Ineligible Bachelor (13 page)

She looked surprised to see him. “Hi.”

“Hi back.”

She gave him a cocked-hip pose once the surprise vanished from her face. “Done with the celebrating already?”

“For the moment.”

“Why are you here?”

He offered her his hand. “Truce?”

She eyed it suspiciously. “Interesting offer. Why?”

“Can I come in?”

“I was going out.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“And I don’t care.”

Freddy sat on the imported Italian marble tile lining the main pool on the estate, her feet dangling into the cool water. Logan sat next to her, his hands braced on the tile’s bullnose edging.

“Why didn’t you save Emily?” she asked him.

“Why did you pick Jade?” he countered.

“You first.”

He looked at her. Without makeup and her hair down, she looked every bit as beautiful as she did on the set. He liked her better this way—down to earth, natural, her hair draped past her shoulders in long, loose curls. He wondered if he ran his fingers
through her hair, would it feel as silky as her skin had beneath his fingertips that day in the darkened kitchen? Only the fear of one of the production crew lurking nearby taping everything made him resist getting his answer.

“I didn’t save her because you didn’t want her here,” he answered her.

She leaned back on her elbows, suspicion in her eyes. “That’s it?”

He mimicked her pose. “That’s it.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I enjoyed her company and wished her well.”

“I mean about the fact you didn’t save her.”

“She didn’t ask.”

“I would have wanted to know why you didn’t.”

“If I saved her, someone else would have to go. That would mean you would have to choose someone else, and I suspected you weren’t into any more drama, based on your speedy exit.”

“I did kind of run out of there.” She smiled, her gaze slipping past him toward the pool house.

He turned his head in the direction where she looked. “Someone there?”

“I fully expect one of the bachelorettes to come running out of the bushes any minute looking for you.”

He laughed. “I’m surprised one hasn’t. I think they all feel a little vulnerable after tonight.”

“Except Jade.” She shifted away from him, her voice distant.

“Except Jade,” he agreed. “Want to tell me why she’s the one you chose?”

Freddy sighed. “I wasn’t very fair to her at the paintball range.”

Logan shot her a knowing look. “No, you weren’t.”

She kicked her feet, water droplets spraying over both of them. “I’ve been told that I should be entertaining, not necessarily fair.”

“That should make for good TV.”

She kicked again. “It will.” She looked at the ripples on the pool’s surface. “So what time do you leave for your big date?”

“Roberto hasn’t told me for sure. I suppose I’ll find a note or a script or something once I get back to the suite.”

Freddy nodded. “I’m sure you’ll have a nice time.”

“Where would you go on a first date?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, his chest tightened. What had possessed him? It was bad enough he had to traipse around town with a woman he hardly knew with cameras in his face—it was worse yet to ask Freddy where to take her.

He saw her face register shock with his question, but only for a moment before she appeared to regain her composure. “It isn’t me going.”

“But what if it was,” he pressed.

“Are you asking me for a date?”

Logan forced himself not to show the curiosity her question had stirred in him. “I don’t think anything like that is on Roberto’s clipboard.”

She rolled her eyes. “One of these days, I’m going to put that clipboard where Roberto will never find it.”

“Then?”

She bit down on her lip in an unsuccessful attempt to hide her smile. “Then we’ll see what happens.”

“So you admit then, you’d like to go on a date with me.”

“I admit that as a teenager, I wanted to go on lots of dates with you.” Her smile broke free. “But that was before I held myself to a much higher standard.”

“A higher standard?” The words came out like a laugh.

She straightened and swiveled her head toward him. “Definitely. You couldn’t handle me on the football field. How do you think you can handle me on the dating field?”

Before he could stop himself, he put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel the delicate curve of her collarbone and caressed it with his thumb.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

What was he doing? He had no idea. Reluctantly, he let her go. “That game was a fluke. No one else ever stopped me from scoring again.”

“On the football field or”—she hesitated—“or on the dating field,” she continued with a smile.

“I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” he said.

“Maybe not,” she agreed.

He forced himself not to mention the fiery red color creeping across her cheeks, taking his curiosity higher. “You can tell me it’s none of my business or you can push me into the pool, but why didn’t you ever let me know that you were interested in me?”

“I sent signals.”

He snickered. “You did not.”

“I most certainly did.”

“Then I never got them.”

“Typical jock not to notice.” She sounded annoyed. “You were too busy trying to score with the head cheerleader most of the time.”

“How did you know? We weren’t in the same school.”

“Everyone knew. Sophomore year, I met a nice guy at the library. Dinner and a movie date. A nice date. We sat in the same row as you and blondie rah-rah at the movie theater, and you never even acknowledged me.”

“I don’t remember seeing you.”

“You never saw the movie either. Malibu Barbie was all over you.”

“That was a whole lot of years ago. How am I supposed to remember that?”

“I bet you remember her.”

His crooked smile broke. “She
was
all over me.”

She pushed him playfully. “Like white on rice.”

“Jealous?”

“No!” she dragged out the word. “She was all over everybody she dated.”

“Unlike you and your dates.”

She stopped smiling and looked down at the water. “That guy. The library guy. He was the only date I had the whole year.” She looked at him. “And not even a good night kiss. Not a real one anyway, and I know you know what I mean.”

He felt really foolish. “Why no more dates?”

“I guess the word got out.”

“What word?”

“That I was the proverbial Goody Two-shoes. You know how it was back then. The testosterone scorecard ruled.”

