No Peeking...

2

VIOLET REMOVED two sheets of folded stationery from the small envelope, her heart thumping in anticipation at getting a glimpse into her own mind ten years ago. She had been so serious back then. The Sex for Beginners class had jarred her out of her comfort zone, if for only a few weeks.

She glanced at her closed office door, then unfolded the sheets and began to read.

Dear Violet,

I’m having a hard time with this assignment, writing down my sexual fantasies. I’m still getting used to the idea of what’s even supposed to happen during sex. I’ve only done it a couple of times, and both times it was over before I even got my shirt off.

I have to say—if that’s all there is to sex, I’m not impressed. It all seems rather…boring. Doing it in a bed, for instance—it seems like an invitation to go to sleep! Which is exactly what both guys did, by the way. Can’t people have sex in other places besides the bedroom?

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m not exciting enough to keep a man interested long enough to do it…well. I know that guys think I’m boring and uptight. I think so, too. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped inside myself. I’m trying to get out, but I can’t. I want to change, I just don’t know how.

Dr. Alexander says she’ll send us these letters in ten years. If you’re reading this, Violet, I hope you’re not boring anymore. I hope you’ve found someone who knows how to make sex exciting. I hope you’ve found a way out of yourself.

A rap on the door made Violet jump. She shoved the letter under a folder on her desk just as Lillian poked her head inside.

“Violet—” The woman stopped. “Are you okay?”

Violet nodded, sitting up straighter and running her hand over her flushed neck. “Yes, I’m…fine. What’s up?”

Lillian grinned and held up a tin. “My weight if the sweets keep rolling in here. Want some fudge?”

“Not right now, thanks,” Violet said, remembering she hadn’t yet had lunch. “Who sent it?”

“Gail’s Gourmet Candy.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s good. I shop there for my clients. You can take it home if you like.”

“Thank you, I will.” Lillian started to leave.

“Lillian?”

“Yes?”

Violet swallowed, then lifted her chin. “Do you think I’m…boring?”

Lillian looked surprised and was quiet for a few seconds. “Violet, I think you’re one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. You can do almost anything.”

“But?”

Lillian moistened her lips. “But…you don’t seem to make room in your life for fun.”

Violet felt her defenses rise. “It’s hard to have fun while running a business.”

“I don’t know. Dominick Burns seems to be having a ball,” Lillian said with a little smile, then closed the door.

Violet chewed on her lip, considering the woman’s words. She did too have fun—all kinds of fun, all the time.

Like the time she…

And sometimes when she…

Violet frowned hard. Fun was overrated. Fun led to…abandon. And recklessness.

And a loss of control.

Dominick Burns’s handsome grin flashed into her head. What do you want for Christmas, Vee?

Now there was a man who’d probably had sex outside the bedroom.

Unbidden desire curled in her stomach and her breasts grew heavy. Dismayed at her reaction, Violet turned her mind to the task at hand—the research he’d asked her to do. Because for all his indiscriminate flirting, Dominick was more interested in her brain than her bod.

For the next couple of hours, she compiled everything she could get her hands on regarding Sunpiper Extreme Sports School—classes, instructors, press releases, videos, capital assets, endorsements, affiliations with sanctioned competitions, lawsuits past and present, as well as background on the two founders. At the school, one could enroll in classes to learn everything from rock climbing to dogsledding, either at the facility or at remote locations all over the world. The company had started small, but had grown steadily and seemed to be poised for either expansion or a new direction. She would keep digging, but on the surface Piedmont looked like a viable acquisition. In fact, Dominick wasn’t the only suitor in the game—less than a month earlier, a company named Cambrian had publicly expressed interest in acquiring the sports school.

She was excited and flattered that Dominick had asked for her help on such an important matter. For all his tomfoolery, the man obviously trusted her, and it felt good to be appreciated for something more than picking up after a spoiled dog.

Violet sorted through the scattered printouts on her desk, wrote a note to Dominick on her company letterhead, informing him that she was still pursuing other avenues of research, and stuffed it all into an envelope. When her mind started creeping back to the letter she’d written in college and to the way Dominick’s backside looked in those holey jeans, she gave herself a stern lecture.

The letter was nothing more than the naive ramblings of a sheltered coed in an all-girls school, whose teacher had made her feel daring for a short while. Sex had gotten better after college….

Some.

At least it wasn’t over as quickly. But the journey from point A to point O was still a little…ho-hum. Or, at least it had been, the last time she checked.

Violet frowned. She hadn’t had a serious date in months, she suddenly realized. She’d been so busy at work, and now with her parents back in town…

Not that she saw them that often, she thought with a pang.

They had an active social life, she reminded herself. Much more active than hers.

