Penthouse Suite (8 page)

“Max, it wouldn’t be smart for me to go with you.”

“At least let’s talk about it.”

He wasn’t going to give up. Sooner or later somebody else in the hotel was going to see or hear him pounding on her door. “All right,” she agreed, “I’ll come to your office and discuss the situation.”

Max had heard her voice change from dreamy to irritated to resigned. Irritation was an emotion that could be teased into excitement. But resignation was more difficult to deal with.
There you go again Sorrenson
, he told himself,
you’re being stuffy
. He wanted to hear the dreamy voice again, and he didn’t know how to coax it back.

Maybe he could challenge her. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to resist replying to the kind of lighthearted
banter they’d exchanged the previous night.

“Good. I’m always willing to hear any employee’s grievance. Never let it be said that Max Sorrenson isn’t open to compromise,” he ad-libbed.
That ought to do it
. “I’ll meet you in my office in ten minutes.”

His office? Too late she remembered that Max’s office was in his penthouse suite. She’d be the one who was compromised. “No. I think that would be a mistake. I’ll met you in the manager’s office, or,” she announced bravely, “or not at all.”

“That isn’t a good idea, Kate. There are too many people there. I really think we ought to keep this discussion private.”

He was right. How would it look to have an audience when the pompous eccentric and his plumber discussed their impossible relationship? Kate couldn’t hold back a smile. She was beginning to realize that Max and his aunt were alike, even if they didn’t recognize their similarities. They were both a bit daft.

First Dorothea had forced her into a situation where she didn’t belong, now Max was doing the same. It didn’t make sense for him to be interested in her. He should be able to see that there was no future for them. She was only there temporarily.

Kate wrapped the sheet around her, came to the door, and leaned her head against it. “Please, Max. Last night was a mistake. I didn’t know that you were Mrs. Jarrett’s nephew when I agreed to go with her. I was out of line. Just go away and leave me here to do my work. Don’t make this into something that it isn’t.”

An irrational flash of anger roared through Max.
He was known as the man who was always in control. Yet this time he couldn’t stop his words. “All right. Let me put it another way, Ms. Weston. You will get dressed and sail down the coast with me, or there will be two unemployed people in this hotel by noon. You and the day manager who hired you.”

Kate opened the door. “You wouldn’t dare! It isn’t Helen Stevens’s fault. Your aunt browbeat her into giving me this job. What kind of man are you?”

She was wrapped in a thin sheet. He could see the shape of her small breasts with their dark nipples jutting proudly beneath the fabric. Her hair was softly tousled, and her eyes sparkled defiantly.

Max swallowed hard. He’d done it now. He’d made himself into Simon Legree when all he’d wanted to be was Lorenzo Lamas. She should never have opened the door. “An impatient one,” he said, biting off the words with clenched teeth. “And you’re right. I’m not going to fire Helen. Because you’re coming, if I have to kidnap you. Fifteen minutes. In front of the hotel. And, Kate, do put on something that will cover that body, or we may never get off the boat.”

Kate knew she had no choice. She looked down at her body and back at the man. She’d never thought much about how she looked. Back in Kentucky she was accepted for who she was. Since leaving home she’d had to fight so hard to prove that she was able to do a man’s job that she’d grown used to rough talk and sexual innuendo. She’d always become just one of the boys. But Max didn’t see her that way. And when he looked at her, her body reacted in very feminine ways.

Even now her sensitive nipples were responding to the rough touch of the fabric rubbing against them as she breathed. “I’ll be there,” she said in a whisper.

“I’m glad.” The dreamy quality was back in her voice, and Max felt a warm sense of possessiveness swell inside him. Another minute and that wouldn’t have been the only thing that swelled.

Kate splashed her face with water, ran a comb through her hair, and turned to the closet to survey her wardrobe. Cover her body? Fine. She tugged on the pair of faded jeans she’d been wearing the last time she worked on the car. Battery acid had eaten holes in the legs, and there was a three-cornered tear in the knee. She pulled a grease-smeared T-shirt emblazoned with the Atlanta Braves logo over her head and stuck her feet into sneakers with holes. As a last glowing touch, she crammed the orange cap on her head. She looked like a slob. That ought to keep him from forcing her to go, she decided.

