Renee Roszel - Surrender To A Playboy

Taggart threw an arm over his eyes, vivid pictures of the long past flashing into his mind. Visions of himself and Bonn spooled by, as they were at the age of nine when they’d been thrown together by happenstance.

Taggart had been sent away to the Swiss boarding school when his parents died in a freak bridge collapse. His guardian and only relative was a crotchety, seventy-year-old great-uncle, a United States Supreme Court Justice, who smelled of stale cigars and old paper. Justice Lancaster might have been a great legal mind, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to take in an orphaned child. Bonn, on the other hand, had been sent away because his parents couldn’t deal with their imaginative, uninhibited, prankster son who refused to conform to his father’s rigid, humorless temperament.

So, as young boys, Bonn and Taggart bonded in their loneliness. Taggart was Bonn’s strength and Bonn was Taggart’s exuberance. Bonn had always been able to make Taggart laugh, one of the few people who could. Being left alone at the remote school when the other boys went home for vacations and holiday breaks, Taggart was grateful for a friend who could bring humor to their abandonment. That’s why he had never minded Bonn leaning on him.

Now they were both thirty-five, and Bonn was still leaning, not only as his longtime friend, but also as a legal client. After so many years, Taggart had to admit if only to himself, it was starting to wear thin. Taggart knew always being there to snatch Bonn out of the frying pan before he got burned wasn’t helping him be a man, responsible for his own actions. The sad fact was, Bonn was an expert at manipulating Taggart with his humor and poor-pitiful-me act. Not to mention the inescapable coup de grace, when he reminded Taggart just who had introduced him to Annalisa, the love of his life.

Taggart experienced a gut punch of grief at the memory of his adored wife, lost five years ago in a fire at the hospital where she had been a pediatric surgeon. He still owed Bonn more than he could ever pay for Annalisa alone. Had it not been for his friend’s impulsiveness, making plans with both Taggart and Annalisa that fateful evening, then forgetting them, running off to New York on a whim as they waited at his apartment door, Taggart would never have met Annalisa. He wouldn’t now have the precious memory of three blissful years loving her.

Unable to deny the fact that for all the rest of his days he would owe Bonn for giving him Annalisa, here Taggart was, in the small Rocky Mountain town of Wittering, for nearly two weeks—pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

Taggart had been aware for some time that Miz Witty’s caregiver had been writing to Bonn, trying to shame him into a visit. For some reason her last letter managed to make him see the error of his ways. Unfortunately, fate had Bonn hip-deep in another brush with Boston’s legal system. This time it wasn’t the usual small stuff, like the time he hired the marimba band to serenade his latest girlfriend at three in the morning, getting him arrested for disturbing the peace. This time his trouble wasn’t simply an abundance of parking tickets or the occasional fistfight over a football team or a woman.

This time Bonn was implicated in a serious insider trading deal. Taggart felt sure Bonn had not meant to do anything criminal. His characteristic rashness and gullibility were at fault. Nevertheless, a trial date was set for late September, two months from now, and could end in serious jail time.

He lay there, his mind congested with the weight of the responsibility to save Bonn from his own foolishness, mixed with resentment at his friend for what they both were doing to Miz Witty.

With a low groan, he rolled to his stomach, any expectation of sleep he’d harbored proving to be crazed, wishful thinking.

Mary hadn’t slept well. Her loathing for Bonner Wittering kept her tossing and turning all night. Just having that self-seeking rat in the house made her skin crawl. She felt sick to her stomach knowing the only way she had finally, finally managed to get him to come to Wittering was to hint that his grandmother was considering writing him out of her will.

What a sleaze! Telling him about her strokes, her heart and her pneumonia hadn’t budged him, so she’d been forced to lie, big time. Mary was aware that Bonn had been writing to his grandmother for money. Apparently he’d nearly run through his own inheritance and started sweet-talking soft-hearted Miz Witty into paying for big chunks of his spend-thrift lifestyle.

When Mary accidentally stumbled across one of Bonn’s letters wheedling his grandmother for money, she’d known exactly what she would need to do to get him to visit—threaten him with The Will. It had worked. He’d flown out so fast her head still spun. And because her ploy worked so swiftly, making it clear Bonn cared more about his finances than his grandmother’s health, she despised him all the more.

Dragging herself up to sit, she stretched and yawned. Her glance fell on the framed picture on her bedside table. Even in her emotional turmoil, she managed a smile, kissed the tip of her finger and touched the face of her five-year-old, half sister Becca, a morning ritual, a silent prayer of sorts, thrown up to heaven. Mary’s fondest wish was that somehow, by some miracle, she could wrestle custody of Becca away from the child’s good-for-nothing father.

Sadly, miracles were hard to come by. Her spirits dipping again, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood, groggily pulling on her terry robe. She cinched up the sash and winced. What was she trying to do, slice herself in half? Loosening the belt, she stepped into her bedroom slippers and shuffled toward the bath. She heard water running. Ruby was up. Mary could always hear the water flowing through the pipes from the housekeeper’s attic bathroom, above hers.

