First Class Seduction

The blast of a taxi driver’s horn alerted Xavier that he had been at the Drop-off stand longer than allowed. “Hey. Gotta go,” he said to Ramón, who quickly opened the passenger-side door. “I’m blocking traffic and you’re gonna miss your flight. Later!”

“Yeah, later!” Ramón echoed. He shook his brother’s hand, got out and slammed the car door shut, but remained at the curb as Xavier nudged his luxury car into the long line of vehicles clogging the exit from Mexico National Airport.

Ramón adjusted his sunglasses and thought about his comment on the club scene last night. Not much was happening at Club Azule. Really? If that was the case, why did his encounter with the most attractive and intriguing woman he had ever danced with keep flashing like a Technicolor video in his brain?

Ramón turned and headed into the terminal, thinking about the weekend, glad he’d made the trip to see Xavier take an honored place in Mexico’s judicial system.

“Good for him,” Ramón murmured to himself, a deep sense of satisfaction coming over him. He admired his older brother very much, and the age gap between the two had seemed to narrow over the years. It was as if the older they got, the closer they became, and now, even though they lived more than a thousand miles apart, they talked, texted or e-mailed each other almost every day.

Just as he entered the terminal, Ramón’s cell phone rang, breaking into his mental musing. Checking the phone’s screen, he saw that Keith Harris, his business partner in Houston, was calling. Punching the trackball, he greeted Keith, and was upset to hear that the installation of a security system for a major furniture retailer in Dallas was a week behind schedule. As the co-owner of the high-tech security company, Vida-Shield, Ramón was constantly putting out fires.

“Who’s at fault—the site foreman or the supplier?” Ramón asked Keith, pissed off that one of his most complicated jobs was only half finished and already over budget.

“Both,” Keith replied.

“Need me to fly straight into Dallas, instead of coming home?” Ramón asked, knowing he could not let this situation deteriorate any further.

“No,” Keith said. “I’m on my way up there now. I’ll check in after I get a handle on what’s happening.”

“Good. I’m about to board my plane. I’ll call as soon as I land,” Ramón replied, thankful that he had such a competent and trustworthy business partner.

Inside the terminal building, Ramón scanned the flight board for the gate number for Globus-Americas Airlines flight 565, eager to get home to Houston and back to work. Maybe then, he’d be able to get last night’s dance-floor kiss out of his mind.

Chapter Four

Moving up from the rear of the plane with an armload of pillows, Lori left her fellow crewmembers, Sam and Allen, hanging out in the back to monitor the dwindling space in the overhead bins. She squeezed past passengers stuffing bags of all shapes and sizes into the narrow bins, knowing that space was going quickly. Soon, leftover bags would need to be checked back at the plane’s main cabin door, tensions would begin to mount and wrestling oversized duffel bags from surly passengers would begin. However, the one-hour, fifty-five minute flight from Acapulco to Houston, with a short stop in Mexico City, would give everyone plenty of time to calm down.

Boarding always produced the most problems, snafus and complaints during a flight, stressing out the flight attendants, whose main goal was to get carry-ons stowed and everyone seated as quickly as possible so the captain could depart on time.

As soon as Lori reached the first-class cabin, she handed the pillows to a family of four seated in the last two rows and then took their drink requests. Two sodas for the kids and two champagne mimosas for the parents. Lori nodded her understanding at the harried-looking mother who seemed to have struggled to get her sullen preteens settled into their seats.

While Phyllis prepared the drinks, Lori approached passengers seated in the emergency exit rows to determine if they were willing and able to assist in case of an emergency. Even though one of the passengers was quite elderly, the wiry little man assured Lori that he was up to the task.

When Lori returned to the first-class cabin, she met the agent working the flight. The agent handed her a copy of the manifest, which listed first-class passengers, passengers with special needs or meals, and any gate connections. She glanced at it, turned to face the passengers seated in the forward cabin and started her walk-through to get a head count.

