“I don’t mind a few stalks.” She held the bouquet out and admired it. “I’ll bet you bought this from one of the sidewalk vendors.”
“I did, actually.”
“I love that. I’ve been in New York a mere twelve hours, and I’ve already eaten a soft pretzel, passed out five cans of tuna and received a bouquet from a sidewalk flower shop.” She threw both hands in the air like an Olympic athlete at a medal ceremony. “I’ve arrived!”
“I guess so.” Zach wasn’t used to dramatic displays in a crowd of people. He glanced around to see if anyone was staring. They were. “I’m glad you like the flowers.”
“I don’t like the flowers.”
“You don’t? I thought you just said-”
She laughed. “I love the flowers.”
“Oh.” Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with someone who had this much energy, and according to Mario, she’d come in on the red-eye. “I guess you took a nap today, huh?”
“Are you kidding? Who could sleep on their first day in New York? I’ve walked up and down Fifth Avenue and through most of Central Park. I would have gone up to the top of the Empire State Building, but I ran out of time.”
“All clear, folks!” said the fireman stationed at the door. “You can return to your rooms now!”
Hannah produced her key from the pocket of her bathrobe. “Come on up with me while I finish getting dressed. The lobby’s too small to hang out in. Well, my room’s not very big, either, but I can’t make you wait in the lobby. Someone’s usually sitting in the chairs.”
“That’s okay. I can wait in the lobby.” Zach was already on sensory overload with all those peeks at her black bra. Being alone with her in her room might bring on some unwanted developments, like a woody. He prided himself on having more control than that, but Hannah pushed all his buttons.
Had Mario known that would happen? Maybe Zach had seriously underestimated the taxi driver’s skills when it came to matchmaking. Nah, not even Mario could have predicted that Hannah would end up on the sidewalk in her bathrobe, which turned Zach’s thoughts to bedrooms, and soft sheets and naked bodies.
“Oh, come on up,” Hannah said. “I won’t compromise your virtue. I’ll get dressed in the bathroom.”
If he didn’t go along with her suggestion, he’d look like a prude. “Okay. Sure.”
The ride up in the elevator posed no temptation. The elevator was crowded with people returning to their rooms.
A cross-looking woman standing next to Hannah glanced at her. “Were you the one who set off the fire alarm?”
“I was.” Hannah looked repentant. “And I apologize.”
“I should hope so!” The woman looked indignant. “I was watching the Yankees, and Derek Jeter was up to bat. I hate it when I miss one of his times at bat.”
“Here.” Hannah pulled a rose out of her bouquet. “Take this as a gesture of peace.”
The woman blinked. “Um, thanks.” She took the rose and brought it slowly to her nose. “Smells good.”
“Anybody else want a rose?” Hannah held up her bouquet. “I’m the bad guy here, but thanks to my friend, I have a way to make amends.”
“I’ll take one,” said a guy in a T-shirt and jeans.
“Me, too,” said an older woman in a baggy sweat suit. “I’m twenty minutes late for my medication. I need some aromatherapy for the stress.”
“Be my guest.” Hannah presented a rose first to the T-shirt guy and then to the lady who’d missed her meds.
“I wouldn’t mind one,” said a young woman sporting several tattoos. “I just broke up with my boyfriend so this fire alarm makes a bad day even worse.”
“Then here you go,” Hannah said. “By all means.”
Zach wanted to protest. Four of the six roses in the bouquet were gone, which made it look a lot less festive. But he’d given her the flowers, so he no longer had any say-so as to what happened to them. Fortunately nobody else made a bid for a rose.
One little girl wanted a daisy, but he didn’t mind that so much. He’d trashed two himself. Then they reached the fifth floor, and that was the end of the flower giveaway.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Hannah said as they walked down a hallway covered by a faded carpet. “It really was my fault, and I felt the need to make amends.”
“No problem.”
