Seduction by Design (3 page)

“No.” Faith giggled. She looked like she might reach around her father’s waist and hug him, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned to Hailey, who was still seated in the chrome and plastic chair with the squeaky casters as if she had been fixed there permanently.

“Thank you, Hailey. Gee, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along. You’re super.”

“Thank
you
for the compliment. I’m glad I was available. Do you think your stings will hurt you anymore before you get home?”

“No, they don’t hurt at all.”

“Watch them for swelling or additional redness. Some insect bites can be serious.” Hard as it was, she faced the flinty eyes that she could feel boring into her. “You may want to pick up some kind of analgesic ointment for her, Mr. Scott.”

“Very good advice, Miss Ashton. What kind?”

Hastily she scribbled the name of a salve on a piece of paper and extended it to him. Instead of taking the paper, his strong fingers wrapped around her wrist. “I’ll be in touch,” he said in a low, threatening voice. For emphasis, his thumb stroked upward and pressed the center of her palm. It wasn’t until he had taken the slip of paper with his other hand, that her wrist was freed.

“Faith?” He opened the door and ushered his daughter out into the heat while Hailey shivered with a cold foreboding.

How could she have made such an atrocious blunder? From the first time she saw Tyler Scott, he had irritated her. She
had
been rude to him. She
had
taken a perverse pleasure in increasing his anxiety. She
had
felt a smug satisfaction at making him walk when there was plenty of room for him to ride in the golf cart. Spitefulness didn’t usually characterize Hailey Ashton.

She wrote the nurse a note explaining briefly what had happened and left the infirmary. Should she call the other department heads and warn them that their employer was in the park? No. She had already gotten Mr. Scott’s ire up. Until she heard from him, she’d keep a low profile and only hope that her colleagues fared better should they encounter the owner of the park.

She walked through the compound quickly, not having to concentrate on where she was going. For the past four years Serendipity had been her turf. She knew its walkways, its waterways, its shops, eateries, theaters, and other attractions like the back of her hand. To do her job well, she had acquainted herself with every aspect of the park’s operation.

Doing things well was Hailey’s most ardent ambition. She was known for her competence. Wouldn’t everyone be surprised when they learned that she had lost her job for bullying a guest who just happened to be Tyler Scott?

She had been at Serendipity for a year when it was sold to Scott Enterprises of Atlanta and it became only a small part of that huge conglomerate. The Scott empire included real estate companies, sawmills, a computer firm, a shopping center, a housing development, as well as various other properties.

It was a standing joke around Serendipity that Tyler Scott wasn’t a real person, but rather a generic name given to a group of doddering old men. Since no one had ever seen him, and all his business transactions were conducted by a battery of subordinates, it was speculated that Tyler Scott, the man, didn’t exist.

Hailey’s private smile was rueful. Tyler Scott was most definitely a man. In no way could the adjective “doddering” be used to describe him, not with those shoulders and that chest. No, he had been all too real.

What would such a man do with an employee who was supposedly an expert in handling the guests of his multiacre amusement park, whose sole purpose was to see to the guests’ well-being and enjoyment, but instead had behaved in a curt, uncompromising, unsympathetic way? What indeed?

It was after nine o’clock when she finally arrived home. Her last official duty of the day had been to see that all one hundred and thirty Boy Scouts on a special field trip were given Serendipity bumper stickers, which they promptly began sticking to each other.

Her sandals were left at the front door, her blazer was dropped on a chair. Automatically going into the kitchen, she checked the refrigerator to see what forgotten treasure she might uncover, but was vastly disappointed. Another omelet tonight, she groaned mentally as she made her way down the darkened hallway toward her bedroom.

She had just stripped out of her uniform when the telephone rang. “Hello.”

“Will you accept the charges on a call from Ellen Ashton?”

“Yes,” Hailey replied wearily.

“Hi, sis.”

Hailey was annoyed that Ellen had called collect again, but pushed aside her uncharitable thoughts with a guilty sigh. Just because she had had a terrible day, that didn’t mean she should take her frustrations out on her sister.

