Bending to the Bachelor's Will

“Because I didn’t know Octavia would make this personal. Besides, me buying you was your idea, remember? My plan was to leave the auction alone tonight.”

He lowered himself beside her on his coat. Their shoulders and thighs brushed. Sparks ignited, but he ignored them. Tried to, anyway. He saw where this was headed and couldn’t see any way to avoid it. “Your recommendation?”

“We go through the motions. If Octavia is around then I want you to treat me exactly like any other date. If we’re lucky she’ll soon lose interest in torturing me. If luck’s against us then it’s only eleven dates. We’ll survive. Somehow,” she said with a total lack of enthusiasm.

She’d survive dating him? The comment ripped the scab off his wounded pride, and Priscilla’s comment echoed in his head. The only place you don’t bore me is in bed. If he’d bored his traditional-minded ex-fiancée, then he’d turn a free spirit like Holly comatose, and her friend would report it in the paper. Another public humiliation.

Damned if he dated Holly. Damned if he didn’t. “I can’t treat you like my other dates.”

“Why in the heck not? Am I such a toad?”

She was far from a toad, but commenting on her unique beauty would be unwise. “I sleep with most of the women I date by the third evening, if not sooner.”

Her lips parted and then closed. Her throat worked as she gulped. “Not this time, pal. You got the raw end of the deal. I’m not your type.”

“Nor I yours, I imagine.”

A smile played over her lips. “Not even close. But it’s just dinner and stuff, right? What can go wrong?”

What indeed?

As if in answer to the question, the automatic sprinklers erupted. After a shocked gasp Holly looked skyward. “That was a rhetorical question.”

She snatched up her shoes and then zigzagged through the spurting nozzles like a running back headed for the goal line. Eric grabbed his coat and jogged after her. She stopped on the sidewalk edging the parking lot. Her hair and gown were drenched and plastered to her body. Grass clippings clung to her bare feet and mascara streaked down her cheeks, but instead of complaining Holly laughed and once again looked skyward.

“This is what I get for trying to pull a fast one on my friends? Okay, okay, I get it. I’m sorry.”

Eric couldn’t think of a single woman he’d ever known who would have had anything less than a complete meltdown over having her evening and probably her dress ruined. He extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Holly.

“Thanks.” She blotted her face. Droplets glistened on her eyelashes as she grinned up at him. “I don’t suppose you have a beach towel tucked in there do you?”

That unabashed grin twisted something in his gut. He caught himself grinning back. “Not tonight.”

Gravity carried a rivulet over her collarbone and between her breasts. His gaze followed and his smile faded. Wet fabric molded Holly’s body, tenting over her beaded nipples and dipping into her navel. He’d found her satiny dress sexy before, but seeing the fabric adhered to her curvaceous damp body like a second skin ratcheted his response up a level—right into the danger zone. He swallowed hard.

And that’s when it hit him. He’d miscalculated.

His safe way out of the auction had become a minefield of trouble.

Two

Dumped and deserted. A situation with which Holly was becoming all too familiar for her liking.

She shoved her wet hair off her face, plucked at her stuck-on dress and faced Eric. Water had turned his white silk shirt almost transparent. She could see the dark whorls of his chest hair and even the small brown circles of his nipples. Warmth she couldn’t blame on the humid June evening settled low in her belly.

Good grief. You’ve seen him without a shirt before. That might have been years ago, but still, what’s the big deal? Shaking off the unwanted fascination, she met his gaze. “Could you give me a ride home? It appears my cohorts have abandoned me.”

Looking tall, dark and better than any male model she’d sketched in her university Live Art class, Eric motioned toward a black Corvette. “Certainly. We still haven’t finalized the repayment of your substantial bid.”

A smug smile twitched the corners of his mouth. Holly rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and gloat. I know you’re dying to.”

He smiled and looked so much like the guy she’d had a crush on in her teens that it sucked the breath from her lungs. “I’ve never been happier to waste fifteen thousand dollars.”

She snorted. “You guys and your egos. I should have let Prissy have you.”

His smile vanished, and she wondered if having his ex-fiancée join in the bidding had surprised him as much as it had her. Or maybe he’d wanted her to let Prissy win him?

