Buch lesen: «Infatuation»

ALISON KENT
Infatuation

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

With thanks to Susan Sheppard, Susan Pezzack,

Jennifer Green and Birgit Davis-Todd—

the Harlequin Blaze editors who have shaped

what I’ve written into the best it can be

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Coming Next Month

1

“MILLA, SWEETIE. Not to be a bitch or anything, but for being the absolutely gorgeous woman that you are? You look like crap today.”

Milla Page glared with no small amount of envy at her coworker’s mirrored reflection. She and Natalie Tate had taken the elevator from their shared tenth-floor office in San Francisco’s Wentworth-Holt building down to the much roomier second-floor ladies’ room since theirs was yet again under renovation.

Looking at the other woman’s caramel skin, deep coffee-colored hair and vibrant green eyes was a welcome change from Milla’s staring at her own reflected deathlike palette of white and, um, even whiter.

That’s what she’d been doing now for five minutes at least, staring and wondering what she’d been thinking, letting herself out of the house this morning without so much as a brown paper bag over her head.

“Crap pretty much covers it,” she finally replied, sighing heavily. “Though originally I was thinking pasty. Like a ghoul. Or a zombie. Maybe even a corpse.”

“Whatever. You’re definitely hovering near the transparent end of the pale scale.” Natalie tossed the words over her shoulder, latching the stall door behind her.

Well, yeah. The ghoul-zombie-corpse-pasty-death look would definitely be the wrong end.

This is what happened, Milla mused, when one stayed out too late, ate too much food, drank too much drink, slept too little sleep, did it too often in the company of men who were poster children for single-hood being a good thing, and had to get up the next morning and do it again that night.

What in the world had she been thinking, taking a job with the San Francisco office of MatchMeUpOnline.com that essentially made dating her career? She was a glutton for punishment. There was no other explanation. Dating as recreation was bad enough, all that waxing, shaving, polishing, styling…and for what?

Shaking her head, she reached into her pebbled leather tote for her makeup bag, setting her blush on the restroom’s brown marble countertop, and wavering between the soft Sweetie Chic lipstick or the bright Chili Pop. She went with the former, certain the latter would make her look like a fat-lipped bloated clown.

Even though she had lived in San Francisco since graduating from university here six years ago—giving her a decade’s worth of experience with the ins and outs of being single in the city by the bay, and earning her the Web site’s choice restaurant and club review gig—she was still at a clear disadvantage when it came to doing her job.

Basing her thumbs-up or thumbs-down on whether or not the hot spots she was assigned to review worked as locations for intimate dates meant…dating. Dating was hardly a solo gig. Dating meant finding men. And since she hadn’t been in a serious relationship since college, finding men meant work.

At least her two female coworkers did what they could to help out. Both Amy Childs and her husband Chris, and Natalie and her fiancé Jamal were good at fixing up Milla with really great guys. When it had become obvious that nothing was going to develop but the shared chemistry of friendship, she kept a couple of the men on the hook for regular dates.

Knowing that she would show them a good time, get them into the toniest of places, and pay for the food, how could they say no? And for Milla, it seemed so much easier to deal with the sure thing than with the iffy.

Unfortunately, it also defeated the purpose of what she’d been assigned to do. Gauging a club’s up-close-and-personal potential with a man who was only a friend didn’t always provide her reviews the same zing as would a more, uh, heated encounter.

Then again, if taking that leap into the unknown as she’d done last night was going to mean dragging into work the next day with a ghoul-zombie-corpselike pallor, fuggetaboutit! Except now that she’d been given this newest assignment—the best sort of challenge, her boss, Joan Redmond, called it…Milla groaned, and called it pure torture.

For the next three Friday nights before they headed into the Thanksgiving holiday, she would be torturing herself in a coordinated endeavor with her online counterparts in Seattle, Denver, Austin, Miami and Atlanta as each checked out three new properties in their respective cities. The clubs and restaurants on each city’s list had purportedly been designed to ensure couples complete privacy, offering an anything goes atmosphere.

