by Leanne Banks
Her stomach turned as she felt the unwelcome noose of responsibility tighten around her neck. Her mind whirled with crazy possibilities. She wasn’t packing a pistol and she wasn’t Superwoman. She glanced down at herself in a futile search for a weapon. In her short designer skirt and high heels, she was dressed to slay men—metaphorically speaking—and inspire women, not kill thugs. What was she supposed to do? Stab the bad guys with one of her heels? Her mind wandered. There had actually been that time when she’d had to stomp the instep of an over amorous client. She thought about her thong underwear. Thongs were usually a very effective distraction for men, but—
She heard another punch and couldn’t stand it. Time for a lie. Ducking behind a car, she covered her eyes and at the top of her lungs screamed, “Fire! Fire! Thank God there’s the police! Fire! Fire! Officer, over here! Help!”
When she took a breath, she inhaled with her pulse pounding in her ears. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of three hoodlums scurrying out the far exit of the parking garage. She tentatively stepped forward and peeked around the corner, spotting a man slumped on the ground.
She scrambled toward him, praying no thugs remained and swearing under her breath. “Are you okay?” she asked, poking gingerly at his shoulder. “Please be alive. Are you conscious?”
He gazed up at her and grimaced. “I think,” he said in a slurred voice. “Who—”
“We’ve got to get out of here. Be quiet and get in the elevator,” she said, dragging his tall frame to his feet and trying to support him as she urged him to the elevator. She felt muscles bunch beneath the tweed wool jacket he wore and she wondered if he had tried to defend himself.
She clumsily shoved him against the side of the elevator and punched the button for the floor to her condo. She would figure out what to do with him later. Now, she just needed to get them away.
She stepped closer to peer at his wounds, touching his face, half of which was unmarked. Strong jaw, chiseled bones, he looked about thirty with dark hair and the one eye that was open seemed to look right through her. A good soul, she instantly concluded with the confidence of a woman who’d graduated with a PhD from the school of hard knocks. Her ability to read a man through his eyes had saved her butt more times than she could count. Her heart still hammering a mile a minute, she bit her lip as she took inventory. She started to chatter and couldn’t make herself stop. “Your left eye looks terrible. Swollen shut and red already. What’s your name?”
“Benjamin, Benjamin Hu—”
She made a tsking sound. “Oh, Benjamin, your mouth is bleeding. And your cheek—”
Benjamin didn’t know which was making his head spin more—the throbbing in his brain or the woman’s nervous talk. Just after his assailants had fled, he’d wondered if he was going to die. The next thing he remembered was spotting the most shapely pair of legs he’d ever seen in his life, quickly followed by a wild-eyed woman who’d dragged him into the elevator. He had the impression of being blown away by a hot Texas wind.
“Did they punch you in the stomach?” She touched his chest, then her hand fell to his belly, and he instinctively sucked in a sharp breath.
“What if you’re bleeding internally? You should go to the emergency room. Are you feeling dizzy or nauseated? You could have a concussion.”
“I-jus-got-back-from—” He swallowed and closed both his eyes.
“Omigod. Your voice is slurred. You could have a concussion. Your brain may be swelling. We have to—”
“—dentist,” he said, and pulled gauze from his mouth. “I just got a root canal.”
“Oh.” She grimaced in sympathy. “Helluva day.”
He stared at his rescuer with his good eye. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it. He watched her brush a dark lock of her hair away from her eyes. She gnawed on her full bottom lip and his gaze traveled downward over curves he suspected had caused many masculine meltdowns. Her top fit her shapely breasts like air and her skirt was too short, too tight. She was the antithesis of every conservative well-bred New England woman he’d dated since he’d entered Harvard Law School.
The woman looked like sin. With heart.
The elevator dinged, signaling the end of their ride. His floor, he thought. How convenient. He could collapse on a clear spot in his condo if he could find one. His do-it-yourself renovations were supposed to provide him some sorely needed do-it-yourself therapy. After he collapsed, he planned to knock out a wall.
