Authors: Love Me Tender
And another fantasy popped into his head, involving remote cabins and campfires. And nude fishing. Oh, yeah! Nude fishing with the slow stretch-and-reach motion of perfectly sculpted bodies, male and female, casting rod and reel onto smooth waters and—
“Make sure you bring back the limo,” Jake reminded him just before they entered the parking garage.
Sex in a limo. Nude bodies. Leather seats
.
I’m losin’ it here…bigtime
.
Even so, P.T. found himself wondering if Cynthia knew how to fish. No matter! They would watch the fishing videos together, in the nude. Then bop into the limo for a little…bopping.
“And my ties,” Dick added. “All twelve of them, especially the blue and yellow dragon one.”
P.T. shook his head at the two of them. And saw a picture in his head of a campfire and toasting marshmallows on long sticks and nude campers, a male and a female.
“P.T., where the hell are you?” Dick’s elbow nudged him back to the present.
“I have a sudden craving for marshmallows,” he blurted out.
“I’m really worried about you,” Dick said.
Seeing the concern in Dick’s eyes, P.T. pulled
himself together and tossed out, “How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
“One,” Jake answered for Dick. “A lawyer will screw anything.”
Yeah, and maybe a prince shoemaker would, too.
P.T. was not in a good mood by the time he arrived at the castle five hours later. Not that his mood had been anything to write home about before that.
He’d barely left Manhattan when the pounding rains began. Twice, he’d been forced to pull off to the side of the interstate because of nonexistent visibility. Another time he’d stopped at a rest stop to take a short catnap. The metronomic click-click of the windshield wipers had been hypnotizing him to sleep. Finally, he’d reached the five-mile dirt road—now mud—which led up to the castle. His rear felt like ground beef from the poor shocks in the bouncing pickup truck.
Pulling to a stop, he waited for the rain to let up, staring morosely at the castle before him. Every time he saw the monstrosity—which wasn’t often—he shuddered with distaste.
Five years ago, when he’d decided to turn Morton Friedman’s cut-rate shoe empire into an upscale supplier to the rich and famous, he’d needed a palace as a backdrop for his royal persona. Dick had purchased the Spanish title for him, along with the deserted island “empire.”
But no way was P.T. going to build even a bamboo hut on that volcanic paradise that resembled some sci-fi lunar landscape. On his one and only visit, P.T. had seen more snakes than any person should see in a lifetime. Some of them had made their way into Ferrama shoe creations.
But the news media had been, and still were, curious about the new prince of leather. P.T. had suggested to Dick that they rent some villa or mini-castle in Europe for a week or so and take some photographs of him in his supposed home. But Dick had nixed the idea, and rightly so, pointing out that the European papparazzi were vultures when it came to sniffing out the truth. Besides, they probably had pictures on file of every bloody castle ever created.
So he’d bought this crumbling heap in the Catskills and done only enough renovations to have professional photographs taken of him lounging about his palace. No way would he let the press know of its existence. In fact, his zeal for privacy and insistence that the tabloids accept only his photographs of his castle residence had only enhanced his mysterious aura…and upped Ferrama’s attractiveness in the marketplace.
P.T. had purchased the castle, built almost a hundred years before by railroad tycoon Henry Fowler, and its surrounding one hundred acres for a song…a mere five hundred thousand dollars, including the remaining dilapidated furnishings. Of course, the structure itself wasn’t
worth the cost of hauling the stone away. That was why it had stood vacant and unsold for so long. He’d always figured that the land represented a potential long-term profit if it could be subdivided at some point. But Naomi had fallen in love with the place—Naomi always had been a little half-baked—and insisted that it be included as part of her buyout settlement.
Never once had P.T. doubted the wisdom of the prince scam, though it could hardly be called that, since they’d done nothing illegal. It had worked, putting Ferrama, Inc., in the forefront of the fashion industry in record time, along with Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and the other biggies. And he didn’t doubt for one minute that Calvin or Ralph would have employed the same tactics if they’d thought of them first.
