Seduced by Moonlight Read online

  She smiled at Danielle. “Hi, I’m Roxy.”

  “Hi, Roxy, I’m Danielle,” Danielle said. “May I have a cranberry juice over crushed ice?”

  Roxy gave Dante the evil eye. “Now that’s a drink, smart boy.”

  “Okay,” said Dante, eyes twinkling with mischief, “make mine a Singapore Sling, easy on the sling.”

  “I’m gonna have you slung right outta here!” Roxy warned. She glanced in the direction of one of the big, burly bouncers. There were four stationed around the ballroom, all wearing black muscle tees with the resort’s logo—a skier schussing down a snow-covered mountain—emblazoned across the chest.

  Dante laughed. “Fine, Roxy. Give me a Coke, regular, not diet, no ice and a slice of lime, squeeze it once into the Coke, stirred, not shaken, then put it on the rim of the glass. Make sure the glass is chilled, of course.”

  Roxy sighed. “Who do you think you are, James Bond? If I didn’t need my job I’d tell you where you could put that slice of lime.”

  “Leave the lady alone,” Danielle told Dante. To Roxy, she said, “He must have really irritated you last Saturday night if you remember him.”

  “Nah,” said Roxy. “During the week, I man the bar at the pool. He has annoyed me out there, too.” She started putting together their drinks, putting crushed ice in a tall glass for Danielle’s drink, then bending to open the below the bar refrigerator to retrieve a can of Coke for Dante.

  “She loves me,” Dante said, in the way all good-looking teenage boys believe they’re adored by members of the opposite sex.

  Roxy presented Danielle with her cranberry juice. “You look like a nice young lady. What are you doing with him?”

  “He’s the only boy who would ask me,” Danielle stated simply.

  “Next time wait for a better offer,” Roxy advised.

  “Am I invisible?” Dante asked, still smiling.

  “If only,” said Roxy.

  She put his Coke with a slice of lime on the rim in front of him. “Charge it to your room?”

  “Please,” said Dante.

  “Done,” said Roxy. She smiled at Danielle. “I was just kidding, he’s a good guy.”

  She moved away to serve the next customer in line.

  Danielle and Dante sipped their drinks. “We didn’t get the chance to talk much on the slopes,” Dante said casually. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” said Danielle. “There’s a guy I’m interested in but he hasn’t given me any reason to believe he likes me.”

  “A guy in your class at school, somebody you see only on occasion?”

  “No, I see him all the time. He’s my best friend. We were texting like crazy earlier tonight.”

  “What’s his problem?” Dante asked, looking deeply into her eyes. “You, Danielle Washington, are hot.”

  Danielle blushed. She wasn’t used to compliments from cute guys, or any guys. Frankly, even though she knew she was attractive, she was also taller than a lot of the guys in her class, an athlete of some note and on the honor roll. She intimidated guys.

  She didn’t try to. It just happened. Her relationship with Echo, now a year strong, was the longest relationship she’d had with a guy.

  Dante set his drink on the bar and reached over to tilt her head up with a finger. Danielle had been unable to meet his eyes after he’d declared her hot. “You’re going home tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Danielle shyly.

  “We’re staying until next Sunday,” he said. “Do you think you could come back for the weekend?”

  “I doubt it,” she said regretfully. “There is no training session planned for next weekend. Coach Santiago gave me a schedule and my training doesn’t start until after Christmas. Besides, your parents may be able to afford to stay at a ritzy place like this but my mom can’t on a nurse’s salary.”

  Dante smiled. “Is that what you think of me, that I’m some rich kid?”

  Danielle smiled back. “Is that supposed to be derogatory? Being called a rich kid? I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought that since you told me your dad worked in government and your mom is a lawyer, they’re earning good salaries as opposed to my mom, who is in one of the worst-paid professions. They work nurses to death but don’t pay them what they’re worth. And she’s a darn good nurse. Went to school and got two degrees. I’m sure you’re proud of your parents. I’m proud of my mom, too, but she can’t afford this place. I saw the rates online before we came for the weekend and my eyes bugged out!”

  Dante laughed. “Yeah, so did mine when I saw them. We kids can sometimes take the amount of money our parents spend on us for granted, can’t we? You talk a lot of sense, Miss Washington. I need to appreciate my parents more.”

