Nick Armstrong effortlessly hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and disappeared out the door, pulling it shut behind him. Upon realizing she hadn't breathed normally in quite some time, Lauren let out a huge sigh and tried to relax. Dear God, how had this man she didn't know gotten so deeply embedded in her world so quickly? And why were those dark eyes of his so lethal to her?
She'd had a horrible time sleeping the night before, and she had an even more horrible feeling about Phil's party. Because, for some reason, she was actually anticipating it, anticipating seeing him there. In theory, she should be dreading it, but that underlying trace of anticipation kept nudging its way into her brain.
Perhaps, she thought. she was simply wishing things were different, wishing he were different. What Carolyn had said was true-she wanted him badly, but she just didn't like him. This was no ordinary attraction.
"What are you drinking?"
Lauren looked away from the handsome, impeccably dressed businessman with salt-and-pepper hair to glance at her glass. "Chardonnay," she said dryly, annoyed with his moving-in-for-the-kill tone.
He swirled red wine in a stemmed glass. "You should try the Merlot. It's exquisite."
"Maybe I'll go do that." "Oh, I'd be happy to-"
But she never heard the rest, because she was already heading across the large, vaulted-ceilinged room away from him.
"Hey, Pet, what's the hurry?" A hand fell on her wrist, but thankfully it only belonged to Phil. She lifted her gaze to his pale green eyes and ready smile. As usual, every strand of his dark blond hair lay neatly in place.
"Just escaping another one of your smarmy friends." "Which one?"
She pointed across the crowded, bustling room. 'The forty-something guy standing by the stereo looking forlorn." "Damon Blanchard," Phil said with a short nod. "Just got divorced."
"Figures. "
He made a face. "Come on now, he's not that bad. A hell of a nice guy, and he's got a good-sized yacht and suddenly no one to share it with."
"You've never had to fend him off, Phil. But hey, if you like him so much, maybe you could share the yacht with him." He grinned down at her. "Funny, Pet." "Have you seen Carolyn?"
"She was hanging at the bar a few minutes ago with Mike and Jimmy."
"Thanks," she said, then headed in that direction.
Mike and Jimmy were hardly her choice of party companions, but better than Damon Blanchard.
Yet when she saw the trio, she stopped short. Carolyn whispered to Mike, one hand on his cheek, but Jimmy hung on her from behind, both arms draped around her hips. Lauren still didn't know if it was a threesome or a tug-of-war, and she didn't care to explore it further.
"Why, Lauren Ash, as I live and breathe."
"Sadie!" she said happily, turning toward the voice.
She suspected Sadie-her father's receptionist of fifteen years and a happily married grandma in her sixties-would be as uncomfortable at one of Phil's parties as she was. Nonetheless, Sadie's silvery hair framed her face in a short stylish cut, she wore a summery pantsuit that became her, and at a glance no one would ever think her out of place. Much like Lauren herself, she supposed.
After they got Sadie a drink, they situated themselves in one comer of the enormous room to exchange small talk. Her father hadn't arrived yet, and they speculated which of the women he'd been dating would be on his arm.
"Your father," Sadie said, "has changed a lot over the years."
"Don't I know it."
"I tried to fix him up with my cousin, Martha, but he wanted nothing to do with her. Said she was too old. She's forty-five and quite attractive .. ,"
"But Dad doesn't even look at women more than half his age these days."
"Men," Sadie quipped. "They're pigs," Lauren agreed. ''Except for my Arthur."
Lauren smiled. "Why didn't you bring him along tonight?"
"Here?" Sadie laughed. "He'd think I work at Peyton Place. The annual picnic is much more his style," she concluded with a wink.
At the lull in conversation, Lauren scanned the room again, this time for Nick Armstrong. No sign of him. which was both a relief and ... well, something else she couldn't quite put her finger on, but she refused to call it disappointment. Which reminded her ... "By the way, I've been meaning to yell at you"-she narrowed her eyes on Sadie, "but you were out to lunch when I stopped in yesterday."
Sadie didn't appear the least bit nervous. "What did I do?"
"You sent that man to my house." "That man?"
Lauren raised her eyebrows. "Don't play dumb. Nick Armstrong? The painter?"
"Quite a sight, isn't he?"