“Part of the rites of passage, however unfair it seems now.”

“I guess,” she acknowledged. “But no one had an interest in seeing me after that, and after a while, I lost interest in dating.”

“Didn’t you feel like you were missing out on the whole high school experience?”

She shook her head no, but he could tell from her expression that it wasn’t the truth. “I couldn’t miss what I didn’t know. I got busy with clubs and things.” She began talking faster. “And it’s not like I didn’t talk to guys the whole time. I did. So it’s not like I became an actual hermit or anything.” She raised a finger as if in warning. “And I do fine now, so don’t read anything into it, okay?”

He scooted next to her and looped his arm around her waist. “For what it’s worth, we all want the Goody Two-shoes after we grow up.”

She snickered. “Thanks to jocks like you, there aren’t many of us left these days.”

“Which should make you more in demand.”

“That’s comforting.”

“So are you?”

Her head snapped up. “Am I what?”

“In demand these days?”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Yes. I would.”

“As I said, I do okay.”

He glanced sideways at her. She seemed lost in thought. “What about the good night kisses? I bet they are real now.”

“Depends on the situation.”

Logan’s arm surrounded her again. “What about this situation?”

He thought she was about to ask him to move his hand or make some excuse to leave, but she did neither. Instead, she leaned over and put her hand on top of his before kissing him on the cheek. “Between friends like us, kisses are innocent.”

As if on instinct, he turned to her, his face only an inch from hers, and his heart seemed to stop. Kissing her the way he wanted to at this moment would never be innocent.

A wave of panic rushed through Freddy’s stomach as she stared at Logan’s lips. Her hand still rested on his, and she started to remove it, but he covered it.

“Maybe we should head back inside,” she suggested. But she failed to move away.

“Maybe we should.”

Logan didn’t move either. Their gazes locked. Logan raised his hand and cradled her face. Slowly, he moved closer and touched his lips to hers. It only lasted a second, but for Freddy, it felt like a lifetime.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Kissing you good night.”

The straightforward admission made her heart nearly stop beating. Then he did it again.

This time, the restraint he’d showed during the first kiss disappeared, replaced by a sense of passion and desire, as though she had given him permission. And maybe she had by not pulling away.

She shuddered and closed her eyes, allowing the sensation of his lips on hers to overwhelm her. How many times had she thought about how it would feel if Logan kissed her? How many times had she dreamed it would be like this?

There was no way she would pull away from him. Not after so many years of waiting. Instead, impulse overruled common sense, and she clutched his T-shirt, holding him tight against her.

Logan angled himself toward her, his powerful arms surrounding her as he kissed her ear, her cheek, her chin. Like two teenagers making out at the backyard pool, they hugged and kissed as though they only had minutes before their parents would come home and catch them.

Catch them.

Not their parents.

Cameras.

With telephoto lenses.

“No, no, no, this is bad.” She barely got the words out with the rush of adrenaline that pumped through her body. “We’re not alone. We’re never alone here.” Logan raised his head and met her gaze. The desire in his eyes made her want to go back to kissing him.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I lost my head.”

“We’ll lose more than that if someone sees us.” She pushed against his chest and flew up to standing.

She ran toward the pool house like she had been shot from a canon. Glancing back, she waved for him to follow her. She saw his forehead wrinkle in confusion, but he did as asked.

Her hand shook as she turned the doorknob of the changing room. Breathing a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been locked, she pushed it open. Once they were safely inside, Logan put his hand on her shoulder, and she turned toward his touch.

“I should have never taken such liberty out there. I just wanted…”

Freddy waved him off. “It’s okay. I don’t know for sure if there are any security cameras or otherwise in the pool area, but I’m pretty sure there are none in here.”

His fingers flexed on her shoulder and the muscles of his face relaxed as he took in a breath. “So you’re saying you’re fine with—” He stopped and waggled his eyebrows up and down.

“You bet I am!” she said, reaching up and forking her fingers in his hair the way she dreamed she would since she decided he was the one. Ignoring his confused look, she stretched onto her tiptoes, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him the way she’d never kissed any other man in her life. When he deepened the kiss, she sighed. This is how she thought it would feel in his arms. Maybe she could make up for all that lost time. She moved her hand to his chest, her fingertips at the hollow of his neck.

Logan jerked, and for a split second, she wondered if she had done the right thing. “Did you hear something?” he asked, angling his ear toward the door.

The only thing she heard had been the blood pounding in her ears. “No.”

Logan spun on his heels, grabbed her hand, and walked to a window on the right side of the pool house. He pressed himself against the wall and urged her to do the same. Then he put a finger to his lips, suggesting she stay quiet.

That’s when she heard what he had. Voices. Two of them.

“Did you see which way they went?”

“I think it was this way!”

Freddy held her breath.

“What about the pool house?”

Logan crouched down and eased his way over to the door as the voices got closer. Reaching out, he slowly turned the dead bolt lock almost at the same time someone from the outside tried to turn the doorknob.

“It’s locked.” The knob rattled. “I don’t have a key.”

“So if it’s locked, then no one went inside, doofus.” The second voice returned. “Look around. I’m sure I saw them go this way.”

As the voices trailed off, Logan crept to the window and rose up until his eyes were level with the bottom sill. She glanced at him; he didn’t seem to share her concern. In fact, he was having a hard time containing his laughter from the way his body was shaking.