Maid of Dishonor (4 page)

Oh. My. God.

Carter Price had been eighteen when he'd proposed to his very-appropriate fiancée. And if Missy was as much of a sanctimonious prude as her best friend, Marnie, had been when she'd first arrived from Savannah—wearing a little promise ring on her finger that signified her purity, and had needled Gina no end—then Missy had probably demanded she remain a virgin until her wedding night.

She searched the long tanned fingers of Carter's left hand wrapped around the cola bottle. Was it possible that Carter had made a similar promise? Hadn't Marnie said boys wore them too, when Gina had lit into her for being a disgrace to Women's Liberation. Gina held back the gasp as she spotted the silver band on Carter's pinkie, identical to the celibacy ring that Marnie no longer wore when she was at college.

Oh, no, surely not? A man who was as virile and handsome and overwhelmingly male as he was, and who looked at her with that dark sexual intensity he couldn't hide? That man hadn't had sex since he was eighteen? It was just too delicious. And too ridiculous. No wonder he looked so tense and uptight. And no wonder he was far too involved in Marnie's personal life, because he clearly didn't have one of his own.

An intervention was called for.

The surge of excitement and anticipation gripped Gina's chest—and some other interesting parts of her anatomy. Suddenly she had the perfect way to bring the Sainted Carter down a peg or two. Prove to him that he was as human and fallible and sinful as the rest of them.

She was after all an accomplished flirt. And there was no harm in simply flirting with the man. Especially a man as stuffy and controlling and undeniably hot as this one. And once she'd proved to Carter Price that bad girls were people too, once she'd reduced him to a puddle of overactive hormones and sexual desperation, she'd be able to get him to agree to anything.... Even letting his innocent kid sister go on a riotous road trip with three loose women.

The man was celibate. He hadn't had sex in four long years. The challenge was simply irresistible. She'd lost her virginity at sixteen with her thirty-five-year-old biology teacher at St Bude's boarding school, and she hadn't looked back since. Carter Price wouldn't know what hit him. And while she wouldn't do the dirty deed with him, because she never poached on another woman's territory, why shouldn't she take her flirtation far enough to get Saint Carter primed and ready for his wedding night? Missy would end up thanking her.

* * *

‘Would you like another martini, miss?'

Gina blinked, staring absently at the harassed young waitress as the question brought her spinning back to the present. And the bar at The Standard where she'd gone for a quick fortifying libation. And been blind-sided by too many memories.

She looked down at her glass, surprised to find it empty, the olive on its cocktail stick lined up on the table. ‘No, thanks, just the check, please.'

The waitress nodded, clearing away the empty glass.

Tension tightened Gina's stomach as the reality of exactly how reckless and manipulative she'd been that night slammed into her in all its grim glory.

Maybe Marnie was right, and Carter was the one who had been cheating.

But there was no getting away from the fact that she had seduced him. Not the other way around. And it wasn't until twelve hours after meeting him in the kitchen and making a conscious decision to bend him to her will that she'd finally been forced to admit the magnitude of her mistake. As she lay in the dew-drenched grass under a maple tree, the dawn light casting a redolent glow on the rebel wave in Carter's cropped hair, her heart beating a staccato rhythm of shock and guilt, her thighs spread and aching, his erection still huge inside her and his pinkie ring cutting into her cheek.

Heat washed through her at the visceral memory—and it occurred to Gina that maybe the decision to cab it over to the High Line this evening and deliver her carefully composed message in person, when she could just as easily have phoned or emailed it, might have a lot more significance than she wanted to admit.

Had she on some subconscious level hoped to bump into the man whose picture she'd glimpsed on Marnie's smartphone that morning—for reasons other than closure and accountability? Was her new leaf not as well turned over as she thought?

Crap!
She needed to get out of here now.

The waitress returned with the check, and Gina threw several bills on the tray without counting them. The guilty flush made her breathing speed up as she shot across the lobby.

