The Boss's Proposal (9 page)

“Max! Dylan!” Cady waved and hurried over, tugging along a vaguely familiar-looking man in a white chef's coat. “You made it.”

“All in one piece,” he said.

“Meet my fiancé, Damon Hurst.”

And the penny dropped. “Nice to meet you.”

Dylan shook hands with him. “I used to be a regular at Pommes de Terre,” he added, referring to the chef's one-time Manhattan restaurant.

Hurst kissed Max's cheek in greeting. “Yeah, Pommes was great while it lasted. I've got a new gig here that's even better. You ought to come by sometime.”

“That's right, I've heard about your deconstructed clam strips.”

Hurst gave Cady a suspicious look. “What have you been telling people?”

“Just that you're the most fabulous chef in the world and I adore you,” she said, leaning in to press a kiss on him.

“That works,” he decided, pulling her close to kiss her longer and more thoroughly. “I hear you're doing some work in Dubai,” he asked Dylan when he finished.

Dylan nodded. “The Al-Aswari complex.”

“I'll be going over there soon. I'm working on a couple of restaurant concepts for Dimitri Stephanopolous.”

Max blinked in surprise. “I thought you broke ties with him. Didn't you leave the Las Vegas project?”

“They came crawling after him on their hands and knees,” Cady said with relish. “Now he goes out there
a couple of days a month and consults by phone and Internet. He's going to take me to Dubai.”

Max looked at her feisty, stubborn sister. “I'm not entirely sure Dubai is ready for you, Cady.”

“Ready or not, here we come.”

“Speaking of ready,” Damon said, “we should go over and see how the pit masters are doing with our clambake.”

The pit masters proved to be Max's father, Ian, and her cousin, Tucker. Tall, with thinning gray hair, Ian bent over the fire pit, working with Tucker to cover the smoking fire and hot rocks with alternating layers of clams and corn, lobster and potatoes, separated by seaweed.

“You two had better watch out for that smoke,” said a pretty red-haired woman Max introduced as her mother. “You've been breathing an awful lot of it. We don't want you keeling over from fumes.”

“We're fine,” Tucker said, then ruining the effect by coughing.

“Humph. Come on, finish up. You've got enough food in there already to feed an army.”

“All right, all right.” With Dylan and Damon pitching in, Ian and Tucker draped a wet tarp over the fire pit and closed it off with rocks.

“Thanks,” Ian said to Dylan. “Ian McBain, nice to meet you. I'd shake your hand but I'm not sure you want to smell like clams.” He stood, taking a deep breath.

Amanda frowned at him. “Are you feeling okay?

You look a little pale.”

“I don't know, Tucker, I think next year I'm going to pass this off to you and Damon. I'm getting too old for this stuff. My arms are killing me from hauling rocks to the fire pit yesterday. Maybe I'll just take the rest of the day off and let all you guys do the work.”

Cady snorted. “Yeah, like that's going to happen. Just for the record, Tucker and Damon were wrestling with him to lay the rocks in the pit. Someone's a little stubborn.”

Ian reached out to tweak Cady's nose. “And from what I hear, I passed it on.”

“I'll say,” Dylan murmured, glancing at Max.

“What's this I hear about stubborn?” A tall man with Amanda McBain's smile walked up behind them.

“Walker, figures you'd show up after all the work is done,” Max said, reaching in to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“It's no accident,” he said as he circled the group, shaking hands and dispensing hugs. “I plan it that way. It's not easy, you know. It takes careful surveillance.”

Max snorted. “Dylan, meet my brother, Walker, boy genius.”

“I'm going to have to get myself a notepad,” Dylan muttered.

“Nah,” Cady said beside him. “Just say, ‘Hey, McBain,' and you'll hedge your bets.”

He nodded. “Thanks, I'll remember that.” He reached over to tangle his fingers in Max's. “Hey, McBain, want to go get something to drink?”

 

It was an ideal party, relaxed, casual, with plenty to eat and drink. The sun shone and a breeze off the water kept things just cool enough. The crowd was a mix of family, friends, townspeople and guests, so that there were plenty of new stories to hear and old acquaintances to renew.

