Risky Business

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“Well, don’t.”

There it was again. That crimson flush on her ivory cheeks, as if somehow he’d embarrassed her.

“The poster,” he said. “It looks good.”

She turned instantly and left the room. He followed. She started to go into her bedroom, but he caught her arm and pulled her back around.

“Hey, hold on. What’s the matter?”

She looked up at him, her pale blue eyes brimming with annoyance. “It’s bad enough for me to look up and find you standing in my office this afternoon. Then you beg your way into my house. And now you’re snooping around.”

“I wasn’t snooping.”

“Then what do you call it?”

“The door was open.”

“That room is private!”

She looked genuinely angry. “Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in there.”

“That’s right. You shouldn’t have.”

“But I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want me to. The rest of this place isn’t you. That room is.”

She ducked her head, the color still hot on her cheeks. “You don’t know anything about me.”

He inched closer to her and placed his palm on the wall beside her head, dropping his voice. “Yes, I do. Maybe a whole lot more than most people do. That day in San Antonio, and then that night, I found out all kinds of things about you.”

“You have to stop this.”

“What?”

She closed her eyes. “Reminding me.”

“You don’t want to be reminded?”

“I did a very dumb thing that night, something I’d just as soon forget.”

“So that’s the way you remember it? As something you want to forget?”

“Yes.”

“You even want to forget how we met? The time we spent together that afternoon?”

He saw the indecision on her face. Was she going to acknowledge the truth, or continue to act as if their entire encounter had been the biggest mistake of her life?

“No,” she said finally. “That was nice.”

“Ah. Finally something we agree on.”

“But I wasn’t looking for a relationship then, and I’m still not looking.”

“I didn’t know we were talking about lifetime commitments here.”

“I don’t even want a four-day commitment from you. I don’t want anything from you. In fact, if you’d just go back to San Antonio and leave me alone, I’d be the happiest woman alive.”

“No, Rachel. I know what would make you the happiest woman alive, and it has nothing to do with me going back to San Antonio.” Slowly he dropped his head and placed a gentle kiss against her neck, then brought his lips up to brush against her ear. She was tense—so tense—and he wanted nothing more than to kiss all that tension away, for her to melt in his arms again.

“Let her out,” he whispered. “Right now. Show me that woman I knew in San Antonio.”

“Jack—”

“She’s in there,” he said. “I know she is. A beautiful, sexy woman I can’t wait to touch. We can be together again the way we were before, just the two of us, for hours on end—”

“No!”

She twisted to the left, then ducked beneath his arm and strode back down the hall.

Damn.

He thought about stopping her, then thought again. More than anything, he wanted to follow her into her bedroom, slip that frumpy robe off her shoulders, kick it aside, then make love to her until daybreak. But even if he managed to accomplish that tonight, he had the feeling she’d only wake up tomorrow morning as wary as she’d been in San Antonio, and he definitely didn’t want that. If he pushed her too hard right now, he could end up odd man out for the next four days, and there was no way he was going to let that happen.

As she reached her bedroom door, he called out to her. “Don’t you want to know what I was doing in Denver?”

She stopped, then slowly turned, eyeing him suspiciously.

“There’s a hotel not too far from where you work,” he said. “The Fairfax. They’re tearing it down.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “They’re what?”

“Tearing it down. Every brick, every chandelier, every doorknob, every strip of oak flooring—”

“But I love that hotel! I have lunch there at least once a week. Why don’t they just renovate it?”

“Because a new high-rise is going up in its place.”

She stepped back toward him. “But how can they tear down such a wonderful old building?”

“With a few well-placed explosives.”

“But all that history will be gone!”

“Not all of it. I’m bidding for the right to salvage the interior of the hotel.”

Rachel’s eyes lit up. “Oh! That’s right! You do restoration! Can you use all those fixtures somewhere else?”

“Absolutely. I’ve got one project I’m working on now in San Antonio of the same vintage, and another one is coming up. I’ll do something with all of the salvaged items eventually, or piece them out to other renovators who can put them to good use.”

“I guess it’s not the same as leaving the hotel standing, but at least you’ll be saving parts of it, right?”

There it was. That smile. That animated expression. That look of sheer radiance when she talked about anything connected to history. For the first time since he’d walked into her office this afternoon, he saw a glimmer of the woman he’d met that warm, sunny afternoon in San Antonio.

“That’s better,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re smiling. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how.”

She looked flustered and turned away.

“Don’t stop now,” he said.

