As Hot As It Gets (12 page)

“Do men get stretch marks?” Claire asked, giving him an easy out.

He should have felt relieved. Instead, he sort of wished they could keep going with the soul-baring conversation. But this was Claire, after all. Claire, who'd leave as soon as she'd gotten her fill of him. There was no sense in getting too friendly.

“I don't know, but you're welcome to search me later.”

She laughed. “I can say with confidence that you
do not have a single stretch mark. Not that I've been looking for them, but I would have noticed something like that.”

They continued up the beach in the direction of Mason's suite, and he was happy to realize his bad-seafood feeling had disappeared. He was starting to enjoy Claire's company out of bed just as much as he enjoyed it in bed, and that was an interesting development.

Interesting, but probably not important.

 

“L
ITTLE BROTHER
, I'
M DAMN
glad you're here,” Mason said as he leaned against his desk.

Judd sat in Mason's office chair, staring at the computer as he scrolled through employee files, looking for anything fishy to narrow down their pool of dominatrix suspects.

“Has resort security come up with any leads on who's working for this Mike D. guy?”

“A few employees with criminal records as of this morning, but nothing solid.”

“I promised Lucy I wouldn't spend our whole vacation working on this, but I do want to help you. Can you schedule a meeting between me and your security guys, so we can share information?”

“Definitely. If you talk to my assistant on the way out, she'll call them and get you set up.”

“I've spotted a couple of former strippers on your payroll. That's one place to look further. If they're
willing to take their clothes off for cash, then maybe they're willing to go a step further.”

“Good thought.”

Judd sat back in the leather chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Who on your management team do you trust, and who don't you trust?”

Mason frowned at the question. “I can't say I completely trust anyone. The resort's only been open two months, so I don't know anyone that well yet.”

“Anyone you definitely don't trust?”

“No, can't say there is. Why would you look at management first?”

“It takes some kind of management skill to organize an underground ring of any illegal activity and have it be successful. Maybe Mike D'Amato was just the front man, and someone else was or is running the show.”

“Who says they're successful?”

“We don't know. I'm just guessing here,” Judd said, turning his attention back to the employee database.

“I think I've got a solid management team, but I've been wrong before.”

“You have any disgruntled ex-girlfriends here on the island?” Judd said.

“You think you're funny, don't you?”

“I'm dead serious. The way you piss off women…”

“I haven't pissed off a single woman since Natasha,” Mason said, referring to his ex who'd tried to ruin the Fantasy Ranch.

Judd looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Okay, not counting Claire.”

“Claire counts.”

“She's not a girlfriend.”

Or was she?

“Then what exactly would you call her?”

A pain in the ass, was his first thought.

“I don't know,” he finally said.

And that was the truth. He had no idea what label to put on Claire, no inkling what she meant in his life, no way to measure the hurricane-like impact she had on him.

She was just Claire. Completely indefinable.

“I'd call her the woman who's going to haunt you the rest of your life if you don't get serious and make peace with her.”

“I've made about as much peace with her as any one man can make.”

“Peace and sex are not the same thing,” Judd said.

His little brother knew him too damn well.

“Who says I ever have to get serious about any woman? I'm doing just fine as is. No need to mess with perfection.”

“You call this perfection? Living on a little island where your only relationship possibilities are either the one-week variety or the kind that involve screwing people who work for you?”

“The one-week variety is my favorite kind, and I consider employees off-limits.”

Judd held up his hand in defeat. “Fine, if you want to keep on kidding yourself…”

“So now you're going to be a father, and you have to start acting like my dad, too?”

He grinned. “Looks that way.”

“Don't think you're getting out of being the little brother that easily. I can still kick your ass.”

“Let me see you try it.”

Mason gave Judd a playful smack on the side of the head. A second later, Judd was up out of the chair, his head butting into Mason's stomach. He toppled him onto the ground and then put him in a headlock.

They wrestled around on the floor beside the desk, alternately laughing and muttering curses, neither of them stronger than the other. For a few minutes, Mason could imagine they were still kids, without a care in the world other than beating the other's ass.

“Okay, damn it. You win,” he finally said.

“You're still a wuss.” Judd stood up and offered Mason a hand.

“And you're still a big pussy.”

“I might be a pussy, but at least I know my boys can swim.”

