Fortune's Greatest Risk
He should have known better than to let this woman anywhere near him with that bottle. He wasn’t normally prone to allergies, but there were certain scents that could just set him off. He had never investigated the matter or found out which particular scents affected him, but he was aware that there were some that could be devastating to him. So he normally steered clear of all of them.
He realized he should have stuck to that instead of allowing himself to be overwhelmed by a rapid-fire motor mouth.
Dillon waved the petite woman away.
Stunned and embarrassed, as well as somewhat annoyed, she moved back. She was still clutching the bottle. It was obviously empty now, but who knew, maybe whatever traces of the scent that could be left coating the sides of the bottle might still be affecting him.
As if reading his mind, Hailey tossed the bottle into a trash can on the other side of the room.
When she quickly rejoined him, Dillon was still sneezing, although not nearly as violently as before. Hailey realized that he was sneezing because the scent was still around him, thanks to the fact that it had soaked his shirt and was now probably on his chest.
Hailey instantly felt just awful. It was clear that Dillon was suffering.
“Again, I am so sorry,” she apologized with feeling. “I didn’t know you were allergic to the oils we used. Why didn’t you say something?” she wanted to know.
It took Dillon a moment to clear his throat enough to be able to answer her. “Because I’m not allergic to oils,” he informed her almost indignantly. And then he was forced to add, “I just have this reaction sometimes when I pass by a department store perfume counter... I mean, not that I go around inhaling perfumes, it’s just that sometimes there are these overly zealous sales people spraying perfumes into the air and—”
Dillon had to abruptly stop because he’d started sneezing again.
Hailey saw only one solution to end the man’s misery. “You’re going to have to take off your shirt,” she told him.
Her declaration caught Dillon totally by surprise. He stared at the spa manager, certain that he had misheard her. “Say what?”
“Your shirt. It’s soaked,” she pointed out in case he had somehow missed that. “Take it off,” she instructed. It was half a request, half an order. “I can wash it for you.”
The hell she could, he thought. He wasn’t about to strip off his shirt.
“No, that’s all right,” he said as he began backing away. “I can just—”
“What, walk out of here smelling like a flower garden on steroids?” she asked him. There was a skeptical expression on her face. “I don’t think so. At the very least, you might wind up attracting bees and being attacked by them. Besides,” she said, pausing as Dillon sneezed again, “you’re probably not going to stop sneezing until you’re separated from that scent. It’s clearly all over you, and in your case, apparently a little bit goes a long way. So don’t argue with me, Mr. Fortune. Give!” she told Dillon, holding out her hand. “We have a small dedicated laundry area here at the spa. That’s how we get our spa robes so clean and fluffy.”
Dillon still looked really hesitant about surrendering his shirt.
“That’s too much trouble,” Dillon told her. “I can just—”
“Oh, I know what the problem is,” she told him, realizing why he was hesitating so much—or at least she thought she knew why he wasn’t taking his shirt off. After all, he was the spa’s contractor. He didn’t exactly want to be standing around in his semi-bare glory. The man looked as if he had hard muscles rippling under that shirt of his. Still, being shirtless would undoubtedly prove to be somewhat embarrassing for him. She could understand that.
“Oh?” Despite himself, Dillon’s curiosity was aroused by what this woman thought she knew.
“Yes,” Hailey answered enthusiastically. “You need something to put on,” she declared as if she had the inside path to his mind. “Wait right here. I’m going to go find something for you,” she promised, rushing off.
“No, really,” Dillon called after her, “you don’t have to go to any more trouble.”
Especially since she had managed to cause all this trouble just by taking him on a harmless tour of the place to begin with.
But Dillon found he was talking to himself. Hailey Miller, eager beaver par excellence, had rushed off in search of something for him to wear.
Dillon was about to cut his losses and just get out of here before something else went wrong. But his dearly savored escape was quickly aborted when Hailey came hurrying back less than a minute and a half after she had left him standing there dripping.
