Midnight Madness

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

MILLS & BOON

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For Shear Geniuses Mando, Danielle,

Carmen & Donna and last but not least Faye.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories and keeping my hair out of my eyes, over my ears and highlighted to cover the (shhh!) emerging gray.

Love you guys!

Karen

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Coming Next Month

1

CUTTING THE GOVERNOR’S hair is no different from cutting any other man’s—it’s just that if I slip with the scissors, the result could be on national television.

Marly Fine sat awkwardly in the stretch limo, her black nylon bag balanced on her lap. Outside the windows, LeJeune was a parking lot. The heavy Miami traffic crawled alongside the long white car; people on their way to work just like she was. Heat shimmered up off the pavement, mixing with exhaust fumes and humidity and general impatience. The combination steamed the outside of almost every automobile’s windows while the occupants hid in their air conditioning.

In a lime-green Beetle on the left, a college girl munched on a cereal bar and bobbed her head to the radio. To the right, a black Volvo eased forward, its driver a heavy-set Latino businessman reading the Herald. Behind him, a well-endowed platinum blonde in a silver Mercedes applied her brakes and half a tube of mascara at the same time.

Marly’s palms sweated and she resisted the urge to wipe them on her long cotton gypsy skirt. Examining her blue toenail polish, she wondered again if she should have changed it to pink last night.

No! She got annoyed at herself for even thinking it. I am who I am. If the Gov doesn’t like blue polish or sequined rubber flip-flops, then that’s his problem. I’m only there to cut his hair.

John Hammersmith, aka The Hammer, might be Florida’s JFK reincarnated, but that didn’t mean she had to wear a pillbox hat, pumps and a suit to meet the man.

“Temperature comfortable, miss?” asked the chauffeur, whose name was Mike. The poor guy actually wore livery—complete with cap—in this heat.

Marly started to nod, but her teeth were almost chattering. “Actually, Mike, can we warm it up a little back here?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks.” She wore double tank tops over her gypsy skirt, but they did little to keep her warm in the blasting air conditioning.

Marly hugged her bag as if it were a teddy bear and told herself she wasn’t nervous. Hadn’t Shore magazine named her as one of the top five hairstylists in the Miami area? Wasn’t she having to turn away clients now, or pass them on to Nicky, her flamboyant coworker? In fact, she could have referred The Hammer to Nicky, except that she was afraid of the consequences.

All they needed at After Hours Salon and Day Spa was a very public lawsuit against one of their employees—for groping The Hammer’s…uh, hammer. And it was an all-too-likely scenario: not only did Nicky wear tight orange spandex, but he waxed eloquent on the horrors of underwear and the beauties of copping a good feel.

She and Mike exchanged chitchat as the limo purred along in the sweltering heat, bringing her ever closer to the hair follicles of Florida’s forty-fourth fearless leader. A man whose politics made her cringe, and who awoke deep feelings of resentment within her. He had the same slick demeanor of old Patrick Compton, the state representative from her hometown.

The Pattywhacker, they’d called him. He’d won office on promises of honor and sincerity and devotion. Funny how all those had gone out the window when he’d hooked up with the big boys in the House.

Didn’t people ever learn? Now the good citizens of Florida had fallen for this young turk with the conservative agenda and soulful blue power ties that matched his wide-set eyes. The guy had charm in spades, plenty of hair and the big white teeth necessary for the perfect photo op. He’d promised to restore order, morality and conscience to Florida—as if the last two could be legislated.

Marly’s mouth twisted and she leaned her head back, resting it against the fat braid of dark hair that hung to midspine. The plush leather seat hugged her body, and she wished suddenly that her dad was here beside her, taking a ride in a fancy limo. She’d have to tell him all about it when she visited.

The temperature inside the car had just warmed when they pulled up under the curved portico of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, where the chauffeur got out and opened her door. Marly slid over on the seat, gave him her hand and stuck first one foot and then the other out the door and onto the pavement. Her silver toe ring flashed in the sun, as did all the sequins sewn onto her rubber flip-flops.