“Oh, now, see? You’re hurt because I gave away your beautiful flowers. But I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”
His imagination danced through that possibility for at least ten seconds. Surely she hadn’t meant it to sound as suggestive as it had seemed. Or maybe she had. What did he know? Mario had thrown him into the deep end, and he was hoping to hell he could swim.
CHAPTER THREE
HANNAH FELT COSMOPOLITAN and daring, inviting a man up to her room on her first night in New York. It wasn’t a particularly elegant room, but she couldn’t imagine making him wait down in that cramped lobby. He was her new best friend and she wanted to treat him right.
He’d brought her flowers, too. Even with a few of the roses and a couple of daisies missing, it was a fabulous bouquet. She’d been a little worried that he was watching out for her as a favor to Mario, but if so he wouldn’t have brought flowers. She’d tuck one in her hair for the night and put the rest in the ice bucket. A daisy would look great with the peacock-blue-and-yellow dress she’d planned to wear tonight.
“Here we are, home sweet temporary home.” She pushed her card key into the lock and opened the door. The minute she stepped on the carpet and it squished under her bare feet, she suspected a problem. When she glanced at the bed where she’d laid out all her dry-clean-only, sale-priced interview clothes in preparation for ironing them, she knew disaster had struck.
“Sprinklers,” she said, moaning as she walked across the drenched carpet to her equally soaked clothes. “The smoke set off the automatic sprinklers.”
Zach closed the door and stared at the mess. “Can’t you just dry them somehow?”
“Not these. I mean, look at them.” A sick feeling settled into the pit of her stomach as she picked up what used to be a bold purple-and-kelly-green-striped dress. Purple and green oozing together made brown, something she’d learned in kindergarten with finger paints.
A neon-green suit decorated with big white tulips had rust splotches all over it. The rust had probably descended when the old pipes disgorged their supply of water all over the room. Her peacock-blue-and-yellow dress, a combo of silk and rayon that had been a steal at fifty percent off, was covered with ugly water stains and seemed to be shriveling before her eyes. That left her with the yellow sundress, which she’d hung in the closet after taking it off this afternoon.
She turned to him, determined to be a big girl about this. “Well, I’m clothes-less! Down to my underwear, a sleep shirt, my yellow dress and this bathrobe. Know any cheap stores?” Her voice barely quivered. She hoped he couldn’t tell that she was close to tears.
From the way he was looking at her, he probably could tell. “There are some resale shops in the Village.”
“Yeah?” She was determined to maintain a brave front. “Shopping in the Village would be very cool. I’ve always wanted to. Now it looks like I have a great excuse.”
“If you want, I could go with you during my lunch hour tomorrow.”
She was touched that he’d offer, but there were limits to how much help she could accept. “That’s sweet, but you really don’t have to. Shopping for clothes can’t be your favorite way to spend free time.”
“I don’t mind. I’d be happy to do that.”
“Because you feel sorry for me.”
He hesitated. “Look, it’s natural to feel a little sorry for somebody who just had her entire traveling wardrobe sprinkled into oblivion. But that aside, I’d like to help. And the fact is, you need me.”
She was afraid that might be true, for a variety of reasons, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet. “Why is that?”
&nbs
p; “I drive a hard bargain. No offense, but knowing how you pass out tuna and roses, I’m guessing you don’t.”
That made her laugh. “You’re right, I don’t. My sister refuses to take me to garage sales with her because I pay whatever’s marked on stuff, which she says violates the basic law of garage sales.”
“That’s absolutely true. It’s settled, then. Did you know your message light’s blinking?”
She glanced at the phone, and sure enough, the red light was flashing. “But I don’t know anybody.”
“You know the people in the hotel.”
Her tummy churned. “Oh, God. Do you think they’re going to charge me for this disaster?”
“No, but they might want to talk to you about it.”
