The Rich Girl Goes Wild

Then it occurred to him that maybe she just found his epic case of bed-head offensive. Naa, it was the pecs. Clearly Miss Ashley needed to get out more.

He gestured toward the computer with an end of the towel. “What’cha doing?”

She looked back at the computer screen and blinked rapidly a few times. “I’m working,” she said as if reminding herself.

“You work in your bedroom?”

“This isn’t my bedroom. This is my office. My bedroom is through there.” She tilted her head toward the door on her right, making her tiny, gold hoop earrings sway.

Practically salivating with the opportunities she seemed in the habit of handing him, he grinned and rumbled, “Oh, really.”

The way she fought to deny the suggestiveness of his tone by primly folding her hands in her lap made him decide that goading her would also be an excellent way to keep his mind off his situation and make his time here at least a little entertaining.

She cleared her throat and returned her fingers to the keyboard with a determination that made him smile genuinely.

Without looking at him she said, “Yes. And I’m quite busy, so if you’ll—”

“What exactly do you do?”

She spared him a glance that said she didn’t think much of his intelligence. But when that glance became a perusal of his bare chest he made sure she noticed by spreading the towel a little wider than necessary, she kind of glazed over. “I…I—”

“You…what?”

She snapped her gaze back to her desk and made a grab for her day planner. She unfastened the flap with a yank and opened it, then flipped through the pages way too fast to be able to see what was on them. “Right now I’m planning the menu for the dinner following Nathan’s christening ceremony.”

“Ah. And when there aren’t babies to be christened…?”

“I coordinate everyone’s schedules, plan social functions and put together fund-raisers for the various charities we support.”

“So basically you’re the Rivers family social secretary.”

She straightened in her seat, visibly bristling. “I keep my family from floundering beneath their many and varied obligations, Mr. Wild. Just as my mother did.”

“Mac,” he insisted, his attention sliding to her Rolodex. “You must have the name and number of the entire free world in that thing.” Including a MacDougal and Thorton-Stuart or two, he thought sourly.

She looked at the monstrous cylindrical file of alphabetized name cards and one side of her pretty mouth curled upward. “I do my best.”

He glanced at his dive watch and decided to get her mind on something besides social connections. “Yeah, well, it’s quitting time in the rest of the working world, so why don’t you go pull on your swimsuit and come have a splash with me.” He forced himself not to consider what that body of hers would look like in even the most modest of swimsuits.

“I have too much to do, Mr.—Mac. Which is one of the reasons my office is located where it is. For expediency’s sake.”

Mac was struck by how sad it was that she’d put expediency over a place to have private time in comfort. “Well, for fun’s sake, I say you go get your suit on.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Okay. At least say you’ll go out to dinner with me later. Maybe we can even catch a movie. I’m pretty sure I saw a multiplex theater on my way through town.” He surprised both of them by pressing, but her state of perpetual work was a sorry thing.

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide as if he’d asked her to stuff his sporran for him while he had it on. Then she pulled her elegantly winged, blond eyebrows together the slightest bit. “Like a…date?”

He shrugged. “Whatever. Mostly we’d just be having a little fun. I promise we’ll keep it casual.” Casual and physical. Like the way he’d kept all his relationships since Kate.

Because a MacDougal only loved once.

It was ancient family lore, but the generations of long, successful marriages had firmly established it as fact in Mac’s mind. The ache he still felt for the woman he’d committed his heart to provided further proof of the truth of the saying.

She shook her head with center-court-ref firmness. “I’m sorry, Mac, but to me, there is no such thing as a casual relationship. People deserve more from those in their lives. I believe that if you can’t commit—” her voice hitched slightly and she shifted her gaze to her day planner “—the most of yourself, then you shouldn’t enter into a relationship in the first place.”

She ran a manicured fingernail down a page in the planner. “And right now, I don’t have the time—” she looked up, this time meeting his gaze, her blue-green eyes glowing with conviction “—nor the inclination to enter into any new relationships.” She rose smoothly from her embroidered upholstered chair and walked toward him, her suit looking unaccountably fresh, the gentle sway of her hips shouting confidence and emotional strength.

