Or was it the lust for Angela?
“Is that suit safe for athletic activities?”
Angela shielded her eyes with her hand.
“I assume you mean volleyball,” she ventured wryly.
Jack squatted beside her, enjoying the way she weakened his knees with her kittenish grin. “For the moment, volleyball is the safest athletic competition for the two of us. Although, based solely on the suit, I could think of a sport less…team oriented.”
She swung her slim, tanned legs off the chair and dug into her bag, then donned dark shades. “You do have a one-track mind,” she said without a hint of rebuke. “I’ll play, but my setups are rusty.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” Jack stood and extended his hand, helping her from the chair. Her skin, slick with suntan lotion, smelled of sweet coconut and tangy pineapple. “You seem to be doing a great job with me.”
She pulled her hand away and tugged on her cover-up. “I was talking about volleyball.”
He started toward the hotel. “So was I.”
“Liar.” Her tone was slightly indignant, but intrigued. She truly had no idea how deeply she affected him. “What do you think I’m setting you up for?”
Jack laughed, though the absence of humor left a hollow sound. “Don’t get your bathing suit in a bunch, angel. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“No, I think you did.”
With her arms crossed and her hair pulled back in a high-crowned ponytail, Angela seemed every bit the willful girl he’d once toyed with so carelessly. Now he knew better. Since last night, he’d learned that the power she held over him was deeper, more intense than he’d imagined. Their lovemaking had been as fiery as a twelve-alarm brushfire during a dry spell.
He’d had hot sex before. That wasn’t what burned in his memory. It was the kiss in her room, devoid of sexual context and full of simple honesty, that had seared him to the core. How many years had passed since he’d found such awe in a mere touching of lips? Probably ten, when he’d last kissed Angela Harris in high school. Of course, he’d probably been too blind then to recognize the significance.
He couldn’t help resenting the way she’d played him like a tautly strung violin the previous evening, first on the pool deck and then on the shore. This morning, he’d gone to her room to tease her, entice her and perhaps make love to her again as soon as he could, to destroy the exotic spell she’d cast. But their conversation had started off so normally, so comfortably. Even when he told her about his loveless life, the regrets didn’t taste as bitter.
He shook his head. Was he putting too much stock in this liaison? Maybe Angela could renew him the way he desperately hoped. Then again, maybe she would lead him into a darker hell than the one Lily introduced him to.
“Come on, angel. Let’s play some volleyball.”
“First, I want to know what I’m setting you up for.”
Stepping closer to her, he slid his sunglasses down his nose, then did the same to hers, using his body to block the bright sun. “What else do angels set mortal men up for? A fall. A really big fall.”
Despite her move to protest, Jack grabbed her hand and yanked her into a jog till they reached the net he and the guys had set up shortly after the rain shower ended. Cooked by the July sun, the morning’s gray clouds had spewed forth only a brief drenching before merging with the humid air. The top layer of sand, barely saturated, clung to their feet like snow, leaving powdery white footprints along the beach.
In minutes the teams were chosen and play began. Angela’s setup skills had a bit of practice, since her brother-in-law had bought a net for the boys. She and Dani played a heck of a two-woman team against her nephews.
With Jack on the opposite side spiking balls for the other team, she felt safe enough to think of Dani and of Chryssie. Angela missed her best friend. How many times had they cut their last class to head across the bay to play volleyball? Chryssie often talked her into skipping the whole day, and they’d spend the morning on the old sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, breakfasting on baklava and trying to look like tourists instead of truant teenagers. They’d lunch at an oyster bar frequented by local businessmen, whom Chryssie would flirt with until they bought her a beer and a meal.
Angela remembered feeling strangely sophisticated when these three-piece-suited execs drew them into their conversations as if they belonged. Of course, she and Chryssie learned to hold their own. Angela theorized that the seeds of her early financial successes were rooted in the games she and Chryssie had played. Later, they’d meet up with the gang at Clearwater Beach, drink sodas, eat chips and play volleyball until sunset. That was the life. Carefree. Spirited.
