“Yes,” Mac replied.
“Tell me how your plan’s progressing.”
“I asked him.”
“Asked him what?” Sophie prompted. “Give me the details.”
As she told Sophie what had happened, Mac once again replayed everything in her mind. Her stomach plummeted farther. “I don’t think it was my most persuasive presentation.”
“Surely he didn’t turn you down?”
Mac smiled at the disbelief in her friend’s voice. “Not exactly. He wants us both to think about it for twenty-four hours.”
There was a great deal of exasperation in Sophie’s sigh. “That is so typically Lucas. He’s probably having one of his security people do a thorough background check on you to see if you’re any threat to Wainright Enterprises. My advice is don’t wait.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seduce him into agreeing. That research of yours is worthless if you don’t have the guts to use it.”
“I don’t know—”
“He who hesitates is lost. Picture yourself five years after you walk down the aisle with your future bridegroom. You’re in your kitchen feeding two screaming kids and you’re afraid your husband’s eye is about to wander. Are you going to wait for him to make the first move?”
“No,” Mac said softly.
“But? I hear a but in that sentence.”
“I just imagined he might be a little more enthusiastic.”
Sophie laughed. “Enthusiasm is contagious. Starting out by asking him to fill out a questionnaire was not your best move. As foreplay, it wouldn’t rate very high on my list.”
“Oh…I didn’t think of that.”
“I warned you that this plan of yours was not going to be like your usual experiments. You can’t approach it like a job. Besides, it should be fun! And people are not like your docile little lab animals, Mac. Sometimes they need a little extra push.”
The moment Lucas turned and glanced in her direction, Mac felt the impact of his gaze ripple through her. So what if his hormones weren’t as stimulated as hers were. So what if he was just being kind to his kid sister’s best friend. Didn’t she have the kind of knowledge to change all that?
“Sometimes they need a big push,” Sophie added.
Mac couldn’t think of a man she’d rather push than Lucas. Slowly, she smiled as one of the fantasies from her research unfolded itself in her mind. “Thanks, Soph. I’m going to take your advice.”
“You go, girl! And have some fun!”
SOPHIE HUNG UP her phone with a satisfied smile and glanced out at the view from her balcony. Covered in lush grapevines, the hillside rolled down to the valley below. There, the neat rows in the vineyards were crisscrossed by narrow roads until hills rose sharply again.
Napa Valley, California, was as far away from D.C., the Florida Keys and North Carolina as she could get without actually leaving the country. And since she’d never been here before, she doubted that Lucas would think of it. Her lips curved in a smile. Not that she expected him to be thinking about her at all for the next week. Mac should be able to handle that.
And she was going to handle the rest. For the next week, no one would know she was Sophie Wainright, least of all the man she’d agreed to meet today for lunch. When she’d first met him in that small café on Capitol Hill three weeks ago, she’d told him she was Susan Walker. The initials matched her own, but that was all that linked her to Sophie Wainright.
It was on the way home from that first meeting that she’d discovered she was being followed. Now she pushed herself away from the railing and began to pace back and forth along the length of her balcony. Just the thought of it made her furious.
Well, she’d made sure that no one had followed her here. Not once since she’d gotten off the plane in San Francisco had she had that prickling sensation at the back of her neck that had warned her before. Not even Mac knew where she was coming to spend time with the man who only knew her as Susan Walker. A man who wasn’t just interested in her because she was Sophie Wainright.
Pausing, she leaned on the balcony railing to watch one of the air balloons make a soft landing on the valley floor. Then she smiled. Lucas would have a lot of trouble finding her even if he did discover that she wasn’t in that dreadful spa. A bonus to switching identities with Mac was that she’d been able to make all her plane and hotel reservations in Mac’s name.
Reaching for the coffee that room service had just delivered, she raised her cup in another toast. “To real freedom, at last.”
THE MOMENT THAT Mac turned and strode back into the cabin, Lucas frowned and went back to polishing the brass trim that edged the deck of the Adventurer. Performing repetitious physical tasks always helped him to think and to put things in perspective. But he was no closer to sorting out what he was going to do about MacKenzie Lloyd’s proposition than he’d been yesterday when he’d left her in his bedroom.
Could the doc possibly be as honest and disingenuous as she seemed? Gut instinct told him she was.
But experience told him that women usually had a hidden financial agenda.
That was the one lesson he’d learned from watching his father bounce through five marriages. He’d been ten when his mother had walked out for good. His father had reacted by marrying again on the rebound. It had been up to Lucas to help Sophie negotiate the emotional trauma. It wasn’t until marriage three or four that he’d become aware of the financial toll that his father’s behavior was taking on the company his grandfather had founded. By the time wife number five had departed, Wainright Enterprises had been deeply in debt. Not even Sophie knew how close they had come to losing everything.
When he’d taken over the company, he’d made a vow to himself never to make the same mistake his father had. He would never marry because he already had a family—Sophie and the stepbrothers his father had left behind.
MacKenzie Lloyd had seemed to understand and accept that. But maybe it had been the beer. Either way, she’d made him an offer he was finding it very difficult to refuse. The whole idea of researching men’s fantasies and then offering to make them into a reality for some lucky guy was…almost irresistible.
When his cell phone rang, he put down his cloth and pulled it out of his pocket. “Yeah?”
“As far as I can tell, Sophie Wainright is somewhere in this damn spa,” Tracker said.
“As far as you can tell?”
“I’m about fifty yards from the gates right now. The guard on duty says Sophie Wainright registered about three o’clock yesterday afternoon, but the people who run this place are a bunch of amazons who clearly have an aversion to men. If you have a Y chromosome, you can’t set foot on their sacred ground. I’d feel more certain if I could get in there and see for myself.”
“A little paranoid, are we?” Lucas asked.
“I’d prefer to think I’m being thorough,” Tracker said. “I don’t like that she pulled that switch on me, and I’d like to make sure she hasn’t pulled another one.”
“Your pride is wounded.”
There was a slight pause at the other end. Tracker’s drawl when it came was laced with humor. “Could be that. Could be the challenge too. I haven’t figured a way in yet.”
Lucas grinned. “I told you your policy on not hiring women would come back to bite you.”
“No way, boss. I only hire people I can trust, and I don’t trust the female of the species.”
Lucas’s grin faded. “Should I be worried about Sophie?”
“Not yet. If I thought she might be in danger, I’d go in there, grab her and get her out. And if you’re worried about Falcone, he and his son have both flown to California. I’ve got a man on each of them. If there’s any problem, I can be at the airport in an hour. Unless you want me out there right now.”
Lucas considered it for a moment. “No. As long as you’ve got Falcone covered, you can indulge yourself with the challenge of getting into that all-female spa.”
“Go ahead. Rub it in. What about the little doc? You find out what her problem is?”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to do something about it?”
“No.” The sharpness of his own tone surprised Lucas.
“You want me to butt out.”
“Yes. No,” Lucas said on a sigh. Tracker was a man he’d trust with his life and the only man he’d ever trusted with details of his business deals. “I think I’m going to have to tackle it myself.”
“It’s personal, I take it.”
The delight in his friend’s voice had him frowning. “It’s complicated. And…it’s confidential.”
“Goes without saying.”
Lucas kept his gaze on the cabin as he tried to think of the best way to summarize Mac’s plan. Finally he began, “Long story short. She’s done some research on how to keep a man pleased…” His frown deepened. “No, pleasured is a better word. In bed. So far all her data has come from books and interviews, and now she wants to put it…into practice.”
“On you.”
“Or on some other volunteer.”