The Executive's Valentine Seduction / Valente Must Marry: The Executive's Valentine Seduction

The first crack of a high-powered, laser-guided sniper rifle sent the swallows flapping. Caro stood well back from the firing line, her ears shielded by cushioned protectors, and felt her jaw drop when a spotter more than a mile and a half downrange signaled back a direct hit.

Even more astonishing was the so-called ice shield. Caro never did grasp the physics involved. Somehow the device activated an intense negative ion field around the target. The hyperactive ions sucked the velocity from most of the bullets fired at the target from various distances. Enough got through, however, for Rory to admit with a wry grin that the device required further testing before being fielded.

After Harry demonstrated the paraclete vest, the GSI agents took turns at the firing line testing an assortment of handguns and ammo. Caroline had no idea she would be included in the live fire exercise until they took a break and Rory beckoned her forward.

“Ever fired one of these?”

She glanced at the blue-steel subcompact nestled in his palm and shook her head. “Nothing that small. I went quail hunting with my father a few times. His double-barrel shotgun just about knocked me flat.”

“Given the high-profile clients your firm caters to, a working knowledge of handguns might come in handy.”

“I sincerely hope not!”

“We’ll start with the basics,” he said, calmly brushing aside her objections. “This is the safety. Always check to make sure it’s on before handling your weapon.”

Fifteen minutes later, Caroline found herself standing between Sondra and Abdul-Hamid on the firing line, peering through shatterproof goggles at a paper target strung from a wire twenty yards away. A borrowed ball cap blocked the sun’s glare. Heavyduty protectors shielded her ears.

Rory stood directly behind her, his body leaning into hers as he corrected her stance. “Don’t square off and face the target like that. You won’t get good front-to-back balance. You want to form a pyramid, with your power leg forward.”

“Which one is my power leg?”

“You’re right-handed. You’ll naturally favor your right leg. Now angle your pelvis at forty-five degrees to the target. A little more.”

Oh, sure! Like she could think pyramids and angles with his hands on her hips and her rear jammed against the fly of his jeans.

“With an automatic, you want to use what we call a ‘crush’ grip. The harder you hold the weapon, the less it will kick.”

“A tight grip also lessens the chance some sleazebag can knock it out of your hand,” Sondra volunteered.

Caroline diverted her attention long enough to see that a circle of interested observers had gathered to watch the lesson. Then Rory reached around her to steady her arms, and every nerve in her body snapped back to the task at hand.

“Use your thumb to release the safety. That’s it. Now tuck your thumb and focus on the front sight. You want to pull the trigger straight back. Squeeze it or roll it. Don’t jerk it. All set?”

“I think so.”

He dropped his arms and stepped back. “Fire when ready.”

Her first shot went wide of the target and kicked her arms up. The second wasn’t much better. With cordite stinging her nostrils, Caroline scowled, tightened her grip and squinted through the front sight.

The next three shots peppered the edges of the target silhouette. The sixth and seventh hit dead center. Cheers and hoots erupted from the observers as Caro lowered the weapon and engaged the safety.

“You’re a natural,” Rory said after he’d taken charge of the automatic.

“Beginner’s luck.”

“Trust me. Not all beginners can find a target.”

His smile of approval stayed with Caro all the way back to the resort. She felt it almost as much as the disturbing aftereffects of her close encounter with his zipper.

It took Caroline the rest of the evening and most of the night to comprehend her inexplicable reaction every time Rory got within striking distance. When she padded into the bathroom just before seven the next morning and braced her hands on the marble sink, she had it all figured out.

“It’s simple,” she told the tangled-haired woman in the mirror. “The man represents temptation. Danger. Forbidden desire. Everything you’ve gone out of your way to avoid in the years since high school.”

She’d worked so hard to suppress her past. With deliberate intent, she’d chosen a nice, safe profession. Dated nice, safe men. Established a nice, safe routine. Not until she’d gotten together with Sabrina and Devon last year and taken a hard look at her life did Caro realize she’d mortgaged her future to her past.

Quitting her job and joining forces with her friends to launch EBS had been a major step in a new direction. Admitting that Rory Burke still turned her on after all these years was another.

“There,” she threw at the face in the mirror, “you’ve acknowledged it. You want his touch.”

She wanted more than that. With brutal honesty, she could admit she wanted his mouth and hands and lean, hard body all over hers. The realization shook her right down to her core. It also made her turn to the two friends she’d come to depend on for support and advice.

Whirling, Caro stalked back into the bedroom and flipped up the lid of her laptop. She caught her business partners at their computers, checking morning e-mail. A few clicks later, she had their faces displayed side by side. Devon’s hair lit up the laptop’s screen in a blaze of dark red. Sabrina raked a hand through her tumble of blond curls and demanded an instant update.

