Strong and Sexy.2 (16 page)

Damn it. So he’d spent most of his life fighting off women and wasn’t used to having to talk a woman into wanting him. Whatever. He’d live.

Maddie came out of the storage room wearing a leather miniskirt and two lace tops layered over each other, looking sizzling hot. She moved around the counter to sit in her chair, pulling out her keyboard, her fingers typing away.

Sizzling and effective.

“Don’t you boys have work to do?” she asked without looking up from her work. “Planes to fly? Clients to kiss up to?”

When they didn’t answer, she did glance up.

“Don’t you ever dress like a secretary?” Brody asked.

Maddie arched a brow while Noah and Shayne inwardly winced. “No need, since I’m not a secretary,” she said with glaciers in her voice.

“Shayne got dumped,” Noah said, clearly trying to change the subject so Maddie didn’t kill Brody with her eyes.

“Can’t get dumped when you weren’t available in the first place,” Maddie noted, and when all three men blinked in confused unison, she sighed as if they were idiots. “Look, Shayne was never really available to her, right? He’s never been available to any woman.”

“And why is that?” Noah asked. “Seeing as you’re the resident female expert?”

Maddie smiled. She liked the title. “Because he’s the screwup.”

“Hey,” Shayne said.

“I mean that’s what you’ve been told all your life.” She stopped typing to squeeze his hand before going back to clicking the keyboard with dizzying speed. “You’re the black sheep, the youngest, the fuckup in a large family of overachievers. You were always told you were never going to amount to anything.” She shrugged. “So you decided to live up to that reputation, yadda yadda.”

“Which is why you got yourself kicked out of all those schools before you met us,” Noah said, ever so helpfully.

“And why you became a pilot instead of a brain surgeon or a big-shot attorney or detective,” Brody added, also ever so helpfully.

Shayne stared at them. “Thanks for the trip down memory lane.”

“Look, long story short,” Maddie went on. “You’re a commitment-phobe, hiding behind the free spirit, easygoing, laid-back bullshit persona.”

“Bullshit persona?”

Maddie smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, boss. I have a bullshit persona too.” She gestured to her own magenta-tipped blond hair. To her eyebrow piercing. Then, turning her back, she peeled down her already extremely low-rise leather skirt to reveal the small tattoo of a Chinese symbol, high on a first-class ass cheek.

Shayne stared, and Brody slapped him upside the head. “Don’t look!”

“She said to look. And ow.”

Maddie straightened her skirt. “It means dream big. Be whoever you want.” She looked at Shayne. “Even when you’re told you can’t. Don’t let your shortsighted family dictate your life.”

“They aren’t.” But as he stared down at the cell phone in his hand, he shook his head. They were. Unbelievably, he was still letting what they thought of him matter enough to pretend it didn’t bother him.

“See,” Maddie said very gently. “The problem with being the black sheep just to spite them is that when the right woman does come along, you’re not going to be able to snag her up. Because you’ll be busy doing that whole no-commitment thing. You know, to prove that what your family thinks of you is true.”

Noah was nodding. “Exactly. That’s exactly what he’s doing.”

“You’re all fucked up, man,” Brody said.

“Bite me.”

Noah took Shayne’s cell phone and flipped it open.

“Hey!”

Brody leaned over Noah’s shoulder as they accessed his dialed calls. “Yeah, look at that. He’s tried calling her six times. Dude.”

Shayne snatched his phone back and shoved it in his pocket. “It’s nothing. This is nothing.”

“It’s definitely something,” Noah said. “It’s all over your face.”

Shayne grabbed the schedule. He needed a flight. Now. And perfect, Brody had a flight to San Luis Obispo. It would get him out of here for four hours minimum. “I’m taking your flight.”

“No, you’re not.”

“So maybe she’ll call back while you’re gone,” Noah said.

“No. She’s... working. She’s busy.”

Noah, Brody and Maddie exchanged a look of pity.

“Goddamnit, she is.” Shayne tossed the schedule back to the desk. “That, or...” Hell. “Or she’s in trouble.”

“Trouble, as in...” Brody mimed the action of hanging a noose around his neck and jerking on the end, complete with tongue and eyes bulging out.

Maddie smacked him upside the head. “Don’t you make fun of mental illness.”

Shayne pivoted on a heel and walked away. It was that or kill Noah and Brody, and their investors might balk at that. On the way to the Learjet, he made one more attempt to reach Dani, but couldn’t. “Fuck it,” he said, and whipped around, heading back inside—

Only to plow into Brody.

“You want me to take my flight back,” Brody guessed.

“I’m not taking the easy way out on this one.”

“I can see that.”

“She’s in danger, Brody. And she’s not calling back. That could just be because I’m a stupid prick, but it could also be more.”

“So you’re going to go find her because she might be in danger.”

“No, I’m going because this is the new me. The new me who sticks.”

Brody sighed again. “Go then. Go stick.”

“I will.” But it didn’t escape him that for the first time in his life, he was choosing a woman over a flight.

Dani recorded elephant behavior all day, and afterward, ran into Reena in the employee locker room.

“Saw you’re getting Saturdays off now,” Reena said, changing back to her street clothes. “Doesn’t suck to be head keeper, does it?”

“I could probably get you a few Saturdays off too.”

Reena shut her locker and shook her head. “I don’t want any favors.”

“But—”

“Seriously. Don’t.”

Dani began to change, hating the unaccustomed distance between them. “I have the new Depp DVD. Do you want to—”

“Can’t. Some of us are going for sushi, but you can come with us if you’d like.”

