Hot Property (Hot Zone 4)

“So what happened?”

“My mother happened. My boss was extremely conservative. All he cared about was propriety and how our behavior reflected the office and the work we did.”

“Which shouldn’t be an issue for you. You’re the epitome of propriety.” But obviously her mother wasn’t.

Amy curled her legs beneath her and the hem of her dress slipped higher, creeping up her thighs.

His mouth grew dry. His fingers itched to slip his hand beneath the short dress and touch her bare skin in an intimate caress.

“Propriety isn’t easy to come by in a family like mine,” she said, obviously unaware of the direction of his thoughts.

Amy was exactly what he saw. She was real and she appealed to him on a gut level. One that forced his imagination to go into overdrive. He wondered what she wore beneath the dress and drew a long, steadying breath.

“My mother and my aunt have this tendency to get themselves arrested for things like indecent exposure and being a public nuisance.”

He couldn’t suppress a grin. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s funny.”

She shook her head. “Not to the man who hired me. Or to his very proper boss.”

“Go on.” He squeezed her hand, encouraging her to tell him the rest. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” She smiled, surprising him. “Mom got a part-time job at a wig store in town. Not just any wig store but one specializing in wigs for cancer patients. She took it on herself to advertise during the annual Halloween Parade.” Amy paused, picked up her mug and took a sip of her vile coffee, keeping him in suspense.

Not wanting her to question him about his drink, he took a sip from his mug, too.

“Anyway, Mom dressed up as Lady Godiva wearing nothing but a long wig and a sign with the shop’s name around her neck.”

He nearly spit out his coffee in shock. “Oh, God.”

Her own mouth twitched with humor over the situation. “The police called me to come get her. I bailed her out, but she’d already gotten the press she wanted, including a photograph of her wearing the sign on the front page of the paper with me walking beside her on her way home from jail.”

“Let me guess. Your boss lacked a sense of humor?”

She

nodded. “I was damned immediately. Guilt by association. That’s when I decided somebody needed to keep an eye on my mother and keep her in check. Since my father died, she’d become even more outrageous. So I moved back home. Uncle Spencer had just bought land with some real-estate partners and they were developing a seniors’ community. I stepped right in and took over.”

He shook his head. “You have some very interesting relatives.”

“Coming from you, that’s quite a statement,” she said, laughing.

“Good point.” He glanced down at their hands. He still held hers and she hadn’t pulled away. “I take it this is why you hate being on the receiving end of publicity?”

Amy nodded. “It’s part of the reason.” She didn’t know how to further explain, but she tried. “My dad was nothing like my mom. From the time I was little, he taught me the importance of making a difference. He was a lawyer who specialized in family law and he did his part to make the world a better place.”

He squeezed her hand lightly and she appreciated the gesture. She smiled, and one look into his eyes told her his understanding wasn’t an act. He got what she was saying.

What she couldn’t explain to him, what she didn’t want to even admit to herself, was that her fear of the press went deeper. Being fired from her first job just for being photographed beside her naked mother reinforced her belief that her mother’s wildness was a trait she had to suppress—in her parent and in herself. Because a secret part of Amy admired her mother’s brazenness. That same part sometimes yearned to be set free so she could jump in pools on a whim and openly enjoy life without fear.

She had more of her mother in her than she cared to admit. Amy had gotten drunk at college and joined her best friend in streaking outside the boys’ dorm. When she’d woken up the next morning, she had a fuzzy recollection of a wild night, but nothing more—until the football players whistled at her the next day. “Nice ass, Amy!” they’d called, and the memory of what she’d done came flooding back. It wasn’t the first time she’d done something crazy. But she always tried to make it the last. And by attempting to temper her mother’s antics, she managed to control her own.

During her years at the retirement community, she hadn’t exactly excelled at keeping her mother in check—but short of enforced confinement, not even her father had been able to do that. What Amy had accomplished, however, was to turn her uncle’s retirement home into a successful establishment, and she’d proved to herself that working behind the scenes was her forte.

“Hey.” Roper reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her face.

She trembled at his touch, her body immediately responding.

“Not everybody’s cut out for my kind of life. Hell, sometimes I’m not cut out for my kind of life,” he said, chuckling.