Penthouse Suite (7 page)

Heavy cut glass containers held fat candles that cast a myriad of silver sparkles across the lavender twilight. Creamy white gardenias floated in bowls of shimmering water. The smell of the ocean wafting in the breeze mingled with the sweet scent of the gardenias and seemed to curl romantically about the candle flame, causing it to wax and wane in the darkness.

Max Sorrenson took Kate’s elbow and brought her to the table. His hand set off an involuntary tingle, and she started, unconsciously rubbing away the sensation.

“Kate, my girl,” Matthew Blue pulled up the chair next to her. “I insist on sitting beside you. Bring on the food, Max. Dorothea looks as if she’s about to devour the centerpiece.”

“Nothing my aunt does surprises me.” Max planted an innocent kiss on her forehead.

Kate could see that the tenderness of the kiss didn’t match the warning in his eyes as he settled down in the seat across from Kate.

“Now, Max,” Dorothea admonished. “Don’t get a burr under your saddle. You always get cross when you aren’t running the show. You’ll scare
Kate to death. And Matthew, you’re much too old for that child. Stop flirting with her, or you’ll make me very jealous.”

“Kate doesn’t impress me as the type that scares easily, Aunt Dorothea,” Max said smoothly. Dorothea was right. He did tend to become gruff when he was thwarted. It was a kind of defense mechanism that he’d learned as a child. “I can’t wait to read your column, or is it adventure articles you do?”

“I don’t write a column,” Kate said. “I’m more into how-to projects.”

“You mean like do-it-yourself plumbing?”

“Don’t be silly, Max. Does Kate look like a plumber?”

“Oh, I think she could be. I don’t know about Kathryn, but Kate—now that’s another story. Kate intrigues me greatly.”

“Wonderful!” Dorothea’s shout of approval met with a raised eyebrow from her nephew. “I mean the food is wonderful.”

The salad was followed by the entrée of tender medallions of veal, and finally the dessert, raspberry sherbert, was served.

“Personally,” Dorothea confided, glancing smugly toward Kate, “I prefer lemon sherbert, provided it’s sweet enough. But raspberry is nice too.”

“So, Kathryn,” Max finally said, after listening to the discussion of the merits of lemon over raspberry sherbert, “what kind of assignment are you on? I mean currently, of course.”

“Oh, Max. You always were too inquisitive, even as a small boy. Then I’d just swat you on the bottom, and you’d stomp back up to your room and slam the door. Never could get him to get out and get dirty like a normal boy.”

“How long will it take, this secret assignment of yours?” Max persisted.

Dorothea rolled her eyes but kept silent.

Max didn’t know why he persisted in his attempt to force Kate to admit that they’d met. Maybe it was because Kathryn, this new person she’d become, so unsettled him.

Max liked Kate, the woman who’d yelled at him, forced him to hold the wrench while she deftly took care of a problem that would have made most women start to cry. The woman across the table from him was Kathryn, and Kathryn was an enigma.

Kate was easy, fun, appealing. Kathryn, on the other hand, was mysterious, exciting, a woman he couldn’t seem to catalog. One thing he was certain of was that he was having more fun than he’d had in a very long time. How long, he wondered, would his aunt allow this little game to continue?

Kate pretended to enjoy her meal. She knew that Max was staring at her. He knew she was Kate the handyman, not a writer for some magazine. But the person at this table wasn’t Kate. The person lifting her wineglass was Kathryn, and Kathryn wasn’t going to give an inch. She’d stay on this carousel as long as Max wanted to continue the ride.

“How long will my assignment take? I haven’t any idea,” Kate answered. “I’d planned on two weeks with pay. But since my cover has been blown, that could end. Some people think that my employer is something of a snob, accustomed to throwing his weight around. If that turns out to be true, I may be expendable.”

“A snob? I disagree,” Max said briskly. “Sometimes
people in authority get pigeonholed and don’t know how to change their images. Maybe you ought to stand up to the man. Maybe he likes a woman with spirit.”

Their eyes met across the table. Kate could see a grudging respect in his gaze. She smiled. Their first encounter had been declared a draw.

“Perhaps I will,” Kate said, lifting her glass in an unspoken salute.

Max smiled and lifted his glass, returning the tribute.

