Rescue Me (5 page)

Seth knew she'd have to be at this production meeting and had no
intention of letting her ignore him again. He waited by the door as everyone
filed out, almost smiling at the way she moved piles of paper from one place to
the next, then put them back again, in an effort to avoid him.

Finally, they were the only people left in the hotel's meeting room.
Seth clicked the door closed and strolled along the entire length of a table
large enough to seat thirty people before he got to Maya at the top.
 
She took a deep breath, as if trying to
prepare for their encounter, and had her game face firmly fixed in place by the
time she raised her head to look at him.

"Hello, Seth.
Nice to see you again."

"Is it?"

Her smile wavered at the edges, and he knew the question had unsettled
her. But the last two months had been hard.
 
She'd gotten under his skin a way no woman ever had, and he'd been
counting down the days until he could see her again.

"Of course it's nice to see you. You look well.
How's
things
at the ranch?"

"Pretty much the same."

"Are you happy with your room?"

"It's better than the last one you guys gave me."

Maya blushed, and Seth guessed she was probably remembering what had
almost happened in the hotel in LA. "Good."

Seth forgot about his plan to give her time and space to think,
frustrated by the wall of indifference she'd thrown up to keep him at bay.
"So this is how
it's
gonna be between us now,
right?"

To her credit, she didn't flinch as the conversation turned personal.
"It's the way it has to be. I told you
before,
it
would be bad for both of us if anyone thought you were getting an unfair
advantage."

"And any feelings I might have for you don't matter, is that
it?"

She stared up at him with wide, unguarded eyes, and Seth knew he'd
managed to break through her defenses for the first time since the moment that
damned phone had interrupted them two months earlier. "You have feelings
for me?"

"Yeah, I do. I don't know if there's a future for us, Maya, but I
do know that I want to find out. Don't you?"

For a fleeting second, hope flared in his chest. In the brief moment
before she managed to shut him out again, he saw what was in her heart
reflected in her eyes. Maya still wanted him.

Any hopes that she'd confess what she was thinking didn't last long.
"Even if I did want to find out, and I'm not confessing to anything, my
hands would be tied."
 

"Because your job matters more than anything and
anyone else, right?"

"No more than your ranch does to you."

"That's not fair. I've got more than just myself to think of."

Maya raised her hands as if to placate him. "Hey, I'm not judging
you, but don't judge me either. We all do what we have to do."

Seth took a step closer and let his chest press against her outstretched
palms. Maya's arms went rigid, but she didn't back away. "And you don't
think I'm capable of separating business from pleasure, is that it?" He
let a little of his weight rest against her hands, testing her resolve to keep
him at arm's length, physically and emotionally. "Or is it that you don't
trust yourself?"

Maya shoved him away with a none-too-gentle push and turned her back on
him to gather her notes. She bundled them against her chest and crossed her
arms to form a barrier between them before she looked up at him again. "If
you stand any chance of winning this competition, Seth, then you need to focus
some of that incredible ego on Alice."

The contestants had been put into male/female pairs, and the producers
had chosen a policewoman from New York as his partner.
 
Gorgeous as she was, she didn't interest
Seth. Tall, cool blondes might do it for some, but not him.
At
least, not anymore.

"What has Alice got to do with this?"

"You really need to start paying attention. As my boss just
explained, the viewers aren't tuning in just to watch you guys compete against
each other. They're tuning in to watch a real life soap opera. We throw a bunch
of good looking people together and hope a few of them become mortal enemies
and some of the others fall for each other. That's what the viewers want to
see, and that's who the viewers will vote for, week after week, because they
need to know what happens next."

"So, I'm expected to seduce someone in order to win?"

"It's not expected, but if you want to get to the final, you'd be a
fool not to."

Seth stared at Maya, hoping for some sign she was kidding or maybe just
testing his resolve, but she met his gaze dead on without flinching, and he
knew she was serious. "Does everyone else know this, or am I the only jerk
who came here thinking my talents and abilities were the reason I was chosen?"

"Nobody else knows. If we told the other contestants they'd be
trying too hard, and the audience would know something was up. The only reason
I told you
is
because I wanted you to understand what
it is gonna take to win." Maya smiled and placed her hand on his forearm
in a reassuring gesture. "Nobody is telling you to fall in love with her,
Seth, or spend the rest of your life with her. Just flirt a little. Make the
audience think something
could
happen."

"And what if I don't like this Alice woman? What if she hates me,
for that matter?"

 
"Well, I sure hope that
doesn't happen because I fought hard for you and Alice to be put together.
You're the best looking couple in the competition, hands down."

It was Seth's turn to back away, and he jerked out of her grasp.
"You wanted me and Alice paired up?"

"I was trying to help you. I could lose my job for even admitting
that."

"This isn't about me. It's about you, you and this damned show. Who
the hell are you to play with people's lives like this?"

Maya recoiled at the sudden anger in his voice but regained her
composure instantly. She took a breath, and he watched her shutting down her
emotions before she answered him. "I didn't invent the game. I'm just
telling you the rules."

"Did you really tell me all this just to help me, Maya? Or are you
trying make sure I understand that your only interest in me is what I can do
for your show?"

"I've never said that."

"You didn't have to."