Mike murmured something to a bellman, who produced a cell phone and led her inside while he hit a number on speed dial. He nodded at her. “Miss Turlington, the governor’s assistant, will be down for you momentarily.”

Marly nodded, slung her bag over her left shoulder and put a hand up to her braid, just to make sure her hair wasn’t working its way out of its confines. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

She moved her attention to a massive floral arrangement in the center of a table in the lobby, discovering upon close inspection that the flowers were rubber and plastic. She’d begun wondering how, exactly, a factory created these things and how many cancer-causing fumes the workers inhaled during the process, when a no-nonsense older woman in a gray suit approached her from the elevators.

Maria Turlington introduced herself with a gaze as cool and dry as the hand she proffered, and fixated for half a second longer than was polite on Marly’s blue toenails. “If you’ll follow me, Miss Fine, the governor will see you now.”

Ms. Turlington reminded Marly strongly of someone, and as she got into the elevator behind her she tried to think of who it was. Her hair was short and graying, and she had a figure like a broomstick. The gray suit was relieved only by single pearls in her ears and an old-fashioned circle pin on her lapel. She looked as if she lived on tea and cucumber sandwiches or something as equally bland and proper. And the woman’s shoes were positively hideous. Though they were good quality leather, they were squat penny loafers elevated only about an inch by a chunky square heel, and Ms. Turlington wore them with suntan-colored panty hose.

Marly decided that anyone who still wore suntan-colored panty hose could suck on her blue toenails.

The elevator stopped at the top of the building and the two of them exited, passing a couple of plain clothed bodyguards. One of them took a look into Marly’s bag before letting them into the governor’s suite.

She shrugged as he pulled out three pairs of long, wicked-looking scissors and an electric shaver. “Tools of the trade.” She couldn’t very well cut The Hammer’s hair without them, could she?

But maybe she should write in to Alias and suggest an episode where Sydney Bristow assassinated a bad guy by pretending to be a hairstylist. Who knew? Maybe they’d already done one.

The bodyguard frowned at the scissors and her, and exchanged a glance with Ms. Turlington, as if to ask whether she’d vetted Marly’s background. Ms. T. nodded, and he let them go. Great, the FBI has a file on my finesse with long layers. They know about the woman whose hair I turned purple back in beauty school, and they’ve looked into the dangers of me giving Hammersmith a mullet with neon-green hair extensions….

They knocked and then entered an elegant suite dotted with arrangements of flowers that had once actually grown somewhere. At one end of the room, near a window overlooking the ocean, was a desk and a rolling leather chair, turned away from them. Resting against the back of the chair was a head covered by unruly, dark curly hair.

“I need you to modify that paragraph in the Orlando speech,” Hammersmith said into a cell phone. “I am not saying that. Yeah. Thanks, Ricky. Gotta go.” The governor spun around in the chair and stood, his eyes riveting on Marly’s face.

The last thing she’d expected was for the man to be half naked! His chest was broad, exceptionally well-defined and lightly furred in the morning sunlight.

She felt her pleasant expression freeze in surprise and her tongue instantly absorb all the saliva in her mouth. That was what those white button-downs and blue silk ties covered? She’d imagined a doughy, career politician’s torso, well-padded with complacency and pork—not this ripped expanse of hard muscle and tanned, very masculine flesh.

“Governor Hammersmith, may I present Miss Fine?” said his assistant. “And,” she added with asperity, “may I get you your undershirt, sir?” She said the word sir as if she meant “small, naughty boy.”

Marly bit back a smile. Suddenly she knew who Ms. Turlington reminded her of: Miss Hathaway from the old “Beverly Hillbillies” show.

“Miss Fine,” said The Hammer, striding forward and taking her hand, “this is a definite pleasure.” He looked deep into her eyes and blinded her with a potent smile.

