Just the Man She Needs (3 page)

“Thanks, I don’t like to disappoint him. See you in about a week.”

“Neither do I. Good luck in Houston.”

Ashton hung up and pondered his moves. On Monday morning he would increase his shares of Dream, and he would encourage Cade and Damon to do the same. A good financial blow would serve Smith right for cheating on his wife and discussing his affairs with his mistress. He had a stockholder’s meeting coming up, and he’d better be well prepared.

In the ten months that Dream had been listed on the New York Stock Exchange, its value had more than doubled, but with such growth came the risk of parasitic takeovers. Ashton stuffed a few papers into his briefcase, locked his desk and headed home. It was a perfect day for a stroll with Teddy in Riverside Park.

Tuesday morning came at last, and Felicia arrived at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for Dream’s stockholder’s meeting, her first. She had purchased the stock four months earlier on a tip that it was a high flier, and her investment had nearly doubled in value. If the meeting became interesting with feathers flying and tempers heated, she might get something for her column. She took the elevator to the hotel’s grand ballroom, presented her credentials and found a seat on the second row aisle.

At precisely nine-thirty, the tall, nattily dressed man stepped up to the podium, and her belly did a complete somersault.
It couldn’t be!
What an incredible similarity! Ashton Underwood was not chief executive officer of Dream or of anything else. He was a good-looking charmer who made a living escorting unattached, lonely women.

“Good morning,” that unmistakable voice said. “I’m John Underwood, CEO of Underwood Enterprises and Chief Operating Officer of Dream.”

Her bottom lip dropped and she could feel her eyes increasing in size. But before she could restore her balance, his gaze, roaming the audience, settled on her, and although his eyebrows shot up, he kept his aplomb in tact. Hmm.
So Ashton Underwood led a double life.
She took out her writing pad and pen and noted that fact.

At the mention of a takeover, her antenna shot up. Was he in trouble? She hoped not. Without asking herself why, she silently prayed that the stockholders would stand with him. And with their investment having doubled in so short a time, they voted to retain the management that was working well for them. From the murmurs she heard at the end of the meeting, she understood that many of the stockholders would buy more stock in support of the CEO, and she would do the same.

“The meeting is adjourned,” echoed in her mind while she remained seated trying to digest what had taken place, but especially getting herself attuned to this different Ashton Underwood. After thanking them for their support, he remained at the podium, and she realized that he was staring in her direction, waiting for her move.

“This is my chance,” she told herself, “maybe my only chance, and I do not intend to blow it.” Many of those present went up to the podium to speak with him and to shake his hand, and he wanted to speak with her, she saw, for he glanced her way from time to time. At last she saw an opportunity, walked up to him and extended her hand for a handshake. She hadn’t planned what she would say, so she went with the woman rather than the reporter.

“Good morning, Mr. Underwood. Have we ever met?” She was leaving it to him, since he was the one at a disadvantage, and she could tell from his reaction that she’d said the right thing, for he almost smiled.

“Yes, we have. Last Saturday night, to be exact. How are you, Ms. Parker?”

“Relieved. I thought I might be hallucinating. I spent the last three days thinking about you and what an intriguing man you are. I wanted to phone you, but I confess I didn’t have the guts to call that agency and get your number. Are you leading a double life?”

“I was on Saturday night, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t put that in your column.”

“So you know who I am.”

“Yes, and I knew from the beginning. I just wasn’t prepared for the shock you gave me in that red ball gown, though I confess that, dressed as you are now, the effect isn’t much different. Saturday night is the only time I’ve ever worked as an escort.”

“Thanks for the compliment. Asking a reporter not to print something is an enormous request. How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

His eyes seemed to plead with her, and nobody had to tell her that pleading was not a part of his character.

“My younger brother owns Capitol Gentlemen. He knew who you were, and although he runs a legitimate business, he decided that he didn’t trust any of the men who work for him to escort you. He called me, frantically, asking for a favor. I am not in the habit of saying no to my brothers when they ask me to do something for them. After meeting you, I wished I had said no.”

“I want to meet your baby brother. If he convinces me that you were helping him out, nothing about your exploits of last Saturday will go in my column.”

Both of his eyebrows shot up and his skepticism was as obvious to her as his hand. “Do you mean that? Seriously? He’s in school, so I doubt he’ll have time to come up here, but if you’re willing, we can go to Alexandria tomorrow. The trip’s on me.”

She thought about it for a long minute, mindful of her policy of avoiding obligating herself to a man. “I don’t know. I like to pay my own way and foot my own bills. That way, I don’t have to take ‘what for’ from any man.”

Fire seemed to shoot from his olive-brown eyes, and there was no mistaking it: she had insulted him. “Haven’t you ever met a decent man?” he asked her.

How was she to answer that question truthfully? It had been years since she’d given any man an opportunity to show her whether he was or wasn’t
decent.
She resisted the temptation to shrug, lest he gain the impression that she didn’t care what he thought.

She looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t know,” in what she figured was as honest an answer as she could give.

She realized that her answer took him aback, for she could see him softening until, finally, a grin warmed his face, exposing his natural charisma and turning him into the Ashton Underwood with whom she had spent a fairy-tale evening.

“I’m trustworthy,” he said. “How about taking the nine o’clock shuttle down to Washington tomorrow morning? It’s a short taxi ride from the airport to Alexandria. And so that you won’t think I’m playing games with you, suppose you phone his office and make an appointment for ten-thirty. His first class on Wednesdays is at one-thirty. Give him any reason you like.”

“No,” she said on an impulse. “You make the call, and you pay for the trip.”

He gazed into her eyes. “Why the change of heart?”