“Come with me,” she said. “I can at least get some ice on your eye while we figure out what to do next.”
“But I’m right down the—”
“Don’t argue with me. We need to figure out whether to call the police first or take you to the emergency room,” she said, nudging him down the hallway and unlocking the door to her condominium. “Take the sofa. I’ll get the ice.”
This was his neighbor, he realized. The woman who had shrieked at him last night? The Wicked Witch of the West? Broom Hilda? Surely more than one person lived here. He’d barely sunk down onto her ivory leather sofa before she returned with a frozen bag of peas. She gingerly lifted the bag to his eye.
He sucked in a quick breath.
“Sorry, but you’ll thank me in the morning,” she said in a husky voice.
If his head weren’t splitting in half, he might enjoy a few fantasies about how to spend the kind of night that would make him thank her in the morning. Instead, he met her gaze with his good eye. “I don’t have to wait. Thank you for screaming.”
“You’re welcome. What about your stomach and ribs? Do you think anything is broken?”
He slid his hands over his trunk and slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“We should call the police,” she said. “And make sure whoever is monitoring security tonight gets fired,” she added in disgust. “You just know that if someone had been having sex on the floor of that garage, those security dodos would have been plastered to the monitor. Heck, they’d probably be making copies of the videos for their friends, but what happens when someone gets mugged and—”
She broke off as Benjamin clutched his ribs.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, instinctively reaching out to him.
“Please don’t make me laugh,” he said in a voice that surprised her with the tinge of sexiness.
She blinked and took a quick reassessment. A different kind of assessment this time. He was just over six feet tall judging by the way she’d had to look up at him in the elevator. He had nice dark hair, although a bit mussed at the moment. Dark eyebrows framed his brown eyes. Expressive eyes. Well, one of them was expressive. She liked that. Great bones, she thought, taking in his chiseled facial structure, and she was trained to notice. Couldn’t tell a thing about the mouth since it was swollen and bloody. Broad shouldered, but lean with muscles. A runner, she guessed, or swimmer, looking at his shoulders again. She allowed her gaze to sweep past his thighs, down to his feet. Large feet. Oh, my.
Sense of humor, good dresser, and he had a good soul. Interesting man. She wondered if a woman would be able to keep him in line.
She met his gaze and felt a surprising punch. He knew exactly what she’d been doing. Well, damn. Intelligence could really ruin the mix.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been strip-searched more thoroughly by a woman,” he said, sounding flattered.
She almost felt embarrassed. After all, the man had just taken a beating. She shrugged and shot him a smile that she knew had knocked at least a few men off-kilter. “I’m nothing if not thorough. Lean back, I’ll get you something to drink. Hard or soft?” she asked, thinking it might be fun to get him hard.
“Whiskey sounds good, but I’d probably better not mix the dentist’s meds with alcohol. Just water.”
Sensible too, she thought, as she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a chilled bottle of spring water. What an interesting man. She liked his voice. She liked the way he smelled. She lik
ed the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut, but his intelligence would likely cause problems. Intelligent men were harder to control and Delilah liked being in control.
“Here,” she said, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle and giving it to him. “I’ll get the phone. You can call the police.”
“What’s your name?” he asked as she turned away.
“Dee Montague,” she said, smiling to herself as she wondered what he would think of her given name. It never failed to provoke a reaction. “Delilah, actually.”
He paused. “Delilah?”
“Yes,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“It suits you,” he said slowly. “So how do I thank you for saving me?”
“I don’t know,” she said, dialing the number for the police. After speaking with someone, she returned with the phone to sit beside him on the couch. “Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something later,” she said, pleased to regain her ingrained ability to flirt. “In the meantime, you should talk to the police.”
“I’ll return the favor,” he said, surprising her with his solemn tone. “I promise, if you ask me for something, I’ll do it.”