Instead of a T-shirt with the spa’s logo splashed across the front as Dillon would have anticipated, she came back carrying something white and fluffy.
“Here,” she announced, holding up what looked like one of the spa robes. “It’s the best I could come up with on such short notice—and it does cover everything up.” Although, she caught herself thinking, the man did have a really nice set of muscles on him.
Looking at the robe, Dillon suppressed a groan.
Chapter Two
The next second, Dillon’s mind did a complete 180 degree turn regarding what he was about to do. Although the bubbly manager was holding out the white robe for him to put on, Dillon decided he wasn’t about to put it on.
“No, that’s all right,” he told Hailey, shaking his head. “I’ll just take a pass on putting that on, thanks.” He spared one final look at the offered garment, a disapproving expression on his face. “It’s not exactly my style.” He was rather conservative and the idea of stripping his shirt off in front of a total stranger left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
For a second, Hailey was puzzled. She looked at the robe she was holding out as if she’d never seen it before and reevaluated it.
And then it suddenly dawned on her.
“I didn’t mean that you’d have to wear this when you leave,” she clarified. “This is just something for you to put on temporarily while I’m getting that overwhelming scent washed out of your shirt. C’mon,” she urged, taking a step toward him, holding out the robe again. “The sooner I take the shirt and get started, the sooner you’ll get it back.”
Dillon took a step back, and then another and another. For her part, Hailey just continued coming toward him. He felt like he was being stalked, while for her part, Hailey felt he was being unduly shy. She was only trying to help.
“No, I said it’s okay. Really,” he stressed. He didn’t know how to make his position any clearer to her.
“But it’s not okay,” Hailey insisted. “I can’t have you leaving here like this, with your first impression of the spa being the place where you wound up smelling like a garden full of jasmine on steroids. Consciously or unconsciously, you’ll wind up hating the place. And who could blame you?” she told Dillon. “No, you need to take your shirt off so I can wash it,” Hailey repeated, more forcefully this time.
He made one last attempt to beg off, but it was becoming very obvious to him that the woman didn’t know how to take no for an answer. He opened his mouth to protest again, but before he could say a word, Hailey was already talking.
“Look, Mr. Fortune, I need your shirt,” Hailey stated in a friendly but firm tone.
With every step that this persistent petite woman had taken toward him, Dillon had taken an equal step back. But now his back was against the wall—literally—and he had nowhere to go.
The only way he could get her to stop was to raise his voice and tell her to back off, although that really wasn’t his style. However, as a last resort, he was willing to change his tactics.
And he was just about to, when the slender, vivacious spa manager cut him off at the knees. She raised up those big beautiful eyes of hers, aimed them directly at his and then fired the winning salvo.
Hailey said, “Please?”
And just like that, Dillon felt as if he’d been completely disarmed.
With a loud sigh, he conceded that he had lost the battle.
But how was he going to remove the shirt without feeling like a male stripper?
Hailey had always been blessed with the ability to somehow intuit what was going on in a person’s mind. She applied that ability to the situation she found herself in at the moment. When she did it, she was able to see exactly why Dillon was still hesitating to give her the shirt.
For some reason, he was embarrassed. Dillon was obviously well built, but apparently he was not one of those men who was comfortable about flaunting it.
“Tell you what,” she proposed. “There’s no one around here so you can take your shirt off now. I’ll even turn around to give you your privacy,” Hailey offered, then smiled brightly at him. “You can’t really do better than that, Mr. Fortune.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he countered, contemplating whether or not to tell her exactly how he could have done better. He could have passed up on this royal pain of a tour altogether, he thought. But saying that out loud sounded cruel to him, so he decided to let it go.
Rather than argue with him, Hailey deliberately turned her back on the man she was determined to impress.
“Any time you’re ready,” she cheerfully announced, holding the robe out to the side.
Keeping her back to him, Hailey took a single step backward toward the contractor so that the robe would be more accessible for him.
