by Caro Carson
E.L. Taylor had spent that much on his lunch that day. The whole idea of returning to Dallas in a hobbyist’s prop plane had been absurd, but it must have appealed to Taylor on some level. For whatever reason, Taylor had tossed the pilot a couple of hundred-dollar bills, and they’d taken off.
The plane had crashed.
There’d been a harrowing emergency landing into a lake rather than a residential street, an attempt to spare the people on the ground from being killed. Taylor had gotten out alive. The pilot, who’d only been flying to Dallas because Taylor was famous, was still in the hospital three months later.
E.L. Taylor wished he’d never written that book.
“Maybe I’ll see you around town, Eli.” Mallory started pulling at the fingers of one of his gloves to take it off. “If not, have a nice holiday.”
Incredible. She didn’t want to hang on to him. She was leaving, as if he were just any stranger at the park, and she didn’t care if he remained a stranger.
He never went by Eli publicly, but he’d given her the name just to see if she’d raise that eyebrow and chastise him for being untruthful. Oh, come on, we both know that’s not your name. That was what he’d expected her to say.
She hadn’t. Had his appearance changed so much since the crash? He’d pulled all the necessary strings to ensure the world didn’t know he’d been in a crash, so no one would have a reason to look for any changes. His physical and mental health couldn’t be questioned, or the stock value of the companies he oversaw could fall. He was unrecognizable to himself on the inside, but he hadn’t thought the world noticed any difference at all.
Mallory pulled off one glove and started on the next. Whether he liked it or not, she’d hop down and be gone in seconds.
He didn’t like it. “Where are you going?”
That comment did earn him one of her raised eyebrows, and he realized he’d asked it as if she needed to account for leaving his boardroom in the middle of a meeting without being dismissed.
He made an effort to modify his tone. “To get that hot chocolate, I assume.”
She stopped tugging at the glove. “I doubt the same church is still selling that particular hot chocolate.”
She spoke softly, sadly—absurdly so, given the circumstances. By her own admission, she had whatever it was she’d worked hard to have. She did not have nightmares of oil burning on the water’s surface as she struggled to get free of the wreckage of a plane. She had no idea how much worse life could be. Sure, she’d said she wasn’t as happy as she thought she’d be, now that she’d gotten what she’d wanted, but not as happy as I thought I’d be was different than sad.
“What is so sad about hot chocolate?” he asked. Or tried to ask. Perhaps he’d said it more like he was demanding that she explain it to him.
“I haven’t been back to Masterson for a long time.” She paused as if she needed to steel herself against something. “I never graduated. I came back this fall to complete my senior year.”
His first impression had been correct: she was a college student.
“Do you think that’s dumb, to come back after so long? To be a twenty-nine-year-old woman living in a dorm? They put me in the dorm that houses foreign students, since they tend to be older, and there are a few graduate students going for their MBAs and PhDs, but I think I’m still the oldest. I’m definitely the only one taking bachelor-level classes. No one has any classes with me. They don’t even study in the same library.”
He didn’t know what to say. He was only three years older than she was. He couldn’t imagine the humiliation of moving back into a dorm.
He shouldn’t say that.
You didn’t face death in a plane crash.
He shouldn’t say that, either.
She jerked her head away, like his silence was criticism, a little blow. He felt badly about that, but she recovered quickly enough, sitting up and tugging her cap lower on her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Everything is going great. I just mentioned it because it’s been eight years since my last Yule log lighting. I’m not going to waste my time on a futile hunt for the hot chocolate of my youth. I planned to do something else tonight.”
“Masterson’s a pretty small town beyond the university,” he began, trying to be reassuring. “I doubt any new churches have been built in the last eight years. I’m certain none have been knocked down. There’s a good chance your hot chocolate is still there.”
What am I doing? I don’t cheer people up.
He shrugged—at her, at his thoughts, at his uncharacteristic attempt to make conversation when the subject wasn’t business. “You should at least walk over and take a look, if it tasted so good that you remember it after eight years.”
“Yes. Um...yes. You did me a favor tonight, so I do owe you a cup.”
This was a novelty. A woman was going to buy him a cheap cup of hot chocolate at a small-town festival.
She ducked her chin, a little bashful. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any money with me at the moment.”
Ah, so she did know who he was.
Every light dimmed, inside him and out. He didn’t bother to hide the derision from his voice. “No, of course you don’t have any.”
He knew women, and he knew this routine. She wanted him to buy her something. Just look, Taylor, isn’t that the most adorable set of earrings? I wish I had my credit card with me...but I don’t. He’d have to be a tight-fisted Scrooge not to pick up the tab. He’d never miss ten thousand, and women knew it. Men did, too—who else but E.L. Taylor should buy the round of overpriced, under-the-table Cuban cigars on the golf course? Women, men—everyone knew it, including Mallory.
“You don’t have to sound so sarcastic.” She pulled the empty glove through her bare hand slowly, no doubt gauging the value of the supple leather. “I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
Did you think you were the first woman to try this with me?