Sadie flashed a knowing smile, but Lauren simply shook her head. "Sadie, of all the painters that work for us, you had to pick him?"
"I thought I was doing you a favor," she said with a wink. "Thought he might make nice window dressing for a few days." Despite herself, Lauren had to laugh, but then said, "I don't need window dressing, and I find him ... belligerent. "
Sadie shrugged. "I've talked to him when he drops off his invoices at the office, and he seems all right Not exactly a warm and cozy personality, but okay. Maybe you just bring out the animal in him," she added with a suggestive grin. "All right, enough," Lauren warned. "Knock it off. But the next time I need a subcontractor and I call you for help, pick someone a little less ... everything."
Sadie chuckled, and Lauren decided it was best to change the subject, but within a few minutes, Sadie announced she was leaving and Lauren's stomach sank. "You're stranding me already?" She planned to depart early herself, of course, but she'd been here less than an hour.
"I've made my appearance," Sadie said. "But now I'd rather go home to Arthur and see what he found with his metal detector on the beach tonight."
Lauren sighed. If she had an Arthur, she'd rather go home, too. "Wish me luck among the piranha," she said, walking the other woman to the door.
"Just don't go in the water," Sadie teased.
Yet when she was gone, Lauren took her advice, getting another glass of wine, then heading back to the corner where they'd stood together just a minute ago, more than content to blend in with the scenery for as long as possible. She even positioned herself slightly behind a potted palm.
Only one guy bothered her. "Hiding back here, honey?" he asked, pushing palm fronds aside. He was blond, thirtyish, and rather cute, but ...
"Yes," she said. "From who?"
"Guys who call women they don't know 'honey.''' He blanched, then walked away, and she took pride in
her boldness, even though she suspected it was only the wine going to her head.
When Lauren spotted Phil's wife, she made her way through the roomful of Tampa Bay's "beautiful people" to reach her. "Hey," she said, approaching from behind.
"Hey yourself," Jeanne said, turning to give her a once-over. "You look great!"
She shrugged. "Thanks." Jeanne always complimented her clothing and asked for fashion advice, but seldom took it. At the moment Jeanne wore bright colors that clashed more than complemented, and her shoulder length brown hair seemed to hang too plainly, pushed behind her ears.
"I'm sorry I didn't get to say hello before now. But unfortunately," she added, rising on her tiptoes to scan the room, "I can't find Phil, or he'd be the one greeting all his friends."
"I saw him ... well, not long ago." Lauren tilted her head and grinned. "But Phil gets around quickly, so I suppose he could be anywhere by now."
"You said it. I've never known anyone with more energy than my husband."
"Hey, Jeanne," came a male voice from the next room, "are there more of those little shrimp hors d'oeuvres?"
"Just a minute," she called, then turned back to Lauren. "Well, if you see Phil, tell him to track me down-I could use some help out here on the front lines."
"Will do," Lauren promised, then watched as Jeanne disappeared through a doorway.
Stranded again, she thought, in a roomful of vultures.
The easiest move seemed to be returning to her trusty comer, so that's what she did-refreshed her wine and attempted to retreat.
Darkness had just fallen outside, filling the windows and turning the room more shadowy, when Nick Armstrong appeared, dressed to match the night in a snug black T-shirt, black jeans, and black boots. For once, there was no bandanna on his head, and his dark hair fell around his face, wild and sexy. Lauren didn't move, but hiding didn't keep tendrils of awareness from wrapping around her. She swallowed a quick sip of wine, trying to quell the sensations, to no avail.
Hiding behind a potted plant also didn't keep Nick Armstrong from finding her-his eyes connected with hers instantly. But she darted her gaze away, some impulse toward self-preservation kicking in. Seeing him here, like this-he no longer a painter, she no longer someone paying him to do a job--was different, even more frightening than usual. She knew some hedonistic part of her had actually looked forward to this moment, but now that it was a reality. instinct made her want to run. "What's a gorgeous girl like you doing in a comer?" She flinched her gaze to the tall, swarthy guy with a proprietary hand now planted on the wall above her shoulder. The messy hair on his head and the sandals on his feet pegged him as a beach bum.
Avoiding arrogant guys like you.
This time, though, she held her tongue. If she sent this guy away with an insult, she'd be left alone again. Then Nick might approach, and she wasn't ready for that.
