Scandalous Passion. Emilie Rose
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them?”
He scowled. Another insult. “You think I’d kiss and tell?”
She primly folded her hands in her lap. “Get the pictures, Carter. I’ll wait here.”
He didn’t call her a coward, but he let his eyes say it for him. Her spine stiffened. Message received.
“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
Carter glanced at his waterproof watch as he crossed the den. Operation Seduction under way at 1700 hours.
Let the games begin.
Two
Phoebe put her head in her hands. She had to be out of her mind to agree to Carter’s ridiculous terms. Could she grab the photos and run? Hardly. Carter might have been a geek twelve years ago, but he looked to be in peak physical condition now. He’d outrun her. Besides, he could always print more pictures from the negatives. She needed the pictures and the negatives.
Her grandfather had always said that if you couldn’t change your opponent’s mind, then you had to wear him down. So Phoebe decided she’d play Carter’s childish game. As luck would have it, her grandfather would be at his Bald Head Island retreat for the next month preparing campaign strategies and meeting with his advisers. She’d stayed behind to research his most likely opponents and to look for good quotes for his next speech. Odds were that she could probably recover the pictures without having to explain her whereabouts.
As far as Carter’s abundant sex appeal went, she hadn’t made it to the age of thirty without learning how to handle her physical needs. Messy, complicated relationships were not required. Resisting him wouldn’t be easy, but it was within her capabilities. All she had to do was to focus and get to know her opponent—another of her grandfather’s maxims.
From her seat at the table Phoebe examined Carter’s house, looking for clues to the man he’d become. In college he’d claimed he wanted a place to put down the roots his childhood hadn’t permitted. He’d certainly achieved that goal. Sunlight flooded his kitchen, illuminating very traditional oak cabinets and gleaming hardwood floors. Wooden beams supported the vaulted ceiling of the spacious den to her right, and a huge brick fireplace flanked by tall windows covered most of the outside wall. The leather sofa and chairs looked masculine and expensive, but the room begged for color and softness, for a woman’s touch.
The lack of decorative elements inside led Phoebe to believe Carter didn’t have a woman in his life. But the flowers surrounding his porches and the hummingbird feeder contradicted the lonely bachelor theory. Carter had never been a birds-and-blooms kind of guy. She didn’t think he’d become one. And she couldn’t imagine a man with his sex appeal being alone. So who was the woman in his life? Or did he keep more than one on a string?
Never mind. It didn’t matter. This was a business transaction not a courtship. A barter agreement. Nothing more. She had to uncover his true motive. What did he want in exchange for the pictures? She didn’t believe for one minute that all he wanted was the pleasure of her company.
Carter reappeared with the pictures fanned out in his fingers like playing cards, the backs facing Phoebe. He looked mouthwateringly gorgeous with his shoulder and arm muscles displayed like a handsome hunk calendar model’s. And that tattoo… She couldn’t believe it turned her on. Did he have more? Where? Her pulse quickened.
Your curiosity will bring you nothing but trouble, Phoebe Lancaster Drew, her grandmother’s voice, which often doubled as Phoebe’s conscience, chided. And her grandmother always had been right. Besides, Phoebe had seen most of Carter in his swimsuit. If he had tattoos beneath the brief trunks, she wouldn’t be seeing them.
She didn’t want to look at the pictures, didn’t want to be reminded of how deeply she’d trusted Carter or how unimportant she’d been to him, but for all she knew he could be bluffing. She held out her hand. He thumped the rectangles into a neat stack and passed them to her. The brush of his fingertips against her palm forced the air from her lungs. Phoebe averted her gaze from his and found herself looking at the worn denim to the left of Carter’s zipper. A jolt of energy shot through her. She gulped. Looking at the pictures hadn’t left him unaffected. Well—she squared her shoulders—she would have more control over her baser instincts.
Bracing herself, she turned the rectangles over. Her heart skipped a beat and her hand wobbled. The picture on top of the stack was probably the most innocent of all the photos they’d taken with Carter’s old camera set on a timer. Carter stood straight, tall and completely nude with his back to the camera. Phoebe couldn’t help contrasting the lanky frame in the photograph with the muscle-packed body in front of her. She’d been standing in front of him, completely concealed from the camera by his body except for her forearms and hands. She’d wrapped her arms around his waist to cup his buttocks. Those pale hands could have belonged to anyone except for the identifying heirloom signet ring on her right ring finger—the same ring she wore every day of her life.
Phoebe curled her fist by her side, but it was no use trying to hide the ring. Heat swept through her as she remembered how his thick erection had burned against her stomach, her nipples had scraped his bare chest and how his own hands had cupped her bottom. Moments after the shutter clicked he’d lifted her, filled her with one deep stroke, and loved her until they’d both collapsed on the floor, too weak to move until the sound of his roommate’s key grating in the lock had sent them scrambling for their clothing.
She’d loved Carter Jones beyond reason and this picture brought those feelings rushing back with a force she couldn’t dam. Fast on the heels of the hot, fizzy arousal racing through her blood came pain—the pain of his desertion. He hadn’t loved her enough.
She always lost the ones she loved. She’d been abandoned by her fun-loving parents when she was seven. They’d been killed in a rebel uprising in some godforsaken land six years later. The signet ring was the only memento she had of her mother. Her grandmother, who’d become Phoebe’s surrogate mother, had passed away quickly and unexpectedly four months after Phoebe started at the university, and then Phoebe had lost Carter five months later.
Her grandfather was the only family Phoebe had left, and now it seemed her grandfather’s approval hinged on her standing beside him in his presidential bid. Heaven only knew what would happen if these pictures leaked out and Phoebe’s indiscretion tainted his campaign. Would he abandon her, too, or did he love her enough to forgive her for her wild and impetuous first love? It wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.
“I’ll buy them from you. How much do you want?”
“The pictures aren’t for sale.” His hard expression warned her not to waste time arguing.
Unable to bear looking through the rest of the photos, Phoebe passed them back. “Then I want the negatives as a show of good faith.”
“No can do, sugar. Not until the last date.”
Sugar. Sweet to the taste and habit-forming. She closed her eyes against the memory of him looking up at her from between her legs with a smile slanting his damp lips as he uttered those words. She lifted her eyelids and met Carter’s gaze. The watchful expression on his face told her he also remembered the often-repeated phrase and its context.
“I want your word that you won’t show these pictures to anyone else.”
“You have it,” he replied without hesitation.
Phoebe bolstered her resistance. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow. Where are you staying?”
“My grandfather’s home in Raleigh.”
“I’ll pick you up at six.”
“No.” Alarm raced through her bloodstream. “That’s not necessary. I’ll meet you.”
Carter’s jaw turned to granite. “Still worried what Granddad will say if your former classmate turns up on your doorstep?”
He remembered the