the key. Tucking the key ring into his hand, she closed her warm fingers over his fist.
“Ange pollison? What exactly does that mean?”
“Naughty angel.”
“Well, this naughty angel thanks you for making one of her fantasies come true.” She smiled. “She owes you one.”
Over the past few days he’d been gathering a number of adjectives to describe his mystery lady, but they all fell in line behind his newest revelation. Spirited. Beth Langdon just might be the one to help him out of his bind with Duncan. He watched as she unhooked her seat belt, then turned to face him. Planting a hand on the edge of his seat, she leaned closer. Her lips shimmered in the parking-lot light.
“Didn’t scare you, did I?”
As much as he was tempted to lean over and kiss that smug little smile from her face, he wasn’t going to. Not until the plan forming in his mind was clear to him. Shaking his head, he touched one of her diamond ear clips, then traced the curve of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know a damned thing about you. Why you followed me, where you’re from, anything about your background—”
“Is background important to you?”
He held her gaze steady with his, but didn’t say anything for several seconds. “About that game you were playing with me last night at the casino—”
“The game I won?” she asked, cutting in again.
He shook his head once. “I’m not talking about roulette.”
“You’re not?”
“No, mon ange polisson,” he said, moving his fingertip over her lips. “When you play roulette, you play against the house. I want to know about the game you were playing with me.” Curving his hands around her rib cage, he urged her closer. “The one you’re still playing.”
“Why?” she asked, running her fingers through his curly hair, then spilling it over his forehead. “Because you don’t want to play with me?”
“I do. I just want to know the rules.”
Her hand suddenly stilled. “There aren’t any. But if you insist, we’ll make them up as we go along.”
“And then…?” He prompted her with a nod.
She didn’t respond.
Beneath his curved hands her heart began beating faster. He was definitely getting under her skin. “Then, Beth,” he said, “we’ll break them. Every one of them.” She opened her mouth, but before she could protest he added, “Starting now.” Pulling her close, he kissed her until she groaned. He was certain the sound had its origins in heaven. Shifting in his arms, she plowed her fingers into his hair and began to kiss him back.
Three (#ulink_a7b9e493-d910-5357-8b97-420c80a8f2c2)
National security be damned; she wasn’t sharing this discovery with anyone. Reese Marchand was a brilliant kisser.
Catching her by surprise with a series of masterful tongue strokes, Reese had taken her from a gasp to a groan in seconds. Tingling sensations streamed straight from his mouth to every erogenous zone on her body. Without warning he gentled his advance to nibbling her lips, then just as quickly went back to lavishing his expert attention in the moist warmth beyond them. Shivering against the delicious intrusion, she fleetingly wondered how any woman could not respond to such thoroughness.
Of course, self-control was possible, but with the soft pressure of his hands around her rib cage, highly questionable. His light hold had somehow turned into a teasing challenge to come closer. But that wasn’t going to happen. For the sake of her goal, she had to find a way out of this deepening maze of desire…just as soon as Reese stopped that nibbling he’d started again. Lord, help her. He was turning her into little more than a traitorous mass of dewy flesh.
His thorough and relentless technique had her toes and fingers curling, and she realized the only way she could straighten them was to return the pleasure. Generously. That still didn’t account for her ending up on the other side of the console and in his lap when they finally broke for air.
His deadpan look toward the empty driver’s seat and then to her in his lap ended in a slow, shared smile. Her hands drifted out of his hair and down to his chest. Beneath the fine pleats of his shirtfront she felt the pleasant definition of muscle, the steady thump of his heartbeat and the heat she’d help to generate. Without a doubt, he was the most handsome, most masculine, most desirable man she’d ever laid eyes or hands on.
As their connected gazes intensified, she knew she couldn’t help herself; she had to touch his lips again. As she traced her own moisture on them, he captured her finger in a quick, soft bite. The moment lingered between them, rich and heavy with promise. Before releasing her finger, he flicked his tongue over the tip of it, and it seemed over other parts of her, as well. If he only knew what he was doing to her…she pressed her thighs together.
“I believe we broke two rules that time, Miss Langdon.”
“I believe we did, Mr. Marchand,” she said, as her body absorbed the vibration of his rumbling whisper. Was she supposed to fit so snugly, so comfortably against his solid flesh? Was the seduction of Reese Marchand supposed to feel this good?
Reaching up, he looped a lock of her hair around his finger, then stroked it across his cheek. “Shall we try for three?”
Was it necessary to indulge him this one more kiss? Was it wise to indulge herself? More questions were tumbling in, but she put them all out of her mind. As she brought her face close to his, the words rolled off her tongue. “I was just going to suggest that.”
Her brushing kisses melted into one long and sumptuous move that left her mind spinning. Lifting her lips from his, she began to pull back. She was becoming entirely too pleased with herself and that had to stop. Now. Because there was such a thing as too much—
“Four?” he whispered.
“Four,” she whispered, dipping her head again to swirl her tongue over his lips and into his mouth. Feeling the ridge of arousal pressing against her bottom, she twisted in his embrace and boldly deepened the kiss. As he began to squirm beneath her, any doubts about the wiseness of her act scattered in a hot haze of wanting and needing.
Without warning, a masculine voice sounded beside the car.
“If you two would quit making a spectacle of yourselves…”
Their eyes slowly opened to each other’s. In a mirrored move, their foreheads touched before they turned their gazes toward the speaker. Beth recognized the tall, good-looking man as Reese’s friend from the casino.
“This is Duncan Vanos, Beth,” Reese said. “A good friend with bad timing.”
