Princes of the Outback: The Rugged Loner / The Rich Stranger / The Ruthless Groom. Bronwyn Jameson

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СКАЧАТЬ hours later Angie was still shaking her head over how she’d hijacked the arrangements so coolly and proficiently. She hadn’t let Tomas interrupt and she’d handled his objections with the same aplomb as the room upgrade.

      “I’ve never been in a position to reserve a suite before,” she told him. “If I’m going to do this, why not with style?”

      And then she’d settled behind her desk, telephone receiver anchored between shoulder and ear, and mentioned how much work she needed to get done before she could meet him upstairs. A very nice ploy, beautifully stage-managed, with no room for objection. Especially when Rafe arrived at her door, his curiosity diverted by his brother’s presence.

      Tomas left. She shrugged off Rafe’s nosiness by pretending huge interest in a bogus phone call. Really, based on the whole scene in her office from start to finish, she should have been an actress. Her talents were much wasted. Who’d have known that her heart was racing, her insides churning, her bones quivering with nervous tension?

      Now, two and a bit hours later, she smiled and made small talk with a Japanese couple as the Carlisle Grande’s high-speed elevator propelled her toward the upper-floor suites and her future. All in all, she felt remarkably calm. Considering she was about to have Tomas Carlisle.

      Holy Henry Moses.

      After she said goodbye to the couple on floor fifteen, Angie pressed an unsteady hand against her stomach, drew a deep breath, and willed everything to stop spinning. Although she hadn’t decided how, she knew she could go through with this. She knew because of the kiss that still burned strong and fierce in every cell of her blood, a kiss edged with darkness and barely leashed desperation.

      He didn’t want her, but he needed her.

      And if all went well, she might not only have Tomas Carlisle this once but she might get to keep him. To live with him as she grew big with his baby, to ease the haunted shadows in his eyes, to make him laugh and smile and live again. To be more than a helpmate to secure his inheritance—to be his wife and his partner.

      And if it didn’t work out? If this turned into the disaster she’d alluded to in her office? Then perhaps that wouldn’t be all bad if it meant closure and a signal to move on.

      Perhaps she might even silence the incessant heart-whisper that had stopped her committing to any other relationship, to a career or even to a place to live. The insistent whisper that she hold back a chunk of herself, to save it for this one man, this one home, this one life. Deep down she’d always hoped…and now those hopes were about to be realized.

       If he hadn’t changed his mind all over again.

      Outside the door to his suite—their suite—Angie hesitated only long enough to draw a deep breath before knocking. But then she couldn’t stand the waiting, the not knowing if he was inside or not. Fumbling, swearing softly at the tremor in her hand, she managed to swipe her security card through the lock. Red light. Swearing softly she tried again, her hand more steady this time.

      Green light, hallelujah.

      She pushed the door open and three slow paces into the entry vestibule her heart and stomach did the same free-fall as in the swiftly ascending elevator. Still, she went through the motions of checking the huge marble bathroom, the bedroom and huge closet, but nope. The whole suite stretched before her, quiet and pristine and empty.

      He wasn’t here.

      Angie didn’t assume she’d been stood up, at least not after she’d circled the whole suite several times and given his absence considerable thought. He may have changed a lot in recent years, but she couldn’t picture any version of Tomas hanging around a hotel room cooling his boot heels. He’d never done inactivity well.

      She checked with reception, in case he’d left a message. Then she checked every horizontal surface—a five-star suite, she discovered, had many—and came up with no sign of a note. In fact there was no indication he’d even been here, but that was no reason to get her knickers knotted.

      No, really, it wasn’t.

      Most likely he had business to do, seeing as he came to the city so rarely these days. Or he could be downstairs in one of the hotel bars getting well and truly drunk. The Tomas she remembered didn’t need Dutch courage to tackle a wild bull or a woman, but this present one—well, she just didn’t know.

      Cooling heels wasn’t big with Angie, either, but what else could she do but wait? Tracking Tomas down wasn’t an option, not when he wanted to keep this meeting (encounter? rendezvous? one-night stand?) secret. Yeesh, but she hated not knowing what to expect or even what to call whatever-this-was she’d agreed upon. Not knowing how long she might be waiting made her even more skittish, and determined to find some way of relaxing.

      If she could expend some of this pent-up emotional energy then maybe she stood a chance of loosening up Tomas. That, she knew, was essential if this night was going to work out.

      She ordered up a bottle of merlot. Then, on a whim, changed her order to the kind of French champagne she’d only tasted once before, at her heartbreaker of an eighteenth birthday party. Courtesy of the Carlisles, as it happened. If Tomas Carlisle was going to make her wait, then he could pay for the luxury of unwinding her nerves!

      While she waited for room service to deliver her Dom Pérignon, she filled the spa and added a liberal dash of bath-oil from the complimentary basket labeled “Body Bliss.” Then she stacked the stereo with music designed for relaxation. The spa occupied roughly the same space as Carlo’s whole bathroom, so she figured if the music didn’t work she could use up some stray nervous energy swimming laps of the monster-tub.

      Midway through the champagne and chin-deep in richly scented water, Angie felt a sudden sense of…no longer being alone. Her skin tingled, lifting hairs on the back of her neck and over her forearms. Startled, she jackknifed upright and waited, perfectly still but for the wild pounding of her heart. The music masked any sound, but when the bathroom door didn’t move from its half ajar position her heart rate slowly subsided.

      So much for the relaxing, luxuriating experience.

      She’d started to rise from the water, to reach for a bath sheet, when the music volume dipped noticeably. Instantly her pulse skipped, her exposed nipples tightened, anticipation fizzed in her blood—as happened pretty much any time Tomas Carlisle came into the picture. Not that he was exactly in the picture, but he was close enough that her body knew; her heart knew.

      And as she slid back into the water’s warm embrace, she wondered if her patience could hold out until he came looking for her.

      Five

      How long, he wondered, could a woman stay in a bath?

      Teeth gritted, Tomas attempted to block out another slush of water, another image of slick olive skin, another rush of heat to his loins. For the past two or ten or twenty minutes—God knows, it felt like an eternity!—he’d wished back that second when he’d turned down the music. Her selected volume (raucous) would have shut out the constant reminders that Angie was two open doors away, wet and naked.

      Yet he couldn’t bring himself to cross to the bedroom, and then to the bathroom, to do what he’d come up here to do. He didn’t know what he would say. He didn’t know how to begin.

      Hell.

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