She drew in a shaken breath and tried to focus.
Beyond his obvious attributes--sable brown hair and chocolate eyes a woman could drown in—she’d gathered a few other pertinent bits of data about Jared Barrett. From everything she’d heard, he swam with the best in the shark-infested waters of the hotel business. His resorts weren’t necessarily the most lavish or best known, but he pulled down a substantial profit.
On the personal side of things, she’d heard scuttlebutt that he’d had an early, failed marriage. Of course, few people hadn’t these days. She could only account for her own avoidance of that statistic due to lack of temptation. Heaven knew she’d been exposed, but the idea of getting married simply hadn’t taken.
Of course, it would have been better for Doug and Amy if she had made a legal union with one of her occasional swains.
Thunder rattled overhead as the cab made its way through the wet, congested streets. The dimness inside the cab left Jared’s features in shadow, but his warm, clean scent surrounded her.
As young and successful as he was, Kelsey had never heard any indication of his being a party boy. She knew he liked females because she’d heard about a few he’d dated…and because he watched her with appreciation in his eyes.
For months now she’d been puzzled that he hadn’t asked her out. She wouldn’t have gone, of course. Probably. Certainly, shouldn’t see any more of him than necessary.
Just now it seemed necessary for him to kiss her, however.
He was so near, his arm on the seat behind her, his head turned toward hers. She felt engulfed, pulled toward him by a yearning for his touch.
Jared met her gaze, his own seeming suddenly dark and brooding with the same awareness, the same need. Time stretched out, each second a pearl on an endless string. The damp air between them seemed to thicken. She felt herself leaning toward him ever so slightly, her face turned and raised to his.
“So tell me,” he said, shifting away from her fractionally, “where shall I pick you up tomorrow evening?”
Kelsey blinked. “Oh. My place, I guess.”
She gave him the address, pushing aside her disappointment to say crisply, “I really appreciate your helping me out about the banquet.”
“My pleasure.”
Maybe she’d been wrong about the look in his eyes, she brooded as the cab pulled up to the restaurant. Sure, she’d promised herself to stay clear of the man, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have liked him to at least try a pass. It would be interesting to kiss him, just once. No more.
***
The phone rang.
Amy turned blearily away from the coffee maker she’d been urging on with her fuzzy morning concentration and stared at the phone where it hung next to the refrigerator.
It rang again.
“Damn!” Someone was calling her at the ungodly hour of six o’clock in the morning. Amy grabbed for the receiver, stepping around the small kitchen table—
“Crap!” She lifted her stubbed toes to one hand, reaching for the phone with the other. “Hello!”
“Amy?”
“Doug!” Lowering her bruised foot to the floor, she hobbled closer to the phone, not wanting the cord to pull loose from the receiver in her hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound kind of funny?
It spoke volumes that she found his concern endearing, even at this hour of the morning, with her toes throbbing and her brain misty from a lack of life-giving caffeine. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Hey,” he said, sounding vaguely disconsolate. “I was just wondering if you’re going to the awards banquet tonight.”
“The banquet?” she echoed, her still-sluggish neurons perking up a little. He was calling her about the banquet? That meant Kelsey had turned him down, bless her big sister. Only now Amy had to think what to do. Act desperate and immediately agree to go with him or lie like a woman with self-respect and say she had plans for the evening?
“I guess I’m going,” she said, giving up on coherent thought and self-esteem all in one mumbled phrase.
“Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “Shall I pick you up?”
Amy stared blindly at the hideous Mickey Mouse magnet adorning the refrigerator door. This was going too far. Even for a woman as far gone on a man as she was on Doug.
“Pick me up? Like we’re carpooling?” she asked with the hint of a snap.
There was a pause from his end. “Well, no. I thought I could be your escort.”
A sudden, stupid urge gripped Amy and she leaned back against the refrigerator, breaking Mickey’s eye contact in order to grapple with and subdue the impulse to ask him if her sister had already turned Doug down.