A strange mixture of dread and anticipation plagued him all week. Remembering when he’d last anticipated seeing a woman again was beyond him.
Had he ever? No. Not even Francesca.
Dread, that was another foreign emotion. He took control of situations, conquered them. Never did he dread them.
Yet the two competing emotions churned inside him as he got behind the wheel of his rental car Friday night. To save time, he’d flown to Boston rather than drive, even though he usually enjoyed a good long drive. Pulling onto the highway, he wanted to head north to Callie’s apartment. Instead, he forced himself to head toward the heart of the city. Already after nine o’clock, it was late to be visiting. Besides, she wasn’t expecting him till tomorrow afternoon.
What possible excuse could he use for showing up tonight? It wasn’t along the way to his hotel. And he had no intentions of telling Callie that he couldn’t get her out of his mind, or that he’d looked forward to seeing her all week the way a child looks forward to Christmas morning. Yeah, that was so not happening.
She’d probably think he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had.
He just didn’t know anymore.
The Sherbrooke Regency Hotel wasn’t far from Logan Airport, and soon Dylan walked into his suite of rooms on the top floor. Ditching his bag on the bed, he pulled out his bathing suit and headed downstairs to the hotel’s indoor pool. An hour or so swimming laps would empty his head for a while at least.
The warm humid air and smell of chlorine hit Dylan when he walked out of the men’s changing room and into the pool area. At first, he thought it was deserted. There was no one else in the pool or seated on any of the padded lounge chairs.
Perfect, he had the place to himself. Dylan tossed his towel on a chair. It would be much easier to swim laps in an empty pool. Positioning himself near the edge, he prepared to dive in.
“Late night swim?” a woman’s voice called out from behind him.
Turning, he watched the woman step out of the hot tub tucked in the corner. Wearing a fire engine red bikini that left nothing to the imagination, the woman seductively walked toward him. A month earlier and Dylan would’ve been turning on the charm. The woman was a beauty, with a body worthy of the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition, but not tonight. Tonight he only wanted one woman and she was forty-five minutes away.
“Just a few laps to unwind, Miss...”
“Vanessa Mitchell.”
Dylan immediately recognized the name. Her father was one of the top hedge fund managers on Wall Street. “Dylan—”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish. “I know who you are. We met last December at a charity event in Washington.” The woman stepped closer, placing a well-manicured hand on his forearm. “If you’re looking to unwind, you should join me in the hot tub. The water is the perfect temperature.”
Dylan looked down at the hand on his arm. Here was a beautiful woman coming onto him and he felt nothing. Not a single ounce of attraction or desire flowed through his body, unlike the last time he’d seen Callie. That night, his body had been on overload in the desire department, and she hadn’t even been trying.
You’ve got some serious issues, Talbot. “I’m just going to stick with some laps tonight,” Dylan replied in his most diplomatic voice. There was no need to offend the woman.
“I’ll be down here for a little while, if you change your mind. Or if you want to come up to my room later for a drink, I’m staying in suite 607.”
Without waiting for a reply, the woman sauntered back toward the hot tub. Dylan suspected she’d spent a lot of time perfecting that walk. She was a beautiful woman who knew exactly the kind of effect she had on men. Although tonight, her charms were wasted.
Diving into the water, Dylan kicked up toward the surface. On a lounge chair near the hot tub, he spotted Vanessa Mitchell watching him. Instead of seeing her there, he imagined Callie lying there in the very same bikini. The suit she’d worn to the beach had covered more than it had revealed. It was nothing like the one he envisioned her in now. Immediately, heat coursed through his veins. If it’d been Callie coming on to him the way Vanessa Mitchell had been, he would’ve skipped the invite to join her in the hot tub, and they would’ve already been up in her suite and her swim suit would’ve been on the floor.
Warren’s daughter, he forced himself to remember. Slicing through the water, he tried to push the vision of Callie in a fire engine red bikini from his mind.