She stared at the blinking red light and wondered if she could pretend she hadn’t seen it. If Zach was wrong and the hotel wanted to charge her for the inconvenience and water damage, she’d rather not find out right before her first big night in New York.
But she’d worry about that blinking light all evening, so she might as well get it over with. Picking up the phone, she punched the message button.
An official-sounding male voice came on the line. Ms. Robertson, we understand the sprinklers discharged in your room.
Hannah closed her eyes and hoped that her shaky financial situation wasn’t about to get a whole lot worse.
We apologize for the inconvenience. When you’re ready, we’ll transfer you to another room.
She let her breath out in a whoosh. “They want to switch me to a different room. That’s all.”
“As well they should,” Zach said. “You can’t sleep in that bed tonight.”
“Guess not. I hadn’t thought of that. But I don’t want to take the time to change rooms now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
“And our reservations are for seven-thirty. I could call and change them, but-”
“No, don’t. I’ll let them switch me while we’re gone.” With no choice in the matter, she hurried to the closet and took out her yellow dress. Draping it over one arm, she pulled a rose from the bouquet. “Be right back.”
Then she stuck the rose between her teeth, flung her free hand in the air and cocked her hip in a flamenco dancer’s pose before dashing into the bathroom. His startled laughter was exactly what she was after. She might be a clueless newcomer who had trashed her clothes immediately upon arriving, but she didn’t want Zach to think she was totally pathetic. She still had flair, damn it.
FOR SEVERAL SECONDS ZACH stood staring at the closed bathroom door as he processed that last provocative image Hannah had given him. There was no getting around it, the woman was hot. Hot and generous. Zach’s imagination latched on to those two attributes and came up with one obvious conclusion. He wanted some of that.
But just because she aroused him didn’t mean he’d end up taped to Mario’s dash. It didn’t even mean he and Hannah would end up in bed together. He had no idea if he was the only one thinking about sex, although the rose between her teeth suggested she might be having thoughts along those lines, too.
He ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. The rustling sounds coming from the bathroom did nothing to calm him down. He pictured the black bra and panties and realized she would have to take off the bra in order to wear the thin-strapped sundress. If she had spent some time sunbathing topless, which he suspected, her breasts would be golden and gorgeous.
This was insanity, standing here on a squishy carpet imagining what was going on behind that bathroom door. He should have waited in the lobby. At the rate he was going, he was liable to do something inappropriate, like grab her and kiss her the minute she walked out.
And then what, genius? Throw her down on that soggy mattress? Very classy.
Actually it sounded kind of kinky and exciting. The wet sheets might feel interesting against their hot bodies. He’d never had sex on a soaked mattress before, and the experience might prove educational and moist.
Oh, for God’s sake. He’d invited her to dinner, and they would have dinner. Then he’d walk her back to her hotel and go home like the sophisticated urban professional he was. He would not spend the entire meal wondering if she’d invite him back up to her new and improved, much drier room afterward. He would not hope that he could get her to do that routine with the rose one more time.
Mostly to give himself something to do, he pulled out his cell phone and moved the reservation ahead fifteen minutes so they wouldn’t lose it. There shouldn’t be a problem on a weeknight, but he didn’t want to take any chances. The evening had already had its share of detours.
As he was closing the phone and clipping it back on to his belt, Hannah came out. She wore the same dress, so the sight of her shouldn’t have affected him, but it did, anyway. Maybe it was how she’d done her hair.
After piling it loosely on top of her head, she’d tucked daisies into her curls so that she looked like a wood nymph, or at least what Zach thought a wood nymph might look like. He felt as if they should be running hand in hand through a meadow in slow motion before settling down on a bed of soft grass to…yeah, to have sex. Face it, Evans, you’re officially obsessed with the subject.
As a hormone-driven teenager he’d devoured a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and daisies had been involved in one of the sex scenes. He’d forgotten that until this very minute and wondered if the scene in the book had anything to do with his own fondness for daisies.
Hannah smiled at him. “Ready?”
