Not that it mattered. Right now, she’d have given her soul to the devil for something to hurl through his windshield.
He patted his truck roof with the palm of one hand, and she had the uncomfortable feeling he was reading her thoughts. He kept on with the exaggerated drawl. “Sweet Mollie, you’re not going to pretend you don’t remember me, now, are you?”
Remember him. As if she could forget. Even now, with him yards away, with his touch a decade past, she could feel his mouth on hers, his palms opened on her breasts.
She banked back her emotions, continuing to squint dumbly. Maybe he’d take her reaction to him as a hint and clear out. “Really, I’m sorry, I—”
“Ten years ago. Spring break. Miami Beach. Your parting words: ‘I hope you rot in hell, Tabak.’ Well, I expect you got your wish, sweetheart.” A half beat’s hesitation, a slight lessening of the good ol’ boy act. “If you read the Trib, you know I spend a lot of time in hell.”
Beneath his easy grin, she could see he was only half teasing. He wasn’t unaffected by his work. Even ten years ago, objectivity hadn’t come easily, a vulnerability Mollie had later tried to dismiss as a put-on for her benefit, another bit of manipulation so Jeremiah Tabak could get his first big story.
Naturally, he took advantage of her moment’s puzzlement. “Mind if I come in?”
That snapped her back to reality. She gave up the act. “Look, Jeremiah, we haven’t had any contact in ten years. Let’s just leave it that way, okay?”
“But I want to hire you.”
She stared at him. “You want to what?”
He walked around the truck, nothing in the way he moved indicating he’d changed one whit. “Hire you. I’ve decided I need a publicist.”
“You?”
“Sure. I’ve become something of a star reporter these days. I’m inundated with requests for my presence at various functions, speaking engagements, interviews, appearances. It’s pretty irritating.”
“I would think it would be flattering,” Mollie said stiffly.
“That’s why you’re a publicist and I’m not. I need someone to run interference for me. What do you say?”
“I say you’re not serious.”
He eyed her, within touching distance now. He was still trim and well-muscled, a flat six feet tall. Mollie tried to ignore the flutter in the pit of her stomach. He wore his near-black hair shorter, but he had the same blade of a nose, the same thin, hard mouth and dangerous sexiness. She didn’t need him to take off his sunglasses for her to see his eyes. They, too, would be unchanged, the same mix of grays, greens, and golds that had intrigued and fascinated her right from the start.
She inhaled. “Tabak…”
“Ten minutes to make my case,” he said.
“You have no case.”
He tilted his head back, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Don’t trust me, Mollie?”
“With good reason.”
“Ah. Then you haven’t forgotten me.”
She sighed. “All right, I’ll give you ten minutes, but only because you’ll hound me until I hear you out. And I don’t want anyone to see us out here arguing.”
“No?”
He seemed amused. Mollie could feel her tank top clinging to her in the warm sun. “No one knows about our little week together, Jeremiah. No one. I want to keep it that way.”
He wasn’t chastened. Not Jeremiah. Their affair hadn’t even been a blip on the horizon for him. He had gone on to become one of Miami’s most respected, hardest-hitting reporters, just as he’d planned.
“That’s good, Mollie.” He grinned that slow, lazy, mind-bogglingly sexy grin. “I like being your deep, dark secret.”
Mollie raced through her shower while her unwanted guest made himself at home in her kitchen. She quickly pulled on khaki shorts and a white shirt, unconcerned about her professional image because she and Jeremiah weren’t going to have a professional relationship. Or any relationship. She was going to hear him out and get rid of him.
She slipped on sandals and pulled her damp hair back in a clip before sucking in a breath and venturing down the hall. Jeremiah had installed himself on a stool at the breakfast bar and had a pot of coffee brewing. Mollie gave him a brief nod and fetched down two mugs from the honey-colored cabinets.
“Nice place,” he said. He wore a close-fitting, dusk-colored shirt, chinos, canvas shoes. Casual, not inexpensive. Deliberate. He was, Mollie remembered with a hot jolt, a very deliberate man. “I suppose it comes in handy having a world-renowned opera singer for a godfather.”
“I’m house-sitting for Leonardo.”
“Of course.”
She bit her lip, wondering why she’d felt the need to justify her acceptance of her godfather’s generosity. She was just on edge, she decided, and bound to snap at everything. She filled the two mugs. Jeremiah, she remembered for no reason whatever, took his coffee black. She shoved the mug across the bar to him.
“Is he the reason you moved to south Florida?”
“Jeremiah—”