Part 1 (2/2)
He was watching her with great interest, and she could feel her face heating under his scrutiny. He knew. He knew about her s.e.xual fascination with his inseam. Avoiding his probing gaze, she lifted the collar of her blouse away from her damp skin.
”Are you interested?” she asked.
”Oh, yes ... I'm interested.”
She looked up. ”In the a.s.signment?”
”That too.”
He continued to study her in a way that made her want to cross her legs and pull down her skirt. What in the world was in that drink he'd given her?
”What was your name?” she asked.
”Geoff Dias.”
He said his name as though she ought to know it. Did she? She took a deep breath, gathering her wits. This was truly crazy. She had a crisis on her hands-her fiance was missing-and she was fantasizing about a stranger. She never should have drunk from his flask. It had created an illusion of intimacy she couldn't shake. Had she already offered to hire him? Was it too late to change her mind?
”You're not dreaming,” he said softly.
”What?”
Again that smile, lazy, s.e.xy. It said everything and revealed nothing. He roused himself and sat forward on the chair, putting considerable stress on the rips in his fatigues.
”You said you wanted to hire me, didn't you?” he asked. ”Maybe we should discuss the details?”
”Details, yes.” Details were exactly what she needed right now-discreet bits of information, cool and concrete, reality-based. ”My fiance was supposed to have returned last week. When he didn't, I contacted his hotel, the airline, and, of course, the consulate. Everyone's been marvelously concerned and cooperative on the phone, but nothing's being done. Honestly, I'm at my wit's end. Hugh seems to have vanished, and all they want me to do is fill out forms.” Her voice broke with frustration, emotion. ”What if he's been hurt? We were to be married-”
”Married?”
”Yes, next month. The wedding's just two weeks away.”
That bit of information seemed to take the edge off his s.e.xy smile. He studied her left hand, where her engagement ring would have been if she hadn't been having it sized, then glanced past her, out the window, looking decidedly moody.
”Is everything all right?” she asked. ”You are going to take on the a.s.signment, aren't you?”
He rose, pulled a card from his vest pocket, and tossed it on her desk. ”This is my fee, per day, plus expenses. I'll need some personal data on Hugh-a current picture, his driver's license, social security, and credit card numbers. I'd also like a thorough physical description and a list of his personal habits. You can fax it to me, the sooner the better.”
”Fine,” Randy said, startled by his abrupt behavior. She stood, too, concerned that he would leave before she was finished. ”I'll see that you get the information. However, there is a condition to this deal we haven't discussed yet.”
”Which is?”
”Me. I'm coming along, Mr. Dias. I'm going to Rio with you.”
He barely reacted, except to give her a quick, insolent once-over as if she were a lame packhorse someone was trying to p.a.w.n off on him. ”Sorry, I work alone. This is a dangerous a.s.signment, Ms. Witherspoon. It's not Club Med.”
Randy was more perplexed than offended. She hadn't expected him to be delighted, but she also hadn't antic.i.p.ated being so rudely dismissed. ”I won't get in your way,” she explained patiently. ”I'll stay in the hotel. I just want to be on the scene.”
”You would be in the way, believe me. Especially if I had to get out of the country quickly.”
She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. Politeness was getting her nowhere. ”Mr. Dias, my fiance is missing, and so far everyone I've appealed to for help has either patronized me, stalled me, or stonewalled me. They're not doing anything but shuffling papers, and I'm tired of sitting here feeling helpless! I'm going, and that's all there is to it.”
”In that case you're going with someone else. I'm out.” He nodded curtly and turned to leave.
”Mr. Dias!” she cried as he opened the door. ”Don't be so hasty. We can discuss this, can't we? I'll pay you more than your normal rate-whatever you want.”
He glanced over his shoulder and nailed her with a smoldering look. ”You could never meet my price, Ms. Witherspoon,” he said. ”Trust me.”
With that he shut the door and was gone, leaving Randy to stare after him in shock. ”Well, excuse me,” she murmured softly.
Taking one deep breath, she summoned the intestinal fort.i.tude that had taken her all the way from the poverty of her childhood to this high-rise office. If any woman had ever pulled herself up by her bootstraps. Randy had. She'd worked two or three jobs, supporting her ailing mother and putting herself through college at the same time, all in the pursuit of a better life. Diligence had brought her this far. Diligence and a burning desire to succeed. It was the American way, her mother's dream, and to Randy's way of thinking, a West Side kid's only shot at success. Nothing had come easily, and because of that, she was used to putting her mind to something and then getting it, one way or another.
At the moment her mind was on Geoff Dias.
She walked out of her office and into the hallway just in time to see him disappear through the exit door to the stairway. Of course, a soldier of fortune wouldn't take the elevator, she thought sardonically.
She caught up with him three floors from the bottom, no easy task in high heels and a short skirt. ”I hope you don't think you can dismiss me so easily,” she told him, fighting to catch her breath and keep pace with him at the same time.
He continued down the stairs at a good clip, apparently determined to do exactly that-dismiss her.
”Because that would be a mistake,” she warned, speaking to the back of his ma.s.sive shoulders and his streaming gold hair. Randy was a tad impatient by nature, and if she had little tolerance for being dismissed, she had even less for being ignored. Of all the arrogance! He wasn't even going to speak to her.
She reached out to touch him and jerked her hand back as he stopped on the landing. He glanced back and scorched her nearly senseless with a hot, proceed-at-your-own-risk stare. ”'Easy' isn't the word that comes to mind in your case,” he said.
”What word does come to mind?”
”Coward, maybe?” He started down the next flight.
”Coward? What's that supposed to mean?” Randy followed in hot pursuit, aware that it was the second time she'd been called a coward that day. First kiddingly by Barb, and now by him. Although Randy admitted to having her share of character flaws, she had never considered cowardice one of them. She'd always had to fend for herself, to fight for her dreams. She'd come a long way, but it had never been easy, and the risk of failure had always been great. ”Are you going to explain yourself?” she asked.
”Probably not.” He loped down the remaining flight, taking the steps two at a time, then shouldered open the exit door and rushed through.
Randy determinedly followed him, and let the door crash shut behind her. She found herself in an alley she barely knew existed, staring at a chrome monster of a motorcycle. Blinking in the bright sunlight, she tried to get her bearings. She still felt a little woozy and disoriented, probably from that drink he'd given her.
Geoff Dias swung a long leg over the gleaming black motorcycle and settled himself in the leather seat. With his long hair glinting gold, he looked like a Nordic G.o.d of warfare caught in the wrong time period. But the heated message in his gaze was anything but warlike. It said he could take her on the ride of her life if she was woman enough to climb on behind him.
Randy was certainly woman enough, but she had a long-standing aversion to motorcycles, and that included the men who rode them. As dearly as she'd loved her mother, Edna had harbored a weakness for just such men, beautiful losers and handsome rogues, men who caroused, couldn't hold a job, and often survived by living off lonely, susceptible women.
Every one of them had a get-rich-quick scheme, and Edna's romantic nature was so strong and her need to believe so great, she'd fallen for it every time. She'd died tragically young, in her late forties, of a congenital heart ailment, but Randy had always maintained it was love that killed her. She believed her mother had died of a broken heart.
”Did you follow me down here for the exercise?” Geoff asked. ”Or did you have something in mind?”
Randy felt a bead of moisture trickle into the cleft between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and realized her whole body felt warm and flushed. ”Actually, there is something you can clear up for me.”
”Such as?”
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