  “And stop being such a rich kid?” Danielle joked.

  Dante threw his head back in laughter. “All right, I’m a rich kid. But I’m not a spoiled rich kid. I have to work hard in school and keep up my grades and by God I’m going to college on scholarship!”

  “Football?” Danielle guessed.

  “How’d you know?” Dante asked, truly amazed. He hadn’t told her he played football.

  “It’s your build,” Danielle told him. “I see guys who look like you every day at school. I see them when I’m working out in the gym, at lunch, at the track. Plus, my dad was a pro football player—Charlie Washington of the…”

  “Philadelphia Eagles?” Dante said, beaming. “Wow, he was one of my all-time favorite players. When they went to the Super Bowl my dad took me. Were you there? It was about ten years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. Man! I even got to meet your dad. He was so cool. He autographed my jersey and everything!”

  Danielle suddenly experienced such a feeling of loss that tears threatened. She had missed that game. Oh, she had watched it on TV but she was nowhere near the stadium. That was the year her parents divorced. It was ironic really. Her dad’s greatest year in football had also been the worst year of her life.

  “No,” she said softly. “I couldn’t make it.”

  “Oh, you missed a great game,” Dante cried, still high on the memories. Then, he suddenly realized something. “Hey, didn’t you say your mother was your sole parent? Where’s your dad?”

  “My parents got divorced when I was seven,” Danielle said, trying to sound upbeat about it. Kids’ parents got divorced all the time. She certainly was not in the minority at school. Apparently, though, where Dante came from, judging from the sorrowful expression on his face, they were in the minority.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, and he certainly sounded sorry.

  The DJ began playing a Fergie song and Danielle stood up. “Enough of this depressing conversation, we came here to dance!”

  Grinning, Dante was happy to sweep her back onto the dance floor.

  “I thought you were going to walk me back to my suite,” Cherisse said an hour after Harry had declared his inability to keep his hands off her.

  Now they were seated on the big couch in front of the fireplace, both with their shoes off, Harry sans his coat jacket, quite winded from kissing like randy teenagers for the past twenty minutes.

  “And I meant to,” said Harry, leaning back on the couch and drawing a deep breath. “But I kept thinking about the fact that you’re leaving tomorrow and I probably won’t be able to see you again until next weekend, and taking you back to your suite became less important.” He smiled at the lovely picture she made, her hair mussed, her lips slightly swollen from kissing him. She was devastatingly attractive.

  Cherisse leaned her head on his shoulder and Harry drew her close. “You can always write me,” she said softly, her voice husky.

  Harry laughed shortly. “You mean e-mail you?”

  “No, write me on paper and mail it the old-fashioned way,” said Cherisse, a smile lighting her eyes. “Write me, and I’ll write you back. It doesn’t have to be long, a line or two.”

  “I haven’t written a personal letter the old-fash
ioned way in ages,” said Harry, intrigued. He liked the idea. It was hard for him to believe but he didn’t have any love letters from past girlfriends. They hadn’t been illiterate, they just had never thought of it, he supposed. He certainly hadn’t sent any of them love letters. “I’ll do it. You may not be able to understand my handwriting, but I’ll do it.”

  The alarm on Cherisse’s watch suddenly sounded. She sat up and checked it. It was five minutes till midnight. “Oh, no,” she cried. “I’ve got to go! I don’t want Danielle to get back to the suite before I do.”

  “Don’t want her thinking you’ve been making out all this time,” Harry joked.

  Cherisse laughed. “I’d never hear the end of it. Sometimes I think she’s the mother!”

  She said this while she was putting on her sandals. Harry, too, quickly put his shoes back on. “What time are you leaving tomorrow? You don’t have to adhere to the eleven o’clock checkout time, you know.”

  Cherisse thought his gesture was sweet. Smiling at him as they walked to the door, she said, “I would take you up on that if I could, but I promised a friend who is going through a tough time that I would drop by to see her tomorrow evening.”

  Harry held the door open for her. “When can I see you again, then?”

  Cherisse paused to look him in the eyes. “Next Saturday is my first day off from work. I work twelve-hour shifts, Harry.”

  Harry didn’t protest. “Dinner this Saturday night, then?” he asked hopefully.