God help me, thought Marly. He’s twenty times more magnetic in person than he is on television. She had to avert her gaze or start babbling incoherently. So she dropped her gaze to his chest again.

“Thank you for coming all the way over here just to cut my hair.”

Nipples. I’m staring at the governor’s nipples. There’s something deeply wrong with this scenario. “Um, you’re welcome. Thank you for asking me.”

Hammersmith seemed just as taken with her chest as she was with his, truth be told. She could almost feel his eyes searching for the bra straps that weren’t there under her double tank tops. She could almost feel his gaze spanning her waist, too, and evaluating the length of her legs under the gypsy skirt. She resisted the urge to wiggle her toes as he looked at those.

“I’ve never seen blue toenail polish,” he said.

He had to be kidding. What century did he live in?

“It’s the same color as your eyes.”

She forced a smile to her lips. “I think that’s a compliment….”

He nodded. “What do you call that color of blue? Royal? Cerulean?”

“Rebel,” she said with a self-conscious shrug. “That’s what the manufacturer calls it, anyway.”

“Rebel,” he repeated, his eyes scanning every curve of her again. “I like it.”

Ms. Hathaway—uh, Turlington—bustled back in with a plain white T-shirt and handed it to Hammersmith with a meaningful glance. He nodded his thanks at her and dropped it on the desk. Then he sat next to it and gestured Marly toward the rolling chair.

Ms. Turlington’s lips thinned in disapproval and she resembled nothing so much as a skinny, bad-tempered owl in pearl earrings.

“Was there something you needed, Maria?” the governor asked innocently.

“Your shoes and socks are near the sofa, sir.”

“Why, so they are! Thank you for calling my attention to them. Now, maybe we could all have some coffee from room service?” He turned toward Marly. “You like coffee?”

She shook her head. “Chai or green tea, actually. Thanks.”

“Will you order all of that, then, Maria?”

“Right away, Governor. Have you had breakfast?”

He shook his head and suddenly his blue eyes gleamed. “You know what sounds good? Strawberry waffles with syrup and whipped cream. You like waffles, Miss Fine?”

“Yes, but no, thanks.”

“Whole grain toast, fruit and a boiled egg is what your nutritionist has on the menu for you, sir.”

The Hammer waved a dismissive hand at his assistant. “That guy is a puritan and a sadist. Get me the waffles, please. And an extra-large orange juice.”

“But the carbohydrates—”

“—are delicious. Thanks, Maria. Be sure to order yourself something. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.” And the governor slung an arm around her stiff, thin shoulders and walked her to the door. “What would I do without you, hmm?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.” And Ms. Turlington, the poor dear, exited with as near to a flounce as she was capable of.

“She thinks she’s my nanny,” The Hammer said.

“Mmm.” Marly was noncommittal. “So…what would you like to do with your hair?”

“Well, I was thinking along the lines of Billy Idol or Dennis Rodman.”

She choked. Governor Hammersmith wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

“I figured that look would go over well next time I had to speak to a Rotary Club or cut the ribbon at the grand opening of a new senior citizens home.”

“So you’d like me to pierce your ears, too—and custom order a spiked dog collar? Rip the sleeves out of your Brooks Brothers’ button-downs? And how about a few tattoos?”

“Exactly.” He nodded. They exchanged a look of amused understanding. Then he ruined it. “You’re even prettier than the picture in Shore magazine.”

She felt her cheeks warming as she opened her nylon bag and pulled out a salon cape. Not only should she cover that chest for her peace of mind, but also to protect him from the little hairs that would fly everywhere during his haircut.

“I said to Maria, ‘She’s really cute. Call that one.’”

Marly lifted an eyebrow. Great way to pick a stylist, Governor. What if I’m a really cute butcher? But she didn’t say it out loud. “What happened to your regular hairdresser?”

“She just had a baby,” he explained. “And she’s retiring for a while to be a mom. I didn’t have time to look for someone else in Tallahassee before this meeting, so we called you.”