Well, good riddance to both the castle and Naomi. Which reminded him of the purpose of this visit. Naomi wasn’t going to have to worry about renovating this heap by the time he was done with her. She was going to be buried under it.
Seeing that the rain was coming down even harder now, accompanied by claps of thunder, P.T. decided to make a dash for the castle. Opening his door, he was immediately surrounded by a half-dozen yelping guard dogs on retractable chains. They looked like glue factory rejects.
Do dogs go to glue factories, like horses? Hell if I know!
Snapping at his immediately sodden Gucci loafers and hanging onto the hem of his Fendi
slacks, the hounds continued to yip and yap, slowing his progress across the moat bridge. Swiping at the water that blinded his eyes, he wasn’t able to watch his step, and he slipped on a rotting board that broke under his weight. He landed face-first in a muddy trench along with the dogs, who frolicked over him with wagging tails and lolling tongues, obviously thinking he’d gone mud bathing deliberately. It wasn’t quite the kind of frolicking Dick had had in mind, P.T. was sure.
He crawled out of the moat and made his way to the open door, where he noticed Naomi for the first time. She was standing with hands planted on the hips of her baggy denim coveralls, glaring at him. Naomi always glared at him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, welcome to you, too,” he snapped, brushing past her into the ostentatious foyer. He didn’t care if he did get mud on her chic denim outfit.
“Aaargh!” she shrieked. “You’re getting mud on the Italian marble, you lout.”
“Well, big deal, Naomi,” he said, cutting her with an icy stare. Then he deliberately shook himself like one of the miserable mutts that wailed outside the door. Mud splattered everywhere, including Naomi’s livid face.
“Go back to New York and take care of the company,” she demanded. “You’re not wanted or needed here.”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Cynthia Sullivan, that’s who. What would ever possess you to try such a crazy stunt? Are you having a nervous breakdown or something, Naomi? Or early menopause?”
“Menopause? Menopause?” she sputtered, her face turning even redder with rage. “Women don’t go into menopause when they’re thirty-four years old, you jackass.”
God, it was just like a female to fixate on the least important thing he’d said. “Where are you keeping her? Oh, no…please, don’t tell me this place has a dungeon.”
“Give me a break,” Naomi snarled, her eyes unconsciously shifting upward.
“
Cyn-thi-a
,” he screamed and made for the wide staircase, taking the steps three at a time. “Where are you?
Cyn-thi-a!
”
“Stop!” Naomi yelled after him. “She’s safe, and her corn’s almost healed, and this is the best plan. Really. She won’t be able to affect the stock offering if we keep her here for eighteen more days.”
When he got to the first landing, P.T. glanced down at his stepsister. “And what are you going to do when she files criminal charges against us? And a civil lawsuit?”
Naomi shifted uncomfortably. “We’re working on that.”
“How?”
“Look, she’s fine here. Oh, she grumbles a lot, but Elmer and Ruth are taking care of her. In
fact, Ruth just got done doing her fingernails, and—”
“Her fingernails!” Oh, Lord, they wouldn’t torture her, would they? Of course they would. Hadn’t Naomi just said that Ruth was up there pulling out Cynthia’s fingernails? Ruth…the gentle sister who wouldn’t swat a fly when they were kids? Ruth…the warm-hearted teenage girl who dated every butt-ugly loser in the county when they were growing up because she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings?
“You can’t take that woman back, P.T. You’ll ruin everything. I want my money to fix up the castle. I mean it. No one—not you, and not that foul-mouthed shark—is going to stop me.”
As greedy as Naomi had been in the past, P.T. never would have believed her capable of deliberate physical cruelty. He gaped at her for a long moment, then told her where she could stick this blasted castle.
Not waiting for a response, he practically flew up the steps, continuing to shout, “
Cyn-thi-a!
