Suite Seduction

She nodded. “He died when I was in high school.” Her voice broke, and she gave her head a quick shake, then reached for the bottle of champagne.

“So,” Robert said, trying to move past the awkward moment, “what else? How about books?”

He could have predicted her answer before she said it. “Romances. You?”

“Techno-thrillers.”

“I get tired thinking about picking up one of those two-ton hardbacks,” she said with a frown. “Do you think those guys get paid by the word?”

Since he’d sometimes wondered the same thing, he nodded. “Seems possible.” Instead of being depressed at their conflicting personalities and tastes, Robert found himself thoroughly enjoying their banter.

“Kids!” she exclaimed and he almost heard the “aha” she didn’t utter. “Growing up with all those younger brothers, you must love children!”

He gave a vehement shake of his head. “Growing up with all those brothers made me never want to have children.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Really? Maybe you just think you don’t want any.”

He shuddered. “Ruthie, I practically raised my younger brothers while our parents were getting their business off the ground. Snotty noses, diapers, chicken pox, bad dreams, never-ending fistfights. Believe me, I did all the child-rearing I ever want to do before my eighteenth birthday.”

She looked at him, studying his face as if testing his sincerity, then a disappointed frown marred her brow. She studied her own hands, suddenly quiet and pensive. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t dream about growing up and having lots of children.”

Lots? He couldn’t even fathom the possibility of one. It did seem critically important to her, though. What she wanted for her own future really wasn’t any of his business, he supposed. She was an absolute stranger to him; he might never see her again after this one unusual night. But he couldn’t stop a feeling of regret over their completely discordant dreams for their futures.

“I hope your dream comes true one day, Ruthie.” He hoisted the bottle and held it up for a toast. “To your future babies. May they all be female so you don’t have the nightmare of raising lots of little boys like I did.”

She nodded, grabbed the bottle, and took a liberal sip.

“So, where were we?” he mused. “Ah, yes, what could we possibly we have in common that we can talk about now?”

She squared her shoulders. “What about the weather?”

“I think we’ve moved a little beyond talking about the weather, Ruthie. After all, I already know the details of your sex life, and you saw a condom fall out of my pocket.”

“The details of my nonexistent sex life,” she retorted, “and thank you so much for reminding me!” She rolled her eyes. “For your information, I was talking about the seasons. Are you a summer man or a winter one?”

“Summer. Definitely. Sandy beaches, bright blue sky, waterskiing, deep-sea fishing. Give me ninety and sunny any day.” He had a sudden purely delightful mental image of lying on a beach, sipping a fruity rum concoction, watching Ruthie walk toward him from the water, wearing a tiny bikini that barely covered the full, lush curves of her breasts.

He glanced at her, to see if she’d caught the brainless, besotted expression he felt sure must be on his face.

She looked like she wanted to slug him. “Winter,” she practically snarled. “Nothing compares to snuggling up in your very softest angora sweater, sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of a roaring fireplace at a beautiful mountaintop ski resort.”

Sweater? No, no. That definitely wasn’t part of the fantasy. “Better than lying on a beach, listening to the gentle surf, feeling someone rub oil into the hot skin of your back?” he asked, his voice growing husky as he fantasized aloud.

She sighed. “Only if there’s a gorgeous young waiter dressed in a loincloth bringing me free piña coladas—and Solarcaine by the case since I would turn red as a lobster in forty-five seconds flat.”

“Ever heard of beach umbrellas?”

“Ever heard of sun poisoning?” she shot back. “I’m a dermatologist’s poster child.”

“No risk of sunburn when lying on a hammock beneath a palm tree in the early evening.”

She wasn’t teased out of her mood. “Just mosquitoes.”

Robert shook his head ruefully, admiring her stubbornness, her honesty, even if it was a bit inspired by champagne. “I give up. You’re right. We have nothing in common.”

Instead of looking pleased that he’d agreed with her, Ruthie frowned deeply. He heard her sigh and watched her shoulders slump again. “I guess not.”