Unable to ignore her empty stomach any longer, Violet glanced at her watch and decided that if she left now, she could get ahead of rush-hour traffic, grab a bite at the food court in the Lenox Square mall and return Ms. Kingsbury’s packages. Plus she could get a head start on Dominick’s gift list. And the holiday atmosphere would help to put her in the spirit to celebrate Christmas with her parents.

She grabbed the stack of phone messages to return on the way. As she was leaving, she handed the bulging envelope to Lillian. “I’m taking off for the day. Could you please get this package ready for a courier, arrange for a pickup and have it delivered to Mr. Burns’s home address?”

“Absolutely. Is there anything else I can do?”

Violet hesitated, then spied her cluttered desk through the open door to her office. “You can toss all the papers on my desk that aren’t in a folder.”

“Okay, great,” Lillian said, brightening more than the situation warranted.

Violet set down her bag and fished out three of the phone messages. “And would you handle these clients, please? Call me if you have any questions.”

“I will,” Lillian promised, clearly pleased with the added responsibility.

Violet left, crossing her fingers that the woman didn’t do anything that might jeopardize everything Violet had worked so hard to build.

DOMINICK FROWNED when he realized that the ice in his vodka tonic had melted. “You’re slipping, old man,” he muttered to himself, then poured the drink down the bar sink.

He’d been restless for weeks and in truth, he couldn’t put his finger on the reason why, except for the fact that the holiday season always made him antsy. No longer having family left a gnawing feeling in his gut anytime of the year, but being alone at Christmas was the worst.

A knock sounded at the door. He looked up to see his longtime housekeeper, Sandy, standing there. “I’m heading home unless you need anything else.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said.

She angled her graying head. “Are you, Dominick? You’ve been moping around for months now.”

He gave her a wry smile. Sandy had known him since he’d been a teenager driving his parents crazy with all his extreme sports activities, and she didn’t miss a thing. “Don’t mind me, I’m just bored.”

“And lonely?”

He pursed his lips. “Maybe.”

“You need to stop trying to kill yourself jumping out of airplanes and settle down. I’ve seen a dozen women come through here in the past few months. Aren’t any of them marriage material?”

He walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m the one who isn’t marriage material.”

“You’re not afraid to jump off a cliff into the ocean, but you’re afraid to walk down the aisle?”

“Sandy, there are some things that are even too scary for me to attempt.”

She made a rueful noise. “One of these days, son, you’re going to meet someone who makes you feel more alive than any of those stunts you pull. When you do, promise me one thing?”

“What?”

She poked him in the arm. “That you’ll jump. Good night.”

“Good night,” he said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

After Sandy left, Dominick reasoned that he’d been cooped up in his office too long, that he needed to plan a getaway and do something fun. The thought perked him up. He hadn’t tried the new wingsuit that research and development had sent to him. After all, nothing said fun like jumping out of plane and riding the wind currents miles above the earth with the ground rushing toward you at breakneck speeds. The sensation was as good as sex.

Lately, even better than sex.

He considered calling Bethany, his current lover, but he was growing weary of her conversation—the woman was obsessed with reality shows. Call him old-fashioned, but he’d rather live life than watch it on a flat screen.

He thought about pouring a fresh drink, but couldn’t work up the enthusiasm. He needed…something. A new challenge. Things were beginning to feel stale in his life. Maybe that’s why the potential acquisition of Sunpiper intrigued him—it would give him something new to throw himself into.

When his doorbell rang he was glad for the diversion.

A courier looked him up and down. “Dominick Burns?”

“That’s me,” he said cheerfully, although he realized that one might not expect the owner of a home in this neighborhood to answer his door barefoot, wearing jeans and a retro Hang Ten T-shirt.

He signed for the package and tipped the guy. When he saw the return address, a smile curved his mouth. So Violet Summerlin had compiled information on Sunpiper already. The woman was a dynamo. He’d tried to steal her away as his personal assistant several times, but she’d turned him down flat. And he respected her for it. No one knew better than he did that the best job in the world was working for oneself.

Besides, if she was on his direct payroll, he couldn’t flirt with her until her cheeks turned that adorable shade of pink.

As he opened the package, the image of Vee came into his head. Between the staid black-and-white uniform she insisted on wearing and that damn ponytail that was so tight the rubber band might blind someone if it snapped off and caught them in the eye, she was perhaps the most prim package he’d ever encountered. Still, he had eyes and the woman was classically beautiful. Her hair was thick and curly and she didn’t miss being a redhead by much—a strawberry blonde he’d heard his secretary describe her as once, with the milky coloring to match. Despite her freckles, he doubted if the woman had ever spent a full day in the sun.

In fact, he thought, chuckling, there were probably parts of her that had yet to see the light of day.