And there was Dylan.

He'd amused her, mesmerized her and aroused her. But as the day wore on and she saw him with her family, he did something she hadn't expected—he charmed her. He helped her father at the fire pit, he made her mother smile. He carried things out from the restaurant for Damon. He let Cady show off her greenhouse. And whenever Max caught his eye, he gave her one of those steady looks full of promise for her alone.

She was conscious of him everywhere she went, whether he stood beside her or not. She'd hear his laughter, glance up and catch him watching her. It made her very aware of herself and her body and its hungers.

In the fading light of day, she stood behind the gazebo on the little spit of land that pointed out
toward the marina. Footsteps approached her from behind and she turned to see Walker.

“Hey, Max.”

“Hey, Walker. Happy Fourth of July.”

“Same to you. Having a good time?”

“Yeah, I am. How about you?”

“I guess. So, who's this Dylan guy? And don't try to tell me he's a coworker. I see how he looks at you.”

Max laughed and turned to lean against the tree that grew in the middle of the grass. “Walker, are you suddenly turning into the protective older brother after all these years?”

“He's tougher than the ones you usually bring around.” He watched Dylan help their father fold up the tarp from the fire pit. “You're going to have your hands full with him. I think it'll be good for you.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” She pushed off from the tree and took a few steps toward the water.

Walker shrugged. “Usually you pick guys you can push around. I don't think this guy is going to push so easily.”

“Thanks for the analysis of my love life,” Max said tartly. “I was going to ask you how yours was going but I'm not sure I care now.”

Walker moved his jaw. “Mine doesn't exist anymore.”

Concern wiped away the anger instantly. “Are you and Elise still fighting?”

Walker shook his head. “No, the divorce lawyers have taken care of that for us.”

Max stared. “You're getting divorced?”

“Got divorced,” he corrected. “We signed the papers last week. Amazing how quickly you can push these things through if you've got enough money.”

“Oh, Walker.”

He put up his hand. “It's okay. It was the right thing to do. We've been separated for the last year anyway.”

“But you never… Why didn't you tell us?”

“I kept hoping it would work out. And maybe I didn't want to admit that I was a failure. Anyway, the papers just put a rubber stamp on what we both knew.”

“Is it what you want?”

He was quiet a moment. “Yeah, actually, it is. I mean, it sucks, but we weren't right together. I knew it the night before we got married but it was too late to call it off. Or at least I thought it was. I should've done it. It would've saved us both a whole lot of misery.”

Water lapped against the rocks that protected the grounds. In the background, Hank Williams sang about being lonesome. Max put her hands on Walker's shoulders. “I'll spare you all the usual claptrap about new starts. I'm just going to say that you're somebody who's always had the greatest capacity for joy of anyone I know. It's been really hard to see you so unhappy. Now's your chance to get it all back.”

“Is this the part where you tell me that there's someone out there for me?”

“Honey, there's someone out there for all of us.”

He shook his head. “Maybe, but right now, being on my own sounds just fine. Thanks for the thought, though.” He turned toward the food tables. “I'm going to go get a beer. You want to come with?”

“Nah. I think I'll just stay here for a while.”

He mussed up her hair and turned to go.

There's someone out there for all of us.

Then she looked out across the party and her gaze met Dylan's. And the air backed up in her lungs. She'd tried to hold off. She'd tried to be smart, she'd tried to do everything she could to protect herself. But it was done, the moment of choice was long gone. Somewhere deep inside her, a thrum of awareness began. And like that moment of revelation he'd talked about on the way down, she knew.

She wanted him.

As though he'd somehow seen the message on her face, Dylan set down the drink he was holding and came toward her, gaze locked on hers, heat in his eyes. That humming connection sprang up instantly between them, practically visible in the fading light. Her heart thudded in her chest. She sucked in a breath that felt like pure oxygen.

He walked right up without stopping and fused his mouth to hers.

