Playboy's Ruthless Payback: Playboy's Ruthless Payback. Laura Wright

the slice of crusty bread. Three cups of extra-strength coffee and all she wanted to do was go back to bed. But maybe that had nothing to do with being tired as much as it had to do with hiding. For someone who had gone into this job thinking it would be easy-peasy, she sure was going through a lot of difficult, trying moments. Not to mention, some sexually charged moments that she couldn’t get out of her head. She’d really underestimated Mac and his desire to bury her father, and she’d overestimated herself, and her needs, in the process. She’d wanted to find out just how Mac was going to get back at her dad, and had basically given him the goods to make it happen.

      She flipped the bread. To make matters worse, she wanted more—more of him, more of his touch, his kisses. She was weak and a total disappointment.

      She felt him in the kitchen even before she saw him, and wanted to kick herself for the giddiness that erupted inside her at the thought of seeing him again.

      “Good morning.”

      She spared him a quick smile. “Morning.” He looked good, Saturday-morning sexy in expensive black sweats and dark tousled hair.

      “Sleep well?” he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

      “No. You?”

      He chuckled. “I slept okay.”

      “Yeah, guys can sleep through anything. Your brains turn off—so lucky.”

      “Maybe our brains turn off, but that’s about it.” Despite his hard, unyielding business-guy attitude, he had this obvious sensuality, this slow, tigerlike laziness that made him seem always ready for bed. “Honestly, the effects of what happened in your room last night are still with me this morning.”

      She ignored the pull in her belly. “Me, too—but maybe in a different way.” She laid another slice of bread in the hot pan and cracked an egg. “Listen, Mac, I don’t know if I believe what you said last night about Tim—if you set that up or not—but I can’t worry about it anymore. I’ve spent too many years worrying about the past. Can we just let everything go and concentrate on what we’re trying to accomplish with the DeBolds?”

      “Let everything go?”

      “Yes. Do you think you can do that?”

      “Do you really think you can do that?” he countered, his eyes glittering with heat.

      Before she could answer, Harold and Louise walked into the kitchen, all smiles and dressed like models from a Hanna Andersson catalog. “Morning,” Harold said, taking a seat at the island.

      “Morning,” Mac said good-naturedly. “Sleep well?”

      “Perfect,” Harold said. “Something smells good, but that’s not surprising.”

      Olivia glanced at Mac, who was watching her over his steaming cup of coffee, then she turned to her guests. “Eggs in a blanket, bacon and good, strong coffee.”

      “Are you trying to fatten us up?” Louise asked, sitting beside her husband.

      “Of course,” Olivia said on a chuckle, setting two cups of coffee before them. “But only so you have all the energy you need for what I have planned today.”

      “And what do you have planned?” Mac asked, seeming to suddenly realize he’d never discussed plans with her.

      Olivia looked at them all brightly. “Ice skating.”

      Mac practically choked on his coffee. “Ice skating?”

      Louise, on the other hand, looked as though she were about to explode with happiness. “Did you hear that, Harold?”

      “I did. I did.”

      Clasping her hands together like a little girl, Louise cried, “I haven’t been skating in ten years.”

      “Well, then maybe it’s not such a good idea—” Mac began, but Louise cut him off.

      “Not a good idea? No, no, no—it’s perfect. Harold and I had our first date on a skating rink. Rounder’s Pond—it was in back of my grandfather’s property, a beautiful kidney bean shape and surrounded by trees. Do you remember that, honey?”

      “Of course.” Harold smiled at his wife, then looked over at Olivia. “You have made my wife very happy today. Thank you.”

      “My pleasure.” Olivia beamed as she turned back to the stove. “Now, let’s get you two fed.”

      Mac came to stand beside her.

      She whispered over the DeBolds’ loud chatter, “You look panicked.”

      “And you look happy about that,” he muttered.

      Laughing, she took two perfectly cooked eggs in blankets out of the pan and placed them gently on plates. She whispered, “Buck up, Valentine. Ice skating is perfect and fun, and I’ve planned a lovely picnic afterward with hot chocolate.”

      “I don’t skate, Olivia.”

      “Well, you lucked out then.” She handed him the two plates and smiled. “I’m a great teacher.”

      He’d been good at sports. Not the school kind. You had to spend more than a year living in one place to get on an organized team, but he’d killed at street basketball and alley soccer in every community he’d been sent to. He’d never tried hockey though, and before today had assumed that hockey, or anything involving skates, was a little like trying to understand German when all you spoke was Spanish. But he’d jumped into it with both blades. It took him about twenty minutes to really feel his balance, but after that, he was like a demon racing on the ice, even getting an impromptu hockey game going with Harold and some of the guys on the lake.