But she had the most incredible blue-green eyes and full coral-colored lips. And he could see the generous curve of breast that she hid underneath her somber jackets. Violet Summerlin was stacked—she just didn’t want anyone to know. He wondered idly if she had a boyfriend or if she spent all her time pleasing people like him.

Furthermore, he wondered if anyone had ever tried to please her. A vision of parting her knees to delve into those unexposed places made his cock twitch unexpectedly.

Dominick pulled his hand down his face and chastised himself for thinking such wicked things about such a sweet person, a person who wanted world peace for Christmas, for heaven’s sake.

He decided to switch to coffee to peruse the information she’d sent, tossing an extra scoop of grounds into the filter for a caffeine kick. While he waited for the coffee to brew, he pulled the stack of papers out of the envelope. Violet’s handwritten note to him was simple and to the point—she had arranged the research starting with high level, moving to more detailed.

More to come, the last line said, then she’d signed her initials.

He liked the way she communicated—quick and to the point. But her handwriting surprised him with its large letters and lots of swoops and curves. It seemed…romantic.

The thought conjured up another image of Violet, nude on pink satin sheets, her hair unbound and fanned around her head, her pale breasts high and full, with puffy pink nipples, her legs long and slender. When his cock hardened, Dominick scoffed at his reaction. He’d had a lot of women in his bed, all of them fit and tan and physical. Violet Summerlin was about as far from his type as he could imagine. She didn’t smile easily, could never be described as bubbly or fun. As intriguing as it might be to try to bed her, she struck him as a lights-off-during-sex kind of girl.

He poured a cup of coffee, settled into a chair in the den and turned on a Hawks basketball game in the background. Over the next couple of hours he alternately read and checked the game score. Working through the material Vee had compiled, he mentally ticked off answers to some of his uppermost concerns. On the surface, Sunpiper looked like a good acquisition.

But things weren’t always what they seemed.

When he turned the page, he frowned at a pink polka-dot envelope that looked incongruous next to the rest of the printed research. Had something been inserted in the package by mistake?

On the outside of the envelope were some kind of doodled numbers and letters…or a code?

He withdrew the pages and unfolded them. From the salutation, he first thought it was a letter to Violet and he started to refold it. Then he recognized the handwriting as hers—the same large letters, the same whorls and loops—and his curiosity intensified.

Noting the date, he soon realized that it was a letter that Violet had written to herself when she was in college. A couple of lines into it, though, his eyebrows flew up. Violet had recorded her sexual fantasies? As he read her words about her uninspiring sexual experiences, he shook his head. College-age boys weren’t the most giving lovers.

But when he read the part where she questioned her own desirability, a pang of remorse barbed through him. These were the words of a lonely woman who felt overlooked and unloved. No wonder she downplayed her beauty—the more men ignored her, the more she probably wanted to be ignored. But in the letter she’d written, it was clear that she’d had hopes and dreams for her future that included exploring her sensuality.

I hope you’ve found someone who knows how to make sex exciting. I hope you’ve found a way out of yourself.

Dominick stood and walked back to the bar, the coffee forgotten as his need for a stiffer drink returned with a vengeance. His pulse pounded in his ears, sending adrenaline racing through his bloodstream. He’d been looking for a challenge and one had literally fallen into his lap.

He poured a vodka tonic and took a healthy gulp.

Quiet little Violet Summerlin with her tight ponytail secretly fantasized about exciting sex?

An energized smile lifted the corners of Dominick’s mouth. This changed everything.

3

Five days until Christmas

WHEN VIOLET’S ALARM went off the next morning, it jarred her from a deep and disturbing dream starring Dominick Burns. The details were foggy, but it had something to do with being dangled from a high place…naked…with him promising to catch her. Her subconscious had managed to take her phobia of heights, as well as her phobia of being attracted to Dominick, and combine them in the most torturous way. Her body still pulsed with adrenaline and desire. She hit the off button on her clock and groaned.

That darn letter had unleashed all kinds of errant thoughts—and she was attaching them to Dominick simply because of his proximity and the work she was doing for him. Not because she was attracted to Dominick. She wasn’t like all those women he dated; she was above the fray. They shared a professional relationship, which was way better than being one of his floozies.

A tremulous sigh escaped her heated body. Wasn’t it?

Knowing she’d feel better after a shower, she pulled herself out of bed to face the day. Except today, the soapy sponge seemed to have fingers—long, tanned fingers that caressed her body in places where no man had ever touched her—her shoulder blades…behind her knees…the arch of her foot. She tried to push Dominick from her mind, but her body was pent up from the words that she’d written long ago and refused to let go of the image. Finally, following her previous advice to Nan, she turned the water full blast on cold. The icy sluice made her gasp, but it effectively drove all illicit thoughts from her mind.

