Reflected Pleasures (7 page)

It was almost as if she had a spotlight shining on her from above.

“Hey there, ladies,” he said when he got close enough to capture their attention. “Did you miss me?”

Two sets of eyes turned in his direction. Juanita's dark eyes smiled when she saw him coming. On the other hand, Merri's greens carried a fleeting look of panic behind the thick lens as she spotted him walking down the aisle. Instantly, she slouched back into the shy stance that he had thought defined her, but her face brightened and she tried for a weak smile.

“We've been too busy to think of you, Ty,” Merri told him with a sarcastic chuckle. “Janie and I have picked out some lovely mother-daughter dresses for the models. Janie has agreed to furnish all the clothes for the show. Isn't that nice of her?”

He turned to Juanita and let the easy grin cover his face. “It sure is. I can't thank you enough, Juanita. Are you sure it won't be too much? Jewel would kill me if you got in trouble over my foundation's need. Maybe I should offer to pay for the dresses out of my own pocket?”

Juanita rolled her eyes. “Don't be silly. It will be worth a ton in publicity for the company. They always try to do their part for worthwhile charities. And I consider yours to be extremely worthwhile.”

She tilted her head and looked at the packages in his arms. “It looks like you bought out the store while Merri and I were busy. Trying to change your whole wardrobe?”

“Yes,” Merri chimed in with a smile. “Are you trying to do a complete makeover in one trip to the store?”

“No ma'am,” he said with a laugh. “But that wouldn't be so bad, would it? My so-called wardrobe could stand making over.”

“What did you buy?” Merri asked. She looked hor
rified that he might buy all the wrong things without her along to advise him.

“This and that,” he said with a wink.

When Merri scowled and narrowed her eyes, he decided to tell them both what was on his mind. “Actually, this isn't everything I bought. I bought a suit and a tux, too, but they're being altered.”

“A tux? What on earth for?”

“Well, now, darlin', I'm glad you asked. I spoke to Frank on the phone a while ago and he reminded me that tomorrow night is the governor's annual charity ball.

“The governor throws these shindigs to honor all the charities that operate in the state, and this year the Lost Children's Foundation has been invited to attend,” he explained. “It's quite an honor and great publicity for the charities, but I wasn't planning on going originally. Didn't think it suited my personality.”

“So what changed?” Juanita asked.

“My wardrobe, for one,” he joked. “For another, I now have Merri to go along and advise me on the proper etiquette.”

Ty took Merri's hand before she could shake her head. “You will go with me, won't you? It's important for the Foundation…for the children.”

Damn man,
Merri thought. He could be just too charming for words sometimes. But emotional blackmail didn't seem like his normal style.

“Sorry,” she said and pulled her hand free. “You'll have to attend the party with someone else. I don't have anything to wear to such a thing.” It was the best excuse she could come up with on such short notice but she knew it was pretty lame.

He looked stricken. As if her refusal had wounded him personally.

“Hello-o-o,” Janie spoke up. “Remember me? Clothes are my business. You need something to wear to a ball, I'm your man…so to speak.”

“Oh, no,” Merri exploded. “I mean, I couldn't. I mean, I can't afford…”

“What a really kind thing for you to offer to do, Juanita,” Ty broke in with a smile. “And of course, you can bill me. The Foundation needs Merri to be there. And so do I. Do you want her to try on a few things while we're here? We won't have much time to have alterations done. The ball is tomorrow night.”

“But…” Merri began, before she was interrupted.

“Not at all,” Janie said, waving Ty's suggestion away. “I know exactly what size she— I mean, I can tell just by looking what will fit her. Not to worry. I'll pick out something and have it delivered tomorrow when they bring out your alterations.”

“Thanks,” Ty said. Then he seemed to think of something else. “Could you pick out something really special? Something in red, maybe?”

“No!” Both women exclaimed in unison.

Janie shot her a quick look and Merri tried to surreptitiously let her know how mad she was about the whole stupid suggestion of a dress.

“Something sedate would be more appropriate for a charitable function.” Merri told them both through gritted teeth. “I'd rather it not be terribly
flashy
.” It was too late and she was too outnumbered to keep from going to the ball now. She was stuck.

The other woman appeared to agree wholeheartedly
with the sedate suggestion. At least she remembered part of her promise to keep Merri's secret.