Kate rounded the corner of the building and caught her breath. The grim expression on Max’s face and the sight of his clenched fists made her chest tighten and her stomach flutter. Unsuccessfully, she fought back an attack of panic, then ducked into the souvenir shop, rubbing the goose bumps that had suddenly raised like ant hills down her arms.

“May I help you?” The sales clerk hovered near the entrance, obviously suspicious of the oddly dressed woman hiding behind a rack of sunglasses.

“Ah, yes,” Kate stammered, desperately wishing that she had never turned her automobile into the driveway of La Casa del Sol. She saw Max plowing through the lobby in her direction. He’d seen her.

“I’d like these,” she said as she searched the rack wildly, selecting a pair of over-large bright yellow plastic sunglasses.

“Kate!”

She jammed the glasses on her nose and turned to face him.

“What are you doing, and why are you dressed like a refugee from a thrift store? Never mind.” He took her hand and drew her unyieldingly toward the front door.

“Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?” The clerk was scurrying behind them like a bird uncertain of her perch.

“Yes? What in blazes do you want?” Max roared.

“The glasses, sir. There is a ten-dollar charge for the glasses the lady bought.”

“Ten dollars? If those awful things cost ten dollars, I can understand why you have so many of them. Tell Helen Stevens to write a charge off and put those tacky things on sale immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” The puzzled clerk was unsure of what was happening, but she was beginning to understand that the man directing her was someone in charge. “What shall we price them at, sir?”

“Give them away if you have to. Just get rid of them.” He was doing it again. He was acting like a jerk, he realized.

“Max!” Kate protested. “She’s only doing her job.” Kate hurried out the front door, trying to lure Max away from the clerk and the curious onlookers in the lobby.

“I’m sorry.” Max let out a deep breath and followed her, a look of confusion etched across his tanned face. “I’m acting like an idiot. But I wanted you to come, and I was afraid that you wouldn’t.”

“You were?” Kate’s surprised response popped
out before she could stop it. Max led her to a low-slung black sports car and opened the door for her. He paused, a dark look of intensity reflected in his eyes.

“Why didn’t you stay last night?”

“Because I never should have been there. Just as I shouldn’t be here this morning.”

“Why? Were you uncomfortable with my friends?”

His friends? Truthfully, she couldn’t recall a single one of them. “No, it wasn’t that. It’s just that I’ve never been in a place like this, with a man like you. You overwhelm me and I—we—oh, Lordy, this is coming out all wrong. Just go on to your meeting and forget about me, Max Sorrenson.”

He was leaning forward, with one arm against the car on either side of her, pinning her down. She was doing her best to say no to a man whose very nearness was scrambling her brain and turning all her logical thoughts into confusion.

“No. I’ve tried all those arguments. They don’t work. I mean, I think that we have to consider all the possibilities before making a decision. A relationship with an employee is something that I’ve avoided in the past. And I’m still not entirely sure that it’s wise.”

“Then why?”

“Because—because—oh, hell, because I want you with me. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes,” she said simply. She was rewarded with a smile of pleasure that made her want to hug him. But what she did instead was kiss him. It was a quick, spontaneous kiss, the kind that any friend might give another friend, even if Max’s groan and intake of breath threatened the friendship right from the start.

“Great,” he said, pulling back. “Now we’d better hurry, or I’m going to be late for my meeting.”

“No, wait. Do we have five more minutes?”

“Sure, why?”

“I want to change my clothes.”

“Okay, but I like the shirt. It’s … awesome, or it will be once it gets wet.”

Kate gave him a playful slap and ran down the walk. She tried not to imagine what the day would bring as she exchanged her bag lady outfit for trim white shorts, a clean Braves T-shirt, and a fresh pair of white sneakers. The baseball cap gave way to a perky visor, and she was back at the car before she had time to change her mind.

They were just two people, a guy and a girl, out for a day in the Florida sun. She’d leave it at that for now. No use anticipating trouble before it arrived, she decided.

Max watched Kate slide into the passenger seat, and then he started the engine. Throwing propriety to the winds, he flung back his head and let out one of his aunt’s favorite expressions of approval. “Yahoo!”