Time stretched out and became plastic. The only reality was the heat of his touch. Max broke away
only because she had to breathe. “Take me home,” she said huskily. “I want you.”

 

The thirty-five miles to Portland passed in a sort of desperate blur. Max leaned over from her seat, nibbling kisses along Dylan's jaw, opening the top button of his shirt so that she could slip her hand inside. He tipped his head a bit toward hers, pressing his mouth to hers while keeping one eye on the road.

How had she managed to wait so long? How had she managed to fool herself into thinking that she wasn't desperate for this, desperate for him? Days had gone by while she'd delayed. Now, the passage of each second felt excruciating.

Just when she thought she could stand it no longer, Dylan pulled up before her building. He put the car in Park.

“God, I'm glad we—” Max began.

And he cut off the stream of words, dragging her to him for a voracious kiss that sent need sprinting through her. Max had thought of the devil the first time she'd seen Dylan Reynolds. Oh, but sin had never felt this good. It was like being on the Tilt-A-Whirl in the carnival, going around and around in every direction so fast that concepts like up and down and even reality had no meaning. She'd always loved those rides, not screaming but laughing at the sheer confusion of sensation.

It was nothing compared to what she felt now. His mouth overwhelmed, he ran his hands everywhere
over her body, sliding his palms over her bare legs, making her moan. Making her ache.

Making her want.

Finally, he released her. “I've been waiting half an hour for that,” he growled.

“Then let's not wait anymore.”

But they stopped at the entrance to her building to kiss, and stopped again in the lobby. They lost long minutes outside her front door to the seduction of lip and tongue, the slip of hand. “We're wasting time,” Dylan murmured against her skin.

“Are we?” Max dragged his shirt out of his waistband so that she could run her hands up his back.

They didn't bother with the ritual of a drink, they didn't bother stopping at the living room couch. They had only one objective, both of them, as they headed for the stairs.

There would be time to go slow, Dylan thought, but not when the need hammered at him, not when the hunger was this sharp. He pressed her against the wall at the base of the stairs, running his lips down her throat, sliding up that short, short skirt to feel her warm and soft underneath. Only when he felt his body tighten could he make himself release her.

Because he knew there was more.

Her bedroom took up the whole loft, an acre of soft carpet to cross before the bed—the bed—the place he ached to have them both. Impatient, he swung her up into his arms and strode across the room to lay
her down on the duvet. She came up instantly onto her knees, reaching for him.

“I was thinking all night that you were a little overdressed,” he said, running his hands down over her hips and then bringing them back up, sliding them under that stretchy tank top to find her curves. His reward was her gasp, as she threw her head back, giving him access to her throat.

Her scent filled his senses as he kissed his way across the fragile line of her collarbone and down toward the vee between her breasts. He stroked the satiny smooth skin of her waist, the sleek muscles of her back. It wasn't enough, though. He wasn't sure anything could be.

Impatiently, he brought his hands back down to gather the edge of her shirt and drag it off over her head. Underneath, he found warm bare skin and a lacy concoction that managed to look both innocently white and indecently transparent. It did nothing to satisfy the furious hunger that gnawed at him, just tantalized, tormented. He needed Max, all of her and nothing else.

Had she ever known this kind of furious demand? Max wondered desperately. Had she ever felt this kind of pounding need? He wasn't gentle and she didn't want him to be. She wanted to be ravished. She wanted to feel his hunger. His hands ran over her body, hard, almost punishing, and everywhere they touched she felt on fire. She ripped open his shirt, dragging it off his shoulders so that she could
run her hands through the springy hair on his chest. When he peeled back the white lace cups of her bra, she caught a breath at the feel of the cool air against her and cried out as his hands slid up to cover her.

Then he was laying her down on the bed, leaning over her to drag off her skirt and the lace she wore beneath. He moved away long enough to strip off the rest of his clothing and then he was against her, on her, the feel of his bare skin against hers making her moan with pleasure.

He followed his hands with his mouth, running his tongue down over her chest, lingering on her breasts, tracing the flat of her belly.