He should never have told her his name was Eli. That was private, a family nickname, one only his sister and brother still used. If word spread that E.L. Taylor went by Eli, then business associates who wished they knew him better than they did would try to call him Eli. It would become a constant reminder that he’d been a sucker at a stupid Christmas fair.
He pushed off the edge of the hay bale stack and dropped to the ground, then turned to Mallory. He’d stuck her up there. He’d get her down, and then she could remove herself from his vicinity—and no, he wouldn’t pose for a selfie with her before she went.
He reached for her denim-clad hips and pulled her to the edge of the hay bale.
“Hey—I can get down on my own.”
She pushed him with her hands on his shoulders, but he’d already lifted her off the edge, so instead of landing on the ground, she ended up sliding down his front, her chest in his face for a moment, followed by a puff of her body heat escaping from her coat at her throat, then her smooth cheek brushing his unshaven one. A few strands of her long hair caught on his lower lip as she landed with her boots between his and her ski cap soft against his neck.
Sex.
Two seconds of accidental contact, and his body suddenly woke up from months of hibernation. Hips, waist, heat, hair—hair that would trail across his chest when she purred her way down his stomach.
Sex.
He stayed as he was, his hands on her waist, her hands on his shoulders. She tilted her face up to him, their gazes locked, and her indignation changed to something else. Her lips parted on a little intake of breath, her eyes went wide as she focused on him, on his mouth.
Sex—she was thinking it, too.
The sensation swamped him, as foreign as if he’d just now discovered how primal desire could feel. He’d had no interest at all since the crash, none whatsoever, but if there was anything good about being recognized as multi-millionaire E.L. T
aylor, it was that any woman he wanted would happily come to his bed—and this woman, he wanted.
“Goodbye, Eli.”
That was a laughable thing for a woman to say.
“Goodbye? This is the end of our date?” He kept one hand on her waist and braced his other on the hay bales by her head. His arm blocked the light of the bonfire from reaching her face, but the sight of her wide eyes and parted lips was already burned into his mind. He leaned in, bringing his mouth closer to those parted lips. “Then it must be time for the good-night kiss.”
“This was a fake date. You didn’t even buy me flowers, remember?”
He stopped cold. “I need to buy you something. Of course.”
He should have pushed himself away from the hay bales, turned his back on her and walked away.
Instead, he drew her closer. “Kiss me nicely then. Prove to me I should spend my real money on my fake girlfriend.”
Her sudden little breath wasn’t arousal. It was—she was—laughing at him as she leaned back on the hay bales, putting space between them. “You really think you’re God’s gift to women, don’t you?” She started jerking off the remaining glove, pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger.
He scowled. The woman was not lingering over the middle finger. Surely not.
She moved on to her index finger as she made her point. “You don’t know anything about women. We don’t like to be dropped on hay bales, and we don’t like to be told to perform before you decide whether or not we’re worthy of your time or your money. You have no idea how to date a woman at all. No wonder you’re so grouchy.”
“I’m not dating you. You’re the one who demanded that I be your boyfriend.”
“I know, and you did me a favor. I understand why you were hinting that I should buy you a cup of hot chocolate in return. I owe you. I get that.”
Hinting? He didn’t hint about anything. Ever.
“Trust me, I would love to be able to buy you a hot chocolate. I’d love to be able to buy anybody a hot chocolate, but I don’t have any cash in my pocket. I was going to offer to do something different for you, instead.”
Skip the kissing, straight to bed? He could work with that.
“But you’re being so rude, forget it.” She pulled off the second glove and slapped the pair against his chest. “Take your gloves and move, so I can go do what I’d planned to do before all of this.”
He didn’t attempt to take his gloves. “What, exactly, was that?”
“I’m going to find myself a nice, out-of-the-way pecan tree where I can brood about my own life in private.” She stuffed his gloves in the open collar of his jacket. “And not watch you brood about yours.”
She stepped right around him and walked away.
Taylor stared at the hay bale where her face had been. She truly did not know who he was. She hadn’t wanted him to buy her anything. She was just an attractive woman in a ski cap who’d wanted to stand next to him for a few minutes. Nothing more. And now, she was gone.
He turned around. He didn’t want to brood alone by these damned haystacks. He wanted to brood in the company of—
“Mallory.”
He barked out her name in the only tone he knew, the one that demanded a person drop everything for him. It worked on his staff. It worked on everyone’s staff, every place he went. It even worked on his little sister.
Mallory kept walking. She waved her hand by her ear in annoyance, flicking away his command like it was a pesky, harmless bug.
How dare she?
He had power. It had nothing to do with the bedroom. He had power where it mattered, in boardrooms. He could bankrupt a company by voicing a doubt. He could kill someone’s career with a word. If E.L. Taylor told anyone to stay, they stayed without question. Did she not know with whom she was tangling?
She did not.
She thought he was Eli, and the part of him that was Eli desperately wanted to be with the woman who had no idea who E.L. Taylor was.
“Mallory, wait.” But his words still sounded like an order, and she kept walking.