“Yes, dark blue or black would perhaps be a better choice for Merri's coloring,” Janie told Ty with a straight face. “Trust me to make the right choice.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “If you say so. I do appreciate you taking care of the dress for us. I'd just as soon take Merri home now, anyhow. This shopping takes a lot out of you. It's getting late.”

Oh, man, Merri thought with chagrin. You have no idea how really late it is. She was only just now finding out the truth of that herself. It was way too late for her to tell him the truth and manage to keep their relationship intact through it.

Sheesh. Heaven help her.

 

They were almost back home when Ty shifted his weight in the driver's seat and spoke for the first time in over an hour. “Who are you really, Merri?”

Her head came up and her whole body shuddered in panic. “What do you mean?”

“I don't know anything about you. What your family is like. Where you went to school. How you ended up engaged to some guy you didn't really care about.” Ty breathed deeply. “I want to get to know more about you. You know where I come from…who I am. My background is an open book.

“I want to know the real Merri Davis,” he added.

“The real Merri Davis
is
the person you know,” she told him. “The one that dreams of a quiet life in a small town and the opportunity to do something good for those less fortunate.”

Ty shook his head but didn't turn to look at her. “There's something else. I don't know exactly what, but…” He hesitated then went on. “Did you attend boarding schools when you were a kid? Sometimes you sound European. And then there's the way you stand. It seems almost like you might've gone to modeling school—or maybe charm school somewhere.”

“Uh…” Her mind was blank and her breathing had become shallow. “Yes, I went to boarding schools. Some of them were in Europe. That's probably why I sound funny on occasion.” The truth. And hopefully a diversion from questions about modeling.

The man was beginning to ask insightful questions she didn't want to answer. Couldn't answer if she wanted to stay as truthful as possible.

No wonder he was a young self-made billionaire. Obviously, he had good instincts and was more than a little savvy. She would hate to have to face him from across a negotiation table.

She held her breath and wondered what on earth would be coming next.

“S
o your parents are rich?” Ty asked. He gave a slight nod of his chin to encourage her to talk, but the day-old shadow along his jaw looked deadly and made her squirm.

“Well…I guess some people would say that.” Merri shifted to stare straight out through the windshield and quietly fisted her hands in her lap. And damned near bit clear through her lip with nervous energy.

“But they don't give you any money now?”

“Uh…no. We're estranged at the moment.” Another truth—if you didn't count her trust fund as money.

“I'm sorry. That sounds awful. No wonder you don't want to talk about it.” Ty pulled up in front of her cottage and parked the truck.

He turned off the ignition and swivelled in his seat to face her. “No brothers or sisters?”

She shook her head. “No. It's just me.”

Ty squeezed her shoulder and lowered his voice. “I can take a guess about the fiancé. I'll bet he was someone your parents picked out for you, right? It must've been hard to break that engagement.”

Think,
she urged herself in near panic. How was she going to keep talking about this and not come right out and lie to him any more than she already had?

“Um…well… The engagement was arranged, that's true. And it was difficult getting out of it. Sort of.”

Ty ran a finger down her jawline and lifted her chin. “You want to tell me the whole story?”

“No. Thanks. I don't.” Merri jerked her chin out of his grasp, flipped open her seat belt and hopped down out of the truck.

She beat him to her door, but he wasn't far behind.

“Whoa, darlin',” he said as he caught up to her and took her arm. “What are you running from?”

She spun around and held her purse between them like a shield. “Nothing. I'm just tired and I want to go to bed.”

Oops. The minute it was out of her mouth she saw the passion flare in his eyes. But she could also see his struggle to bank the desire.

“I think you
are
running,” he said in a steel-edged tone. “But I'm not sure why. You've built a wall around yourself and it's driving me crazy trying to break it down.”

“What do you want from me, Ty?”

“A little trust,” he began, as a sensual smile spread across his lips. “And another kiss.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” she said with a hysterical little laugh. “If that's what it will take to get you to go away, here…”

Without thinking, she moved close and gave him a quick peck on the mouth. Then…she thought about what she'd done.

Too late.

Ty only took a second to react. He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her close and covered her trembling mouth with his own. It was fast, hot and blood-stirring.

His tongue coaxed her lips open, but she didn't need much urging to fall into his drugging kiss. Their lips and tongues met as if they were desperate for each other. Desperate to touch, taste and nibble.

Merri became dizzy from the sheer pleasure of it and leaned into Ty's body to steady herself. He groaned and shoved his groin against her hips as they swayed together.

