Relentless

Pamela Bradford had sparked something in him. He’d like to call himself a gentleman and say it was his chivalrous side, rearing up in protest of the colossal mistake she was about to make. But he had to concede it was more than that. His libido definitely had something to do with it, too.

He had a serious case of the hots for his client’s daughter…and they’d never exchanged as much as a nod of hello. In the two weeks he’d been in Miami, working on a major software project for her father, he’d seen Pamela Bradford’s picture on a daily basis, heard her name on her father’s proud yet frustrated lips dozens of times, and seen her in the flesh once. Just once. But what an impression she’d made.

She’d just emerged from her father’s office where, he’d learned later, she and Jared Bradford had argued again over Pamela’s job. Jared had often moaned to Ken that his daughter, who’d been offered every advantage two doting, wealthy parents could provide, had never willingly accepted a thing from them.

Her father was afraid for her, plain and simple. She worked with inner-city kids at a teen center in Miami. The distance from her family’s pricey estate in Fort Lauderdale went way beyond the mileage on I-95. It was like a different world. Pamela had chosen that world—which was completely foreign to her father.

That day, Ken had leaned against the doorjamb of his temporary office, which had been provided by the company for the duration of the three-month-long project. Arms crossed, he’d unabashedly listened to the raised voices from the next room. He’d watched as Pamela literally burst out of the heavy, oak-paneled door to her father’s private sanctum, giving it a solid kick with the heel of her sneaker for good measure, before she stalked away toward the elevators.

She’d been magnificent, from the curves in her tall, lean body, to the flash of fire in her huge brown eyes. A sheen of light from the overhead fixtures cast highlights of red and gold on her chestnut-colored hair. Ken had simply stood silently, watching. She hadn’t even seen him, but he’d paid close attention to her. Her chin was as proud and firm as her father’s, and her shoulders were stiff under her simple green shirt. She also had a gorgeous, wide mouth made for smiling. And kissing. And…more.

It wasn’t just the Pamela he saw with his own eyes that so attracted Ken. It was also the Pamela he saw through her father’s eyes—through his stories, his commiserations and his fond remembrances—a woman who was stubborn, yet full of heart. That Pamela sounded like someone he’d very much like to get to know.

Unfortunately, she was about to become the wife of an oversexed moron.

“Go, go, go, go,” the men around him chanted, drawing Ken’s attention back to the party. Peter was chugging again, cheered on by the crowd. After the groom drained the bottle, he threw his arms up in the air like a college jock and howled.

And Pamela was marrying him?

Ken walked through the living area, dodging puddles of spilled beer, looking for his suit jacket. He’d taken it off when he arrived, and knew he’d left it on the back of a chair near the door. It wasn’t there now. Several more guests had come in and someone had obviously done some jacket rearranging.

Frustrated, Ken looked around and saw the door to the suite open yet again. Another of the groomsmen, who’d left earlier to find cigarettes, yelled from the hallway, “Look what I found waiting around the corner.”

The man turned away, pulling at something, his already alcohol-reddened face beading with sweat. Interested in spite of himself, Ken watched as the man pulled a cart into the room.

The cart, it appeared, had other ideas. It was pulling back. From where he stood, Ken was able to see one high-heeled red shoe sticking out from beneath what appeared to be a large white-iced paper cake. The shoe tried to stop the cart by digging into the floor. The spiked heel, however, slid through the plush weave of the ivory carpeting like a knife through soft butter.

Whoever the lady was, she didn’t seem quite ready for her performance. Ken could even hear her hissing at the man to put her back where he’d found her. No one else seemed to notice.

“The entertainment has arrived,” the man said as he finally managed to pull the large cart and cake into the room.

The two blondes exchanged amused looks. “You’re gonna like Nona, sweetheart,” one of them said to the groom, who responded by pulling her onto his lap.

Ken, still closest to the cake, heard the person inside say, “I need to get out of here. There’s been a mistake!”

The man who’d pushed the cart in—Ken thought he was Dan from Billing—leaned close to the P in the word “Peter” written in red icing. “Don’t be shy, sweetie!”

She wouldn’t come out.

“Maybe she needs music,” someone said doubtfully. Considering the stereo was blasting loud enough to shake the walls, Ken wondered what that guy was smoking!

Dan from Billing tried again. “Hello in there,” he said. This time he poked two fingers into the side of the top tier of the paper cake, probably about level with where the dancer’s face was. Ken hoped she hadn’t lost an eye.

Dan nearly lost a finger. “Ouch!” he yelped as he yanked his hand free. “I think she bit me!”

Biting? Strippers? Prostitutes? Okay, Ken had seen enough. It was time to leave before they started bringing in the livestock.

But he still hadn’t found his jacket. Since his car keys and phone were in the pocket, he didn’t think he was going to be able to just ditch it. Walking into the kitchen area of the suite, he glanced around and began digging through a pile of coats someone had dumped on the counter.

