Читать книгу Catching The Corporate Playboy - Michele Dunaway - Страница 13

Cameron followed Darci down the overgrown dirt—no, make that mud—path. Brown goo clung to his shoes. At least it hadn’t eased up onto his socks.

Remember to take pleasure in small things, his mother had said.

He didn’t think mud ruining a custom-made pair of shoes counted.

“Hey, slow down!” He shouted, but Darci just ignored him and kept walking. Mud splattered her legs, but she didn’t care.

In the two hours or so that he’d known her, Darci had become something of an enigma. If he’d known a ride in his car would loosen her up, he’d have told her a lot earlier that he’d rented a Mercedes.

Cameron wondered what Lee’s reaction would be when he told him the progress he was making. While the bet would only be for one thousand dollars and a very expensive baby stroller, it was the principle of the thing. No matter how much it cost Cameron to win, he would win. He wasn’t going to let Lee have the satisfaction of besting him on this challenge.

“Not much farther,” she yelled. The branch she’d just moved out of her way snapped back and he had to duck to avoid getting a mouthful of leaves. Instead some remaining droplets of water showered him.

“Watch it with the branches,” he called.

“Huh?” She’d stopped walking and turned around.

As Cameron caught up with her, he realized she’d stopped in a small open area. He stepped beside her, and saw that just ten feet past Darci the earth disappeared.

“We’re on the leftovers of an ancient mound. The rest is gone,” Darci told him. “Have a seat. The ground’s dry here. It gets full sun almost all day.”

Cameron did what he was told and discovered Darci was right. The sun began to sliver and shine in the July morning sky. “So how did you discover this place?”

“A group of friends live near here and they found it.”

Her face became suddenly unreadable.

And now she’s quiet again. He made a wistful smile and decided to simply let the silence extend between them.

He hadn’t watched a sunrise in a long time. It remained one of his favorite activities, watching the sun burst over the horizon. He liked sunsets as well, especially the way the sky blazed a shower of colors.

As the morning sun crept higher, all around him the earth seemed to stir. Bugs began to crawl, birds began to chirp, and from somewhere below the ledge he heard what he assumed was a tugboat’s horn.

“This has been nice,” he said, meaning every word. “I haven’t done this in a while. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

She reacted to the genuineness in his words and smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“I like doing these kinds of things.”

“I would have pegged you for thinking it was too basic.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know. I like basic things. Unfortunately, I never have time to enjoy them.”

“You should make time.”

Easier said than done, Cameron thought. Plus, none of the women he associated with would ever consider tromping through the muddy woods in quest of a sunrise.

But then, these women weren’t Darci, were they? She still had her waitress uniform on, and the cap had shifted to let more of her blond hair fall out. A few loose ringlets curled around her face.

He squinted slightly, and focused on her eyebrows. For the first time he noticed how pale they were. Well, what do you know? Her hair was naturally blond. He’d bet his life on it.

“You’re staring again.” Her words were quiet, wary.

“This time I’ll admit it. I was looking at your hair color. It’s natural, isn’t it?”

“Do I look like I can afford to have someone do it? You’re darn right it’s natural,” she scoffed. With a swoop of her hands she pulled the cap off her head. Although her hair shone with a layer of grease from Grandpa Joe’s, it still cascaded into a waterfall of natural spiral ringlets.

His breath caught in his throat as her hair fell to just above her breasts. Beautiful. What would it be like to run his hands through those golden tresses? He controlled his libido. This was not the time, and she was not the girl.

He found his voice. “Mine’s natural blond, too, and I’m sure people have told you how lucky you are.”

“Oh, all the time. I hated my hair when I was a kid, although now it’s not much better. Guys always want to check and be sure that I’m really a natural blonde, you know? And I just don’t go for that.”

He suppressed the groan at the image her comment evoked. But then a fierce band of possessiveness swept over him. It felt foreign, and he attributed it to the bet. He needed to win, and she was his ticket to success. The last thing he needed was for her to run off with some lowlife scumbag before he was finished with her transformation into a society darling.

“Well,” he said as the sun burst across the sky, “that’s that.”