Movement caught her eye and she shifted to glance toward the rustic pine dressing table, her reflection in the wavy mirror glowered back at her. She instinctively ran both hands through her tousled hair. She narrowed her eyes, then shuffled closer. “Are those dark circles under your eyes?” she muttered. They were! “Drat you, Bonner Wittering!” She shifted away from the bedraggled sight, opened her mouth to express an additional thought, then changed her mind. She would not voice a notion that was so wayward and irrelevant—that Bonner Wittering had no business being as handsome as he was.

She remembered her first impression, in Miz Witty’s room, when he’d turned to look at her. She’d been so dumbstruck she’d almost dropped the tray. His hawklike features were classically handsome, cunningly dramatic.

It was as though he knew just how to tilt his head, and organize his expression to appear slightly curious, vaguely troubled. She hated Bonn Wittering, yet her heart had taken a wild, mutinous leap of attraction. What did the man do, practice that look in front of a mirror to become just seductive enough—yet sincere enough—to dazzle and confuse the pants off a woman? She shook herself, not happy with the wording of that last thought.

Her reaction yesterday had been out of the blue, and it made her mad. When she’d lashed out at him at the top of the stairs she’d been as furious with herself as she was with him.

All night she’d struggled with her unwanted attraction for such an unworthy, self-centered jerk. This morning, she was adamant the sleepless hours had been well spent, exorcising the lewd demons from her body. She had trampled the worrisome delusion to dust. She might be exhausted, but she was back to loathing him with every sizzling, throbbing corpuscle of her being. She only hoped she would be able to avoid him for much of his stay. The idea of the need to smile at him and call him “Bonn” in any tone less than out-and-out revulsion was too painful to contemplate.

Her mind roved unaccountably to his eyes, the color of rich earth, framed by thick, dark lashes. They had been amazingly clear and candid, for a greedy, womanizing pig. But she supposed that’s how greedy, womanizing pigs were able to womanize. They could look like nice guys with nothing but the most honorable intentions. That’s what made them so dangerous!

She shoved open the bathroom door and froze, her body reacting before her mind grasped the truth. Standing there not two feet away, was the greedy, womanizing pig, himself—wearing nothing but a towel. Or maybe she should say, thank heaven he wore a towel!

Shaving cream covered one cheek and part of his jaw. As she stood there gripped by a bizarre paralysis, he stopped shaving and glanced her way. He didn’t appear shocked. Possibly a little surprised. But then womanizing pigs were no doubt accustomed to having women burst into their bathrooms.

Lowering the razor to water running in the sink, he returned his attention to what he was doing. “Good morning, Miss O’Mara.”

Lord, she’d forgotten both their bedrooms connected to the adjoining bath. Evidently she wasn’t as alert this morning as she should be. Unfortunately, it was all his fault! “Oh—I’m…” She couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought. For an out-and-out rat, he had a disturbingly masculine chest. So disturbing it could apparently rob women of the ability to think straight or even move. “I thought—I didn’t think…” Well, did you or didn’t you, nitwit? Get hold of yourself! She swallowed. “It’s six o’clock. I didn’t think you’d be up.” Get out. Close the door! What are you doing, planted in the doorway like a stupid pine tree?

He lifted his chin and shaved upward along his jaw. “Actually, I slept late.” He glanced her way as he rinsed the razor. “It’s eight o’clock in Boston.”

That surprised her. “I thought playboys slept till noon.”

“And you’re an expert on playboy behavior?”

Though she was having trouble getting her body to obey her, she worked on her stern expression. “Actually, my experience with playboys is limited to you,” she said. “Naturally, I’ve heard of your…” She groped for a single word that would encompass the disreputable rumors over the years, about his sexual delinquency and general wild living. “…exploits,” she said finally. “You must know the topic of Bonner Wittering would be popular gossip in a town bearing his name.” She paused, giving him a chance to respond. He merely carried on with his shaving. Annoyed by his disinclination to explain himself or at the very least express regret for his disgraceful behavior, she added, “However, it’s been these past two years, getting to know you through your letters, that my low opinion of playboys has been set in stone.”

“So, you judge all playboys by your estimation of me?” he asked, glancing her way.

She managed a shrug, gratified she could move her shoulders. She hoped the performance looked like utter indifference to his nearness. “Let’s just say getting to know you has ruined me for all other playboys.”

His lips twitched. “Why Miss O’Mara, are you flirting with me?”

She gasped. He was an incorrigible tease. “I’d rather cut off an arm!”

He broke eye contact and returned his attention to the mirror. “So, it’s not really playboys you hate,” he murmured. “It’s me.”

“If you’re an example of what constitutes a playboy, then it’s safe to say I’m not a fan of you—or any of your breed! Is that clear enough?”

“It seems fairly clear,” he said. After a pause, he added, “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

Somehow, she regained the use of her arms and jerkily indicated the sink. “I—was just going to brush my teeth.” Why did you tell him that? What does he care? Get—out—of—the—room!