The auctioneer banged his gavel against the Plexiglas podium. The buzz quieted as the boisterous friends of the man who’d just won a dinner date with the star of a prime-time sitcom finished congratulating him. “Ladies and gentlemen, the next auction item was to be a dinner date with two-time Tony Award winner Sabra Raineau.”
Sabra, exotically beautiful at the table with Pierce and the other family members, stood. Applause erupted. She waved but didn’t make her way to the podium as the other women had.
“However, Ms. Raineau is now
Mrs.
Pierce Grayson.” Pierce stood and curved his arm possessively around his wife’s small waist. “Subsequently, she has been taken off the list.”
Groans emanated from around the room. Pierce smiled, brushed a kiss over Sabra’s waiting lips, then held out her chair as they both reclaimed their seats.
Sierra rolled her eyes, then smiled. Love looked good on Pierce, just as it did on all her brothers.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll give me a moment. Mrs. Raineau-Grayson’s sister-in-law has graciously consented to stand in her place. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.” The auctioneer stared fondly at the Grayson table in the middle of the room. “Please help me welcome from Santa Fe … Ms. Sierra Grayson.”
“Go get ’em, Sierra,” Sabra told her.
“You look beautiful,” Faith added.
“So do you,” Brandon said to his blushing wife.
Sierra smiled at her sisters-in-law, then stood. So did Pierce and Brandon. Well aware that people were waiting to see what she looked like, Sierra casually turned in a rustle of chocolate silk. A hushed silence fell over the room.
Her waist-length hair, piled atop her head in an intricate coil and held in place by a diamond comb, allowed an unimpeded view of her sculpted face and lovely neck. The strapless Versace gown cupped her full breasts and nipped at her trim waist before cascading down in a full tiered skirt.
With a slight nod of her head that caused her diamond chandelier earrings to brush her cheeks, Sierra started toward the stage. The babble of excited voices and her two protective brothers followed. It was their way of telling the winning bidder to tread lightly or he’d answer to them.
Sierra could take care of herself, as they both should have remembered. However, since her brothers were almost as stubborn as she, she continued.
“What’s Shane Elliott doing here?” Brandon growled on passing the man seated at one of the banquet tables on their way to the stage. “I bet Navarone is here as well. They both just better remember that Faith is mine and off-limits.”
Sierra recognized Shane as the unsmiling man she’d seen earlier with Blade. The man watching them so intently was handsome, his black hair cut close to his head, his gaze as sharp as a rapier. Unlike Blade, who sent her heart and body into overdrive, his associate didn’t do a thing for her.
Leaving her brothers at the bottom of the short stairs leading to the stage, Sierra searched the audience for Blade. She masked her disappointment with a smile when she didn’t see him.
“Let’s start the bidding off at two thousand dollars, with two-hundred-dollar increments.”
The auctioneer had barely finished speaking before a man a few tables away yelled, “Two thousand dollars.” The bidding was swift and quickly climbed to eighty-two hundred dollars. The auctioneer was nearly dancing with glee. The highest bid for the other dinner dates had been five thousand dollars.
“Do I hear eight thousand, four hundred dollars?” He glanced around the crowded ballroom. “Eight thousand, two hundred dollars, going once, going twi—”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
People turned in their seats to find the new bidder. Sierra didn’t have to. She had watched Shane since the bidding had begun. His expression had alternated between annoyance and boredom. There was only one reason for him to bid.
“Ten thousand, two hundred,” shouted the man who had almost won as he came to his feet.
The auctioneer looked at Shane without announcing the bid. Shane slowly came to his feet as well, his unblinking gaze pinning the bidder with an intimidating glare.
The man gulped. Sierra felt sorry for the poor fellow. Shane was brawnier and several inches taller.
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
The crowd gasped. The initial bidder hastily took his seat.
Shane’s fierce gaze swept the ballroom again, as if defying anyone to bid against him. No one did. “I think the auction for Ms. Grayson is over.”
Apparently the auctioneer agreed. He banged the gavel. “Sold.”
Sierra started off the stage. Shane crossed the crowded ballroom and waited for her at the bottom step. He was dressed in a tailored tuxedo, and his face was serious, his eyes watchful.
“Shane Elliott.”
“You paid a lot of money, Mr. Elliott.”
“So I did.” Lightly taking her arm, he escorted her with him to the cashier. Pulling a check from his pocket, he quickly filled it out. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sierra’s brothers and their wives were waiting outside the double doors of the ballroom. Shane’s gaze flickered over the group. He smiled for the first time. “Faith.”
“Hello, Shane,” she returned his greeting, her grip firm on Brandon’s arm. With her free hand, she handed Sierra her beaded evening clutch.
“I’ll say this once. Get out of line and we’ll meet again,” Brandon warned.
“I can guarantee you won’t like it,” Pierce added.
Sierra debated whether she should tell her brothers her suspicion that Shane was acting for Blade; then she decided to keep the information to herself. Her brothers probably would take it worse if they knew Blade was her dinner date. Brandon disliked him on principle because he had taken Faith out, Pierce because as a financial consultant he had almost certainly heard the rumors of Blade’s unsavory reputation.
“Noted. Let’s go.” Tugging his black bow tie loose, Shane propelled her through the lobby toward the front door.
In four-inch evening sandals Sierra could barely keep up with Shane’s long-legged stride. She might not have been able to if she hadn’t been used to six-foot-tall brothers. With the determined look on his face, she didn’t think Shane would slow down even if she asked. He was a man on a mission.
Hustling her through the double glass doors, Shane didn’t stop until they were standing beside a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. He reached for the back door handle.
“Is Blade inside or are you taking me to him?” she asked.