“Thank you for outbidding her.”

Holly tried to gauge his sincerity, but couldn’t. Had he loved Priscilla Wilson? Had his heart been broken when she’d dumped him so cruelly? Or was his sister right? Juliana swore her brother couldn’t squeeze a drop of emotion out of his calculator heart with a juicer. “I promised and, good or bad, I always keep my promises.”

He opened the passenger door and cupped Holly’s elbow as she lowered herself into the leather seat. She wished he’d quit touching her. Each time he did, something tightened and twisted inside her.

She directed him toward her house and twenty minutes later he parked beside the white picket fence surrounding her home. She climbed from the car before Eric could open her door, and a chorus of barks reached them.

“It’s okay guys. It’s just me,” she yelled through cupped hands, and the barks turned from warning to welcoming.

Eric stood with his hands on his hips, appraising the farmhouse. Because she lived alone, Holly had installed several area lights to keep the yard well-lit. The scent of gardenias, honeysuckle and moon flowers saturated the humid night air.

“Not the ramshackle hovel you expected?”

His gaze landed on hers. “It’s nice.”

Pride filled her chest. Her maternal grandfather had built the house for his bride back in the 1930s. Since moving to the farm seven years ago, Holly had steadily made upgrades both inside and out as money permitted. She’d turned the barn where cows and horses used to take shelter into kennels with dog runs and converted the carport behind the house into her work studio. A local farmer leased all but ten of the five hundred acres and kept her supplied with all the corn, cucumbers and tomatoes she could eat.

She paused beside Eric at the base of the stairs leading to the wraparound porch. “I know what they say behind my back, you know. That I live out here in disgrace, exiled to my grandparents’ farm because I don’t know how to behave in polite society.”

Moonlight played off the sharp planes of Eric’s face, casting shadows beneath his cheekbones. “This doesn’t look like exile.”

“It isn’t. It’s home. C’mon in.” She climbed the steps and unlocked the front door.

She’d had men in her house before, but usually they were misfits like her. Eric, according to his sister, lived in a professionally decorated place in an upscale Wilmington waterfront community. Holly had learned from the wealthy housewives who’d taken her stained glass classes that even her extensive renovations couldn’t bring this old house up to yacht club neighborhood standards. But she loved her home, her refuge.

The front door opened into a miniscule foyer with stairs leading to the unfinished attic space directly ahead. When her grandparents had built the house, they’d intended to finish off the upstairs as the children and the need for additional bedrooms arrived, but they’d only had one child, Holly’s mother, so the expansion had never happened. Holly’s living room lay to the left and her bedroom immediately to the right. “Would you like coffee or something while I change?”

“No thanks.”

The sound of canine nails clicking on hardwood floors approached from the kitchen and then the mutts surrounded them. “Down, Seurat and Monet.”

“You named your dogs after painters?” Eric bent to scratch each dog’s scruff.

“Yes. Seurat is dotted and Monet’s colors blend with no defined lines. They’re staying inside while recovering from surgery. They need homes if you know anyone who’d love a mutt.” Fat chance of that. Eric’s contemporaries preferred purebreds.

“And you have them because…?”

“I live in the country. People dump their unwanted pets out here all the time, and then, of course, others have heard that I’ll foster unwanted animals, so…” She shrugged. “I have the vet check them over and neuter them and then I try to find someone to adopt them.” She gestured to the sofa and chairs. “Have a seat in the den. Give me a minute to get into some dry clothes and then we can work out the date details.”

Holly stepped into her bedroom, leaving Eric to find the den on his own, and pushed the door almost closed. She peeled off her damp, clingy dress and then draped it over the corner of her grandmother’s cheval mirror. The ceiling fan overhead stirred the air, causing chill bumps to rise on every inch of her body. She scrubbed her upper arms while she debated whether or not she had anything clean to wear. When had she done laundry last?

“I have to confess, Eric, that until the MC described your auction package I didn’t even know what your dates would be.” She raised her voice to be heard through the quarter-inch door gap as she bent over her T-shirt drawer. With her booming, un-ladylike voice—a curse, according to her parents—Eric would be able to hear her from the den.

