by Lisa Childs
“I suspect that’s a comparison few people would make about you,” he said. She had to be beautiful and sexy. Just as he was certain she was up to no good, he was certain she was gorgeous as well.
“You don’t know that,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice again. “I may be enormous – so big that I can’t even leave my house.”
“So you live in a house,” he said, pouncing on the clue. “Not an apartment. Good to know.”
She laughed. “Yes, there aren’t many houses in St. Bart’s. Good luck, Detective.” She disconnected the call before he could ask for what she was wishing him luck. Stopping crime in St. Bart’s or stopping her?
He suspected he would need luck for both.
***
Getting Dominic Rowe out of his clothes had sounded like a good idea when it had popped into Taylor’s head seconds ago. But now...
Now she knew it was a fabulous idea. His body, with naturally tan skin stretched taut over well-defined muscles, was more beautiful than any of the sculptures he created. Her mouth went dry as desire overwhelmed her.
Then the door rattled as the fist pounded harder and Roderick called out, “Hey, Dom, open up.”
“Answer the door,” she told him.
He glanced down at himself. He was wearing only his knit boxer briefs, the fabric did nothing to disguise his erection. Taylor kept trying to focus on his chest or better yet his face, but her gaze kept dipping there too – to the impressive long, hard length of his cock. Heat flushed her body, and she wished her clothes were off, too.
“What?” he whispered at her.
“Answer the door.”
“Now?” he asked.
“That was the whole point of taking off your clothes,” she explained – because she’d suspected it was Roderick who’d come back to the room. “But before you open the door...”
And because she was hot and because she really wanted to get back at his twin for betraying him, she turned her back toward him and said, “Unzip me.”
“What?”
She took a step back, closer to him, and could feel the heat of his body against hers. “Unzip me. Quick.”
The call girl was crazy. But she held some kind of strange spell over Dominic, which made him helpless to resist her commands. He’d undressed when she’d told him to. And now he found his fingers on the tab of her zipper. He pulled it down and parted the dress to bare her long, sexy back. And he sucked in a breath as his cock hardened even more.
“Now open the door,” she told him as she stepped out of the dress and turned toward him.
His heart stopped for a moment, as he thought she might be entirely naked. But she wore one of those nude bras that was taped around her breasts. She wore a thong as well that was as nude as the bra.
“But not all the way,” she told him as she reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, tousling it.
He didn’t want to open the damn door at all. He wanted to tell Roderick to go to hell. But he had a feeling that this marriage might send him there with no help from Dominic.
Roderick pounded again and called out between chortles, “What’s going on in there?”
Dominic sighed as he headed toward the door. As Taylor had directed, he opened it, but not all the way – just enough to poke his head around it. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked his brother. “What’s with all the pounding?”
“Should I ask you the same thing?” Roderick asked, pointing at Dominic’s bare chest, before trying to push the door open farther. “You pounding -”
Dominic shoved his brother back, catching them both by surprise. “Don’t be vulgar,” he warned him. “What are you doing here? Thought you had a party to go to...”
Roderick’s face actually flushed. He hadn’t ever been embarrassed before over his actions, though. So he was probably angry that Dominic had shoved him. “Courtney was talking about the wedding party,” he said. “It’s just all of us getting together. And once we got down to the bar, I realized it was rude to not include you and Taylor.”
“In the wedding party?” Dominic asked, dread filling him. He’d stood up for Roderick for his first wedding, but his twin hadn’t been marrying one of his old girlfriends that time. This time would just be weird...
“No, no,” Roderick laughed. “Everybody’s already got the dresses and tuxes for the ceremony. We can’t change that up.”
But it sounded like maybe he had tried, and Courtney had used not having extra bridesmaid’s dresses or groomsmen’s tuxes as an excuse to not include them.
Not that Dominic would have accepted. Hell, Michelle was probably right and he shouldn’t have even accepted the invitation to attend the ceremony. That had been stupid – almost as stupid as his idiot brother. Maybe the guy did need a lesson in humility and in humanity. He had no guilt over stealing Courtney away from him. No remorse at all.
“No, no,” Roderick rushed on as he pushed against the door again. “I thought it was rude not to invite you down for drinks and dinner with all of us – leaving you guys up here alone and bored.”
A laugh rang out and suddenly the door opened but not because of Roderick’s pressing against it. Taylor’s hand wrapped around Dominic’s on the knob, and she tugged it open.
Roderick’s face got a brighter shade of red as he stared down at the blonde. Her dress was still on the floor next to her fire engine red heels. But the sheet was no longer on the bed; she’d wrapped it around herself.
“We are never bored when we’re alone,” Taylor assured his brother.