Gloria Gaynor singing ‘I Will Survive' blasted from her bag at top volume, making her steps falter. It took her a moment to remember that Gloria's strident disco classic was her phone's ringtone.

She paused, fumbled for the phone and stared at a number she didn't recognise. Glancing at the clock above the lobby's exit doors, she felt a little of the panic retreat. She still had thirty minutes before Carter was due to arrive. She took a steadying breath and clicked the answer button. This might be a new client responding to her recent social media campaign for new business. She couldn't afford not to answer. She'd simply have to talk and run.

But as she pressed the phone to her ear the deep laconic Southern accent had the heels of her sandals sinking into the deep pile purple carpet and her heart pounding into her throat.

‘Hello, Gina. It's Carter Price. I got your message.'

‘Carter. Hi. How are you?' she said, the false brightness making her wince.

Good grief, was he at the reception desk? Right behind her? Maybe he'd phoned ahead? Please let him have phoned ahead. She couldn't risk turning around to check. So she kept walking. The exit doors were only a few feet away.

‘I'm good,' came the husky reply. ‘Although I'm wondering where you're off to in such a hurry.'

Crapola!

She spun round. The phone dropping away from her ear as she spotted the man standing less than ten feet away, with one elbow propped against the reception desk, a phone at his ear—and cool aquamarine eyes locked on her face.

Her breath got trapped somewhere around her solar plexus—as she debated the probability of teleportation actually existing.

Beam me up, Scottie. Right now.

‘Don't move,' he said into his phone, before switching it off and tucking it into his back pocket.

Her thighs quivered alarmingly as he walked towards her. She locked her knees, determined not to collapse into a heap as the shot of adrenaline collided with the explosion of heat in the pit of her stomach—and it occurred to her that the paparazzi pictures had not done him justice. Savannah's most eligible bachelor wasn't just hot, he was positively combustible.

She forced air through her burning lungs, grateful for the fortifying buzz from her martini as he got close enough for her to pick up the smell of soap and man—and remember how much taller he was. At five foot seven, she wasn't used to men towering over her, but Carter Price had no trouble at all making her feel like a midget.

His steady gaze swept over her—then arrived back at her face. ‘It's been a while, Miz Carrington.'

But not nearly long enough, if the sweat popping up on her top lip was anything to go by.

‘You've improved with age,' he said, his tone low and amused. ‘Like a fine wine.'

So had he, she thought. The few strands of grey at his temples, the new creases round his mouth, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the waves of thick dark hair that now touched the collar of his white shirt only adding to the confident, take-charge charisma that had been all too evident in the paparazzi pictures.

Say something, you silly cow!

‘It's flattering of you to say so,' she murmured, struggling to maintain cool distance and not give in to the throaty purr.

His gaze strayed to her cleavage and her breathing quickened again, keeping a natural rhythm with the pounding beat of her pulse. But then the heavily lidded gaze met hers. The deep, lazy Southern accent reverberated across her nerve-endings. ‘It's good to see you again. Marnie told me you were living in New York now,' he said, surprising her.

So he had asked Marnie about her. And Marnie had answered.

Then, to her utter astonishment, he took her hand in long, cool fingers and lifted it to his lips. The quick gallant buzz on her knuckles spun her back in time to the clean-cut young man he'd once been. But then his thick dark lashes caught the overhead light as he blinked slowly, and the inscrutable gaze had all thoughts of the boy disappearing—until all she could see was the man.

‘How about we catch up in the bar? And you can tell me what's on your mind?'

‘Okay, that would work,' she said, thinking no such thing. His hand settled on the small of her back as he directed her towards the bar.

Terrific!
How the heck was she going to get her head round the perfectly simple apology she'd planned, while her mind was being fried to a crisp by all the zaps of electrical energy now radiating up her spine?

FOUR

Carter Price blinked
eyes gritty from jet lag after his flight from Russia that afternoon, the fog in his brain blown off course by the pulse of heat in his gut.

