Razzmatazz-DDL (8 page)

That person, that bride on the screen, was...radiant.

The groom took her hand and raised it lovingly to his lips for the briefest caress before they turned to face the minister. He was a different Alex. Maybe he even acted like Alex. But the emotion radiating from his eyes was so intense, so all-encompassing, so utterly entranced...she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the screen.

Various phrases from the minister’s lips were punctuated by that strange Kennie’s infectious laughter, by that other Alex’s quick peck on her cheek or soft caress of her slender neck, by Christopher Quincy Abbott’s enthusiastic “Hear! Hear!” Those three people acted as if they were witnessing a bona fide, if ebullient, wedding!

When the minister asked for the ring, the groom looked so crestfallen and the bride so disappointed that Chris wrenched the golden signet from his pinkie and offered it with a flourish. And now she felt guilty for having been so hard on him.

She watched the groom on the screen take her hand in his and press his lips against her palm. A tingling sensation spread up her finger as she watched the ring slide into place, on that other Kennie’s hand. And then the groom on the screen took that radiant, glowing bride in his arms. Kennie felt a strange, glowing warmth spread over her body as she saw the curly blond head fall backward, the darker head bend down. The two bodies pressed together in an embrace so rapturous that she got goose bumps just from watching it.

She wanted the tape to end so she could breathe again, yet she didn’t want it to end at all.

It ended.

The room was filled with gray, fuzzy light; Alex clicked the remote control and it went black. She couldn’t move. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to feel him shift closer, closer, and take her into his arms and make her feel that way again. She was shocked and amazed, but she wanted it more than anything.

He didn’t move.

“Kennie....” His voice was silken seduction in the darkness.

“Yes?” she breathed.

“Do you believe in fate?”

CHAPTER FIVE

“I DON’T KNOW what I believe anymore,” Kennie whispered. “Fate?” she repeated.

Alex sat silently beside her.

She felt tears stinging her eyes, foolish, foolish tears. What was happening to her? She was practical, down-to-earth, not at all like that woman on the screen. The woman on the screen was a stranger.

And her desire to be that woman grew more overpowering as each heavy throb of her pulse sent her senses reeling faster than before.

“Kennie, I’m going to kiss you.”

Even her pulse stopped.

His lips found not her mouth but the base of her throat. She gasped softly as his lips brushed lightly across a pulse that now skittered wildly. His hand closed around the back of her neck, his fingers twining into the soft, feathery curls and nudging her head back. Her mouth was still opened on an intake of air when his lips found hers, and she succumbed to the onslaught of kiss, of memory.

It had been like this, so intense, so sweet. Even now, as his tongue traced her lips, dampened them, then withdrew to allow his mouth to continue his ravishment, even now she heard echoes of “I now pronounce you....”

She remembered each scent, each texture, each feeling, recaptured them in vivid reality for her to explore, this time with full control of her faculties. This time there was no ambrosial haze, no off-center dreaminess.

This time was real. This kiss was now. These feelings were honest and all too real.

And in being so, the emotion was ten times more devastating.

She found the taut muscles contouring his back and followed them with her hands, then sent one to his luxurious hair, the other to his waist. She clung to him like a person drowning, for she was. Dear sweet Jehoshaphat, she was.

He eased away; she gasped for breath. Before she could think, his mouth captured hers with renewed vigor. She lost all reason, all sense of anything but this man, who controlled the very air she breathed and the throb of the blood flowing through her body.

What was happening to her? Dear mercy, what was happening? A moth within her soul fluttered frantically, though for the life of her she couldn’t tell whether it fought to free her from, or to plunge her into, his devouring flame. No matter, she had neither the will nor the desire to stop it.

An insistent knocking at the door failed to break the bond between them; it was only a weak echo of her heartbeat. But then that tiny, fluttering part of her mind recognized and seized the distraction like a life raft on a stormswept sea. She broke away, gasping, “The door.”

“The door,” Alex echoed, and she could feel his reluctance to let go as his fingers lingered, grazing down her arms before finally breaking the contact. And again he rasped, as if for reinforcement, “The door.”