After graduation, while Angela attended college, Chryssie traveled the world on her trust fund—and had a baby. As the proud godmother, Angela tracked Danae Hart’s growth through a series of snapshots and occasional visits. Then, only days after her first promotion at Waynscot, Angela got the call that told her Chryssie was dead. Thankfully, Dani, a precocious four-year-old, hadn’t been in the car on the slippery Napa Valley road. Without hesitation, Angela became a single parent.
A shout and a ball hit in her direction brought Angela back to the game. She dove across the sand, digging the ball upward just in time for Lisa Holcomb to spike it over for a point.
“Great move, Ange!” shouted teammate Sammy Dugan, extending a hand to help her up.
“Thanks. I’d forgotten the sweet taste of sand between my teeth,” she quipped, fighting the reflex to spit. She didn’t think Jack would find that particularly arousing. As she slapped the sand off her thighs, Jack sent her an appreciative wink.
“Listen, why don’t we take a break?” Sammy suggested. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Without much prodding, two sideline observers jumped in to take their spots while Angela retrieved her towel and Sammy bought fruit juices at the cabana. She spotted Jack lowering his sunglasses and watching her narrowly—until the competition nearly crowned him with a well-aimed serve.
Sammy was divorced and available, but not Angela’s type. He never had been, and they’d known each other since the fourth grade. Of course, that hadn’t stopped Jack from accusing her of flirting with Sammy at the prom.
“So, Sam, what’s up?” She slid onto a cabana bar stool.
“It’s about tonight.”
“The dinner? You and our former senior class officers have everything under control. Everything’s been first rate so far.”
“Thanks, and we do. It’s just, well, we have a slide show planned for tonight, and I thought I should talk to you since we sort of have a tribute to Chryssie Hart worked in.”
Angela took a deep swallow of her pineapple cocktail. From the beach, she heard someone yell, “Game point.”
“I mean, maybe we should have talked to you first. You were her best friend.”
“Yeah, Sammy, I think that would’ve been a good idea. I don’t mean to cause a problem or anything, but you know, if Chryssie was still alive, I don’t think she would have come this weekend. I wasn’t just her best friend. I was her only friend.”
Almost her only friend. Her gaze found Jack as he smashed the ball over the net for the win.
“A lot of people thought highly of her.”
“Before or after she died?”
She didn’t mean to be cruel, but protecting Chryssie’s memory was second nature to her. Chryssie was Dani’s birth mother, after all.
Sammy took a long sip from his glass. “The reunion committee just thought since she’s the only one in our class to pass on, we should do something.”
“How big of you all.” She didn’t disguise her acrimony. She couldn’t. Chryssie would’ve said a lot worse. “And before that magnanimous decision was made, how many wisecracks were made about her reputation? How many off-color stories were told?”
Beneath his blooming sunburn, Sammy blushed. “People can be really stupid sometimes.”
Angela took another sip and let the swee
t, cool liquid slide down her throat. She’d been close to Sammy in high school, but despite his leadership position, he’d followed the crowd without much protest—probably accounting for his popularity. Deep down, he was a good soul, and he probably meant well, but the last thing she needed tonight was Chryssie’s ghost.
She placed her hand atop Sammy’s and turned on her brightest smile. “As Chryssie’s best friend, I appreciate the thought. But she hated hypocrites more than anything else in the world. If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like that segment of the slide show edited out before tonight, okay?”
Sammy nodded shyly. “For some reason, I thought you might feel that way. I should have asked you before today.”
“That’s okay. I appreciate the consideration. In her own twisted way, I think Chryssie would have, too.”
He excused himself, but only after obtaining a promise from Angela to dance with him that evening. She remained at the bar, nursing her drink and considering adding rum to dispel the increasingly annoying déjà vu that seemed to be haunting the day.