He figured he knew the answer, but to be safe he asked, “So you’re not seeing anyone?”

“No. I’m not seeing anyone. Nor do I intend to start. If you’ll excuse me…” She grabbed the edge of her door, her finely shaped chin held high. “I have a lot of work to do.”

Then she closed the door, forcing him to take a step back to keep from getting hit in the nose.

Mac stood staring at the gleaming dark wood, not used to being told no by anyone, especially a woman. Miss Ashley was going to be a tough nut to crack, but he was now more determined than ever to rise to the challenge. His pride demanded it.

He spun on his soccer slide’s heel and continued on his way down the hall, telling himself it wasn’t real disappointment he felt because Ashley Rivers wouldn’t come out and play with him, only annoyance that she’d cut short his bid to be an annoyance. She clearly needed to get a life. And he was just the guy to show her what she was missing.

ASHLEY SLUMPED AGAINST the door, finally able to say what she’d wanted to say from the second she’d looked up and seen Mac standing in her doorway wearing nothing but a swimsuit and a smile. “Oh. My.”

He was just too, too perfect. She pushed away from the door, peeling off her summer-weight suit jacket in an attempt to lower her temperature. No. Mac wasn’t perfect, with his too long hair and too casual attitude about propriety. That wasn’t what had her feeling like she’d stepped into a Swedish sauna every time he came anywhere near her.

If he wasn’t perfect, what was it about him?

The image of Mac leaning against her door frame, à la James Dean sans clothes clear in her mind, she haphazardly tossed her jacket at a white file cabinet where an overstuffed chair and ottoman had once sat. Then the answer came to her. She was simply having a base reaction to his overabundance of masculinity.

Yes, that was it, she thought as she shimmied out of her skirt, still too warm. Down to her slip, she kicked off her sling-back pumps and paced in front of her desk. While she had never been bothered before by a physical attraction—no, make that a simple reaction—to a handsome and, er, well-developed man, for some reason Harrison’s friend had such an effect on her.

She couldn’t exactly blame it on being too long in seclusion since breaking up with Roger. She had, after all, just contributed a healthy sum to one of her favorite children’s charities by “purchasing” a bachelor the weekend before last. The attractive and engaging gentleman had treated her to a delightful evening in Portland that had included dinner at one of the city’s finest restaurants and box seats at the opera.

Though she would have rather caught the professional basketball game that had been playing that night, she still had a pleasant enough time. At no point during the entire evening, however, had she perspired in the slightest. She had actually been quite chilled and had required her wrap.

Unfortunately Travis Norton IV hadn’t affected her the way Mac did. Neither had Roger despite his intense pursuit of her and her lonely heart’s response to it. No man ever had.

She put a hand to her forehead. Perhaps she was coming down with something. Was there such a thing as studitis? She rolled her eyes at her own silliness. She simply needed to strengthen her resistance to men like Mac so she wouldn’t be so affected by his magnetism during his stay at the estate.

She wasn’t worried about his charm. Her heart was locked up too tight to be in any peril.

She hurried to her desk and opened her day planner. In the 6:00 p.m. space she wrote:

Rent Indiana Jones series and Brendan Fraser’s George of the Jungle.

She closed her day planner with a decisive snap. If a hearty dose of handsome, unrestrained movie men didn’t do the trick, then she would go back to her original plan of keeping as far away from Mac Wild as politely possible.

THE NEXT NIGHT, ASHLEY headed toward the dining room, pleased with how well her plans regarding a certain houseguest were going. She’d managed to avoid him the remainder of the night before and hadn’t encountered him once today. She’d found that taking note of an odd prickling at the base of her neck allowed her to leave a room bare moments before Mac entered it. That and keeping an ear out for the odd way he tended to whistle softly through his teeth as he made his way through the halls kept her one step ahead of him and let her know which knocks on the door to her rooms to ignore.

Having spent the majority of the night before overloading on cinematic stud-muffins, she felt she was suitably immune to Mac’s animal magnetism and could dine with him tonight. Thankfully her grandmother would be there as a buffer.