” From somewhere in the higher regions—probably the fifth or sixth floor—he heard music playing. He followed the sound.
Moments later he charged madly through the open doorway of a sixth-floor suite and came to a screeching halt. His jaw dropped open with surprise.
Cynthia Sullivan was sitting in the center of a huge platform bed. Her hair…her
big
hair…stood out from her head in a wavy, strawberry-
blond cloud…a
big
cloud…and she wore nothing but the little lacy camisole she’d been wearing under her business suit three days ago. No, he corrected himself, she was wearing a pair of white silk briefs as well. It was no wonder he’d missed them, with the sight of all those miles of bare legs stretching out before him. At the bottom of the bed, Ruth sat painting Cynthia’s nails a bright neon pink, even the three toes that were still covered with a light gauze. From one of those legs, a long chain extended from the ankle to the wall.
“No blood,” he muttered with a heart-swelling sigh of relief. Slowly, the facts registered. Ruth wasn’t torturing Cynthia; she was giving her a pedicure.
“Huh?” Cynthia said, gazing at him with equal amazement. He must look pretty…well, amazing himself, with his face and hair and clothing dripping rainwater and mud about him.
“You’re just in time for the video,” a voice said behind him.
He turned to see Elmer Presley standing next to a TV with a video player on its top. On the screen the opening credits of a cartoon began to play. Cinderella. Elmer fiddled with the knobs a little before turning to P.T. “It’s about time you got here.”
“Oh, God, the fairy dwarf, too,” P.T. observed, taking in Elmer’s short frame wrapped, like a sausage, in a tight white jumpsuit studded with rhinestones. A huge belt with a clasp the size of
a Frisbee bisected his midsection. On his feet were high blue suede boots, also studded with rhinestones. The same person must have done his big hair as Cynthia’s.
“Don’t call him that,” Cynthia and Ruth chastised P.T. at the same time.
“I…am…not…short,” Elmer asserted. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Go ahead and put a spell on him, Elmer. For that insult, you ought to turn him into a…a toad. But then, he’s already a toad,” Cynthia commented. Although her remark was terse and to the point, he could tell by the spark in her blue eyes that she had a lot more to tell him.
A helluva lot more
.
From the corner of his eye he saw Naomi creep through the door and pick up Elmer’s guitar. But his attention was diverted to the TV screen, where some nitwit began to belt out, “Someday my prince will come….”
Just before his head burst with a shattering headache and his mind went blank, he thought he heard himself murmur, “I’m coming, I’m coming….”
It was hard to maintain anger at a blood-boiling temperature when the object of your rage was lying in bed beside you, chained to the wall, unconscious…wearing nothing but a pair of cute white boxers imprinted with green shamrocks.
Peter Ferrama was all dark skin and lean muscle from the top of his raven black hair to the bottom of his narrow, sexy feet. In repose, his sinfully long eyelashes were spread out like thick sable fans accenting a face of aristocratic Spanish features—high cheekbones, prominent nose, full lips, proud jaw. His arms were thrown over his head, relaxed, calling attention to patches of black hair in his armpits and on his well-honed chest, leading in a vee to the low-riding band of
his shorts, then resuming on the trek down his long sinewy legs.
His was not the pumped-up body of a yuppie weightlifter, but the result of good genes and years of some vigorous physical activity. Polo or riding to the hounds or jousting or some such princely pursuit, she supposed. Or running from women who fashioned themselves royal groupies, she added as an afterthought.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” the right side of her brain kept reminding the left side of her brain, which was locked in yum-yum mode.
Three hours had passed since Naomi had bopped him over the head with Elmer’s guitar. He’d been too busy ogling Cynthia to fend off his stepsister’s blow. What a scene had ensued then as Ferrama had sunk, wide-eyed with shock, to the floor!