Chryssie hated hypocrites. Then how could she have been one? Even the sugary fruit juice couldn’t cover the bitterness that filled Angela all over again.
“It’s a little early for piña coladas, isn’t it?”
She held up her hands innocently. “It’s virgin, cross my heart.”
Jack leaned in and stole a swig. “You or the drink?”
“You know the answer to that.”
Casually, he slid in beside her and ordered a club soda with a twist. Silence passed until the drink arrived.
“So, what did Sammy want?”
“Me. What else?”
Jack swiveled and leaned back with his elbows on the imitation tiki bar. “That makes two of us.”
“After the way you left this morning, I wasn’t so sure.”
He tilted his drink toward her in a salute. “This morning wasn’t about not wanting you, angel.” He lowered his voice. “It was about wanting you so much I couldn’t move.”
She maneuvered her straw into her mouth and sucked in, savoring the cold. Funny how quickly a throat could get parched.
“Hey—” Jack’s voice resumed its regular volume “—what’s this I hear about Chryssie Hart?”
Angela reached into her beach bag and withdrew a tube of lip balm. “She’s become a real topic of conversation today. I guess people are finally taking note of who’s here and who’s not.” She smoothed the emollient over her mouth with deliberate quickness.
“I heard she died.”
“Six years ago.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t help feeling chastised by the sincerity in his voice. Although she had loads of evidence to prove the indifference of her classmates toward Chryssie, she didn’t have a shred to hold against Jack. In fact, she had just the opposite.
“Thanks. Chryssie didn’t have any family left, and she died in California. She left instructions in her will for me to keep all the arrangements very private. The only person I called was Richard Lassiter, and he must have told the school. Her death was briefly mentioned in the alumni newsletter a year later.”
“Richard Lassiter.” Jack spoke the words slowly, as if conjuring a picture in his mind with each syllable. “He was a couple of years ahead of us in school. Is he still around?”
My, oh, my, but isn’t this conversation going down the wrong road?
“He runs an art gallery in Fort Lauderdale.”
Jack started talking about a gallery in Lauderdale that had once shown his photographs, and with only a little prodding from her, the discussion moved away from Chryssie and Richard. With relief, she noted he hadn’t asked about Dani, and to date, neither had anyone else. She’d never gone out of her way to hide Dani’s parentage—at least not the maternal side—but few people knew Angela had a daughter, much less the love child of the class bad girl. The few people who did know either didn’t have the nerve to ask Angela any personal questions or assumed that Angela—not Chryssie—had given birth so soon after graduation.
And that assumption was fine with her.
“Is everything okay?” Jack asked after a lull in their conversation. “You look a little…serious.”
“Do I?”
She knew she did. The day hadn’t started off simple and had only become more complicated. She took a quick peek at her watch. Saved by the bell.
“Well,” she said, taking one last sip of her drink and gathering her bag, “I have a remedy.”
Jack smirked and lifted his eyebrows suggestively. “So do I, but I promised the guys a rematch.”
“Don’t get cocky, buddy boy, or you’ll be doing nothing but dreaming about me for another ten years.”
He choked on his last sip. “Thanks for the warning. Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a date…with a masseuse and a steam bath. Too bad you’re busy and can’t come along.” She moved in as close as she could, so her breath cooled the sweat on his neck. “You’ll just have to play the game in the hot sun, while I’m lying naked on the table, only a towel and some very slick, very oily lotion and a man’s big hands to keep me warm.”
He licked his lips.
Mission accomplished.
“You, Angela Harris, are evil.”
She couldn’t suppress her girlish giggle or the lightened lilt in her walk as she sauntered away. Tonight should prove to be very interesting.
4
THE MASSEUSE, a large, matronly woman dressed entirely in white and smiling as if she’d just won the lottery, calmed Angela’s nerves even before she climbed on the table. She’d never admit it to Jack, but Angela preferred all masculine touching to be done by him alone. Though they’d been together for less than twenty-four hours, his touch kindled feelings of both safety and desperate peril—keeping her guessing, anticipating. She hadn’t been this out-of-control in years. The fear was there, but it felt good.