Dani hadn’t slept in two days—except for that hour in Shayne’s arms. “I really can’t. I’m—”

“—Management now. Gotcha.” Reena grabbed her backpack and headed to the door.

“Reena.”

The door shut just a little harder than necessary.

“Damn it.” Dani changed, then walked out to her car, alone. She told herself her skin was not prickling, but she braced herself for the sound of gunfire anyway.

Nothing.

Of course it was nothing. She’d gotten a message from Shayne’s brother, saying they believed it could have been some kids playing target practice with the tall lampposts.

She wanted to believe that. With all her heart, she wanted to believe that.

Reena was just getting into her car. Dani called out to her. “Are you sure about the movie? I have double fudge ice cream to go with.”

Reena smiled, but shook her head.

“I’m sorry about the damn promotion.”

“No, it has nothing to do with that. Really.” But her smile seemed just a little forced.

“Reena.”

“Look, I’m meeting a date later. Okay? That’s all it is.”

Dani had to accept that. She drove home, stared at her front door with some hesitation before unlocking it. She shoved it open to prove her bravery, but once again just peered in from the doorway.

Safety first.

It looked fine. Everything was in its place. No sign of anyone having been inside while she’d been gone. She stepped inside but didn’t shut the door all the way to allow for her hasty getaway if her quick inspection didn’t turn out okay.

But all seemed normal. She distracted herself with the mail, and then the Visa bill, and then with a phone call from her dentist reminding her of a cleaning in two days.

Then she changed into her most comfy sweats—a pair of men’s bottoms left over from a past boyfriend, three sizes too big but perfect for ice cream consumption—and a camisole top.

And while she was in her bedroom, she slopped on a facial mask. It was green and smelled like avocado, which would conflict with the ice cream, but it made her skin feel like a baby’s butt and would go a long way toward lifting her morale.

This was not a pity party, she reminded herself.

Well, not officially, anyway.

She put the movie into the DVD player and plopped on the couch with a big wooden spoon and the ice cream. The only thing that would have improved on the evening would have been a big bag of popcorn, but she’d forgotten to restock from her last pity party.

Not a pity party.

Ah, hell. It was a pity party. But she could do this without the popcorn. The opening credits of her movie were just rolling when someone knocked on the door, making it creak open an inch or two.

Unbelievable. She’d never gone back to shut the damn door. So much for safety first. Heart in her throat, she looked around for her bat.

“Dani?”

Oh, good God. All her air escaped her and she sagged back into the couch. The man calling her name wasn’t her invisible murderer.

Or her equally invisible mystery sniper.

But someone just as dangerous—Shayne.

Slipping down onto the couch, Dani found herself stuck in place like a deer caught in headlights.

“Dani?”

“She’s not here.” Sinking farther into herself, she closed her eyes. “She... left the building.”

“Uh-huh.” Shayne shut the door. She heard the lock click into place.

“Go away.”

“Not until I leave a message. Tell Dani that Shayne came by.”

“Shayne? The pilot? The, what did the business card read, president of operations?”

He sighed. “Saw that, did you?”

“Hard to miss. It was embossed in gold.”

“Maddie’s doing.”

“President of operations, Shayne. Not just a pilot. Not by a long shot.”

“There’s other things to talk about,” he said. “Like why the hell is your door unlocked?”

Scrunched down as far as possible, the ice cream and spoon still in her hand, she was rooted to the spot by several facts.

One, she was wearing huge pity-party sweats.

Two, she’d gone through nearly half the ice cream already and the sugar high was quickly turning to wooziness, a direct cause of number three.

Which was why at just the sound of his irritated voice, her entire body had gone on high red-alert status, including nipples hardening, belly quivering, and a whole host of other things too.

Good God, she was worse than Pavlov’s dog. “You’re supposed to knock.”

“I did.”

“And wait for a response!” Craning her neck, she took a peek. She couldn’t help herself.

Yep.

There he was, in the flesh. Wearing his pilot gear, which consisted of blue trousers, a white button-down shoved up at the elbows with Sky High’s logo on a hard pec, and aviator sunglasses, which at the sight of her he pulled off. That meant that those piercing light brown eyes landed directly on her without any barrier.

Great. So much better.

Except not. With a groan, she sank farther down in the couch and tried to vanish.

Shayne frowned at the couch. What the hell was she doing? Besides avoiding his calls.

Then the couch spoke. “Why are you here?”

“Good question.”

“If you don’t know—”

“Oh, I know why I’m here. Why the hell didn’t you return my calls?”

“Well—”

“And why the hell is your door unlocked?”

“You already asked that.”

“Still waiting for an answer that makes sense.”

“Fine. I got a little distracted.”

Tired of talking to the couch, he came around the front of the couch to face her. She wore green monster face paint on her face. Her hair had gone wild on top of her head, though he could see another yellow number-two pencil in there trying to hold it all together. Her entire lower body had been swallowed whole by a pair of sweats that looked like they might belong on a four-hundred-pound rapper. And then there was the ice cream, and not just a bowl either, but an entire gallon.

That was some serious ice cream consumption. “Bad time?” he asked.

“Yes, actually.” She bristled a bit, which looked comical in green. “I’m...” She shoved the wooden spoon and ice cream behind her back, as if he hadn’t already seen them. “Busy.”

“Ah.”

At that, she lifted her chin, playing the I-don’t-care-that-I-look-like-shit game. Good tactic, one he might have taken himself, though he doubted he’d have looked even half as adorable as she while playing it.

“Very busy,” she added.

A drop of the green mask fell from her nose and plopped to her camisole top.