“I want to know who you really are.”

His gaze didn’t waver. So intense was it that goose pimples popped up on her arms. “Does it matter?” he asked at last.

You want this man, girl, so you had better start it right.
“Yes, it matters.”

After a long silence during which he continued to look at her, he said, “If you’ll give me your address, I’ll have a car at your place tomorrow morning at seven.” She gave him her address, but not her phone number. If he wanted that, he’d have to ask for it. “You don’t live far from me. I’m on Riverside Drive at Seventy-fourth Street.”

He stared down at her until she began to fidget. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. Are we going to continue this formality? My friends call me Ashton. Mind if I call you Felicia?”

“No, I don’t mind. I was going to ask you how you happened to be Ashton on a Saturday and John on a Tuesday.”

That breath-robbing smile again. “My name is John Ashton Underwood, but my brothers and my granddad call me Ashton. Our mother started that, because our dad was also named John. They’ve been gone since I was seven, lost when a ferryboat on which they were passengers sank off Hong Kong. My paternal grandfather raised us.”

“I’m sorry. Mine are gone, too, but I have my older brother, a law professor at George Washington University.”

“Really? I’m sure my brother Damon knows him.” He looked at his watch, exposing the hairs on the back of his wrist and bringing her attention to the long lean fingers that had sent shivers down the naked flesh that her ball gown exposed.

She looked up at him and knew at once that he saw her staring at his hands. What kind of expression had been on her face to precipitate the hot arousal that she saw in his eyes?

“I’ve kept you too long,” he said with a half smile that she knew he didn’t mean. “See you in the morning?”

She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

Ashton walked out of the Waldorf Astoria feeling as if Felicia Parker had his number. A few minutes with that woman and he had begun to burn for her all over again. Not that the attraction had subsided since Saturday. It hadn’t. But the intensity of his desire for her had become more manageable. Now, it was once more on the rampage. He couldn’t imagine what to expect of his feelings for Felicia in the future, and he didn’t believe that having her once would appease his appetite for her.

When he’d glanced down to size up his audience, seeing her had almost knocked him for a loop. But it shouldn’t have surprised him that a professional woman would own stock in a cosmetics company, though it did seem like an odd coincidence.

The next morning he called for a limousine and arrived at Felicia’s apartment promptly at seven o’clock. She was ready, as she’d promised, and he considered her promptness a strong point in her favor, because he thought it inconsiderate of individuals who allowed others to waste their time waiting for them.

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” she asked him, and he hated to decline, because he hadn’t had a drop that morning, but they had barely enough time to get through airport security and catch the shuttle.

“I’d love some,” he said, “but if there’s heavy traffic, it may take us an hour to get there. Thanks for being on time.” She locked the door, and they walked in silence to the limousine.

“Is this your car?” she asked of the stretch limo.

“It is until we reach the airport. I don’t engage in conspicuous consumption, Felicia. I remember when I cut grass, sold shoe strings, bussed dishes in S&W cafeteria and shoveled snow to get through college. I ordered a car, and this is what the limousine company sent me.” From his peripheral vision, he noted her raised eyebrows and wondered if that information would find its way into one of her columns.

As soon as the car pulled away from the curb in front of the apartment building in which she lived, she turned to him and asked a question that he hadn’t bothered to entertain. “Why is assuring my correct understanding of your relationship to that escort agency so important to you?”

He eased his trousers at the right knee and crossed his knee. “The answer to that ought to be clear. I don’t want anything about it to appear in your column.”

“I see. So you don’t care what I think of you personally, right?”

“You couldn’t be farther from the truth. I do not want you to have the mistaken impression that I lead an exotic double life, and definitely not as an escort.”

“Mind telling me why your brother started a male escort service?”

“This is off the record. Ours is a family business. Although we were doing well before Dream put us over the top. My middle brother, Cade, is COO of Underwood Systems, a software design enterprise. My grandfather manages our riding school with Cade’s help. Damon joined ROTC in college and consequently spent three years in the navy, one of them in Iraq. He managed the riding school until he decided to return to school and get a law degree. He’ll finish that in June.

“Damon entered George Washington University law school, noticed the unbalanced ratio of men to women in Washington, D.C., even at public functions, and started his escort service. Once word got around that sex wasn’t part of the deal, the service became very popular. He could use twice as many escorts as he has, but he doesn’t have time to supervise more than the sixteen he hires. Those men are busy every night of the week.

“When Damon sees an opportunity, he makes the most of it. I don’t know whether he’ll want us to retain the service after he passes the bar. I doubt it. If one of the escorts broke the rules and got caught, that could cause a lot of trouble for a lawyer, and for Underwood Enterprises. We own some real estate of which Damon is COO and general manager.”

She had been silent while he spoke, but he noticed that she hadn’t taken any notes, and he appreciated that. He’d said it was off the record, and she evidently intended to respect his request that she not print his remarks. But her mind had been busy.

“Back up a minute, Ashton. If Damon has a no-sex rule that escorts aren’t supposed to break, what would you have done if I had replied ‘yes,’ when you stood at my door and asked me if I would like anything else? Suppose I’d said I wanted you to make love to me?”

“If I hadn’t fainted, I probably would have replied that I’d love to, but that it was against the rules and that, in any case, I didn’t have reference to sex.”

She appeared skeptical. “I’d like to believe that. What was your motive?”

Before he could stop himself, he began rubbing his chin with his forefinger, a signal that he was about to do or say something that he’d rather not reveal. “You interested me a great deal, and I needed to know how you would respond in those circumstances to such an overture from me or any other man. Your reaction reassured me.”