“It was good,” Darci said, her manner again aloof. “Today’s my day off, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home now.”

So soon? He shoved that comment in the trashcan of his mind and stood. “Sure.”

He reached to help her up, but she’d already risen to her feet.

As she moved to brush past him, her mud-covered white shoes caught on a rock. She stumbled slightly, and instinctively he reached forward and caught her.

Although they were standing far enough away from the cliff’s edge, not one to miss any such opportunity, he pulled her toward him and wrapped her possessively in his arms.

“Safe and sound,” he whispered, but as he held her and felt the fire again flow through his veins, he wondered how safe he really was. Whatever was going on between them was an absolutely alien experience to him.

She sighed, and he knew she felt the intense energy zinging like electrons between them. “Darci.” He murmured her name, and then, bending his head just so, he brought his lips gently to hers.

He hadn’t intended to kiss her, and then a moment ago when he’d realized it was inevitable, he’d intended a soft, simple kiss. Instead, unknown sensations were shooting all the way down to his muddy shoes, and he had to investigate them. No way he could continue to kiss her chastely.

As her lips parted under his, he deepened his exploration of her mouth, sending his tongue to mate with hers. She tasted of Grandpa Joe’s, of sugar, no, it was honey, no—she tasted completely unique. She tasted divine. He brought his hands into her hair, threading the golden ringlets through his fingers as if the strands were the finest silk. He tipped her head back, sliding his lips down her throat before he kissed her mouth again. The kiss seemed endless, like light itself.

And then she was pushing him away.

“What?” he asked, reaching out like a newborn kitten whose mother had left.

“Someone’s coming,” she hissed. Her gaze shot to the bulge in his shorts. “Can’t you hide that?”

The absurdity of her question made her divine. “No, not easily I can’t.” He stood, unabashed. “This is what kissing you did to me.”

“Well, undo it. Think of your grandmother.” Her words were like a bucket of ice water over his head, and Cameron sobered quickly.

He followed Darci back to the path just as a uniformed policeman came through the opening.

“Why, hi folks.”

“Hello, officer,” Cameron replied. “Can we help you?”

“Well, maybe. We’ve been having some problems with prostitutes frequenting this park after hours.” The officer moved farther into the small open area. “Why, Darci! Is that you?”

NO. DARCI KNEW her face blazed crimson. She could literally feel the flush creeping up her neck, staining across her cheekbones. She turned away, shielding her face from the officer’s view.

Never had she known such mortification. She’d been caught making out with Cameron O’Brien! Even worse, now he thought she was a prostitute. Great.

“Darci?” The semi-familiar voice didn’t belong to Cameron, and the sinking feeling in her stomach plummeted faster than the Titanic.

“Why I’ll be. It is you! Darci Sanders!”

Slowly she turned, seeing the source of her current humiliation. “Hello, Chad.”

Chad’s gaze roved over her, taking in her puffy lips, her mussed hair, and worse, her pink waitress uniform covered with splotches of mud. God knows what he thought she’d been doing. Her face flamed red again.

“You two know each other?” Cameron spoke, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the small clearing. A blue-eyed gaze that had iced over held Darci’s.

“We went to high school together,” Darci replied. She focused on studying an ant that was walking across the ground carrying a leaf fragment. “Chad was a class ahead of mine.”

“But that didn’t mean I didn’t know Darci. Everyone knew Darci.”

“Really now,” Cameron drawled, his New York accent extremely clear. “It seems everyone still does.”

Darci gripped the edges of her dirty white apron. The ant had disappeared down his hole. He was safe. She wasn’t. Just where was a New Madrid earthquake when you needed one? A nine on the Richter scale might be enough to cause the ground to split and swallow her up.

“Yeah,” Chad volunteered. He readjusted his belt. “She helped out all the boys. A real sport, our Darci.”

The sport he referred to was homework, but from the perceptive expression on Cameron’s face, Darci knew the elitist Mr. O’Brien had taken Chad’s words at their worst. He’d never believe that she’d only tutored the football jocks for her National Honor Society service project. And it had been in math, not biology or anatomy.

