Two, he was Max’s cousin. What if they did date, did get serious about each other and then broke up? What if they got married, and then divorced? How could she continue on with Julia, Max’s wife, if suddenly they were “family,” and then, just as suddenly, they weren’t?
Three, he was nuts. She had to consider that. Definitely. Because only a nut would propose—sort of propose—to a woman he’d known less than twenty-four hours. Right?
Four, she couldn’t let him meet her family. Dear God, her mother would have a conniption! She’d take one look at Colin and start waxing poetic over having the most beautiful grandchildren in the history of grandchildren. She’d meet Colin a single time, have him in her house a single time, for Sunday dinner or something, and the whole time she’d grill Holly hourly about “How’s it going, dear?” until Holly ran screaming from the room. Except she couldn’t run screaming from the room because then her mother would only turn to Colin and ask, “So, how’s it going, dear?”
Five, and most important, Holly wasn’t about to let her heart get broken again. Not that Richard had exactly broken her heart, but he’d definitely bruised it, bent it, left it and her self-esteem sort of scuffed and walked-on. Richard had been big on “I love you.” Real big on “I love you.” Said it all the time. She just hadn’t realized that he’d probably been addressing his reflection in her gullible eyes.
Holly couldn’t trust a man who said “I love you” so glibly, said
, “I’m going to marry you” so gli
bly. Who would?
Unfortunately she would, and had
…
because she’d believed Richard for a while, at least for a little while. But that didn’t mean she was going to trust another pretty face mouthing pretty words.
Not in this lifetime! Once bitten, twice shy, and all that good stuff that was so trite, yet so true. That’s what
Holly was, twice shy, and what she would wisely continue to be—and Colin Rafferty wouldn’t stand a chance.
Not if he camped on her doorstep, brought her dozens of yellow flowers, smiled that kneecap-melting smile of his that went right up to his eyes. Not if he said silly, outrageous things to her. Not if he wooed her and chased her from now until the end of time.
Yeah, sure. He’d chase her all right. About as long as Richard had chased her. Handsome men didn’t have to waste their time chasing after women who didn’t want them; they were too busy either running from women who did, or allowing themselves to be caught.
None of which, of course, really explained why Colin Rafferty had asked Julia for directions to Allentown, to Holly’s apartment.
Holly got up and walked over to switch on the lights inside the large fitting area, an area equipped with several floor-to-ceiling mirrors. She stepped up on the platform positioned in front of a trio of those mirrors, and tipped her head to one side as she examined her triple reflection, looking for clues.
Nothing. There was nothing reflected in any of the mirrors that would have made her look irresistible to Co
li
n Rafferty. Hair, spiky. Face, holding up well, considering s
he was zeroing in on her twenty-
ninth birthday. Body, short. Curved in the right places, granted, but short.
Nope, nothing. This was not a face or body that would launch a thousand ships. Maybe a canoe—on a good day, a tugboat—but not a thousand ships.
So what about her had appealed to him? She knew
now what had appealed to Richard. He’d fallen in love with her connection to Sutherland, plain and simple.
But Colin didn’t need
connections.
He was Colin Rafferty. He was a
big cog in the huge wheel of Ma
jestic Enterprises, Max’s company. The man had lived in Paris, for crying out loud, home of more beautiful women than most any other city in the world. The saying was “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree.” Not, “See Holly Hollis and forget Paris.”
“I’m a challenge,” she decided at last, hopping down from the platform and heading back to her office. “That’s it, plain and simple. I didn’t go gaga over him, fall all over him because he’s so gorgeous, turn on my back and wag my tail like some pathetic puppy, hoping he’d scratch my belly. In fact, I told him I was turned off by his good looks. Man, I’ll bet he hasn’t heard that one before! So now he thinks he’s interested, just because I’m not.”
She shook her head as she picked up her purse, walked over to punch in the security code. “Sure. I’m not interested. Not a bit. Hollis, lie to Julia. Lie to the whole world. But don’t lie to yourself.”
Her hand halted in midair, poised in front
of the alarm control panel. “
Keep trying to get rid of him, and the more he’ll want to stay. Simple psychology.” She closed her eyes, made a face. “No, I can’t do that. It would be mean. Not fair, or even honest, since I do sort of like the idea of having him around. S
till, it could be interesting…
”
C
o
li
n arched his back against the soft leather seat of his rented BMW, trying to ease his discomfort after a
nearly three-hour drive in heavy traffic and two hours spent sitting in the parking lot of Holly’s apartment building, waiting for her to come home.
Had he always been this impulsive? He didn’t think so. Yet here he was, checked out of his suite at the Waldorf, his luggage locked in the trunk of the BMW, with no hotel reservations and no idea what he’d say to Holly if and when she finally showed up.
Irene had given him a few helpful hints, when he’d run down that good woman at the Waldorf. Don’t be too pushy, Irene had told him, but don’t give her too much time to think, either. Don’t flatter her a lot, because she won’t believe you. Do bring her food, because Holly loves to eat. Consider jellybeans, the red ones most especially.
“Oh,” Irene had added, “and you might want to think about looking less like the cover model on
GQ,
if you can figure out a way to manage that. That could only help matters. Lastly, you’d better be telling me the truth, young man, because if you hurt that little girl I’m going to have to hurt you.”
Colin smiled now, remembering the stem look on Irene’s face as she’d given him her warning. It would seem that Julia hadn’t just built a successful company; she’d built a family from her employees. That was nice, and very like the atmosphere Max tried to foster throughout the sprawling Majestic Enterprises. Big shouldn’t mean impersonal, that’s what Max had told him, and so far, Max had made it work.