Did he feel as relieved, as stunned, as she? Thank goodness for the dark. Thank goodness she didn’t have to look him in the eye....

He snapped the light on, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Alex thrust a handkerchief in her hand and brushed her cheek lightly with his knuckles. “You’ve got chocolate on your chin.”

“You’ve got lipstick on your jaw,” she responded huskily.

The knocking continued. “Alex, let me in!”

An overwhelming sense of relief warred with Kennie’s impulse to take Christopher Abbott by his aristocratic neck and shake him as Alex wearily opened the door and stepped aside. “What is it, Chris?”

“Alex! Alex!” Chris sprang into the room, his face wreathed in frantic excitement. “How could we forget? Do you realize? Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I don’t have the foggiest inkling what you’re blithering about.” Alex’s response was close to a snarl.

Chris spun toward him, grabbed him by the shirt, and pulled him close. He whispered with demanding urgency, “Your Aunt Minerva!”

Alex stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language, then his face paled. “Aunt Minerva.”

Kennie shrank into the corner of the sofa. “Did she...did she die?”

“Yes!” Chris exploded. “Yes, she’s dead!”

“I’m so sorry,” Kennie said. “How dreadful!”

Alex’s gaze drilled holes into Chris’s. But, apparently oblivious, Chris continued. “But it’s not! She’s been dead for years.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. Let me explain. It’s her will,” Chris started, but Alex clapped a hand over his shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” he grated.

“But it’s everything,” Chris insisted, bewildered. “This is your golden opportunity!”

“I said it’s nothing,” Alex ground out, his fists clenched, his shoulders rigid beneath his shirt.

So unexpected was Alex’s anger, her mouth fell open in astonishment. His dark brows lowered; his eyes narrowed into slits of cold, dark anger. Even Chris seemed to shrink away from him with a confused shrug. “It was just an idea....” he stammered.

“And a damned bad one,” Alex snapped.

“All right.” Chris smiled nervously. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d appreciate it.”

Kennie watched as the men exchanged strained glances, then Chris edged back toward the door. “So sorry.” He aimed a quasi-jaunty salute at her and left.

Alex slumped against the door. He seemed as tired as she suddenly felt, and she was overcome by a wave of sympathy.

“What’s he talking about? A will?” she asked.
 

“Nothing. Old news.”

“Does it have anything to do with me?”

His head shot up. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Oh.” She dropped her gaze to her lap, too confused to understand, too tired to push further.

But Alex’s low chuckle drew her attention again as he reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a twinkling gold coin. “You call it,” he said with a wry grin. “Heads, we pick up where we left off when we were so rudely interrupted, and tails...we don’t.”

“Neither!” she said as the coin twirled into the air, then landed.

The head stared blandly up at the two of them from its spot on the carpet.

“Ah, well,” he said with a weary shrug. “It was worth a try.”

“You forgot to ask him for your new room number,” Kennie reminded him.

“I doubt he’s got one. He probably won’t leave the bandits again until we fly out of here. I’m amazed that he dragged himself away long enough to share that illuminating bit of inspiration with us, such as it is.”

Illuminating to whom? she wanted to ask, but held her tongue. She slid to the edge of the deep sofa and, leaning heavily on its arm, stood up.

“You want to go to bed,” he said.

She nodded.

“Okay. I’ll get out of your way.” His face was etched with deep lines of fatigue.

Before she could stop herself, she was speaking. “There’s no reason you can’t sleep here.” And quickly, lest he get the wrong idea, she added, “The sofa’s soft, and plenty long.”

His wry, tired grin told her he didn’t miss the implication. “If you’re sure you don’t mind sleeping on the sofa.”

“That’s not what I—” she huffed, then broke off in midsentence as she remembered who was paying the bills. “It’s a wonderful sofa. I could probably sleep a week on it, I’m so tired.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Kennie.” His hand turned on the knob. “But I wouldn’t dream of compromising you any more than I already have.”

