Desire on Deadline Page 3

  “Now, be fair,” Alden said. “You don’t even know me. And if you’re trying to pump the wait staff for information, it will look a lot less suspicious if you have a date. You know, if you appear to be a regular curious person and not a terrifying journalist.”

  “I am not terrifying.” Roz straightened, throwing her shoulders back, which had the glorious effect of pushing her perfect breasts out. As he took a heartbeat to appreciate her figure, a light flashed in her amber, green-flecked eyes. Could that spark be — interest?

  No. Couldn’t be. But he felt a flush of heat just the same. God, he hadn’t had a woman in months, and this woman? Impossible.

  But damn, she was beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, he had to admit, but she had a kind of girl-next-door glamour that made him want to be her neighbor.

  “What do you say?” Alden prodded, unable to help himself. “I was going to eat here, too. Let’s be friends.”

  “Fat chance,” Roz said. “But you do make sense. I mean, about looking suspicious. People will say anything to you if they think you’re not a journalist. Not that I would ever go into an interview without identifying myself, but dinner . . . ”

  “Relax. This isn’t an ethics investigation. If it were, you’d pass with flying colors, I’m sure.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  “You’d be horrified,” Alden said. “Shall we?”

  ≈≈≈

  Roz eyed Alden with suspicion and not a little lust as he talked the hostess into seating them by the windows overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The man was a charmer, despite his protestations of ill repute.

  The place was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday night. Junonia’s fine food had attracted the attention of diners not just on Mimosa Key, but from Naples, too. Roz had been here only a few times — South of the Border was more in her budget — but every meal she’d had here had been delightful.

  So was the scenery. Crepuscular rays created soft bands of orange and purple in the western sky, radiating from the sun sinking into the shimmering gulf. The colors deepened quickly as she and Alden perused their menus, pretending to ignore each other.

  They both looked up as their server arrived at the table.

  “Lily?” Roz asked, surprised to see her morning barista wearing black and looking official. “You work here, too?

  “Oh, hi, Roz. Yeah, it helps to have two jobs when you’re saving for nursing school. And” — the blonde smiled nervously as she turned to Alden — “I’ve never actually learned your name, sir.”

  “Alden Knox. If I wore a nametag as you do in the morning, I’m sure we’d be old friends.”

  Roz tried to subdue her scowl as Lily lit up at Alden’s smile.

  “Nice to meet you. I mean, see you,” Lily said with a besotted grin. “Now let me tell you about our specials. We have a wonderful tomino e prosciutto di parma, which is an Italian cheese wrapped in imported ham and grilled, with pecans and a sweet fig reduction. If you like cheese, we have a very nice Italian cheese plate to start; the Pecorino di Pienza is my favorite. And our fish of the day is cobia. Do you have any questions about the menu?”

  “Actually, I have a question about the wine list,” Alden said. “I’m a fan of the nerellos, but I don’t see any on the list — do you happen to have one in your cellar?”

  “I’ll check,” Lily said. “We have quite a few wines that aren’t on the list, in case Chef Ian gets a whim. I’ll be right back.”

  Lily left while Roz’s finger was still in midair, in the “hail waitress” pose. So much for a quick dinner and an early night before her secret expedition in the morning.

  “Are you a wine snob?” she asked Alden. “And what’s a nerello?”

  “A type of grape,” he said. “I discovered them in Sicily a few years ago when I tacked on a vacation after stalking George Clooney for a week up at Lake Como.”

  “Lake Como? Nothing like roughing it.”

  “Turns out, back before his marriage, George didn’t mind letting you think you’d squeezed him for gossip if he drank with you for a couple of hours and got to prank you afterward. After I thought I got my scoop from him and his buddies, I left the Grand Hotel Tremezzo to find my rented Smart car wedged sideways between two tour buses in the lakefront parking lot.”

  Roz laughed in spite of herself. “Serves you right.”

  “It was still a story, even if he had one over on me,” Alden said with a shrug. “And in Italy, it’s hard to mind. La dolce vita and all that.”

