Otherwise Engaged (9 page)

“Room service,” Zander breathed.

Pres glanced at the boy and smiled. “Mostly private,” he added, meeting Molly’s eyes.

She knew what he was thinking. With Zander there, it wouldn’t be as private as he’d like it to be. And there was no doubt in her mind that Pres wanted dinner to have one course more than what was on the menu.

“Mom.” Zander tugged on her arm. “Room service!
Can
we? Please? It would be like a real vacation.”

“I have around-the-clock security teams at the resort. It’s private property. They’ll make sure the reporters stay far away from you. And from Zander.”

Molly wasn’t convinced. “And how long would we have to hide there, under your security teams’ protection? A week? Two? Longer?” She shook her head, turning to include Zander. “No. If we run and hide, everyone’s going to assume that we have something that needs to be hidden.”

But she did have something to hide. She had to keep hidden the fact that Pres’s dinner invitation—and the unspoken invitation she could see in his eyes—had sparked a fire deep within her. God help her, she wanted to say yes.

“I don’t think it’s going to take that long for things to return to normal,” Pres told her. “Not with the statement I gave the press today.”

“I have work to do, today, right now,” Molly insisted. Why did he have to look so incredibly good, sitting there across from her in his expensive hand-tailored suit? His smile softened the
hard lines of his face and his eyes made promises that were much too tempting.

“I have to clean all those bedrooms.” She was reaching for an excuse now, and the look in his hazel eyes told her he knew it. But still she kept talking, hoping she’d hit on something that would ring true. “I want to get the place up and running by September, you know. That roofer—Emerson James—he’s supposed to come by tomorrow morning. And I just … can’t. Pres, I can’t. I’m sorry. I hate the thought of being driven out of my home by a pack of
… idiots.”

Pres was watching her, his expression unreadable. But then he nodded. “You’re right.” He turned and nudged Zander’s sneaker with the toe of one perfectly polished shoe. “She’s right, you know. You should never let yourself get pushed around—especially not by idiots.”

Zander didn’t look convinced.

“You can stay at the resort as my guest some other time,” he promised the boy. “But right now your mom wants to go home.” He pressed the intercom button. “Kirk Estate, Lenny. On the double.”

B
AD THINGS
always came in threes.

As the phone rang Pres braced himself for the third bad thing.

The first had been Molly refusing to come and stay at the resort.

Oh, he’d had that all planned out. They would order an elegant, gourmet room-service dinner and eat it on the living-room rug, spread out like a picnic. Then they’d rent a movie from the in-house video service, and around nine o’clock, they’d tuck a sleepy Zander into one of the king-size beds in the two-bedroom Presidential Suite.
Then he and Molly would wander out onto the screened-in balcony and …

Pres wanted to kiss her. Desperately. In fact, he was starting to obsess about it. The way her lips would feel. The way she would taste … God, it was driving him out of his mind.

Forget about his craving for cigarettes. That was nothing compared with how much he wanted Molly.

Instead, he’d driven her back to the Kirk Estate, made her promise to stay inside, told her a security team was already on the way, ready to keep unwanted visitors off her property throughout the night. And after the team had arrived, he’d left.

Pres picked up the phone. “Seaholm.”

“Yeah, Pres. It’s Mac. Sorry to disturb you, but we’ve got a problem.” It was his security chief, calling from Molly’s house with what had to be the third bad thing.

The second bad thing had been a message waiting for Pres on his answering machine when he got home. Randy, the owner of the salvage company down in St. John had called. There had been another major storm in the Virgin Islands that
morning, and the shipwreck had been covered back up with sand. The location was marked, but instead of a comparatively quick and easy excavation, the endeavor would now be costly, dangerous, and time-consuming.

“Did something happen?” Pres asked Mac. “Are the Cassidys okay?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Mac told him. “My problem is this place is too big to patrol with only three men. I know you want someone inside the house at all times, but that means I’ve only got two guys outside and …” Pres could picture the big, burly former U.S. Navy SEAL shaking his head. “If someone really wants to, they’re going to get past us.”