As she did so, because of the angle where he was standing, Hailey realized that she could see his naked upper torso. It was reflected in the side mirror near him and that image was ricocheted back to her via the larger mirror that ran the length of the left wall.
The end result was that she was able to see exactly what he undoubtedly hadn’t wanted her to see—Dillon in all of his exceptionally sculpted glory.
Hailey’s mouth suddenly went very dry. It became clear to her that she wasn’t really able to swallow even if her life depended on it.
Dear Lord, the man was magnificent!
It was all Hailey could do not to utter the word out loud.
Belatedly, she realized that she had given herself away because in that first unguarded, unprepared moment, she had sucked in her breath the way someone sitting in the first car of a roller-coaster ride might do just as that car started to take its first plunge down the steep incline.
No matter how prepared she might have thought she was for the sight of this good-looking male, she was not that prepared. Seeing all those muscles, all those incredibly hard ridges, even secondhand because she was seeing them all reflected in the mirror, she was totally unprepared for the effect that gorgeous body had on her.
Maybe he hadn’t heard her, Hailey thought, crossing her fingers.
The next moment, her hopes were dashed. She could see from the raised eyebrows in his reflection that he’d heard her. Moreover, he probably knew that she knew.
Dillon, however, made the decision to carry on the charade and pretend that he hadn’t heard her sharp intake of breath. It was far safer that way. This way there would be no need to talk about anything.
Ignorance created a welcomed cloak that draped helpfully over everything, he thought as he thrust the shirt in the direction of Hailey’s waiting outstretched hand. “Here’s my shirt.”
“I can tell,” she answered, smiling to herself as her fingers closed over the surrendered article. Without turning around—she could tell by the sound that he was just shrugging into the robe she’d given him—Hailey started to hurry off. “I’ll get this started. Your shirt will be the only thing in the washing machine so it should be done in no time flat.”
It wouldn’t be done fast enough for him, Dillon thought.
When Hailey returned to the area several minutes later, Dillon saw that her hands were empty. Still, he couldn’t help asking her, “Is the shirt ready yet?”
“The spa’s washing machine is the very latest model on the market,” Hailey proudly told him. “But it’s not that fast,” she politely pointed out. “Again, I am so sorry about all this.”
Had he been one of those spiteful people willing to blame everyone else for anything he had to put up with, Dillon would have let her continue beating herself up for dousing his shirt and causing him to practically sneeze his brains out. But to do so wouldn’t have been right, or fair and he had too much of a conscience to indulge in that sort of behavior.
“It’s not your fault,” he told her. “The fault is mine. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to what was going on. Like I said, sometimes I have an allergic reaction to certain scents. If I had been paying closer attention to what you were trying to show me, I would have realized that.”
Hailey felt his admission opened up a door, leaving her free to talk. Maybe some good could come out of all of this, after all.
“You know, you did look a little preoccupied when I was taking you on that tour,” she told him. Actually, he had looked a lot preoccupied, but saying that might have sounded as if she were criticizing him, so she left it at her initial statement. Instead, she diplomatically approached the subject she was attempting to broach. “Maybe you could stand to avail yourself of one of the spa treatments we offer here at Paz.” Her enthusiasm grew as she continued, “I could personally set up an appointment for you and then—”
Dillon immediately stopped her before she could get carried away. “No. No, thank you. I’m good,” he assured her.
The man was good-looking, but he definitely wasn’t “good” in the sense he was trying to convey. He needed prodding, she thought.
“Are you sure? Because these treatments can be really helpful, Mr. Fortune. They’re designed for the busy executive like yourself. Tell you what,” Hailey continued eagerly. “If you feel a little uncomfortable about getting one of our special tailored massages, I would be more than happy to be the one who—”
“Nope, I’m fine,” Dillon insisted, cutting her off. “It’s all good, really. Thanks, but no thanks,” he repeated, leaving the woman absolutely no wiggle room to talk him into anything.
The truth of the matter was he sensed that he could easily be attracted to this woman. The very last thing he needed—or wanted—was for that feeling to escalate. And that would be exactly what would happen if she put her hands on his back and torso to work the kinks out of his stiff, sore muscles.