  Lily returned to the table, accompanied by a handsome, tattooed man in a chef’s jacket, his hair queued in a ponytail. He held a bottle of wine.

  “I heard the local press were dining with us, and I wanted to say hello,” the chef said in a delightful British accent.

  So much for going incognito, Roz thought. Aloud, she said: “Alden Knox, this is Chef Ian Browning.”

  “Very pleased to meet you,” Alden said, standing to shake the chef’s hand.

  “Relax,” Ian said, motioning him back into his chair. “I admit, I was curious to see who was interested in a nerello. I think you’ll like this. On the house.” He handed the bottle to Lily, and she proceeded to open it.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Roz said.

  “Very kind of you,” Alden told the chef, ignoring her protest. “What can you tell us about it?”

  “It’s a nerello mascalese. Something about the volcanic soil gives it a beautiful bite,” Ian said with a grin as Lily poured a small sip of the Tasca d’Almerita vintage for Alden to try.

  Roz sat back, crossed her arms and watched, annoyed at Alden’s presumption in accepting the wine but fascinated at the way he breathed deeply from the glass, swirled the light red liquid, closed his eyes, sipped and savored. It was as if he were slipping into a dream. She bit off a sigh as she watched him.

  “Excellent,” Alden said, opening those clear gray eyes.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Ian said. “I’d better go back to the kitchen. The guests are getting giddy.”

  “What do you mean?” Roz asked as Lily filled her glass.

  “They hear the accent and assume I’m going to start yelling at someone. I blame Gordon Ramsey,” he joked, his silver-blue eyes twinkling. “By the way, I recommend the cobia. It’s hard to get this time of year, but we have a lovely batch.”

  The chef waved and headed back to the kitchen. Alden ordered the cobia, and Roz ordered the scampi she’d been craving all day. When Lily left, Roz frowned at her dinner mate.

  “Way to blow our cover,” she said.

  “Our server knew who we were.”

  “But she didn’t know we were here as press, and now the chef has probably told everyone in the kitchen.”

  “Maybe we’ll find another victim to babble about Bellamy. Try the wine. It’s divine.” Alden took a long sip and smiled.

  “You’re incorrigible,” Roz said, just as Lily dropped off a cheese plate they hadn’t ordered and skittered off again. “What the hell?”

  “It’s a perk. Let it go,” Alden said.

  “Not for me. I don’t take freebies. I don’t want it to look like I’m giving somebody good coverage just because they’re feeding me.”

  “Don’t worry. By the time you’re done with the story about the exploding movie star, no one will think you’re taking it easy on this place.”

  Roz shook her head. “The resort isn’t involved.”

  “You’re so sure?”

  “It was an accident. Probably lousy safety standards on the part of Consummate Catch.” She watched hungrily as Alden popped a piece of the cheese and a thin slice of prosciutto between his delectable lips, making an “Mmmm” sound that notched up her body heat five degrees.

  “We’ll see where it leads us,” he said. “Have some cheese.”

  “There is no ‘us’ when it comes to this story.” Roz eyed the cheese, sighed and took a piece. “I guess I’ll just leave an enormous tip.”

  Alden chuckled
. “That’s the spirit.”

  She sipped the wine. “Damn, that’s good, too.”

  “Told you.”

  “Hope it doesn’t cost too much.”

  “Retails for forty dollars, give or take. They probably charge a hundred twenty or so for it here.”

  Roz almost choked on the olive she’d popped into her mouth. “What?”

  “Enjoy it. If you’re that worried about it, I’ll pay for the wine.”

  “Salaries must be a lot higher at the Times than they are at the Gazette.”

  “I’m fairly certain they are.” She wanted to slap Alden’s look of amusement off his face, except that it was so — delicious. Almost as delicious as the wine and cheese.

  “So what’s your angle?” Alden asked.

  “I’ll know when I figure it out,” Roz said, then bit her lip for giving away that much.

  Was it her imagination, or did his gaze linger on her lips when she did that?

  The wine must be going to her head. She kind of liked it. She poured herself some more.