They both extended their forks toward the cake at the same instant. “There’s always chocolate,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “We’ll always have chocolate.”

Between the two of them, they killed off the first bottle of champagne and did some damage to the second in the next hour. Robert didn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard, all the while shifting in his seat as he reacted physically to the gorgeous redhead fate had thrust right under his nose.

He’d never dated a redhead. He’d never dated a curvy bundle of dimpled femininity. His women, in the past, had tended to be more the corporate shark type. Not by preference, he suddenly realized, but merely by circumstance.

His brothers had been telling him for years to get the hell out of New York before he found himself married to one of the piranhas he’d been dating. Robert didn’t worry. He had no intention of marrying anyone. His job was too important to him—and too demanding—to try to find time to share his life with a family. Dating piranhas helped make sure he was never tempted.

He’d never taken a woman home, of course, knowing the full Kendall clan was enough to frighten off anyone. More than that, he’d never met a woman he’d wanted to bring to North Carolina. But some members of his family had met one or two girlfriends when they’d come to visit him.

“Find a nice southern girl,” his mother had said after one disastrous dinner during which his date had picked at a salad, complaining the dressing was too rich to be fat free, then gone on to tell Robert’s father he was crazy to eat red meat these days. “One who is gentle of heart, but has blisters on her hands,” his mother had counseled, “who isn’t afraid to laugh instead of titter. A lady who can occasionally be unladylike.”

One whose eyes are the most amazing shade of green, who’s completely inept at hiding whatever she’s feeling at a particular moment. Ruthie would be a lousy poker player, he realized. Then again, Robert had never really cared for poker.

With her zany personality, he imagined she wouldn’t be much of an office person, either. He didn’t know what Ruthie did for a living, but he would bet his last dollar it had nothing to do with finances, executives, or business.

He was about to ask her when she slid from her stool and tried to push her feet into her emerald-green pumps. “This was the color my dress was supposed to be,” she explained ruefully.

“It would have looked beautiful on you.”

She winced as she slipped the other shoe on. “Shouldn’t have taken them off. Now they’re killing me.” She leaned against the table and bent forward to adjust the shoe, giving Robert a clear view of the deep cleavage revealed by her dress. The fact that he knew he shouldn’t look didn’t stop him from staring, nearly choking on a mouthful of air he suddenly felt incapable of drawing into his lungs.

“Time to shuffle off,” she said.

“You’re staying here in the hotel?” he asked, figuring she was but wanting to get more information from her.

She nodded. “I don’t have to, since my apartment’s only a few miles away. But I should take advantage of the free room, especially after so much champagne.”

Ruthie reached for the green handbag lying on the table. As she pulled the strap of the bag, she wobbled on her high heels, pulling too hard and spilling the bag, and its contents, all over the floor. “Oh, rats,” she muttered as she bent over to retrieve her belongings.

Robert froze. She hunched right in front of him, between her vacant stool and his knees, and the images that ran through his brain would have given quite a shock to colleagues who considered him a responsible, conservative man.

She rested one small hand on his thigh to steady herself, refreshing in her complete unselfconsciousness, yet utterly devastating to his composure. He watched, focusing on those fingers pressing into the gray fabric of his slacks. It took her forever, it seemed, to retrieve her comb, lipstick, room key and a bundle of netting filled with birdseed.

Robert’s mouth felt like it contained a cup of sawdust. He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe without thinking about it. He had the most intense longing to watch her hand move higher, stroking his leg, pulling him down to kneel on the floor with her. Or better yet, to bring her to her feet, then lower her onto the top of the sturdy, butcher-block table. The memory of the pale skin of her thighs above the lace of her white stockings returned with gut-clenching intensity.

Get real, Robert! You’ve known the woman an hour!

She was vulnerable, depressed, and had consumed more champagne than she should have. No way would he take advantage, even if the sparkle in her eye while they’d talked had told him, without words, she was attracted to him, too.