“Good evening, everyone.”
Randi recognized the masculine voice immediately. Glancing up, she took in Larry’s face as well as the woman by his side. His wife.
* * *
THERE IS A big crowd tonight, Quasar thought, glancing around the huge lobby. The celebrities and dignitaries sitting in the balcony areas were now mingling upstairs. He was posted by the bank of elevators to make certain that only those with VIP passes got past him. Several young women had tried him, all but offering him a hot night in their beds if he looked the other way for a minute so they could sneak up to socialize with the rich and famous. Of course he’d turned down their offers. They would have to hobnob on someone else’s time. He had a job to do.
He glanced around, not for the first time admiring the beauty of the inside of the Kennedy Center. The decor was colorful with beautiful, gigantic chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, which gave the lobby an intrinsic charm. His attention went to the huge bust of President John F. Kennedy. He recalled the first time he’d come here and seen it. He’d been around ten at the time, and his mother had brought him for his first tour of DC.
His mother.
Not for the first time, he wondered how different things might have been had cancer not claimed her at forty. He’d been fourteen, and a part of him would forever feel the loss. His life had gone downhill after that. With his mother gone, there was no one to protect him from Louis’s verbal abuse or Doyle’s bullying. At some point, his godmother, Lucinda, had stepped in, giving him the love and support he’d desperately needed and wasn’t getting at home.
Checking his watch, he noted intermission would end in ten minutes. Already the crowds were dispersing as individuals began leaving the lobby to return to their seats. In a few hours he would be able to go back to his hotel and rid himself of the suit and tie. He’d decided to take advantage of Roland’s offer and stay in town until Sunday. He’d contacted Ryker, and they would be hanging out on Sunday. Tomorrow he would take in the sights. The last time he’d been in DC, he’d been with Striker and Stonewall. They’d eaten breakfast at a café in Georgetown, and he planned to revisit it tomorrow morning.
Several crowds lining the lobby floor shifted, and suddenly his breath caught. He did a double take to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Standing across the room was the one woman he’d assumed he would never see again, although he’d hoped otherwise. The woman who’d stolen her way into his thoughts for the past three months. Dr. Randi Fuller. Psychic investigator extraordinaire.
He studied her profile, willing her to turn ever so slightly. Then he would know for certain it was her and not a figment of his imagination. She was standing in a group. Friends of hers, he assumed. Or was one of the men standing so close to her side more than a friend? A lover, perhaps? The thought of her involved with someone tightened his gut.
She looked beautiful, and her gown flattered her body in a way that had every cell in his body responding to her curves. A deep sexual hunger surged to life within him, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. How could a woman he didn’t know arouse him to a degree no other woman ever had? And why did the very thought that they were standing under the same roof practically thicken the air flowing through his lungs?
What were the odds that he would see her again? Here? Tonight? Was she a resident of DC? Or was she, like him, just in town for the gala? More than once he’d been tempted to research her, to see what he could find. But to do so would put too much importance on the night he’d seen her and the connection he’d felt, so he hadn’t. Now a part of him wished he had.
Then he wouldn’t have been wondering where she lived. Where had she grown up? Was her family as fucked-up as his? Did she have a lover? He continued to look at her while those questions went through his mind.
He was about to force his gaze away, fix it on something else—like that huge bust of President Kennedy—when something happened to halt those plans. As if she felt the caress of his gaze, she tilted her head in a way he thought was sexy as hell, such a damn turn-on. And then, as if she had a sensor detecting his exact location, she looked over at him.
* * *
RANDI DREW IN a sharp breath when something akin to an electric current passed between her and the man standing across the lobby.
Quasar Patterson.
Where had he come from? Why hadn’t she detected his presence before now? And why was she tempted to leave everyone standing right here and cross the room to him? She then quickly remembered one of the things Gramma Mattie stressed in the vision. He had to make the first overture.
“I guess we’ll head back our seats now,” Larry was saying. “It was good seeing you again, Randi.”
She quickly broke eye contact with Quasar to look at Larry. “Same here.” Giving Larry’s wife a gracious smile, she said, “And it was good meeting you, Yvette.”
“You, too, Randi. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the show.”
When the couple walked off, Randi quickly returned her gaze to Quasar. He was standing in the same spot, staring at her. He looked blatantly male, handsome as sin in a dark suit. He broke eye contact with her when a well-dressed, very attractive woman approached him. It was obvious the woman wanted to use one of the elevators, and he was denying her the right to do so. It then occurred to Randi why he was here. He was part of the security detail. When the woman walked off, Quasar returned his gaze to her. Why hadn’t she seen him when they’d come down from the balcony? She then remembered they had used the escalator instead of the elevator.
“You handled that well,” Trey said, interrupting her thoughts.
She broke eye contact with Quasar, a little annoyed that she had to. She glanced up at her brother. “What?”
“Seeing Larry Porter again.”