She turned off the water and used a towel to briskly dry and warm her skin. Then she tuned into a radio station of holiday golden oldies to listen to as she got ready for work. “I’ll be Home for Christmas” was her favorite Christmas song of all time. In her opinion, no one sang it like Doris Day, but any version would do. It never failed to make her feel all warm and tingly inside. This year the tune was especially poignant because her parents would be home for Christmas.

From now on, she’d direct all of her excess energy toward the magical holiday she would have with her family this year, not on Dominick Burns.

After Violet dressed, she double-checked the box of Christmas decorations she was taking with her when she had lunch with her mother today—yards and yards of tinsel, old-fashioned bubble lights for the tree and new buildings for a miniature village she and her Grammy had enjoyed adding to each year. She’d wanted to put up the tree weeks ago in the den where it always stood and could be seen from the street, but her mother had suggested that they wait until Christmas Eve—a new family tradition. Violet had agreed, although she missed popping over to enjoy her Grammy’s tree and bringing new ornaments to hang on it every few days leading up to Christmas. She was taking over decorations a little at a time so there wouldn’t be as much to transport Christmas Eve. On impulse, she added the gifts for her parents to the box. Maybe the gaily wrapped packages would persuade her mother to put up the tree early.

She idly wondered what Dominick Burns would do to celebrate the holidays. He’d never mentioned family and she’d never asked. Regardless, he didn’t seem like the type who would want a Norman Rockwell Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas, Vee?

As Violet locked the door to her condo, she banished the memory of his mischievous blue eyes from her mind. Then she lugged the box of decorations, the gifts, her coat and her purse downstairs to the Summerlin at Your Service office while stifling a yawn. At this rate, she’d never make it through the day. One thing was certain, she couldn’t afford to lose another precious night’s sleep to foolish dreams stirred up by a silly letter she’d written in college. After unlocking the front door and turning the sign to Open, she started the coffeepot, then walked into her office, on a mission.

The sooner the letter met the shredder, the better.

But when she glanced at the lone neat stack of manila folders on her desk, panic blipped in her chest. She’d asked Lillian to discard the remnants of her printed research for Dominick—everything on the desk except for the folders. What if the woman had found the letter and read it?

Her cheeks burned. If that was the case, she wasn’t sure she could face Lillian again. She flipped through the folders, but didn’t find the pink envelope containing the letter.

The bell on the front door sounded, along with a happy humming noise, signaling Lillian’s arrival. Violet walked out of her office and gave the woman a tentative smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Lillian returned, smiling wide as she hung up her coat and colorful scarf.

Violet bit into her lip, her nerves bundling tighter as her imagination spun out of control. She didn’t know Lillian very well. What if the woman had read her letter and gossiped about its contents? Violet had worked so hard to cultivate a professional reputation in the community. That stupid letter could ruin everything.

“I was just getting some coffee,” Violet ventured. “Would you like some?”

“Sounds good.”

Violet poured two cups, then handed one to Lillian and blew on her own. “Lillian,” she said, trying to sound casual, “I left a small pink envelope on my desk. Did you happen to see it yesterday when you were cleaning up?”

Lillian sipped her coffee. “No. Are you sure it was there?”

“Yes. It had polka dots?” she said, hoping to jog her assistant’s memory.

“I don’t remember seeing it. Did you check underneath the desk? Maybe it fell in the floor.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? She hurried back into her office and crouched down to search, but didn’t see it.

Lillian’s face creased in concern. “I might have accidentally thrown it away with the other papers. I’m so sorry if I did. Has the garbage been picked up yet?”

Violet nodded and pushed to her feet, feeling oddly conflicted. She didn’t really want the letter—heck, she’d been planning to shred it. But somehow, not having it made her feel as if something had slipped through her fingers. “It’s okay. I was the one who asked you to straighten up. Besides, I don’t need it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Violet said with a resolute nod.

The office phone rang and Lillian left to answer it. Violet dropped into the chair behind her desk and sighed, feeling restless for no identifiable reason.

Lillian was back in a few seconds, her face animated. “Dominick Burns is on the phone.”

A hot flush climbed Violet’s neck. She wasn’t keen to talk to the man so soon after washing the imagined imprint of his hands off her body, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to put him off. “Thank you,” she murmured, then touched a button to connect the call.

“This is Violet.”

“Vee, hey, it’s Dominick.”

His voice sounded sleepy around the edges, so she guessed he hadn’t been awake for long. But when a creaking noise echoed in the background, she realized with a jolt that he was still in bed. Was he wearing boxers or briefs? Or did he sleep in the nude?

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Uh, yes…I’m here,” she said, swallowing hard. “What can I do for you, Mr. Burns?”

“Thanks for the research on Sunpiper.”

“You’re welcome, sir. But I’d planned to do more.”

“Good. Because I’m going to Miami to see what I can find out locally, and I need some help. I was hoping you’d agree to go with me.”