She was back to looking at his chest again, and all that male skin and muscle was having a bad effect on her. Her breathing had gone shallow and heat had bloomed at the back of her neck, under her arms and in other places she didn’t want to think about.

“Are you Irish?” he asked.

She blinked, then shook her head. “Dutch by heritage.”

“All that dark hair and the big blue eyes and the flawless skin—I thought maybe Black Irish. Though you’re not pale—your skin’s sort of olive.”

“There’s some Greek back there somewhere,” Marly said. “And you? You have the same coloring.”

“English, though my great-great-grandfather married an Italian. They say I get my looks from her.”

Marly found herself wanting to touch his skin, just run a hand over those shoulders and those biceps. She hadn’t had this kind of visceral reaction to a man since college. He put every nerve and ion in her body on full alert. Get a grip, stupid. Why do you think they call the guy The Hammer? Apart from his surname, he nails a lot of women.

John Hammersmith was a world-class flirt, and he’d been seen and photographed with all kinds of jet-set beauties. There’d been the Colombian emerald heiress, the Yugoslavian model, the English industrialist’s daughter, the Parisian countess, the New York fashion editor and the famous, double-jointed fitness instructor. The list went on and on. The Hammer’s personal little black book was reputed to contain ten volumes, or something like that.

It was a wonder there weren’t dozens of little illegitimate Jacks running around, but rumor had it that The Hammer owned stock in Trojan. Recently, however, she’d heard rumblings that his handlers wanted to marry him off. It was hard for a playboy to be taken seriously in politics, especially when his platform preached morality and conscience.

Hypocrite. Marly scowled and dug for her scissors.

“What’s that look for?” the governor asked. “You have something against Italians?”

“Huh? Oh…no, not at all. I was thinking about something else.” Too late, she realized how rude that sounded.

He grinned that thousand-watt grin at her, and parts of her body she was unaware she had melted. Oh, yuck. Was she really that susceptible—and to a Republican?

“Do I bore you, Miss Fine?”

“No…I’m sorry, I’ve just been distracted lately.” She scrambled and came up with a bit of truth to try to salvage things. “Until yesterday, I was afraid we were going to lose our retail space at After Hours and have to default on our business loans. It was scary. But everything’s okay now.”

It helped when the landlord was crazy in love with your business partner. She wouldn’t be surprised if Troy and Peggy ran off to Vegas and got married, in fact.

“I’m glad to hear it. I couldn’t have my favorite hairstylist going out of business—even temporarily.”

Marly’s eyebrows pulled together and she forced herself, once again, to look away from the man’s chest. “How can I possibly be your favorite hairstylist when I haven’t even cut your hair yet, Governor?”

“It’s a mystery, isn’t it?” He looked intently into her eyes again and she felt more exposed than if she were naked. Marly shifted her weight from foot to foot.

“Do you believe in love at first sight, Miss Fine?”

She gripped her scissors tightly and backed away from him. No matter how good-looking and charismatic and half-naked, the guy was starting to exasperate her. And what a cheesy line! “No, I do not.”

He sighed. “I was afraid of that. And I have a feeling it’s going to take a lot of effort to change your mind.”

2

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? Marly couldn’t help herself. She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Governor. You can do better than that.”

He crossed his arms over his delectable chest and actually had the gall to look offended. “You think that’s just a bad come on.”

“I certainly don’t think it’s a good one!” Great, Marly. You couldn’t have played along, dodged the pinch to your ass, and added John Hammersmith’s name to the After Hours’ client roster? What’s wrong with you?

“So you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that the moment I saw your picture in the magazine, I knew you were The One?”

Marly gaped at him and was saved from having to answer by the arrival of room service and Ms. Turlington again. Marly poured herself some green tea and watched The Hammer drown his strawberry waffles in syrup and smother them with whipped cream, for all the world like a little kid. A demented little kid…a Republican one. Ugh.

Really, she should leave now, while there was someone else in the room to act as a buffer.

