TWO
He blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Your name," Molly said. "No, don't tell me. It's Brian, right?"
His name. She honest to God didn't know who he was. Well, of course she didn't—she wouldn't have insulted him right and left if she'd known.
Not that he felt insulted. On the contrary. He was amused by her vehemence. What had she called him? Pompous. He didn't think he'd ever been called pompous before. Certainly never to his face, and probably never even behind his back. Overbearing. He didn't think he was overbearing—not the way some of his classmates at Harvard had been. He was intensely aggressive at times, yes, but never overbearing. And as for egotistical. Well . . . Perhaps she wasn't quite off base there, since it was maybe a little egotistical to assume that Molly Cassidy would automatically know who he was.
But on the other hand, he'd known exactly who she was the first time he saw her.
"So am I right?" She was smiling at him as she led the way back into the hall.
He followed her. Right about what? Then he remembered. His name. "Brian? Nope. Not even close."
At first glance she looked completely average. She had light brown hair, made darker now from the rain. It was a little longer than shoulder length, with a light fringe of bangs that framed her oval-shaped face.
"Pete."
He shook his head as they went down the stairs. "I honestly don't think you're going to guess."
Her nose was unremarkable, neither too big nor too small and her mouth fit nicely beneath it. Her eyes were a very common shade of blue. She wasn't too short or too tall—just a nice, average height. She was slender, but not too skinny. Her oversized T-shirt attempted to hide her curves, but the sudden downpour of rain had drenched it, and now it did quite the opposite, clinging to her nicely proportioned body. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but he knew she had to be older. Her boy was at least nine or ten years old.
"Steve?"
"No."
"Okay, I give up. What is your name? Bill, right?"
He laughed. "I thought you gave up."
She was a mom and a widow, and she looked the part. Wholesome. Average. Nothing special.
At first glance.
But Pres had had the opportunity to take a second glance at very, very close proximity up on the roof of the house.
And up close, her hair had shone with overtones of gold. It was baby-fine and soft as the purest, most expensive silk as his hands had brushed against it. Up close, her seemingly average nose had a smattering of ridiculously perfect freckles across it, and her lips looked incredibly, heart-stoppingly soft. She was quick to smile, and that smile lit her from within, transforming her and making her look anything but average.
And up close, her eyes were so much more than common. They were filled with flecks of green and gold and brown, swirling in and among an ocean that never stayed the same warm shade of blue for long.
"It's my major fault," she admitted. "I have this inability to give up. Just tell or I'll keep guessing."
He hesitated for a second or two. "My mother used to call me Michael."
"Mike—I was right the first time," she said triumphantly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because most folks around here call me by my given name." He paused. "Pres Seaholm. The first."
Molly Cassidy's big blue eyes got even bigger and bluer, and Pres knew that—for the first time since they'd come down off the roof—she was about to be silent.
But her silence didn't last for long. "You're kidding, right? Please say you're only kidding."
He shook his head no, and she covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Lord."
"I wish I could tell you that I stopped by to make my fifth crass offer on the house in three days, but the truth is I was painting on the beach, taking advantage of the weird light before the storm struck."
Molly started to laugh. "Oh, Lord, I'm sorry. . . ." She had to sit down on the stairs, she was laughing so hard. "I called you ... And I said ... Oh, God! You must think I'm awful."
Zander came out of his room and peered down at them over the upstairs railing. He stomped his foot, making a sharp, loud sound, and Molly glanced up. As Pres watched, the boy made some movements with his hands. It had to be sign language.
"No, I'm all right," Molly called up to her son, still laughing as she made similar motions with her hands. "I'm just . . ." She shook her head, turning to look at Pres. Her cheeks were flushed from embarrassment and her eyes were still brimming with laughter, making her look even younger. The effect was charming. "You're not what I expected," she said accusingly, almost as if this were all his fault.
"You mean, pompous and overbearing?" He smiled to soften his words, to make sure she knew he didn't take any of it too seriously.
She cringed, briefly closing her eyes, but didn't crumble. "You did come on way too strong," she insisted. "Making all those offers on the house like that . . ."
"That's not coming on too strong," he countered. "That's getting the job done. See, I want this house."
Molly stood up, and the stairs put her at eye level with him. She wasn't laughing anymore. "But it's not for sale, Mr. Seaholm. It's not even on the market."
He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes, but she stopped him before he even pulled them out.
"Yes, I mind if you smoke, so don't even ask," she told him sternly. "When I picked up the keys, I told the realtor I wasn't interested in selling. But despite that, you made an offer on the place. And I assume you talked to her—what's her name? Fox?—since she was the one who called me with your offer."
"Yeah, I talked to Maia Fox. And yeah, she told me about your conversation."