Max made a lot of things work, and Colin knew he could have done a lot worse in choosing a role model.
But his admiration for Max, as a cousin, as an employer, as a man, only went so far. It did not extend to include listening to that man’s advice given late this afternoon over cocktails at the Waldorf bar.
“A full-out assault on her mind and heart,” Max had instructed him. “Move in, take over, make it impossible for her to ignore you. Don’t give her time to think. You two are perfect for each other, but she’s not going to believe that, not if you give her time to think. Be romantic, Colin. You do know how to be romantic, don’t you?”
Yes, Colin knew how to be romantic. But, he’d decided, with Holly, it would probably be better to go with the jellybeans.
He was sitting low on his spine in the leather seat, fighting the heaviness in his eyelids, trying not to fall asleep as the clock on the dash displayed the fact that it was nearly nine-thirty. He was still operating on Paris time, and his body wasn’t sure if it was sleepy, awake, or even hungry.
Was that it? Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten it into his head that Holly Hollis was the one woman in the world he wanted, would always want.
Love by jet lag?
Anything was possible.
Except that he still didn’t know if he loved her. How could he know that? He wasn’t a complete fool, he was more than a little aware that what he felt for Holly Hollis could be infatuation, physical attraction, the thrill of not being pursued solely because of his physical appearance.
Except that it didn’t feel like something so simple as physical attraction, or even the considerable challenge she presented by running away from him each time he tried to get closer to her.
There was more to it than that. He didn’t know just what, couldn’t put a name to it or describe it, but there was just some
something
about Holly that made him want to protect her, tease her, excite her, make her laugh, get her to talk to him again as honestly as they had spoken last night.
So
where did this “I’m going to marr
y you” stuff come from? He’d said it He’d heard himself say it. But where had it come from? What insane part of him had blurted out that sort of declaration on a city street in Manhattan—while buying hot dogs, for crying out loud?
That
was probably the jet lag part of this whole deal. It was the only explanation.
Nothing,
however, explained what he was doing here now, skulking down in his seat to keep his head out of sight, waiting for Holly to come home.
If he was smart, he’d call it a night. Find himself a motel somewhere back along the highway, pack it in for the night and make a fresh start in the morning. When he was rested. Clearheaded. Reasonably sane.
Deciding he’d at last discovered at least one right thing to do, Colin sat up, reached toward the ignition, just as headlights appeared and a car turned into the parking lot. Scratch that, not a car. A ragtop 4x4. He knew—he didn’t know how he knew—but he knew, and would bet a considerable sum, that Holly was behind the wheel.
Moments later, he was proven right He watched as Holly opened the door on the driver’s side, then aimed her size five feet at the macadam. He wondered if she’d chosen the 4x4 because it was compact, rather like her, or if it was the one car she could drive without using a booster seat.
Not that he’d ask her. He already knew she saw her petiteness as a sort of drawback, while he just loved how small she felt when he wrapped his arms around her, how strong and powerful he felt—the man, the protector, the big brave guy who hunted the meat, while she kept the cave warm. Or Sutherland’s in great working order, which had to be the modem, liberated equivalent of “keeping the cave warm.”
He continued watching as she dragged a huge suitcase out of the Jeep, followed by one smaller suitcase, then a folded garment bag, then a canvas sports-type bag that could conceivably hold a half-dozen basketballs. How long had she been in New York? Six months?
She set the large suitcase upright, pulled out the built-in handle, then worked the handle of the sports bag over it The garment bag she slung over her left shoulder, while she gripped the smaller suitcase in her left hand.
Add that near-suitcase of a purse, and she was probably outweighed two-to-one by her luggage. Not that any such consideration stopped her. Oh, no, not Holly. She just bent her head and sort of hunched her shoulders and back, having some trouble starting from her standing stop, and slowly began to move forward.
Colin quietly exited his sports car, carefully closing the door behind him so that it made little noise. He
walked across the parking lot, arriving at the curb just as Holly was calling that strip of cement some rather unlovely names as she struggled to pull the wheeled luggage up and over the barrier.
“Don’t blame the curb for being there, Holly,” he said, standing behind her. “Haven’t the words
two trips
ever entered your vocabulary?”
She didn’t even flinch. No shriek of surprise, or shock. No looking back over her shoulder. No outraged, “What are you doing here!”
She just let go of the handle on the largest suitcase and said, “I was wondering if you were going to just stand back and watch while I struggled with this mess. It’s nice to know you’re at least a semi
-
gentleman. Now grab those two and follow me, okay?”
Colin stood there for a moment, then shook his head. “Julia. She told you, right?”
“And perceptive, too,” Holly remarked to the night air, already on the move again. “Except that he’s here when I so clearly don’t want him here, which drops his IQ more than a few points.”
The suitcase he was dragging hit a rock or something and began to tip, which shifted the sports bag, and suddenly he was busy trying to keep both upright. And all the while, Holly was walking ahead of him, keeping up that breakneck pace she was so good at. “Stupid invention. Oh, the hell with it,” he said, picking up both bags and charging after her.
“Nice layout,” he said as she stopped in front of a white metal door designed
to look like a traditional six-
panel wooden door. The complex was made up of a half-dozen redbrick buildings, each holding, he guessed,
about a dozen units. The buildings had been constructed on a hillside, so that half the units had ground-floor entrances on one side, the actual second-floor unit
s had similar “ground-floor”
entr
ances on their side. Very in
ventive, actually. Each unit also had its own front door, its own small patio. Holly’s unit was actually a second floor unit, and her particu
lar patio sported a small, two-
person wooden glider and was lined with black pots holding red and white geraniums.