He’d been a believer once—but that was a long time ago. Another lifetime ago, when things were a lot simpler. So simple, in fact, that he’d never had to ponder love’s existence. He’d just had to feel; he’d simply had to be.
He hadn’t thought about love for a very long time. It had been even longer since he’d felt any emotion even remotely resembling it. In fact, these days he didn’t feel anything. But he definitely didn’t want to conjure ghosts from the past, because they haunted him randomly even without an invitation.
“You’re not going to answer me, are you?” Olivia said.
He smiled to lighten the mood. “That’s some heavy pondering for such a festive occasion. Where did everybody go? And more important, are you going to drink all those Fuzzy Handcuffs all by yourself? Because if your sisters left you to your own devices, what kind of gentleman would I be to let you drink alone?”
She gestured with an unsteady wave of her hand.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m used to drinking alone.” She grimaced. “And even though I might be a little tipsy, I’m not so drunk that I don’t realize how pathetic that just sounded. Please, sit down and save me from myself.”
“If you insist,” he said and lowered himself onto the cowhide-patterned love seat that was set perpendicular to her chair. As he made himself comfortable, she shifted her body so that she was angled in his direction and crossed one long, lean, tanned leg over the other.
Damn.
If he’d been a weaker man he might have reached out and run a hand up the tempting expanse, past where skin disappeared under that sexy little black slip of a thing that was riding a little too high on her toned thighs—not in a trashy way, because there wasn’t a trashy thing about her. Olivia Fortune Robinson seemed to have mastered the art of classy-sexy, which was a very beautiful fine line to walk.
And he was also treading a very fine line, because Olivia Fortune Robinson was so very off-limits, since she was practically family.
He lifted a drink off the tray and handed it to her, then he took one for himself and raised it to hers. She looked him square in the eyes as they clinked glasses.
“You know, they say you’ll have seven years of bad sex if you don’t look the person you’re toasting in the eyes as you say cheers,” she said.
“I guess that means we’ll have good sex,” he said, still holding her gaze.
“Will we?” She sipped her drink.
He knew she was baiting him and he also knew she was probably drunker than she realized. The drinks were more powerful than they looked. The kind that went down easily and, before you knew it, knocked you flat on your ass. Probably not so dissimilar from the effect that Olivia Fortune Robinson had on men.
“Are you hungry?” Olivia asked.
“For food? Or did you have something else in mind?”
She tilted her head to the side. “You’re a naughty boy, aren’t you, Alejandro?”
Her words were unwavering and unabashed.
He shrugged.
“I made a dinner reservation for four at the Driskill Grill,” she said. “It seems my sisters can’t make it. The only thing worse than drinking alone is dining alone in a fancy restaurant. What do you say, Alejandro? Will you let me take you to dinner?”
“That depends on what you expect in return,” he said. “Are you going to feed me and then try to take advantage of me?”
“Absolutely.”
This was fun. Much more fun than poring over facts and figures of the Hummingbird Ridge purchase.
When he was fresh out of college, would he have found bantering with a clever woman preferable to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the details that would make his hard-won business dream a reality? Then again, he hadn’t eaten and he was starving.
“In that case,” he said, “how can I refuse?”
He knocked back the last of his drink. It was a lot stronger that it appeared.
“Good,” Olivia said, handing him another drink from the tray. “The reservation isn’t until eight o’clock. We have time to finish our cocktails.”
They clinked glasses, locking gazes again before they sipped and settled into an uncomfortable silence. Alejandro was way too aware of how damn sexy she looked in that black dress, too intent on that full mouth that kept commanding his attention, speaking to the most primal needs in him.
He didn’t do well with silence.
“Is this your favorite kind of drink?” he asked.
“Me? No. I’m all about champagne. This drink was made especially for the brides-to-be.”
“I don’t mean to be nosy, but is everything okay with your sisters?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure they’re fine. That reminds me. You didn’t answer my question. Do you believe in love? I’m guessing you do. Because what else would possess you to tattoo a woman’s name on your arm? Who is Anna?”
Reflexively, his right hand found his left forearm, covered the ornate script.
“Anna was someone who made me know that love is very real. But I also learned that love can be a total SOB, too.”
Olivia leaned in. “You said ‘was.’ So I’m guessing that Anna is no longer in the picture?”
The curtain of dread that always closed around him when he remembered Anna started falling. “No, she is no longer in the picture.”
That’s all he was going to say. He was opening his mouth to change the subject when Olivia got up from her chair and sat down next to him on the love seat.
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” she slurred. “People accuse me of a lot of things, but no one can ever say I go after another woman’s man. You don’t have a girlfriend who isn’t named Anna, do you, Alejandro?”
He shook his head. His gaze fell to her lips. She was sitting enticingly close to him. Suddenly, the room temperature seemed to spike.
“Good,” she slurred again as she slid her arms around his neck. “Because I’m going to kiss you. You don’t mind if I kiss you, do you, Alejandro?”
Before the words hell no could pass his lips, her lips closed over his and smothered the reply.