He yanked the gloves free from where she’d stuffed them in his jacket and started after her.
Chapter Four
Never let an opportunity pass you by.
—How to Taylor Your Business Plan
by E.L. Taylor
Taylor caught up with Mallory easily.
He was taller, so his strides were longer. He also wasn’t hampered by clunky rubber boots. She plodded along in a fairly silly way, looking from behind like all the nineteen-year-old girls on campus who favored cheap, colorful rain boots. He’d assumed she was one of those girls when she’d first grabbed his arm and started babbling about sand in her boots.
She’d gotten serious quickly. He’d heard the unmistakable experience in her voice when she’d talked about fending off a man. In his peripheral vision, her long hair and ski cap had reminded him of his little sister. If his sister had needed to stand next to a stranger in a similar situation...
With that mindset, Taylor—Eli Taylor, the big brother—had put Mallory behind him, where no one could reach her without going through him first. But, as he’d lifted her to the top of the hay bales, he’d looked at her face full-on in the firelight. He’d realized immediately she was no college student.
She was a woman. He was a man. Since the dawn of time, that was how trouble began.
Trouble—for example, there was no reason for him to feel this stupidly compelled to fix her first impression that he was a jerk.
He caught up to her and matched her stride, trying to think of the right thing to say, trying to figure out what he even wanted to say. This compulsion to make things right wasn’t trouble; it was a nuisance. Annoying. Uncomfortable.
She stopped abruptly. “What?”
He stopped, unprepared. “What?”
Her hands made a few random, angry gesticulations. “This. You. Following me, all broody and silent. What do you want from me?”
“I want...” He didn’t know what he wanted. She fascinated him, that was all. Her face was so expressive, even prettier in the brighter light, now that they were closer to the bonfire. He could see more details. She had very feminine, feathery eyelashes. He liked the little dip in the center of her upper lip.
She threw her hands up and started walking.
So, he walked. “My first impression was that you wanted to make somebody jealous. My conclusion was that you wanted to spend the night with me.”
“Sheesh. Your ego. Amazing.”
It wasn’t ego when it was true. Most women his age did want to spend the night with him. Younger women, too. Older women. That didn’t mean he slept around casually. He was too damned busy at work. He was too damned picky at leisure. But he’d always known an interested woman when he saw one—until tonight.
“It was my mistake. I’ve been...” He was not going to say he’d been a celibate recluse the entire fall, which had apparently made him lose his accuracy when it came to picking up on the signals that a woman wanted him. “I’ve been misreading everything since the moment you first walked up to me, and I apologize for it. You don’t owe me a cup of hot chocolate. I owe you one.”
She clomped along beside him in silence.
He couldn’t blame her.
He did possess the social graces expected of Harold and June’s son; he just so rarely needed to be charming to anyone, anymore. This was one of those rare occasions. Mallory would be gone in a moment if he didn’t change tactics.
“If you don’t want to have a cup with me, you could tell me which church sells the good one you remember. I’ve been making an ass of myself all night, and I need to drown my sorrow for screwing up a fake relationship with a genuinely interesting woman.”
“St. Margaret’s,” she muttered unwillingly—but she stole a look at him.
&n
bsp; That tiniest of victories made his heart pick up speed unnecessarily. “If you don’t want to drink hot chocolate with me, I’d still like to pay for your cup.”
“How? You’d give me cash? Don’t do that. It’s weird to pay a woman who wouldn’t kiss you. Almost as weird as demanding she kiss you before you paid for anything.”
“I meant we could do what every college student does. You fly, I’ll buy.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the memories flashed. Oil burning on the water’s surface. Wreckage. Fear.
She laughed. “I haven’t heard that all semester. Everyone in my dorm must be broke. Lots of us willing to fly, but nobody to do the buying. So, you’ll give me the money, but you expect me to bring you back a cup for each of us?”
No one will face death, here on the ground. A chill slid down his spine, anyway.
“Plus, I’d bring you the change, naturally.”
He shoved down his past and focused on the here and now—on Mallory’s expressive face. He had her full attention now, no more sneak peeks. “Correct. Then we can find a couple of pecan trees, and we’ll go back to brooding alone.”
“Alone, while we drink hot chocolate together? Am I getting this right?” She looked amused, even while doing that imperious lift of her eyebrow.
“Yes. We’ll drink the same thing at the same time, side by side, but under separate trees, so we won’t be obligated to exchange ridiculous niceties, like ‘gee, this hot chocolate is delicious.’”
“What’s ridiculous about that?” she asked.
“It’s a given. Hot chocolate is never bad. There’s no need to state the obvious.”
She stopped at the edge of the sandpit. “True. I’m tempted.”
His heart had no reason to beat so strongly.
“But I’d be getting the harder part of the bargain,” she said. “I’d have to wade through a crowd of families with rowdy, cranky children, looking for a booth that may or may not be manned by the same chocolate-loving nuns I remember, and then I’d have to carry two cups all the way back here without getting bumped and spilling anything.”