However, she had not taken two full steps when she froze in the center aisle, her eyes riveted on the man sitting by the window in row 2, seat A. Was it possible? Was that her mysterious dance partner from the night before, calmly leafing through a magazine? Quickly, she checked the passenger list. Ramón Vidal—destination: Houston, Texas. Squinting at him, she did a double take. Yes, he was the man who’d burned her lips with his fiery kiss and branded her heart with an ache that wouldn’t go away.

Drawing in a calming breath, she moved right up to the edge of his seat to make sure he saw her. “Well, hello,” Lori said, trying to sound as casual as if she’d just run into a classmate from her college days, aware that everyone in first class would hear every word she said.

Ramón lifted his head, slid his sexy brown eyes up to hers and then hit her with the most adorable half smile Lori had ever seen, making her body tense and her nerve endings flare.

“Well…hi. You work here?” Ramón asked, looking bewildered as he glanced around, half turning in his seat.

“That’s right. I’m Lori, your flight attendant and I’ll be taking care of you during our flight to Houston.” Even though the plane hadn’t left the tarmac yet, her insides were tumbling around as if they’d entered a rough patch of turbulence. She held on to the nearest seat back to maintain her balance and looked down at the manifest again, determined to hold her emotions together. “Uh, so, you’re Mr. Vidal, right?” she inquired, shifting her attention back to Ramón, thankful that no one was sitting beside him.

“Yes, that’s me…but you can call me Ramón,” he offered, giving Lori a wink that revved her pulse like a jet engine preparing to take off.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, slipping into her perkiest passenger-request mode, knowing she couldn’t ask him what was really zipping through her brain: Why did you kiss me and disappear? Why did you have to wind up on my flight? Why are you making me so damn nervous? Would you like to go dancing again?

“Oh…sure. Coffee. Black.” Ramón paused, reconsidered and then added, “And a Bloody Mary, too. Extra spicy.” He lifted his index finger, as if to stop her from moving on, his half grin exploding into a full-blown smile. “I hope you enjoyed yourself at the club last night. I sure did.” He rested his head against the back of his seat. A glittering ray of sunlight streamed through the cabin window and lit the teardrop earring in his left ear.

“Yes, I did have a good time,” Lori murmured, not about to expand on the topic as she pivoted away from Ramón and turned to the passengers across the aisle.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked the Middle Eastern couple sitting across from Ramón. As soon as they’d given Lori their order, Ramón leaned across the empty seat next to him and forced Lori to glance back.

“So, you’re gonna give me first-class service all the way, right?” he teasingly called over to her.

Lori sent a scowl of warning at Ramón, whose sensuous expression was begging her to forget about helping the other passengers and sit down beside him so they could chat. But that would never happen. She had too much to do to let him become a distraction.

“Yes, sir, first-class service all the way,” Lori replied with a mental jerk, her words clipped and tight. “If you need anything at all during the flight, Mr. Vidal, don’t hesitate to ask,” she finished, ignoring his request for her to call him by his first name. “Globus-Americas wants you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Thanks, I’m sure you’ll do everything to my satisfaction,” he assured her, pinning Lori with that same dark look he’d zapped her with in Club Azule.

Once they were airborne, Lori got busy serving passengers, but couldn’t escape Ramón’s insistent attempts to monopolize her attention. If she paused by his seat, he made some remark about his love of Acapulco and how much he looked forward to visiting the city again. When she bent down to hand him a drink, he would add a tidbit about some place she should try to see the next time she was there. As she walked up and down the aisle during meal service, he had no problem stopping to make some new request. Another Bloody Mary. A more interesting magazine. A pillow, please? More coffee. Help with the earpiece before the movie came on.

As the miles slipped by and the plane zoomed toward Houston, Lori grew more and more irritated, yet intrigued, by the man who seemed to want to become her new best friend. Or more than that, she decided, amused with his determination to attract her attention and occupy her time.

Deep into the flight, Phyllis squeezed past Lori with a food tray and threw her a What-in-the-world-is-going-on? kind of look. Lori cut her eyes and jerked her head toward the galley, where she cornered Phyllis and confessed everything. “That’s one of the guys I danced with at the club last night. We danced and then…well, he kissed me and walked away.”

