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The bottom of Nicole’s long, gauzy beach cover dipped into the surf, darkening the hem to navy blue. As the sun rose on Monday morning, she walked her usual mile up the beach, turning at the pink monstrosity called Jade Towers and wondering, as always, why the heck didn’t they paint it green if they were going to call it Jade Towers. It used to be Jimmy Miller’s produce stand, she’d thought sadly, and it used to be a nice, unassuming shade of tan that blended into the beachy environment. Just like Mar Brisas.
She tried to let the cool water and soft sand lull her into a state of hopefulness.
She’d spent all of Sunday with Aunt Freddie and that always put her in a good mood. Except that her aunt had insisted on taking a drive to see the billboard that had gone up that week. Nicole had, for the first time since she landed on Freddie Whitaker’s doorstep as an orphan, deceived her beloved aunt.
“How on earth did you come up with such an idea?” Freddie had asked.
“Oh, it just came to me while I was fixing the elevator,” she’d answered innocently, hoping the ever-intuitive woman didn’t simply smell out the lie.
She didn’t want Aunt Freddie to know she was obsessing over a stranger she’d met a week ago. One she’d spent about twenty out of twenty-four hours thinking about. Freddie would know instantly that Nicole didn’t run from the man because he lied or made a disparaging remark about Mar Brisas. She ran because the sheer force of her reaction to him scared the life out of her.
To change the subject, Nicole had told her aunt about the meeting that was finally scheduled for Monday morning and that’s when Freddie had planted the seed of a new idea in Nicole’s head.
Maybe this Quinn McGrath fellow would be amenable to letting her stay and run Mar Brisas. It wasn’t ideal, but at least she could try to maintain the authentic old Florida atmosphere, and keep what had become her home. Although she doubted they’d let her continue to live in 1801, the crown jewel of the property, she might not lose her job. Maybe they’d even consider restoring Mar Brisas to its original glory.
She would give Quinn McGrath a chance today, she decided. He’d be in her office at nine that morning, and she’d do everything possible to make him see the benefits of her plan.
Ready to swim, she stopped in front of her villa to strip off her cover-up when a movement on the wraparound porch of 1601 caught her eye. Good. The MacDougalls made it in after all. She silently congratulated herself. The ad was only up a few days and already they had more bookings. One of her employees told her Mr. MacDougall had called about the size of the bed. She smiled wistfully and stretched. Romance was in the air at Mar Brisas.
Wading out past the sandbar to where the water deepened to about six feet, she dove in and let the gentle swells take her for an easy float. Then she attacked the waves and swam along the beach for a solid twenty minutes.
Panting, but energized, she squeezed the water out of her hair as she emerged back at her villa. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a man standing at the surf, watching her. She rubbed the saltwater from her eyes and looked again, zeroing in on the bare chest and running shorts. He was tall, dark and…way too familiar.
She took a few steps closer and blinked again. Her legs almost buckled as she stumbled on a sharp shell.
He reached down and picked up her blue cover-up from the sand. “Hey, lady.” He sounded as smooth as melted chocolate as he held the dress in the air. “This looks your color.”
Nicole froze, her jaw open, her mind blank. He let the fabric fall back on the sand and took a few steps closer. The early rays of sunshine backlit him, giving him the unreal quality of an oil painting. A few strands of black hair fell on his forehead and a shadow of morning whiskers darkened the hollows of his face. The planes of his chest moved with each breath, a dusting of dark hair covering the muscles and angles of hard flesh.
He was even more gorgeous than she remembered.
“I got your message,” he said softly as he approached her.
Her message?
A vision of blue on black flashed in her brain, and a shock wave rolled over her heart. The billboard. This couldn’t be happening.
This couldn’t be real.
She still hadn’t moved, but he stood in front of her. The water lapped around their legs, and the rising sun behind him warmed her face. He reached out and touched her cheek, then tunneled his fingers into the wet hair at the nape of her neck.
She parted her lips to speak, but no sound came out.
He took one more step and closed the space between them. Without a word, he guided her face toward his and kissed her. His lips were as warm and tender as she’d remembered, his mouth still hungry for her. Breaking the kiss, he flicked her lower lip with the tip of his tongue and Nicole thought she might drown in the next wave.
“I’ve been thinking about you, lady in blue,” he whispered.
“Mac?”