You have no idea. “Sure. Let’s go.”
“I put the rest of the flowers in the ice bucket. Wait a sec. I should probably throw my undies and makeup in the suitcase and put the wet clothes in the laundry bag.”
“Probably should.” And he shouldn’t watch her do that, either. But he did, anyway, torturing himself with a view of silk and lace in various colors being tossed from a drawer into the duct-taped suitcase she’d taken out of the closet.
She ducked back into the bathroom and returned with her cosmetics bag. Then she grabbed two cans of tuna and dropped them in her oversize purse. “For tonight, in case we pass any homeless people.” Finally she turned to him. “Now I’m ready. You’ve been extremely patient.”
“It’s easy.” And it had been, which should have surprised him. Normally he didn’t like waiting for people.
“It’s not easy for everyone. A lot of people are very impatient. They have to have everything happen right this minute, but you don’t seem like that. You seem like the kind of person who’s willing to delay gratification.”
“That probably depends on the gratification.” He was very much afraid that everything he was thinking was showing on his face.
She met his gaze and a becoming pink tinged her cheeks. “I suppose it does.”
He wanted to kiss her so much he ached. But it was too soon. “Let’s go get some dinner.”
“Yes, let’s.”
As he followed her out the door and closed it behind him, he wondered if this was the way things had gone for those other couples taped to the dash of Mario’s taxi. A feeling of inevitability was settling over him.
THE EXCITEMENT OF SHARING a restaurant meal with a certified New York City bachelor wiped out any lingering sadness Hannah felt over the loss of her clothes. They hadn’t been practical in the first place, being dry-cleanable, but the price had lured her into buying them. Tomorrow she’d look for washable clothes and let Zach drive his hard bargain.
And didn’t that sound sexy? She kept admiring how good he looked as she sat across the table from him at the Thai restaurant. He made her chicken with peanut sauce taste like the best meal she’d ever had. The restaurant had chosen blue neon as the light of choice, and the eerie glow turned the customers into a crowd of the undead, but Zach was the most handsome zombie in the room.
She was developing a giant crush on her one-person network. Standing in her hotel room talking about delayed gratification had nearly done her in. How embar
rassing if she’d jumped the gun and planted one right on him.
That would have been jumping the gun, too. Instinctively she knew that. She didn’t want to come across as some eager hick from Arizona who didn’t know the rules. Of course she’d seen Sex and the City, but that was all about sophisticated New Yorkers getting involved with other sophisticated New Yorkers. She didn’t want to come off as green as grass or hopelessly lacking in subtlety.
She could do subtle. She would let Zach make the first move toward getting physical. From the way he looked at her, she thought he wanted to, but he was restraining himself. That was her cue to restrain herself, which she was doing.
“Mario said you’re an investment counselor,” she said. “That seems like a very New York thing to be.”
He made a face.
“What, you don’t like it?”
“I like working with clients, but…the atmosphere of the company is very competitive, especially lately. There’s this guy named Ed, who’s in his fifties, been there a lot of years, but he doesn’t push like he used to.”
Hannah nodded. “Seems like people deserve to cut back at some point.”
“Not according to my boss. He’s ready to kick him out of his primo office location and put a top producer in there.”
“Would that top producer by any chance be you?”
“Yeah, it would.” Zach took a sip of his Thai iced coffee and set it down on the table. “And I appreciate the recognition, but I feel crummy about taking that office away from Ed.”
“So don’t take it away.”
Zach laughed and shook his head. “You don’t know Drake Medford. He’d see that as a sign of weakness. I’d lose all the ground I’ve gained.”
“Excuse me for saying so, but your boss doesn’t sound like a nice man.”
“Nobody’s ever accused him of being nice, that’s for sure.” Zach reached into his pocket. “Before I forget it, here are some people to contact about job interviews. It’s not a huge list, but-”
A Fare To Remember Page 3