Mason laughed. He may not have had any strong paternal urges, but there was that ever-present male desire to know for sure that he could father a child if he wanted to. “You got me there, man.”

“But seriously, I have to tell you, I want you to be the baby's godparent. Lucy and I both do.”

He blinked at the sudden serious turn the conversation had taken. Not what he'd expected, and it nearly knocked him down with its gravity. “Whoa. You sure about that? I mean, I don't know anything about kids or being a godparent.”

Judd clapped him on the shoulder. “You'll learn, bro.”

“Well, if you're sure…”

“I wish you'd move back to Arizona, you know. I miss playing ball with you, and I want you around to teach the kid to play.”

Mason swallowed a lump in his throat. “I'll probably be spending more time in Arizona again soon, once I've got Escapade running the way I want it.”

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

“Hey man, you've helped me enough today. You'd better go spend some time with that wife of yours.”

Judd glanced at his watch. “You're right. I told her I'd be back to go to the beach with her by now.”

“I'll catch up with you later.”

Mason watched as Judd left the office, closing the door behind him. Alone again, a vague feeling of discontent settled in his belly. Discontent that his brother was suddenly trying to sell him on Claire and on the whole convention of settling down.

And discontent that for once, Judd's argument wasn't sounding so crazy.

C
LAIRE HAD BEEN AT
Escapade for five days, and still she wasn't ready to leave. She'd spent every night with Mason, trying her damnedest to get her fill of Mason—trying to prove to herself that she absolutely was not a victim to his charms—and she was finally starting to admit to herself that maybe her plan just wasn't going to work.

Now that Judd and Lucy were there, too, she had company during the day most of the time, so it shouldn't have been too hard to get her mind off of Mason. But it was. When she wasn't with him, she was thinking about him, and when she was with him, she was thinking about him.

She was beginning to think psychotherapy might be the next logical step.

Now she was at one of the resort's bars with Judd and Lucy, while Mason was at some sort of business-related meeting. He'd told her the day before that the whole dominatrix problem had been dealt with, and he'd thanked her for her help. Maybe that had been
his subtle way of letting her know she could leave any time now, but her body wasn't taking the hint.

“So,” Lucy was saying to her, “are you and Mason having dinner together with us again tonight?”

“You two have got to stop it,” Claire said, feeling like a zoo animal under Judd and Lucy's scrutiny.

“What?” Judd asked, suddenly Mr. Innocent.

“The matchmaking! Mason and I are not going to get together, so just give it up.”

Judd smiled. “Let me just say for the record that I have been completely opposed to any and all matchmaking efforts from the start and have not willingly or knowingly participated in said efforts.”

“Right.”

Lucy took a sip of her virgin piña colada, pretending not to hear the conversation.

“Lucy, tell her!”

She peered over the rim of her glass—another bad actor at work. After taking another drink, she set the glass down. “Not that I'm admitting to any matchmaking efforts myself, but I can say with certainty that Judd has not willingly participated in any such thing.”

“You two are impossible.” Claire propped her elbows on the bar, looking across at the patrons on the other side. A scattered group of men and women chatted, laughed and drank. Claire should have felt happy and energized. Here she was at a beautiful resort with two of her favorite people in the world, yet she felt anything but carefree.

“Excuse me, but I need to take a walk to the ladies' room. Claire?”

“I'm fine, thanks.”

Lucy disappeared, and Judd tipped his beer to Claire. “She means well,” he said, “but she's not gonna rest until you and Mason either kill each other or get married.”

“That's what I was afraid of.”

“She thinks of it as her debt to you for introducing us.”

Claire couldn't help smiling. She'd never imagined how sending Lucy on that birthday trip to the Fantasy Ranch would transform her best friend's life so completely. Not only had Lucy managed to fall in love with and marry the guy who was supposed to be her no-strings-attached fling, but she'd found a level of confidence in herself that she'd lacked before.

“She should consider her debt paid in full.”

Judd gave her a look that said “not a chance,” and Claire knew he was right. Lucy could be the most hardheaded person on earth when she thought she was right.

A guy who'd clearly been hitting the free froufrou drinks at the pool at little too hard came wandering in and weaved his way over to the empty bar stool next to Judd. Claire could smell the rum on him from three bar stools away.

