“Right now!” Hailey said with false gaiety, whirling so that her skirt swung out saucily. “Make yourself at home, Mr. Scott. There are cold drinks in the refrigerator for you and Faith.”
“I’d rather come with you,” Faith said. She had already peeked into Hailey’s bedroom and apparently found it completely intriguing.
“Okay, you can pick out something for me to wear.”
“Really?” Faith asked before charging toward the bedroom.
By the time Hailey got to the room, Faith was already rifling through the contents of her closet. “This,” she said, taking out a sundress that still had the price tag hanging from it.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hailey demurred. She had bought the dress on impulse at the beginning of the summer and had yet to wear it. The right occasion had never arisen, and the dress showed more skin than she usually felt comfortable displaying. Ellen had begged her for the dress, but she had refused to give it to her. Why, she didn’t know. For some reason having such a dress in her closet made it seem possible that something exciting might happen in her otherwise dreary life.
“It’s beautiful,” Faith said.
“Chic” was a more suitable adjective than beautiful. Made of denim and trimmed in white eyelet lace, its dropped waistline permitted the full skirt to flare at just the right spot on the hips. A border of eyelet petticoat peeked from beneath a deep ruffle on the bottom of the midcalf-length skirt. The bodice was fitted tightly, and since it was held up only by spaghetti-thin straps, it required either a strapless bra or none at all. Hailey didn’t have a strapless bra.
“Well …”
“Come on, Hailey. Please wear it.”
Fearing that she would hurt Faith’s feelings if she didn’t, she conceded. It was silly not to wear it, after all. The season was almost over, and if she didn’t wear it now, she might not get a chance. Next summer, it would probably be out of style. Even though it was bare and she wouldn’t be wearing all that much underneath it, she wasn’t wearing it to enchant Mr. Scott, she told herself. If he misinterpreted her motives, he’d find out just how wrong he was.
While Faith kept up a steady stream of chatter, Hailey changed in the connecting bathroom. The dress fit her trim figure to perfection, clinging to her breasts like a second skin. She put her hair back up with decorative combs after thoroughly brushing it.
Faith’s curiosity overrode her manners, and she tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Hailey answered. Faith watched in fascination while Hailey applied fresh makeup. She was nosy and curious and meddlesome, but endearing. Apparently, Faith was eager for a woman’s opinion of her own appearance and missed having her mother to talk to about such things.
Hailey asked for her help in selecting a flat, strappy sandal to wear with the sundress. After Hailey had misted herself with Chanel, she sprayed some on Faith. The girl’s expression was one of rapture, and Hailey found it pitifully touching that so small a gesture could mean so much to the girl.
Of one thing Hailey was certain, the child adored her father. “Daddy said,” “Daddy thinks,” “Daddy is,”—these expressions prefaced most of her sentences. It was clear to Hailey that Faith held him in awe. Her desire for his acceptance and approval was pathetic.
When Hailey was ready, they went into the living room where Tyler was a dark silhouette against the violet of dusk at the window. When he heard them, he turned around. His eyes opened wide in unconcealed appreciation of Hailey’s efforts.
Hailey had to put down an urge to cover the expanse of bare skin on her shoulders and chest. “I think we’re ready,” she said. The timidity in her voice was humiliating. She sounded like a girl going out on her first date.
“Your home is lovely,” Tyler said. Hailey’s eyes swept the room as though seeing it for the first time. A stone fireplace took up one wall, while plate-glass windows took up another. The sofa and chairs were covered in a nubby, cream-colored fabric and piled with cushions of contrasting earth tones. Area rugs relieved the bareness of the parquet oak floor. Louvered barroom doors led into the kitchen, and the far end of the living room had been made into a dining alcove.
“If you think this room is pretty, you ought to see her bedroom. She’s got a bedspread in a peachy color and it’s so soft. And the bathroom is yummy. There’s this sunken bathtub, and it’s the same color as the bedspread. You ought to see it, Daddy.”
His gray eyes swung to Hailey and she dropped hers in mortification. “Maybe I will sometime,” he said in a seductive tone. “Where did you say you wanted to eat, Faith?” He wasn’t looking at his daughter. His eyes remained riveted on Hailey.
