Brazen & Burning

“That’s because Aunt Devon has elevated organization and planning to a religion. Compared to her, you are a mess. But compared to the normal population of the world, you’ve mapped out your entire life, ending with debuting your novel at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Am I right here?”

Sydney couldn’t argue, not only because of her pounding headache, but because the kid made sense.

“But you don’t have someone to love.”

With a groan, Sydney folded her arms on the table and laid her forehead down. Gently. This verified her earlier suspicion. Young Cassie was in love and wanted to share her joy.

Great. Just great.

“God, please save me from being the clichéd heroine of a romance novel!” Sydney wailed dramatically before skewering her inexperienced friend with a powerful glare. “You know, that line in Jerry Maguire was written by a man. I do not—I repeat—I do not need a man to complete me. If you really subscribe to such thinking, you’ve set feminism back to the days of Susan B. Anthony.”

Sydney managed to keep her head lifted long enough to watch Cassie laugh, but she didn’t see the humor. This wasn’t funny.

“Call it the new feminism. I’m not saying you need a man to complete you. But you could use a shot of something deeper, don’t you think? An emotional experience to challenge you and your status quo. Someone to challenge you and your status quo.”

Ah, so this mystery boy had shaken up Cassie’s life. Bully for her. Sydney was long past such a beginning-of-life discovery.

“No such man exists,” Sydney concluded.

“Have you looked?”

No.

“Of course I have.”

“And no guy ever rocked your world a little, shook you up so badly you had to walk away or risk losing your heart?”

Damned if Adam Brody’s rugged face didn’t pop right back into Sydney’s brain again, causing an electric charge to spark low in her belly and shoot to the tips of her breasts. The man had been an incredible lover. Selfish when it suited him, yet giving at the core. So incredible, in fact, that while with him, Sydney had broken so many of her self-imposed dating rules that she’d done more than risk her heart—she’d risked her very soul.

Yet, when he’d asked her to make their affair about commitment and love rather than just sex, she’d walked away. Actually, ran was more like it. Scared and out of her element, like a second grader enrolled in high school calculus. Sydney had mustered her cool enough to exit with style, but she still couldn’t get the man off her mind. Not on the eight-hour flight to London the day after she’d left him, not through the month-long tour through Scotland, or the seemingly endless three weeks in New England with her parents. When she’d finally returned and had decided to give in and take a chance on his offer, he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

He’d sold his condo, deactivated his cell phone, closed his business. He’d once told her he was considering relocation to Baltimore to partner with his former mentor, so she’d assumed that’s what he’d done. And being a woman who never announced her regrets—rarely even to herself—she’d simply moved along, writing her books, playing poker with Devon on Tuesdays, traveling for autographings and research, and taking a handsome lover whenever her body needed release.

But maybe Cassie was on to something. Maybe she needed a male-female relationship less predictable than one based only on sex. Orgasms she could give to herself. She needed an affair equal to a cache of fireworks—haphazard, chancy—a true risk that might rock her world back into the tumble of chaos she so enjoyed.

And who better to fire her wick than sexy Adam Brody?

“Know any good private investigators?” she asked.

Cassie lurched forward, her young eyes alight with intrigue. “As a matter of fact…you remember Jake’s best man? Cade Lawrence? His wife, Jillian, is a P.I. A darned good one from what I hear.”

Sydney nodded, sat up straighter and downed her orange juice, finishing the entire tumbler. She tried to comb her fingers through her hair, but a mass of tangles stopped her progress. Oh, yeah. She looked like crap.

That, at least, she could fix.

“Get me her number, then make yourself comfortable. I’ll be down in twenty.”

“Dare I dream you’ve taken my advice to heart?”

Sydney grabbed a pad of paper from a drawer beneath her telephone, then tossed it and a pencil at her young friend. “After you write down Jillian’s number, call the spa and throw some weight around. I’m in desperate need of a facial.”

Cassie’s chuckle followed Sydney out of the kitchen and through the living room, toward the staircase to her bedroom. She wondered if Adam would be excited to see her, or was he still angry? He’d been fairly pissed the night she’d walked out of his condo, shamelessly sticking to her rule about not getting emotionally involved with any man. She’d insulted him to the core, just by telling him no. And she hadn’t explained. Why should she? She’d been up front with him from the moment they’d banged into each other while jogging around a corner of his building. One bang had led to another, and she’d been clear about the fact that she wanted nothing more than sex and maybe a few laughs from their affair.

Trouble was, they’d had more than that from the get-go. Adam had been intelligent, witty, charming—a fine match for her razor-sharp sarcasm. He was a driven businessman who lost himself in his blueprints and designs just as she went MIA during the best parts of her books. And from the dinner table conversation to the acrobatics in the bedroom, he had never failed to give as good as he got, which was probably why the affair had lasted six months longer than a one-night stand.

Then he’d made the ultimate mistake. The night before she was leaving for a book tour and research trip, he asked her to stay the night with him. It had seemed like such a small request, Sydney remembered, her gaze drawn to the bay window, the one that had once faced his across the courtyard. But his suggestion hadn’t been small at all. He’d asked her to break a major rule in her dating constitution…and she’d already bent more rules for him than she had for any other man. He’d even admitted he’d intended to entice her to spend the night as his first step in luring her to try settling down.

