The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men (14 page)

Not to mention that by his agreeing to Eve's invitation, she had him just where she wanted him.
You're an idiot, Cargill. A led-around-by-your-dick idiot
.

“It isn't going to work, Party Girl,” he said. His cock was still hard, and it was damn difficult to ignore while gazing on the woman who'd fueled a dozen of his most recent fantasies. “The fact is, Jemima's getting fed up with me and there've been no further problems regarding her. I'm on my way outta here.”

E
ve rushed back into Nash's massage room. He was standing beside the table, shrugging into one of the white spa robes. In a different mood, she could have had a jolly old time ogling his full-frontal nudity.

He looked over but didn't bother rushing to cover himself up as he grinned. “Well, well, well. Gonna try to change my mind? I admit, darlin', spending more time with you would be easy on the eyes—okay, and hard on the rest of me—but I've got my own life to get back to.”

Mute, she held out the fax in her hand.

His gaze flicked to it, then back to her face, and his smile died. “Now you have me as nervous as a hound dog pissing peach pits.”

Eve swallowed. “This just came through on the
machine in the front office. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but I thought you should see it right away.”

He pulled it from her hand. It was addressed to him, care of the spa, but the return number had one of those bogus 555 prefixes they used in the movies. The single line of text was typed onto a blank page, and Nash read it aloud. “‘You can't watch her every minute.'”

There was no name in the From line, and no signature either.

Nash's fingers tightened on the single sheet. “I've got to see Jemima.”

“I called her already,” Eve said. “I didn't tell her anything about the fax, just found out that she's in her room and not planning on leaving it anytime soon.”

“Thanks.” He'd already belted the robe and was shoving his cell phone and his card key into one of the wide patch pockets on the front. “I'll head over there and make sure she stays put until I figure this out.”

Passing by Eve on his way out the door, he paused. She smelled the Kona Kai's special blend of sage and citrus oil on his skin. Beneath that she could still smell Nash's own particular scent. She'd washed it off her hands after leaving the massage room and before finding the fax.

His thumb stroked over her bottom lip. “Thank you.”

Without thinking about it, she followed him out the door. His long strides ate up the gleaming marble floor, then he disappeared into the men's changing room. Before she could decide what to do with herself next, he came out, carrying his clothes and still wearing the
knee-length robe along with his beat-up cowboy boots.

Another man would have looked silly. Not Nash.

Eve found herself hurrying behind him again, through the spa building's doors and out into the sunshine, as if walking in his shadow could protect her from the memories that fax had yanked to the surface. Nino had stalked her for weeks after their breakup and before the beating he'd given her. Remembering that, the ugly, dark tickle of someone's gaze tracking her every movement feathered down her spine.

“You're good to her,” she blurted out. She meant it, but she also meant to distract herself from thoughts of the past. “Jemima's lucky to have you.”

Nash glanced at her over his shoulder. “With Allison—that's her mother—honeymooning, I'm the only relative Jem's got.”

Shrubbery, pools, the other guests were passing by in a blur. “Your father—?”

“Dead. But he wouldn't have been a help anyway. He was a drunk, a mean one, which was why Allison took baby Jemima and scrammed in the first place.”

Joey had told her something about this. “Leaving you behind?”

The guard manning the entrance to the residential part of the property held open the gate as they approached. Nash paused to let her pass through first. “I suppose she figured I was near big enough and mean enough to hold my own with him.”

Near
big enough? And where was a mean bone in Nash Cargill's big, muscled body? What kind of woman left her son—even a stepson—alone with an alcoholic? What kind of mother?

She'd fallen behind him again, and he cast back another glance. Then he stopped, a puzzled half smile on his face. “Eve? You're not getting weepy-eyed over a tough ol'
hombre
like me, are you?”

Of course not, because despite the creepy fax, she was in a good mood. Really. Nash had refused the invitation she'd been forced to extend. Any time now he was going to be walking out of her world, leaving one less distraction from the job of getting her life back on track. Eve had been relieved to hear him say he was leaving, though it had taken a moment to sink in. Staring at Nash and all his long, strong muscles, she'd still been remembering how much she enjoyed feeling his strength beneath her hands.