Randi shrugged, shifting her gaze from Trey back over to Quasar. He was busy sending a group of ladies away. “I told you I was over him, but you didn’t believe me.”
“Only because I know how much he hurt you.”
The very fact that Trey had fought to be cordial and not take Larry apart meant he had let her handle her business, like their father had told him to do if they ever ran into Larry again.
“That year I spent on Glendale Shores helped me realize it wasn’t meant to be for me and Larry. He’s married now and looks content. I’m happy for him.”
The lobby lights blinked. “That’s our cue to get to our seats,” Haywood said quickly, taking Trey’s hand and giving Randi an I’m-proud-of-you smile.
Trey led the way. “We’ll take the elevator back up,” he said. “It will be faster.”
Randi felt a quickening in her stomach. That meant she and Quasar would be in proximity to each other. Would he acknowledge her presence? She could feel blood rushing through her veins when the group got close to where he was standing.
They had been to enough of these events to know the procedure. Only VIPs were allowed upstairs in the balcony area, so she, like the others, took out her badge. When he stood directly in front of her, she showed him her pass. He nodded, and before she moved to pass him, he inconspicuously slid a card into her hand. Not wanting to call attention to what he’d done, she tightened her hand on the card as she stepped on the elevator with her family. When she was certain no one was watching, she slid the card into her purse.
“Wow! He was definitely a handsome guy,” she heard Anna say.
“Who was?” her husband, Zach, asked.
“That security guy. He’s hot.”
Trey chuckled. “You might want to be worried, Zach. Your wife and mother of two is checking out other men.”
“So was your wife, who’s the mother of four,” Haywood said, smiling. “A man who looks that good would be hard to miss. So what do you say about that, Ross Donovan Fuller III?”
Trey frowned at his wife. “You and
Anna are married. Neither of you have any business checking out other men. On the other hand,” he said, glancing over at Randi, “Randi is single and has every right to look, but I doubt she even noticed the dude.”
The elevator door opened and Randi quickly stepped out. Otherwise she would have to tell her brother just how wrong he was.
* * *
IT WAS THREE HOURS later when Randi was able to pull Quasar’s card from her purse. Everyone was crashing at Zach and Anna’s home across the Potomac in National Harbor, Maryland. The tri-level house was huge and had plenty of room for the sleepover guests, which included Randi, Trey and Haywood and their four kids. Zach and Anna both worked outside the home. Zach as a senator and Anna as a physician. Carole, a woman in her fifties who’d been their live-in nanny since their first child, had kept the kids while everyone had gone out tonight.
Randi thought it had been a nice evening spent with her family. After leaving the Kennedy Center, they had stopped at a café for coffee. When they returned to Zach and Anna’s home, an announcement was made. Anna had found out a few days ago that she was pregnant. This would be their third child, and they were hoping for a girl. Their news prompted a celebration and calls to Zach’s parents, who resided in Miami, and Randi’s parents all the way in Rome.
Randi stared at the card Quasar had slipped into her hand. It was his business card representing Summers Security Firm.
She flipped the card over and read the message he’d scribbled on the back.
Please call me tonight. No matter how late.
Quasar Patterson
Underneath his name was a phone number. Randi tapped the card to her chin as she felt a slow roll in her stomach. This was the overture she was to wait for. She figured he was probably wondering why there was such a strong attraction between them. It was more powerful than just sheer sexual chemistry. Both times she’d seen him, what had passed between them had stimulated her senses and made her realize something she’d conveniently not dwelled on for quite some time. The fact that she was a woman.
She’d appreciated how Quasar had filled out that suit with such a powerful, sexual physique. Not all men wore a suit well, but Quasar didn’t just look good—he looked breathtaking. The suit had appeared tailor-made for his body. For all she knew, it could have been.
She looked back at the card and then at the clock on the guest bedroom nightstand. It was after midnight. Although he’d said she should call him tonight, no matter how late, she couldn’t do that. The last thing she needed was to hear his voice. She’d bet it was as sexy as the rest of him and then she was certain not to get any sleep for thinking about the sound of it.
Drawing in a deep breath, she placed the business card on the nightstand. She would call him first thing in the morning. Tonight she needed to get some sleep and accept the realization that, for better or worse, her life was about to change.
CHAPTER THREE
QUASAR TOSSED THE empty coffee cup in the trash can to join three others. If his friends had told him he would stay up half the night, guzzling caffeine while waiting for some woman to call, he would have told them they were out of their ever-loving minds. But here he was, four cups of coffee later and still waiting for the call.
It had been past midnight when he’d left the Kennedy Center. As a rule, none of the security detail could leave until the last car was out of the parking lot.
Once back at the hotel, he had quickly gotten out of his suit and showered, anxiously checking the phone. No call. So he decided to kill time by getting on his computer. He’d convinced himself that had she read the message scribbled on the back of the business card, she would call.
So far she hadn’t.