And then she heard a familiar creaking hinge and straightened abruptly. Her gaze darted to the mirror. Seurat had pushed open her bedroom door, and Eric was not in her living room. Instead, he stood exactly where she’d left him, and right now he was getting an eyeful of her naked backside and a clear view of her front side reflected in the mirror.

Holly snatched the wet dress from the mirror, clutched it to her chest and spun around. But the wet fabric bunched and stuck and refused to cover what needed covering. Eric, damn him, didn’t look away. In fact, his dark gaze raked over every exposed inch of her skin.

Her heart stuttered like a jackhammer. “Excuse me.”

Holly lunged forward, shut the door, forcing it past the sticking upper corner and leaned against it. That hadn’t been revulsion in Eric’s eyes. Worse, the heat swirling in her stomach like a water spout didn’t remotely resemble shame or disgust.

The only thing worse than getting involved with another needy man would be getting involved with a man who came from a world where she’d been a complete failure, a world to which she’d have to crawl back amidst a chorus of “I told you so’s” if she couldn’t locate the ex-lover who’d suckered her into borrowing against her trust fund and loaning him money.

Oh, man, why hadn’t she broken her promise to buy Eric and bolted when she’d had the chance?

Promises were the pits.

Eric’s sister stormed through the office door early Monday morning without bothering to knock. “What are you doing?”

“Good morning, Juliana. I’m working on an account analysis to determine which of the branches we’ll have to consolidate when the merger goes through.” His sister had a vested interest in the Alden Bank and Trust-Wilson Savings and Loan merger—an interest she’d jeopardized Saturday night by buying the wrong bachelor. “One of us needs to think about the merger.”

Anger darkened Juliana’s complexion and glinted in her eyes. “I meant with Holly. Besides the fact that she’s my friend and therefore off-limits to you, how dare you take advantage of her generous nature by conning her into buying you? She deserves a man who’ll sweep her off her feet and treat her like the special person she is. You don’t know anything about romance.”

Her verbal stiletto nicked his ego. His ex-fiancée had shouted similar words and a few other choice phrases at him instead of the traditional “I dos” in front of their wedding guests right before she’d stormed back down the aisle. Alone and unwed.

“And what about you? You should have bought Wallace Wilson, your fiancé, instead of that bartending biker. You know what a tight-ass Baxter Wilson is and how concerned with appearances he can be. He’ll be offended that you didn’t buy his son. Did you even consider the ramifications of your actions before you chose unwisely, Juliana?”

“Wally isn’t my fiancé yet, and this is not about me. This is about you. You go through women faster than you go through neckties. I do not want Holly to be one of your discards.”

“I have no intention of becoming involved with Holly more than superficially. Neither of us wants to go on the dates, but her reporter friend is pressing the issue. We’ll go through the motions until Octavia Jenkins loses interest. My goal was to avoid vicious gossip which could be detrimental to the merger, and I thought Holly would be a safe alternative to a marriage-minded female.”

And he’d never been more wrong in his life. Even though Holly had pulled on jeans and a baggy T-shirt Saturday night, once more camouflaging her generous curves, he’d kept seeing her naked and his usual razor-sharp concentration had taken a hiatus. As much as he disliked loose ends, he’d been relieved when the phone rang and Holly had had to rush out to pick up his sister before they finalized the date details.

He’d called Holly this morning and scheduled a date for tomorrow night. It had taken him promising to bring her a reimbursement check for the auction cost to get her to agree.

“Holly? Safe?” His sister had the nerve to laugh. “You don’t know what you’re in for.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, big brother, that Holly isn’t one of your usual dimwitted debutantes. She’s not going to be impressed with your stock portfolio or the fact that you play tennis with the mayor and golf with a judge. She’s more interested in what’s on the inside than net worth or connections, Eric, and you, like our mother, have a calculator for a heart.”

Surprised by his sister’s unusual vehemence, he rocked back in his executive chair. “You don’t think I’m capable of showing Holly a good time.”

“Frankly?” She folded her arms and cocked her head. “No.”

His competitive instincts, never far from the surface, reared. “Then prepare to eat your words, little sister.”