After ten years of denial, the two-line message the receptionist had handed him had confused him—and shaken him a little. More than a little if he was being entirely honest. He'd thought about Gina Carrington way too much over the years. So the sight of her dashing towards the exit doors had an effect on his senses somewhere in the region of a category five hurricane.

She looked hotter than he remembered her. And he remembered a lot. The beestung lips, the wide green, slightly slanting eyes, the mass of chestnut hair that had tumbled over her shoulders in riotous curls back then, but was now piled on top of her head, making his fingers itch to send it tumbling again. Her tall, slender figure had filled out some since her college days—her high breasts were fuller, her hips more generous, and her legs looked never-ending in the ice-pick heels. The overall effect made all those lush curves even more mouth-watering.

He'd dated a lot of women since popping his cherry with Gina Carrington, and divorcing his wife, most of them a lot more conventionally beautiful—but not one of them oozed pure, unadulterated sex the way Gina did. Or sent a right hook to his senses with a single whiff of their spicy, sultry scent.

He shook off the thought as she perched on a bar stool.

Get your mind out of your pants.

Boy, did he need ten hours straight—he really had to be losing it if he was fantasising about the woman who had once blown his life to smithereens.

Not that he blamed her for that. He'd been like a firecracker, waiting to explode. All she'd done was light the fuse.

He caught the barman's attention. ‘What'll it be?' he asked Gina.

‘Club soda.'

‘Make mine a Sam Adams,' he added, propping himself on the stool beside her.

He watched her throat bob as she swallowed heavily—and felt the surge of satisfaction. She seemed a little jumpy—and she'd definitely been planning to run out on him. Which gave him the upper hand. He made a habit now of never being at a disadvantage with women—and that went double for this woman, because she'd once had him at the biggest disadvantage of all.

But there had been a whole lot of water under the bridge, not to mention ladies in his bed, since that night. And he wasn't that lust-driven sex-deprived delusional kid any more. His pulse spiked as she pursed her full lips around the straw in her club soda and sucked.

He took a sip of the yeasty micro-beer.

Relax.

So what if he had some lingering lust issues where Gina Carrington was concerned? He had the control not to act on them now. Or at least not straight away. Not until he knew the score. His gaze skimmed over the silky dress and noticed how her magnificent rack rose and fell in staggered rhythm against the snug bodice.

Yeah, definitely edgy.
A gratifying change from their first meeting, when she'd had all the moves and he'd been the one playing catch-up.

He took a long draft of his beer and waited for her to speak. She'd been the one to contact him, after all.

She glugged down a good portion of the soda, getting more jumpy by the second, but didn't elaborate, so he decided to push it. Her note hadn't exactly given much away. ‘So I hear you've got your own business—website development and social-media strategy, right?'

Her eyes darted to his, the wary look gratifying. ‘How do you know that?'

He shrugged. ‘I've been thinking of investing in a social-media strategist for the mill. Your name came up in the research we did.'

And after the shock of seeing her name on the report, he'd looked her up on the Internet and discovered she was now living in the U.S. Not that he planned to tell her that.

Once he and Missy had called it quits, he'd been able to let go of the guilt over his night with Gina, and how much it had snuck into his dreams during the years of his marriage.

Given his current reaction to Gina, it was clear guilt wasn't the problem any more.

‘Nice site, by the way,' he added. ‘Clean and clear, and you've got some great testimonials there.'

‘Thank you.' She watched him intently and he noticed the beguiling flecks of gold in the green of her irises.

‘Is that why you contacted me?' He pushed some more.

Her eyebrows launched up her forehead. ‘God, no! I'm not that desperate for new business.'

He grinned at her outraged denial, surprised to realise he was glad she hadn't gotten in touch just to tout for business. She took another long sip of the soda, but didn't say anything else. ‘Then you're gonna have to give me a hint—because your message was kind of cryptic.'