“Hi, Ellen. What’s going on?” She knew before asking that she was letting herself in for a lengthy discourse on the latest events in Ellen’s life. And at her expense. She sat on the bed and prepared to listen.

Hailey barely credited herself with being moderately attractive, but had always felt that her sister, younger by two years, was stunning. Hailey’s hair was a glowing copper, but Ellen’s flamed. Hailey was tall and fashionably slender, but she thought of herself as skinny, the way she had been as a figure-conscious teenager. Ellen hadn’t been cursed with adolescent coltishness. She had gone from plump girlhood to voluptuous womanhood without any awkwardness in between.

Hailey was dependable. Ellen was hopelessly irresponsible. But she was beautiful and bubbly, and everyone adored her. If her flightiness often cost her a good job, she soon charmed someone else into hiring her, despite mediocre skills.

“It sounds like you’re happier at this job than at the last,” Hailey interjected when Ellen paused for breath after several talkative minutes.

“Oh yes! The people are much nicer. The women who worked in that other office were so mean to me. I think they were jealous. They told the boss bad things about me. I had to leave for my own peace of mind.”

Hailey was suspicious about how Ellen’s actual leaving had come about, but she didn’t contradict her sister’s version. Ellen should never be required to work. It didn’t suit her personality. She should find an indulgent rich man to pamper and spoil her for life.

“I’ve made some new friends, Hailey, and we’ve been going out every night and having a ball.”

“That’s wonderful, Ellen.”

“There’s a big party I’ve been invited to next week at the country club. It’s going to be fabulous! All the best people will be there.” Hailey flinched at Ellen’s snobbery. “Anyway, Hailey, I have one teeny-weeny problem.”

Hailey knew immediately what that teeny-weeny problem was. “I need a new dress, Hailey. And I haven’t gotten a full pay-check yet since I just started this job. Could you please send me enough to buy a dress for the party?”

“Ellen, I sent you some money last week,” Hailey said with a trace of asperity. “What happened to that?”

“A measly hundred dollars?”

“That measly hundred dollars was hard to come by,” Hailey said testily.

“I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t mean to sound as though I’m not grateful. Gosh, I am! But I used that to buy a suit. You didn’t expect me to start a new job without any decent clothes, did you?”

Hailey suspected that Ellen’s closet was fairly bulging with “decent clothes.” “I thought you said you needed that money for a deposit on a telephone.”

“Well, I did. But I managed to borrow that from one of the girls I work with.”

Hailey gnawed her bottom lip in vexation, but she put down her flash of temper and asked reasonably, “Do you think that’s a good idea, Ellen? To borrow money from someone you’ve just met?”

“Oh, she didn’t care. She’s becoming one of my very best friends.”

But for how long?
Hailey wanted to ask. She rubbed her forehead, which had suddenly begun to pound. “Okay, Ellen, I’ll send you a little more, but this is the last time.” She recalled a pair of cold gray eyes glaring at her and remembered that she might not have a job herself.

“I understand,” Ellen said solemnly, then burst forth with accolades to all of Hailey’s virtues. “You’re the best sister in the whole world, Hailey. I’m so lucky to have you to take care of me.”

They said their good-byes, but it was a mechanical exercise for Hailey. Such scenes had happened too often in the past, and she admitted that they would probably happen again—in the near future. Breaking lifetime habits was difficult, if not impossible.

Ever since they were children, she had looked after Ellen. No one made a secret of the fact that Ellen was the “pretty one” and Hailey was the one with the brains. If Ellen was forgetful and irresponsible, she was forgiven because she looked so angelic. Their parents had never criticized her, nor rebuked her for letting her older sister do her thinking for her. Hailey had bailed Ellen out of numerous scrapes when they were children. Now, as adults, the pattern continued.

Hailey had always been burdened with a sense of responsibility. When her parents’ health had failed toward the latter years of their lives, it was Hailey who stayed at home and took care of them. Ellen left home because she couldn’t bear to be around sick people. Yet, it was she they yearned to see, to talk to. Hailey didn’t really blame them. During Ellen’s infrequent and hasty visits, the gloomy house would be filled with laughter and gaiety. Hailey’s dependability was no match for Ellen’s exuberance.