Eric had enjoyed his dinner at one of Wilmington’s finest restaurants as much as he always did, and yet the only enthusiasm he’d seen from Holly had been for her crème brûlée. Throughout the rest of the meal, she’d appeared tense and uncomfortable.

He signed the credit card slip and rose. Apparently eager to leave, Holly sprang to her feet without waiting for him to pull back her chair, thereby proving his sister’s prediction true. Holly wasn’t enjoying the evening. Eric was determined to change that.

Keep the client happy. He’d decided the safest approach to this series of dates would be to consider Holly a client. They had a verbal contract, and she’d paid for his services even if he had a check for a one-hundred-percent refund in his pocket. He didn’t mix business with pleasure. The one time he had—his engagement to Priscilla—he’d been burned.

You’ve never seen any of your clients naked.

He locked the safe on that thought. Outside the building, he cupped her elbow. She stiffened. “Would you care to walk along the waterfront?”

Her hesitation shoved another splinter into his ego. “Sure. Why not?”

The moon ducked behind a cloud, but the streetlights illuminated the area well enough for a stroll. Holly wore flat shoes tonight, along with a simple black dress that in no way resembled Saturday night’s seductive number but that did nothing to erode the memory of how she’d looked wearing sinfully high heels and nothing else. Holly had an amazing figure. Not Rubenesque by any means, but not fashionably slim, either. She had curves, womanly, generous curves that begged a man to map her topography with his hands. With his mouth.

He ran a finger beneath his suddenly restricting collar and loosened his tie a fraction of an inch.

Holly’s long stride down the cobblestoned sidewalk would leave a shorter man in the dust. Eric kept pace beside her until she halted abruptly in front of a gift shop window. A Haunted Historic Wilmington Tours poster held her attention. He shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for her to move on, but then she looked over her shoulder at him. The excited sparkle in her eyes knocked the wind out of him.

“Want to? It starts in ten minutes.”

He’d rather shred money. But his pride demanded he show Holly a good time and thus far he’d failed to deliver anything more than a fine meal and stilted dinner conversation. If this tourist fodder entertained her, then he would—what had she said Saturday night?—survive it. “I’ll buy the tickets.”

Thirty minutes later, Holly inched closer to him in the shadowy interior of the theater allegedly haunted since the 1800s. Since the tour began, she’d startled at every squeak and gasped along with the other gullible fools on the tour as they followed their guide through the drafty and dimly lit area beneath the stage. Goose bumps covered her skin. She shivered and rubbed her upper arms.

Who’d have expected practical Holly to believe in ghosts? Eric took pity on her and put his arm around her shoulders. A mistake, he realized an instant later.

Holly burrowed against him, her breast pressing against his ribs, and she stayed as close as she could and still walk the creaking floor boards. Her scent filled his lungs and her hair tickled his jaw. The warmth of her in his arms roused the specter of his libido and sent it drifting through his blood like a hot phantom breath. It took every ounce of concentration to focus on the guide’s macabre spiel instead of the woman plastered against him.

At the conclusion of the tour, he had to admit that if he’d been a more susceptible sort he’d have enjoyed their talented host’s shtick, but Eric was a cynic. Smoke and mirrors didn’t interest him. He preferred cold, hard, provable facts. But the excited flush on Holly’s cheeks and the twinkle in her eyes made the price of admission worth every penny.

On the sidewalk in front of the building, she took one last look over her shoulder as if she expected an evil spirit to chase after them from the theater, and then she grinned at him. “Thanks. That was awesome.”

Her wide, unrestrained smile reminded him of the girl she’d been back when they’d shot hoops in her driveway and of the idealistic fresh-out-of-university fool he’d been at the time. Was it only fourteen years ago that he’d first joined Alden’s? It seemed like a lifetime since he’d realized his father was a source of amusement to many of the bank employees—a figurehead who did whatever Eric’s mother told him to do like a well-trained dog. A man more excited by a good cigar or a round of golf than a P&L statement.

The day he’d heard the laughter in the break room, Eric had decided that he would never be the butt of jokes. He’d be man enough for both his father and himself, and he’d succeeded until Priscilla made a fool out of him. Now the reporter’s coverage of this damned auction package could sink him faster than rising interest rates could the stock market and with equally devastating results. What in the hell had his mother been thinking when she’d inflicted this on him?