She let out a puff of breath. ‘Right.' She faced him, her long legs crossed at the knees and her short dress riding up to display a distracting amount of toned, lightly tanned thigh.

‘I was having coffee with Marnie this morning and saw your text message,' she began. ‘When I discovered you were going to be in town for the week, I decided to take the opportunity to...' She hesitated. ‘To come here and apologise for what I did to you ten years ago.' The last bit came out in a rush as if she'd had to push the words out.

The heat kicked harder in his gut. She looked totally sincere. Was she actually serious? And what the hell had brought this on, ten years after the event?

‘You're gonna have to be a lot more specific,' he said, exhilarated when her eyes flashed with annoyance. It felt good to have this particular woman at this much of a disadvantage. ‘Because as I recall we did a lot of things that night.'

* * *

Gina's temper simmered at the wry comment. Was he making fun of her? And if so why? The failure of his marriage was hardly a joking matter, surely?

‘I'm apologising for all of it,' she said, more sharply than she had intended when his lips twisted with amusement. ‘For seducing you, and taking your virginity and ruining your marriage.'

The glass he'd been lifting to his lips hit the bar with a snap as his brows shot towards his hairline. ‘You have got to be kidding me?' A choked chuckle burst out.

‘Actually I'm not.' The retort did nothing to cut through the rumble of incredulous laughter. ‘I'm sincerely sorry for what I did to you.'

Heat spread across her chest as he continued to chuckle.

She lifted her purse off the bar, slid off her stool, the sincerity of her apology drowning in a puddle of humiliation. She'd made a twit of herself; time to make a dignified exit. ‘I should go. Thanks for the drink, Carter.'

But as she went to walk past him strong fingers snagged her wrist. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?'

‘I'm leaving. Obviously this was a mistake.' She twisted her arm; his fingers tightened.

‘Not a chance, sugar.' The casual endearment became
shoo-gah
in his low Southern drawl—and sounded so ridiculously sensuous she lost the will to resist for a moment.

He took the opportunity to place both palms on her waist and drew her towards him. She tensed, her will returning in a rush when she found herself positioned between his spread thighs. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Settle down, Gina. You wanted to talk, now it's my turn.'

She lifted her arms, in an attempt to step free without making too much of a scene, but his grip remained firm, anchoring her to the spot.

‘Relax,' he said, still sounding amused. ‘You're not going anywhere until I get to say what I wanna say.'

‘Fine.' She folded her arms across her chest, disturbed by the long slow pull of arousal as his large hands drifted down to bracket her hips. ‘You have my undivided attention. But I'm not sure what else there is to say.'

‘That's because you've had your say.' He had the cheek to chuckle again. ‘Now you get to listen.'

‘Okay then, speak,' she snapped. They did not need to be standing this close, but short of putting on a show for the rest of the bar's inhabitants, who were already taking more of an interest in their conversation than she would have liked, she didn't appear to have much of a choice.

‘I can see you're as quick-tempered as you ever were.'

She sent him a bland look. ‘Is that what you wanted to say?'

He barked out another laugh. ‘Point taken. I'll get on with it. I sure wouldn't want to bore you.'

One muscled thigh touched her hip and she shifted away from it, only to get trapped against the other one. Bored wasn't the word that was first and foremost in her mind at the minute.

‘First off, you can shove your apology in one of those sweet places where the sun doesn't shine.'

She sucked in a breath, shocked by his crudity. ‘That's nice, I must—'

‘Hush, I'm still talking here.'

She shut her mouth.

Well, really. What had happened to those genteel manners?

‘Second of all. You might have been my first, but I wasn't
that
much of a sap. You didn't take me, I took you.'

Heat cascaded through her at the seductive growl, which made her even more aware of the muscled thigh pressing against her hip.

‘And thirdly, I screwed up my marriage all on my own, with no help from you.'

