Relentless. Leslie Kelly
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faces wearing similar goofy expressions that said, “Let’s do something real dangerous like watch a dirty movie on the Playboy Channel.” And to top it all off, he didn’t even like the groom!
All in all, it was proving to be a wasted Friday night. Though he’d only been at the suite for about an hour, Ken was more than ready to leave.
“Pete, you remember these ladies, I’m sure,” a man Ken recognized from the personnel department of Bradford Investments said as he entered the room. Behind him were two women—two very blond, very stacked, very professional-looking women, their profession being the world’s oldest, that is.
The partying junior executives exchanged nervous glances and more nervous grins. Their eyes widened as Ken’s rolled in amused disgust.
“Now this party’s gonna roll,” the groom said, lifting a beer—imported, of course—to his lips and chugging it. Well, he tried to chug it. He drained about half of the green bottle before pulling it from his lips and sucking in a deep breath.
The entrance of the party girls was Ken’s cue to cut the hell out. He’d never had to pay for sex in his life and had absolutely no interest in being around guys who did.
He stood, preparing to do just that. Two of the other men—ones Ken had dealt well with in the few weeks he’d been working on the Bradford project—did the same thing. His respect for them went up a notch. As the groom grabbed the hip of one of the passing blondes, Ken’s respect for him—already pretty damn low—dropped to toilet bowl range.
He couldn’t believe Pamela Bradford—the Pamela Bradford whose smiling face had captivated him from the moment he’d seen her photo on her father’s desk at their first meeting—was going to marry this womanizing loser.
Peter Weiss must have one amazing acting ability to go along with the GQ looks and oozy charm. Because, as far as Ken could tell from his single encounter with Ms. Bradford, she could have just about any man she wanted with the crook of a finger. Ken grudgingly conceded he had to include himself in that estimation.
And she’d chosen Peter. So either she was stupid and gullible, which he doubted, or Peter had snowed her about what he was really like. That seemed almost inconceivable, too. Ken had only been working in the Bradford office building two weeks, and he already knew Peter had had affairs with three secretaries and had been caught nailing one of the bookkeepers in a stall in the men’s bathroom last year. Could she really not know?
Of course, it was possible Peter had been on the straight and narrow since meeting his fiancée. What man would want anyone else with Pamela Bradford in his life?
“Horse’s ass,” he muttered under his breath as Peter began untying the prostitute’s halter top with his teeth. “She could do so much better than you.”
Ken wondered why he thought so much about a woman he’d never formally met. But he did. He thought about her quite a lot, particularly when sitting in meetings in her father’s office, glancing at her photo and catching glimpses of a hint of wicked humor in her wide eyes.
Pamela Bradford had sparked something in him. He’d like to call himself a gentleman and say it was his chivalrous side, rearing up in protest of the colossal mistake she was about to make. But he had to concede it was more than that. His libido definitely had something to do with it, too.
He had a serious case of the hots for his client’s daughter…and they’d never exchanged as much as a nod of hello. In the two weeks he’d been in Miami, working on a major software project for her father, he’d seen Pamela Bradford’s picture on a daily basis, heard her name on her father’s proud yet frustrated lips dozens of times, and seen her in the flesh once. Just once. But what an impression she’d made.
She’d just emerged from her father’s office where, he’d learned later, she and Jared Bradford had argued again over Pamela’s job. Jared had often moaned to Ken that his daughter, who’d been offered every advantage two doting, wealthy parents could provide, had never willingly accepted a thing from them.
Her father was afraid for her, plain and simple. She worked with inner-city kids at a teen center in Miami. The distance from her family’s pricey estate in Fort Lauderdale went way beyond the mileage on I-95. It was like a different world. Pamela had chosen that world—which was completely foreign to her father.
That day, Ken had leaned against the doorjamb of his temporary office, which had been provided by the company for the duration of the three-month-long project. Arms crossed, he’d unabashedly listened to the raised voices from the next room. He’d watched as Pamela literally burst out of the heavy, oak-paneled door to her father’s private sanctum, giving it a solid kick with the heel of her sneaker for good measure, before she stalked away toward the elevators.
She’d been magnificent, from the curves in her tall, lean body, to the flash of fire in her huge brown eyes. A sheen of light from the overhead fixtures cast highlights of red and gold on her chestnut-colored hair. Ken had simply stood silently, watching. She hadn’t even seen him, but he’d paid close attention to her. Her chin was as proud and firm as her father’s, and her shoulders were stiff under her simple green shirt. She also had a gorgeous, wide mouth made for smiling. And kissing. And…more.
It wasn’t just the Pamela he saw with his own eyes that so attracted Ken. It was also the Pamela he saw through her father’s eyes—through his stories, his commiserations and his fond remembrances—a woman who was stubborn, yet full of heart. That Pamela sounded like someone he’d very much like to get to know.
Unfortunately, she was about to become the wife of an oversexed moron.
“Go, go, go, go,” the men around him chanted, drawing Ken’s attention back to the party. Peter was chugging again, cheered on by the crowd. After the groom drained the bottle, he threw his arms up in the air like a college jock and howled.
And Pamela was marrying him?
Ken walked through the living area, dodging puddles of spilled beer, looking for his suit jacket. He’d taken it off when he arrived, and knew he’d left it on the back of a chair near the door. It wasn’t there now. Several more guests had come in and someone had obviously done some jacket rearranging.
Frustrated, Ken looked around and saw the door to the suite open yet again. Another of the groomsmen, who’d left earlier to find cigarettes, yelled from the hallway, “Look what I found waiting around the corner.”
The man turned away, pulling at something, his already alcohol-reddened face beading with sweat. Interested in spite of himself, Ken watched as the man pulled a cart into the room.
The cart, it appeared, had other ideas. It was pulling back. From where he stood, Ken was able to see one high-heeled red shoe sticking out from beneath what appeared to be a large white-iced paper cake. The shoe tried to stop the cart by digging into the floor. The spiked heel, however, slid through the plush weave of the ivory carpeting like a knife through soft butter.
Whoever the lady was, she didn’t seem quite ready for her performance. Ken could even hear her hissing at the man to put her back where he’d found her. No one else seemed to notice.
“The entertainment has arrived,” the man said as he finally managed to pull the large cart and cake into the room.
The two blondes exchanged amused looks. “You’re gonna like Nona, sweetheart,” one of them said to the groom, who responded by pulling her onto his lap.
Ken, still closest to the cake, heard the person inside say, “I need to get out of here. There’s been a mistake!”
The man who’d pushed the cart in—Ken thought he was Dan from Billing—leaned close to the P in the word “Peter” written in red icing. “Don’t be shy, sweetie!”
She wouldn’t come out.
“Maybe she needs music,” someone said doubtfully. Considering the stereo was blasting loud enough to shake the walls, Ken wondered what that guy was smoking!
Dan from Billing tried again. “Hello