“So, where are you going to meet him? You want me to go with you?” The woman’s hopeful eyes searched her face. “For moral support, I mean?”
Sam shook her head and pulled his card out of her bag, frowning at it as she pulled out her cell phone. “No. It’ll be all right. I think he just wants me to grovel a bit more. And I’ll happily grovel. Just pray he doesn’t decide to twist my head off.”
“You sure you want to go alone?” Phyllis asked.
Sam grinned at her and nodded. “I’ll be fine. After all, what the hell can the man do to me in the middle of a restaurant? All he can do is threaten and then call his lawyer, right? I doubt he’ll commit murder in front of a few dozen witnesses.” Besides, she wanted to see him again and she certainly didn’t want Phyllis there to stare and drool.
She dialed the number on the card and after several rings, the line clicked but there was no voice. Assuming his voicemail had picked up, Sam sighed with relief. Thank God! She would just leave him a message and maybe delay the meeting until she had time to consult with her attorney. “This is Sam Hastings, Mr. Chance. Sorry I missed you-”
“You didn’t miss me.” His deep, husky tone interrupted her speech.
“Oh. I thought I’d reached your voicemail.” Her pulse accelerated alarmingly. What a wuss. How pathetic could she be?
“I just finished up here and it’s a lot later than I expected, so maybe we can set an appointment for lunch tomorrow.” She bit her lip.
“No. Dinner. Tonight. Park Regency Hotel. Nine thirty sharp. Ask for me at the desk.” His line went dead and she bit her lower lip a bit nervously. She pressed the end button and put the phone away, meeting her business manager’s questioning eyes. She fought to conceal the flush of anticipation his words had sent racing through her.
“If I don’t call you by eleven, file for my insurance. And I want to be buried at sea. And don’t forget to feed my cat.” She figured a flip attitude might work here. At least she wouldn’t sound so desperately needy.
Phyllis made a wry face. “You think he might hurt you?”
“Only my pride and my bank balance. I was just joking.”
“Well, just try hard to make him see reason, okay? And if that fails, try a blowjob.”
Sam gave a short laugh of shock as she stared at the woman. “Phyllis!”
“Or tell him I will. Just call me and I’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“I don’t believe you just said that, you wicked, wicked woman.” Sam shook her head and grinned at her as she shouldered her bag. “See you tomorrow at the gym.”
“And I want all the gory details.”
She glanced at her watch as she hailed a taxi. It was nearly eight. She had just enough time to go change into a decent dinner dress. The Park Regency boasted a four-star restaurant and she didn’t want to go all rumpled and bedraggled. She gave her address to the cabbie and as she sank back into the comfortable rear seat, she watched the traffic pouring past, her thoughts wandering treacherously back to those marvelous few minutes in the stockroom of the bookstore when she had actually relived her recurring dreams with a living, breathing, hotter- than-hell man who hadn’t seemed to mind one bit that she’d been mindlessly feeling him up.
Her cheeks burned at the memory of his calloused hands on her body, slipping up under her blouse to cup and gently squeeze her breast through the satin and lace of her bra. Cupping her ass cheeks as he’d pulled her against his thigh while she attempted to hump his leg like a horny puppy. Oh God. How completely embarrassing!
Her apartment was not far from the Park Regency. She probably could walk it in less than half an hour. She paid the cab driver and hurried up the steps to the front doors and swiped her card key to get inside. It took her less than twenty minutes to grab a quick shower and don fresh attire suitable for dinner. She looked at her hair and frowned. Her coppery red hair was so aggravating in its insistence on flying about her head like a wild thing. She brushed it smooth and dragged it into a conservative twist at the back of her head, securing the knot neatly with two Japanese carved faux-ivory chopsticks that she had bought because they looked like expensive Oriental hair pins.
A careful application of muted bronze lipstick minimized the size of her too-wide, too-full lips. She slipped her feet into a pair of four-inch heels so that she wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look him in the face again and she tucked her keys, some cash and the book he had bought into a smaller shoulder bag.
She glanced at her watch. Opting for a taxi again because walking in spike heels was a pain in the ass-and the feet-she left her cozy, safe apartment and headed for the elevator. She breathed a quick prayer to any deity or saint who might be listening to help her get through the next couple of hours with as little financial damage as possible, while keeping her head firmly attached to her shoulders and her feet firmly on the floor.
Chapter Three
David glanced at his reflection in the cheval mirror over the dresser and ran one hand distractedly through his close-cropped dark hair. He didn’t know why he was so damn worried about his appearance. He shouldn’t care less if the woman thought he was attractive or not. He didn’t need to impress her.
He simply wanted to find out who had leaked the information to her that she had put in her books. Right? Right. Luckily, no one but he and a few other people close to him knew that her uncertain, mistake-making, mushy hero was none other than the tough, nasty Chance Braza. A few years younger and a lot less wise. And far less knowledgeable about love and life. He certainly didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing that was him.
He hadn’t realized until his manager had shown him the book what had caused the unusual recent surge of interest in him, from a hell of a lot of folks who didn’t usually go in for pro wrestling entertainment. He was even more in demand because of it, so that wasn’t what truly bothered him. But it bothered him beyond reason to know she was inside his head. He wanted to know how she had gotten there.
And just maybe, he wanted to know what it felt like to be inside Samantha Hastings. Yeah. That was definitely something he wanted to discover. So much so that his cock was at full attention just thinking of seeing her again.
His room phone rang and he lifted the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Your business associate has arrived, sir,” the front desk clerk said quietly, his eyes circumspectly averted from the woman in front of his desk. “Yes, sir.” He hung up and smiled at her. “Michael will show you to Mr. Braza’s suite.”
Sam blinked. “His suite? He isn’t going to meet me in the restaurant?”
The man behind the front desk smiled reassuringly. “Perhaps he isn’t quite ready yet. I’m sure the proper reservations have been made.”
As the woman followed the bellhop toward the elevators, the front desk clerk pursed his lips and let out a slow whistle. Some men had it all. And the call girls were looking even younger and more innocent. But it wasn’t his business. What a guest did in the privacy of a two-thousand-dollar-a-night room was none of his business. He cleared his throat and went back to work.
Sam preceded the bellhop into the suite and thanked him as he bowed and closed the double doors behind him, leaving her standing in the high-ceilinged sitting room of the frightfully expensive suite at the top of the hotel. She looked about nervously, clasping her bag tightly. Oh brother. Was this a bit like jumping from the frying pan into the fire?
“Hello? Mr. Chance? David?” she called out.
She walked slowly across the luxuriously thick carpet to the supper table set up before the fireplace and looked about the decadently fabulous room. Obviously he had planned on a very