‘I fail to see how you can say that, when I seduced you two weeks before your wedding day,' she argued, getting a little miffed at the lecturing tone. Where did he get off talking to her as if she were a two-year-old? ‘I knew you were engaged and yet I set out to seduce you, deliberately, without a thought to your fiancée or anything else.'

‘I believe I already covered that in point two,' he remarked, his eyes brightening with amusement—which only caused her temper to sizzle alongside the heat. ‘You didn't force me to do a damn thing I didn't want to do. So you can quit getting your panties in a twist ten years after the fact.'

‘Oh, pur-lease,' she hissed, struggling to keep the decibel level down in the face of his stubbornness. ‘Just because you now want to look at that night through testosterone-tinted glasses it doesn't alter the fact that I put the moves on you, not the other way around. For goodness' sake, I had to practically throw myself at you before you'd even so much as kiss me.'

‘So I was a slow starter. So what? I got the message eventually.'

‘I know you did, that's not what I was trying to—'

His hands rode up to her waist, cutting off her protest in mid-sentence.

‘Excuse me? Do you mind?' she yelped as those piercing blue eyes went from dark to dangerous and he leant forward to sniff at her hair.

‘Not at all.'

She shifted back, but he only grinned, obviously enjoying her skittishness.

‘You smell different,' he murmured. ‘Did you change your shampoo?'

‘In ten years?' she said, disarmed by the perceptive enquiry. ‘Yes, of course.'

‘I like it. More sophisticated but still sexy as sin.'

‘Right.' She eased back, the pulse of arousal getting out of control. ‘I really have to go.'

His hands dropped, but then he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘No, you don't.' He patted the stool she had vacated. ‘Stick around. One more drink. Let's talk. We never did get much of a chance to do that ten years ago.'

She should say no. Sitting next to him and sharing a companionable drink was a dangerous game to play while her erogenous zones were in meltdown. But when he shifted, his hand pressing into her waist to direct her to the stool next to him, and whispered: ‘What's the matter, sugar? Scared you won't be able to resist seducing me again?' the tension snapped inside her and she laughed.

The statement should have sounded impossibly arrogant, but with that wicked light dancing in his eyes it sounded more like a challenge. And she'd never been able to resist one of those.

She gave him a deliberate once over, allowing her gaze to linger on the broad muscles of his chest and the sprinkle of chest hair revealed in the open neck of his shirt. ‘I'm sure I can manage if I put my mind to it.'

He let out a rough chuckle. ‘Touché.' He sat back on his stool. ‘Take a seat. You know you want to.'

While she was sorely tempted to call him on the arrogant assumption, unfortunately she couldn't, quite. Because he was right. She did want to stay—and not just because of the potent arousal pulsing through every pore. She wanted to know why and how he'd changed so much—because the relaxed, charming, sexually confident hottie in front of her was nothing like the earnest and extremely uptight hottie she remembered.

‘Okay, you've got me,' she said, conceding. ‘One more club soda for the road.' She hopped back onto the stool beside him.

‘Only a soda? It's Friday night? You didn't become a good girl when I wasn't looking, did you?'

‘Hardly.' She snorted out another laugh at the wry comment. ‘I've simply discovered that alcohol adds pounds where it's exceptionally hard to take them off again. And half an hour in the gym every morning is mind-numbingly boring enough.' And she had a feeling that keeping her wits about her in the next twenty minutes or so while they had their one drink for old times' sake was going to be fairly important.

His lips curved, shooting her blood pressure up a notch.
Make that very important.

His gaze drifted down her figure, making her nipples tighten and her thigh muscles loosen. ‘It sure appears to be time well spent.'

Make that completely imperative.

‘I'll let my personal trainer know,' she quipped, fidgeting with the straw of her dead soda—and ruthlessly stifling the wave of warmth. ‘I'm sure she'll appreciate the compliment.'

‘You do that,' he murmured before turning to signal the barman.