“Well... no,” Adam admitted, shrugging. “Actually, although I have made reservations later in the week for several places that were recommended to me by friends, since I only arrived early this afternoon, I was planning to eat at the motel restaurant tonight.”
“Then why change your plans?” she said reasonably. “I’ve eaten there—the food’s good. I’ll meet you in the lobby at... What time?”
Adam was shaking his head before she’d finished. “Not necessary,” he insisted. “I’ve got a rental car. I can pick you up. It’ll be dark. You shouldn’t—do not—have to make your own way to the motel.”
“I’m a big girl, I can find my way,” she said wryly. “It’s no hassle for me to hop onto the bus that circles the area. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
Adam opened his mouth to argue, then immediately shut it again. Her chiding expression said volumes more than her spoken assurances. Advising himself to quit while he was ahead and before she changed her mind, he sighed in defeat.
“Okay, in the lobby at...say, six-thirty?”
“What time is it now?”
He glanced at his watch. “Four thirty-two.”
“Suppose we say six,” she suggested, her smile enticing. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m famished.”
“Six is fine.” He offered her a teasing smile. “I’d hate to see you waste away to a shadow of your former self.”
“Terrific. See you then.” Laughing, she turned away, then slanted a look at him over her shoulder and softly called, “By the way, my former self was little more than a shadow.”
Not again. A sinking sensation mingling with the anticipation perking inside him, Adam watched her stride away, the long cape swirling around her trim ankles.
Two
“Damn.”
Washing the trickle of blood from the razor nick on his jaw, Adam dug a styptic pencil out of his shaving kit and grimaced as he applied it to the minor wound. The grimace wasn’t in reaction to the sting of the pencil, but to the visible tremor in his fingers.
Ridiculous, Adam decided, flinging the towel aside and striding into the bedroom.
He was always cool, collected and logical. He ran a far-ranging family-owned corporation. He never lost his composure, maintaining his vaunted, steel-edged control through even the most intensely fought business battles.
The very idea of him suffering so much as a slight case of the shakes over the prospect of spending time with a woman was a concept beyond the pale.
Ms. Sunny Dase—preposterous name!—intrigued him, Adam concluded, absently rejecting one shirt in favor of another, too distracted to take note of his unusual indecisiveness concerning his choice of apparel.
Every article of clothing Adam possessed was well made, elegant, tasteful and outrageously expensive. Whatever he chose to wear suited him and any occasion. Formal wear excepted.
Should he wear a tie—or go for a more casual look?
The thought jolted Adam into the realization that he was actually agonizing over a necktie.
Was he losing his mind...or simply bewitched?
The follow-up thought brought a wry smile to his compressed lips. The consideration of bewitchment immediately wiped the smile from his mouth.
Nonsense.
Sunny was an enigma, a puzzle, nothing more. Adam had earned a reputation for his ability to untangle puzzles and expose supposed enigmas.
But she did possess the power to excite him. He had felt the zing and sting of that power with his first sight of her striding across the Palace Green.
Forgoing the neck wear, Adam felt a recurring sizzle dance along his nerve endings as he shrugged into his jacket. He would be meeting Sunny in exactly...
He shot a glance at his wristwatch. Another jolt went through him. While he had been musing on his limited sartorial section, time had slipped away from him.
Scooping his loose change, wallet and keys from atop the dresser, he shoved them into his pockets as he strode into the sitting room of the suite, then to the door. He had never known a woman to be on time. Still, he had three and a half minutes to get his rump down to the lobby—in the unlikely event Sunny proved to be the exception.
She was waiting for him.
The sight of her, standing at ease and relaxed next to the impressive bust of Patrick Henry on a pedestal in the lobby, not only surprised but delighted Adam.
The contrast in her attire alone was startling. Whereas before she had appeared the picture of an eighteenth-century maiden in her period costume, with her hair pulled up into a loose knot on top of her head, Sunny now projected an image of an ultramodern, thoroughly “with it” young woman.
She was dressed in a severely cut, perfectly fit, austere-looking black suit, with a figure-hugging pencil-slim ankle-length skirt, the side seems slit to just above the knees. The peek of curvaceous calves, in addition to her enticingly rounded bottom and long, slender thighs, caused a sudden dry tightness in Adam’s throat.
Swallowing with some difficulty, he shifted his gaze, giving her person a more encompassing look.
The severity of her black suit was balanced by a snowy white blouse with a froth of lace at the collar and cuffs, the lace spilling over the backs of her hands. Sheer black nylon encased her legs. Her slim, delicate feet were enhanced by highheeled black suede evening pumps.
Slowly, reluctantly, Adam dragged his gaze up along the alluring lines of her body and settled on her face. She appeared to be wearing a minimum of makeup: perhaps a light, translucent base, a brush of color on her cheeks; a darkening swish of mascara on her lashes; a clear, true red applied to her luscious lips.
Gliding his tongue over his own lips, Adam forced his glance away from temptation, past her straight nose, the glowing skin of her cheeks, the alert and bright interest in her curious green eyes, to the top of her head and...
And her hair... Oh, Lord, her hair. Sunny’s wavy mane of gold-streaked brown hair tumbled onto her shoulders and halfway down her elegantly straight spine.
In truth, the sight of her took his breath away. Adam’s fingers twitched with the desire to spear into the alluring brown mass; his mind reeled with an image of those gold-streaked strands spread out on a pillow...his pillow.
But first things first, he advised himself, crossing the lobby to her. Dinner, then...
“Hello,” he said, attempting to corral his bedbent thoughts as he came to a halt beside her. “Were you early or am I late?”
“Oh...hi.” Sunny flashed a nerve-crunching smile at him. “Since it is now precisely six, you are not late. So I guess I was a few moments early. No big deal.”
“Even so, I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
