Leah Vale - The Rich Girl Goes Wild

Judging by her pink-cheeked, wide-eyed reaction to his mild flirting, Miss Ashley might be in need of a little excitement in her life. He certainly was never averse to excitement. Had sworn to make it his goal in life, he thought grimly. Though the fact that making her blush had made him feel like he had scored a goal in a World Cup soccer match wasn’t so bad, either.

Coming up with any old name but his own and a decent reason for invading the Rivers estate would have been smarter, but a more appealing idea formed in his sleep-deprived brain. Keeping Harrison’s obviously repressed society sister flustered would be an excellent way to keep her from figuring out who he was.

While the confining upper-class social circles he was obliged to inhabit were on the opposite coast, based on what Harrison had said about his younger sister’s big-time charity pursuits, Mac didn’t doubt for a second that Ashley Rivers knew the name Wilder Huntington MacDougal V. And why he should be in New York suffering under the glare of scandal instead of hiding out on the outskirts of quaint little Plainview, Oregon.

He’d had a hell of a time slipping away from the tabloid press, and the last thing he wanted was some society-page sweetheart dropping a dime on him.

“Excuse me, er, sir,” Ashley called in such a commanding yet exceedingly polite tone he stopped his trek down the never-ending, sun-washed hall lined with French doors on one side and noteworthy works of art on the other. He turned slowly so he could control his urge to tell her to go away.

He couldn’t believe she was still being so polite. By now, any of the MacDougal women would have called him a colorful name, tackled him and sat on his head until he came clean about who he was and why he was there.

The flustered look on Ashley’s beautiful face as she screeched to a halt out of his reach almost made him take pity on her. Almost.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to insist that you tell me who you are and what business you have here in my home, at this hour, and in that—” she waved her thick, black leather, antiquated day planner at his grubby riding gear “—that…state.”

Realizing he still wore his bicycle helmet, he slowly peeled it from his head and shook out the hair he hadn’t taken the time to have cut before he’d bailed out of New York. He needed to come up with a story to get her off his back, but he was distracted by how tightly she’d pulled her gorgeous golden hair into its bun at the base of her slender, elegant neck.

He stepped toward her. The urge to free her hair seized him. Which was ridiculous. Delectable women were as common as Blue Chip stocks and bonds in and around the MacDougal clan. And he’d never before felt the need to start a campaign to free repressed hair. Nonetheless, his fingers itched.

He leaned closer, catching a whiff of her delicate scent, a designer fragrance he recognized but couldn’t name. Admiring her willingness to stand her ground even though he deliberately crowded her, he said, “Do you like omelets? I make a killer omelet. Let me make you a great big, fluffy one and we can get to know each other the only way a man and woman should. Early in the morning, the spring sun shining through the windows after a long night…”

She blushed vividly.

Gooooaaaal!

But since he had had a long night—flying the red-eye, waiting forever to pick up his mountain bike and other stuff from the oversize baggage check, loading the rented SUV to the gills and arriving at his college buddy’s house so early he’d decided to go for a ride through the woods surrounding the estate rather than disturb anyone—he was too beat to think of anything else to say. And she looked as if she was about to scream for the police. Politely, of course.

Cursing his idiocy for not having come up with some sort of plan beyond hiding out at Harrison’s until after Stephanie’s manipulative lies became apparent and their families stopped planning a shotgun wedding, he stuck out his hand and said on a sigh, “My friends call me Mac.”

A freshly dried dirt clod lost its grip on his arm hairs and dropped with an ominous thunk between them.

She eyed his dirty hand, her posture stiff as a board, but her genetically engineered, flawless manners had her reaching for his hand. He engulfed her fair, slender and delicate hand in his big, dirty paw.

Just when their skin touched and the electricity he’d felt when she’d introduced herself earlier sparked and sent heat straight to his lap, he was hailed from behind.

“Wild Man! You’re here,” Harrison exclaimed.

Thank the god of good bagpipes. At last, a man whose brain might actually function around Miss Ashley Rivers.

HER HEART THUNDERED the way it had the last time this Mac person had taken her hand in his, and Ashley jumped at her brother’s greeting. She tried to end the handshake that wasn’t really a handshake, more a handholding, but Mac, or Wild Man, or whoever he was, wouldn’t let go. When he turned toward her brother, she sent Harrison a pointed look.

Harrison raised a golden brow, took in her trapped hand, then grinned at the other man. “I see you’ve met my sister. The hostess with the mostest.”

Not sharing her brother’s sense of humor, she said, “Actually, I haven’t been able to get him to tell me who he—”

Her captor turned his attention back to her and pumped her hand vigorously, a strangely relieved look shining in his hazel eyes. “The name’s Mac Wild. Trust me, the pleasure is all mine.”

Ashley had never heard a more fitting moniker in her life, especially compared to her brother’s polished, though just as big and handsome, looks. She couldn’t imagine Mr. Wild having any other name, with his unruly hair, his full-tilt enjoyment of life obvious in his muscular body, his animal magnetism that gave him such a sensuous presence…

Blinking, she forced herself to focus.

She racked her brain, but the name didn’t ring a bell. And she never forgot a name. His face did look vaguely familiar, but with his model good looks, she was probably thinking of some guy in a sports drink ad.

Giving a sudden, yet no less subtle tug, she extracted her hand from his and avoided his reflexive grab. Grateful her hand came away free of mud, she asked, “How do you know my brother, Mr. Wild?”

“Call me Mac.”

Harrison answered her question as he slung an arm around Mac’s shoulders. “Harvard.”

Ashley struggled to hide her surprise. Mac Wild looked more like a graduate of the X-Games than her older brother’s alma mater.

Mr. Wild cleared his throat. “Yes, well, it’s surprising what they’ll let on campus.” He raised an elbow and gave Harrison a rather rough-looking jostle.

Her brother let out a grunt then exclaimed, “Oh, that’s right. Yes, it is.”

Knowing her brother’s nonjudgmental nature would lead him to befriend a janitor as easily as a fellow summa cum laude—or fall in love with and marry a wonderful girl with a very different background than theirs—Ashley refrained from inquiring about his friend’s field of study.

Another dirt clod dropped from Mr. Wild’s person and made Harrison retract his arm and check the underside of his no longer entirely white dress shirtsleeve.

Ashley struggled to contain a baleful sigh. “What brings you to the estate this morning?”

“Other than omelets with a pretty girl? Well, let me see…” His words trailed off as he glanced at Harrison.

Harrison gave a slight nod. “Mac’s going to help me with the Dover Creek Mill modernization.”

“Really,” Ashley murmured as she opened her day planner, surprised at herself for having missed one of Harrison’s business contacts. Her father counted on her to be on top of such things. Heaven forbid Mac had been around six months ago when she’d coordinated Harrison and Juliet’s wedding. She’d be mortified to have failed to invite him, because clearly he and her brother were on good terms. And as he had intimated earlier, she would have remembered if she’d seen him at the ceremony, whether she’d met him or not. Mac Wild was not a man easily forgotten.