My God! Is this wallow in self-pity day? she asked herself as she flopped back against the pillows on her bed. What was wrong with her tonight? It was a rhetorical question that she already knew the answer to. What was wrong with her was Tyler Scott. She had built a life for herself, albeit a dull, colorless one. What would he do to that world?

As if on cue, the telephone rang again. Her hand hovered above it, dreading to answer it, knowing instinctively who was calling. She was right.

“Miss Ashton,” he said immediately after she said a low hello. “Tyler Scott.”

“Yes, Mr. Scott. How is Faith?”

“Fine. I’m calling for another reason. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

Was he serious? How could he pleasantly ask if it were a bad time when he was calling to fire her? “N … no. I was just lying down resting.”

A significant pause yawned between them along the connecting cables. It was a silence that didn’t need to be filled. It was already rife with innuendo. “Oh?” he asked on a lilting note. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

The insinuation was so bold, so blatant, so sexual that she sucked in her breath sharply. “No, Mr. Scott, you did not,” she said firmly.

“My condolences. See me tomorrow at one o’clock in Sanders’s office. Good night.”

Outraged, she slammed down the phone. It had already gone dead in her hand. Damn him! How dare he infer anything about her personal life? And even if his sullied mind made such inferences, how dare he speak them out loud? She’d let him know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his seedy insinuations when she saw him.

Tomorrow.

What was he planning to do, to say? Why was he keeping her on pins and needles worrying about her job? Why didn’t he take whatever action he planned to take and get it over with?

Forgoing the omelet, she stalked into her bathroom. She wouldn’t have trouble finding another job. Not with her experience. Why should she care what he did? Let him fire her. Let him have his job. Could he do any better at it than she? “Not on your life, Mr. Scott,” she shouted to the bathroom walls.

What she needed was a fling. Something unheard of. Even scandalous. She longed to do something totally unexpected and impulsive. Hailey Ashton had always been depended on to do the right thing, to behave properly. She always had, and she was sick of it. When had she ever disappointed, surprised, shocked anyone? Never. Such a thing would be good for her. What should it be? Rob a bank? Run naked through the streets? Have an affair?

Her head came up with a snap to look at her reflection in the mirror over the basin. Where had such an idea come from? She didn’t know. Nor could she imagine what prompted the next thought that forced its way to the front of her mind. I
wonder what Tyler Scott thinks of me as a woman?

Purely objectively, he
was
an exceedingly attractive man, if the strong, domineering type happened to appeal to you. His handsome features radiated raw masculinity, yet Hailey had seen a ghost of a smile when he talked about his insecurities as a parent. The steeliness of his eyes was intimidating, but they had softened and grown warm when he looked at Faith.

But the censorious looks he had leveled at her had hardly suggested barely contained lust! She laughed to herself. Of course, there was that brief moment when his eyes wandered in the vicinity of her breasts as he read her name tag, but that couldn’t count. She had only imagined that it took an inordinate amount of time for him to read her name.

Then there was that small space of time that seemed to span infinity when he actually touched her, when his hard thumb evocatively imbedded itself in the softness of her palm. Could he have detected the racing pulse in the wrist beneath his grasp?

Impatiently she switched off her bedside lamp, hoping that she might switch off the ridiculous conjectures that were flashing through her mind like an erotic slide show. Darkness didn’t dispel them, however. Rather it seemed to intensify them as she tossed restlessly on her pillow. When at last she fell asleep, her body was still flushing hotly.

In her dreams it was she who was hurt and Tyler who did the tender healing. His touch was gentle, but electrifying. His eyes were sympathetic, but bold. His mouth …

She didn’t sleep well at all.

The next morning was filled with its share of minor catastrophes. A wallet was lost and immediately found. Hailey was tearfully, gratefully thanked for her able assistance. Numerous lost children were quickly reunited with frantic parents. The infirmary reported one scraped knee and a sinus headache. Hailey personally greeted the senior citizen group that was going to have a catered picnic lunch on the grounds, see all the theater shows, and ride only the carousel. On behalf of the panicky social director, it was she who placed the call to the caterer, who was running an hour late but would be there shortly.