Intent to Seduce. Cara Summers

her skin.

      Mac sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. She’d just had a fantasy! The one thing she’d discovered in her research was that she had a very dull fantasy life. Obviously, that was changing. Madame Gervais had insisted that she had a sensual side to her nature. Lucas Wainright seemed to be helping her discover it.

      Pushing herself off the bed, Mac moved to the window, but even the breeze making its way into the room felt warm on her skin. No wonder. The sun was already quite high in the sky. A quick glance at her watch told her it was eleven o’clock. Another four hours to wait until Lucas would announce his decision.

      What would it be?

      Nothing in the way he’d acted the day before had given her the slightest clue. From the moment that she’d awakened from her nap, he’d been polite and attentive, encouraging her to walk along the beach while he fished in a lagoon for their dinner.

      After they’d eaten, he’d taken her on a tour of the island. He’d even slept on the boat so that she could have the one narrow bed in the cabin.

      In short, he’d been the perfect host. Other than that one terse statement—“I think about you that way”—he hadn’t done one thing to indicate that he might be interested in becoming her…boy toy.

      Moving toward the dresser, Mac gazed at her reflection. Better to face the facts. MacKenzie Lloyd was not a woman that most men had lustful thoughts about. Even with a new hair color and a head full of research, what did she really have to appeal to a man like Lucas Wainright?

      The muffled ring of a cell phone had her moving quickly to the main room where she located her bag and fished it out. “Hello?”

      “It’s Sophie. If Lucas is there, pretend I’m someone from the university.”

      “He’s not here.” And she wasn’t sure where he was. Mac went to the door of the cabin and spotted him on the deck of the boat polishing brass with a white cloth.

      “Good. Whatever you do, don’t tell him I called. As far as he knows, I had to check my cell phone in at the desk of the spa. The one thing that would spoil my week in paradise would be to have him calling me every day to check up on me.”

      “You’re enjoying the spa?”

      “It’s heaven. For the first time in months I feel absolutely free. I wish you could see the view I have from my balcony. There are at least three air balloons suspended in the sky. They look like giant lollipops. I have to go up in one while I’m here. Wait…Mac, can you hold on a minute? I ordered something from room service. They’re at the door.”

      In the background, Mac could hear voices, the sound of Sophie’s laugh, then a deeper one. On the boat, Lucas continued to polish brass with sure, steady strokes. Odd that she’d never before pictured him as a man who would like to do any kind of work with his hands. It explained why they’d felt so hard when they’d settled over hers on the wheel of the boat. The memory had a sliver of heat shooting through her.

      “You still there?” Sophie asked.

      “Yes,” Mac replied.

      “Tell me how your plan’s progressing.”

      “I asked him.”

      “Asked him what?” Sophie prompted. “Give me the details.”

      As she told Sophie what had happened, Mac once again replayed everything in her mind. Her stomach plummeted farther. “I don’t think it was my most persuasive presentation.”

      “Surely he didn’t turn you down?”

      Mac smiled at the disbelief in her friend’s voice. “Not exactly. He wants us both to think about it for twenty-four hours.”

      There was a great deal of exasperation in Sophie’s sigh. “That is so typically Lucas. He’s probably having one of his security people do a thorough background check on you to see if you’re any threat to Wainright Enterprises. My advice is don’t wait.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Seduce him into agreeing. That research of yours is worthless if you don’t have the guts to use it.”

      “I don’t know—”

      “He who hesitates is lost. Picture yourself five years after you walk down the aisle with your future bridegroom. You’re in your kitchen feeding two screaming kids and you’re afraid your husband’s eye is about to wander. Are you going to wait for him to make the first move?”

      “No,” Mac said softly.

      “But? I hear a but in that sentence.”

      “I just imagined he might be a little more enthusiastic.”

      Sophie laughed. “Enthusiasm is contagious. Starting out by asking him to fill out a questionnaire was not your best move. As foreplay, it wouldn’t rate very high on my list.”

      “Oh…I didn’t think of that.”

      “I warned you that this plan of yours was not going to be like your usual experiments. You can’t approach it like a job. Besides, it should be fun! And people are not like your docile little lab animals, Mac. Sometimes they need a little extra push.”

      The moment Lucas turned and glanced in her direction, Mac felt the impact of his gaze ripple through her. So what if his hormones weren’t as stimulated as hers were. So what if he was just being kind to his kid sister’s best friend. Didn’t she have the kind of knowledge to change all that?

      “Sometimes they need a big push,” Sophie added.

      Mac couldn’t think of a man she’d rather push than Lucas. Slowly, she smiled as one of the fantasies from her research unfolded itself in her mind. “Thanks, Soph. I’m going to take your advice.”

      “You go, girl! And have some fun!”

      SOPHIE HUNG UP her phone with a satisfied smile and glanced out at the view from her balcony. Covered in lush grapevines, the hillside rolled down to the valley below. There, the neat rows in the vineyards were crisscrossed by narrow roads until hills rose sharply again.

      Napa Valley, California, was as far away from D.C., the Florida Keys and North Carolina as she could get without actually leaving the country. And since she’d never been here before, she doubted that Lucas would think of it. Her lips curved in a smile. Not that she expected him to be thinking about her at all for the next week. Mac should be able to handle that.

      And she was going to handle the rest. For the next week, no one would know she was Sophie Wainright, least of all the man she’d agreed to meet today for lunch. When she’d first met him in that small café on Capitol Hill three weeks ago, she’d told him she was Susan Walker. The initials matched her own, but that was all that linked her to Sophie Wainright.

      It was on the way home from that first meeting that she’d discovered she was being followed. Now she pushed herself away from the railing and began to pace back and forth along the length of her balcony. Just the thought of it made her furious.

      Well, she’d made sure that no one had followed her here. Not once since she’d gotten off the plane in San Francisco had she had that prickling sensation at the back of her neck that had warned her before. Not even Mac knew where she was coming to spend time with the man who only knew her as Susan Walker. A man who wasn’t just interested in her because she was Sophie Wainright.