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Danielle spun back to the television and aimed the remote to freeze the screen. Her own image was nose-to-nose with Maxwell’s in the frame. She remembered this part. It was when she had accused him of not conceding. She’d thought—then—that he’d been staring her right in the eyes—and his hadn’t been cool and clever and amused in that moment. They had been so intent she’d felt the impact of them like a physical touch. But she’d thought it was his temper that had changed them. Now—here, in this frame—she realized that he wasn’t looking into her eyes at all.
He was looking…downward. At her breasts. And the smoke in his gaze had nothing whatsoever to do with plovers.
A steady quaking started inside her. It had worked. Angelique’s advice had worked!
“You’ll be hearing from him soon,” Angelique promised. “I give it forty-eight hours at the outside. Just look at him. He can’t even breathe.”
She couldn’t breathe. Danielle pounded a fist against her chest to jumpstart her heart.
In that moment, if only for that moment, Max Padgett had definitely been interested in what he was seeing. Excitement leaped in her, hot and expectant, then it shredded apart. There was still the matter of her board members. And the plovers. She had a mess on her hands, and for the first time in her entire thirty-six years, her hormones were in overdrive. She could barely even think coherently. Danielle hung up numbly, then the line rang again.
Her heart vaulted. Was it him? Already? No, of course not. He didn’t have her home phone number. She picked up anyway. “Yes?”
“A truly inspired approach!” came the robust voice of Albert Tresca, one of the board members. “You never gave him a chance to build up any steam at all! Is it true? Does Senator Roberson own that land?”
“So says our R & D department.” Would he mention the way she had looked?
“I wonder if Richard ever really knew what he had in you.”
She winced. Did he mean professionally or—she cringed away from the thought—personally?
“What’s next?” Tresca asked. “What else have you got up your sleeve?”
Danielle reached for her usual businesslike tone. Then the words she’d been about to say got jammed in her throat.
An idea leaped into her mind. Her gaze flew back to the television, to the video shot that remained frozen there. Max Padgett was still looking downward. His gaze was still smoky. Danielle’s heart slammed against her chest.
This attraction between them could be useful.
What if she used that angle? Could she keep that awareness going and keep his mind off the plovers? Was it possible?
“Are you still there?” Tresca asked.
“I’m here,” she answered a little hoarsely. “I…I have a thought but I’m not ready to share it yet.” She said goodbye quickly and dropped the phone back into its cradle. Then she picked it up again to leave it off the hook.
Was she actually thinking of seducing him? No, she decided quickly, of course not. But she could certainly sidetrack him a little with…well, with feminine wiles. Why not? He certainly hadn’t been his usual forceful and confident self in front of those cameras this afternoon. Except…
Except it was outrageous. It was the kind of thing that gave women entrepreneurs a bad name. And it definitely wasn’t her usual method. What would Richard think? That—and the fact that she had no other brilliant ideas about how to proceed with the plover problem from here—finally sobered her.
Danielle went unsteadily to the central staircase of the echoing old home she had shared with Richard. She thought for the thousandth time that she really ought to sell the place and find a smaller home. She’d simply been too busy with Harrington Resorts these past three years to do anything about it. All her life she’d craved a tidy home with a neat lawn and window boxes full of flowers instead of these lavish and ornate gardens. In her heart she saw something white with green shutters, maybe with an elm and a few bicycles in the yard. Richard had never made any bones about the fact that he’d already raised his family. They had never planned to have children. They’d had the business together; that was their baby.
It had only made sense, but sometimes lately it left her feeling hollow. If there had been a child, she wouldn’t be so alone now. If there had been one, these halls wouldn’t echo with silence but with laughter.
Danielle found her way into the parlor. She inhaled deeply, and for the first time realized that the lingering aroma of Richard’s pipe had finally faded, just as the scent of her father’s cologne had finally left his favorite shirt after he’d died, just as she’d finally stopped smelling her mother’s Irish stew in the kitchen long after Carolyn Dempsey had departed this earth. She curled up in Richard’s favorite chair and propped her chin in her hand.
She wondered exactly how one went about wooing a man once his attention was caught.
The cue ball cracked into the eight ball with a sound that split the quiet of the room. Max watched the billiard drop into a pocket. “My game,” he said.
“It was close, though,” Stan Roberson replied. They’d grown up together on some of the worst streets of Sacramento and had amused themselves in more pool halls than either of them could count. They were evenly matched.