Shane’s dark head jerked around. Surprise flickered in his eyes. He straightened to stare at her. She’d bet few things caught him off guard. “What makes you think that?”
She laughed despite her unaccustomed nervousness. “Anyone who cared to look could figure out you hated the entire process at the auction, and this even more.”
He grunted and opened the back door. “Please get in.”
Since Sierra’s mother and four overprotective brothers hadn’t raised a fool, she ignored the slight pressure of Shane’s hand on her arm and leaned down to make sure her guess was correct.
Blade’s powerfully built body was in the farthest corner of the sedan. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she felt the pull, the sudden heat. Her heart raced. Perspiration dampened her palms. She was unsure if her reactions were due to apprehension or sexual awareness. Both were new emotions.
Gathering the full skirt of her gown, she climbed inside. She was curious about the attraction between them, curious about the man.
Blade Navarone hadn’t given an interview in several years. A confidentiality clause was reported to be in all the contracts of his employees in management since the incident with the embezzler. A few months ago when
Newsweek
did an in-depth story on the movers and shakers in national and international real estate, the outline of a face with a question mark appeared on the cover of the magazine, with Blade’s name underneath.
He was practically a nomad, moving from one lavish property to the other as the notion struck. She wondered what drove him, why he was so reclusive. In real estate he had few equals. He was admired and feared, as elusive as the wind.
And for a little while she’d have him all to herself, she thought as the car pulled smoothly away from the curb. She couldn’t wait to see where that led.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me.” Blade studied Sierra in the soft interior light of the car. She was even more beautiful and alluring than he’d remembered. He seldom gave in to impulse, but he had wanted to see Sierra again.
She laughed, a soft, musical sound that made his gut clench. “Shane’s annoyed face gave it away. He hated being there.”
Shane hadn’t liked going in Blade’s stead but had understood the necessity. He’d been watching Blade’s back too long not to. Shane made grown men cower, yet Sierra laughed. “You don’t appear disturbed by his annoyance.”
She tilted her head to one side. Diamond earrings sparkled, brushed against her flawless skin. In another woman Blade would have thought the movement coy, practiced. He didn’t have a doubt in the world that wasn’t the case with Sierra.
“I grew up with a tiger for a mother and four older, strong-willed brothers. Shane is child’s play.”
Blade openly stared at the exquisite heart-shaped face. There was humor in her sexy voice that he could too easily imagine whispering naughty things in his ears, but there was also a hint of steel. She wasn’t a woman who would bend easily to any man. That fierceness, her inner fire, attracted him as much as her beauty. But recklessness could lead to tragedy.
“Are you always so quick to leave with a man you don’t know?”
The reprimand in his deep voice was unmistakable. Her chin lifted automatically. “Faith trusts you; therefore, you’re trustworthy. The same for Shane Elliott. You wouldn’t have sent him to Santa Fe to help her if you thought otherwise.”
“Beauty and brains.”
“There’s also another reason for my being here,” she told him.
He leaned forward, causing the space around them to shrink. She caught a whiff of his woodsy cologne. Her senses came alive. She fought to keep her gaze from dropping to his mouth as he said, “Please go on.”
“I’ve tried to reach you several times without success.” Sierra leaned back against the supple leather, her shaky footing growing more secure with each passing second. Business first … last … always. “The last time was shortly after you visited Faith. You had just completed your latest resort in Jackson Hole, and already there was talk of the next project in Dallas.”
“Which is becoming a reality,” he said mildly.
Caught up in the excitement of the moment, she forgot to be cautious and closed the distance between them, her voice animated. “I read that construction is almost complete on Navarone Place. I want to be the exclusive broker for the fifty-five private estates in Dallas, and for the resort you’re planning on Riviera Maya.”
Blade had known from the first moment that she would be different. Women chased him. The beautiful woman leaning toward him, her eyes bright with enthusiasm, her raspberry-colored lips soft and inviting, would chase no man, which made her safer to pursue. He didn’t want hysterical good-byes.
His hands clenched as a pain sliced through him. He’d give his heart to no woman again. Nor would he put one at risk.
The car stopped briefly at a security checkpoint, then cruised through a twelve-foot steel gate. “You can tell me your qualifications over dinner.”
Sierra glanced out the window as the car passed a gated house with two armed guards, then continued up a winding road. “I don’t suppose there is a new restaurant up here?”
“My home. I understood that the auction prize was having dinner together,” he reminded her. “Reservations would have been extremely difficult to get at the better places.”
“Difficult, but not impossible for Blade Navarone,” she said as the car came to a smooth stop.
“No,” he admitted just as his chauffeur opened Blade’s door. “Thank you. I’ll see to Ms. Grayson.” Rounding the car, Blade opened Sierra’s door. She ignored his extended hand and the open door. She simply looked at him.
Despite what she’d said earlier, she was weighing him. And despite the strong possibility she might ask him to take her back to the hotel, he patiently waited for her to trust him when he would have admitted he wasn’t a patient man. However, the thought of Sierra being taken advantage of by any man sent an unexpected rage surging through Blade.
“What’s on the menu?” she finally asked.
He relaxed. Almost. “I believe Martin prepared a number of dishes. Lobster, shrimp scampi, steak.”
“I love good food.”
“He’s an excellent chef. I hired him away from the Mansion while I was in Dallas during the preliminary research for Navarone Place. The Mansion is the only five-star, five-diamond hotel in the United States and world-renowned for its cuisine and service.”
“Well, then, what are we waiting for?” She put her hand in his and stepped out of the car. Her fingers were long and delicate, her skin soft. When she stood, their bodies almost touched. He caught the arousing scent of amber and orange blossoms. His nostrils flared. His body hardened. He wondered what her lips and her skin would taste like.