Elmer had flown into a rage at Naomi’s misuse of his precious instrument, which luckily survived without damage, despite Ferrama’s hard head. “My guitar! My guitar!” Elmer had cried, caressing it like a baby. “May the seven terriers of hell sit on the spool of your breast and bark at your hardened soul.”
Ruth had stormed at her sister then for employing such brutal tactics. “You could’ve killed P.T.! How could you? How could you? Put another curse on her, Elmer. Go ahead.”
“May there be no butter on your milk, nor on your ducks a web.”
“Huh?” she and Ruth had both exclaimed.
Elmer was giving Naomi the evil eye, except that his evil eye resembled a nervous twitch.
Naomi had pooh-poohed Ruth’s recriminations and Elmer’s curses. “If I’d wanted to kill him, I would have used my gun.” Naomi had then pulled out her handy drill and another retractable chain, anchoring Ferrama to the wall in a similar fashion to Cynthia, but on the opposite side of the bed. Before she’d wrapped the chain around his gauze-bound ankle, she’d removed all his clothes, except for the boxers. The only reason she hadn’t taken them, too, Cynthia suspected, was that she’d been squeamish about seeing her stepbrother in the buff.
Cynthia had urged Naomi to leave his clothing on. “He doesn’t strike me as the shy type. Do you really think your stepbrother would care if he was naked, running along the interstate, if it meant he could escape?”
“Yeah, he’d worry about what the press would think,” Naomi had responded with a sneer. “A prince wouldn’t do such an uncouth thing.”
Maybe she was right.
“Then put him in another bedroom,” Cynthia had suggested. The idea of being confined in close proximity to the prince was a daunting prospect. She was afraid she’d break his bones. Or, worse yet, jump his bones.
“Nope! It’s easier to watch you two in one place. Besides,” Naomi said, her eyes narrowing
craftily, “P.T. can keep an eye on you…for the family good.”
“That would be like putting the fox to mind the goose,” Cynthia had argued.
“Precisely.” With that enigmatic comment, Naomi had gone off to plaster a wall or something. After assuring themselves that Ferrama was not seriously injured, Ruth and Elmer had prepared breakfast, then made excuses of some busywork that needed to be done. They obviously wanted to avoid Cynthia’s nonstop complaints.
Elmer’s parting shot of advice to her had been, “When the apple is ripe, it will fall.”
Yeah, well, the only fruit in this room is wearing blue suede boots
. “A person might as well whistle jigs to a milestone as tell her troubles to you,” she’d called after the maddening little man.
He’d laughed with glee. “The Irish wolf ever did bark at her own shadow.”
Her answering snarl had been lost in his departing footsteps.
The prince moaned and moved restlessly now. He was just beginning to awaken. She couldn’t wait. Because she intended to bop him once or twice herself.
Cynthia watched as he gradually became aware of his predicament. At first, he cracked only one eyelid, putting a hand to his presumably aching head. Then he blinked with amazement and raised himself onto his elbows, gaping first at his nearly nude body, then at the chain
running from his ankle to the wall, at the Cinderella video playing on the TV set across the room and finally at Cynthia, in her scanty attire and matching chain.
“His and hers chains!” he muttered, rubbing the fingers of one hand across his furrowed brow. “This is crazy.”
“Yep.” Cynthia was demonstrating incredible restraint in issuing the terse reply when what she wanted to do was berate him in an unending stream for causing this entire fiasco. In time, she promised herself.
In good time
. But she couldn’t stop herself from remarking, “There must have been a whole lot of inbreeding in your family tree, ’cause you’re all half-witted…you, Naomi, Ruth.”
“I’m going to kill Naomi,” he said in a seething tone.
“You’ll have to stand in line.”
Ferrama sat up, giving her his full attention. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right,” she snapped. “Do I look like I’m all right?”
His midnight blue eyes swept over her, real slow, from the big hair she hadn’t had a chance to tame down yet to her glow-in-the-dark pink toenails. “Yeah, you look all right,” he said huskily.