“How many more men do you need?”

“At least two. But my staff is tapped out. Everyone’s been working double shifts, handling this
Fantasy Man
thing. The fact is, Pres, I don’t have anyone else left to call. And no way am I triple shifting. But I figured if anyone could pull a couple of guys out of his hat at eleven o’clock at night, it had to be you.”

Pres smiled. His third bad thing just might’ve been a good thing after all. “I’ll have two men—fresh
and ready to work—over at the Kirk Estate in ten minutes,” he told Mac.

He hung up, then lifted the phone again, pressing the speed dial for Dominic’s home number.

Molly looked up from the television news as the security guard checked his watch, stood up, and stretched.

“Shift change,” he told her, crossing toward the French doors that led to the back patio.

As he went out another man came inside. He was dressed in similar black jeans and black T-shirt, and he wore a black baseball cap on his head. Molly barely glanced up at him. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

“I will, thanks.”

The familiar voice got her full attention. It was Pres.

It was
Pres?

Molly turned off the TV and followed him into the kitchen. “What are
you
doing here?”

“My security chief was low on manpower tonight.” He tossed his cap onto the counter, then
poured himself a mug of coffee. “Dom and I came over to help out.”

Molly didn’t want to be glad to see him. But, dammit, every time he showed up, her heart beat with a new, powerful, exciting rhythm. He knew it too. He knew it, and he was purposely making this as hard as possible for her. Molly tried to get mad, but she couldn’t even do that. Not after what she’d just seen on the television.

“I saw you on the news,” she said. “Today at the church—you told those reporters the truth.”

He’d made a statement, admitted that he’d invented his engagement in order to get out of being
Fantasy Man’s
Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year. He’d told the world that Molly Cassidy was not his mysterious fiancée, because he
had
no fiancée.

“I want you and Zander to be left alone.” Pres took a sip of his coffee, watching her evenly over the top of his coffee mug. Lord, he looked incredibly good in black.

“But you made the story up in the first place so that
you’d
be left alone.”

He shrugged. “My priorities have changed.”

Meaning her and Zander’s privacy was now more important to Pres than his own. Molly
crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter, hoping he wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t as cool and calm as she was pretending to be. “That’s very sweet, but … I don’t think anyone believed you.”

He froze, his mug poised at his lips. “Why not?”

“A photographer was up on the roof of Millie’s Market,” Molly said. “After we came out into the alley … There’s a picture. …”

After they’d come out into that alley, he’d held her loosely in his arms and gazed down into her eyes and …

He was looking at her exactly that same way right now, with volcanic heat making his eyes a blistering swirl of green and yellow and brown.

“I didn’t kiss you,” Pres said.

“I know. But in the picture … They showed it on the news.” Molly swallowed. “It looked like …”

“I wanted to kiss you.”

Molly’s eyes were wide. She looked about as old as Zander. “Yeah.” She nervously moistened her lips and tried to smile. “That’s sure what it looked like in that picture.”

“No.” Pres put down his coffee mug. “That’s not what it
looked like—
that’s what it was. I wanted to kiss you.” He gave her a half smile. “I still do. Want to kiss you.”

Molly stared at him, and Pres stared back at her, wondering what she was going to say, how she was going to respond.

She turned away from him suddenly, reaching for a mug and pouring herself some coffee. She wasn’t going to say anything. Pres was disappointed. She’d been so honest about nearly everything else up to this point.

But then she turned back to him. “I know,” she said, breaking the silence. “I want to kiss you too.”

She took her coffee and walked out of the room.

“Whoa.” Pres nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to follow her. “Hold on a minute! Molly! Wait a sec. … You can’t just say that you want to kiss me and then walk away.”

She turned to face him. “I
don’t
want to kiss you.”

“But you just said …”

“I want to and I
don’t
want to. Can you see
how that might be something of a problem for me?”

