Ineligible Bachelor (5 page)

Her heart pounded. She didn’t know if it was from fear of the unknown or the fact that he held her hand. “It seemed like a distinct possibility for a while.”

He reached over and retrieved the glass of water. “Here.”

She cupped the glass with both hands and held on for dear life.

“Look. We don’t have to do this,” he said. “It’s not worth all the stress I see on your face. There must be some way we can get out of the contract.”

Just so she could stop looking into his eyes, she glanced at the glass before raising it to her lips. “You’re not interested in finding the woman of your dreams?” Her heart beat faster, and she hoped her voice held no more emotion than it would have if she’d asked him if he wanted to watch football or hockey.

“Actually, I have been thinking about that,” he admitted.

Freddy felt her heart slam to a stop as though it hit a brick wall.

“Someday. But not quite this way and not in just a few weeks.”

Slowly, her heart seemed to restart.

“But then again, you are going to help me, right?”

And stop again.

“So it could be fun.”

“Fun,” she agreed weakly. Whom was she kidding? There would be no fun. Not for her. It was going to be pure torture.

Besides, Roberto had all but said there could be no turning back now. There had to be some sort of penalty clause in the contract she hadn’t bothered to read. In a day or two, the magazine would hit the stands, the manor was rented, the sponsors had paid their bills, and tomorrow, the women would be arriving at the expense of the network. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were at stake here.

She did a quick mental inventory to figure out if she had enough body parts to sell to repay the network if they backed out. Not nearly enough, she decided. She was stuck in a trap of her own making with no way out except straight ahead to the end. She suddenly pictured herself waving good-bye to Logan and the woman she helped pick out for him. It made her feel sick again.

“I think I should go back to my room now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh. I want to see if I have goodies in my closet, too,” she said as an excuse. She gulped down the rest of the water and stood, willing the room to hold still as she made a hasty, but somewhat wobbly exit.

Freddy shut the door to her room and leaned her head against it. Across the connecting walkway, the man of her dreams was preparing to meet six women: all of them on their best behavior, all of them probably model-hot, and all of them ready and willing to walk through fire to get his attention.

And if she had anything to do with it, that’s exactly what they’d have to do.

Hand on the brass doorknob to her room, she briefly considered turning the lock. Why bother? Logan wasn’t about to invade
her personal space anytime soon, except maybe to put a pillow over her face to smother her for what she had done to him.

But it was easy enough for her to imagine something entirely different without even trying. If she had her own reality TV show, his six-foot-two-inches of total charm and sex appeal would appear in the doorway, sweep her off her feet, and go on the date of her dreams. But that had little chance of actually happening. The show was called
Eligible Bachelor
, not
Fantasy Island.

She took a calming, much-needed breath. Being with Logan in his suite took every bit of self-restraint she had. The time they spent together in his closet had been the closest she’d ever got to kissing him, discounting the quick New Year’s Eve peck she got every year at the annual party they attended with friends.

Her impulsiveness and desire to show Logan once and for all she was more than just Freddy McAllister—man’s best friend and tackling dummy—had gotten her into this mess. Somehow, she would have to figure out a way to show him the girl of his dreams had always been in front of him.

She shook her head and sat down on the edge of the bed. She had this one night to plan her strategy. One night to somehow embed herself inside his mind so he would compare all the women he was about to meet to her and not want any of them.

She had one night to find out what he really disliked in a woman so she could use it to her advantage somehow.

Suddenly, lightning flashed outside her window. A few seconds later came the distinct rumble of thunder. She walked to the window and looked out. On the grounds below, she could see people scrambling.
Probably camera techies trying to cover outside equipment before it rained
, she thought.

She walked to the desk against the back wall of the room. She still had to fill out the form for what she needed the production assistants to get for her from home. She picked it up and wondered
if she could include “a healthy dose of
think first
” on it but opted to walk around and see what had been made available to her instead.

Another large flash of white light suddenly lit the room with a near-simultaneous boom of thunder, shaking the estate almost as soon as she entered the huge walk-in closet. Startled, she stopped in her tracks just as the lights went out and the room turned black.

The darkness seemed nearly total, even with the small skylight overhead. Heart thudding, and this time not because of Logan but rather from being in the dark in a strange house, Freddy inched her way to the side of the room, listening to the sound of the rain pounding the roof. Everything else seemed quiet and black. She may as well be wearing a blindfold.

Willing her eyes to adjust, her hand found the edge of one of the closets just as she heard the door to her suite open.

“Freddy? You okay?” Logan called to her.

“I’m fine,” she called back.

“We lost power.”

“Apparently. Maybe one of the camera techs dropped an extension cord in the water or something.” She followed the edge of the door to the wall and the wall around to a dresser inside the suite. She inched her way across the dresser top with her hands and hit something smooth and round. The sound of breaking glass followed.

“What happened?” Logan’s voice sounded close.

“I think I just destroyed something expensive.”

“Don’t move, there are probably shards all over the floor.”

“What makes you think I’m barefoot?”

She heard his laugh. “Because I am.”

Great,
she thought. What else didn’t he have on? She heard a rustling noise and then a soft thump before something brushed her feet.

“Okay, walk toward the sound of my voice. It’s safe now.”

Oh no it isn’t,
she thought, hoping she hadn’t said it out loud. “What do you mean?”