“So what’s happening with Burke? Have you hauled off and decked him yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“I’m still available to do the job for you. So is Marco, by the way.”

“And Cal,” Devon put in.

Oh, sure. That’s all Caroline needed. Their two bristling males confronting a former Army ranger and all-around tough guy.

“The situation has, uh, changed a little.”

“Changed how?”

She tapped a nail on the laptop keyboard. How to explain this insidious heat, this growing hunger, to friends who had watched her put her emotions on total lockdown for so many years?

“The thing is, I’m…er…sort of…attracted to Rory.”

Talk about understatements, Caro thought ruefully as the two faces on the laptop screen took on looks of almost identical astonishment. While they were still struggling to recover, she told them about the kiss that followed her dip in the ocean and the itchy feelings that had almost consumed her at the firing range yesterday.

“The conference wraps up tomorrow morning,” she said. “Part of me wants to just crawl in a hole until Rory leaves for the airport in the afternoon. But there’s this other confused, completely idiotic part that doesn’t want him to go.”

“Well,” Sabrina said after a long silence, “sounds like there’s something between you and this guy Burke. Call it unfinished business or chemistry or plain old-fashioned lust, the fact that it revved to life after more than a decade says something.”

“I know! But what?”

“Beats me. Dev, what do you think?”

Devon pursed her mouth to one side. Like Caro and Sabrina, she’d made her share of mistakes, most notably the brief marriage to her jerk of an ex. She hadn’t expected to tumble into love with Cal Logan, EBS’s first big client. Dev still pinched herself every day to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Caroline suspected that’s why she took her time before slowly replying.

“I think…I think Sabrina may be right. This unexpected reunion has stirred emotions you’ve tried to repress for years. Maybe you should get them out of your system once and for all. Or more precisely get Burke out of your system.”

“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“Look, you said you’re still attracted to him. I suspect in your mind you still see the young stud who fed your adolescent fantasies. The man he is now may not live up to those fantasies, but there’s only one way to find out.”

“Hot, mindless sex.”

“If that’s what your instincts are telling you. Go with them, Caro. See where they take you.”

“We all know where they took her last time,” Sabrina protested.

“She was seventeen and a virgin. She’s a lot older this time around.”

“Thanks,” Caroline drawled.

“You know what I mean.”

That was just it. She did.

“One thing is for sure,” she vowed. “Whatever happens between Rory and me will not include unprotected sex. I’m still on the pill, thank God.”

She’d never gone off it after nice, safe Ernie. Even then she’d insisted they use condoms. Nothing like a healthy dose of paranoia to flavor a relationship.

“So,” Sabrina mused, “the real question is whether whatever happens between you and Burke will include any kind of sex.”

Caro blew out a sigh. “At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

Five

Rory initiated the next phase of Operation Caroline Walters early on the third day of the conference.

This particular objective required that he get her alone. Away from all distractions. Out from under the curious eyes of his people. He’d planned a private dinner in his suite to “discuss” conference business, but the phone call he received that morning from a potential client in Barcelona provided a much better target of opportunity.

Snapping his cell phone shut, he went looking for Caroline and Harry Martin. He found them together, conferring over yet another addition to the schedule. The kick to his gut when he noted the silky tendril that had escaped her neat twist and curled at her nape resolved any doubts about his course of action.

Harry looked up at his approach and sensed instantly that something was up. The man knew him too well, Rory thought wryly.

“Hey, boss. Need something?”

“Yeah, I do. Check out a guy named Juan Casteel for me. He owns a shipping company based in Barcelona.”

“Juan Casteel.” He jotted down the name. “What’s his angle?”

“He says he needs more protection.”

“Who doesn’t?” Harry muttered.

“Casteel found out I’m in Spain and wants to meet with me. I’ve set up an appointment at his office for three this afternoon.”

“I’ll get on him.”

“Caroline, I need you to go with me. Casteel’s English is pretty heavily accented. I’d like a second set of ears to make sure I understand him.”

Rory ignored the quick glance Harry shot his way. “Pack an overnight bag,” he instructed his surprised conference coordinator. “Casteel said something about dinner at his place, so I could meet his wife and see the layout of his house. If they eat as late as most Spaniards, it’ll be too late to drive back tonight.”

Dinner or no dinner, Rory had already determined he and Caroline would not hit the road again tonight.

“Better make hotel reservations,” he told her. “We’ll take my rental car. I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon.”

She waffled, clearly uncertain and wary. He didn’t give her time to recover.

“Let me know what you dig up on Casteel, Harry.”

His deputy gave him a hard look before nodding. “Will do.”

Harry delivered a background dossier on Juan Casteel to Rory’s suite forty-five minutes later. The Spanish shipping magnate didn’t top the list of his priorities, however.