Milla had not been told that her job was on the line, but the undercurrent was there. Office scuttlebutt had it that the Web site’s advertisers weren’t happy with Joan’s safe, middle-of-the road approach to showcasing the city. They wanted a November full of action. They wanted sex appeal. They wanted heat and steam and the rawest of exposés.

That meant they wanted Milla. And right now, all Milla wanted to do was to go home to bed. Alone.

The thought of spending three weekends in a row reviewing a particularly sizzling singles’ scene held zero appeal. In fact, the only thing keeping her from telling Joan she just couldn’t do it and walking off the job was that her date for tomorrow was Chad Rogers, one of the good friends she’d made through Natalie and Jamal. Whether or not Chad could make the next two weeks was still up in the air.

Natalie flushed, heading from the stall to the sink. She washed her hands, studying Milla’s mirror image with concern while drying. The look was hardly encouraging.

“Let me see what you’ve got in that bag,” Natalie said once she’d tossed the paper towels in the trash and plucked the lipsticks from Milla’s grasp.

At this point, Milla was just tired enough to hand over the management of her entire existence to her trusted friend. Starting with her makeup could not be a bad idea; there was a reason Natalie was in charge of the Web site’s fashion pages. Today she appeared to have stepped out of a Salvador Dali canvas—and she made the rather surreal look work.

“So, tell me about last night,” she said, digging through Milla’s things and coming up with her eyeshadow quad.

Had Milla even remembered eyeshadow this morning? She closed her eyes at the wave of Natalie’s hand. “It was a new Italian place and had the potential to be very romantic. Soft music. One small lamp hanging over each table. And gorgeous floral watercolors.”

“But?” Natalie smoothed the pad of her thumb over Milla’s eyelid to blend the shadow she’d brushed on.

“The tables were practically on top of one another.” She backed away to sneeze, and at her girlfriend’s “Bless you” said, “Thanks. Anyway. Good food and quiet conversation, yes. Under the table hanky panky, no.”

“I don’t care about the food or the ambience,” Natalie said, moving from Milla’s right eye to her left. “That’s your job, not mine. I want to know about your date. Was he one of the recycled men?”

Milla smiled as she did every time Natalie used the expression to refer to the dating pool created by the single women in the building’s various offices. It was in the lounge off this very restroom, in fact, where the Sisters of the Booty Call held their Monday lunch-hour meetings. Milla remembered her very first one, and how intrigued she’d been by what sounded like an urban legend but turned out to be true.

Pamela Hoff, the regal blond financial consultant from the building’s fifteenth floor, was the mastermind behind the tradition. After a streak of bad dating luck had ended with a night out in the company of an uncouth John Wayne-loving buffoon, she’d considered celibacy as an option to finding a suitable man.

Instead when after a lengthy phone harassment campaign he’d arrived in person to see if she’d received his flowers, she’d taken a more proactive approach to the problem, tucking the bouquet into his pants and adding the water from the vase to let him know she meant business.

Giving the cowboy the boot had been a liberating experience. Pamela had determined then and there that the women in the building had to watch one another’s backs, and the dating service was born.

Now, the original etched-glass vase shaped like a boot sat on the center of the lounge’s mahogany coffee table. Any woman who wanted to participate would drop into the boot the business card of a man she’d gone out with, one with whom she hadn’t personally clicked but one who had promise.

She would also write a descriptive note on the back, telling the sisters a little bit about the man. When it was her turn to need a date, she’d draw a card from the impressive collection. It was a good way to weed out the scum and the sleaze, and to prescreen prospective dates.

But it was not a guaranteed road to romance as Milla had been made well aware of last night.

“Well?” Natalie prompted. “And you can open your eyes.”

Milla did, watching the other woman pull concealer and a blush from the bag. “I tossed the card. Another round of recycling will only get up too many hopes. His, and some poor unsuspecting sister’s.”

“If he was such a loser, what was he doing in the boot to begin with?” Natalie asked, blotting concealer over the dark circles beneath Milla’s eyes.