“It’s really neat,” Faith said in what she hoped was a selling voice. “They’ve got pizza and lasagna and electronic games in the back room.”
That got Tyler’s attention and he laughed indulgently. “My child is addicted to those computerized games,” he said to Hailey.
She smiled back. “I think everyone is these days.”
“Do you mind a restaurant with electronic games in the back room?” His look was rueful and apologetic.
“Of course not. I may even try them myself.”
“Great! Let’s go. I’m starving.” Faith dragged out the last word dramatically and they all laughed.
Hailey locked her house and she and Tyler followed Faith up the steps to his car. He placed a proprietary arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to him.
“I may have to change your uniform at Serendipity. You look gorgeous tonight, Hailey.”
The breath that fanned her cheek was fragrant and minty and caused a ridiculous fluttering in her throat. Her “thank you” sounded thoroughly unnatural.
“I like you with more skin and less underwear.”
His candid remark changed her timorousness to fury. She pushed away from him. “You can’t talk to me like that,” she said heatedly.
His teeth shone whitely through the darkness as his smile widened. “Sure I can. I’m going to be your lover, remember?” She began sputtering a scathing comeback, but he interrupted it. “Save those arguments for later when I will gladly prove each one futile. Right now Faith’s waiting for us.”
She resisted the arm he replaced across her shoulders, but when they reached the car, it was still there. She hadn’t been able to break his hold on her.
T
he restaurant Faith had chosen was as noisy and crowded as Tyler had predicted it would be. A five-dollar bill slipped into the hand of the senior waiter shortened their wait and secured them a table near the windows overlooking the busy sidewalk and as far away from the whirring and zinging sounds emanating from the back room. Once Faith had ordered, she went to check out the games and came back to report that they were the “absolutely neatest” games available.
The salads had too much dressing and the lettuce had been allowed to wilt, but the lasagna was hearty and delicious. The Chianti, which Tyler had insisted Hailey share with him, was cold and potent and dangerous, since she was already suffering from light-headedness. Much as she didn’t want to admit it, Tyler Scott had a profound effect on her senses.
She could find no fault with either his manners or his conversation. He was devastatingly handsome, a fact which every other woman in the room had noted, Hailey realized glumly.
He had taken off his suit coat and vest because of the heat, and his trim frame looked harder and more powerful than ever. His rolled-back shirt sleeves showed sinewy forearms sprinkled with dark hair. The fabric of his shirt, stretched across the sculpted muscles of his chest, revealed only a shadowy suggestion of the masculinity that lay beneath it.
When his eyes met hers across the red-and-white-checked tablecloth, Hailey’s heart pounded so hard it frightened her. Had she read a description of such feelings in a novel, she would have scoffed and thought them to be the fanciful imaginings of the fiction writer. But these fingers of sensation that danced around her breasts, tautened her nipples, and curled downward to become that delightful weightiness in the pit of her stomach were all too real, all too disturbing.
With a mouthful of lasagna, Faith said, “I wish I could be beautiful like you, Hailey. Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Daddy?”
Hailey was saved from meeting his appraising gray stare because she immediately choked on her wine. She coughed into her napkin and gulped for air. When she did raise her watering eyes to meet his gaze, his eyes were twinkling with humor.
“She’s very beautiful.”
Hailey dabbed at the tears in her eyes. “No, I’m not beautiful, Faith. My sister Ellen is the pretty one in my family.”
“You’re so beautiful! I’ll never be pretty because my daddy makes me wear these dumb glasses. He says I’m too young for contact lenses.” She cast her father an accusatory glare. “What do you think, Hailey?”
Hailey pretended to scrutinize the girl, though she wasn’t about to contradict Tyler on the point. “I’ll tell you what my parents did. They let me get contact lenses when my braces came off. Sort of a celebration present.”
Faith’s eyes behind her hated eyeglasses were as wide as her disbelieving mouth. “You wore
braces?”
“A whole mouthful of them for three years,” Hailey said, laughing.
“And you had to wear glasses, too?”
