Flames of Attraction

chapter 4



Brent had given his speech a thumbs-up, so Reggie felt confident it would go over well. He walked around the luncheon reception, greeting all those who had arrived to attend the forum. This would be the first of several gatherings designed to give voters a chance to learn each candidate’s agenda. He had met Orin Jeffries when he’d first arrived and thought the older man was a likable guy.

A number of his family members were present and a number of his friends as well. These were people who believed in him, supported him and were counting on him to make changes to some of the present policies.

A career in politics had been the last thing on his mind and had never been his heart’s desire, until recently. He’d become outraged at the present senators’ refusal to recognize the state’s need for an additional college. More and more young people were making the decision to acquire higher learning, and the lower tuition costs of state universities compared to private universities were a key factor in the process. It was hard enough for students to get the funds they needed to go to college, but when they were refused entrance into schools because of campus overcrowding, that was unacceptable. Anyone who wanted a college education should be able to get one. Georgia needed another state-run college, and he was willing to fight for it.

The University of Georgia was the oldest public university in the state and had been established by an act of the Georgia General Assembly over two centuries ago. Just as there had been a need for greater educational opportunities then, there was a need now. In fact, land had been donated for that very purpose ten years ago. Now some lawmakers were trying to use a loophole in the land grant to appropriate the land to build a recreation area—a park that would be largely composed of a golf course.

Reggie was aware that getting elected would only be the first hurdle. Once he got in the Senate, he would then have the job of convincing his fellow lawmakers of the need for an additional state university as well.

He glanced at his watch. In less than ten minutes, lunch would be served, and then halfway through lunch, each person seeking office would get an opportunity to speak. There were about eight candidates in attendance.

Deciding he needed to switch his focus for a moment, he thought about his visit to Garbella Jewelers that morning. Mr. Garbella’s assessment of the earring was that it was a fine piece of craftsmanship. The diamonds were real and of good quality. He doubted the piece had been purchased in this country. He thought the way the diamonds were set was indicative of European jewelry making. Mr. Garbella had gone on to say that the pair had cost a lot of money. After visiting with the jeweler, Reggie was more determined than ever to find his Wonder Woman and return the missing earring to her.

Quade and his cousin Cole, who’d both recently retired—Quade from a top security job with the government and Cole from the Texas Rangers—had joined forces to start a network of security companies, some of which would include private investigation. He wondered if they would be interested in taking him on as their first client.

He looked at his watch again before glancing across the room and meeting Brent’s eye. He had less than ten minutes to mingle, and then everyone would be seated for lunch. He hated admitting it, but he felt in his element. Maybe a political career was his calling, after all.

* * *

Olivia waited until just moments before the luncheon was to begin to make an entrance and join her father. According to his campaign manager, Marc Norris, her entrance was part of a coordinated strategy. He wanted her to ease into the room and work one side of it while her father worked the other. Subtle yet thorough.

When he had mentioned his strategy that morning while joining Olivia and her father for breakfast, she had gotten annoyed that the man assumed she didn’t have any common sense. Evidently, Norris doubted she could hold her own during any discussion. But not to cause any problems, she had decided to keep her opinions to herself.

She saw noticeable interest in her from the moment she stepped into the room. Most people knew that Orin Jeffries had a daughter, but a number of them had forgotten or shoved the fact to the back of their mind in the wake of his two well-known sons. Practically everybody in the country knew of the Holy Terror, whether they were football enthusiasts or not. Since retiring from football, Terrence had been known for his work in a number of high-profile charities. He also commentated on a popular radio talk show, Sports Talk, in South Florida, which might go into syndication the next year. Duan had made the national headlines a few years before, when his undercover work as a detective had resulted in the exposure of a couple of unsavory individuals who’d been intent on bringing organized crime to Georgia.

But it didn’t bother her in the least that her brothers’ good deeds had somehow made people forget about her. Besides, she hadn’t lived in this country in four years, returning only on occasion to visit, mainly around the holidays.

She began mingling, introducing herself as Orin Jeffries’s daughter, and actually got a kick out of seeing first surprise and then acknowledgment on many faces. One such incident was taking place now.