“Okay,” Hailey replied compliantly, “if you say so. But I want you to know that if you should decide to change your mind, the offer stands open anytime that you feel the need to try our method of—”
“Thanks, but I won’t be changing my mind,” Dillon informed her, cutting her off. “Don’t worry about it,” he stressed rather forcefully. “The only thing I want from you is—”
“Your shirt, yes, I am well aware of that,” Hailey said, anticipating what he was about to tell her. She really didn’t have to be a mind reader in order to know that.
“Well, yes, that, too,” Dillon readily agreed. “But what I was about to say is that I’d also like you to promise me that you won’t mention this incident to my brothers. I doubt if the topic will come up,” he added, stating the fact before she had an opportunity to, “but on the outside chance that it might, I’d really rather that they didn’t find out about this unfortunate incident.”
“Yes, of course. I won’t say a word to anyone,” Hailey promised him. “Your secret’s definitely safe with me, Mr. Fortune.”
Dillon laughed despite himself. “Considering everything that has just happened between us, I think you can call me Dillon,” he told her.
A smile rose to her lips, so warm in scope that it fascinated him for a couple of moments.
“I’d like that,” Hailey told him, then added his name, making what she said sound infinitely more personal. “Dillon.”
He caught himself thinking that his name sounded almost lyrical as it came from her lips.
Wow, he was really getting carried away, Dillon upbraided himself. At best this was just a business meeting that had gone wrong, nothing more. Besides, as Hailey had already pointed out, his mind had been elsewhere, not here.
“Would your brothers really give you a hard time if they knew about this?” she asked, curious. Hailey immediately backtracked when she saw Dillon’s brow go up. She didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. “Not that I’d ever mention any of this,” she quickly added, trying her best to reassure him. “Because I’d never say a word. To anyone,” she emphasized once again. “Really,” Hailey stressed. “I just asked you that because I was curious about what it was like, having all those siblings around. People who you know you can always lean on, no matter what.” That sounded like heaven to her. “How many siblings do you have again?” she asked, cocking her head.
He was doing his best not to get distracted again. There was something about this woman that tended to do that to him. Anyway, why would she want to know that? he couldn’t help wondering.
“I have seven,” he finally answered. He kept the fact that some were half siblings to himself. Continuing to remain cautious, Dillon watched the woman’s face as he asked, “Why?”
Hailey shrugged. “No reason. I was just thinking that it had to be nice, having that many siblings around. You always have someone to talk to, someone to turn to for advice. I just have one sister,” she told him. “And I have to admit that I always thought it would have been really great to come from a large family.”
Dillon shrugged, thinking of the people who comprised his family and of some of the incidents that had occurred while he was growing up.
“It has its moments, I suppose,” he admitted somewhat reluctantly.
“Like what?” she asked, her tone encouraging him to elaborate.
Damn, it was happening again. He was getting distracted. Why did this woman have that effect on him? She seemed so guileless...
He had to snap out of it! He really needed to be on his way.
Dillon glanced at his watch again, then at her. “Could you check to see if my shirt’s ready yet?”
The man looked as if he were ready to jump out of his skin at any second, Hailey observed. She wondered if she’d said something to set him off.
His question had her snapping to attention. “Oh, right. Sorry, I guess I forgot about that,” she confessed. “But you obviously didn’t,” she added with a smile. She could feel herself growing nervous again. “How could you, standing there in that robe?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to go on like that,” she apologized for what felt like the dozenth time since he had arrived at the spa. “I’ll go right now and see if it’s ready.” She hurried off.
It wouldn’t be ready, he thought. Not unless the shirt somehow “knew” it had to dry itself after it had finished washing.
He glanced at his watch again. How much longer was he going to have to hang around this place waiting for his shirt to dry?
Not that being with this woman was any sort of actual hardship, he amended in all honesty. Under any other set of circumstances, he might have even welcomed the excuse.