He glanced over his shoulder at his villa. “I saw you go in the water and I came straight to the endless white sand, exactly as instructed.”
Oh, God. He was MacDougall. She tried to swallow, but her throat closed in shock. “You’re the couple in 1601?”
“I’m the Mac.” He grinned and slid his hands down her bare, wet arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake. He laced his fingers through hers. “I was hoping we could be the couple.”
It was too much to fathom. He was in 1601. He’d come back. A distinct joy collided in her heart with another, peculiar feeling. Shame. He’d seen the ad and thought she’d placed it to find him.
He studied her expression and frowned. “I really checked in this time, so you can’t be mad at me.”
How could she tell him that anger didn’t propel her away from him? She couldn’t admit how much he’d affected her. “I’m not mad.” It was lame, but so was she at the moment.
“Of course not,” he said with a teasing glint in his eye. “You wouldn’t have bought that ad.”
“Oh.” She tried to sound dismissive and tug her hands out of his grip. “Don’t take that too seriously.”
He just held her hands tighter, pulling her toward him. “I take it very seriously. I like a woman who goes after what she wants.” His face was close enough for her to see the individual whiskers and smell the toothpaste she’d just tasted. “Especially when I want the same thing.”
“You…you do?”
He smiled slyly. “Pleasure in paradise. Like the ad says, only at Mar Brisas.”
“Uh, yes. That’s what it says.” A wave slapped against her thigh, threatening the stability of her shaky legs. He held on to her, but his gaze returned to her wet suit, making Nicole aware of the sheer fabric molded to her body.
“You look as good in white as you do in blue,” he said huskily.
She felt her body tighten under his scrutiny, the Lycra clinging relentlessly to every inch. She wanted to cross her arms and cover up. No one ever saw her in the revealing bathing suit; it was strictly for her morning walk and swim.
His eyes darkened lustily. “And as good wet as dry.”
Oh, he was smooth. Too damn smooth. “Stop it,” she said roughly, pulling away from his firm grip and embracing herself in the protection of her own arms. “Just stop it.”
He took a surprised step backward, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “You put up the billboard.”
“That wasn’t an appeal for sex.”
He dropped his jaw a little, then he broke into a grin. She knew what was coming next. Then what was it? Would she tell him the truth?
But the hard, masculine lines of his face softened. “Good.”
The single word threw her. “Good?”
“Very good.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head, looking down through thick lashes, just the way he had in the elevator before he kissed her. It was a sexy tilt. A cavalier, devil-may-care, I’m-going-to-eat-you-alive-in-a-minute tilt that took her heart for a wild ride.
“Why is that good?” she managed to ask.
“I don’t want sex.”
“You don’t?” A stab of disappointment warred with a rush of relief. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to get to know you.”
Oh no. Too smooth. This wasn’t real. This was more of a fantasy than his bare chest and bedroom eyes. This man could not be trusted. “You’re a liar.”
“Excuse me?” he choked out a laugh.
“You lied about being a guest.”
He shook his head. “I had every intention of registering, but there seemed to be a run on rooms while we were, uh, otherwise occupied.”
“Well, you’re lying now. About not wanting sex.” Of that she was sure.
He shrugged and broke into a deadly smile. “Guilty as charged. But I also want to know you better.”
She peered at him. God, she wanted to believe him. Because she wanted to know him better, too. “You thought if we were locked on the third floor long enough, we would have…”
His dark eyes smoked with lust. “We would have.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” She did, but no need to confirm it. “You don’t know me. And God knows, I don’t know you.”
“That’s the problem,” he said, taking her hand. “I want to know you. And as for me, I can tell you this much. I’m not a liar.” He held up her hand to his chest, laying it over his heart. It thumped in synchronization with hers. “What you see is what you get.”
She took a shaky breath. If what she saw was what she got, she was going to be one satisfied woman. “That whole encounter was really intense,” she finally whispered. “It left me dazed.”
“Me, too,” he said. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you for ten minutes.”
The words poured over her like the sun behind him.
“I almost wrecked when I saw the billboard.” His lips curled in an intimate half smile. Very intimate. “It really made me feel good that you wanted to see me again that much.”
An overdose of guilt surged through her veins. “Mac, please. It’s not what you think. I’m not this desperate single woman seeking—”
He lifted her fingers to his lips and feathered them with a kiss. “Shh. Don’t apologize.”