After her sauna, a shower and an extended lunch with former classmates, Angela retreated to her room and checked her voice mail. Dani’s message lightened her mood, though she did switch on the weather channel to monitor the rain Dani reported had caused the cancellation of the white-water rafting trip.
Satisfied the showers were unfortunate but nonthreatening, Angela spent the next few hours putting the finishing touches on Monday’s proposal, outlining her firm’s surefire business plan to introduce her client’s product—a ritzy housing development—to south Florida home buyers. When her eyes glazed over, she shut her laptop and pushed business from her mind. She dressed at a leisurely pace, poured herself a glass of wine from the minibar and sauntered onto the balcony.
The beach, nearly deserted as evening encroached, lulled her with its music. Gulls cawed from the expanse of lavender sky, and the changing tide sloshed against the sand in perfect rhythm.
The sunset darkened the gulf to a deep plum color rimmed with ripples of fire, reminding her of Jack’s touch—a touch she already missed. How could her plan possibly work? How would she remove the man from her memory if being with him only increased his presence there?
As if her thought was a summoner’s spell, a knock reverberated against the door.
A tremor shimmied up her spine. She crossed the suite quickly, opened the door and stopped dead. Brazenly, she eyed him up and down. Her mouth lost moisture. Their mutually appreciative stares met in the middle.
She managed a breathless, “Wow.”
Dressed in a tailored, vestless tuxedo and collarless shirt, he appeared as cosmopolitan as his professional life-style demanded. He’d slicked back the sides of his light brown hair, leaving the top slightly tousled as if blown by a nonexistent wind. The effect was pulse-fluttering.
“Right back at you,” he responded.
She retreated, sweeping aside the short train of her gown and opening the door wider. As he crossed the threshold, he pulled a nosegay of deep purple violets and the tiniest pink tea roses from behind his back
.
She accepted the flowers shyly, inhaling the sweet scent.
“I always loved violets.” She ran her finger gently over one of the petals. “Roses, too.”
Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “I remembered.”
“How thoughtful of you.” She closed the door behind him. “I mean, you didn’t have to go to this trouble. Thank you.”
“Angela, you and I—together—that’s trouble we can’t avoid. We might as well just give in and enjoy the ride.”
He doesn’t know the half of it, she thought, walking to the darkened bedroom to retrieve her purse.
“The violets match my gown. Did you peek in my closet?”
His voice followed her. “You always favored purple for formal occasions. In the spirit of things, I took a chance.”
A familiar wave of apprehension overtook her. She checked her makeup in the mirror by the light from the other room. She reached into her handbag and extracted a tube of lipstick to apply another layer to her wine-tinted lips.
“Don’t add another stroke,” he said, his voice heavy with quiet authority.
Looking past her reflection, she saw him standing directly behind her.
“You look perfect. You don’t need anything, except maybe a long, wet, drawn-out kiss to add a little natural color.”
She twisted the tube closed. “Is that what I need?”
He licked his lips. “That and much more. Much more.”
Taking her elbow, he turned her around. He ran his hand up her arm, over her full-length satin gloves to the short sleeves hanging loose below her shoulders. When he reached her neck, he slipped his fingers into her hair.
“I like your hair down.”
Pressing her lips together, she wondered if they’d make the dinner. She also considered whether or not she cared. The color of his eyes darkened to a rich emerald, and he stepped closer to her, slipping his other hand to the small of her back.
The warmth of his palm heated the clingy silk of her gown. As the fever spread through her, coiling in the center of her feminine core, she leaned toward him.
“What else do you like?” she asked, nuzzling her cheek to his, inhaling the crisp citrus scent of his aftershave.
Seducing Sullivan Page 5