When they could breathe again, he pulled out slowly, rubbing her back, and then untied her hands, kissing the soft inner skin of her wrists. He was such a wimp.
“Do you even own any condoms?” she questioned.
He laughed. “One step forward, two steps back. That’s my Vanny.”
He pulled her into his arms, cuddling her, and kissed the top of her head, thinking of the conversation that had led to the sex. Not that every conversation he had with Vanny didn’t lead to sex.
“Look, if it’s the money that’s bothering you, how about I stop paying you for being my mistress and start paying you for something I probably need even more?”
“What’s that? A social secretary?”
“No, Miss Prentiss does all of that too. No, what I need and what you can give me is your expertise.”
“I thought that’s what I’ve been doing,” she noted wryly.
“In the oil business. In Transcoastal specifically.” He got out of bed and retrieved his iPad, flicking it on. “Remember this?” he said, hinting.
She looked at him, apprehension in her green eyes, and for a minute he thought she might finally admit what she had been doing at the Four Seasons. But suddenly, he didn’t even want her to.
He hurried on, sitting back next to her on the bed. “I know a lot about business, but all I know about the oil business is what I’ve read in reports and what I saw on the Treasure Driller. So, assuming I take you at your word that you didn’t plant the bomb—”
“I—”
“Which as a matter of fact, I do.”
“Really, Michael?”
“Yeah. Now that I know you a little better, I can see you’re not sneaky. If you were going to bomb Transcoastal, you’d probably walk into the lobby with a lit fuse and announce it to everybody.”
“That might be fun just to see how that stuck-up receptionist took it.”
“But since it wasn’t you I still have quite a problem. Unless there was a stowaway, and I had the rig thoroughly searched so I’m sure there wasn’t, somebody on that rig, somebody who by definition I employed, planted the bomb. But I’m left with nothing more than a bunch of names and profiles to try to figure out who and why. And I won’t feel exactly easy with my new investment until I solve our little mystery.”
“And I can help you with that?”
“Yes. That’s what a consultant does. Takes on projects, pitches in where management needs a particular level of know-how they don’t possess. And believe me, it’s always for a big fee. It makes the mistress business look like small change.”
He got a small smile out of her, so he flicked to the files on the Treasure Driller personnel and held out the iPad to her. “Come on. Educate me. Help me solve this problem.”
She looked at it doubtfully. “I don’t know. I’ve known these guys, a lot of them, most of my life. Isn’t this sort of like, I don’t know, collaborating with the enemy or something?”
“Whoever planted that bomb is probably the same person who’s responsible for your father’s accident.”
“Give me that thing.” She took the iPad and started advancing pages as she talked.
It was about an hour later when they got to the one name she wouldn’t even entertain as a suspect. “Not Mick.” She shook her head definitively. “Never. He and my father are like brothers.”
“You ever heard of Cain and Abel?”
She glanced askance at him. “What kind of a family do you have?”
He laughed. “Actually, I like all my siblings. But all I’m saying is that’s not always the case. Is there any reason Mick O’Malley might have to want to harm your father or Transcoastal?”
“No. Not really.”
“A little less definitive than you were a minute ago.”
“It’s just…and I feel like a rat for saying this, but Mick is the kind of guy who always needs money. He…he gambles a little.”
“Badly, I take it.”
“My pops always said if there was a losing hand at the table, Mick would get dealt it.” She shook her head. “Some people are like that. Pops was always a winner…until his accident, I guess. And, not that I’m saying this means anything, but Mick has been a little flush lately.”
“Flush how?”
“New cowboy boots when he showed up for the stint on the rig. New hat. Little things. New car,” she muttered at the end.
“On the other hand, he was a staunch defender of yours after we’d found the bomb.”
“Thanks. Now I feel even worse for suspecting him.”
He got up. “Still, we should check it out.” Picking up the phone, he dialed a number and said, “Yeah. It’s me.” After rattling off some instructions about having Mick further investigated, he hung up.
“Who was that?”
“Miss Prentiss.”
“Michael! It’s two o’clock in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about it. Believe me, she’s paid even better than a consultant.”
Vanny put the iPad on the nightstand. “Oh yeah? Well, then this consultant is calling it a night.”
He grinned. “If you want to pay me for the sex now, I’m good with that too.”
She gave him a playful shove and climbed on top of him. “How about nobody pays anybody?”
“I’m good with that too.”
Chapter Seven
On Saturday afternoon, Michael drove them out to the Hamptons in a silver Mercedes convertible so expensive she’d never seen the model number before. The top down messed with Vanny’s already unruly curls, but she liked the feel of the wind in her face. Once they were off the freeway and stopped at a red light on the side road, he glanced sideways at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ve just never had a woman in a convertible not complain about the effect on her hair, that’s all.”
She shrugged. “Why? Does it look like a mop?”