Sydney bristled, more out of habit than true discomfort over the idea of hearth and home. She wasn’t a fool—she understood and accepted the awesome power of a committed relationship. She wrote romance novels, for Pete’s sake. She usually even teared up when she penned the happy ending. But she also knew that true love relationships came at the price of compromise and change, perhaps even a complete overhaul of life choices and personal goals. The kind of overhaul she might be ready for now, but hadn’t been when Adam had asked.

So she’d walked. Just as she was walking now with the same purposeful, unapologetic stride, ending up in the same place, in the hall outside her bedroom—alone.

On the wall next to the thermostat hung her most cherished collectible—a framed movie poster from the classic 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, starring Mae West. Sydney had admired the woman since the first time she’d stayed home sick from her exclusive Boston private school and watched a marathon of the actress’s old movies on television. Irreverent, powerful, sexy Mae had inspired Sydney on varying levels throughout her life. By the time she was twenty, Sydney had turned a flash of cinematic curiosity into a full-fledged motion-picture obsession. The actress’s autograph graced the lower left corner of the yellowing cardboard, but it was the quote across the top that Sydney treasured most.

She read the snippet aloud, injecting herself with the confidence she’d need to not only find Adam Brody, but to entice him back into her bed—and into her life.

“Listen,” she read, not bothering to try to mimic Mae’s distinctive voice when she knew she couldn’t, “when women go wrong, men go right after them.”

Sydney raised her nightshirt over her head as she headed toward her shower, reveling in the cool blast of air tingling over her suddenly heated skin. “I hope you’re right, Mae. I sure as hell hope you’re right.”

2

ADAM BRODY STRETCHED his arms over his head, working the kinks out of the muscles in his shoulders. He twisted his neck side to side, comforted by the resounding snap, crackle and pop. Damn, it felt good to move like this. Even the tug of the long scar that stretched from his lower back to his skull didn’t stab like a razor anymore. Only mild discomfort. A small price to pay.

After one last glance at the raging noon sun sizzling his skin wherever the rays broke through the canopy of camphor trees and water oaks, Adam returned his attention to the plans laid out on his ramshackle workbench—an old back door balanced on wooden saw-horses. He grabbed a nail and his hammer, then squinted at the pencil drawings, concentrating on the next step in his creation. He did his best to ignore the anger that surged whenever he had to use the majority of his brain power do something so basic as mark the next step in building a child’s custom playhouse.

“Adam!”

His sister’s call from the back porch effectively destroyed his tenuous concentration. He looked up, fighting his annoyance for one reason only. If not for Renée, he wouldn’t be here, working in the sun, making himself useful. He’d probably still be in rehab, fighting his physical therapists and doctors, raging against the broken bones and ripped muscles that refused to obey his commands. He owed her so much.

So why did he still harbor resentment?

He had no idea, and his brain still hurt too much to work it out.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Someone just came through the front gate. Do you see a car?” Renée lifted her hands, caked with something white. Could be either flour or paint, but whatever it was, she didn’t want any visitors seeing her in such a mess.

Adam grinned. Women.

He walked a few paces to the side of the old log cabin his father had built with his own hands forty years ago and had left to them both after his death. Before Adam’s accident, Renée had used the property during the weekdays, mainly for her business, while he had commandeered the place on weekends for fishing excursions with his buddies. After the accident, Renée had insisted they both live there full-time, certain the serene setting would aid his recovery. Off the beaten path in a still-undeveloped section of Florida’s Hernando County, Adam and Renée didn’t receive many unexpected visitors. The occasional developer came by, looking to purchase the thirty acres they owned on Lake Simpson, fed by the tributaries of Homosassa Springs. A fisherman might wander in, looking for a place to lower his johnboat into the water and catch some large-mouthed bass. A stray tourist occasionally got lost on the winding dirt roads that led to this untouched paradise.

But this visitor looked completely out of place. Developers knew to drive a truck or four-wheel-drive vehicle when maneuvering through the spongy terrain in this part of the wilderness. And while tourists might make an error in judgment by taking their minivans and station wagons off the paved roads, no fisherman he knew pulled a johnboat with a shiny, candy-apple-red Corvette convertible.

And no fisherman he knew had long flaming red hair that caught the sunlight and reflected back copper fire. When the driver, distinctly female, stopped in front of the cabin, a swirling cloud of dry Florida dirt shielded his view of her. Adam dropped his hammer on the workbench and grabbed the dark blue bandanna he’d shoved into his back pocket.

By the time he’d marched to the front of the house, the dust had settled. The driver checked her face in the vanity mirror, though why, Adam had no clue. Even from twenty feet, he could tell she was perfect. Creamy skin. Glossy red lips. Dangling gold earrings that, like her auburn hair, captured and reflected the light from the sun. This woman was beautiful—and totally out of her element in the Florida boonies.

When she spotted him, she grinned. Adam stopped. Did she know him? The smile was too small to tell. He immediately glanced down at his shirtless chest and low-slung jeans. The woman’s expression might have been subtle, but he recognized predatory when he saw it.