Phil Hudson's house lay nestled in a pine forest dotted with others just like it-enormous brick refuges with countless eaves and curves reminiscent of storybook Tudors. The development felt a world away from the busy bustle of Route 19 on one side, and just as distant from the oceanfront nearby on the other. Funny, Nick thought, people all over America came to Florida in search of a tropical paradise, yet the rich of this particular neighborhood apparently found the tropics so blase that they'd chosen to create the illusion of mountains and forests in which to hide themselves away.
But he forgot all that the moment he entered the arched front door and saw Lauren, looking hotter than the Florida sun on a ninety-eight-degree day. In a black suede miniskirt and a sleeveless sweater that clung deliciously to her breasts, she looked beyond provocative. Black-beaded jewelry circled her neck and wrists. but her blond hair remained free of ornamentation, cascading down her back like a swath of golden silk.
Of course, she was ignoring him.
In one sense, it pissed him off, erecting that boundary between princess and commoner again. But in another way, he didn't mind. She always seemed nervous around him, and that somehow boosted his confidence. Besides, it gave him time to study her, to watch the princess party girl in action.
At the moment she was flirting with a tan, rumpled looking guy who had her cornered next to a potted palm tree. Or he guessed that was flirting, anyway. When he looked closely, her smile didn't quite reach those velvet blue eyes.
"Lauren, my dear," boomed a deep voice behind the tan man, and Nick spotted none other than Henry Ash approaching his daughter, a well-endowed brunette in a slinky red dress clutching his arm.
"Hi, Dad." Lauren stepped around her suitor to reach him.
"Honey, you remember Heather."
Lauren's lips pursed into some semblance of a smile.
"Of course. Hi, Heather."
The brunette smiled and clung to Henry a little tighter as he leaned over to give his daughter a quick kiss on the cheek. Nick studied the man as he talked with Lauren, amazed at the changes in him. even though he knew he shouldn't be. Henry's hair had silvered, his shoulders had broadened. and his gut had expanded. His jaws sagged as he spoke, and his skin had gone pasty from trading hands-on construction work for life behind a desk. Of course, he still exuded the same confidence and deterioration couldn't compete with power and wealth to take that away, Nick supposed. Even if he wasn't the handsome young entrepreneur Nick recalled from his childhood, Henry Ash was still a man who had it all.
And Nick was a man who'd just remembered he wanted to avoid Henry Ash, so he took the opportunity to head up the nearest hall in search of a bathroom.
Spying a door standing ajar, he leaned around to peer inside. It wasn't a bathroom, but an office full of dark, serious-looking furniture. And the woman sitting on the desk kissing Phil Hudson while he fondled her breast through her dress wasn't Phil's wife; he knew because he'd heard Jeanne Hudson introduce herself to someone a few minutes ago. Any respect he'd harbored for Phil up to now plunged.
He pulled back silently and proceeded down the hall, yet all the other doors were shut. He was just about to abandon his search when one of the doors whisked open. Carolyn and one of the dudes-the surlier, blond one-came breezing out "Nick!" she said merrily, her complexion flushed. "What's up?"
"Looking for the bathroom."
She gestured over her shoulder toward the door they'd just exited, winking. "It's all yours."
Inside the plush bathroom filled with deep burgundy tones and lots of marble, Nick noted a used condom in the wastebasket. Damn, he hadn't expected an Ash Builders' party to be so wild.
Upon returning to the great room where music blared and people stood in thick clusters, he automatically searched for Lauren and found her standing near a hearth large enough to pitch a tent in, sipping a glass of wine. A man around Henry's age stood over her talking, his beady eyes flicking repeatedly from her face to her breasts. Looking annoyed, she finally turned away, only to be immediately confronted by a middle-aged guy who winked a lot and kept touching her arms. She nodded while the guy spoke, but appeared irritated. Nick was watching it all, waiting to see what Lucky had seen, but if you discounted the way she dressed, he just wasn't seeing it, at least not yet.
"You're wasting your time, pal," someone said to his right. He glanced over to find a thin guy with light brown hair, around his age, peering knowingly toward Lauren. Nick returned his gaze to the princess, as well. 'The girl's a cold fish. I think she's a lesbian."