He twirled one curl around his finger. “I love your hair.”
A honk behind them announced the light was green. He put the car into gear and took off again, grinning. Michael Reynolds was above letting a honk or two get to him.
He drove smoothly, as she had known he would even though they’d been chauffeured around the whole time she’d been with him. He did everything smoothly she was finding out. She’d decided to stop fighting the pull she felt toward him, not that she’d ever been fighting it very hard, and enjoy their time together, for as long as it lasted.
He turned down a private road with, of all things, a manned gate house at the base of it. Not stopping at the gate house, he drove through the gate they had automatically opened for him with a wave to the guard.
“Your father’s not mafia, is he?” she joked.
He laughed.
When they pulled up to the house, she shook her head. No wonder Michael didn’t think his cavernous apartments were any big deal. He was comparing them to this. The gray, shingled house was huge, wings and white porches and windows everywhere she looked. He came around to open her door, an old-fashioned habit she found herself getting used to quickly, and took her arm. The sea was visible in the distance, the house backing up to it. The roar of the Atlantic waves seemed very different from the tranquil Gulf she was used to.
“Somebody will come out and get our things,” he said.
She shook her head. “Always somebody to take care of everything, isn’t there?”
“Okay.” He opened the trunk and got their few bags out, handing her the dress bag. “We’ll get them.”
“When that’s your first instinct, I’ll feel like I’ve really taught you something, Michael.”
“I’m learning every day, Vanny.”
The door to the mansion was opened by a uniformed maid. “Mr. Reynolds,” she said.
“Hello, Mrs. Fox. This is Vanny.”
Vanny smiled. “Hi there.”
“What room do you have us in?”
As promised, Michael had insisted they stay the night.
“The Winnie Suite,” Mrs. Fox answered. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in that since Miss Donald is with you. But put your things down. I’ll have someone take them up. Your father’s in the sun room.”
“No need, Mrs. Fox. We’ll take them up ourselves, won’t we, Vanny?”
“Sure.”
She was still trying to take in the house. Inside, it was even more impressive than outside. The front room seemed as tall as the house itself, with different levels all around, sitting rooms of some sort on each of the levels. The windows faced the sea.
“This is beautiful.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“Don’t you ever get overwhelmed by all of this?”
He glanced around as if he honestly didn’t understand what she meant.
“It just is. It’s what I’m used to, I guess. This house has been in my family for generations. Come on.” He led her up the white-carpeted stairway and down one of the halls to a door.
“The Winnie Suite, I presume,” she said. “Why’s it called that?”
Michael took her into the luxurious suite, complete with a bedroom facing the water, a sitting room, a bathroom bigger than… Oh she was going to stop thinking in those terms. This was just too much. Whatever.
He set down the cases and took the dress from her, hanging it in a walk-in closet. “I don’t know why any of these rooms are called anything.”
“Well, who’s Winnie? One of your father’s wives?”
“No. It predates him. She was probably a long-ago ancestor’s one-night stand.”
“She was not!”
“I don’t know.”
He swooped her up and dropped her on the bed, coming down beside her quickly.
“You have a very high sex drive,” she observed.
“For an old guy, you mean.”
She swiped at his chest and he caught her hand, kissing the palm.
“You’re not old.”
“A lot older than you.”
“So, aren’t all your mistresses in their twenties?”
He didn’t answer, beginning to kiss her neck.
“What I meant about the sex drive was when you’re without a mistress, what do you do? Do you have one-night stands?”
“Besides you, you mean?”
She pursed her mouth. She hoped he never did find out the truth about why Shelly picked him up that night.
“The answer is not really.”
“So what do you do?”
“Why are you so interested in my sex life?”
“Isn’t that what a mistress is supposed to be interested in?”
He brought her hand to his hard crotch. “Yes, but it’s supposed to be a hands-on interest, if you take my meaning.”
“I’ve been taking your meaning ever since I met you, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Don’t call me that. It reminds me of Miss Prentiss.”
“Why don’t you two use first names?”
“I never have with my assistants.”
“No matter how long they work for you?”
“Actually, no one’s lasted as long as Miss Prentiss.”
“I like her.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think about it. I guess originally the idea was to create some distance between me and any assistant.”
“The ‘not sleeping with employees’ thing.”
“Right.”
“Although apparently you just fire them if you want to sleep with them.”
“You’re my first on that score, Miss Donald.”
* * * * *
The evening of the party, Vanny stood before the mirror in her bra and panties.
“I have a present for you.” Michael withdrew the slender black-velvet box from his inner pocket and held it out to her.
“What is it?”
When she didn’t take it, he opened the box and took out the diamond necklace. Setting the box down, he undid the clasp and, standing behind her, draped it around her slender neck. Her eyes were so big and green as she watched him in the mirror that he suddenly wished he’d bought her emeralds. But diamonds went with everything and he didn’t know the color of her dress for tonight.