For one insane minute, Nicole thought maybe she wouldn’t tell him the truth. Was it such a bad thing that he thought she’d run the ad to find him? It worked. She found him.
He looked into her eyes. “I promise you, I’m no more a wolf who attacks women in elevators than you are an exhibitionist who hangs from the ceiling.”
Sanity and common sense started to slowly return to her numb brain. She’d have to explain everything. “I think we need to start over,” she said.
“Absolutely. Let me take you on a date.”
She took a watery step backward. “What kind of date?”
“A bona fide, pick-you-up-at-seven, wear-a-pretty-dress, eat-an-expensive-meal, walk-on-the-beach and make-out-for-hours date.”
“Mmm.” She bit her bottom lip. “I bet you look nice in a pretty dress.”
He laughed and took both her hands, pulling her into his chest. “Not as good as you do,” he whispered, wrapping her arms around him and clasping their hands together to lock her into place. His chest and abdomen were hot and solid and she had to look up to hold his gaze.
He reached down and kissed her nose. “Tell me yes.”
The little bit of sanity and common sense that had just made an appearance dissolved in an instant, replaced by a dizzying, addictive, irrational pleasure. Drunk with the sensation, she nodded.
“Then I will pick you up tonight at seven. What suite are you in or should I just knock on the ceiling of the elevator?”
She looked over his shoulder toward 1801. “I live there.”
“You live there?”
That instant, she remembered the meeting and jumped back with a gasp. Oh, God, she was going to be late to meet with Quinn McGrath. “I have to go,” she told him. “I have to be somewhere.” She couldn’t show up in her white bathing suit with wet hair.
He looked a little skeptical at her sudden change. She’d explain it to him tonight, not now. Her life, her very foundation, was crumbling and she couldn’t get sidetracked, even by this achingly attractive man in her arms. She’d tell him the truth about the ad tonight, she promised herself. She didn’t have time now.
“I really have to go,” she insisted.
“Okay.” With obvious reluctance, he let her go. “I’ll see you tonight. For our date.”
“I can’t wait.” The words brought such a blinding, sexy smile to his face that her throat closed over a tiny gasp of surprise. What an amazing man. She’d been all wrong about him. He was honest. He was the real deal. She shouldn’t be scared. She’d find out everything about him tonight.
She scooped up her gauze dress from the sand and started jogging toward her villa. As she neared the stairs, she stole a glance back, thrilled to see him standing there, watching her. “Bye, Mac,” she called over her shoulder.
“Wait!” he suddenly yelled. “I don’t know your name!”
She giggled and ran to the top stair, pausing at the railing to look at him. She impulsively blew him a two-handed kiss and stretched her arms toward him, feeling like Juliet on the balcony. “Tonight!” she called.
He grinned and touched his fingers to his lips and sent her his kiss in return.
Romance was definitely in the air at Mar Brisas and Nicole Whitaker was going to inhale every breath of it.
“Where the hell is he?”
Nicole tapped her desk and looked at the clock again. All her determination to give the guy a chance was evaporating rapidly. She’d raced through her shower and makeup, dressed in a rush, then jogged to the office, not even taking time to wallow in the thrill of seeing Mac again.
She’d decided to forego the power suit and wear one of her safe, crisply cut blouses to minimize, not accentuate, her assets. For some reason, she felt like saving those for someone more deserving than Quinn McGrath.
Who was more than fifteen minutes late.
“Sally,” she called out, unable to see Sally’s station at the front desk from her office, “please call that thoughtless, rude and arrogant bonehead of a tycoon and tell him my time is valuable, too.”
At that instant, Sally appeared in the doorway, and Nicole watched the color drain from her rosy cheeks at the comment. “Uh, he’s right here. With Mr. Northcott.”
Nicole made a horrified face as she heard a soft laugh from behind the wall.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been called worse.”
It took a moment to register the honeyed tone of her guest. Just long enough for him to step into her doorway and take her breath away.
Mac.
Mac. Standing before her wearing a white shirt, tie, navy jacket and a stunned expression that had to mirror hers.
She stared at him, unable to speak for the second time that day. And he stared back.
Tom Northcott came in behind him. “Nic?” The questioning tone in Tom’s voice had to be due to the dumb-founded look on her face. “Let me introduce you to Quinn McGrath.”