At first, the kiss was surprisingly gentle, tentative. She tasted like the cocktails they’d been drinking and fresh summer berries and something else he hadn’t realized he’d been craving for a very long time. When she opened her mouth wider, inviting him in, passion took over and the gentle kiss morphed into wild, ravenous need, feeding a hunger that he didn’t realize was consuming him. He reveled in it, wallowed in it, until it blocked out everything else.
She moved against him, sliding her hands over his shoulders and down his back.
A rush of hot need surged through him. His hands followed the outline of her curves until he cupped her bottom and pulled her closer. Damn. She felt good. Keeping one hand on her, he found the hem of her dress with his other and dipped his fingertips beneath the silky barrier that stood between them.
When she moaned into their kiss, he wanted to pull her onto his lap.
But she was drunk and they were in the bar of the hotel where her sister was getting married next weekend. He had enough of his wits about him to know that if she wasn’t in the shackles of too many Fuzzy Handcuffs, she probably wouldn’t be doing this. She’d probably be mortified tomorrow.
“Alejandro, take me to your room.” Her words were hot on his neck and his body was saying Let’s go. Now.
But he couldn’t. And not for lack of want or interest. It just wasn’t right. Not when she was like this.
He stood up and gently tugged her to her feet.
“What’s your room number?”
Chapter Two
“Olivia, wake up.”
The soft voice bounced around her dreams, beckoning her to open her eyes. Maybe if she ignored it, it would go away an
d she could go back to the dream of kissing Alejandro... His hands in her hair, pulling her mouth to his; him slowly but firmly guiding her in a backward walk, until he’d pinned her against the wall... His fingers lacing through hers, then pushing their joined hands out and up over her head so she could feel the length of his body pressed into hers.
It was glorious and she wanted more of him, all of him.
“Olivia. I’m not kidding. Wake up. It’s an emergency.” Why was Rachel’s voice in her dream? She was intruding again. Only this time she was being more insistent and it seemed like she wasn’t going away. Olivia tried to force her eyes open...to no avail.
“Olivia.” Something was shaking her body in a way that didn’t mesh with Alejandro’s tender caresses. She managed to force one eye open. She saw Rachel’s and Zoe’s anxious faces staring down at her as searing pain shot through her head.
She felt as if someone had clocked her.
As she pressed the palms of her hands over her eyes, everything came back to her. She’d been clubbed by one too many Fuzzy Handcuffs. Okay, maybe a few too many. And then there was Alejandro. She’d all but had him for dinner. Kissing him hadn’t been simply a dream. It had been very real—
Oh, no.
“Olivia, wake up!” It was Rachel shaking her. “We have a situation.”
At the sound of her sister’s no-nonsense tone, Olivia removed her palms from her eyes and forced her eyes open. For the love of God, her head was about to split wide open.
“It’s Sophie,” Zoe said. “She’s missing. We can’t find her anywhere.”
It took a moment for Olivia to piece together last night’s events: the drinks, her spilling the beans to her sisters about how she felt about their parents’ relationship—or lack thereof—Sophie getting upset and running off.
“What do you mean she’s missing?” Olivia asked. “Maybe she went out for coffee?”
Every word was a nail in her brain. Her mouth was so dry her lips stuck to her gums like they’d been pasted together. She needed water. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to ask them if they could go look for Sophie and bring her back a bottle of ice-cold water.
“Do you think she’s in danger?” Olivia asked.
Rachel and Zoe looked at each other.
“No,” Rachel said. “Otherwise we would’ve called the police.”
“All of her stuff is gone,” Zoe said. “She must have packed up and taken it with her. And I must’ve been sleeping deeply because I didn’t even hear her moving around.”
Zoe and Sophie had shared one room in the two-bedroom suite. Olivia and Rachel had shared the other one.
“Personally, I think she’s freaked out over what you said last night and has cold feet,” Zoe said. “You know, prewedding jitters. I get it. I totally understand. It happened to me. That’s why we need to find her and let her know the way she’s feeling is perfectly normal and everything will be all right.”
“Have you talked to Mason?” Olivia’s voice was scratchy. “I’ll bet she’s with him.”
Again, Rachel and Zoe exchanged a look.
“He just called. In fact, his call woke Zoe up,” Rachel said. “He was looking for Sophie.”
“Did you tell him she’s at her bachelorette party and that means no boys? He can live without her for a weekend.”
Zoe sighed. “Normally, I would’ve told him that, but he said she’d left him a distraught message last night after he’d gone to bed. Apparently she said she needed to talk to him as soon as possible and he should call no matter the hour. Now she’s not picking up, and she hasn’t returned any of his calls or mine. We’re worried about her, Liv.”
Olivia regarded her sisters, who were still in their pajamas. “I’m guessing you haven’t gone out to see if she’s down in the café? She might’ve just gone out for some breakfast or some fresh air.”
Olivia could have used both right about now.
She forced herself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the daggers that stabbed at her brain and filled it with a soup-like fog that refused to let her think straight.
As if reading her mind, Rachel produced a bottle of cold water and a wet washcloth.
