Carly Phillips - Hot Stuff

With a sigh, she glanced at the clock on the wall, ticking too close to early afternoon.

"What's our next step now that Vaughn's disappeared on us?" Nick asked, changing the subject back to business.

Annabelle smiled, grateful he didn't hold her thoughts against her. "Would you keep the reporter busy? Give him a tour and avoid the problem areas, okay?"

He nodded. "My pleasure."

"Meanwhile can I borrow your car?"

He narrowed his gaze. "Where are you going?"

"Just out to do a few errands." Following her gut, she had a few people from Vaughn's past she wanted to talk to before speaking with the reporter and giving their spin on things.

"Can you drive a stick?" Nick asked.

She nodded.

He reached into his pocket and tossed her his keys. "Don't hit anything, will you?"

"If I promise to take care of your car do you promise to think about giving Mara a chance?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I'll do anything for my Corvette."

She laughed. "Typical man." With a wave, she headed off to speak to one of Vaughn's old teachers. They were her only hope of finding out enough about the man to put his reasons for creating the camp in a positive light.

AS A CELEBRITY of sorts, Vaughn was used to the spotlight. He was used to stares, glares and whispers behind his back as well as blatantly in front of his face. So when he walked into his parents' home and conversation stopped, he had his first inkling there'd be trouble tonight. And he didn't think the gorgeous babe on his arm had caused the stunned silence-although she'd rendered him mute when they'd met in the front hallway of his house twenty minutes earlier.

Who'd have thought an appropriate-looking, basic black dress could appear so sexy, seductive and sultry? Of course it had something to do with the blonde filling out the material and even more to do with Vaughn and Annabelle's early-morning meeting in his bed. Because now, not only had he seen her body, but he'd held those firmly rounded breasts in his hands. He no longer had to rely on imagination, and the reality had taken up permanent residence in his mind.

Annabelle tugged on his arm, breaking him out of his daydream. "Are we going inside or are we going to stand in the entryway all night?" she asked, attempting to redirect his attention to where it belonged.

He wiped the sweat off his brow and focused on the company in the room. Their entry complete, the guests of his parents and the important trustees of the university had begun to talk among themselves again. And just his luck, his mother began to make a direct line toward them.

"We're going to mingle," he assured Annabelle, grasping her hand and heading in the opposite direction from Estelle.

Unfortunately she was a woman on a mission. "Oh, Brandon!" She waved, giving him no choice but to wait for her to accost them.

Only when she'd come close, so no one could hear, did she begin her tantrum. "You knew you were coming to this party, so how could you allow such a personal interview to come out today?" Her direct glare was more on Annabelle than on him.

Still, he wasn't about to turn an obvious family issue into Annabelle's problem. "Good evening to you, too, mother,” he said, smiling for the benefit of the people around them.

"Hello, Mrs. Vaughn." Annabelle extended her hand but Estelle didn't take it. Instead she motioned with a regal tilt of her head. "In the study. Now, please."

Vaughn raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Let's see what's on her mind," he whispered to Annabelle. And maybe then he'd find out why everyone else had paused when they'd laid eyes on him this evening.

It was obvious the shit was about to fly.

They entered the study and Estelle clicked the door closed politely, but her squared shoulders and heavy breathing spoke another story completely.

She appraised him, her gaze raking the length of his European suit. "Just what is all over you?" she asked, brushing at his lapels with her hand.

He glanced down. "Hair," he muttered.

"Cat hair," Annabelle added with a cheery smile.

Her cat had decided she liked his room best. He'd laid his suit out on the bed and when he'd returned from his shower, she was curled into a ball on top of the dark jacket. He'd tried to brush it off with no luck. Just why the animal had decided to make him her best friend, he had no idea.

"Well you could have made sure you were lint free before coming out for the evening. We have important guests " his mother reminded him.

As if he didn't know. As if he really cared. Despite not being thrilled with the influx of animals in his home, he had to admit he didn't mind riling his mother a bit more and he shot Annabelle an amused glance. His coconspirator grinned back.

At the same moment, Vaughn realized her black dress was lint free, yet she'd had the dog and the rabbit staying in her room. "How'd you manage to keep clean?"