God, that voice alone must snag women by the dozens. She decided to turn the tables on him, not wanting to feel intimidated by all that oozing virility. “You don’t look much like a prince now.”
Well, Einstein, that was a really bright observation!
“Oh?” His lips twitched with amusement.
His half-grin really jerked her chain…so to speak. She hated it when he looked down his blue-blooded nose at her, one of the awkward common folks. “Without a crown, a prince is apparently just a man,” she taunted. “As my grandma always said, ‘You can’t tell what’s in the pot, girlie, till the lid is lifted.’”
He groaned, probably because he disliked her Irish proverbs. Most men did, since the best of the witticisms from the ol’ sod cut straight to the heart of universal male blarney.
“Honey, you don’t know me well enough to lift my…uh, lid. Besides, I may not have a crown, but I still have my scepter,” he pointed out, bobbing his eyebrows at her.
“Huh?” When she realized what he meant, her face colored with embarrassment. “Oh, that was so…so gauche!”
He shrugged. “So, sue me.”
“I intend to,” she vowed. “When I’m done dragging your sorry ass through the court system, you won’t have a crown jewel to your name.” She’d deliberately used the crude term
sorry ass
because she sensed her earthiness made him uncomfortable. And she was not in the mood to please him in any way whatsoever.
“Wanna bet? You’re not touching my
crown jewels
unless I let you.” He thought a minute,
then chuckled. “Oh, all right. My crown jewels are all yours,
querida
.”
Cynthia’s face grew hotter. This conversation was taking a decidedly suggestive route she didn’t like at all. “Great shorts, by the way. Where’d you buy them? The royal Wal-Mart?”
“They were a gift,” he answered distractedly as he searched under the heavy brocade bedspread folded at the bottom of the mattress, discovering the alarming fact that there were no bed linens. It was alarming to her, anyhow. She saw the minute understanding dawned as to the implications of the lack of sheets or pillowcases. His eyes went slowly from her near-nude body to his near-nude body, with nary a cover in sight. Then he smiled.
He smiled! The troll!
“Can I assume body heat is the only option in the event of a sudden cold spell?” He was clearly enjoying himself. And hoping for a North Wind.
“A gift?” she said derisively, choosing to ignore his reference to body heat and take the discussion back to his boxers. Not that his underwear was really a better subject. “From some Irish lass with a shamrock fetish?”
He laughed. “No, they were a Christmas gift from Elmer. Don’t you like them?”
“I could care less. I just thought that a prince would be wearing the family crest on his skivvies, not some good luck charm.”
“Oh, I’ve had lots of luck in my boxers, with or without the four-leafed clover,” he boasted
silkily. “As to the royal crest, it’s imprinted on the inside of the boxers, on the reverse design of the shamrocks.” He gave her a long moment to digest that news before adding, “Wanna see?”
“Stop kidding around. This is a serious situation.”
“Who’s kidding? I’m damn serious. Do you think I show my…uh, crest to just anyone?”
“Keep your peter in your pants, Peter,” she snarled, though she couldn’t hold back the tantalizing image of how he might look without his shorts.
He winced. “Someday I’m going to cure you of that foul language.”
“It’s a fine day when the fox turns preacher.”
“Admit it, Cynthia, that Peter remark was a bad pun, even for you.”
Cynthia’s face was beginning to feel like an inferno. He was right. Long years of habit in a tough environment and climbing through the male trenches had left their mark on her. She’d never admit regretting the coarse words. But, damn, he was so disconcertingly attractive that he made her wish she was different. Really, how did a business executive with a desk job stay so fit? Before Cynthia could bite her tongue, she blurted out, “Do you fence?”
He frowned with confusion. “TVs and car stereos?”
“No, you idiot. Swordplay. Like épée, foil, saber.”
“Oh.” Now it was his turn to blush.
“Do you like to joust?”