“Kissed you and disappeared?” Phyllis probed, touching her tongue to her upper lip as she refilled a coffee cup for the father of the still-sulking preteens. “Come on, Lori. More than a dance and a kiss must have happened,” Phyllis said. “Mr. Vidal is practically undressing you with those gorgeous brown eyes, and anyone looking at him can tell the guy is totally smitten with you. What went on that you aren’t telling me?”

“Nothing else, I promise,” Lori groaned, placing china and glassware on a tray. “And the kiss was not that much of a deal, really. Anyway, I never thought I’d see him again.”

“But there he is, chatting you up and feeling you up with his eyes.”

“Kinda looks that way, huh?” Lori admitted, feeling as if Ramón Vidal were still staring at her.

“Damn straight. So what are you going to do?”

“About what?” Lori tossed back.

“About him! I have to admit he is kinda sexy. Why don’t you find out what you can about him while you have him captive?”

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to go out there and grill him for information.”

“Oh, go on. Just talk to him. He might be a keeper.”

Lori snapped a white linen napkin at Phyllis, like a punctuation mark to end their conversation. “Please. I am not looking for a keeper and you know it.”

“Hey, don’t be so sure. Everybody needs somebody, sometime, Miss Play-the-Field. I’ve been widowed for ten years, but I knew what it was like to have a good man in my life. You deserve that, too.”

“I’m not about to rush things.”

“I understand your concern about getting involved again after what you went through with Devan Parker, but your I-don’t-want-to-be-attached attitude ought to be wearing thin by now. Go on. Your mystery man is so eager to talk…See what you can find out about him.”

Muttering an unintelligible reply, Lori finished preparing her tray and then headed out to serve her passengers.

Once food service ended, the crew tidied the cabin and dimmed the lights for in-flight movie and TV-watching. Taking advantage of the break, Lori returned to the forward galley to stash supplies while Phyllis headed to the rear of the plane to see if the guys in the back needed help getting their passengers settled in for the rest of the flight.

“Mind if I stand here and stretch my legs for a minute?”

Lori’s head whipped around. “Oh. No,” she told Ramón, not totally surprised to see him standing in the galley entry, coffee cup in hand. “Be my guest,” she added. “It’s a good idea to get up and walk around.”

“I don’t know about walking around…all I want to do is stay right here and talk to you.” His velvet-smooth voice was low and controlled.

“Yeah? About what?” Lori asked in a flirtatious manner, deciding that Phyllis might be right. Maybe it was time to put old fears behind her and stop throwing roadblocks in front of every man who threw out a pickup line.

The hum of the jet engines filled the silence as Ramón considered how to answer. He wanted Lori to talk about herself—to tell him what she liked, what she wanted, what his chances were of getting closer to her. But why would she tell all to a stranger she’d only just met in a club the night before? No, the best way to get her to open up was for him to open up first.

“Why don’t I tell you a little about myself?” he started, taking the easiest route.

Lori shut the door to the microwave oven, nodded her approval and smiled. “Sure. What would you like me to know about you?”

“That I’m single, straight, and I work hard every day.”

“Oh? Doing what?” Lori asked.

“Keeping people safe,” Ramón replied.

“Interesting. Were you in Mexico on vacation?”

“No, visiting my brother, Xavier. He’s just become a district judge in the state of Guerrero.”

“Good for him. So your brother lives in Acapulco?” Lori asked.

“Right. In a spectacular house on the bay.”

“Then you’re…I guess…you’re Mexican?”

Ramón chuckled at Lori’s hesitation to probe deeper into his ethnicity. His bronze skin, dark wavy hair and lack of an accent often left people confused about where he was from. While growing up in Houston, classmates and teachers had called him everything from mixed-race black, to Italian and even Middle Eastern, and he had learned over the years not to take offense, but to speak with pride about his Mexican-American heritage.

“Born and raised in Texas. My parents emigrated to the United States from Mexico and became naturalized citizens before I was born. My mom passed away a few years back, but my dad still lives in Houston. Only a few miles from me.”

“You said something about keeping people safe. Are you a policeman?” Lori asked.

“No, I own a security company. Alarms, burglar systems, that kind of stuff. It’s called Vida-Shield Security. My partner and I specialize in state-of-the-art systems for residences, businesses and government agencies.”