Seth walked away from her and slammed out of the room,
more mad
at himself than he was at her. He'd been so sure
that night in LA had meant as much to her as it had to him. His anger carried
him down the stairs and out through the lobby, and he was on his way to the
pool bar when a broad, New York accent stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Whoa! Hold up there, Texas."

Seth turned to find
Alice,
the woman Maya was
trying to throw him at, sitting on a sun lounger. She smiled as she jerked her
sunglasses off her nose and thrust them through the mass of golden blonde hair
piled on top of her head in a loose, sexy mess.

He had to admit, she was a beautiful woman. If he didn't know better,
Seth would have said she was one of those Californian types he always saw in TV
ads for suntan lotion.

Alice got to her feet, revealing she had a killer body under the modest
black swimsuit she had on. She walked towards him, hand outstretched.
 
"It's Seth, right? My name is Alice.
Looks like we're gonna be on the same team."

Seth accepted her surprisingly strong handshake and noticed she was only
a few inches shorter than he was. "Not that we had any choice in the
matter."

The look of confusion that passed through her green eyes made him feel
bad. It wasn't her fault he was so angry. Seth gestured towards the pool with a
bar in the center. "Wanna cool off and grab a drink at the same
time?"

"Last one there buys." Alice took off in a graceful run, her
long legs eating up the ground as she raced to the edge of the pool and
executed a near perfect dive. Seth tore off his T-shirt and followed her. She
beat him by a mile.

"Damn, you're fast." He hauled himself up on to a stool that
left his feet dangling in the water. "You swim competitively?"

Alice pulled herself up beside him.
"Used
to."

"So how did you go from that to being a cop? Most athletes go into
coaching after they finish competing, don't they?"

"That's a long story, best kept for another time. You want a
beer?" She ordered a couple from the bartender and made Seth raise a
toast. "Let's give '
em
hell!"

"Amen to that."

The cold beer felt good on his parched throat. He downed almost half the
bottle before he pulled it away from his lips. Alice kept going, taking long
pulls of her drink and swallowing in loud gulps, until she'd drained the bottle
dry.

"Man, I needed that.
 
This
heat is a bitch." She wiped her mouth with the back of a hand, and Seth
couldn't help but think she seemed like a real tomboy, despite how beautiful
she was.

"Sure is, although it gets hotter than this at home during the
summer."

"Look, Texas, we gotta talk."

Her sudden change of tone made him edgy. He sure as hell hoped she
wasn't gonna suggest they hook up, the way Maya just had. Was he the only dumb
hick in this place who had no idea what was going on?

"Okay."

"I figure they're hoping something is gonna happen between you and
me. I can't see any other reason they picked so many sexy looking people for
the show and split us into pairs.
 
Judging by the way you were drooling over that female producer back
there, I don't think you're any happier about it than I am."

Seth escaped her penetrating stare by turning to the bartender and
gesturing for two more beers. "I don't know what you're talking
about."

Alice laughed and socked him in the shoulder. "Come on now, Texas.
Don't try to kid a kidder."

Seth grinned despite himself. "Okay, Brooklyn." He paused to
see how she'd react to the name he'd just given her. When she rolled her eyes
skyward but didn't object, he knew he was okay. "What do you
suggest?"

"I think I know a way we can make this work for us, but I'm gonna
need your help. Here's what we're gonna do..."

Chapter Six

Maya took another sip of the sinfully delicious rum punch she had just
ordered from the hotel bar and turned to stare out at the calm blue waters of
Mullins Bay.
 
God, but she needed this
day off. To say she'd been tense since arriving in Barbados just over a week
ago was an understatement. She raised her glass again and took a long swig,
enjoying the way the spicy rum tingled over her taste buds ... until a tall
blond guy running along the beach caught her eye, and she almost choked on her
drink.

Seth? How the hell did he know where to find me?

Renting her own apartment away from the rest of the cast and crew had
been an expensive indulgence, but it was worth it. Nobody else knew she wasn't
actually using the accommodation the studio had provided for her. It took no
more than half an hour to drive from her hideout on the west coast down to the
filming location in the south, and so far, she'd managed to stay on schedule.

If she was being honest, she'd taken the apartment in order to avoid
Seth.
 
Having to watch him every day was
still torture, especially while he was flirting shamelessly with the gorgeous
Alice. Maya had no right to be so jealous. Hadn't she told him to do just that?
 
He
didn't need to look like he was enjoying it so damn much though.

Seth hadn't lied when he'd boasted about his physical prowess. Maya
watched the muscles tensing and relaxing in his powerful thighs as he powered
his way through the surf where the waves broke on to the crystal white
sand.
 

Maya was glad the brilliant Caribbean sunshine made wearing sunglasses
mandatory, because she couldn't keep her eyes off him during filming. He seemed
to revel in his physicality, and never turned down an opportunity to run, jump,
swim, or climb. And she wasn't alone in her admiration either. Seth was a firm
favorite with every female on the crew, including the cast, and the audience
feedback after the first episode had aired last weekend suggested that he was
going down well in America's living rooms. Nobody was surprised when he
survived the first public elimination vote by a landslide.

When he drew level with the beach bar but kept on running without
acknowledging her presence, Maya realized he had no idea she was there.

"Seth!" She called out his name even as her brain asked her
what the hell she was doing.

He
stumbled
a little as he broke his stride,
and he scanned the hotel's bar front until his gaze found her.
"Maya?"