He waited for her to say something else. He needed some kind of clue as to what had transpired while he’d been fantasizing about making love to her in the sand. But she only crossed her arms beneath her breasts. The pressure puffed the edges of her lapels out a bit, giving him a good view of some very nice swells and contours. His blood started hammering all over again.
“I dare you to deny it,” she challenged.
He would…if he had any clue at all what it was that he was supposed to be denying.
Danielle swung back to the cameras. Her arms dropped to her sides again and that was a shame. Then she threw a look back at him over her shoulder. Her mouth curved in a clever little smile. And was that an invitation in her eyes?
“The ball’s in your court, Mr. Padgett,” she murmured.
What ball? What court? Where? She turned and began picking her way across the dunes again, toward her car. If there was anything more provocative than the way a woman moved when walking barefoot in sand, Max thought, then he didn’t know what it was. He missed three or four more questions shot at him by the media as he watched her.
“Is it true?” someone from Channel 4 asked.
Max looked back at the cameramen and reporters, feeling dazed. “I’m certainly going to, uh, look into it.”
Satisfied, ready to move on to other, beefier news, the media began to pack up and depart. Even as Danielle’s emerald-green Roadster revved and sped off, Max saw Roger Kimmelman’s sedate gray Chrysler pull into the spot she had vacated. Max jogged over to meet his aide halfway when Roger got out of the car.
“What did she say?” Max demanded.
“Who?” Roger looked at him oddly.
“Danielle Harrington. Here. Just now. To the cameras.”
“You were standing right next to her.”
“I was distracted.”
“By what?”
Max opened his mouth and closed it again firmly.
Roger’s frown deepened. “She says your birds can nest on the senator’s land. You could even use her donated half million to buy it.”
Max felt his heart fall hard and fast. It landed in his gut with a thud. “What land?”
“That land over there.”
Roger pointed. Max’s gaze moved reluctantly in that direction.
“You’re telling me that that stretch of beach belongs to Stan?” he asked.
“It’s not something that would have come to the coalition’s attention unless the owner decided to build on it,” Roger said indignantly, as though Max had somehow implied that this nightmare was his fault. “We can’t be expected to police the ownership of every scrap of beach, every field and stream in California, just in case someone might decide to do something with it. There are too many battles to fight without inviting ones that aren’t even an issue yet!”
It was true, Max thought. His lobby rushed in when nature was in danger of being spoiled, raped and ruined by the cancerous spread of civilization. Along this coastline, only Harrington Resorts was threatening that.
Then he had another thought. His heart chugged in alarm. “Did she tell the cameras that Stan was going to build here?”
“She certainly implied it.”
Of course she would, Max thought. This part of the beach was outside the city limits, and anyone planning to develop it needed the power companies to extend their services out this far. The companies would demand an astronomical price for the favor. That was what had protected the land from development for so long. But now Dani Harrington had footed the worst of the bills, and it was logical to infer that other owners would jump in and start building also.
Max rubbed at a headache growing behind his forehead. It was time to have a talk with the man who was the closest thing to a brother he would ever know. But Max looked the way Danielle’s car had gone instead.
Damned if he hadn’t just been sucker punched by a woman in red underwear.
Chapter Three
Was that her? She looked like a…a harlot!
Danielle stood rooted in the middle of her bedroom, clutching the VCR remote in both hands. She shuddered in her thin silk robe, more from shock than the fact that, with usual April capriciousness, the weather had taken a turn back into winter by the time she’d gotten home from the site.
Angelique had dropped off a video tape she’d made of the broadcast. Now, right there on television, Danielle watched her own neckline plunge and her lapels gape. Then the camera pulled back for a wide-angle shot and the public saw more of her legs than her husband probably had in the seven years they’d been married.
What had she done?
When the telephone rang, Danielle jumped and pivoted to the night table. She reached for it, then her hand went still. What if it was a board member? She pressed her fingers to her temples as the phone kept shrilling.
She had a responsibility to so many people and she had always projected a cool, capable image to all of them. Now she’d been caught on all three networks parading around in her underwear.
Danielle took in a deep breath and finally picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Did you watch it yet?” Angelique demanded.
Danielle let her air out. “Half of it.”
“You were perfect.”
“I was—” She broke off, stunned. “What?”
“Watch his eyes!”
Danielle spun back to the television and aimed the remote to freeze the screen. Her own image was nose-to-nose with Maxwell’s in the frame. She remembered this part. It was when she had accused him of not conceding. She’d thought—then—that he’d been staring her right in the eyes—and his hadn’t been cool and clever and amused in that moment. They had been so intent she’d felt the impact of them like a physical touch. But she’d thought it was his temper that had changed them. Now—here, in this frame—she realized that he wasn’t looking into her eyes at all.
He was looking…downward. At her breasts. And the smoke in his gaze had nothing whatsoever to do with plovers.
A steady quaking started inside her. It had worked. Angelique’s advice had worked!
“You’ll be hearing from him soon,” Angelique promised. “I give it forty-eight hours at the outside. Just look at him. He can’t even breathe.”
She couldn’t breathe. Danielle pounded a fist against her chest to jumpstart her heart.
In that moment, if only for that moment, Max Padgett had definitely been interested in what he was seeing. Excitement leaped in her, hot and expectant, then it shredded apart. There was still the matter of her board members. And the plovers. She had a mess on her hands, and for the first time in her entire thirty-six years, her hormones were in overdrive. She could barely even think coherently. Danielle hung up numbly, then the line rang again.
Her heart vaulted. Was it him? Already? No, of course not. He didn’t have her home phone number. She picked up anyway. “Yes?”
“A truly inspired approach!” came the robust voice of Albert Tresca, one of the board members. “You never gave him a chance to build up any steam at all! Is it true? Does Senator Roberson own that land?”
“So says our R & D department.” Would he mention the way she had looked?
“I wonder if Richard ever really knew what he had in you.”
She winced. Did he mean professionally