Granted, they hadn’t officially met, but he figured she had to remember him from that night in Charlottesville at the crime scene. Maybe not to the same extent he’d remembered her, but still. And then, hours ago at the Kennedy Center, with all that sexual chemistry flowing between them, she had to have found what was happening between them just as bizarre as he did.
On the other hand, maybe she hadn’t. After all, she was a psychic. For all he knew, she could get this type of reaction from men all the time. But for him, it was the weirdest thing he’d ever encountered. If he assumed the first time had been nothing more than getting caught up in the moment, what happened at the Kennedy Center pretty much dismissed that idea. It had nothing to do with the moment but with her, and he was determined to find out why.
Quasar checked his watch. It was close to seven in the morning, which meant he’d been up all night. But at least it hadn’t been a total waste. He’d finally decided to research Dr. Randi Fuller. When he couldn’t pull up anything but professional information, he contacted the headquarters of Summers Security, knowing that someone was on call twenty-four hours a day. It was Roland. More than once he and the guys had told their boss he needed a life, and Roland would give them some smart-ass response that Summers Security was his life.
If Roland thought it odd he’d called at two in the morning for access to GRETA, he didn’t let on. GRETA was a state-of-the-art search engine that specialized in information you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was a great tool for those doing investigative work. All you had to do was tell GRETA what information you wanted, and within minutes she would recite all you needed to know.
According to GRETA, Dr. Fuller made her home in Richmond. She was the daughter of famed defense attorney Randolph Fuller; sister to Ross D. Fuller, who was making a name for himself as a top corporate attorney; goddaughter of retired Senator Noah Wainwright and godsister of Senator Zachary Wainwright. He recalled Senator Zachary Wainwright had been among the group she’d been with last night. Connected to that much fame, he understood why she preferred protecting her personal data.
Quasar stretched out on the bed. He was filled with too much caffeine to sleep, so he might as well watch the news. He grabbed the remote. From his hotel room window, he had a view of the Washington Monument standing tall against the bluest sky he’d ever seen.
It was at that moment his phone rang, and immediately he felt a stirring sensation in the pit of his stomach. It was a number he didn’t recognize. “Quasar Patterson,” he said.
There was a brief pause before a feminine voice replied, “Yes, Mr. Patterson, this is Dr. Randi Fuller.”
Quasar sat up in the bed, wondering how any woman could sound ultrasexy and impressively professional at the same time. He immediately remembered her as he’d seen her last night, in that beautiful blue gown. The material draped her curves, and he’d thought she’d looked absolutely stunning in it. For a minute he’d ignored the lobby filled with people, his total concentration on her.
“Thanks for calling, Dr. Fuller.”
“Although you said to call anytime, when I settled in for the night by my standards it was way too late.”
“I understand and I appreciate you calling now. What I didn’t have time to write on the card is that I want to get to know you.”
For the first time in his life, Quasar felt like a man on a mission.
* * *
RANDI NERVOUSLY NIBBLED on her bottom lip. Twenty minutes ago she had still been debating the merits of making this call. Now that she had, she wondered how much, if anything, she should tell him. And just like he wanted to get to know her, she wanted to get to know him. What woman wouldn’t? But for now, she’d let him lead the conversation.
“Dr. Fuller?”
She swallowed. Why did he have to sound so darn sexy? Especially this early in the morning. She hadn’t been able to sleep and had gotten up before seven o’clock to wash her face, brush her teeth and make a cup of tea before calling him. “Yes?”
“Do you have a problem with me wanting to get to know you?”
She considered his question thoughtfully. “It depends on why you want to.”
&
nbsp; “I believe you know the reason.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
Randi drew in a deep breath, deciding for the time being to play coy. “And just what reason do you assume I know?”
She heard him chuckle and knew he was well aware she didn’t intend to make anything easy for him. “Although we haven’t officially met, something is going on between us that defies logic,” he said.
Maybe in his world it did, but not in hers. “Does it?”
“Every time we look at each other, it’s like we’re the only two people in the universe.”
She would admit that was true. “It’s called chemistry, which is a normal, healthy attraction. It happens.”
“Not to me. At least not this way, and not this intense. Has it ever happened to you before?” he asked her.
Randi didn’t say anything for a minute. She could say yes, it happened to her all the time, but that would be a barefaced lie. Her attraction to him was just as intense as he’d described his to her. “No,” she finally said. “It’s never been this way for me before, either.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, as if he was trying to digest her response. “Don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to find out why it’s happening?”
Truth was, she already knew why, but he would need to discover the reason for himself. “How do you suggest we go about solving the problem?”
“I didn’t say it was a problem. In fact, I find it quite stimulating.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, which is why I want to get to know you. You intrigue me.”
Randi took a sip of her tea. It wouldn’t be the first time a man said she’d intrigued him. He wanted either to get inside her head or to try his luck getting her into his bed. She couldn’t help wondering why, of all the men out there, he had been chosen to be her mate for life.
Seized by Seduction--A Compelling Tale of Romance, Love and Intrigue Page 3