for Selina’s decorum, Clooney clone now zeroed in on her. “Hallo, there,” he said in a low, soft voice. “You don’t come here often, do you?”
He actually pronounced the t in often. Gawd. Selina bit down hard on her lower lip while thinking, Control yourself. “Uh, no,” she said, affecting bland innocence. “How could you tell?”
“Oh, you’re easy,” he said.
Did he intend the insulting double entendre? Probably. Wondering how and when she’d cut him off at the knees, she raised her brows and openly surveyed him.
Wearing an open-necked white linen shirt with matching trousers, he looked cool and elegant even in the humid Florida night. His dark-amber skin contrasted with the linen, giving his elegance a savage undertone, as though a lion had wandered into the bar looking for a martini—wheat vodka only, nothing made with potatoes.
His blatant masculinity challenged her.
He’d be fun to take down.
“I also know that your visit here was unexpected,” he continued.
“Also true.” Selina gave him a come-hither look from under her lashes. “Even though you have the right accent, I didn’t know your last name was Holmes.”
He flashed the pearly whites at her. “You’re wearing a new dress I saw in the resort boutique, so your trip must have been impromptu.”
“Very good. You are very good…aren’t you?” She adjusted the scoop neckline of her red gauze dress, remembering she’d gone braless in the sultry Florida night. Trimmed with feathers, the floaty, sexy creation was unlike anything else in her closet, and now she took full advantage of its flirty design, exposing a little more of her décolletage and dipping forward so her target could get a better look at the goods.
He responded by leaning toward her, practically diving into the front of her dress. “You arrived here on the last ferry. You bought this pretty dress, took a shower, and then came down here.”
“You hit everything right.” She ran her fingers through her loose, damp hair, which would normally be blown dry and bound into a French twist.
“I’m here on business, but I’ll have plenty of time…” He winked at her.
She winked back. “Won’t your business associates take most of your attention?”
“I can lose them with no effort.” He again gestured dismissively.
“Them?” she asked.
“A real estate agent and his granddaughter. No one of importance.”
As Selina’s smile stretched wider, her grandfather entered the room and took the bar stool next to hers. He’d also freshened up and wore a loose polo-style shirt with khaki shorts.
“Oh, I’m glad to see you both here, already getting acquainted,” Grandpa Jerry said.
“I wouldn’t say we’re acquainted…yet,” Selina said sweetly.
Jerry patted her arm. “Sellie, I’d like you to meet Kam Asad.”
A flush rose beneath the Clooney clone’s swarthy skin. “You’re—”
She held out a hand. “Selina Carrington.” She smirked at him, enjoying his discomfiture. “So you’re Kam Asad. My grandfather tells me that you’re in the market for—”
“Shh!” He put a finger to his full lips. “This is high security.” He scowled at Jerry. “You told her?”
Selina liked him even less, if that was possible. No one dissed her grandfather in her presence without a slash from the knife-edge of her tongue.
“So what if he did, Mr. Superspy?” she asked. “What’s so high security about buying a house? I noticed you jibber-jabbering away on your cell phone a few minutes ago as if you had no secrets at all.”
Kam Asad’s flush deepened. “I was speaking in an Arabic dialect of my people. It is doubtful that anyone in this hemisphere understands it.”
An Arabic dialect of my people. Yeah, right. Who was this dude, Rudolph Valentino? “Cell phones aren’t exactly high security,” Selina said. “Anyone could be listening in—”
“Let’s start over.” Jerry, ever the suave salesman, interceded. “Selina, this is Kamar Asad. As you know, he’s in the market for some property in the D.C. area. Kam, this is my granddaughter, Selina.”
Selina corralled her naturally sarcastic mouth, saying only, “Pleased to meet you.” She extended her right hand.
“A pleasure for me, also.” Asad shook her hand once, then dropped it as though she were Typhoid Mary.
She glanced at her grandfather, well aware that inside Jerry’s mind, he was humming, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match,” to the accompaniment of wedding bells.
She hoped that he wasn’t too stuck on the idea of seeing her with Kam Asad. There was something of the untamed, the wild, lurking behind Kam’s facade, she thought, before immediately chiding herself for her silly fantasies. Kam Asad was an ordinary man, even though he obviously thought he was a cut above the herd. But she knew better. All men were alike under the skin, whether or not that skin was handsome or ugly, old or young.
Selina didn’t like handsome men. She didn’t like any men, really, and few women, but she disliked handsome men most of all.
A memory of another too-handsome man flashed through her mind, but she banished it immediately to the furthest recesses of her brain.
The only man she did like, her grandfather, now nudged her with a gentle elbow. But before Jerry could speak, Janis reappeared with Kam’s martini. Sliding the glass onto a coaster on the bar, she said to Jerry, “Good evening, sir. Can I get something for you?”
“Whiskey or even a scotch,” Jerome said. “What brands do you pour?”
While Jerome Carrington and the bartender chatted about fine whiskies, Kamar took a moment to reexamine the granddaughter, Selina. He’d noticed her as soon as she’d walked into the bar and had planned to meet her after finishing his conversation with his father’s foreign minister.
Selina’s hair, an unusual shade of red-gold, would make her a standout in any gathering, he mused, and all the more so in the dimly lit bar. Though recently washed and still damp, her gleaming hair lit the night like a torch, swinging loose along her slender neck like a silken scarf.
He was a sucker for the long, bare throats of sexy American women. His lust for them approached an obsession. Perhaps it was because the females of his country were always shrouded, but American girls, with their anytime, anyplace, anywhere approach to lovemaking attracted him like no other women. Did Selina Carrington’s red hair reflect her sexuality? He promised himself that he’d find out, and soon.
She wasn’t afraid of male attention, either, judging by her attire, a feather-trimmed dress constructed of scraps and shreds of red fabric that floated and fluttered while concealing few of her body’s slender curves. Her unplanned trip had also prevented her