He waved down the bartender and ordered a
whiskey sour, then propped himself on the bar and smiled at Judd. “You staying here long?”

“For about a week,” Judd answered.

“Shingle guy like you,” he slurred, “there's a lot of fun to be had, lemme tell you.”

Judd opened his mouth, probably to protest his single status, but Drunken Guy continued.

“I know whatcher thinkin'. You've already heard the official spiel on the resort.”

“Yeah,” Judd said, “my brother's the—”

“But lemme tell you what you may not know.” He leaned in close and attempted to whisper. “Anything you want, you can buy it here—companionship of whatever kind you like, if you catch my drift.”

Claire could still hear him, though he clearly thought he and Judd were having a private one-on-one conversation. She focused her eyes on her drink and pretended to be oblivious to them.

She could almost see Judd's private-investigator antennae on alert now. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

Drunken Guy made a sweeping gesture. “Anything. Just last night…” He paused and waggled his eyebrows. “I had two girls come to my room for two hours of working me over like you wouldn't believe.”

She didn't dare look over to see Judd's expression. After a moment, he asked, “Really? How much did it cost you?”

“Eh, about a grand. I own a sewage-treatment
plant outside of Toledo. Cost don't matter to me, and lemme tell you, it was worth every damn penny.”

“So how do I hook up with these ladies?” Judd asked.

Drunken Guy fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a business card. “Drop me a line if you ever need help with sewage treatment.”

He flipped the card over and grabbed a pen from nearby on the bar, then started scrawling a number on the card. “What you do is you call this number and just say you've got cash to burn.”

“And they'll know what I want.”

“You name it, and they'll get it for you for the right price. Until a few days ago you just had to talk to a guy at the Cabana Club, but he disappeared, so now it's a little more complicated.”

“As in?”

“You just gotta make the phone call, then somebody calls you back, finds out what you want and tells you where to bring the money.”

Judd took the card from him. “This person got a name?”

“Nah. It's all hush-hush.”

“Thanks, man. Me and my wife might be into some fun, you know?”

Drunken Guy noticed Judd's wedding ring for the first time. “Oh, right. Hey man, whatever floats your boat.”

He turned his attention to his drink just as Lucy
reappeared from the restroom. “Hey sweetheart,” Judd said a little too enthusiastically. “Why don't we get going now?”

Claire looked over to see Judd giving Lucy a meaningful look. Lucy stared at him perplexed, but said nothing. After putting some money on the bar to cover their drinks, Judd and Lucy left, and Claire waited a minute before following. She found them outside waiting for her.

“What was up with that?” she said to Judd.

Judd frowned. “Looks like Mason's still got some problems to deal with.”

Judd and Lucy had been filled in on the whole dominatrix-for-hire situation, but Mason had been confident that the perpetrators had been dealt with and that anyone else involved would be too afraid of getting caught to continue.

“I can't believe this stuff is still going on,” Lucy said as they started walking back toward their hotel rooms.

“Sounds like it's not strictly S and M so much as it is a whole prostitution ring,” Claire said, feeling sick for Mason. He'd been working nonstop to keep the resort running smoothly, and now this.

“We need to gather all the facts before we go to Mason,” Judd said. “He's busy enough without having to deal with this again, too.”

There were definitely some perks to having a private investigator for a brother, Claire supposed, not the least of which was having someone who could
do the investigating when an illegal prostitution ring popped up on one's private island.

“So,” Claire said, remembering their plans for the evening. “Are we still going to that ‘Come As Who You Really Are' party? It starts in an hour.”

“
This
is who I really am,” Lucy said, gesturing to her pink top and khaki shorts. “It's a pretty boring costume.”

“I think we can come up with something more interesting than that,” Claire said, remembering the backstage costume area at the theater. She was pretty sure Mason wouldn't mind if they borrowed a few things again.

Judd sighed. “Lucy made me pack my cowboy boots and my Stetson, so I guess that'll be my costume.”

“And jeans! He'll definitely be wearing jeans, too.” Lucy smiled, and Claire knew she was remembering the way they'd first met, with Judd in that very same outfit, handcuffed to Lucy's bed. They'd been complete strangers, and Judd had been Claire's surprise birthday gift to Lucy.

Claire grabbed Lucy's hand. “Then you're coming with me. I know just the place to find an outfit that expresses the real you.”

