One Wild Night. Heidi Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ racing is everything to him. He only works in the shipyard to make his grandfather happy. Wandering feet and an adventurous soul don’t exactly equal Father of the Year. Look at my brother. Diane’s been slow coming around to this simple fact, but even she’s starting to realize that Steven will never marry her and settle down.” Hungry again, she dug in her desk drawer and found an apple. Biting into it, she savored the taste and the lack of roiling nausea. “Nope, all I have to do is just bide my time and ride this out and Kiddo and I will be fine.”

      Molly’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m glad to hear that. Oh, and by the way, the Kriss brothers are coming by Monday to work up an estimate on your new office.”

      “Excellent.” And she meant it. After the upheaval of this week, she was finally feeling as if she had things back under control. TGIF indeed. She had about a thousand things she needed to do today. She’d been next to worthless most of the week, and poor Molls hadn’t been able to pick up all of the slack, but her to-do list was manageable, if long, and without continual distractions she’d be able to get caught up and still enjoy the weekend.

      But she found it hard to concentrate. The radio played softly, Molly’s keyboard clicked away in the background, and the phones were silent, yet she couldn’t seem to make the columns of numbers on her screen add up properly. After two hours of working on the same account, she’d made little headway, and she closed the file in disgust. She did mundane things instead—balanced her brother’s checkbook, renewed her father’s fishing license—but those simple chores didn’t require much of her attention.

      Her e-mail inbox was empty—since Erin had kicked her out of the wedding, she was no longer forced to referee the ongoing battles between her mom and her sister over caterers and flowers—and the lack of family drama felt odd. Maybe that was why she was unable to focus; she wasn’t used to working without constant interruptions.

      She’d certainly have plenty of interruptions once Kiddo arrived. The thought made her smile. She should enjoy the peace while it lasted—Erin couldn’t stay mad at her forever, Steven would do something else stupid soon enough, and she’d be back in the mix. Plus, with two new babies in the family…

      She shook her head to clear it and reopened the file from earlier. Focus. It took her another hour to find the mistake, and she was relieved to see it was the client’s error, not one caused by her inattention.

      When the phone rang, she jumped on the distraction eagerly.

      “Hi, Ally.” Her heartbeat accelerated at the sound of that now-familiar baritone, before she reminded herself she didn’t need to panic. She only needed to humor him.

      She tried for an upbeat, noncommittal tone. “Hi, Chris. What’s up?”

      “I’m done for the day and should be headed that way in another hour or so. Can you be ready by six?”

      “Six?” She nearly choked on the word. “Ready for what?”

      “Dinner.”

      “You want to go to dinner?” Her voice sounded strangled and Molly looked over, eyebrows raised in question.

      Chris chuckled, and the sound did strange things to her already confused insides. “I’d heard forgetfulness was a side effect of pregnancy, but really, Ally. I told you I’d call and we’d go to dinner.”

      “I didn’t know you meant tonight.” Every other male on the planet waits at least a week before they call—if they call at all.

      “Do you have other plans or something?”

      Lie. Tell him you’re busy. “Um, well…”

      “Good. I’ll pick you up at your place at six. Bye, Ally.”

      She was still sputtering her refusal when the line went dead. She placed the phone in its cradle and buried her head in her hands.

      “What was that about?”

      Ally didn’t bother to look up. “He’s taking me to dinner tonight.”

      She heard something that sounded suspiciously like a snort from Molly. “So much for staying below the radar.”

      “Molls…” Lifting her head, she saw a smirk playing at the corners of Molly’s mouth. “This is not good.”

      This is not good was rapidly becoming her mantra. She left work a little early and took a nap, waking up still groggy an hour later. Cold water splashed on her face helped wake her up a bit, but the fatigue still grabbed at the edges of her mind.

      Molly’s lecture about the importance of appearing keen on Chris’s ideas—for the time being, at least—echoed in her head as she pulled on a simple skirt and a sleeveless silk shirt. After clipping her unruly hair at the nape of her neck, she tried to add some color to her pale face. Deciding it wasn’t going to get much better, she took one last critical look in the mirror before turning off the bathroom light.

      She still had a few minutes before Chris was due to arrive, so she booted up her laptop and took it to the couch. She typed Chris’s name into the search engine, but hesitated over the enter key.

      Part of her still didn’t want to know. She’d convinced herself weeks ago that the less she knew about Chris the better off she’d be. But that had backfired in her face. Molly had been more than willing to play research assistant, but Ally had held her off, still undecided about how much she did want to know. Even last night, after she’d returned from Charleston, she’d purposefully left the computer turned off, willing to just ride this out. But now, with Chris headed to her door, seemingly serious about this get-to-know-you game, she had no choice but to learn everything she could about him.

      Taking a deep breath she hit Enter, and seconds later Google returned its list.

      The impressiveness of Chris’s accomplishments floored her. From his earliest races when he was still in his teens to his most recent win, Chris had racked up an impressive résumé around the world. It didn’t seem to matter where or what kind of boat he raced, he rarely lost, and never finished lower than third place. It seemed Wells Racing had several teams, and while Chris captained their most successful one, he also oversaw the entire racing operation.

      OWD Shipyard built a variety of yachts—not just the ones Chris sailed—and their designs were popular all over the world. From what she could find, Chris had his hands in that aspect of the business, as well.

      Oh, and here was a mention of Chris meeting with the OWD stockholders in his grandfather’s place. And look, he ran summer camps for inner-city kids to learn sailing, and donated huge chunks of cash to environmental causes.

      Good God, when did the man sleep? How on earth had he found the time to go to Tortola and sail the Circe home? Of all the men in the world she could have hooked up with, how had she, of all people, found the one who just happened to be the world’s only zillionaire businessman/champion racer/philanthropist paragon? It boggled the mind.

      Remembering their discussion yesterday, she added “world solo record” to her search terms to narrow the results. Google returned very few this time. While several sites speculated Chris would one day attempt to do it—and most likely break the record in the process—none seemed to know that plans were in the works to do just that.

      The last link on the page had a very odd headline, and СКАЧАТЬ