“Did you know that my great-great-grandmother was essentially a mail-order bride?” Hammersmith said around a mouthful of waffles. “The Italian one.”

“No.” Marly took a sip of her tea and tugged on her braid, which had grown tight. Her scalp prickled with discomfort and something like alarm.

“Great-great-gramps saw a cameo portrait of her, and that was it for him. He went to find her and bring her back to the States.”

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck jumped to attention. Then they parted to make way for a deep shiver. But she didn’t react visibly, just eyed him with a tolerance reserved for the insane.

“Isn’t that romantic?” the governor said, swallowing. He ate standing up, his plate in his left hand, sawing through the waffles with the edge of his fork.

She nodded for Ms. Turlington’s benefit. Marly might not have finished college, but how stupid did the man think she was? He figured he could feed her this pack of BS and she’d tumble into bed with him?

It was a lowering thought that she might have done so based on the recommendation of his bare chest alone. She could have just had a fling—to support morality and conscience and Republican values, of course. But there was no way she’d do it now, with this lame talk of love at first sight. How many women had he snowed with this stuff?

Ms. Turlington changed the subject, bless her bossy, crabby, proper little heart. “Mister Governor,” she announced, eyeing his plate with something like despair, “you’ll note that there is an egg-white omelet under that steel dome. Those waffles you’re consuming—with the entire udder of butter and bathtub of syrup—contain a minimum of 3,600 calories and—”

“Turls, you know I detest egg-white omelets, and you probably had them fill it with broccoli and onion, too.”

“—six hundred grams of carbohydrates, not to mention enough saturated fat to deep-fry a herd of buffalo.”

“But I do thank you for your continued concern about my health. It’s very sweet of you.”

Miss Turlington sniffed. Then she produced a bona fide white, lacy handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

“Turls…” the governor groaned. He cast her a look of long-suffering, set down his waffles on a stack of scary-looking legal documents sporting lots of little yellow flags and plucked the steel dome off the omelet plate.

Ms. Turlington stopped dabbing immediately and looked hopeful.

Marly thought the omelet looked and smelled fabulous, but the Hammer wrinkled his statesman-like nose. He poked at the mass of eggs with a knife and looked unimpressed. He set the dome back over the plate, and just then Marly’s stomach had the poor timing to growl. She hadn’t eaten anything before leaving her apartment.

He brightened. “You’re hungry!”

“No, no,” Marly stammered, under Ms. Turlington’s ominous gaze.

“Yes, you are. Isn’t it fortunate that we ordered some extra breakfast!” The gov grabbed a fork, cut a bite of omelet and made choo-choo noises, driving it toward her mouth.

Marly was so appalled that she opened it and he deposited the bite of eggs onto her tongue, emitting a long engineer’s whistle as he did so. Then the lunatic said, “Yum, yum!” and sent her a big ole shit-eating grin.

She almost spat the eggs onto the carpet at Ms. Turlington’s expression, but she managed not to. Instead she swallowed them.

“Now,” said the Hammer, advancing on her with a napkin, “you just be a good kid and eat the omelet. I’ll return to my breakfast of champions. Turls, where’s your oatmeal and prune juice?”

“I have already consumed my morning meal,” growled Ms. Turlington, and swept from the room, closing the French doors with a snap.

Marly blinked. “Governor, really, I’m only here to cut your hair.” She looked at her watch. “And I’ve got to get back. I have a client coming at ten….”

“It’ll take you all of five minutes to eat that omelet, sweetheart. C’mon, can’t you do it for the Ham?” He advanced toward her and put his hand at the small of her back.

His touch was casually intimate, for someone who’d just met her. Though she thought he was nuts, her body didn’t agree. Marly leaped forward as if burned and grabbed the plate of eggs. She held it in front of her like a shield and dodged around the serving cart. “Thanks.”

“Can’t have you all shaky when you’re snipping the gubernatorial locks, eh?” He grinned. “Gubernatorial—isn’t that the weirdest word? Sounds like all things relating to a goober.”