“One of the girls from the travel agency, I think it was Jo Ann, dropped him in,” Milla said, looking up at the ceiling while Natalie worked. “She said they met on a tour of a new cruise ship, and he was the life of the party.”

Her own fault, really. She should’ve known better than to call him in the first place since life-of-the-party guys were so not her style. Not anymore. Not since college and the party that had ended four years of romantic bliss. She’d been wounded by the breakup, yes. That didn’t make her any more innocent than the other man involved.…

Having finished with both sets of eye baggage as well as the blush, Natalie asked, “What do you think?”

Milla turned toward the mirror. Her chunky blond layers framed her face as always, hanging just beneath her chin and flipping this way and that. The ghoul-zombie-corpse likeness was gone. She still looked tired, but at least now she didn’t appear to have fallen from Death’s family tree.

“Nat, you are the best.” Milla wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged. “Now, if I can make it through today and manage to get a full eight hours tonight, I might actually show Chad a decent time on Friday.”

Natalie bowed her head and began packing Milla’s makeup. “Uh, about Friday.”

Uh-oh. “No. Please. Don’t even say it.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Jamal and Chad both got put into surgery rotation,” Natalie explained, zipping the bag and tucking it into Milla’s purse. “Jamal sent me a text message just before I headed down here.”

“Then that does it. I’ll call it off, and spend the weekend sleeping, eating and watching a season or two of my ‘Gilmore Girls’ DVDs,” Milla said with a sigh, dipping a toe into fantasyland before Natalie smacked her back to reality.

The smackdown wasn’t long in coming. “Don’t make me laugh. You’ll tell Joan…what exactly?”

“Joan will understand a last-minute glitch,” Milla said, fluffing her hair.

“She might,” Natalie said, pointing one finger at Milla’s reflection. “Except your last minute glitch has the potential for throwing off the coordination between all the city Web sites involved in this project. And for giving our advertisers even more to bitch about.”

Natalie was right, of course. This wasn’t just a San Francisco venture. It was part of MatchMeUpOnline.com’s master plan for nationwide domination of online dating. Since she benefited in a very nice financial way, Milla appreciated the company’s vision. But when putting the plan into practice meant one bad date after another, her appreciation dimmed.

She was damned tired. She hadn’t had a real date—a fun, relaxing, nonworking, hot and sexy date—in longer than she could remember. Her social life was getting in the way of her social life, and it stunk. “Okay, Ms. Solutions ’R Us. How am I supposed to find a date on such short notice?”

Natalie frowned. “I thought you had a little black book of sure things.”

“I do.” Granted, a very very little black book. “But if I start using and abusing with this last-minute stuff, how long do you think it’s going to be before these guys start changing their numbers?”

“Give me a break,” Natalie said with a huff. “For a chance to go out with you? I can’t see them caring how much notice you give them.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Nat.” And she really was. But she knew the truth as well as Milla did. “These guys know that going out with me is all about work. Even good friends get tired of the damper that puts on things.”

Natalie turned around and leaned against the countertop. “I’m trying to think of anyone else we know, or someone new in Jamal’s circle, but I’m coming up blank.”

Most of the eligible bachelors Natalie knew worked with Jamal at St. Luke’s Hospital. That was how Milla had met Chad, one of her no-strings regulars. She wondered what sort of reputation she had there; if Jamal’s friends rolled their eyes or ran screaming into the night every time he drafted them into hooking up.

That was exactly what she didn’t want happening. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’ll check with Amy, and if she doesn’t have any ideas, I’ll call one of the guys in my book. An emergency is an emergency, right?”

“Wait a minute.” Natalie pushed away from the countertop. “Correct me if I’m wrong, girlfriend, but aren’t we overlooking the obvious here? The stash of names and numbers in that boot in the lounge?”

“Yes, but after last night?” Milla shuddered just thinking about a repeat of that particularly bad experience. “Besides, the tradition is that we get together as a group during Monday’s lunch if we’re going to dip into the kitty.”