“So…if I ever needed protection, you’d be the one to call?” Lori joked.

“Absolutely. Here’s my card. As it says right there…We’re experts at keeping strangers out of your home.”

“That’s funny,” Lori tossed back, chuckling softly as she scanned his business card and read from it, “Let the experts keep strangers out of your home.” Again, a low laugh escaped her throat.

Her humorous response took Ramón by surprise, and he watched her closely as he asked, “What’s so funny about alarm systems, burglar bars and passcodes to stop criminals in their tracks?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that Globus-Americas’ motto is, “‘We’re experts at making strangers feel at home.’”

Ramón fingered his earring, smiling. I’d sure like to let her make me feel at home, he thought, determined to make headway while he had the chance because once they landed, they would go their separate ways and maybe never see each other again. He had to make an impression that would last beyond the moment the plane hit the ground. “Well, I can certainly testify that you do your job well,” he replied. “And I hope we won’t be strangers very long.”

Lori gave him a look that sent a ripple of anticipation through Ramón when she tossed her head back and tucked his card into the skirt pocket of her uniform. “Never know when I might need a safety check,” she teased, breaking the sexual tension that was connecting them like an invisible length of wire.

Ramón stepped closer to Lori, filling the tiny galley with his frame and blocking her from leaving. Attracting women had never been a problem for Ramón, but he was very choosy about the ones he dated. He didn’t go out a lot, but when he did, he made sure he spent time with women who intrigued, attracted and impressed him. Lori did all three, in a big way, and getting to know her was going to be a pleasure. He placed two fingers on the side of Lori’s neck, bent down and brushed his lips over hers. “I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than keeping a woman like you safe from harm.”

Chapter Five

Twin rock waterfalls on either side of the entry to Brightwood Estates welcomed Lori home. As she drove up the cedar-lined road that wound its way toward her house, she admired the meticulous landscaping of her subdivision. Passing blooming oleanders, vibrant crepe myrtles and colorful hibiscus as large as dinner plates, she congratulated herself once again on buying her house when she did, because real estate prices had soared in the past four years. Five minutes from Bush Intercontinental Airport, her neighborhood was convenient, quiet and strategically located near one of north Houston’s largest shopping malls.

Lori swung into the driveway of her two-story, Tuscan-style home and beeped her horn at Brittany Adams, her next-door neighbor, who was outside clipping roses from the bright pink bushes blossoming in front of her mini-French chateau.

Brittany had become Lori’s friend as soon as the two women met and discovered that they were sorority sisters. Brittany was a former teenage TV celebrity who had starred in a black family sitcom similar to the Cosby show. Cast as a sassy, smart, but devious teenager, she had helped push the sitcom to number one in the ratings with her crazy antics, near-potty-mouth one-liners, and troublemaking schemes. However, the show ran its course, and was canceled, throwing sixteen-year-old Brittany into a tailspin that left her confused, drug-addicted and broke. A six-month stint in rehab ended her dependence on prescription painkillers. After winning a nasty lawsuit against her stepfather/ manager, she left Hollywood for Houston with a hefty bank account, determined to live a “normal” life.

Now, at thirty, Brittany was no longer the gawky teenager with braces and corkscrew curls who had exploded on the small screen with an angelic brown face and a tongue as tart as acid. Leaving Hollywood, she had gone to great lengths to transform her looks so that no one would ever recognize her as the child star gone wild, and she loved the anonymity that came with her new life. Now she was a stylishly slim, mature young woman who sported a chic short hairstyle, designer jeans and beaded T-shirts, even to do her gardening. She lived very well off her syndication royalties, shopped at high-end stores, drove a silver Jag and insisted that her California rat-race lifestyle was behind her, even though she was writing the pilot for a show about a female detective—a series in which she hoped to star.

“Hey, how’s it going, Brit?” Lori called over after lowering her window. “Your roses are beautiful, as always. My mother would be so envious. Her roses aren’t doing that well this year.”