He drove the sports car down the road beneath moss-draped trees, alongside squatty palms growing in gray-black dirt. Kate loved reading the names of the streets on the signs at the intersections of the narrow little sandy lanes that led off toward the water: Seagrove, Grayton, Blue Mountain Beach.

The sun was shining. The ocean breeze was tugging at Kate’s hair like a lover sneaking secret kisses, and Max, watching Kate, couldn’t stop smiling. Every time he stole a look at her, she was looking at him, and finally they both gave in and laughed out loud.

“What kind of car do you have, Kate?”

“Nothing like this, I’m afraid.”

“Is it a sports car?”

“No, just a plain old Chevy.”

“Perfect, we should have driven it.”

“Why on earth would you want to trade this beautiful machine for my ratty car?”

“Because,” he said as he turned down a gravel road toward the ocean, “it probably doesn’t have bucket seats.” Max brought the car to an abrupt stop at the private parking area adjacent to the Hidden Cove Yacht Club. He turned off the engine, reached across the gear box, and pulled Kate close.

“It also doesn’t run,” she whispered breathlessly.

Max groaned softly, twisting his head so that his mouth fit perfectly against hers. She’d known his kiss would be hot, hard, and demanding. What she hadn’t known was that she would lose herself in its power.

He pulled back and nuzzled her cheek as he steadied his breathing.

“You may have to move your meeting here.”

“Meeting! Oh, hell. We’d better get going. I’ll get the cooler. You bring the blanket.”

“Blanket?” Before she could open her door, he already had the cooler in one hand and a blanket draped over one arm.

“So, I’ll bring them both. You just bring the dessert.”

“Dessert?”

“You, Kathryn. Follow me. Remember, all work and no play makes Max dull.” Max waited for Kate to get out of the car, placed a wickedly suggestive kiss on her forehead, and marched briskly onto the floating pier. Kate scrambled down the dock behind him.

“I don’t really think that you’re dull, Max,” Kate
protested, her voice a little subdued as she realized that Max had called her Kathryn. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her, but it did. Kathryn was another person, the mysterious woman from Max’s dinner party. She was Kate, and Kate had her feet planted squarely on the ground.

“Neither did I,” Max confessed over his shoulder, “but I’m beginning to think that Aunt Dorothea was right. Maybe the word is monotonous, tedious, stodgy.”

“Maybe the word is dormant.”

“I think I like the idea of being awakened, Kate. Let’s get to the boat.”

Gray and white gulls made shrill angry noises as they streaked across the water at the dock’s edge. Kate glanced around, seeing for the first time the fleet of assorted boats bobbing gently in the cobalt blue water. Smartly dressed people were climbing aboard various boats. They called their greetings to Max, who seemed to know everyone. The scene was bright and happy. Big fluffy clouds ballooned across the sky in the bright sunshine.

Max’s boat seemed much too large for one man to sail. Kate swallowed a gasp as she read its name:
Secret Lady
.

“Take this, Kate,” Max said from the open area leading down to what was apparently a sleeping cabin. He handed her a bright orange life jacket.

“Slip it on like a vest and snap the catch,” he instructed as he fastened his own. “Every passenger on board the
Secret Lady
wears one.”

Kate complied silently, allowing herself to examine his trim, tanned body as he emerged from the compartment. He was wearing white sneakers, crisp white shorts, and a dark pink polo shirt. He looked like … like raspberry sherbert. And she’d always had a weakness for raspberries.

Max seemed unaware of her scrutiny as he moved to the seat near the tiller and motioned for Kate to sit down beside him. He turned the key, and the churning sound of the boat’s motor filled the strained silence. “We’ll use the motor to move us out of the cove, into the bay, and out into deep water. Then the wind will power us.”

Any thought Kate had of conversation died when the engine roared to life, and the boat moved slowly out of the cover. Soon they had left behind the gleaming white beaches with the charming names. Kate felt the tension drain away. When they were well out into the Gulf, Max killed the engine and began to unfurl the sails.

“First we hoist the mainsail, then the jib. Then we winch up the sails. That means pull them tight. We’ll just trim them so they won’t flutter, then we’ll cleat them.”

“Cleat them?” Kate asked.

“Fasten them down.”