  “I’m not trying to poach your story,” he said. “You can write the hard-hitting tirade about the shoddy boats and the threat to tourism, and I’ll write about Bellamy’s agonizing last minutes and the broken-hearted starlets he leaves behind.”

  “That’s pretty harsh.” Roz looked out the windows, where the purple twilight was fading into night, where the water held so many secrets. “From what I’ve heard, the guy was pretty broken-hearted himself.”

  “So you do read celebrity gossip.” A mischievous smile played about his mouth. That mouth!

  “I live in America. I pretty much get celebrity gossip via osmosis.” Plus she’d spent half the afternoon researching Boyd Bellamy and his ugly breakup.

  “I have friends in lawyers’ offices in L.A.”

  “So?” Roz tried not to sound too curious but leaned forward involuntarily.

  “So I know something you don’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Alden said, refilling his own wine glass and chasing a chunk of cheese with a fresh sip. She watched him, refusing to bite, waiting for him to fill the silence. He raised an elegant eyebrow. She waited some more. He smiled. “So I’ll tell you what I know if you tell me what Mrs. Walker told you.”

  “Ah,” Roz said, leaning back, smiling in turn, playing poker. Her hand was pretty lame, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “How can I be sure what I know is worth what you know?”

  He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and spoke softly. “Because what I know could make this a murder mystery.”

  “Get out,” she said, unable to hide her excitement. She mentally kicked herself and tried to sound calm again. “I don’t know if I believe you. How about you go first.”

  Alden leaned into her space for another minute, his eyes glinting, then sat back and took another sip of wine. “Boyd Bellamy never changed his will after he and Mysty Wellington broke up.”

  “So?”

  “So he left a scandalously huge estate to her, even when it appears they hated each other.”

  “Really.” Roz considered the information as Lily delivered their food and left. She took a bite of the buttery, garlicky shrimp and couldn’t suppress a small sound of satisfaction. She caught Alden watching her with a hint of his own hunger. “It could be coincidence. They haven’t been apart that long. Maybe he just hadn’t gotten around to changing the will.”

  “Exactly,” Alden said. “Maybe she had to act before he had a chance to change it.”

  “So she arranges an explosion in the middle of the ocean that also kills a fishing guide? I don’t buy it. I don’t know a lot of famous people, but she doesn’t strike me as the type.”

  “God, this fish is good,” Alden said, chasing a mouthful with wine. “And I do know a lot of famous people, and let me assure you, what you see is most definitely not what you get. Virtually all of them wear a mask at all times.”

  “Because of ‘journalists’ like you,” Roz said with a smirk.

  “I heard those quotation marks, and I’m not offended,” he said, though he sounded as if he was. “Did you know TMZ has three reporters stationed at the L.A. courthouse, while the Los Angeles Times has just one? As a reporter and editor for the Eye, I had sources everywhere. I had a team that could tear apart legal documents for the most astounding facts. It was journalism, my dear, even if it wasn’t your type of journalism. Speaking of which, just what did you learn from Lacey Walker?”

  Roz shifted in her chair, uncomfortable after Alden’s dressing-down and, in spite of herself, a little sorry that she’d insulted him. Maybe he had a point, even if their styles were about as different as high school wrestlers and the sequin-wearing actors pounding the mats on TV.

  Now she leaned forward, and Alden did, too, forcing her eyes to meet his crystal gaze. As a bonus, she got a whiff of his pleasant, soapy, manly scent.

  Focus, Roz, focus.

  She kept her voice low. “Lacey let it drop that they’d had to cancel a balloon ride Bellamy had scheduled for tomorrow.”

  Alden sat up with a loud laugh that made her want to laugh, too, even if it was at her expense. “A balloon ride?”

  “Shhh,” Roz said, looking around. They hadn’t drawn much attention, as far as she could see. She looked back at Alden as he took another big bite of his fish. “Don’t you get it? A man doesn’t go for a balloon ride by himself. He takes a woman with him — or, you know, whatever he’s into. He had a date.”