“I pulled the blanket off the bed and tossed it on the floor.”

“Pretty creative of you.” She heard a rumble of thunder, or was it his laugh? For her, both were equally deep and exciting.

“I am in marketing and PR. I have to be creative. Using my imagination is among my best qualities.”

“Along with humility,” she said with a laugh.

“Yep. Imagination is second, humility is third.”

“Then what is…” She stopped. “Never mind. Where are you?” Her hand patted the air in front of her, searching for something solid as she moved toward his voice.

“Right here.”

She bumped into him, and he steadied her by slipping his arm around her waist, his hand near her hip. The contact sent a zing of excitement up her spine. Could he see her? Was infrared vision his first best quality? She took in a breath as the heat from his palm snaked up her spine and spread through her body.

Carpe diem,
her mind screamed. Seize the day. If she took just one step, she could wrap her arms around him. Another small step and she could touch her lips to his and finally get the kiss she’d imagined about a million times since the eighth grade. Carpe diem. Smart, those ancient Romans and their Latin wisdom. It was now or never.

In anticipation, she tilted her head and started to lean toward him with parted lips when light flashed again. In the finite moment in which they were suspended in the illumination, she could see Logan’s gaze lowering to her mouth, which she managed to place
only about an inch from his. He looked back into her eyes and his arm tightened around her.

And then the blackness came again.

She expected the explosion of thunder to come, but not the long, slow breath she heard Logan let out as if to steady himself. Quickly, she pulled back. “I guess I misjudged where you were,” she said as the thunder silenced.

“Did you?” he whispered.

The warmth coming from his body enveloped her along with his earthy, male scent that mixed perfectly with the smell of summer rain. She inhaled deeply to capture it. “Yes. It’s dark in here.”

In the ensuing flashes of lightning, she memorized the way he looked in the muted light. The angles of his jaw, the shape of his mouth, the way his hair framed his face—she committed each to memory like frames on film so she could fantasize later, after she explained away the idiotic look she probably had on her face.

“We should light some candles,” she muttered, not knowing what else to say.

In the next flash of light, she saw his gaze still on her mouth. Her chest nearly burst as the breath she had trapped there begged for release.

His lips parted. “Lighting candles could be dangerous. Something could catch fire.”

Something already had. She already felt that kind of heat from his very warm hand on her back. “Maybe we should get a flashlight,” she whispered.

“We could.”

She lifted her face toward the sound of his voice, still aching to kiss him. But he released her from his arms. She could feel the warmth fade when he stepped back.

“Wait here. There has to be a flashlight or two in that oversized kitchen.”

She could hear him moving toward the door, and her heart sank. She didn’t know if she would get another opportunity to be alone with him like this once the other women arrived tomorrow. She hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. She’d make a horrible Roman. Carpe diem. She’d seized nothing. Then she heard him stop at the door.

“You know something, for a minute there, I thought you were going to kiss me,” he said.

Freddy panicked. What should she do now?

Carpe diem,
her mind shouted again. Heartbeat rising, she started making her way to him, determined another moment would not get away.

“But I’m sure it was just my imagination,” he continued. “After all these years, if something was going to happen between us, it probably would have by now.”

Freddy nearly broke an ankle stopping in her tracks. She heard him laugh, his footsteps fading as he walked down the hallway. Her heart thudded to a stop. Now she really knew how he felt when the championship had been snatched out of his hands as she tackled him all those years ago.

Logan made his way around the gourmet kitchen, opening and closing drawers with absolutely no idea if a flashlight even existed in the mansion. Offering to get one had only been an excuse. The way Freddy looked when the lightning illuminated the room made him feel as though the bolt hit him squarely in the heart. He needed to get out of the room before he did something stupid. Like kiss her.

He leaned his hip against the granite countertop and let out a long, slow breath, laughing as he did. Imagine that. Him kissing Freddy. She’d probably slap him silly if he tried it.

Another sudden burst of light washed the room making him think about what a previous bolt of lightning revealed to him upstairs:
full lips, closed eyes, all accompanied by a sense of anticipation charging the room. For that one brief moment, it seemed as though Freddy was inviting him to lean forward and make his move.

But that couldn’t be right.

Could it?

He never thought about Freddy as anything more than a good friend. But those few, brief seconds he saw her lips open, awash with the stark white light, she looked both innocent and inviting. He could not take his mind off the way he felt at that moment. The basic and very feral male urge to kiss her came upon him as sudden as the lightning that flashed overhead.

He gripped the counter with both hands, hoping to channel the raw energy the memory ignited. Was it simply the circumstances making him think of her more like a very appealing woman rather than his friend for those short, fevered moments? Or could he have feelings for her buried under the years of friendship, coming out only now that their sense of familiarity had been tested under unexpected circumstances?

Still struggling for an answer, he heard the French doors open and turned toward them.

“Mr. Gabriel?”

“Yes.” With the dim light outside, Logan could only make out a silhouette.

A beam of light approached and then ran up the cabinets next to him. “Marty from the crew here. I thought you could use a flashlight. I think lightning hit a transformer. The utility company is on its way.”

Logan’s eyes adjusted to the added light, and he took the flashlight from Marty’s outstretched hand. “Is Ms. McAllister okay?” Marty asked.

“She’s upstairs. I told her to stay put until I got back.”

“The power should be back on within the hour.”

“Great. I’ll tell her.”