"Scotch tape. But you were in such a rush to leave, I didn't have a chance to share the trick with you."

His rush had actually been to get into a room with a crowd so he wouldn't rip off her dress and finish what they'd started this morning.

Estelle cleared her throat. "If you two wouldn't mind paying attention?"

They both glanced her way. "What's going on?" Vaughn asked his mother.

She folded her hands together. "You both lied to me. Annabelle Jordan isn't an old friend opening a hotel in New York. She's your publicist." She spat the word as if it were poison.

Was that all? Vaughn shook his head laughing. He'd tried to keep Annabelle's profession a secret only because he didn't want to be perceived as manipulating the public for his own selfish purposes.

As far as he was concerned, his mother had no reason to question who or what Annabelle was to him. She only cared now because somehow, she perceived herself as an affected or wounded party.

"Mrs. Vaughn," Annabelle began, "I'm-"

"I'm handling this," he said, interrupting whatever Annabelle had been about to say. "I hired Annabelle to help with a few PR issues surrounding the lodge. What's wrong with that?"

Estelle straightened her linen suit jacket. "Did you also ask her to go digging into your past? To bring up bad memories? To humiliate your father when all the trustees would be around?"

Beside him, he felt Annabelle stiffen. Still unsure what was going on, his skin began to tingle uncomfortably, but he ignored his mother's accusations and addressed the one thing he did know for certain. "I don't make any decisions in my life based around what you or Theodore want."

On the other hand, he did know better than to publicize much about his past and the only memories his father would consider bad ones involved academics. "What's going on?" he asked.

"The evening news ran a feature on your lodge."

"It was planned-"

Again, he cut Annabelle off, this time with a wave of his hand and turned to his mother. "You already know the lodge is a done deal."

She sighed. "You know I hate it when you're deliberately obtuse." She leaned over and picked the television and VCR remotes off the table. A few seconds later, she had a tape running of the local cable news.

The reporter began with the morning's vandalism and some of the other difficulties plaguing the lodge and then segued into an actual plea to people with reservations to hang on and trust in football legend Brandon Vaughn, "a man invested in the next generation."

He shot a glance at Annabelle, who was accepting being shut up too easily. She merely batted her lashes and shrugged, but the proud smile on her lips told him that she'd come up with that particular theme for the lodge. Her satisfaction was obvious from the glow in her cheeks and damned if a part of him didn't share her pride.

He glanced at the television. So far the reporter hadn't come up with anything to upset his mother beyond the usual. "This is it," Estelle said and raised the volume a notch.

"Although unreachable for comment, we were able to interview Vaughn's publicist Annabelle Jordan, who said her client, quote 'remembers what it's like to be a kid' unquote."

So far so good, and Vaughn folded his arms over his chest and waited, pushing aside the uneasy feeling creeping over him that warned him there had to be more.

"Following a suggestion from Ms. Jordan, we made contact with Mrs. Peabody, a longtime teacher at the Greenlawn High School for interpretation." As Vaughn gritted his teeth, the camera panned to the high school where his old white-haired teacher stood on the lawn, the American flag waving in the background.

"Brandon is our star, our shining star," she said proudly, taking Vaughn off guard. "But he struggled mightily while here and if you think my recollection's faulty, school records speak for themselves. He's probably determined to open his lodge so he can bring kids with similar issues to a fun environment where they can also supplement their learning. I admire him, I surely do."

Estelle flipped off the television and stood staring at both Vaughn and Annabelle. Her cheeks were flushed pink with the embarrassment he remembered only too well from every parent-teacher conference she'd ever attended.

His stomach churned at having disappointed her again, at coming up short in his parents' estimation, until he reminded himself he wasn't that failing kid. He was an accomplished adult and that news report had been a positive one.

One that, for more personal reasons, he'd preferred hadn't aired, and he glanced at the source. Annabelle stood beside him, tapping her foot, and he figured she was waiting for the fallout. But with the afternoon behind him and plenty of time to think, he'd already come to the conclusion he wasn't being fair to her. He understood that and would deal with her and the repercussions later tonight.