“Sure, when you’re not strapped for time,” Natalie said, arms crossed, hip cocked, brow lifted in that listen-up look she delivered so well. “I may not belong to your club, but I can’t see anyone objecting to you making a Thursday booty call seeing as how you’re in this bind. Right now, you need to worry about Joan and the advertisers. You get through this Friday, Amy and I will put our heads together and figure out your future.”

“I wish you would. I’m obviously having no luck getting anywhere with men on my own.” Milla chuckled to herself. “At least not anywhere beyond the best restaurants and clubs in the city.”

“Oh, blah, blah, blah, cry me a river already,” Natalie said, taking hold of Milla’s upper arm and herding her toward the restroom’s lounge and the glass boot full of business cards and untapped possibilities. “Pick yourself a good one and hope he’s free tomorrow night so those of us with work to do can get back to it.”

Milla stuck out her tongue as she settled on the sofa and set her purse on the table next to the vase. She pulled her cell phone from the pouch inside, deciding it would be a waste of time not to call from here, and then she picked a card.

“What does it say?” Natalie asked as Milla silently scanned the note scribbled on the back.

“‘Great eyes? Check. Incredible smile? Check. Body to make a girl melt inside? Check, check, check. Potential for high-yield capital gains? No, but he’s hell on wheels in bed. And really, isn’t that all that matters?’”

“See?” Natalie said. “There you go. Who better than a hot body to scope out a hot spot?”

That part Milla couldn’t argue with. And since she’d pretty much given up expecting dating to be meaningful or more than the occasional good time, a guy’s potential for high-yield capital gains had dropped off her radar.

It was, however, when she turned over the card and read the name embossed on the front that truth became stranger than fiction. The white rectangle fluttered to the carpet. Natalie bent and picked it up while Milla stared at her fingers that had grown useless and cold.

“‘Bergen Motors,’” Natalie read. “‘Serving the Bay Area for FortyYears. Rennie Bergen, Sales.’” She tapped her finger along the edge of the card, then stopped as suddenly as she’d started. “You don’t think—”

“No. I don’t think. I know.” Rennie Bergen had been her boyfriend Derek’s college roommate during his freshman year, and as much a part of Milla’s life during that one and the three that had followed as had been research papers and labs.

He’d also been her indiscretion. Her one and only.

Over and over and over again.

“Didn’t you say he disappeared after graduation?”

So much had happened after graduation, she didn’t even know where to begin. “He left the city, yeah. He said he wouldn’t be back until he’d made his first million.”

“Unless he’s selling Lamborghinis, it doesn’t look like he met his goal.” Natalie started to drop the card back into the glass boot.

Milla snatched it away. Her girlfriend had no way of knowing the full extent of what had gone on with Rennie Bergen. No one knew. Things left unsettled when he vanished without a word. Things for which Milla had never forgiven herself. Things over which she still carried guilt.

Not that she wore those feelings on her sleeve, or brought them out like voodoo dolls to stick with pins. They were just there, the same way as were the feelings from her past for any of her friends. Only not the same.

Because more than anyone else in her life, she had hurt Rennie Bergen, and she’d never had a chance to make amends.

Well, now she did, and she had to seize the opportunity that had been dropped into her lap. If she continued to leave the past unsettled, she would never forgive herself. She could only hope that after all this time Rennie would be able to forgive her.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to call him,” Natalie said as Milla got to her feet.

She picked up her purse, tucked her phone down inside, dug for her car keys and sunglasses—and she did it all without giving herself time to examine the emotions that were driving her. She was afraid if she looked at them too closely, she’d stop.

“No. I’m going to see him. Tell Joan I’ll be back when I’m back,” she said, leaving the restroom, heading for the elevator, and praying she wasn’t making the second biggest mistake of her life.

“YO, REN. JIN’S ON THE phone. He says the frame’s got a nickel-sized rust hole on the cross panel support. He wants to know if he should haggle the Captain on the price since it ain’t so pristine as he said.”