“I’m glad you enjoyed the tour.”

Holly’s eyes widened at the unintended sharpness of his voice and then she averted her gaze. “I guess we should head back. I have an early start tomorrow.”

He led her back to his ’Vette and then pointed the car in the direction of her farm. Damn. Any points he’d gained with the ghost tour had been lost with one bitter comment. “Tell me about your business.”

Holly flashed him an I-know-what-you’re-up-to glance. “You mean you haven’t read my file?”

“You have accounts with Alden’s?”

Another hesitation. “Several. I work primarily with commercial concerns, but I also do windows for private homes. I teach stained glass classes once a week, not just because I enjoy sharing my craft but because those same women who take my classes often commission me to do windows for their homes, tell their friends about me or recommend me to the boards of the organizations to which they belong, which in turn leads to more commercial accounts.” Her entire body became animated as she discussed her work.

“Smart advertising,” he acknowledged.

“I think so.”

“You like making windows better than working at the Caliber Club?”

“Oh, yeah. No comparison.”

The nuances in her voice raised questions such as why would she leave a secure, well-paying job, one with limitless advantageous connections, for the financially risky venture of crafting stained glass windows? He turned into Holly’s driveway and spotted a dark sedan parked in the shadows beneath a large tree. His curiosity would have to wait. “You have company.”

“Great.” Her sarcastic tone implied otherwise. “It’s Octavia.”

The reporter and the photographer beside her in the front seat waved as they drove past, but made no move to get out of the car.

“What do they want?”

Holly stared at her knotted fingers in the dimly lit car. “To see the end of our date.”

Eric’s spine prickled a warning. “Pardon?”

Holly took a deep breath and then lifted her wary, toffee-brown gaze to his. “Women talk when they’re working on their projects in my class. Octavia believes the first kiss foretells the future of any relationship.”

He’d have to kiss Holly good-night. The news sent a rush of adrenaline through him.

Holly bit her lip and lifted her chin. “Eric, I realize you probably had no intention of kissing me good-night, and as much as I hate the idea of a mercy kiss, could you kiss me and make it look good? It’ll keep her off our backs. This week, anyway.”

Moisture flooded his mouth and his pulse pounded like a marching band headed toward the end zone located below his belt. He jerked a nod because the words on the tip of his tongue, my pleasure, were forbidden and just plain wrong. He exited the car, and for once Holly waited for him to open her door and assist her out.

With a hand at the small of her back, he guided her up the walk, the stairs and then stopped on her doormat. She turned toward him, and in the soft glow of her porch light she took a deep breath, clearly bracing herself to endure his kiss.

Bracing herself. As if she expected kissing him to be an ordeal. Eric’s pride roared in protest. He inhaled once, twice, willing his irritation away and his knotted muscles to relax. What he needed was technique. Smooth, controlled, seductive technique. He’d be damned if any woman would endure his kiss. He’d settle for nothing less than total capitulation.

He lowered his head until only a fraction of an inch separated their mouths and waited. Waited for Holly’s breath to sweep over his chin when she exhaled. Waited for his pulse to steady. And when his heart accelerated instead of slowing, he relented and brushed his lips over hers with a featherlight touch. The spark of electricity jolted him. Curious, he took another cautious sip, and current shot down to his toes. Judging by Holly’s gasp, the feeling wasn’t one-sided. He settled his mouth over hers, sinking into the lush softness of her lips. Her fingers clutched his waist and her tongue flicked against his and then quickly withdrew.

Any thoughts of controlled technique vanished. Eric banded his arms around her, molding the long length of her body against his as he delved deeper, stroking the satiny warmth of her mouth, tasting rich crème brûlée and even richer Holly. His fingers tightened on the curve of her waist, and his palms prickled.

Holly felt good—too good—in his arms. Her pelvis nudged his as she shuffled closer. His response was instantaneous and enthusiastic.

Unacceptable.

Unforgivable.

Embarrassing.

He was too damned old to get aroused from a dead-end kiss. His only hope was that Holly hadn’t noticed. He gripped her upper arms, lifted his head and put a few inches between them.