“Jack—”

“History. You love it. We talked nonstop about it that day, remember? And the hotel we stayed in. That was a piece of history all by itself, wasn’t it?”

“I—I have to go to bed.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She looked at him suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, Rachel. As much as I’d like to join you, I’m not going to force my way into your bedroom.”

She seemed totally unconvinced of that. “You’re not?”

“No. Tonight I’ll just settle for the smile.”

She looked flustered all over again. She turned and disappeared into her bedroom, clicking the door shut behind her.

He found it amazing that a woman of her obvious professional capability could be so rattled by a tiny compliment. There was so much contradiction in her that he could probably take a year out of his life and still not figure it all out. Still, he had a feeling that it would be a year well spent.

She could try to fool him. She could wrap herself in that god-awful robe, or in wool from head to toe, put every hair in place and surround herself with hideous decor, but still he knew the truth. A passionate woman lurked beneath that cool surface, and he had exactly four days to get her to come out. And once she did, he’d never let her hide herself away again.

5

RACHEL SPENT MOST of the three-hour drive to Silver Springs, Colorado, with her stomach in turmoil. She’d barely slept last night. Just the thought of Jack being anywhere near her, even if he was in the other room, made visions of hot sex flash through her mind. And that was the last thing she needed to be thinking about.

Right now he was lounging comfortably in the passenger seat, as if they really were married and they really were going on a vacation, with a maddening attitude of total and complete nonchalance. But his attitude was the least of what was making her so uneasy right now. It was the physical aspect of the situation—sitting side by side with him in a closed-in space for hours—that was what was making her crazy.

Jack stood at least six foot two, with a body that said he was no stranger to physical activity. She remembered that his construction company was a small one, which meant he probably pitched right in beside his employees. An image formed in her mind of him working in the San Antonio heat, his body glistening with sweat, his T-shirt adhering to every muscle of his shoulders and chest, his biceps bulging…

Stop it.

Not once in her life had she allowed herself to succumb to the cliché of swooning over a sweaty man wielding power tools, yet here she was doing it. That kind of attraction was for people like her sister, who hopped into bed with any man with a hot body and a smooth come-on. Actually her sister married any man with a hot body and a smooth come-on. After Laura’s third divorce, Rachel thought maybe her sister ought to consider that possibly she was looking for the wrong characteristics in a prospective husband, but would she listen? Not a chance.

Still, being in such close quarters with Jack right now, Rachel couldn’t get that hunky-guy image out of her mind. Maybe that was because she knew that his work wasn’t the only thing he sweated over. She remembered a time when she’d sweated right along beside him. And beneath him. And above him. And—

She took a deep, calming breath. She had to get a grip here. It was time to focus. To plan. To make sure she did everything in her power to keep this man under control. Thinking about what he looked like naked only complicated an already complicated issue.

She’d coached Jack on the part he was getting ready to play, but true to his nature, all he did was make light of the whole thing, treating it as if it were a meaningless little game that her whole future wasn’t riding on. All it would take would be one slipup, and the whole world would know she’d lied about being married. And if that happened, she’d have no choice but to crawl into a hole somewhere and die of humiliation.

“Let’s go over it again,” she told him. “We were married two years ago in Austin—”

“We’ve been over it three times already. Once was plenty. Fortunately you don’t tell your co-workers much, so there wasn’t much for me to learn.”

“Just remember not to get freaked out if somebody refers to you as ‘doctor.”’

“Actually, Rachel, I don’t remember the last time I got freaked out about anything.”

She believed that. Wholeheartedly. Nothing bothered this man. It certainly didn’t bother him to join her on this trip when she’d made it absolutely clear that she didn’t want him to come. He just smiled and said he was coming anyway, which was enough to make her wish for a handful of antacid.

As they drove, a light, fluffy snow began to fall. She turned on her windshield wipers, slowing her speed on the winding road. Then, moments later, they rounded a curve, and The Summit came into view.

Since her company had designed it, she’d been up here several times already, but as usual it took her a moment to orient herself to its sudden presence on the mountain landscape. The Summit was a four-hundred-room hotel that connected to a shopping mall, several restaurants and nightclubs, all within walking distance of the ski slopes. It sprawled along a steep hillside, then spilled out into the edge of the valley

“Well,” Rachel said, “there it is. Impressive, isn’t it?”

Jack sat up straight, the strangest look coming over his face. “Uh…yeah. I’m having some strong impressions, all right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought the mountains were supposed to be bigger than the resort. You know. Way bigger.”