Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,10
get your parents back together.”
“God, am I ever.”
He surprised her by chuckling. “Okay. I’m in.”
Relieved, April tossed his card back into her drawer. “Really?”
“You bet. If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re going to foil your father’s matchmaking plans while advancing your own. Sounds like it should work.”
“Exactly!” She smiled, trying to be positive. She’d convinced him; Gunner was coming to Mexico. But there was something about his attitude that made her nervous….
GUNNER HAD RACED CARS since he was old enough to drive. He’d reached speeds in excess of two hundred miles an hour, facing mortality without a moment’s fear. But he hated flying. Probably because he had to trust someone else at the controls. In any case, his stomach tensed as he took off from JFK Airport and stayed that way during the entire miserable ten-hour trip, which included two layovers, one in Houston and one in Phoenix.
Feeling rumpled and tired but relieved, he stepped off the plane into the dazzling Mexican sun and slipped on his sunglasses to survey, for the first time, Baja California. He had one week to spend in Cabo, one week of playing boyfriend for April Ashton, and after suffering through the holidays alone, he was actually looking forward to the distraction.
There were a few exotic flowering plants here and there at the airport, but the surrounding area was basically flat and desertlike. The customs officer mentioned, in heavily accented English, that Cabo San Lucas received only a few inches of rain each year, which explained the cactus and sand. But Gunner didn’t mind the dryness. It was bitterly cold and snowing in New York when he left, and he’d heard that the golfing in Cabo was surpassed only by the fishing.
Besides, his father had called yesterday and asked him to visit—since Gunner had claimed to be unavailable for Christmas. As much as he knew he should spend some time with Quincy Sr., that he should forgive his father as his mother had always encouraged him to do, this trip had given Gunner a good excuse to postpone the reunion yet again.
Finally beginning to relax, he saw the porter holding a placard with his name and let the man take his bag and load it into the limousine that Walt had sent to collect him. Then Gunner slid into the dark, air-conditioned interior to find April Ashton waiting for him.
“Thanks for coming,” she said as soon as he spotted her sitting quietly in the far corner.
He was rather surprised to see her wearing a short skirt. Somehow he hadn’t expected April Ashton to possess such pretty legs. But it was her tight-fitting T-shirt, which advertised a local bar called the Wiggling Marlin, that really tempted his eye. April was skinny, but not without shape, he conceded as he took in her small but firm-looking breasts. “I’m sure it’ll prove interesting,” he said. “I’ve never pretended to be anyone’s lover before.”
“Lover?” She glanced at him as if she didn’t know how to take his comment, and he hid a smile. She thought she could dangle Ashton Automotive in front of him the way her father did, and that he’d simply perform the role she’d chosen for him. But he was determined to control everything that went on down here.
“Isn’t that what you said on the phone?” he asked, playing innocent. “That you wanted me to come down here and pretend we’re having a torrid affair?”
“I didn’t say anything about torrid, and you know it.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Then perhaps I should have mentioned that my idea of a relationship ‘with romantic interest’ is a little different than yours.”
The chauffeur started the car and they moved away from the airport. “You’re joking, right?” she said, beginning to squirm.
He watched her for several seconds, struggling to hold back a grin. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re joking.”
“Of course I’m joking,” he said. “I know torrid is well beyond someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” she echoed.
“An intellectual, remember? Someone who’s prim. Someone who looks down her nose at a womanizer like me.”
“You say ‘intellectual’ and…and ‘prim’ as if you really mean ‘uptight virgin.”’
He could only keep a straight face by biting the inside of his cheek. “Really?”
She folded her arms beneath those firm breasts he’d noticed earlier and crossed her legs. “You’re jumping to some pretty big conclusions, Mr. Stevens.”
“I am? I didn’t realize.”
“For starters, I’m not a virgin.”
He rumpled his brow as if seriously considering her words. For someone so smart, she was amazingly easy to