  Alden chewed and swallowed, drank more wine and contemplated her. Roz drank more, too, waiting for him to respond, feeling just a hint of a buzz, wondering why she was sharing information with this wickedly handsome man. Or simply wicked man.

  “I grant you the point,” he finally said. “It could be worth a follow-up, if only to write about the tragedy of having to cancel his momentous date.”

  “We should talk to Zoe. She handles the balloon tours.”

  “I thought ‘we’ were not pursuing this story together?”

  “We’re not,” Roz said defensively. “But I know you’re going to bother her, so we might as well bother her at the same time. And I don’t feel like racing you here first thing in the morning.” Because I have something else to do, she thought.

  “That sounds reasonable. Our audiences are different, anyway. Mine is more national. You should see our web traffic.”

  “You don’t have to sound so smug about it,” she said, and Alden chuckled. There she was, on the defensive again. She had to get out of here.

  Lily returned to the table as they finished their entrees. “Any room for dessert?”

  “Not for me,” Roz said. “Can you split the check?”

  “One check,” Alden said with authority. “I’ll take it.”

  “But — ”

  “Our coffers are deep, Ms. Melander.” Alden dribbled the last of the wine into his glass and knocked it back as Lily left the folder on the table. He inserted a credit card and sat back, watching Roz. “Shall we go ask people what they know about Boyd Bellamy?”

  “Honestly? I’ve had enough of Boyd Bellamy for one day,” Roz said. “But I need to take a walk to make sure I’m sober enough to drive home. We can talk tomorrow about the balloon.”

  “I have nowhere to be,” Alden said as Lily picked up the folder and left again. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Roz glowered at him. “You don’t have to spy on me, Mr. Knox. I’m not going to get any precious scoops walking on the beach in the dark.”

  “You know, I like it when you call me Mr. Knox.” His eyes, his tone were full of mischief, and Roz’s face got hot. Lily returned with the check, and he signed and got up. “Shall we?”

  Roz wasn’t used to being this muddled. Wasn’t she supposed to hate this man? But her body was all too ready to join him.

  “All right.” She felt a wave of lightheadedness as she stood. A wal
k on the beach was definitely in order. “Let me put my purse in the car.”

  A few minutes later, with her keys in her pocket and her shoes left next to Alden’s by the walkway, she reluctantly joined him in a stroll to the water’s edge.

  ≈≈≈

  Alden, fueled by a good wine, a good meal and the most entertaining conversation he’d had in months, nonetheless found himself low on words as he escorted Roz to the wide, curving beach of Barefoot Bay. A gibbous moon rode high in the sky, chasing the waves of the gulf in silver. A fresh, almost chilly breeze whipped through his hair, and he noticed Roz crossing and rubbing her arms.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. “I don’t have a jacket, but I could give you my shirt.”

  She looked at him as if he was crazy. “And you would have no shirt.”

  “I’m hot enough to survive in an undershirt. Would you mind?” He grinned. He couldn’t help flirting with her. It seemed to make her so discombobulated.

  “I’m fine,” she said, shaking out her arms and throwing back her shoulders.

  Alden barely suppressed a groan at the sight of her sweater-clad breasts in the moonlight — now undeniably peaked in the chill — and had to think of exploding fishermen to get his thoughts, and his anatomy, under control.

  He turned to her again as they walked, enveloped by the rushing sounds of the water and the night. “Are you really drunk?”

  “No,” Roz said. “You’ll know it when I’m really drunk.”

  “Really? I can’t wait.”

  She shot him another look. “Not that you’ll get the chance.”

  “Oh, come on. What are you like when you’re drunk?”

  “Loquacious. Full of ten-dollar words. I’m like a walking game of Scrabble, with an opinion about everything. Incredibly annoying.”

  “Sounds delightful. When I’m drunk, I want to be around beautiful women.” Alden caught her gaze and imagined starlight in those hazel eyes for a fleeting moment. Maybe he wasn’t entirely sober, either.

  “I don’t get drunk often. It has to be a special occasion. My dad enjoyed his alcohol a little too much when he got going, and sometimes it got him into trouble. I’d rather not be a good-time girl, though I enjoy wine.”