Suite Seduction

“Married?”

“Nope.”

“Sissy mama’s boy?”

He cringed. “My mama’s a mechanic.”

“Why celibate, then?”

That seemed a very good question right now. Particularly since all he’d been able to think about since he’d first seen her licking chocolate off her fork was how much he wanted her to be tasting him.

“It’s been a long time since I met anyone I was seriously interested in.” Not three years, of course. He shuddered at the thought that she’d been unattached for so long. Were men in Philly totally blind? “Why you? Other than the obvious things like your gorgeous red hair has too much curl, and you’ve got a figure most men with stick-thin girlfriends fantasize about?”

His flattery didn’t influence her. She obviously didn’t believe it. “I’ve been busy. Working, helping the family with the business.”

“You work with your family?”

She nodded. “It takes a lot of time and energy. Not that I’m complaining—I love my family a lot. And I do have friends I spend time with.”

“But no boyfriends other than the loser who passed up the chance to spend a night with you?”

She sighed. “It’s hard to meet eligible men when you work ten hours a day, six days a week.”

“I know how that goes. My job requires a lot of travel, not much time for home and family. Not that I mind. That’s exactly what I wanted growing up. I couldn’t wait to leave home, get away from the craziness of five younger brothers, have my own quiet place, then go out and conquer the world.”

“And have you?”

He grinned. “I’m working on it.”

They fell silent. It wasn’t a heavy, uncomfortable silence between two strangers who’d had a very intimate conversation. Instead, Robert just enjoyed breathing the same air, catching the light scent of her perfume, watching the way the glints of gold in her hair caught the light. Hearing her sniffle. “You cryin’ again?”

She shook her head. “Allergies.”

“Good. I can’t stand it when women cry.”

Ruthie sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I love to cry. I rate movies by the tissue factor.”

“How depressing.”

“No,” she insisted, “it’s not. I don’t mean I like to see horror or twisted stuff that brings you down, but there’s something so moving about a real love story, doomed and destined to end in tragedy.”

“Yeah, they move me, all right,” he muttered, “right out of the theater. I like war movies.”

“Yuck. Blood and gore. Sat through half of one last year on a blind date and threw up my popcorn and Sno-Caps right onto his shoes.” She sounded very philosophical about the experience.

“Did he ever call again?”

She rolled her eyes and let out an unladylike snort.

“Well,” he said, giving his head a rueful shake, “I’ve had my fair share of bad dates, too.”

“But I bet you never got sick on your date’s shiny new penny loafers.”

“True,” he conceded. “But if he was enough of a geek to be wearing penny loafers, he deserved it.”

She raised a sardonic brow. “Are you criticizing my taste in men? Implying I date geeks?”

He shook his head and held his hands up, palms out. “No, no, you said he was a blind date, remember? Obviously the friend who set you up doesn’t know you very well!”

She smirked. “My mother set us up.”

He paused, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, silently daring her to go on.

“Okay, okay, so she doesn’t know me very well!”

His expression was triumphant. “Nobody’s mother knows them very well. That’s why mothers love their children when any sane person would have kicked them to the curb years before.”

Ruthie nodded in agreement with his reasoning, then said, “Is yours really a mechanic?”

He nodded ruefully. “She and my father are in the auto repair business back home in North Carolina.”

“Southern boy,” she said as she stuck her fork in the last third of the cake and helped herself to another bite. “I guess that explains the good manners, the handkerchief and all. But no accent?”

“New York eventually wore it away.”

Robert reached out to help himself to more cake, and accidentally tangled his fork with the tines of hers. “Sorry.”

“If we were down to the last bite, you’d have to fork-duel me for it. But I think there’s enough left for both of us,” she said with a huge grin as she disentangled their utensils.

When she truly smiled, she did so with her whole face, not just those beautiful lips. Robert watched her, awed by the transformation genuine amusement brought to her already pretty features. Her eyes sparkled. A pair of adorable dimples turned up in her cheeks. He had forgotten how much of a sucker he’d always been for dimples—had been since his first crush on the freckled, dimpled, toothless Doreen Watson in second grade. Now he was reminded with such sudden, raw joy that he simply didn’t know what to say. He merely smiled back, memorizing her features, as though afraid this entire interlude might be a figment of his imagination brought on by one too many vodka tonics and might disappear at any moment.

From outside, Robert heard a few horns beeping. The flash of a blue strobe from a police car passing by the window spotlighted the far wall of the room. Distracted, he looked around. The kitchen was immaculate, reminding him of his original purpose. He’d completely forgotten why he’d come snooping while he’d talked with Ruthie. Amazing. A woman who could actually make him forget about his job, albeit only for twenty minutes or so.

Ruthie finally broke the comfortable silence that had once again fallen between them. “So, I suppose you like sports.” Her voice held a note of resignation.

He nodded. “You?”

She shook her head mournfully. “Nope.”

“What about music?” he asked, immediately recognizing her bid to see just what they might have in common, other than the cajones to sneak into a private hotel kitchen and raid the dessert cabinet.

Her eyes brightened. “I love country-western!”

He cringed. “My father nearly disowned me when I was nine and told him I hated country and liked New-Orleans-style jazz.”

A gentle smile and a look of tenderness crossed her face. “My father and I used to sing along to Broadway albums when I was growing up. He had a wonderful voice.”

“Had?”