Ty clasped his muscled arms tightly around her waist, and she felt his hard arousal pressing into her. It sent shivers down her spine. Digging her fingers into his shoulders to keep from turning to pure liquid and melting totally away, she pressed her excruciatingly tender breasts against his rocky, muscular chest and rubbed. Rubbed hard.

Merri felt, more than heard, the moan escaping from somewhere so deep inside her that it must've begun at her very center.

The sound of her own desire surprised her—and Ty. He broke the kiss and steadied them both.

“Whoa. That was… That wasn't…” Ty cleared his raspy voice and took a step back. “Go inside, Merri.”

He looked as stunned by what had happened between them as she was. “It's late and we'll be flying up to Austin tomorrow afternoon. I'll send the dress over whenever it arrives.”

“But…what about…?” she stuttered.

“Not tonight,” he said with a scowl. “I can't talk about it tonight.” With that he turned, silently stalked back to his truck and took off.

Ah, hell, she thought as she watched him go. That had been all her fault. What an idiot she was.

 

Ty drove toward his ranch in a daze. Needy, frustrated and more than a little bewildered by his own reactions, he tried to dissect their kiss by looking at it dispassionately. But of course, that was impossible.

Back there in two heartbeats, everything he had promised himself, every reasonable thing he had ever told her, all of it had gone south, along with most of the blood in his body. His every good intention—hell, even most of his mind—had heated, gushed through his veins and finally pooled at the base of his spine, where it throbbed relentlessly, making him reach for her when he knew dang well that he shouldn't.

There was not one thing about his relationship with Merri that could be classified as dispassionate. Oh, he'd been telling himself they could have a cordial, boss-employee friendship. But, hell, he knew that was a total fabrication.

Ty had to stop lying to himself about his need for her. After all, he hated liars. From the first moment he'd seen Merri, he'd wanted her in his bed. A person might've
thought that a smart man would just acknowledge the fact and begin moving toward that goal.

But, no. He'd been trying to fool himself—and Merri—into thinking they could just be friends.

Okay. He gave up. He had to have her. And after that kiss tonight, he was positive that despite everything she said, she wanted the same thing.

He roared the truck into his ranch's yard, slammed it into Park and turned it off. But he didn't move. Might as well not try to go to bed. There was no possibility for any sleep tonight. Not the way the tension was still humming up and down his spine.

Stepping out of the truck, he quietly closed the door behind him and walked toward the barn. Whenever he wanted peace, he'd always ended up in the foaling barn. There was just something about young creatures that soothed him.

Maybe it was the innocence of youth. Maybe it was the fact that they hadn't had time yet to learn the dangers and suspicions of the world.

When it came to human babies, he recognized that his fondness for them was because they had not yet learned to lie and still trusted everyone implicitly. It was compelling, all that trust.

He'd told Merri that he wanted her to trust him enough to tell him her secrets. But what he'd meant was that he wanted some reason to trust her with his.

Jewel was the only person in the entire world he trusted even a little bit. And she didn't know the whole truth of his pain.

Twice in his life he had completely trusted a woman with his heart and his deepest secrets. Twice in his life
he had been, not only disappointed, but totally ripped to shreds and betrayed.

Now his brain kept telling him that Merri was keeping something from him and couldn't be entirely trusted. But his heart and his body were urging him to give her a chance.

Well, he would just have to see about the trust. That was still a maybe. But he'd already made his mind up about giving in to his body. All he had to do was persuade Merri that she was ready, too.

Hmm. His brain started wandering off to images of the ways that he could convince her.

Taking a deep breath of the jasmine-scented night air, Ty realized that those kinds of images were not going to do a damn thing toward allowing him any peace tonight.

But…hey. They would be worth every sleepless minute.

 

“When you said we'd be flying to Austin this afternoon, I had no idea you meant
you
would be the pilot,” Merri told him as she fiddled with her safety belt.

“Does it bother you to fly with me?” Mercy, but he would dearly love to find other ways of
bothering
her.

“No, not at all. You've convinced me that you have all the proper licenses and ratings. It's just surprising.”

“When you get to know me a little better, you'll find out that I prefer doing most things for myself. I can't always manage it, of course. For instance, I don't do the maintenance of the planes or the day-to-day running of my businesses and now the Foundation office. In those cases and a few more I have to turn over the work to others.”

Though he could think of a couple of things that he would never turn over to anyone else. Like pulling all the pins out of her hair, driving his fingers through the finely textured strands and burying his face in all that sensuous silk.