“
Like
would be too strong a word.” His eyes glittered with amusement at some private joke.
“What’s that smirk supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, sweetheart.
Nada
. How did we get from you checking out my…uh, crest to swords? Oh, I get it…swords, scepters, phallic symbols.”
“Do you have a death wish?”
He grinned at her, and Cynthia’s sensory system went kaplooey, turning every erogenous zone in her body—even ones she never knew existed—on full red alert. How did he do that with just a slow, lazy twitch of the lips? More important, was it a deliberate ploy to divert her from her rightful anger? “Did you and Tricky Dick and the designer-chauffeur-geek plan this whole thing? Did you figure I would be more amenable to negotiating in a bed half-naked with you, rather than across a courtroom? Did you think my major fantasy in life was to get laid by Prince Charming? Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in, big boy?”
Ferrama was lying on one side. His left elbow, braced on the pillow, supported his head. He was staring at her in the oddest way.
“Stop it,” she demanded.
“Stop what?”
“Stop looking at me as if I was one of your island tarts.”
“What island?”
“Your island…your principality.”
“Oh,
that
island.” He smiled and reached out a hand to finger one of the curls in her big hair. “There aren’t any tarts on my island.”
She slapped his hand away. “Oh, so you limit your princely philandering to women outside your realm. Good idea.”
“Princely philandering? Where do you get these ideas?”
“I get these ideas from those smoldering looks you keep giving me. And you and I both know that a prince like you wouldn’t be the least bit attracted to a woman like me. Therefore, it’s a natural conclusion that you must do a lot of meaningless philandering.”
He crossed his eyes and shook his head like a shaggy dog. “Would you care to explain that bit of logic?”
“Listen, I’ve seen pictures of you in the society pages. You’ve always got some glamorous babe on your arm with a Riviera suntan and a spatoned, pencil-thin body.”
“And?”
“And, even if I baked myself on a beach for days, I would still have white skin and—”
“Creamy,” he corrected, running a forefinger along the bare skin of her forearm. He pulled his hand back quickly before she could slap it away again. “Your skin is deliciously creamy, not white.”
Boy, he is really good. If I weren’t as sharp as I am, I might even be pulled in by his snow job
. “And I could jog till I dropped and I’ll never be
anything but soft and curvy. Oh, don’t give me that look. Ultra-thin and ultra-hard bodies are in vogue today, don’t even try to deny it.”
“How many men do you know who read
Vogue?
Or care what some wacko French designer tells them is beautiful.” He let out a long sigh. “Ah, Cynthia, you have to know that I was attracted to you from the first minute I saw you picketing my building. Ask Dick. He’s been teasing me about my infatuation ever since.” He shrugged helplessly. “You are so damn beautiful.”
Me? Beautiful?
“Don’t try that seduction routine on me, buster. You are such a frog.”
He winked. “Yeah, but if you kiss me hard enough, I turn into a prince.”
“Hah! I’ve kissed a few frogs in my time and, believe me, not a single one turned into a prince.”
“Try me,” he challenged.
Boy, was she tempted! “Give it up, Romeo. I’m on to you and all your slick
ri-bet
charm.”
He gave her a long, doleful look before confessing, “I’ve been looking for you my entire life,
querida
.”
Now that was a real low blow. The words every woman wanted to hear. And men knew that women wanted to hear them, so they spouted the magic words as if doling out candy
. Cynthia couldn’t allow herself to succumb to the practiced words of a born-to-please womanizer. She put her hands to her ears and closed her eyes.
Once she felt herself under control, Cynthia, with eyes still closed, stormed at him, “Enough of this b.s. You are responsible for my kidnapping, whether directly or indirectly. What are you going to do about this situation? Don’t you think it’s time to cut your losses? There’s no shame in a man being thrown by a mare, you know. It’s better to be turned back in the middle of the ford than to be buried in the flood. So, what do you say? Shall we call an end to this charade?”