Delilah got a funny feeling in her stomach. She wasn’t accustomed to solemn promises from men. She wasn’t accustomed to believing promises many men made, but she had a strong sense that this one might keep his promise.
She held the bag of peas against his eye while he reported the assault in the garage. Listening to him with half an ear, she tried to place his aftershave. A man had designed it, she decided. It was the kind of aftershave created to make a woman hungry and wet.
“Benjamin Huntington III,” he said. “My address is Waterstone Towers, 533 Cary Street, unit 1428.”
Dee frowned. Puzzled, she wrinkled her brow. Had she heard correctly? The back of her neck tightened. As soon as he turned off the phone, she took it from him. “Did I hear you say you’re in unit 1428?”
He nodded. “That’s right,” he said with a half-smile that managed to be sexy even though half his face was pummeled.
She could have pummeled the other half.
Huntington. Unit 1428. Huntington. Unit 1428. Delilah felt her chest tighten with resentment. The Huntingtons were one of Houston’s most prominent and wealthy families. Lilly was hoping to marry one of them. Delilah barely stifled the urge to shriek. On top of the trauma of the evening and everything else she’d been through during the last few months, this was just too much. She felt her composure begin to crack and pointed at him accusingly. “You’re my neighbor?”
“Right next door.” He lifted the bottle of water to his lips.
“And a Huntington,” she said in disgust. “I should have known it was some overgrown trust baby being so inconsiderate of neighbors. As a Huntington, you’re probably not used to having neighbors.”
“Now wait a minute—”
Delilah shook her head in disbelief. “You are the new neighbor who starts hammering or using some kind of loud machinery at six P.M. every evening and you don’t stop until well after midnight.”
“I’m renovating—”
She didn’t want him to explain. She wanted him to stop torturing her. “And you are the new neighbor who plays some kind of music that sounds as if the building is being stormed by torch bearers bent on destruction.”
He looked perplexed. “Russian opera?”
“And you play this music full blast despite the fact that I’ve left several notes requesting you to turn it down,” she said, gritting her teeth. “And it’s so loud I can’t even escape it when I take a shower.”
“Notes? What notes?”
“Oh, right,” she said in complete disbelief. “Just like you didn’t know your renovations left me without electricity when you went out of town weekend before last.”
He stared at her with a blank expression. Delilah didn’t believe it for one minute. The man had caused her untold misery. More than ever during the last month she had craved the solace of home, but for all the disturbance he had made, he might as well have brought a wrecking ball inside her condo instead of his. No one could be that ignorant. Then again, maybe this meant he wasn’t intelligent after all. Too late, she thought. She knew the truth. He was the most annoying neighbor on the planet, and like an idiot, she had rescued him.
“Why do you have such a bad opinion of the Huntingtons? What did we ever do to you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You just exist.” She pulled the bottle of water from his hand. “Get out. Go get your own water.”
He stood, looking at her as if she were crazy. And although Delilah would die before she admitted it to him, she was a little crazy right now. Since Cash had died, she still hadn’t figured out how to solidify both her professional and financial future and keep her promises to Cash, and the Power Tool Prince currently staring at her as if she had a screw loose, that he no doubt could tighten, was partially responsible. She couldn’t sleep, therefore she couldn’t think, therefore she hadn’t figured out a solution for keeping the vow she’d made and cementing her future.
“Get out,” she told him, shooing him toward her door. “After a long day at work during which I pull about a half dozen knives out of my back, I don’t want much. All I want is a little peace and quiet. All I want is to lose myself in a hot shower, but I haven’t been able to do that because of you,” she said, shaking her finger at him as he backed through her doorway. “That’s bad enough, but I waited two years to get my cleaning lady to clean on Fridays. Two years. I was gone for two weeks and you waltz in and I’m back on Tuesdays because my cleaning lady is cleaning for you on Fridays.”