Slowly, she stood, hoping her wobbling knees could support her. She extended a shaky hand and was vaguely aware that he took it. How could he be Quinn McGrath? How?
“Quinn, this is Nicole Whitaker.”
Quinn’s grip tightened at her name and something akin to realization registered on his face.
“Nic is the owner and no doubt you saw her latest handiwork on your way into St. Joseph’s,” Tom continued. “That brilliant ad campaign for Mar Brisas.”
Suddenly, his gaze darkened from chocolate to charcoal as he dropped her hand and burned her with his unwavering stare. “Campaign for Mar Brisas?”
She wanted to look away. She wanted to jump over the desk and slap him. She wanted to scream.
He was Quinn McGrath? He was the man who was going to steal her memories and bulldoze her future?
Tom moved into the room, glancing from one to the other with his own look of confusion. “That ad sure is unconventional, I agree,” he said, sitting in a guest chair. “But reservations are up and that’s what she was trying to accomplish.”
“Well, congratulations on that,” Mac said coolly as he took the other chair, no smile evident on his face. Without looking away from Nicole, he dropped a manila folder on her desk. “But I can’t see how that will solve the problems with Mar Brisas.” He snapped open the file. “Miss Whitaker.”
The honey in his voice was gone, replaced by hard, cold steel as he said her name for the first time. Nicole tried to swallow, but her thumping heart had moved into her throat.
Tom leaned forward and looked at Mac. “Didn’t you think Nic’s campaign is clever, Quinn?”
“It certainly got my attention,” Mac said, finally dropping his gaze to the papers in front of him. “I actually thought it was real.” He looked up and stared directly into her eyes. “For a minute.”
Four
For the first time in his adult life, Quinn’s gut had let him down. Duped him. Taken him for a ride. Ate him up and spit him out.
He wasn’t mad at Nicole Whitaker. He allowed her name to roll around his head and cursed the fact that he’d made the stupid assumption that Nick was man. He’d never seen it in writing—his secretary had talked to Northcott’s secretary and the mistake was made. No, that wasn’t her fault. And as much as he wanted to let her have it for playing him as a fool, he knew who was to blame. This was his fault. His trusted instinct had gotten all fogged up by his hormones. All distorted by her body, her smile, her eyes. Her ad.
Such a grave mistake would never happen to Quinn McGrath again.
She looked guilty as hell, too. Her creamy skin had gone pale, and her luminous blue eyes had dulled to a flat slate gray. Guilty and more than a little ticked off. She was ticked off?
All of his assumptions about Nick Whitaker came crashing back to him. A scam artist, exploiting the system for his—or her—own benefit. It was impossible to associate those characteristics with…the Lady in Blue. They were two distinctly different beings.
Tom Northcott cleared his throat, apparently realizing that some real funky dynamics were going on in the room. Quinn rolled his shoulders, leaned back in the chair and eased into his negotiating mode. Cool and collected. The role came naturally and never failed him.
“Miss Whitaker.” He stopped and raised a dubious eyebrow. “It is Miss, isn’t it?”
She pierced him with a glare. “It is McGrath, isn’t it? Not MacDougall?”
He didn’t smile at the jab. He crossed his ankles, glancing at his shoes as though he was more concerned with their shine than the deal at hand. “Miss Whitaker, we’re prepared to make a very attractive offer, to you or the bank. Since you are dangerously close to foreclosure on this property due to your unwillingness to repair storm damage—”
“What?” She shot forward, the color returning to her cheeks with a vengeance. “Unwillingness?” She looked at Tom questioningly. “Haven’t you told him?”
Tom shook his head, and Quinn saw the warning in his eyes. “Your situation is confidential, Nicole. I would never presume to discuss that with a potential buyer.”
She opened her mouth to speak but Tom leaned forward, silencing her. “And I suggest you don’t, either.”
She closed her mouth as ordered. He stole a glance at Northcott, a crisp yuppie-looking type with thinning brown hair and nondescript eyes behind thick glasses. She must trust this guy.
Nicole bit her bottom lip, which yanked Quinn’s attention back to her. He zeroed in on the sight of her pouty mouth, remembering the taste of salt and sea when he’d kissed her in the water that morning. And the way her incredible body looked and felt, soaking wet and warmed by his presence. A familiar tightness threatened his crotch and he shifted in his chair, clenching his jaw to will it away. He would not think with anything but his brain anymore.
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