“Anyway.” Chad coughed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “This park doesn’t officially open for another hour.”

“We were just leaving.” Darci found her voice, and her courage. “We came here after a, a costume party, to watch the sunrise. Have you met Cameron O’Brien, owner of the Monitor?”

Chad peered suspiciously at Cameron. Then his face relaxed into a grin. “Your picture’s been in the paper. Great little weekly, the Monitor.”

“I liked it so much I bought the company.”

Chad missed the joke, that Cameron had quoted an old shaving advertisement. “Well, welcome to St. Louis, Mr. O’Brien. Seeing as you’re Darci’s friend, I’m not going to issue either of you a ticket for trespassing. We’ve had to be extra vigilant with this park lately. Seems there’s been some prostitution solicitations going on. Then when I saw such a fancy car in the parking lot, I knew I had to check it out.”

“Well, not us.” Darci gave Chad her most dazzling smile. “I just wanted to show Cameron the sunrise. You know it’s the best place in town to see it.”

Chad gave her a wink. “Mary Lou and I came here, but that was almost ten years ago. Say, did you know she’s married with two kids?”

“No, I didn’t,” Darci replied as she and Cameron began to follow Chad back to the parking lot.

“Yeah, some guy she met in college. Me, I’m married and divorced. She couldn’t handle being married to a cop. My mother’s managed over forty years, but not my ex.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Darci said. She half listened as Chad talked about people they’d known during their years in an exclusive co-ed prep school. She didn’t care what they did for a living, and she prayed Chad wouldn’t ask her what she did.

“So, Darci, you working at Jacobsen?”

“No,” she said quickly. “What about Candi? Didn’t you date her, too? What’s she doing these days?”

Relief flooded her, and she visibly sagged when Chad began gossiping about Candi’s latest boob job. Engaged in a topic he obviously liked, Chad wouldn’t give away Darci’s secret. “She married a plastic surgeon,” he said as they reached Cameron’s car, now parked next to one of St. Louis’s finest. “I guess she can have as many procedures as she wants.”

“Well,” Darci said. She gripped her waitress cap and twisted it in her hands. “It’s been great seeing you again, Chad. Thanks again.”

“Oh, think nothing of it. You were my last call. I’m off, and after I go get some pellers, I’m heading for the lake. I’ve got some R & R days so I thought I’d go fish for a few.”

Cameron’s car beeped and the lights blinked as he deactivated the alarm on the convertible. “Darci?” he asked pointedly. The remote dangled from his fingers.

“Yes,” she said, stepping aside so he could open her door. “It was great seeing you, Chad. Have fun at the lake.”

“I will.” Chad slid the aviator shades on his face and climbed into his car. He followed them out of the parking lot, down the main road, and then they parted as Cameron entered Highway 55.

“So, you know him,” Cameron said. Darci cringed slightly. Did she detect a layer of steel underneath his voice?

“We went to high school together.”

“You seemed quite chummy.”

“Not really,” Darci chewed on the edge of her damaged nail. “I helped him do his homework so he could make the grades and stay on the football team. I’m not as dumb as I look, you know.”

“Did I say you were dumb?” Cameron shot back, pulling off at the Riverfront exit. “I just found it interesting that you’d taken me to a park frequented by prostitutes.”

“Well, it didn’t used to be that way.” With that retort she bit her lip, kept quiet, and watched the scenery go by. They drove past the Arch and the Old Cathedral parking lot before Cameron turned left, crossed over Highway 70, and whipped the car into the Adam’s Mark drive.

Uh-oh. This was not good. “What are we doing here?”

“Going to my suite,” Cameron replied tightly as he shifted the car into park.

“For what? You said you were going to take me home!”

“We’re going to talk,” he bit out as the valet opened the door.

“Look, we don’t need to talk. You kissed me. Big deal. A good sunrise will do that to a person.”

He shot her a dark look. “We are going to talk,” he repeated, “and I want to be somewhere where I won’t be accused of being a john!”

The valet opening her door raised his eyebrow and Darci swallowed a mortified groan as she hopped out of the convertible.