As coffee was being poured, Matthew leaned back, lit a long thin cigar, and put a serious expression on his face. “With all your money tied up, Max, how are you fellows at the Hotel Association going to handle the outsiders? Slowly but surely they’re moving in. Frankly, I don’t want them here, any of them.”

Max shook his head and frowned. “Now, Matt, all of us were outsiders once. Thank goodness there were those willing to accept us, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“True,” Dorothea agreed. Some kinds of change ought to be welcomed. There are just some of us too stubborn to admit it.”

“Seriously, Matt,” Max went on, “over-fishing the Gulf is a problem. We may be able to head off any fisherman not yet here, but those already licensed are legal. As for the Hotel Association, as long as current hotel owners give the committee first refusal on the sale of any property, we can buy the hotels, then resell them to acceptable owners. That’s the only way we can keep organized crime and gambling out of our family resort area.”

“Well, maybe. The shrimp are practically all gone. And if the king mackerel count falls off any more,
I don’t know. A man’s got to fill his net one way or the other.”

“Exactly my thought,” Dorothea exclaimed, and yawned noisily. “Every man ought to fill his net. My goodness, Kate, I’m just about to fall asleep. I think we’d better go.”

“The late hours and the schedule you keep, no doubt,” Max observed shrewdly. “But that’s no reason for Kate to go. There’s still time for dancing, maybe a midnight breakfast and a stroll to watch the sun rise.”

“Not tonight, Max. Kate has other … obligations. Maybe tomorrow. Good night, Matthew. Lovely party, Max. Don’t let us break up the evening.”

Kate quickly rose and took Dorothea’s chair. Feeling Max’s gaze on her all the way to the elevator, she gave a Joan Crawford shift to her shoulder and fought the urge to look back.

“Where can I reach you in the morning, Kathryn, to let you know what time we’re leaving?”

“Just call me,” Dorothea answered quickly. “I’ll relay any message.”

“Fine, I’ll call you first thing in the morning, Dorothea,” Max said.

When the elevator doors closed behind them, Kate let out a deep sigh of relief. The evening had been unreal. She still didn’t know why Max hadn’t told Dorothea that he knew who she really was. But now the evening was over, and she wasn’t sure where she stood. If she was fired, she was fired. Nothing was going to change that.

What she wouldn’t do was let him drive her away. What she couldn’t do was admit that he was more than just an exciting, desirable man. She didn’t have to be Deborah Kerr or Bette Davis
to feel herself responding. She leaned on the wheelchair, feeling it move under the force of her pressure.

“What’s the matter, girl, don’t have your ‘sea legs’ under you yet? The phone is ringing. Wonder who that could be?”

Kate opened Dorothea’s door and stood, waiting to bolt as soon as Dorothea was safely inside.

“Hold on a minute, Kate, while I answer this. Hello? Probably. I heard you, Max. Yes, I know that Kate didn’t give you an answer. Yes, she’s here. I’ll tell her. Good night, Max.” Dorothea turned back to Kate, rubbing her hands in undisguised glee.

“Good night, Dorothea,” Kate began.

“That was Max. Wanted to be sure that you weren’t leaving? He seemed to think that you might panic and check out. I told him that you’d still be here tomorrow. I suppose Joe’s room is technically ‘here.’ ”

“Dorothea, after the wild things you told him tonight, I don’t know why you’d worry about technicalities. I think that there is something you’d better know before this gets any more insane. Your nephew knows who I am.”

“Of course he does. I told him your name.”

“No, he knows that I work for him in the maintenance department. I repaired a leak in his bathroom last night.”

“So that’s what all that sizzle was about tonight. I get the distinct feeling that there was more than plumbing involved.”

“There wasn’t! Of course, I’ve never worked around a naked man before. But I got the job done.”

“Naked man? Wonderful! I don’t even want to
know what that means. It worked. Even I couldn’t have set up a more exciting scenario. And he’s already called here to make sure you’re going with him tomorrow.” Dorothea removed the cape of her gown and trailed the feathers under her chin and across her bosom.

“He’s probably going to put me before the firing squad at dawn, Dorothea. That’s why he wants to be sure that I’m where he can find me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. But that does explain why he said that Errol Flynn wasn’t the only pirate to sail the southern seas. Oh, Kate,” Dorothea said, “it’s intrigue that gives life it’s flavor. Don’t you want to have a little excitement in your life?”

“Excitement, yes. That’s why I’m working my way across the country. But I didn’t take a how-to class in playing games.”

