Chapter One
I was pretty sure the guy in the hotel suite next to mine hadn’t been upgraded. He belonged on this penthouse floor. The dark blue suit he wore was tailored, fitting his broad shoulders and long legs precisely, not a seam or pleat out of place. As for me, I’d checked in after an endless drafting session and benefited from a midnight-shift clerk who was eager to please me. Although I’m sure I looked like a wreck—my blonde hair was like straw after a day of pulling it out to stem my frustration at the arrogance of New York lawyers—the clerk was very friendly, and before I knew it I’d scored a lavish penthouse suite when my Midwestern law firm would only foot the bill for an economy double.
But the guy in the suite next to mine had to be paying for it with a suit like that. He turned in my direction, pulling his door shut, and I saw that money wasn’t the only thing he had going for him. The guy was gorgeous. Six feet three at least, with black hair. The only indication of the lateness of the hour was the slight shadow on his steely jaw. Otherwise, he looked as fresh as if he were stepping into a morning meeting.
Since I didn’t—naked and wrapped in a towel as I was—I ducked quickly back into the alcove with the ice machine. In my defense, I didn’t expect anybody to be around at this time of night in the two minutes it took to shoot down the hall for ice. I hoped he hadn’t seen me.
No such luck, though. I’d barely put the bucket under the chute when I looked up and found Gorgeous Guy standing right in front of me.
He smiled and my heart beat a little faster.
Whoa. He was even better looking when he smiled.
“Sorry. I couldn’t see a girl in a towel dart out of the way as soon as I spotted her and not come to investigate.”
“Oh. Yeah, well, I took a chance nobody would be around. I guess I lost.”
“And I won. But I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’ve got to ask, though. Why the towel? Why didn’t you put on one of the robes in the closet?”
“My suite didn’t have one.”
“I’ll have to leave Housekeeping a nice tip to thank them for that.”
“I was getting some ice,” I said stupidly, nodding my head toward the bucket I was filling up without looking away from the eye candy.
“I think you’ve got enough.”
My ice bucket floweth over. I yanked it away from the stream of cubes, losing a few on the carpet and kicking them under the machine.
“They can bring you ice, you know,” he pointed out.
I was so truly not supposed to be on this floor.
“I didn’t want to wake anybody.”
Again with the smile. “I think you’ll find room service is twenty-four hours in this hotel, especially for this floor.”
“Of course. Yep.”
Despite having a mother who could flirt as effortlessly as she could breathe, I had not inherited her knack for it. Consequently, nervous as I was, I didn’t try to crack a joke or make conversation. I just stood there staring at this hottie. Which was okay, I guess, since he was staring at me, the smile a little dimmed as his eyes dipped down to check me out.
I hadn’t gotten my figure from my rail-thin mother, either. She was a former model, and when I filled out in my teens, I couldn’t have been more relieved. Among other things, it saved me from having dear old Mom shove me out onto the runway, breasts not being conducive to Paris fashions. But these days, my curves were a little more trouble than they were worth, and usually I wore a suit jacket and sturdy bra to disguise them.
A towel wasn’t much of a disguise, and they strained against the white cotton in all their glory.
It was still kind of rude of him to look so blatantly. Sexy as hell, but rude.
The feminist in me wanted to tell him, “Eyes up here,” but I was in a towel and he was, well, human…and a guy. I guess I couldn’t exactly be surprised. Although what was it with guys and breasts anyway? They were like true north to a compass. Would I check out a guy’s package like that? I took a quick glance down.
Well, maybe, but that was beside the point. And his pants weren’t that tailored.
In any case, the feminist in me had been pounded down by hours of concentrating on merger contract minutiae. I just wanted to take a hot bubble bath and paint my toenails or do something equally girlie. Like maybe hook up with my gorgeous overnight next-door neighbor who, notwithstanding how his sex parts might stack up, was yummy from everything else I could get a look at.
Sadly, that wasn’t going to happen. Not my style. Spontaneous wild fun and all. And I had a meeting to get to in the morning.
I’d have to settle for a bubble bath.
Adopting as formal a manner as I could in a towel, I brushed past him to get back to my room. “Have a good night.”