"And you made the offer anyway. Not once but four times. Don't you think that's maybe a little teeny tiny bit pushy?"
Pres shrugged, trying not to be daunted by the disapproval in her eyes. For some reason, it was important that she didn't dislike him. For some reason . . . ? Not true. For one very specific reason—that he always took care to keep carefully zipped inside his pants during business deals. He had to smile at that—and at himself. It wasn't like him to think with a part of his anatomy other than his brain.
"I thought after you had a chance to see the place, to see how much work needs to be done, you'd change your mind," he told her. "And if you were going to change your mind, I didn't want to risk someone else jumping in with an offer and stealing the place out from underneath me."
She didn't look totally convinced, but his explanation at least took some of the edge off of her disapproval.
"After all," he added, "you don't get to be a pompous, overbearing, egocentric billionaire by waiting for opportunities to find you."
The pink in her cheeks darkened, despite the fact that he was only teasing. "You're never going to let me live this down, are you? Damn, there goes my chance at being invited to join the Billionaires' Yacht Club," she said. "Me and my big mouth—and my foot firmly entrenched within it. Too bad—and I was so looking forward to the annual Sunrise Key Beach Ball Day high-society dinner dance."
"Not a problem. Sell me this house, and I'll make sure you have a pair of tickets seating you at the mayor's table."
She laughed. Pres liked making her laugh.
"Yeah, right. Big deal. There's no such thing as the annual Beach Ball Day dance."
"Sell me the house, and I'll throw one—in your honor."
"I don't get it. Is there oil on this land?" she asked, eyes narrowed. "Or maybe a gold mine underneath the basement?"
"Not that I know of."
Molly shook her head, moving past him down the stairs. "Yeah, like you'd tell me about it if there were, right?"
The Beach Boy was Preston Seaholm, the billionaire. Lord, wasn't that just her luck.
Or maybe it was lucky. The Beach Boy might've turned out to be a laid-back, no-worries kind of guy who traveled with the weather and the good times and lived hand-to-mouth. He might've been the kind of guy who worked just enough to pay the rent
and fill his stomach, and was available to hang around all hours of the day and night—funny and charismatic—proving to be a nuisance and a distraction. Not to mention one hell of a temptation.
But the Beach Boy wasn't a beach boy. He was a shark—the corporate kind. He was Preston Seaholm, a man rumored to possess an unnatural need to own every available piece of property on this island, intent on making Sunrise Key his kingdom in every sense of the word.
No, she wouldn't see too much of him, thank God. No doubt his days were kept extremely full from his legendary sleeves-rolled-up, hands-on running of the Seaholm Resort, not to mention the arduous task of keeping track of all his money.
And a billion dollars would take a great deal of keeping track of.
"If there were gold or oil on this land," he told her, following her the rest of the way down to the marble-tiled front entrance, "someone would have found it already."
"So what's the big deal?" she asked. "You own everything else on the island, you don't need this place."
"Yes, I do."
"What, did you spend too much time playing Monopoly as a kid?"
He smiled. "Actually, I've never played the game."
"Went right from Candy Land to playing the stock market, huh?"
His smile turned into a grin, wide and genuinely amused. Robert Redford, Molly thought suddenly. Even though Pres Seaholm didn't look anything like Robert Redford aside from the fact that they were both men with light-colored hair and they were both breathtakingly attractive, his smile reminded her of the heartthrob actor. It was a genuine, honest smile—which either meant it was genuine, or like Redford, Pres Seaholm was one hell of a good actor.
"Tell me honestly, would you tease me like this if I were wearing a business suit?" he asked.
"Would you have leaped onto the roof to help me with the tarp if you were wearing a business suit?"
Preston Seaholm the first and only didn't hesitate before answering. "Yes."
She believed him. She gazed into his warm hazel eyes and . . . believed him. And oddly enough, she realized that she liked him. How strange. And she'd been so prepared to dislike or at least strongly disapprove of Sunrise Key's local celebrity. "You don't look like a billionaire," she admitted. "You're much younger than I thought you'd be."
"You're not what I imagined, either."
Silence surrounded them, warm and humid and suffocating. Molly couldn't seem to break away from the magnetic pull of his gaze. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. "Why do you want this place so badly?"
"Do you really have to ask?" He looked away from her, and Molly felt as if she'd just been released from a force field. It was all that she could do not to sag to the ground. But he was gesturing up at the second-floor landing, at the grimy chandelier above them, the intricate marble tile, and the ornate arch-shaped front door.
"Look at this house," he commanded her, pushing a tumble of red-gold hair back from his forehead with a single sweep of one hand. "It's incredible."
Molly looked at the peeling paint, the mildewed wallpaper, the cheap, worn avacado-green carpeting someone had used to cover up the magnificent staircase decades ago, the dirt-streaked windows and the cracked panes of glass in the double-sash doors that led out onto a small front terrace, the chipped and filthy marble-tiled floor, one entire square replaced by cheap linoleum.