“Oh, but you don’t need lessons, Kate. You have a natural talent. I’m a good judge of people, and I understand you and Max very well. An adventure is a lot more fun if you have someone to share it with. Go with Max tomorrow.”

Maybe Dorothea was right. She was only going to be there for two weeks. Why not enjoy being a part-time mystery woman? Still, she didn’t want to make it too easy on the septagenarian. Let her enjoy the challenge. Maybe Dorothea needed a little sugar in her lemonade too.

“All right, I’ll think about it. But the bottom line is that I’m a maintenance worker, and I’m afraid that sooner or later Max is going to be furious with you about this.”

“Nonsense. Max may not have my sense of humor, but he’s got my blood in him.”

“But—” Kate began once more.

“No, no more buts. Not tonight. Go to bed, Kate.”
Mrs. Jarrett softened the expression on her face and squeezed Kate’s hand. “Please, humor me. And soon I’ll tell you about another woman who was given the chance to share a grand adventure.”

The shower water was hot and it felt wonderful. Afterward, Kate fell wearily across her bed, on the edge of falling asleep.

She wasn’t sure why she let herself turn into Kathryn. She must have been under some sort of magical spell. The morning light would erase that soon enough. She was a maintenance worker with leaky faucets and faulty TVs to repair, not some foxy lady on an assignment. Still, for one magic moment Kate had become the mysterious Kathryn, pursued by an executive who lived in a penthouse suite.

Kate awoke suddenly, jarred by the urgent pounding on her door. She groaned and willed the person to leave. He didn’t.

The person at the door had to be Max, she realized. Any hope she had that he had forgotten about the previous night and would go to his committee meeting in Panama City without her evaporated.

“Go away!” she yelled desperately. “I’m busy!”

“Doing what?”

“Sleeping.” It was Max, and she wasn’t ready to face him.

“Not any more,” he said.

“No, your pounding woke me up.”

There was a moment of silence. “I can think of better ways to do it, if you’ll open this door.”

His voice was hoarse and a bit unsteady. Kate clutched the sheet tightly as if it might restrain her from flinging open the door and wrapping herself in his arms.

On the other side of that door, Max realized that things weren’t working out the way he’d planned—if he’d had a plan, which he hadn’t. He’d ordered a picnic lunch, canceled it, and ordered it again. This trip was business. Taking her along on his boat would be a distraction when he needed to concentrate on the upcoming meeting.

But leaving her behind would be an even bigger distraction. What he wanted to do was cancel the meeting and take Kate straight to his apartment—and make love to her.

Such intense desire for a woman was new to him, and he’d spent half the night trying to understand it. Finally, at dawn, he’d decided to go without her. Yet there he was, outside Kate’s door. When she’d yelled that she was sleeping, all thoughts of leaving without her vanished.

“Kate, will you let me in?”

“No! I’m … I’m not dressed.”

Ahhh! She was lying in bed naked not three feet away. Max groaned again.

Let him in? Kate’s mind seized on the picture of Max waking her up, seized on it and expanded it in less than a second. Weakly she sighed, recognizing the beginning of an ache in her head and a tingle between her thighs that seemed to be an automatic response to his presence.

For Pete’s sake. She was no virgin, though her experience had been limited and long ago. But Max Sorrenson was an assault on her senses that she couldn’t stave off. Sylvester Stallone lips, a Chuck Norris body, and the sophistication of Cary Grant. He was a man to die for—but not to open the door for.

“I’m sure you’re more alarming than a clock, Max, but no thanks. If you don’t intend to fire me
after last night’s little escapade, I think I’d better go to work. Plumbing is a lot safer than being alone with you.”

“Work? Not today. I’ve arranged for the boss to give you a day off. It seems a new employee has converted him to the theory that all work and no play makes Max a dull boy.”

Then she wasn’t out of a job. She leaned back on her pillow and tried to suppress the unexpected happy feeling that came over her. She allowed herself to consider the possibility of going with Max, of the two of them sailing down the coast like ordinary people on a Sunday cruise.

But, no. She doubted that they’d get out of the harbor. Kate swung her feet to the floor and sat up. She wanted to go with Max Sorrenson. There was a sense of power about him that was intoxicating. But he was the man in the penthouse, and she knew that she belonged there about as much as beer in the boardroom.