“Let’s have it, boss. What the hell are you up to with Caroline?”

Rory paused in the act of stuffing his shaving kit into his carryall. “What makes you think I’m up to anything?”

“Don’t give me that bull. I’m the one who kept your ass out of jail, remember?”

“How could I forget? You remind me at least once a month.”

Never one to mince words, the retired cop set his jaw. “Caroline’s a good kid, but she’s not in your league. You hurt her again, and you’ll answer to me.”

“Again?” Rory echoed softly.

“You think I’m getting senile or something?”

Disgusted, Harry tossed the background dossier to the bed beside the leather carryall.

“I knew there had to be some reason behind your insistence that her company handle this conference. I did a little digging. Didn’t take long to figure out you were the one who knocked her up.”

Wincing at the blunt assessment, Rory yanked on the zipper of his carryall. “Does it make any difference that I didn’t know I’d knocked her up?”

“Not to me. Or to her, I suspect. What’s your game?”

“It’s no game, Harry. I intend to atone for past sins.”

“How?”

He couldn’t lie to the man who’d become his conscience. “My first plan was a cash settlement. I know money wouldn’t make up for what she went through, but it could ease the future for her. If she wouldn’t accept it outright, I planned to disguise it by steering business her way. Now…”

Now all he could think of was how Caroline had looked in the moonlight. How she’d tasted, so warm and salty. How much he wanted to taste her again.

“I’m thinking maybe a more permanent arrangement.”

“Like marriage?”

“Maybe.”

“Little late for that, isn’t it?”

“Better late than never. Besides, we both know I would have made a rotten husband back then. I was too young and too much of a wiseass.”

“You won’t get any argument from me on that. I’m curious, though. Why do you think you’ll make a better husband now? You haven’t spent more than a few weeks in that empty barn you call home in the past year. Then there’s the little matter of your line of work.”

With a jerk of his chin, Harry indicated the scars webbing the back of Rory’s hand.

“Think you can bust in car windows and haul clients out of burning vehicles indefinitely?”

“Yeah, well, that’s part of my rationale.”

Rory glanced down and made a fist. He hadn’t been able to perform that simple act for months after the job in Seattle went sour.

“We both know the odds, Harry. The higher the profile of our clients, the greater the chances we’ll take a hit along with them. Conversely, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. I’ve got more money in the bank than I can spend in two lifetimes.”

“And no one to leave it to,” his longtime friend and mentor guessed shrewdly, “except the half dozen charities that hit you up on a regular basis. So you’re going to make Caroline a rich widow.”

“Not anytime soon, hopefully. But one way or another, she’ll be set for life.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Harry said, “what makes you so sure Caroline will have you?”

“I’m not sure at all. But there’s something between us that just won’t die. A spark. A flame. Whatever. It’s been smoldering all these years.”

“Yeah, I noticed you out there on the beach the other night, fanning the fire.” He palmed his salt-and-pepper buzz cut and eyed Rory thoughtfully. “Have you told her about your plans for her future?”

“Not yet.”

“When are you planning to spring them on her?”

“I’m not sure. Tonight, maybe, in Barcelona.”

Harry nodded once, slowly. “I repeat, kid. Hurt that girl again and you’ll answer to me.”

“Understood. Now give me a quick recap of what you dug up on this guy Casteel.”

Caroline decided the meeting with Rory’s high-powered prospective client required more professional attire than the semicasual outfits she’d worn at the conference. She changed into black pumps, her slim black skirt with its matching jacket worn over an aqua silk tank.

She was glad she’d made the switch when Rory met her in the lobby. He, too, had changed and was once again the consummate executive in a hand-tailored charcoal-gray suit and silk tie. He looked almost like a stranger again until his amber eyes met hers and a frisson of unsettling sensation rippled down her spine.

“Ready?”

At her nod, he took her overnight bag and carried it with his to the silver BMW waiting at the front entrance. The smiling valet opened the door for her. It closed with a well-mannered thud, shutting her and Rory in a cage of cloud-soft leather and high-performance engineering.

Caroline said little during the drive into the city. As they sped along the A7 Autopista, snippets from her early-morning colloquy with Devon and Sabrina kept replaying inside her head.

Time’s running out.

Do I go with my instincts or play it smart and safe this time?

Her fingers tightened on the directions Señor Casteel had provided to his downtown office. She slanted a glance at the man beside her and found only traces of the teenager she’d hungered for in his rugged profile.

This Rory Burke was so different and so dangerously compelling. The square chin, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the nose with the flattened bridge—each of the parts added up to a whole that made Caroline’s adolescent desire pale by comparison to the hunger he roused in her now.

It hit her again, a hot rush of desire that made her belly clench and anticipation whip through her like wildfire. They had tonight, she thought. Alone. In a city made for lovers.

Go with your instincts.