Max had wanted to annihilate him tonight just on general principle. He was angry.
“You should have told me,” he said again, his gaze moving to the television perched in a corner of Stan’s rec room ceiling. Stan’s staff had—of course—taped the news. Now they were playing the video. Max watched Dani Harrington approach the cameras, all legs, bare feet and hot eyes. It had the same effect on him that it had had earlier in the evening. It felt like something solid, hard and hot hit him in the solar plexus.
Who was this woman that she could go from tycoon to siren in the space of three days? What was it about her that she could wipe his mind blank of the business—the important business—at hand?
This changed everything.
Stan snapped his fingers in front of Max’s gaze. “Come back to me.”
“I’m here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re getting all worked up over the woman who’s going to make me look like a fool.”
Max’s temper spiked all over again. “Some might say the fool is the one who sicced me on Gold Beach without telling me he was an owner out there.”
“It’s not germane to the issue. I don’t intend to uproot the plovers, at least not until long after my term is over.”
Max’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “That’s good. Spoken like a true politician.”
“I am what I am. And I’ll be damned if I’m going back to poor obscurity. I’m telling you, my land isn’t an issue here.”
“She’s making it an issue.”
“She won’t be able to. I haven’t applied for any permits to bulldoze plover eggs. I promised to preserve that coastline, and I haven’t done anything to fly in the face of that. Ownership isn’t a crime, especially if I leave the land wide open for the birds.” Stan shook his head. “I’m going to retire out there, Max. I just turned forty. Retirement is a long way off. Besides, Danielle Harrington only found out that I own one of those plots. She doesn’t seem to realize that I bought two.”
“You did what?” This was getting worse by the minute, Max thought. Gold Beach was an elliptical area maybe a mile long. He thought the whole of it might be comprised of all of four parcels. “You’ve got to unload all of it!”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Stan said. “I’m thinking that maybe I could cough up one—the one she unearthed the paperwork on—and keep the other.”
Max barely heard him. He was watching the television again. On the screen Danielle drew in a breath to snap something back at him, and he glimpsed that red lace. He rubbed his eyes, pulling his gaze from the TV.
Stan began to rack the balls again. “Meanwhile, we’ll probably need an injunction now. We’ll have to stop her in her tracks so we have time to reconnoiter from this. I’ll have my staff get on it first thing Monday morning.”
Max picked up his pool stick, then her voice drifted from the television, low and sultry. “The ball’s in your court, Mr. Padgett.” He looked at the TV and there it was again, that look in her eyes.
It was come-hither if he’d ever seen one.
He felt things tighten inside him in response. She was spectacular. She did things to him. He wanted to see more—a lot more—of that red lace. And that scared the hell out of him. It scared him enough that—as much as she’d intrigued him—he sure as hell didn’t plan to cross paths with her again. A woman like this was lethal.
He’d spent fifteen of his first seventeen years being shuffled from foster home to foster home. Most people could reflect their opinions of relationships back on one or two sets of parents. Max could base his opinions on six separate couples who had raised him after his mother had died and his father could not be found. He’d learned that people fall out of love—not just occasionally, but commonly. What he knew of love was that two people entered into it with stars in their eyes and the best of intentions. Then there were differences of opinion, one or the other put on a few pounds over the years, and the gloss wore off and self-interest emerged. Everything went to hell in a handbasket. There was fighting and vicious, nasty hurt. And finally, when it was over, there was emptiness, the unique emptiness of finding oneself alone and unloved.
He’d never wanted any part of it. That was why—doggedly and determinedly—he had never in his life gone out with the same woman more than twice. None of them, however, had quite the impact of Dani Dempsey Harrington.
Stan was watching him with thoughtful eyes, Max realized. “What?” he asked suspiciously.
“I guess there’s something else I should tell you,” Stan said.
“You own land on Junipero Sierra Peak, too?”
“It wouldn’t matter. You’ve already preserved that area. I’m marrying Marcy.”
The pool stick dropped from Max’s hand and rolled on Stan’s thick carpeting. Max stared at him.
“It’s time,” Stan continued. “We’ve been together eight years now. She wants it.”
“So you’re just going to roll over and play dead?” Max was panicked. His pulse started pistoning. The world as he knew it was crumbling at his feet. A woman had turned up on the beach to make every drop of blood in his veins race and burn with a kind of hunger that had wanted to be assuaged now. And his best friend was getting married.