“Oh, shut up and come to bed,” she snapped, noting how quickly he succumbed to her will. Or was it his will? Oh, the hell with it. She was too tired and too confused to care any longer whose will it was. She stooped over to snatch the coin from the floor and offered it to him, but before he could take it, she snatched it back and looked more closely. On one side, a Greek-looking man stared regally up at her. On the other side, the same Greek-looking man pinned her with the same regal stare.

“You cheated!”

“Not precisely,” he demurred.

“Is this the coin you flipped for me in front of the wedding chapel?”

“One and the same.” Before she could blast him, he continued, “Really, Kennie, did you want to settle such an important issue as marriage by chance?”

“You have a talent for making the most illogical reasoning seem perfectly plausible,” she said, glaring up at his placid face.

“Not really. I know you too well, Kennie Sue Ledbetter. And I wasn’t really cheating just now, either. The only way you would have agreed to such a wager is if you’d already succumbed to my charms and decided to continue our dalliance. Now, isn’t that right?”

She grabbed her suitcase and headed for the bathroom.

His voice followed her. “Maybe I was only protecting my ego. It’s much easier to have you reject a coin toss than reject me personally. Perhaps I was testing the water, so to speak...without applying any undue pressure.”

“Is that supposed to be redeeming?” she snapped as she closed the door.

Only when her face was scrubbed with apricot cleanser and her hair was brushed to a wild, shining halo did she look at herself in the mirror and wonder if she had made a mistake by allowing him to stay. Her faded red Texas Tech Red Raider T-shirt hung halfway to her knees, a soft and comforting reminder of everything that was normal in her life. On the other side of that door was a male who reeked of sophistication and money, a devastating reminder of everything that was wildly out of balance in her life.

What if he’d misunderstood her invitation?

What if he tried to continue what had begun on the sofa?

What if she didn’t stop him?

Her fingers turned to jelly; the hairbrush clattered onto the marble countertop, and her hands shook as she shut off the flowing water.

She took a deep breath and opened the door, prepared for battle with herself as well as Alex Carruthers. But she stepped into the dark bedroom. Only the yellow wedge of light from the bathroom offered illumination.

On the bed, in a tangle of covers, lay Alex Carruthers. One leg extended from beneath the sheet. She followed the line up his back, to the wide shoulders exposed from the skinny T-shirt, to his dark head, which faced away from her. A soft snore broke the tense silence.

“You heel,” she muttered, tugging the extra pillow from where he cradled it in his arms and the bedspread from the tangle at his feet. He didn’t move.

She dragged the spread to the sofa and tossed it haphazardly into place, snapped the bathroom light off and groped her way back to her makeshift bed.

Her irritation lasted only long enough for her own head to hit the pillow, and then she, too, was gone.

~o0o~

A low voice rumbled softly, and drowsily she rolled to her side. Against her back, the sofa gave firm, comfortable support. She stared blearily at the cocktail table and its clutter from the night before. Still, that melodious voice rumbled softly behind her.

Cautiously, she elbowed up to peek over the back of the sofa. Alex was curled on his side, the telephone cradled between his chin and shoulder as he wrote on one of the hotel’s notepads.

He scratched his whiskered jaw and grimaced, then stretched. She watched the firm muscles move beneath his tanned skin, unable to stop herself despite the numbness seeping from her wrist to her elbow.

“Inebriation,” he said, writing. His pen stopped, and he seemed to pale. “Misrepresentation.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. He glanced up at the mirrored ceiling, winced, then jerked his gaze back to the pad as if he couldn’t bear what he saw reflected above. “Yes, I understand. No, that won’t be necessary. I can find one on my own.”

He placed the receiver in its cradle, his movements slow, pained. He raised his gaze and it locked with hers. “We’re in a hell of a mess.”

Her elbow slipped, and she collapsed and found herself staring at the nubby-textured sofa cover instead of at Alex Carruthers’s unshaven cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, laughing.

She sat up. “You didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t figured out on my own,” she grumbled, extricating herself from the jumbled bedspread. “Coffee,” she groaned. “I need coffee.”

When she rose to her full height, Alex was crossing from his bed to the bathroom. But no sharp words about his unchivalrous behavior would form on her lips, for she was agape at the sight of his broad shoulders, long legs and patterned boxer shorts.