He shook his head. “I had no idea.”
“Well I’m giving you an idea,” she shouted. “You’ve destroyed any chance I have for peace in my home, then you have the nerve to get mugged just as I’m arriving home, so I nearly have a nervous breakdown trying to save you. Give me back my peas,” she said, snagging the bag from his hand before she slammed the door in his astonished half-handsome, half-pummeled face.
The sound of the slamming door reverberated in his already pounding head as Benjamin stared into space with one eye, wondering what had just happened. He’d gotten a root canal. He’d been robbed and beaten by thugs. He’d been rescued by the reincarnation of a mad Mae West. He wasn’t sure which was the worst.
Lilly Bradford was so nervous she was afraid she was going to lose her dinner before she ate it. She patted her ears to make sure they were covered by her hair then patted the romantic pastel dress she wore. She hoped Robert would find it romantic, so romantic he would ask her to marry him. Or at least go to bed with him. She would die before she admitted it, but this was one time she wished she possessed one-tenth of Delilah Montague’s sultry sexiness. There was a woman who brought men to her knees. A bitter taste filled Lilly’s mouth. Delilah had even brought her father to his knees. As much as she detested Delilah, she couldn’t help wishing she had more know-how in the game of seduction/romance.
Lilly glanced up from the table where she waited for Robert and saw him across the room of one of the most romantic restaurants in Houston—The Brownstone. Her heart dipped. He was shaking hands as he made his way across the restaurant. Robert Huntington was quite simply the man of her dreams. He was handsome, intelligent. Houston Magazine had named him one of the city’s top ten bachelors the past two years running. Lilly still couldn’t believe that he had asked her out. She, who’d once had buck teeth, thick glasses, and a lisp. The lisp still crept into her speech every now and then when she was especially angry or upset.
She took a deep breath, reminding herself to remain calm. She didn’t want to blow this. After all, this was Houston’s most romantic nightspot. Tonight could be the night everything changed for her.
She loved everything about Robert, his ambition, his ideas, his gentleness with her. She envied the closeness his family shared and hoped she could be a part of their inner circle. She sensed his mother and father approved of
her. She’d yet to meet his brother, but she knew the entire family held Benjamin in high esteem. When Robert’s father spoke of Benjamin, he puffed out his chest and described him as a chip off the old block. Robert seemed to admire Benjamin. He often talked about seeking his opinion.
Lilly wanted to be one of the family, to spend holidays with them, to be included. When her father had left her mother, she’d never really felt as if she belonged to anyone. Her mother had always been strict, but once her father had left, she’d become nearly impossible to please. Lilly was ashamed of the relief she’d felt when her mother had remarried just a few years ago and moved to New York, but she’d sensed this was, at last, her chance to make a life for herself—a life she wanted. More than anything she wanted to belong. To be needed.
Lilly looked at him again as he smiled his heart-turning smile and looked intently at each person he greeted. His brown hair was cut short, his strong jaw shaven, his shoulders broad beneath his well-tailored suit coat. Her stomach jumped again. Oh, Lord, she hoped she didn’t get sick. She resisted the urge to stand up and wave. She was never sure whether he saw her or not. He usually found his way to her side at functions they’d attended, but he was so passionate about his intent to run for public office that she feared he was looking through her or past her, but not quite at her.
She crossed her fingers by her side. Maybe he would do more than look tonight.
She held her breath as he finally turned to her and sent her reeling with his smile. “Hi,” she said breathlessly.
“Lilly, you look beautiful,” he said and brushed his mouth over her forehead.
She tamped down a spurt of frustration. Sometimes she craved a more overt display. It was probably unreasonable, but she couldn’t help wondering how he would react if she gave him a French kiss in front of all these people. He would probably be shocked. And never call her again.
“Sorry I’m late, but I have something important to discuss with you. I think you’re going to be excited about this.”
Her heart raced in her chest. “I can’t wait.”