Stan grinned. “It will be a sweet death.”
“It’s a career move, right?”
“It’s a life move, Max. I want you to be my best man.”
Max opened his mouth and found he couldn’t answer. He replaced his stick in the rack.
Stan grinned. “Take it easy. You’ll recover from the shock by morning. And as soon as you do, you’ve got to call Danielle Harrington and start unraveling this mess.”
His stomach somersaulted. “I don’t want to call Danielle Harrington.”
“We have to meet with her and cool her down.” Stan cracked the balls whether Max wanted to play or not.
Then the door opened and Marcy Leeds poked her head into the room. “Stan? Are you almost through in here?”
Max watched his best friend grin like a besotted puppy. “In a minute, hon.” And then she gave a come-hither smile before she retreated, Max thought.
He had to get out of here.
“All right,” Max muttered. “I’ll call Dani Harrington tomorrow.” But he damned well wasn’t going to like it.
Danielle was in the middle of a meeting at ten-thirty on Monday morning, recapping the current status of the war between Harrington Resorts and the Coalition for Wildlife, Fields and Streams, when Angelique knocked on the conference room door and stepped into the room. “You told me to interrupt you.”
“I did?” Danielle remembered nothing of the sort.
“This morning. If he called.”
“He—oh!” Danielle’s heart stood still for a moment. She looked quickly at the faces surrounding the table. “Max Padgett is on the phone.”
She pushed past Angelique and hurried down the hall to her own office. By the time she reached it, her knees were liquid. She looked down at the blinking light on the phone. Angelique had almost been right, she thought. It had taken him seventy-two hours to call…but then, he couldn’t have reached her over the weekend even if he had tried. Her home number was unlisted, a well-guarded secret. Richard had been emphatic about business not following them home. She’d never thought to change that. There was no reason to. There wasn’t anyone she particularly cared about being able to reach her during nonbusiness hours.
Until now. She made a mental note to ask Angelique to call the telephone company.
Danielle took one, two, then three deep breaths and finally grabbed the receiver. “Hi,” she said. Then she covered her eyes with one hand, fighting a moan. She sounded breathless and hormonal and flirtatious, exactly like a woman who would run around on television in her underwear.
“Hi, yourself,” Max said, his voice vaguely rough. And she thought he sounded as thought he had just come up for air after a long, slow, heated kiss.
Her knees gave out. Danielle sank into her chair.
“Have you come to your senses yet?” he asked.
“And here I thought you were calling to tell me you’re giving up.”
“It will never happen.”
No, she thought, he wouldn’t be a quitter. “We have a problem then. I’m not planning to back off, either.”
“What are you saying, Dani? That we’re evenly matched?”
Something unseen snatched the air from her lungs. “Maybe.”
“Let’s talk about it.”
“Talk.” She couldn’t breathe. “When?”
“Tomorrow night? Are you free?”
She hadn’t had anything but a free evening since Richard had died. “Let me check.” She put him back on hold.
She inhaled carefully, deliberately, trying to get oxygen to her brain. Then she stabbed the blinking button on her phone again. “I can manage it. I’ll have to move a few things around, but this is important.”
“That’s progress,” he said in that low, intimate voice.
“It is?” Her heart hammered.
“A week ago you wouldn’t answer my mail or take my phone calls. Could it be I’m gaining ground?”
Not in the way you think. Danielle closed her eyes as the words tumbled to her lips. She pressed a hand to her mouth to keep them trapped. “I’ll let you think so.”
He laughed that warm whisky-edged chuckle. It came through the wire and touched her skin. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, shivering again. “Could you hold another moment?”
Danielle slammed her palm down on the hold button again. She dragged a shaky hand across her brow. What was going on here? She wasn’t any good at this…at this flirting business! Were they flirting? She didn’t know! She’d barely even dated before she’d met Richard—she’d been too busy getting her M.B.A. And she hadn’t dated since he’d died. He’d been the sum total of her experience with men. And there had been no perspiring brows or weak knees or irregular heartbeats with Richard. So when it came to Max Padgett, she was lost.
All she had were her instincts.
They were definitely flirting, she decided. She thought again of her resolve to use that to keep his mind off the birds, at least long enough for her to break ground. She picked up the phone again. “Where would you like to meet tomorrow night?”
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