Courtney, who’d just stepped off the elevator behind Roderick, gasped as she overheard Taylor’s pronouncement. She probably could have argued about how boring Dominic could be. He’d certainly bored her whenever he’d been preoccupied with his art. Hell, maybe it wasn’t all Roderick’s fault for her leaving him. Her face turned as pale as Roderick’s was red. She rushed forward and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Everyone wondered where you’d gone.”
So he hadn’t even told her he was inviting them? Or maybe he had and she’d told him no but he’d come up anyway? Either way, it was clear she was upset.
They were both jealous as hell. It was obvious and satisfying to Taylor. Did Dominic even realize it, though? He deserved a little revenge after what they’d done to him, but she could see no enjoyment on his face. His jaw was clenched, a muscle twitching beneath the faint shadow of stubble.
This was hard for him. But as she glanced down his body, she saw that he wasn’t hard anymore. Either the sight of his brother or his ex had deflated what Taylor had inspired.
Apparently she hadn’t lost her appeal. When she’d told him to take off his clothes, he’d gotten hard for her. Why the hell had she told him to open the door? She should have just ignored his brother’s knocking. But then she couldn’t get the story she wanted.
What the hell kind of reporter was she going to be when she had to keep reminding herself of that? Disgusted with herself and with them and needing a moment to regroup, she started pushing the door shut as she told them, “Well, don’t let us keep you from your wedding party...”
Roderick caught the door before she could close it. “Like I was telling Dom, I came up to invite you to join us -”
Courtney gasped again before protesting, “I told you that it’s too late -”
“I know, I know,” Roderick impatiently assured her. “I’m inviting them to join us for drinks and dinner.”
“But they’re not part of the wedding party,” she said, her voice all whiney and petulant, and she tugged harder on his arm, pulling him back from the door.
“He’s my brother,” Roderick said, as if that had just occurred to him.
He certainly hadn’t thought about that when he’d stolen Dominic’s girlfriend. But, Taylor suspected, he’d probably actually done his twin a favor. She couldn’t imagine a sensitive artist like Dominic with an insipid, whiney twit like Courtney. But Roderick hadn’t stolen her as a favor. H
e’d done it as a betrayal. Both the groom and the bride had betrayed him. And they wanted him to celebrate their betrayal. No wonder this was hard for Dominic.
Taylor intended to make it hard for them. She wanted them to get even more jealous. And she wanted them to look foolish in all the photos she would make thousands selling to the tabloids.
“Yes, of course, we’ll join you,” she answered for them. “We can have sex any time.” She giggled. “Or all the time, like we usually do. Just give us a little bit to get dressed and we’ll join the party in the bar.”
She’d stunned the couple so much that Roderick didn’t react in time to stop the door from slamming shut in his face.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Dominic asked.
She didn’t know if he was referring to the part where she’d made him get undressed or undress her or her agreeing to dinner and drinks. But before asking him to clarify, she had a more pressing question for him. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“What?”
“Why were you ever seeing someone like cranky Courtney?” she wanted to know.
And he laughed. “Cranky...” His head bobbed in a hearty nod. “That’s pretty fitting.”
“She isn’t – not with you.” She was pretty perfect for rotten Roderick, though. “What did you ever see in her?” As she heard herself ask the question, she heard something in her voice she’d never heard before – something that sounded almost like jealousy.
But that wasn’t her. She never got jealous. If she did, she wouldn’t have survived being the poor kid in that swanky boarding school or at the private college. And if she’d never gotten jealous over all the extravagant things her wealthy friends had been able to afford, why would she get jealous over a man? That was certainly something she’d never done before. She’d never cared enough about one to be jealous of his current, future and certainly never his past relationships.
“She’s pretty,” he said defensively. But it appeared as if he was looking – hard – for things he’d found attractive about her.
“How did you meet?” she asked.
His mouth curved into a slight grin. “Over my art.”
Taylor snorted.
“No, really,” he insisted. “She saw a piece in the lobby of the hotel where she used to work. Is that where you saw one of my pieces?”
She narrowed her eyes to glare at him. “Hotel lobby? Because you think I’m in a lot of hotels?” Of course he would be right about that – if she was a real escort. But she wasn’t. And the only hotels she’d been in had been when she’d traveled with her friends.
He shrugged. “I really don’t know what to think about you anymore...”
Damn. She was already blowing her cover. “I saw the sculpture you did of Michelle,” she said.
“Oh...”
“Not that I probably haven’t seen something of yours in a hotel lobby,” she continued. “Michelle told me that a prominent hotel architect always features your sculptures in his designs.”
He sighed. “Did she tell you that prominent hotel architect is one of her former stepfathers?”
“No.”