More than she'd ever enjoyed touching any other man, because it was the first time she'd enjoyed a man's body without first wondering what was in it for her.

Nash's smile turned to a frown. “You
are
crying.” His thumb rubbed across her cheek and something skated across the hard, cold surface of her heart, startling her.

She jumped back.

“Eve?” Another male voice, not Nash's.

Her head whipped around and there was CEO, rat-bastard Vince Standish, standing on the path leading to her suite. Vince. A physical reminder of what was the #1 priority in her life and why she never cried over a man.

She was happy to see him. Really.

“I've been waiting for you,” he called out.

Without giving in to the urge to take a backward look, she moved away from Nash and toward Vince. With only a quick swipe at the damp skin of her face.

“See you around, Party Girl,” Nash called, and his retreating booted footsteps made it quite clear that he was moving away from her, too.

Ignoring the hollow sound, she smiled for Vince. Reconnecting with the CEO, gaining his trust, getting him to a place where he would spill all his dirty dark secrets was what the SEC wanted from her. And she wanted what they wanted, because that would keep her out of prison.

She held out her hands to him. “What a surprise! I wasn't expecting you.”

“I had a free afternoon and thought I'd take you up on your lunch invitation.” He was in Palm Springs business casual—linen slacks, dress shirt, no tie, a sports jacket that cost more than two times the used clunker she was forced to drive. “Unless you have other plans?”

Now she couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, but Nash had disappeared. “No. No plans.”

“Good,” Vince said, smiling. “Cargill's not your type.”

Eve didn't bother asking how he knew who Nash was or how Vince had managed to breach the private, secure side of the Kona Kai. Vince could find out anything about anyone. Bianca knew that they had dated and would give him access to any part of the spa.

Eve tacked on another pleasant smile. “Shall we lunch on one of the poolside patios?”

“That's fine, as long as we'll have some privacy.”

Together, they turned. As they retraced her and Nash's footsteps toward the public grounds of the spa, a movement in the bushes caught the corner of Eve's eye. The tomcat, Adam. He glowered at her, then skittered away, leaving her strangely bereft.

Fickle creature. She would have cheered him on for sinking his teeth into Vince as he'd done to Nash.

They settled at a small table by one of the pools, an umbrella shielding them from the interrogation-intense light of the sun. The muted clatter of cutlery and chatter rose around them, and Eve sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, willing herself to forget about faxes and Cargills and the feel of long, strong muscles beneath her palms.

This
was her world. Vince, whose pose mirrored hers, was the kind of man who fit within it, who fit with her.

Okay, yeah, he was a petty louse who had screwed her over, too, but that was only due to her own weakness.
“Here's a dollar, just for being pretty
.
”

There was no “just” to anything, she knew that now. All good things came with strings attached.

The waitress brought their ice teas with lemon, and she and Vince chatted about mutual acquaintances, the upcoming concert season, about the renovations he was making to his house in Lake Arrowhead, a mountain resort in the San Bernardino mountains. More than one L.A. mover and shaker kept a couple of nearby getaways; in Vince's case it was Palms Springs for the cool Southern California months and Lake Arrowhead for the summers and occasional ski weekends.

Their matching salads were delivered. Eve smiled to herself, trying to imagine Nash Cargill sitting across from her, willingly spearing slices of a lowfat entrée of butter lettuce, chicken breast, and mango.

Weren't the two men polar opposites? And she could almost forgive herself for taking Vince's stock tip. The man was charming, urbane, amusing.

Not a man who would stomp through a public place in a bathrobe and cowboy boots. Not a man who would drive a monster truck as testament to his monumental ego.

Vince didn't tease her like Nash did. He didn't challenge her like Nash did.

Like all the other men she knew, Vince accepted Eve at face value.

He'd wanted her face, so he'd wanted
her
.

“Eve.” Vince leaned forward and placed his hand over hers.

Instinct screamed to pull back, but she flattened her palm to the table. A man didn't trust a woman who flinched away in distaste.