“Until I got contacts. And I still wear my glasses occasionally when my eyes are tired.”
“But I bet you don’t look dumb in them like I do.”
“You don’t look dumb at all. I think glasses look chic. Do you realize how many celebrities have started wearing them? Jane Fonda wears them. Robert Redford, Warren Beatty.”
“Gee,” Faith said. She stared into her empty plate as she contemplated what Hailey had said.
Hailey glanced at Tyler. His expression was soft, a half-smile, private. Lifting his wine glass, his eyes asked her to do the same. He mouthed the words “thank you” as he clicked his glass with hers. Then their eyes locked over the raised wine glasses. Hailey could no more draw her eyes from his gaze than she could move her little finger from the scarcely perceptible caressing of his.
Emotion squeezed her throat. A hot flush crept up her neck and suffused her earlobes with throbbing heat. The pad of his little finger rubbed against hers, and she felt an electric current racing up her arm and into her breasts, making them tingle with excitement.
“Can I go play now?”
Hailey jumped at the intrusion of Faith’s voice. She had become oblivious to everything in the room except the man whose stare was mesmerizing her. Perhaps she could have fought the magnetism of his eyes, but combined with the feel of his skin against hers, it left her defenseless.
“May
I be excused and
may
I go play,” Tyler corrected, forcibly breaking his eye contact with Hailey and lowering his glass to the table.
Faith sighed with adolescent exaggeration.
“May
I be excused and
may
I go play? Please?”
Tyler smiled. “You may. Here are two dollars,” he said, fishing the bills out of his pocket “Get them changed at the cash register and be careful how you spend them.”
“Thanks, Daddy. I’ll make them last,” Faith promised as she grabbed the money, took one last slurping drink of her Coke, and bolted from the table.
Hailey had used the time to regain her slipping control. What was wrong with her? She felt as faint and flustered as a maiden aunt with the vapors. It was lunacy to be swayed by a man like Tyler Scott. He was a taker, a user, accustomed to having his way. His technique was polished. He knew exactly how to play upon a woman’s emotions. No doubt he had had plenty of practice applying his charm, but Hailey Ashton had had little practice fending it off.
Schooling her features to show no emotion, she sat up straighter in her chair, smoothed her hair, licked her lips, and tried to give off an air of cool composure. From experience she knew that if she gave him an inch, he’d take …
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” she said tersely.
While they were waiting for the coffee to be delivered, she feigned absorption in the parade of foot traffic on the sidewalk, though in truth she saw nothing. He didn’t try to engage her in conversation, but she could feel his eyes, touching her everywhere, seeing everything. Again she had an insane compulsion to cover herself.
“Cream?” He brought her eyes around to him.
“Yes, please.”
“Say when.” He poured the cream into her cup until she gave him the word.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied with mocking politeness.
She sipped her coffee, refusing to look at him. He was stirring his own absently. “You don’t have to be this way, you know,” he said quietly.
“What way?” Her defenses were up.
“All uptight, on guard, wary. I’m not going to rip your clothes off and ravage you on top of the table.” His mouth slanted into a wicked grin and a lid dropped over one eye. “At least not the first time.”
“Mr. Scott—”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You’re so damned jumpy. Can’t you take a joke?”
“I didn’t think it was funny.”
“Then I’ll work on finding something to amuse you.”
She dropped her eyes in embarrassment. Suddenly she felt very young and very foolish. “I usually have a keen sense of humor, but you’ve put me on the defensive because of… of what happened this afternoon and …”
“And?”
“And the things you’ve said.”
When he didn’t respond, she raised cautious eyes. He was pondering her quietly. “When I want something I tend to go after it, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. I apologize, Hailey. I want you. You know that. But I’ve rushed you and I didn’t realize until now how impatient I’ve been or how crass I must seem to you. I promise to slow down, to give you breathing room.”
At that moment she felt her last defensive wall crumbling. The mellow glow in his eyes and the dulcet tone of his voice conquered her will as force never could have.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said quietly. “About your life prior to meeting me. You mentioned a sister. Does she live here?”
“No, in Nashville. She works for a recording company.”