Michelle rarely claimed credit for any of the good things she did. Just the crazy things. Like FANTASY ENTERTAINMENT. She was a little too proud of that – so proud that she continued to play some weird cat and mouse game with St. Bart’s ace and only detective, Sam Butler. If the make-believe madam wasn’t careful, the guy might actually catch her. But, after seeing the hot lawman at Elaine’s father’s wedding, maybe that was what Michelle actually wanted.
Taylor couldn’t criticize her, though, since she was taking a risk as well. Staring at Dominic Rowe, who still only wore his underwear, Taylor had to remember what that risk was. It wasn’t to her heart, she assured herself. She would never risk that. No. The only risk she was taking was blowing her undercover escort disguise and getting tossed out of the hotel.
She dropped the sheet she’d wrapped around herself and said, “Hurry up.”
His green eyes widened as he stared at her. “What?”
She stepped into the dress she’d dropped earlier and pulled it up. “We need to get down to the bar and join the party.”
“What,” he sputtered now. “What the hell were you thinking when you agreed to that?”
That she could sneak some pictures with her camera of the bride and groom getting wasted. And who knew who else was in the wedding party? Hopefully some other famous people. But saying that would blow her cover.
“I was thinking you’re getting the payback you deserve,” she said, “by making your brother and ex insanely jealous.”
He snorted. “I don’t care if they’re jealous or not.”
“You don’t?” she asked and skeptically arched an eyebrow. “Seriously? It doesn’t feel good to get a little payback for how they both callously dismissed your feelings?”
He sighed and pushed one of his hands through his thick, black hair. Her fingers tingled as she remembered how soft it had felt against her skin when she’d tousled it. “Okay,” he said with apparent reluctance, “I hate to admit it, but maybe a little...”
“Why do you hate to admit it?”
He shrugged, his bare shoulders rippling. And Taylor swallowed hard at the sight. He was so damn gorgeous. “I don’t know – guess it makes me feel small.”
There was nothing small about him.
“All it makes you is human,” Taylor said. “And maybe it’ll make them more human, too. Maybe it’ll make them realize that what they did is wrong.”
He snorted again. “You really believe that?”
“Well, maybe it’ll make them realize they shouldn’t get married.” She really hoped that wasn’t the case, though. She wanted her exclusive. But then the wedding not happening would be a big scandal and coverage of the break up a bigger exclusive than coverage of the wedding. “Yeah, we need to get down there.”
They had a wedding to derail.
“I never said I didn’t want them getting married,” Dominic said.
“You don’t want the bride to call off the wedding and beg you to take her back?” she asked. And as she waited for his answer, she felt a peculiar tightness in her chest. Was it that damn jealousy again? But why should she care if he wanted cranky Courtney back? She’d just met Dominic Rowe. He meant nothing to her but a means to get the story she wanted. Didn’t he?
Chapter Four
May 15
Late afternoon
I keep waiting for the phone to ring again. I’m expecting Taylor to call me and complain that Dominic wouldn’t let her stay. Unfortunately, I’m also hoping Detective Sam Butler calls back and begs me to meet him. Of course that would be a bad idea for both of us. He can’t accept that I’m breaking no laws. I could try explaining the situation to him, but then I’d have to admit that my friends pretended to be a call girl and an escort.
No. It is safer for everybody if Detective Butler and I never meet – probably especially for me since I am so disappointed at the thought of never meeting him. I shouldn’t care this much – about him or any man. After seeing all my mom’s marriages fail, I know there really is no such thing as happily ever or soul mates. At least not for me...
Maybe I am just disappointed that Taylor won’t get her story and Dominic won’t get any satisfaction at this wedding. I should have known he’d never agree to her staying. So where is she? Knowing Taylor though, she wouldn’t easily give up trying to get her exclusive. Maybe she is going undercover as a waitress or a maid since her undercover escort disguise didn’t work.
***
Dominic was too stunned to answer Taylor immediately – because the thought of taking back Courtney filled him with dread. Like she’d asked, what the hell had he ever seen in cranky Courtney? She had been sweet and flattering to him when they’d met, but he was beginning to suspect now that she’d just used him as a way to meet his brother. And he hadn’t wanted to admit to Taylor that he’d been such an idiot and that there
was no way Courtney would ever take him back. She had the Rowe twin she wanted: the famous one.
So instead of answering Taylor, he’d quickly dressed and gone downstairs with her. Hanging out with the wedding party was preferable to being alone with his escort anyway. Because if he was alone with her too much, he was bound to act like an idiot again.
As they stepped off the elevator into the bar area, a bouncer instead of a hostess greeted them. The man nodded at Dominic, probably easily recognizing him as Roderick’s twin, but he stopped Taylor.
“I’m with him,” she said.
“I need to look in your purse,” the burly man told her.