Brittany clipped one more bud, waved it at Lori, and then approached her car. “Tell her to hang in there. Dallas is gonna get its share of rain this week.” She cocked her head at Lori in a questioning pose. “So you’re back already?” Brittany remarked while pulling off her gardening gloves to examine her fancy manicure for chips. Today, her ever-changing nail design was an intricate, multihued Indian pattern in various shades of blue.

“It was a short run. No stop in Mexico City this time. Came straight through from Acapulco.”

“How’d it go?” Brittany asked, now focusing on her neighbor instead of her nails.

“Really kinda strange.”

“Strange? How?” Brittany asked.

“Well, there was this guy on the plane…I danced with him at a club in Acapulco the night before and this morning, there he was…on my flight! And he started coming on to me like crazy.”

“You call that strange?” Brittany quipped. “Please. Call it good luck…that is if he’s got it goin’ on.”

Lori grinned. “He had it goin’ on all right.”

“Good. So what happened? You gonna see him?”

“I dunno. I’ve gotta think this one through. I can’t jump in too fast and have another situation, you know?”

“Uh-hmm,” Brittany murmured in agreement. “After Devan…I do understand.”

“Anyway, we left it at a handshake at the airport, but I do have his card,” Lori replied, not quite ready to share her true feelings about her encounter with Ramón. Besides, she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She only knew that his kiss had shaken her up and awakened feelings she wanted to explore. The man’s image was taking up residence in her head, and Lori was sure they’d meet again one day. She stretched her neck, tilted her head to one side and gave Brittany a choppy wave. “Gotta go…I’m exhausted.”

“After you get some rest, come over for dinner. You remember Janice and Tom Evans—the newlyweds who just moved in over on Willow Trails?”

“Yeah, nice couple.”

“Well, I invited them over for dinner yesterday. We barbecued. I’ve got plenty of leftover chicken and ribs.”

“Umm, sounds great. Think I will take you up on that,” Lori decided, pressing the remote to raise her garage door.

After parking her car, Lori grabbed her luggage and entered her house through the connecting door that led into the kitchen. Leaving her rolling bag by the entryway, she went to the back window and opened the plantation blinds to let some light into the room. Turning around, she reached for her bag, but stopped dead in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes.

“My God. What happened here?” she hissed under her breath, though a scream was rising fast in her throat. The sight that greeted Lori was shocking, terrifying. Her heart thumped in fear as she eyed the scene in terror.

Swirls of bright blue paint were splattered over every surface of the room. The glass tabletop was smeared with a childish finger-paint scrawl, as were the granite kitchen countertops, the stainless-steel refrigerator and the center butcher-block island. Even the imported Italian wall tiles that Lori had paid entirely too much for, were emblazoned with jagged symbols and lines that made no sense at all. Thinking that the vandals might still be in the house, she quickly stepped back, eager to get out of the house before she became their next victim.

On her way out, Lori brushed her arm against the paint-splattered doorjamb, but saw nothing on her skin. Turning around, she stepped deeper into the room and slid a trembling finger over the blue graffiti on the front of the refrigerator, realizing that the vandals must have done their thing some time ago because all their trashy artwork was bone dry. Because of that, she doubted that anyone was still there.

More angry than frightened, she ran toward the front of the house, stuck her head into her champagne-and-sage-hued bedroom and gaped at the bright yellow stripes painted down the middle of her satin, queen-size bedspread. Lumps of the same color paint had dripped onto the carpet and dried into lumpy pools that looked like ugly egg yolks. Stepping around the mess, she peeked into her master bath and cursed out loud. “Damn, damn, damn!” The glass in her antique oval mirror had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the vanity and the floor.

From the bedroom, Lori hurried to inspect the rest of the house, including closets and jewelry boxes and found that, luckily, there was no more damage and no valuables missing. Infuriated, she punched 911 into her cell phone and screamed at the operator who answered.

“I need the police! Right away! My home has been vandalized!” she shouted, unable to control the adrenalin pushing her emotions into overdrive.

“My address?” Lori gulped down her fear and centered her thoughts, forcing herself to focus. “Fifty-two-seventy-one Falls Trail Drive.”

“The police are on the way. Are you hurt?” the operator wanted to know.