But right now, he felt like a total idiot and standing around in this long fluffy robe just seemed to intensify that reaction.
It also upped the chances of someone coming in and seeing him looking like this.
He really wanted to get out of here.
Now.
Chapter Three
A while later, the dryer Hailey had put Dillon’s newly washed shirt into was still running.
To check, Hailey pressed the pause button on the oversized machine and it tumbled to a noisy halt.
Opening the door, she fished out Dillon’s shirt, ran her hand over the material and frowned. It still felt a bit damp. Not dripping, she conceded, but definitely damp. If given a choice, she knew that she wouldn’t have wanted to put it on. The damp material would feel clammy against her skin.
Against his skin, Hailey corrected herself.
She was about to put the shirt back into the dryer when she heard Dillon’s deep voice coming from directly behind her.
“Is it ready yet?”
Surprised, she turned around. He’d followed her. She wouldn’t have thought that he would. The laundry room wasn’t all that hard to find, but coming here necessitated walking out into the hallway wearing that long, flowing fluffy robe—and being seen wearing it, something she’d gotten the very strong impression that he wanted to avoid.
The man really had to be anxious to get out of here, she thought.
Even so, Hailey felt she had to be honest with him. “No, not really.” She looked down at the shirt as she spoke, and when her eyes raised, she noticed Dillon had crossed the floor and was now standing right beside her.
For some reason, being alone in the room with Dillon and envisioning him naked from the waist up beneath the spa robe made the hairs along her arms all stand up, almost at attention.
You’re not being very professional, Hailey. You’ve had undraped men on your massage table before and it’s never affected you.
Still, the appealing vision of Dillon Fortune that had popped up was a difficult one to banish from her brain.
“Let me see it,” Dillon was saying. He put his hand out expectantly, waiting for his shirt.
“Okay.” Hailey held the blue silk shirt out to him. “Go ahead, touch it,” she coaxed.
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized how they must have sounded to him. They sounded like an invitation. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat. “I mean, you can see that it’s still pretty damp,” she told Dillon, avoiding his eyes. “If you give it a few more minutes—”
“That’s all right,” Dillon said, overriding the woman’s protest. At this point, in order to be on his way, Dillon would have worn the shirt even if it were completely sopping wet.
His urge to bolt was so strong that he allowed the robe to drop off his shoulders. It fell to the floor as he slipped on his shirt. He was so intent on putting it on, he didn’t see the startled look, immediately followed by an appreciative one, passing over Hailey’s face. But she was very aware of it as she caught her reflection in the dryer door.
Damn, she’d already seen the man’s sculpted torso, but seeing its reflection completely paled to viewing the man up close and personal like this. Hailey felt a wave of intense heat pass over her and it was all she could do to keep her knees from buckling.
How was this man walking around unattached and without legions of starry-eyed, eager women following him around, desperate for his attention? It made no sense to her.
Breathe, Hailey, breathe. He isn’t interested in you that way. His desire to make a hasty exit makes that perfectly clear. Don’t complicate matters by drooling on him.
Meanwhile, Dillon was still getting dressed. It was a little tricky, pushing his arms into the damp sleeves, but it was amazing what a man could do when pressured by a sense of urgency.
“The main thing,” he told her, “is that that smell is gone.”
As if to test his statement, Hailey leaned in toward his chest and took a deep breath. She wrinkled her nose a little.
“Well, actually, there’s still a trace of it left,” she told him. Wait. What was she doing, stepping so close to him and smelling him? Had she lost all sense of professionalism?
After a moment’s hesitation, Dillon leaned back. “I—” He stopped, then started again, regaining his thoughts. With her so close, it wasn’t easy. “It’s good enough,” he finally declared. “As long as it doesn’t attract a swarm of bees, I’m ahead of the game.”
“But if you just give it a few more minutes, Mr. Fortune...” she tactfully protested. In light of his obvious anxiousness to flee, she had reverted back to his surname, feeling that to call him Dillon was far too familiar right now.