Son of a barking dog. Rennie Bergen planted the rubber of his heels on the garage’s slick concrete floor and rolled the creeper out from beneath the panel van that had once been an ice cream truck. The water pump was pissing like a baby kangaroo. Story of his life.

He got to his feet and looked for Hector who was halfway across the hangar-size building and heading Rennie’s way with the phone. If he didn’t find a workable frame and soon…aw, hell, who was he kidding?

It wasn’t the frame that was the problem. It was the entire concept. Turning a VW bus into a submersible had seemed like such a good idea when he’d been six beers under the table and scrambling for new show ideas.

He grabbed the phone from Hector’s hand and yelled at Jin. “You tell the Captain thanks, but no thanks. And if he keeps hitting me with this crap, he can forget seeing another dime of my business, I don’t care how long he’s known my father.”

His voice still echoing, Rennie disconnected before Jin could respond, tossed the phone back to Hector, and headed for the huge stainless-steel sink on the wall outside the office and the john. From the exterior, the garage looked like nothing, a big metal building like any other warehouse or shop. Except it wasn’t.

The garage was home to the cable TV phenomenon “Hell on Wheels.” The show had made Rennie Bergen a star with a cult following few car buffs could claim. That was because few, if any, managed what he and his crew accomplished, turning passenger vehicles into mechanical wonders such as low-rider school buses and rolling techno clubs.

The best part of his success was that he wasn’t a household name. He could still walk down an average city street and never turn a head. He stood a better chance of being recognized in blue-collar neighborhoods where a man’s vehicle of choice was less a reflection of his portfolio or family status and more an extension of his personality.

Rennie had grown up in such a neighborhood. Good people, living and loving paycheck to paycheck, hoping the life they were able to provide their kids would be enough. It had been for Rennie. The summer vacations, the balancing of school and athletics and work, the nightly dinners at seven. The holiday celebrations that included his father’s employees and their families—from salesmen to secretaries to grease monkeys—along with the extended Bergen clan.

It had been an insular world of tightly woven bonds, but growing up in that atmosphere had given him an appreciation for men willing to get their hands dirty while taking care of their own. His first real exposure to the flip side hadn’t come until his freshman year in college.

While his parents had paid what they could of his fees and tuition, he’d held down a job to pay the rest along with his room and board. Living on campus had been easier than spending valuable study time commuting from home when he worked so close to the school.

But his first-year roommate, Derek Randall, one of the privileged and wealthy big men on campus, had been all about paying other men to do his dirty work while taking care of himself. And Derek’s girlfriend, Milla Page…

Rennie shoved off the water and yanked enough paper towels from the dispenser to dry his arms up to his elbows. Derek hadn’t been a bad guy, just from a world Rennie hadn’t been used to. The fact that they’d butted heads so often had been only the tip of the iceberg Rennie had eventually faced, trying to fit in with that crowd before realizing the futility of the effort.

He’d made his way in the world, and then he’d come home, belonging here, comfortable here, employing men who shared his background and his belief that there was no such thing as a job that was too dirty when a little muscle and degreaser made cleanup a breeze. Still, he had to admit it was a hell of a lot more fun working for the man when he was the man and was rolling in a big fat pile of greenbacks.

“Yo, Ren,” Hector hollered. “Today just ain’t your day, man. Angie called up from the showroom. Some blonde’s here to see you.”

Rennie tossed the towels in the trash and glanced at Hector who stood in the doorway of the office. The long-time Bergen Motors’ employee was Rennie’s right hand man. “This blonde got a name? Better yet. Did she bring me a rust-free frame?”

“She didn’t even bring much in the way of a female frame, Angie’s saying.” Hector frowned as he listened to the other end of the phone conversation. “She’s like a stick figure with white skin and white hair, and eyes like big green double spoke rims. Her name is—”

“Milla,” Rennie said, swallowing hard as his gut drew up into the knot of fiery emotions he hadn’t felt in years. “Her name is Milla Page.”