See where they take you.

He turned then and met her gaze. Those wolf’s eyes seemed to burn right through her. “Is this it?”

“Wh-What?”

“C-33.” He tipped his head toward the green highway sign flashing by. “Isn’t this where we cut off?”

“Oh. Right. C-33.”

Jerked back to her self-appointed navigator duties, Caroline consulted the handwritten directions. Barcelona’s sprawling suburbs soon engulfed them, with accompanying traffic and noise.

“C-33 turns into Avenue Meridiana about a mile ahead. We stay on that until we hit Avenue Diagonal.” A brown sign snagged her attention. “The Diagonal takes us right past the Sagrada Familia.”

“The what?”

“The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s famous unfinished cathedral. It’s one of Antoni Gaudí’s masterpieces, along with La Pedrera and Casa Batlló.”

She clicked her tongue at his blank look.

“You said you’ve visited Barcelona twice before. Didn’t you see any of Gaudí’s work?”

“Not unless he built the bar where I spent the better part of a three-day pass.” His grin was quick and unrepentant. “I was still in the Army then. The next time I hit the city, I was on business. Landed at noon, left at seven that night. No time for sightseeing.”

“What a shame. Barcelona holds some of the world’s greatest architectural treasures. Maybe we can squeeze in a side trip or two while we’re here.”

“Maybe,” he agreed with a look she couldn’t quite interpret. “Looks like we’re coming up on Avenue Meridiana.”

In Caroline’s considered opinion, Barcelona was a world-class mecca for art lovers of all persuasions. On previous trips she’d spent hours in the Picasso Museum. One whole afternoon was occupied by wandering Montjuic, site of the 1929 World’s Fair and now filled with the wild and wonderful sculptures by Spain’s great Joan Miró. But Gaudí’s unfinished cathedral had truly left an indelible imprint on her.

Its towers appeared in the distance soon after they turned onto Avenue Diagonal, spearing into the blue sky with the soaring power of the apostles they were intended to represent. Eight additional towers were still under construction. Huge cranes had been an integral feature of the cathedral landscape since its foundation was laid in 1882.

Vowing to get Rory in for a closer look, Caroline directed him down Avenue Diagonal, then onto the city’s fashionable north-south artery, Paseo de Gracia.

“There’s the fountain Señor Casteel said to look for.” She pointed to the five-tiered sculpture shooting jets of silvery water high into the air. “His office building should be on the next block.”

Following the directions, Rory turned into an underground parking lot and pulled into the spot that had been reserved for him next to the elevators. Moments later, he ushered Caroline into an eighth-floor corridor flooded with light and stopped dead.

“What the hell is that? A giant chess set?”

She followed his startled gaze to the window at the end of the corridor. The sparkling glass gave a clear view of the rooftop of the building across the street.

“Those are chimneys and air vents!”

Thrilled, Caroline dragged him to the window for a closer look at the dozens of fanciful figures sprouting from the wavy roof. Below the modernistic sculptures was an art-deco-style apartment complex decorated with undulating wrought-iron balconies.

“That’s La Pedrera. A series of residences Gaudí designed for the Mila family in the early 1900s. He described the roof sculptures as sentinels in the sky.”

“Weird,” Rory muttered, fascinated despite himself.

“Ha! If you think those are weird, wait until you see his Casa Batlló. The balconies all look like skulls.”

“And you like this kind of architecture?”

“I love it.”

“No accounting for tastes,” he said with one of his quicksilver grins.

Caroline knew then she was in trouble. Major trouble. All the man had to do was flash that killer grin and she went gooey inside.

Just like last time, a voice in her head shouted. All those years ago. When he’d glance up, catch her watching him. One corner of his mouth would lift in a sardonic, knowing smile, and she would fall apart.

She’d ached for him then with a schoolgirl’s passion. There wasn’t anything the least girlish about the desire that now tightened Caroline’s nipples under the silk tank top and stirred a damp heat between her thighs.

Some of that wild hunger must have shown in her face. Rory’s smile lost its cocky tilt. The tanned skin stretched tight across his cheeks. He leaned in, his gaze holding hers, and brushed a knuckle over her cheek.

“Let’s go take care of business. All of a sudden I’ve got an uncontrollable urge to see more of this guy Gaudí’s crazy architecture.”

Architecture was the last thing on Rory’s mind as he escorted Caroline up the steps of Juan Casteel’s palatial town house later that evening.

He’d spent a good four hours in the shipping magnate’s office, pumping him for precise details regarding his business, his lifestyle, his current security arrangements and the threats that had prompted him to consider additional expertise.

Now, with the night breeze stirring the soft tendrils that had escaped Caroline’s smooth twist and her scent teasing his nostrils, he was seriously regretting that he’d agreed to mix business with pleasure for another few hours.

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