“Can’t we maybe give it a trial run and see? If you still feel undecided afterward—”

Molly’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were hot. “Do you honestly think that either one of us will still have our clothes on after you start kissing me? Because I don’t. I know damn well that one kiss will lead to two, and two will lead to … Lord! Before either of us knows it, we’ll be up in my bedroom, making love.”

“Um,” Pres said.

“And don’t pretend that’s not exactly what you want,” she blazed. “I know because I want it too. And I
don’t
want it!” Her coffee sloshed over the top of the mug and burned her fingers. “Shoot!
Shoot!”
She put her fingers in her mouth trying to cool them.

Pres took her mug and set it down on the coffee table, then gently touched her burned hand, tugging her back toward the kitchen. “Maybe we should run this under cold water.” He laughed. “Hell, maybe we should run
me
under cold water as well—”

Molly yanked her hand away from him. “Stop being so damned nice!”

“Actually, I wasn’t being nice. Actually, I was just trying to get close enough to do this. …”

Pres kissed her.

She tasted hot and sweet, like coffee, and she made a faint sound in the back of her throat as he deepened the kiss. Her lips were as soft as he’d imagined—softer.

He was just about to pull back when she reached for him, putting her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, startling him with her intensity as she returned his kisses.

She was an inferno. She was incredible. Pres would have laughed aloud if he hadn’t been otherwise engaged.

Her breasts were deliciously soft against his chest, her stomach tight against his growing arousal. Her hair felt like silk beneath his fingers. Her tongue met his in an onslaught of passion so fierce, he was nearly knocked over.

He could feel her hands move down, down and underneath the edge of his T-shirt, her fingers cool against his bare skin.

She was right. If he had anything to say about
it—and he hoped to God that he did—they were going to make love, right here, right now.

“Mac wants to talk to you, Pres—oops.”

Pres lifted his head to see Dom standing in the open French doors on the other side of the room.

“No, he doesn’t,” Pres said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Dom agreed, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, Lord.” Molly brought her fingers to her lips. She was still pressed against him, and as she moved, Pres knew she couldn’t have missed noticing how totally turned on he was. “Oh, Lord,” she said again.

“We still have our clothes on,” Pres felt it necessary to point out.

“Only because your friend came to the door.”

“Remind me to fire him.” Pres bent his head to kiss her again.

She tried to pull away. “Don’t!”

He didn’t let her go. “How could you not want to do that again? That was …”

“What?”

Pres was suddenly extremely aware that whether or not he was going to get this woman into bed with him tonight depended greatly on the
word he used to describe that kiss. If he said the right thing, he just might have a chance. A very tiny chance, but it was his only chance.

And God, he wanted to make love to her so much. … He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think.

Awesome. Amazing. Incredible. Mind-blowing. Excellent. Transcendental. Blood-stirring
. None of those were the right words.

How would
Molly
describe that kiss? What words would
she
use?

But that was a mistake. By trying to second-guess her, his words would ring false. It would get him nowhere.

And then he knew.

Just that morning, on the beach, Zander had taught him a sign. And wrong or right, it was the only word Pres could use to describe the kiss he and Molly had just shared.

He released her and held up the index finger on his left hand. He took hold of that finger with his thumb and index finger of his right hand and slowly lifted both hands.

“Unique,” he whispered.

Molly laughed, a wonder-filled burst of air that
contradicted the sudden sheen of tears in her eyes. “That’s today’s word.”

“It sure as hell is.” Pres reached for her.

She let him pull her close, but she shook her head. “This is crazy. …”

It was. It was incredibly crazy. For her sake, he was supposed to stay away from her, not be doing his damnedest to ensure that he woke up next to her in her bed.

But her eyes were a liquid shade of blue and she felt so right in his arms. And that kiss had truly been one of a kind. He could only imagine what making love to this woman would be like. And, oh, could he ever imagine it. …

This was not the time to turn and walk away.

Her lips parted slightly as she gazed up into his eyes and he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. He kissed her again, and she melted against him, and he felt a surge of triumph and desire. He’d won.