“You look like hell,” she said. “You’re positively green. Drink this and wipe your face with this cool cloth.”
Olivia did as she was told. Only then did she realize she was still fully dressed in the outfit she’d worn last night. At least she was dressed. She might have smirked at the thought, if the reaction wouldn’t have hurt so badly. Of course she was dressed. She’d only kissed Alejandro. She hadn’t slept with him. The memory of him walking her up to the suite and the two of them indulging in a delicious good-night kiss right outside the door flooded back. Her sisters didn’t need to know about that. Besides, they had more important things to worry about with Sophie going AWOL.
“What time did you get in last night?” Zoe asked.
Olivia took a long drink from the water bottle. When she was finished, she said, “I don’t know. Late. You all jumped ship and left me with a tray full of drinks to polish off. It took a while.”
Zoe frowned. “I’m sorry we left. We were concerned about Sophie after your little down-with-love tirade.”
Tirade?
It hadn’t exactly been a tirade. It’d been honesty.
“Yeah, well, I wish you wouldn’t have kept pushing me to offer love and marriage advice. I felt like you backed me into a corner.”
The sisters sat in silence for a moment.
“Of course, the drinks didn’t help matters,” Olivia said. “They sort of greased the hinges on propriety’s trapdoor and once the words started spilling out, there was no stopping them. I feel bad that Sophie was so upset. It wasn’t what I intended.”
The washcloth had warmed up. Olivia held it by the corners and waved it back and forth to cool it off before pressing it pressed to her eyes again.
Visions of kissing Alejandro played out on the screen in her mind’s eye. She was so glad her sisters hadn’t pressed her about whether or not she’d polished off the remaining drinks alone. The thought of those Fuzzy Handcuffs made her stomach churn, and the thought of trying to explain what happened with Alejandro tied it up in knots.
Olivia looked at her sisters. “Was Sophie here when you went to sleep?”
“She was,” said Zoe.
“In fact, I thought she was out like a light when I finally turned in. I tried to talk to her before she went to bed, but she said she was fine and just wanted to go to sleep. So I went in and took a shower and then I was on the phone with Joaquin for a while. When I came out of the bathroom, she was snuggled down under the covers. I thought she was just missing Mason.”
“Me, too,” said Rachel. “But that’s why we’re concerned that he can’t get in touch with her. Where do you think she would go?”
“So obviously you two haven’t even been out of the room,” Olivia said.
“No, not yet,” Zoe said. “We hated to wake you since you obviously played a little hard last night.” She gestured to Olivia’s outfit.
“Not really. It’s not as if I did the walk of shame this morning.”
But she had kissed Alejandro. The thought made her already knotted, churning stomach clench a little bit more. She put her hand on her belly to quell it.
It would’ve been easy to give in to lust and do a lot more than kiss Alejandro last night, but she hadn’t. Actually, she’d tried, but he’d been the gentleman.
Even so, the essence of him clung to her. Like he had gotten into her pores. If she shut her eyes, there was Alejandro invading her thoughts the same way he had invaded her dreams. Her fingers found their way to her lips as she remembered every delicious detail about their kisses.
Olivia had a lot of faults, but getting blackout drunk wasn’t one of t
hem. No matter how much she had to drink, she was always in control of herself. Sometimes it made her a little looser. She paused. Maybe looser wasn’t the best word in this particular situation. The Fuzzy Handcuffs had unshackled her inhibitions. That was a more apt description. The drinks had simply allowed her to experience a pleasure in which she might not have otherwise allowed herself to indulge. Yes. That was what’d happened.
She was more than willing to own her actions.
And in owning them, she had enough good sense to know kissing Alejandro last night was as far as things would go. She’d gotten him out of her system and it wouldn’t happen again. Of course not. She would be far too busy focusing on her bridesmaid’s duties this wedding week.
As fractured as the night had been with her sisters, it was still a girls’ weekend. Never mind how gorgeous Alejandro Mendoza was. She’d resisted him. She hadn’t bailed on her sisters to spend the night with him.
Even if her sisters had bailed on her.
With great care, Olivia swung her legs over the side of the bed. She put her feet flat on the floor, hoping that the effort would ground her and help her regain her sense of equilibrium. Instead, the room spun. She hated being hungover, but she’d done this to herself. She had no choice but to power through. Do the crime, do the time.
“You do look like hell,” Zoe said.
“I’m fine,” Olivia answered, pushing to her feet.
“I’m going to get dressed and head downstairs to look for her,” Rachel said. “Will you help me look, Liv? I think Zoe should wait in the room in case she returns.”
She considered asking, What if she doesn’t want to be found right now? What if she just needs a little time? I’m the one who has a pounding headache. Why can’t I wait in the room? But she knew this was their way of nudging her to make amends with Sophie. To go look for her and find her so the two of them could talk this out and make up.
Of course, that’s what she intended to do. She took a deep breath and tried to shake off the irritation that prickled her. How had this suddenly become her fault?
Fortune's Surprise Engagement Page 3