Every time he was this close, Ty got a faint whiff of lavender and vanilla from her hair. It was enough to wipe his mind clean and leave him with nothing but basic animal urges. Something similar to a lobotomy he was sure.

“I didn't know we would have to stay over in Austin tonight, either,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “Your note to pack an overnight bag was another big surprise.”

“It's just about two hours door-to-door and I wouldn't want to feel rushed to leave,” he said as he shook off the urges long enough to begin the regular checklist for takeoff. “I also thought it might be fun to drink a toast to the Lost Children Foundation's new Director. I couldn't do that and then get back in the cockpit and fly.”

“What?” She jerked her head around to stare at the side of his head. “You mean me?”

He chuckled at the crack in her voice. “I can't think of anyone who would be better for the job.”

“But…” Merri couldn't get her mind to settle.

Seeing Ty in the captain's seat of this fabulous new single-pilot personal jet had done a number on her nerves. He was so masculine and so in control that she'd been having crazy butterfly flutters in her stomach, that had nothing to do with flying, ever since the moment they had first boarded.

But now… What would being the Director of his foundation mean? Suddenly it hit her. Publicity. Oh no.

Take a breath. Swallow hard. Think of something. Fast.

“That's quite an honor, but I really haven't had a chance to earn a promotion yet,” she gushed, trying to think while she was talking. “I like working behind the scenes for now. Give me a few more months on the job before I start speaking for the entire foundation.”

“But you're perfect for the Director's job,” Ty argued. “You have that wonderful boarding-school charm and grace. And every donor that has met you loves you. Think about it. You're so much better at the face-to-face stuff than I am.”

Merri took another breath and prayed she would say the right thing. “Ty, this foundation is your baby. You were the one who gave the idea wings. It was your money and your time that put it together in the first place. And it's your reputation and contacts that are needed to build a long-term base of donors now.

“No one in Texas knows me at all…” She hesitated over the half truth. Lots of people all over the world knew the face of Merrill Davis-Ross. “Let me stay in the background while we build the Foundation together.”

“Well…” He stopped studying the lighted flight displays for a second and turned to look at her. “I suppose you're right. It seems like you usually are. But you have to promise not to let me say or do the wrong thing. I'm not great at this PR stuff.”

Merri breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Don't worry. You'll do fine. I'll be right behind you.”

Ty kept silent as he finished his preflight check, radioed to some faraway control tower and prepared to take off. Merri closed her eyes and leaned back while they taxied down his private runway and lifted to the sky. She seemed to have dodged the bullet for now, but could she manage to stay out of the way of the photographers tonight?

Speaking of tonight…

“Where will we be spending the night?” she asked warily once they were airborne and Ty had slid aside his headset and microphone.

“I have a suite of rooms on permanent reserve at the Hilton, same place as the ball,” he told her. “Normally I keep them for the use of my lawyers and the lobbyists they hire to work on my interests with the state's legislators. But tonight the suite will be all ours.”

“You don't do your own lobbying like you do everything else?” she said with a laugh.

“Not good at the face-to-face, remember?”

Merri thought he was fantastic at some face-to-face activities. But she wasn't about to mention it. He hadn't.

Hmm. He hadn't mentioned that incredible kiss—two kisses—either.

“I'm not going to sleep with you tonight, Ty,” she said before she thought it over. “If you had that in the back of your mind, get it out. I presume ‘suite' means separate bedrooms and you and I will be occupying
two
of them.”

“Didn't say any different, did I?” he told her through a grin.

Ty didn't want to
rush
her into his bed. Or…at least not in his
head
he didn't.

But he had every intention of
easing
her into it. Tonight would just be another step toward the goal.

 

Cinderella in reverse,
Merri thought as she stood looking at herself in the full-length mirror. The dress that Janie sent was just about the worst thing Merri had ever seen. And she'd seen quite a few catastrophes.

Bits of drab rust and military olive clung as if they were tufts of dandelion seeds along the nondescript beige column of the high-necked, long sleeved gown—and spread out like birthday frosting along the ruffles that flared about her ankles. It was a really good thing she would be the one to wear this dress so that some innocent girl would never accidently try on this monstrosity.

Her reflection in the mirror was almost comical. In fact, when Merri lifted her gaze to study her disguised hair and lack of makeup, she actually chuckled. What a pitiful sight she made. Good old Janie had done her job.