“Why, Olivia, how good it is to see you again. It’s been a while since you’ve been back home. But I do remember you now. You must be extremely proud of your father and brothers.”

“Yes, I am, Mrs. Hancock, and how is Beau? I understand he’s doing extremely well. You must be proud of him.”

She watched the older woman’s eyes light up as she went into a spiel about her son. She was a proud mother. Olivia knew Beau from school. Unless he had changed over the years, Beau Hancock was an irrefutable jerk. He’d thought he was the gift to every girl at Collinshill High School.

She glanced down at her watch. She had ten minutes left before everyone would take their seats for lunch. She had called the Saxon Hotel on the off chance that someone from housekeeping had come across her diamond earring and turned it in. That hadn’t been the case. A part of her was disappointed that it had not been.

There was still one section of the room she needed to cover. Mrs. Hancock, in singing Beau’s praises, had taken up quite a bit of her time. Now she was again making her way through the crowds, speaking to everyone, as Norris had suggested.

“You’re doing a marvelous job working the room,” Senator Reed whispered. The older man had suddenly appeared by her side.

She forced a smile. For some reason, she’d never cared for him. “Thanks.”

She had already met several of the candidates since entering the room, but she had yet to meet the man who would be her father’s real competition, Reggie Westmoreland.

As she continued mingling and heading to the area where Reggie Westmoreland was supposedly rubbing elbows with the crowd, her curiosity about the man who opposed her father couldn’t help but be piqued. She started to ask Senator Reed about him but changed her mind. The senator’s opinion wouldn’t be the most valuable.

“You look nice, Olivia.”

She glanced up at the senator, who seemed determined to remain by her side. He was a few years older than her father, and for some reason, he had always made her feel uncomfortable.

“Thanks, Senator.” She refrained from saying that he also looked nice, which he did. Like her father, he was a good-looking man for his age, but Senator Reed always had an air of snobbery about him, like he was born with too low expectations of others.

“It was my suggestion that your father send for you.” When she stopped walking and glanced at him, with a raised brow, he added, “He was in a dilemma, and I thought bringing you home to be his escort was the perfect answer.”

She bit back a retort, that bringing her home had not been the perfect answer. Being in that dilemma might have prompted her dad to ask Cathy to attend some of those functions with him. No telling how things would have taken off from there if the senator hadn’t butted in.

She was about to open her mouth, to tell Senator Reed that her father was old enough to think for himself, when, all of a sudden, for no reason at all, she pulled in a quick breath. She glanced up ahead, and no more than four feet in front of her, there stood a man with his back to her.

The first thing she noticed about him was his height. He was taller then the men he was talking to. And there was something about his particular height, and the way his head tilted at an angle as he listened to what one of the men was saying, that held her spellbound.

He was dressed in a suit, and she could only admire how it fit him. The broadness of his shoulders and the tapering of his waist sent a feeling of familiarity through her. She stopped walking momentarily and composed herself, not understanding what was happening to her.

“Is anything wrong, Olivia?”

She glanced up at Senator Reed and saw concern in his eyes. She knew she couldn’t tell him what she was thinking. There was no way she could voice her suspicions to anyone.

She needed to go somewhere to pull herself together, to consider the strong possibility that the man standing not far away was her Jack Sprat. Or could it be that she was so wrapped up in the memories of that night that she was quick to assume that any man of a tall stature who possessed broad shoulders had to be her mystery man?

“Olivia?”

Instead of saying anything, she shifted her gaze from the senator to look again at the man, whose back was still to her. It was at that precise moment that he slowly turned around, and his gaze settled on her. In a quick second, she pulled in a sharp breath as she scanned his face, and her gaze settled on a firm jaw that had an angular plane. Her artist’s eye also picked up other things, and they were things others would probably not notice—the stark symmetry of his face, which was clear with or without a mask, the shape of his head and the alignment of his ears from his cheeks. These were things she recognized.

Things she remembered.

And she knew, without a doubt, that she was staring into the face of the man whom she had spent the night with on Saturday. The man whose body had given her hours upon hours of immeasurable pleasure. And impossible as it seemed—because they’d kept their masks in place the entire time—she had a feeling from the way he was staring back at her just as intently as she was staring at him that he had recognized her, too.