He kept an eye on the party. Dan and another guest pulled the reluctant cart farther into the room, so it was practically right in front of the groom. Though the men tried to coax the dancer out, Peter didn’t seem too concerned about his entertainer’s reluctance. “We’ve got all night,” he said with a chuckle. The blonde on his lap curled tighter against him.

“Better make it worthwhile, Pete, since it’s your last night of freedom,” one of the men said. Ken, who’d just about given up finding his coat, grabbed a canned soda from a cooler and rolled up his shirt sleeves. The room was getting hot and he imagined whoever the woman in the cake was, she was going to be wilted and steamy if she hid in there much longer.

“I don’t think I’m going to miss my freedom much once I get my hands on my new wife. Holding her off has been killing me!”

That got Ken’s attention like nothing else this evening had. It almost sounded like Peter was saying he and his bride hadn’t anticipated their wedding night, which would be a shock given the groom’s notorious sexual escapades.

The blonde giggled. “You mean you haven’t…”

“No. Princess has to be a virgin on her wedding night or Daddy won’t be happy, and that’s all that counts. After waiting this long, she better make tomorrow night worthwhile.”

Though Pamela wasn’t here, couldn’t know what was being said, Ken felt a sharp pang of embarrassment for her. This jerk was spouting off locker-room talk about the woman he was going to marry! Not only that, he was talking to a roomful of men who got their paychecks every week from that woman’s father.

“Whaddya mean keeping Daddy happy?” one of the less intoxicated guys asked.

Peter’s beer consumption must have been pretty high, because he answered the question, not noticing or not caring how much of an insensitive ass his answer made him appear. “She comes with the keys to the kingdom. As long as I keep her pregnant, at home and away from those dregs from the inner city she’s so devoted to, I write my own ticket with dear old Dad-in-law. He and I have something of a ‘gentleman’s agreement.’”

Ken felt sick on Pamela’s behalf. Because it sounded, from what Peter was saying, like Pamela’s own father had conspired with her fiancé to get her to give up her career and be the good little socialite wife. As much as he liked Jared Bradford, Ken had to concede that as far as Pamela went, the man probably wouldn’t be above such meddling.

“You can’t imagine the hell I’ve gone through—my wife’s gonna be a wild one in bed, I can tell. Practically every time I’ve dropped her off lately she’s given me this pouty look with those lips of hers, and I’ve had to go cruising for some female company before I could go home!”

Ken shook his head in disgust. Of course Peter hadn’t curbed his appetites in the months since his engagement. He was an oversexed cheating moron.

As far as Ken was concerned, once you put a ring on a woman’s finger, you’ve promised her you’ll be faithful. It was like shaking a man’s hand over a business deal. You don’t welch, you don’t whine. You give your word to a colleague that you’ll accept his offer? You stick to it. You’re engaged to a woman but can’t have sex till the wedding night? You start enjoying cold showers and get damned friendly with your hand. You don’t cheat.

Shaking his head, he gave one more quick glance around the room, again looking for his coat. Then he noticed something funny. The cake was shaking. It had started to tilt a bit, and now, from here behind the cart, Ken could see the back jerking as if the person inside was pounding on it. Slowly. Rhythmically.

“If I’d known old man Bradford was that hot for someone to take the girl off his hands, I’da tried a lot harder to get her to go out with me,” someone said.

“As if you didn’t already try enough—to the point that you made a complete idiot of yourself every time she walked by your cubicle,” another man replied. “Not that I blame you. She’s not hard on the eyes—she’s got legs that’d make a man weep.”

“Not to mention her sweet…”

Ken didn’t hear the last word because, suddenly, the cake erupted. Two fists punched through the paper and icing on the flat top, putting holes through the C in “Congratulations” and the R in “Peter.” The arms scissored, effectively slicing the paper down the middle, and a woman’s head and torso burst through the opening.

“Oh, crap,” someone muttered. Ken understood why as soon as he saw that thick mass of chestnut-brown hair, held in a loose clasp at the nape of her neck.

Pamela Bradford, who had obviously heard every word uttered since she’d been pushed into the room, emerged from the remains of the cake like a vengeful goddess.

2

PAMELA WASN’T THINKING, wasn’t quite coherent and probably wasn’t even completely sane when she burst out of the cake. She was acting on instinct, driven by rage-induced adrenaline. Thought played no part. She’d certainly never have made the conscious decision to emerge from the cake, dressed as she was, in front of a roomful of men.

When the drunken fool who’d found the cake had brought her in, Pamela had sent up every prayer she knew that her bridesmaids would come to her rescue. She’d stayed snug inside, peeking through the holes left by the man who’d tried to coax her out, wondering how darn long it could take them to find a bar in a beachfront hotel in a party town like Fort Lauderdale!

Seeing her fiancé holding a blond hooker had started her blood temperature rising. But she’d waited, giving him the benefit of the doubt, knowing it was his bachelor party. The woman had probably just planted herself on his lap.

Then he’d begun groping her.