“But—”

“No arguing. You can't go to the party dressed like that.” She nodded at a carry-on luggage bag sitting at the foot of the bed. “Is that empty?”

“Yes, why?”

“Bring it. We'll need it to carry the costumes.”

“We'll meet you back at our room in a half hour,” Lucy called to Judd as they took off, and ten minutes later, they were sneaking through the theater and into the costume area.

Thankfully, the janitor was nowhere in sight.

“How do you know about this place?” Lucy asked when Claire switched on the lights.

“Um, Mason showed it to me,” she said, trying hard to keep a straight face.

“Why do I get the feeling there's a story behind that statement.”

“Trust me when I say it's a story that would violate your brother-in-law, sister-in-law bond.”

“Ooo-kaaaay,” Lucy said, turning her attention to the rack of women's costumes.

“I'm thinking Las Vegas showgirls,” Claire said, zeroing in on the costume Mason had liked so well before.

She smiled as she pictured what his reaction would be. That is, if he even got out of his meeting in time to make the party. They'd arranged to meet there as soon as he could break free, but he couldn't make any guarantees. Claire, for one, was dying to see the costume Mason considered a reflection of his true self.

“Claire, I am
so
not a showgirl.”

“Then how about this?” Claire pulled out a scarlet dress of the sort worn by prostitutes of the Old West. “It'll match Judd's outfit.”

Lucy's eyes lit up. “Perfect! I'm a harlot.”

They tried on the costumes in their respective sizes, made a few adjustments to Lucy's with safety pins they found in a drawer, and then decided to just stay in costume until the party. After stuffing their street clothes into the carry-on bag, they left the costume area decked out in their new looks.

Claire was no stranger to turning heads, but even she felt a little silly at some of the stares they got on their way back. They were passing through a hallway adjoining theirs when a door swung open and the sounds of a party within came pouring out, along with a guy wearing a giant condom as a hat on his head.

“Hey, aren't you the girls we hired for the bachelor party? We've been waiting for you two.”

Lucy started to protest, but Claire silenced her with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

“Um,” Claire said, scrambling to decide how best to handle this. Clearly, this was a chance to find out more about the prostitution ring, and she didn't want to blow it. “Yep, that's us. Sorry if we're a little late.”

“You're dressed kind of funny for a lesbian sex show,” the guy said, frowning at their mismatched costumes.

“Oh, well, um, we actually were just told to dress up. I didn't realize we'd be doing a special show.”

“Yeah, babe. Hope you came prepared with the dildos or whatever equipment you need.”

Lucy made a strange noise, and Claire elbowed her again.

“Sure thing.” She held up the carry-on bag as if it were full of sex equipment. “Just give us a second out here. We'll need to plan out our act a little bit before we get started.”

“All right, but you better hurry. The guys are gettin' impatient in there.” He stepped back inside and closed the door.

“What are you doing!” Lucy snapped.

“Don't you see, those guys hired prostitutes! This is our chance to get information for Judd's investigation.”

“We're not really going in there.”

Claire sighed. “I don't expect you to, but I am. I just want to poke around and see if I can get any information, maybe find out who they hired the prostitutes through.”

“And then what? We have lesbian sex in front of a room full of drunken guys? Have you lost your mind?”

“No! We just make up some excuse and get out before anything happens.” Then Claire saw the perfect plan laid out before her. “I've got it! You go on back to your room, and I'll go in and tell them my partner backed out at the last second, so no show.”

“You can't go in there alone!”

“It's perfect. Don't worry about me. Besides, Judd would kill me if he found out I let you go in there.”

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “I'm not letting you go in alone. I'm going, too.”

Damn it.

But honestly, she was a little scared to go into a room full of drunken men alone, dressed like a showgirl. Maybe Lucy was right. They needed to find an alternative. “Okay, then here's the deal. We'll stall here in the hallway, make up some excuse about needing more equipment before we do the show and try to get some information from them.”

Lucy frowned. “I like that better.”

“I'll do all the talking, and you just try to stay quiet and follow my lead. Got it?”

“What if we get into trouble?”

“I've got my cell phone. We can call resort security if things get out of hand.”

“Okay, you're right. I'm just overreacting, but if I have to feel you up or something, I'll never forgive you.”

“You are
not
going to feel me up. We'll just make excuses and leave once we have our information.”