Seduction by Design

While Faith kept up a steady stream of chatter, Hailey changed in the connecting bathroom. The dress fit her trim figure to perfection, clinging to her breasts like a second skin. She put her hair back up with decorative combs after thoroughly brushing it.

Faith’s curiosity overrode her manners, and she tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Hailey answered. Faith watched in fascination while Hailey applied fresh makeup. She was nosy and curious and meddlesome, but endearing. Apparently, Faith was eager for a woman’s opinion of her own appearance and missed having her mother to talk to about such things.

Hailey asked for her help in selecting a flat, strappy sandal to wear with the sundress. After Hailey had misted herself with Chanel, she sprayed some on Faith. The girl’s expression was one of rapture, and Hailey found it pitifully touching that so small a gesture could mean so much to the girl.

Of one thing Hailey was certain, the child adored her father. “Daddy said,” “Daddy thinks,” “Daddy is,”—these expressions prefaced most of her sentences. It was clear to Hailey that Faith held him in awe. Her desire for his acceptance and approval was pathetic.

When Hailey was ready, they went into the living room where Tyler was a dark silhouette against the violet of dusk at the window. When he heard them, he turned around. His eyes opened wide in unconcealed appreciation of Hailey’s efforts.

Hailey had to put down an urge to cover the expanse of bare skin on her shoulders and chest. “I think we’re ready,” she said. The timidity in her voice was humiliating. She sounded like a girl going out on her first date.

“Your home is lovely,” Tyler said. Hailey’s eyes swept the room as though seeing it for the first time. A stone fireplace took up one wall, while plate-glass windows took up another. The sofa and chairs were covered in a nubby, cream-colored fabric and piled with cushions of contrasting earth tones. Area rugs relieved the bareness of the parquet oak floor. Louvered barroom doors led into the kitchen, and the far end of the living room had been made into a dining alcove.

“If you think this room is pretty, you ought to see her bedroom. She’s got a bedspread in a peachy color and it’s so soft. And the bathroom is yummy. There’s this sunken bathtub, and it’s the same color as the bedspread. You ought to see it, Daddy.”

His gray eyes swung to Hailey and she dropped hers in mortification. “Maybe I will sometime,” he said in a seductive tone. “Where did you say you wanted to eat, Faith?” He wasn’t looking at his daughter. His eyes remained riveted on Hailey.

“It’s really neat,” Faith said in what she hoped was a selling voice. “They’ve got pizza and lasagna and electronic games in the back room.”

That got Tyler’s attention and he laughed indulgently. “My child is addicted to those computerized games,” he said to Hailey.

She smiled back. “I think everyone is these days.”

“Do you mind a restaurant with electronic games in the back room?” His look was rueful and apologetic.

“Of course not. I may even try them myself.”

“Great! Let’s go. I’m starving.” Faith dragged out the last word dramatically and they all laughed.

Hailey locked her house and she and Tyler followed Faith up the steps to his car. He placed a proprietary arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to him.

“I may have to change your uniform at Serendipity. You look gorgeous tonight, Hailey.”

The breath that fanned her cheek was fragrant and minty and caused a ridiculous fluttering in her throat. Her “thank you” sounded thoroughly unnatural.

“I like you with more skin and less underwear.”

His candid remark changed her timorousness to fury. She pushed away from him. “You can’t talk to me like that,” she said heatedly.

His teeth shone whitely through the darkness as his smile widened. “Sure I can. I’m going to be your lover, remember?” She began sputtering a scathing comeback, but he interrupted it. “Save those arguments for later when I will gladly prove each one futile. Right now Faith’s waiting for us.”

She resisted the arm he replaced across her shoulders, but when they reached the car, it was still there. She hadn’t been able to break his hold on her.

CHAPTER 4

The restaurant Faith had chosen was as noisy and crowded as Tyler had predicted it would be. A five-dollar bill slipped into the hand of the senior waiter shortened their wait and secured them a table near the windows overlooking the busy sidewalk and as far away from the whirring and zinging sounds emanating from the back room. Once Faith had ordered, she went to check out the games and came back to report that they were the “absolutely neatest” games available.

The salads had too much dressing and the lettuce had been allowed to wilt, but the lasagna was hearty and delicious. The Chianti, which Tyler had insisted Hailey share with him, was cold and potent and dangerous, since she was already suffering from light-headedness. Much as she didn’t want to admit it, Tyler Scott had a profound effect on her senses.

She could find no fault with either his manners or his conversation. He was devastatingly handsome, a fact which every other woman in the room had noted, Hailey realized glumly.

He had taken off his suit coat and vest because of the heat, and his trim frame looked harder and more powerful than ever. His rolled-back shirt sleeves showed sinewy forearms sprinkled with dark hair. The fabric of his shirt, stretched across the sculpted muscles of his chest, revealed only a shadowy suggestion of the masculinity that lay beneath it.

When his eyes met hers across the red-and-white-checked tablecloth, Hailey’s heart pounded so hard it frightened her. Had she read a description of such feelings in a novel, she would have scoffed and thought them to be the fanciful imaginings of the fiction writer. But these fingers of sensation that danced around her breasts, tautened her nipples, and curled downward to become that delightful weightiness in the pit of her stomach were all too real, all too disturbing.

With a mouthful of lasagna, Faith said, “I wish I could be beautiful like you, Hailey. Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Daddy?”