He rested his hands on her shoulders and dropped a light kiss on her throat. “Do you like it?”
Her hand went slowly up to touch the diamonds. “They’re cold. Everybody says that and it’s true.”
His hands came down to her slender hips and he pulled her back to lean completely against him. “I’ll buy you emeralds next time to go with your eyes.”
“How much did this cost?”
“Never mind that,” he murmured.
“No. Really. Or don’t you know? Did Miss Prentiss buy it for you?”
“No!” he said with more indignity than the question merited since that was what usually happened. “I picked these out for you myself.” And he had. Rather than asking Miss Prentiss to take care of it, he’d had the driver stop at Tiffany’s on his way home one day and he’d bought Vanny the diamonds himself, looking forward to her pleasure when he gave her the gift. “If you don’t like the necklace, we can get you another.”
“How much?”
“Vanny—”
“Tell me.”
He named the price, halving what he’d actually paid for it, starting to get the idea of where she was going.
She reached around to undo the clasp. “That’s ridiculous.”
He was genuinely astonished when she handed the diamonds back to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have been, but he was.
“I don’t want stuff like that.”
“Presents?”
“Presents that cost more than I’ve ever earned in a single year.”
“I can afford it.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want to get all girly on you here—”
“Something I’m sure you’ve never been accused of.”
“I don’t want to feel like you’re buying me.”
“I didn’t buy you. I bought the necklace for you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Yes, as subtle as you were being, I sensed that.”
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Michael.”
“You’re not,” he said automatically, not sure it was true. “I just don’t understand your reasoning.”
“What if for tonight I went to Walmart and bought you a nice, loud, cheap bow tie I really liked? Would you wear it with your tux to the party instead of the one you have on?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you actually have done that. If you haven’t, then the answer is of course I’d wear it. If you have, let me see the tie before I answer.”
“See? It wouldn’t go with you. With who you are.”
“You’re not cheap, Vanny. You’re as rare as—” Oh God. He wasn’t really going to tell a woman she was as rare as diamonds, was he? Worse yet, he wasn’t going to mean it, was he?
But she didn’t seem to notice his sudden stumble. Instead, she went to the closet and took the dress she’d brought from the dress bag, shrugging into it. “This is what I’m wearing tonight. Do you think diamonds go with this dress?”
She looked lovely. Radiant and natural and stunning as she always did. But it had nothing to do with the dress. She could make a potato sack look chic. And in this case, she had made a simple navy sheath look it.
“I paid forty bucks for this dress. It was on sale, half off. And it suits me fine. If I put that fancy-pants necklace on top of it, I’d feel like I was trying to be something I’m not. Worse, I’d feel like you were trying to make me into that.”
He shook his head. “You could wear them another time.”
“You can’t turn me into the kind of girl who wears diamonds. I’d feel silly. Like I was wearing one of those big hats they wear at royal weddings with an ostrich feather on it or something.”
“You’d never look s
illy, no matter what you wore. But I guess I see what you’re saying.” He dropped a light kiss on her lips and then put the necklace back into its box, setting it on the dresser. “Is there anything I can buy you, jewelry wise? Because if not, you’re depriving me of an important part of my repertoire.”
“I don’t like jewelry. We can’t wear it on the rig. Too much chance of it getting caught on something, so I never got in the habit of wearing any.”
“I didn’t notice when I was on the rig.”
“That’s because you don’t wear a wedding ring. If you had, we would have made you take it off.”
He rubbed the third finger on his left hand. A wedding ring… Why the hell didn’t that thought make him scoff like it always did?
“I’ll leave you to dress and pop down to see my father so he doesn’t drag me into business half the time tonight. I’d like a dance with you.”
“There’ll be dancing?”
“It’s what we have a ballroom for.”
He was whistling by the time he found his father at the bar in the library.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Have you ever considered starting a conversation with hello once in a while? You know, just to throw me off.”
“I told Mrs. Fox to have you come see me when you got in.”
“No you didn’t. You told her to tell me where you were. Then you assumed I would report in.”
“So?”
“So I didn’t feel like reporting in. I had better things to do.”
“I know. I met her, remember?”
Michael’s jaw clenched.
“Uh ho ho…what’s this?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about Vanny.”
“Nonsense, you obviously do.”
“Fine. Please go easy on her tonight. For me.”
His father watched him then said, “I don’t believe it.”
“Did you have something you actually wanted to speak to me about, Father? Other than my beautiful mistress.”
“She is beautiful. That’s true. And you probably don’t even know why she’s so beautiful.”
“She won the genetic lottery. So what?”
“To you. Why she’s so beautiful to you.”
“She’s beautiful to everyone. Doesn’t mean I want to have kids with her or anything.”
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