“There's something I've been meaning to confess to you, Eve.”

Her heart jumped. Was this it? Would he confess now, without wire or eavesdropper or any way to document the conversation to elevate it above the he-said-she-said level?

She tried to laugh. “Oh, well, Vince. Maybe now isn't the time—”

“It's exactly the time.” His fingers gave hers a ruthless squeeze. “I'm not getting any younger.”

“Okay.” Her next laugh sounded as stilted as the first one. Was age an impetus to admitting his wrongs? But unless he gave concrete details that could be checked out, she didn't think the SEC could use her recollection of the conversation against him. She'd caught enough crime TV to know that repeated conversations were called hearsay. “But that goes for all of us.”

“Precisely.” He looked across the pool, then back at her. “So I'm hoping you'll understand my urgency, since we're both mature adults.”

What?
Vince was twenty-plus years older than she was. She was only twenty-eight!
“Going on twenty-nine,”
she remembered Nash pointing out. It made her want to smile, though, because he'd been needling her, of course. He'd been challenging her sex appeal, then he'd proven his own by morphing that do-it-for-Nino kiss into something hotter and realer and…more unforgettable than any other kiss she'd ever had in her life.

Nash Cargill wasn't the only man who'd ever touched her, but he was the only man she'd truly ever wanted to touch back, just for touching's sake.

“Eve?”

Her distracted gaze jerked across the table. Vince.

Her first priority, Vince.

Damn it, she shouldn't be letting her mind wander. Not when she was happy to be sitting here with him. Not when she was equally happy that Nash Cargill was taking his big body and his gentle hands and his look-beneath-her-looks self out of her life.

Everything was going to turn out fine. The way it was supposed to be.

“Did you hear what I said?” Vince asked, a frown creasing his forehead's perfect fairway tan.

“I'm sorry.” She turned her hand to give his a little squeeze this time. Though a moment ago she'd been daydreaming about touching Nash, it was all about Vince now. Eve Caruso could,
would
do whatever was necessary to keep herself out of trouble. “I was distracted for a moment. What did you say?”

He was annoyed at having to repeat himself—that was obvious. “Did you think about what I said at Doug's party?” he asked.

“At Doug's party—?”

“About resuming our relationship,” he explained impatiently. “You really owe me an answer about that, Eve.”

She stared at him. Hadn't she already made it clear she wasn't interested in him romantically?

“Smiling, holding my hand, asking me to lunches,” Vince continued. “You know what you're doing, you know what you do to me. So let's not play any more games.”

Eve looked at her fingers entwined with his as if they were someone else's. She'd been friendly to him at the party. She'd mentioned a future lunch date. But it was he who had shown up uninvited. It was he who had brought up romance.

And yet the fact was, it was she who had wanted to get close to him again.

She took a breath. “Vince, what exactly are you saying?”

“That I'm ready to settle down, Eve. That I've had enough adventures and enough trials and errors. I know you, and you know me, and you've made it clear to both of us that we belong together.”

She'd made it clear?
She'd
made it clear? How was that?

“The bottom line is I don't care for any more coy lunches or ‘let's-just-be-friends' dinner engagements.” He wore a relaxed smile on his face, but his words held a hard edge. “It's all or nothing now, Eve. You've brought it to that. So what's it going to be?”

Her mind rattled through possible ways to answer that question. “No, hell no,” wasn't smart, not with the SEC breathing down her neck. But there was an odd light in Vince's eyes, and his insistence that she'd done
something to bring the situation to a head frankly weirded her out. She didn't want another lunch, let alone a promise of a lifetime with him. So stalling was the only option.

“Vince, I haven't really thought…considered…” Her heartbeat revving, Eve struggled for the right tone, the right words.

His cell phone rang.

Vince released her hand to reach for it, and she pulled her fingers to her side of the table and then safely into her lap. What to do? Oh, God, what to do?

But maybe she was going to be rescued from making that decision, because even as he grunted into the phone, he was pushing his chair back and rising. When he flipped the phone shut and stared down at her, his slight size struck her as more menacing than Nash's larger proportions.