“Olivia?”

She broke eye contact with the stranger to gaze up at the senator. The man was becoming annoying, but at the moment, he was the one person who could tell her exactly what she needed to know. “Senator Reed, that guy up there, the one who turned around to look at me. Who is he?”

The senator followed her gaze and frowned deeply. “The two of you had to meet eventually. That man, young lady, is the enemy.”

She swallowed deeply before saying, “The enemy?”

“Yes, the enemy. He’s the man that’s opposing your father in his bid for the Senate.”

Olivia’s head began spinning before the senator could speak his next words.

“That, my dear,” the senator went on to say, “is Reggie Westmoreland.”

* * *

It was her.

Reggie knew it with every breath he took. Her lips were giving her away. And he wasn’t sure what part of him was recognizable to her, but he knew just as sure as they were standing there, staring at each other, that they were as intimately familiar to each other as any two people could be.

It was strange. He’d been standing here with Brent, his brother Jared, his cousins Dare and Thorn, and Thorn’s wife, Tara. They’d all been listening to Thorn, a nationally known motorcycle builder and racer, who was telling them about an order he’d received to build a bike for actor Matt Damon. Then, all of a sudden, he’d felt a strange sensation, followed by a stirring in the lower part of his gut.

He had turned around, and he’d looked straight into her face. His Wonder Woman.

He couldn’t lay claim to recognizing any of her other facial features, but her lips were a dead giveaway. Blatantly sensual, he had kissed them, tongued them, licked them and tasted them to his heart’s content. He knew the shape of them in his sleep, knew their texture, knew what part of them was so sensitive that when he’d touched her there, she had moaned.

She looked totally stunning in the stylish skirt and blouse she was wearing. The outfit complemented her figure. Even if he hadn’t met her before, he would be trying his best to do so now. Out of his peripheral vision, he noted a number of men looking at her, and he understood why. She was gorgeous.

He lost control, and his feet began moving toward her.

“Reggie, where are you going?” Brent asked.

He didn’t respond, because he truly didn’t know what he could say. He continued walking until he came to a stop directly in front of the senator and the woman. The senator, he noted, was frowning. The woman’s gaze hadn’t left his. She seemed as entranced as he was.

He found his voice to say, “Good afternoon, Senator Reed. It’s good seeing you again.”

It was a lie, and he realized the senator knew it, but he didn’t care. Approaching him would force the man to make introductions, and if it took a lie, then so be it.

“Westmoreland, I see you’ve decided to go through with it,” replied the senator.

Reggie gave the man a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course.” He then shifted his gaze back to the woman. The senator would be outright rude not to make an introduction, and one thing Reggie did know about the senator was that he believed in following proper decorum.

“And let me introduce you to Olivia Jeffries. Olivia, this is Reggie Westmoreland,” the senator said.

At the mention of her name, Reggie’s mind went into a tailspin. “Jeffries?” he replied.

“Yes,” the senator said as a huge, smug smile touched his lips. “Jeffries. She’s Orin Jeffries’s daughter, who is visiting from Paris and will remain here during the duration of the campaign.”

Reggie nodded as his eyes once again settled on Olivia. He then reached out his hand. “Olivia, it’s nice meeting you. I’m sure your father is excited about having you home.”

“Thank you,” replied Olivia.

They both felt it the moment their hands touched, and they both knew it. It was those same feelings that had driven them to leave the party on Saturday night and to go somewhere to be alone, with the sole purpose of getting intimately connected. Reggie opened his mouth to say something, and then a voice from the microphone stopped him.

“Everyone is asked to take a seat so lunch can be served. Your table number is located on your ticket.”

“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Westmoreland,” Olivia said, not sure what else to say at the moment.

She honestly had thought she would not see him again, not this soon, not ever. And now that he knew their predicament—that she was the daughter of the man who was his opponent in this political race—she hoped that he would accept the inevitable. Nothing had changed. Even with their identities exposed, there could never be anything between them beyond what had happened Saturday night.

“It was nice meeting you as well, Ms. Jeffries,” said Reggie. And then he did something that was common among Frenchmen but rare with Americans. Bending slightly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it before turning and walking away.