It would be an enormous task to get this place in shape, but once done, it would be incredible. She knew that. She could see underneath the peeling paint and the obnoxious carpeting. She could see it clean and renovated. She'd known, the very first time she'd walked into this house, that it had potential with a capital P. Some people might not have been able to see past the neglect, but she had.
She looked at Pres. Clearly, he was not some people. Clearly, like she had, when he looked around, he saw what could be, rather than what was. She liked him even more for that.
"It is incredible," she told him. "But it's also not for sale."
He turned to face her. "There's nothing that's not for sale." He spoke the words as if they were God's eleventh commandment, accidentally left off Moses' stone tablet.
Molly crossed her arms. "Wanna bet?"
"I'll raise my last offer by a hundred thousand."
His last offer had been close to three hundred thousand dollars. That meant he was willing to pay . . . Molly swallowed, shaken. "You're kidding."
"I'm completely serious. I've wanted this house for years. I intend to own it."
He was serious. He was still smiling, but this smile didn't quite reach his eyes. The warm hazel had turned to fire from his intensity.
Molly felt bad for him. This place clearly meant a lot to this man. But it wasn't for sale. She'd been so thrilled when she and Zander had arrived and they'd stared at the enormous, rambling house through the windshield of their little car. It seemed like fate had finally dealt them a winning hand. It was as if they'd finally come home.
"I'm sorry, it's not for sale," Molly said again.
Preston Seaholm didn't say anything, didn't smile, and for the first time since she'd spotted him out on the beach with his watercolors, he actually looked like a man who might be able to write a check from his personal account for a million dollars.
He looked at her, studying her, his disconcerting eyes taking in every last detail, from the silly colorful array of nail polish she had let Zander, her budding artist, paint on her toenails, to the drooping, damp mess of her hair.
She pushed her bangs out of her eyes, self-consciously folding her arms across her chest.
"It's not for sale," he finally said, repeating her words. And then he smiled. "We'll see."
THREE
"There he is!"
Bright lights flashed on, blinding him, and Pres froze, trying to make sense of the crowd rushing toward him. There were cameras everywhere, and men and women holding microphones.
"Mr. Seaholm! Mr. Seaholm! What was your reaction, sir, to the recent announcement from the magazine . . . ?"
Mother of God, he was being descended upon by news teams. What was this about? What had he done now? He had absolutely no clue.
He spotted a microphone bearing the call letters of the local CBS affiliate, and inwardly winced. He looked like hell. He was wearing his old, worn-out painting clothes, and they were wet to boot. His hair was a mass of sodden curls, drenched again as he'd dashed from his truck to the building. Still, he stood his ground. The cameras were already rolling. They had him on tape, grunge and all. Running for cover would only make him look worse.
"Mr. Seaholm, what are your plans, sir?"
From the corner of his eye, Pres saw Dominic Defeo leading a team of security guards through the crowd—the cavalry to the rescue.
"What's this about?" he asked with as much dignity and authority as he could muster, considering he looked like a beach bum.
"Fantasy Man magazine," one of the reporters eagerly told him.
Fantasy Man magazine? What the hell?
"Are you going to take Fantasy Man magazine up on their offer?" someone asked, shoving a microphone in his face.
What offer? "I'm sorry, I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, I've been out of the office all day and—"
"Mr. Seaholm, do you always dress so casually on a workday?"
"Of course not. I was painting and got caught in the rain. . . ." Normally, Pres wouldn't appear inside the resort looking the way he did. But he hadn't planned to be there for long. He'd just needed to pick up a file from his desk and collect his phone messages. And to see if Dominic—his head concierge and best friend—was free to share a beer when his shift at the front desk ended in fifteen minutes.
The truth was, Pres had wanted rather desperately to talk to someone. He wanted to talk about . . . what? About Molly Cassidy? About the way this little, average, wholesome mother of a ten-year old had made him feel more alive with a flash of her blue eyes than he'd felt in years?
He'd spent a small fortune bungee jumping
and skydiving to feel even a third of the thrill he'd felt when he'd found himself nose-to-nose with Molly Cassidy on top of the Kirk Estate roof this afternoon.
True, the likelihood that they were both about to be fried by lightning had probably started his adrenaline flowing, but he'd felt the same heart-stopping rush when he'd looked into her eyes as they stood safe inside the foyer of the house moments later. He didn't understand it, but he liked it. He always liked an adrenaline rush.
"Mr. Seaholm, what exactly do you look for in a woman?"
Pres turned to stare at the reporter who'd asked the last question. "Excuse me?"
Sunrise Key 3 - Otherwise Engaged Page 2