Leah Vale - The Rich Girl Goes Wild

She jerked open the refrigerator’s door and stepped toward the sanity-returning blast of cold air.

After a moment of heavy silence, Mac finally said, “I’m sorry, you guys, but I can’t.” He gave a sheepish sort of grin. “I don’t have any decent clothes. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want some bozo in Lycra or zip-off pants at my kid’s shindig.” He looked down at himself. “Just like I’m sure Marie doesn’t want Pigpen in her kitchen. I’d better go get cleaned up.”

Juliet hopped off her husband’s lap and offered, “I’ll find Donavon and we’ll get you settled.”

Mac let loose a heavy breath. “Thanks, Juliet. Harrison, if I happen to hit a bed and the bed hits back hard enough that I don’t wake up until you’re already gone, have a great trip. I’ll catch you when you get home.”

He glanced at Ashley, an unreadable expression on his face. For the first time she noticed the bruised-looking circles smudging the tanned skin beneath his eyes and the heaviness with which he moved as he followed Juliet out of the kitchen, as if all those muscles were suddenly hard to lug around.

Then he smirked at her. “Don’t catch a chill, sunshine.” The rough edges of his deep baritone raised the goose bumps on her skin in a way that the open refrigerator had failed to do. She started guiltily and slammed the fridge shut.

She looked at Harrison to see if he had noticed her foolish behavior, but he was watching Mac leave the room.

Harrison shifted his gaze to hers. “He was a very good friend to me in school, despite what he went through.”

She raised her brows. “What did he go through?”

“He lost someone very important to him.”

A pang of sympathy coursed through her heart. Surprisingly it seemed she and Mr. Wild had something in common, after all.

Before she could ask who he’d lost, Harrison added, “I’d really like to have him at my son’s christening, Ash.”

In other words, make it happen.

She would. It was what she did best.

Even though she’d prefer to keep the apparently wounded Mac Wild as far from her family, and thus her consciousness, as possible, she gave her big brother a reassuring smile.

Thanks to her wandering gaze, at least she wouldn’t be making a total guess when she gave the tailor Mac’s inseam measurement.

Mac rounded yet another corner in the U-shaped mansion and decided that sometimes no sleep was better than just a little. While about half the size of MacDougal House, with a pretty simple layout, the long hallways of the Rivers’s home had him sufficiently lost on his way to the pool.

He shoved his long bangs away from his face, only to have them spring forward into his eyes again. He shouldn’t have gone to bed for what turned out to be a five-hour nap with his hair wet, but he’d been so dog-tired that he’d barely dried off from his shower before he’d hit the sack. He usually kept his hair shorter so he never had to think about it, let alone mess with it. But barbers had been in short supply on his last scuba diving trip, and when he returned, those in Stephanie’s camp had started hounding him about marrying her to the point that he hadn’t wanted to take the time to have his hair cut. He’d avoided sitting still in one place long enough to give any of them an opportunity to harangue him about settling down.

Mac rolled his bare shoulders beneath the towel he’d slung around his neck, fighting the tension he’d thought he’d outrun on the cross-country flight last night. Needing more than ever to dunk his head and burn off some steam swimming laps, he lengthened his stride until his black, slip-on soccer slides slapped against his bare heels, certain he’d find the back staircase at the end of the hall that one of the maids had told him about. Supposedly it would dump him right by the door to the heated outdoor pool.

An odd tapping sound snagged his attention and he glanced into the open doorway on his right as he walked past. He jammed it into Reverse, nearly stepping out of his loosely velcroed single strap slides, until he was standing in the doorway of a room awash in muted pinks and smelling of rose potpourri. Ashley Rivers, hair still perfectly repressed and cream suit still buttoned up tight, sat at a delicate and feminine Queen Ann desk in what should have been the sitting room area of her bedroom suite.

He could see the four-poster bed, buried beneath mounds of white lace and pillows, through an open door to her right. His blood automatically started pumping in preparation. Man, this woman main-lined his libido.

She was typing away on a keyboard as she stared intently at a computer’s flat-screen monitor. Sitting next to the monitor was the biggest Rolodex he’d ever seen in his life. The room even sported a file cabinet. The fact that she’d turned part of her private quarters into an office didn’t surprise Mac. From the short time he’d known Ashley, he figured her the all business, no fun type.

Knowing full well Ashley Rivers was trouble and that he should just keep on going, he instead grabbed the ends of the towel around his neck and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb all casual-like. A perverse, hitherto unexplored aspect of his personality wanted to get back at all the Stephanies in the world, even in such a small way as, say, being an annoyance.

In his best come-here-often voice he said, “Well, hello, sunshine.”

She started and glanced up. Her brow-marring expression of concentration changed into a pretty flush. He felt a jolt of satisfaction when her gaze traveled over him from head to foot and her eyes widened at the sight of him clad only in loose black swim trunks and black, foot massaging soccer slides. He indulged himself by pulling down on the towel to flex his biceps and pecs. Her flush turned into a raging blush.

Goooaaal!

Then it occurred to him that maybe she just found his epic case of bed-head offensive. Naa, it was the pecs. Clearly Miss Ashley needed to get out more.

He gestured toward the computer with an end of the towel. “What’cha doing?”

She looked back at the computer screen and blinked rapidly a few times. “I’m working,” she said as if reminding herself.

“You work in your bedroom?”

“This isn’t my bedroom. This is my office. My bedroom is through there.” She tilted her head toward the door on her right, making her tiny, gold hoop earrings sway.

Practically salivating with the opportunities she seemed in the habit of handing him, he grinned and rumbled, “Oh, really.”

The way she fought to deny the suggestiveness of his tone by primly folding her hands in her lap made him decide that goading her would also be an excellent way to keep his mind off his situation and make his time here at least a little entertaining.

She cleared her throat and returned her fingers to the keyboard with a determination that made him smile genuinely.

Without looking at him she said, “Yes. And I’m quite busy, so if you’ll—”

“What exactly do you do?”

She spared him a glance that said she didn’t think much of his intelligence. But when that glance became a perusal of his bare chest he made sure she noticed by spreading the towel a little wider than necessary, she kind of glazed over. “I…I—”

“You…what?”

She snapped her gaze back to her desk and made a grab for her day planner. She unfastened the flap with a yank and opened it, then flipped through the pages way too fast to be able to see what was on them. “Right now I’m planning the menu for the dinner following Nathan’s christening ceremony.”

“Ah. And when there aren’t babies to be christened…?”

“I coordinate everyone’s schedules, plan social functions and put together fund-raisers for the various charities we support.”