For some reason Alec’s mind leaped to Lilly, though he didn’t think that Kane would go there, having seen Alec’s reaction when he’d mentioned it before. “Do you ask women out that you meet on the job?”
“You mean resort guests?” Kane mocked a deep shudder. “God, no. The ghost of Great-Great-Grandfather Hathaway would rise from the grave to haunt me. Very unprofessional.”
Now relieved, Alec smiled. “Of you or Grandpa Hathaway?”
“Hah hah,” Kane said, then glanced at his watch.
“You seem eager,” Alec pointed out. “Might this new girl be the one?”
Kane shuddered again. “If there will ever be the one, now is not the time. I am not looking for the one.”
“Don’t tell that to my mother. Besides planning parties and raising puppies, her new lease on life includes meddling into romantic affairs. You talk like that around her and she’ll take it as a personal challenge.” And bad though it might be of him, Alec hoped she’d switch her focus to Kane. At least it would get her off his back.
“I have no problem explaining to Auntie M that I am not in the market for anyone serious.”
“At the moment.”
After a pause, Kane concurred. “At the moment.”
“But what if the right woman passes into your life now?” Alec asked. “When you’re not expecting her, or looking for her, or ready for her?”
“If I’m not ready for her, then I won’t see her, right? Well, maybe I’ll see a pretty face across a crowded room and all that, but if I approach I’ll be able to tell she’s looking for something serious and move on.”
Alec raised a brow. “How do you tell that?”
“I’m pretty upfront about what I’m interested in, aren’t you?”
His exchange with Lilly floated through his mind. Her: I suppose you’d be satisfied with something you’d think of as ‘simple,’ like a one-night stand. Him: It’s probably the best I’ve got. Well, possibly a few nights.
Yeah, he’d been honest.
“But what if she’s the right woman and you lose her forever?” Alec heard himself say.
Kane was staring at him, a quizzical look on his face. “You’re disturbing me, man. Maybe we can trade diaries tomorrow. I’ll let you borrow my glitter pens if you lend me the ones you have that smell like bubblegum.”
“Fuck off.” Maybe he was disturbing himself just a little too. Gritting his teeth, Alec looked away.
And as if he’d conjured her, across the pool he saw Lilly strolling along a bordering pathway. His senses went on alert as he drank her in. She wore that little silky dress she’d had on earlier in the day and in his mind he could smell her perfume, the scent floral and clean. Then, he’d wanted to bury his face against her throat and breathe her in before stripping her clothes from her once and for all, ending the torment of not knowing the color of her nipples and the taste of her arousal. He’d been dying to get his hands on her, a palm cupping her mons, a finger sliding into her wet heat.
Just a single time with her and he’d be able to move on.
This fierce need for her would be assuaged in bed and he’d be able to understand it for what it was…a bad case of desperate lust. No big deal.
Now she paused and brushed her hair off her shoulders, giving him a better look at her face. His hand curled into a fist as he took in her pensive expression and the small line of worry between her brows.
Damn, he hated to see that. But Lilly was devoted to her friend and likely fretting over Audra’s state of mind. It seemed likely that Alec’s small exotic brunette could use a friend of her own at the minute.
Without thinking, he began striding in her direction, planning to cut off her path so that he could…what?
His feet halted. She’d given him the grocery store, dim sum, and his favorite coffee place. He couldn’t repay her generosity by a pursuit she’d rejected.
The fact was, she had made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to see him again.
Fuck. Fuck. Now all ten fingers were curled into frustrated fists as his brain struggled against his gut instincts. They demanded he go to Lilly, to hold her hand again, to smell her hair, to do what he could to erase that disquiet on her face.
But she’d given him the damn dim sum, so he had to keep his distance.
A commotion behind him caught his attention. He swung around at the shouts and the sounds of chair legs screeching. Shit.
In one sweeping glance he understood the trouble. Rambunctious puppy Buster had freed himself somehow and was scampering about, evading capture by going under loungers and around people. Kane nearly cornered the pooch, but then he zigged and Alec’s father had to zag to head off the pup so he wouldn’t fall into the pool. That gave Buster a clear shot at the adjacent lobby.
And Buster took it, his leash trailing behind him.
The action had drawn Lilly’s attention and Alec saw her head toward the lobby as well. The woman and puppy’s paths should cross.
“Can you get a hold of him?” he called out to her from across the pool.
“I’ll try!” she called back and reached for the speeding pup.
It just eluded her grasp. Still, she followed after him and Alec followed after her, their own little parade through the lobby as the dog dashed around chairs and people and suitcases, toward the wide opening that led to the portico covering the wide drive.
Cars came and went there. Shit.
“Lilly—”
“I’m on it,” she yelled, her pretty legs churning, the hem of her dress riding up her thighs. The sight distracted Alec for a second and when he managed to yank his gaze back to the dog it was to see the pet dart out and around a parking attendant who made his own unsuccessful yet valiant effort that left him crashing into the valet stand.
Buster was still
