The Tycoon Meets His Match. Barbara Benedict

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      He went through the door, leaving it open, feeling claustrophobic amid all the pink. Thanks to Mitsy’s decorating the room was a confection of chintz pillows, poofy curtains and fussy white lace, complete with an oversized, overdressed teddy bear perched on the canopied bed. All that was missing was the placard, Rich Young Girl Sleeps Here.

      No wonder Lucie sometimes had a skewed grasp on reality. Even the phone was absurd, a plastic rendition of Cinderella’s glass slipper. Who in their right mind talked into a shoe?

      He did, apparently. Tossing Trae’s dead cell phone on the bed, he reached for the slipper. He had calls to make, starting with his housekeeper in the Bahamas. Knowing how Rosa loved to pamper Lucie, he could picture the poor woman combing the grounds to find the gardenias Lucie adored. He could spare Rosa the extra work, if not the disappointment that Lucie wouldn’t be coming.

      “But Miss Lucie is on her way here,” Rosa informed him. “She just called from the airport, telling us to expect her shortly.”

      He felt a surge of relief, knowing she was safe. Of course Lucie would go to the woman who acted more like a mother to her than her own mother did. Why rattle around on a bus when she could be spoiled rotten at his house in the islands?

      At least now he knew she was within reach. With any luck, he might catch up with her at JFK and bring her back home before nightfall. At worst, even if she did fly off without him, he’d meet up with her on the island, where he could easily arrange a quiet ceremony in the local seaside chapel.

      It didn’t matter to Rhys where they got married, as long as they were wed by the end of the week. By then, of course, he’d need to be back in the office.

      He smiled, happy to have a definite course of action. Within the next twenty-four hours, he would find his runaway bride and bring her back home as his wife.

      Aware of the seconds ticking away, Trae raced down the hall, imagining Lucie’s growing desperation. In Trae’s mind, the fact that she hadn’t come home, hadn’t even called home, spoke volumes. Whatever might happen, Trae couldn’t let Rhys get to her friend first.

      Desperate to check her messages, she’d left Alana and Quinn with Mitsy to learn what they could while she went to retrieve her cell phone. Unable to find Rhys anywhere, she’d decided to use the private line in Lucie’s bedroom, which meant no one else would pick up while she checked messages. Let Luce have called, she prayed silently as she approached the bedroom. And make sure she says where she’s going.

      Rounding the door, she came up short. To her shock, the room was already occupied.

      His back to her, much too big, male and overpowering for his surroundings, Rhys began to bark into the phone. The receiver—the silly glass slipper Mitsy insisted went with the cotton-candy decor of the room—looked all the more fragile in his large, capable hands.

      “…must follow her,” he said briskly as he pulled at his tie. “I managed to change my booking to a four-thirty flight to Miami. Flight 213.” He paused, shaking his head. “Yes, I know she flew straight to the Bahamas, but there’s not a single seat left on any flight tonight. Get my stuff to the Worldways terminal, at JFK, Bob Ledger’s office. No, wait.” He paused again, holding up his wrist as he checked his watch. “You won’t have time. Just send everything to the boat. Bayside, slip 337. No seats out of Miami tonight, either. The boat’s the quickest way.”

      He reached out to undo the cuffs of his shirt. “Make sure to send my briefcase. I’ve got papers to review before the meeting with Stanton, Inc. And I’ll definitely need my BlackBerry. I’ve got to have a reliable phone.”

      He paused, scowling down at the cell phone on the bed. My phone, Trae thought, barely resisting the urge to barge in the room and snatch it up.

      “Okay, yes,” he continued impatiently. “Technically, I did promise Lucie I wouldn’t work this week. But this isn’t our honeymoon anymore, is it?”

      Trae barely heard him, distracted by the man’s ongoing striptease. At the moment, he was in the process of removing his shirt. Hard not to gawk at all that gleaming, taut and surprisingly tanned muscle. Who would have guessed the buttoned-up executive had been hiding such a magnificent body?

      She wondered where a workaholic would achieve such a tan. And that physique. Even if Rhys did carve a niche into his schedule for the gym and tanning salon, surely the effort would require swim trunks and sweats. As far as Trae had seen, the man never wore anything but business attire.

      Though it seemed she was about to get an eyeful of the real Rhys Paxton. As his hands went to his zipper, she backed away from the door, as appalled as she was embarrassed. Trae Andrelini was not a prude, but this was her best friend’s almost-husband. She shouldn’t be watching him undress, and she sure as hell shouldn’t be getting turned on by him.

      “Get started right away,” Rhys finished abruptly. “I’m in a hurry. I’ve got to make that flight.” He slammed down the phone with enough force to crack the slipper had it been made of glass instead of cleverly disguised acrylic.

      Hurrying down the hall to find Quinn and Alana, Trae bristled with new determination. Damn Rhys Paxton and all his money and connections. Apparently, he knew exactly where Lucie had gone and he wasn’t sharing.

      Flight 213, he’d said, leaving at four-thirty for Miami. And after that, the Bayside Marina, slip 337.

      Looked as though they were headed in the same direction.

      “Trae?” Lucie Beckwith gripped the phone late that evening knowing she’d reached voice mail, but hoping her friend would somehow sense she was calling and miraculously pick up.

      “You’re probably busy cleaning up the mess but I’m sitting here on a stool watching these silly flamingos and I got to thinking that maybe I made a huge mistake.”

      No, that didn’t come out right. “I mean, my mistake wasn’t in saying no,” she added promptly—or at least as promptly as three mai tais would allow. “I never should have come here to the Bahamas. Like Rhys wouldn’t look for me here. He knows me so well. He’ll guess in an instant I’d go right to Rosa to get her advice.”

      Twirling the little paper umbrella in her glass, Lucie frowned. Call her a coward but she wasn’t ready to face Rhys yet. “He’ll be so…so disappointed,” she said, thinking aloud into the phone. “We made a deal.”

      At the time, it had seemed the perfect solution. Rhys needed a Rhys IV and Lucie, well, as her mother constantly pointed out, having children would lend purpose to her otherwise aimless life. All evidence to the contrary, Lucie didn’t enjoy being on the fast track to nowhere.

      With her friends having careers and/or families to focus on, lately Lucie increasingly had to fight feeling left out. So when Rhys had suggested it might be time to tie the knot, she could see no reason to argue. Marriage was, after all, what she’d said she always wanted. Hadn’t she always told him as much?

      And she couldn’t ask for a better friend, a more worthy champion. For every childhood problem, for every moment of teen angst, he’d been the shoulder she cried on. When she broke her arm falling off a horse her parents had forbidden her to ride, Rhys had gotten her to a doctor, made sure her parents never learned the true cause of her injury. When her date backed out of the senior prom at the last minute, Rhys had canceled his own important plans to escort her.

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