  “Love to,” Cherisse said, and she shot through the door. Harry had to almost run to keep up with her. He smiled. She was determined to make it back to the suite before Danielle did.

  They were both out of breath by the time they walked across the lobby and to Cherisse and Danielle’s suite. At the door, Harry smoothed an errant hair behind Cherisse’s ear. Bending close, he said softly, “Good night, beautiful.”

  They kissed briefly, lips only. They both knew from experience how difficult it was to pull away when the kiss deepened.

  Cherisse looked starry-eyed when Harry raised his head. He smiled. “Thank you for the most enjoyable evening I’ve had in a long time.”

  Cherisse smiled back. “It was definitely my pleasure.”

  The provocative tone in her voice turned Harry on, a first for him. He figured he must really have it bad for her if just the sound of her voice had that effect on him.

  He kissed her cheek, still reluctant to leave her side.

  Cherisse had to playfully push him away. “You’ve got to go, Harry. If she sees you here it will have been for nothing! Help me maintain the upper hand in this mother-daughter struggle!”

  “Okay, okay,” Harry said, backing away.

  Cherisse blew him a kiss and slipped inside the dimly lit suite.

  As soon as she closed the door behind her, a voice said, “Where have you been, young lady?”

  Danielle was sitting on the couch wearing her pajamas. She reached over and switched on the lamp on the end table so she could see her mother better.

  Cherisse walked into the room and sat on the couch. Busted! She couldn’t wipe a broad smile off her face in spite of it. “Okay, you got me. I had planned on being here when you got home, but Harry and I started talking and the time just flew!”

  Danielle laughed delightedly. “Finally, I’ve got something to tell Grandma about you. At long last my virgin mother has gone gaga…”

  “Gaga!” Cherisse protested. “I am no such thing.”

  “…over Harry Payne,” Danielle finished with relish. She bounced on the sofa, ending with her legs under her. “You kissed him, didn’t you?” She watched her mother expectantly, her dark brown eyes sparkling. “Oh, tell me that you at least kissed him. You’ve known him long enough to kiss him, a whole week. It’s not as if you just met him tonight!”

  Cherisse was pulling off her shoes and getting comfortable on the couch. She met her daughter’s eyes. “Danielle, a mother does not discuss her love life with her daughter, no matter how chummy they are. And a lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  Danielle regarded her with consternation, which was hilarious to Cherisse. Laughing, she said, “Don’t give me that look. The subject is closed.”

  Sighing loudly, Danielle rose. “I’d just as well go to bed if you’re not going to tell me whether or not you and Mr. Payne kissed.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Cherisse told her. “Not until you tell me how your date with Dante was.”

  “Oh, I’m supposed to spill my guts, but you don’t have to? That’s not fair!”

  “Life is not fair,” said Cherisse with a smile. She patted the couch. “Sit.”

  After Danielle had sat down, Cherisse cleared her throat. “I take it Dante was a gentleman.”

  “He tried to kiss me good-night and I told him I never kiss on the first date,” said Danielle. “So he kissed my hand instead, which I thought was sweet. We’re going to stay in touch.” She sat back on the couch, loosening up. “He said I was hot, Ma.” She laughed shortly. “I don’t know how to take that. I never thought of myself as hot. I’m an athlete. Sometimes I don’t wear a dress for months at a time.”

  Cherisse smiled knowingly. Her daughter was beginning to recognize her sex appeal to the opposite sex. To be honest, she had thanked God for Danielle’s interest in sports and her disinterest in dressing provocatively in order to attract boys. Kids these days had so much sexual content fed to them on a daily basis through TV, music videos, video games, magazines and books, that it was a minor miracle that Danielle wasn’t more affected by it. Not that she naively thought Danielle wasn’t aware of the bombardment. She was a smart girl. But, so far, she had chosen not to be an active participant.

  “There’re all kinds of ‘hot,’” she told Danielle. “Dante is the type of boy who appreciates you just the way you are. You’re a natural beauty who’s confident enough not to buy into the video vixen brand of sexuality.”

  Danielle wrinkled her nose in distaste. “If I have to show my butt and my boobs to get a guy to talk to me I’ll die a virgin.”

  Cherisse spontaneously grabbed her daughter and kissed her loudly on the cheek. “Bless you!”

  Danielle grinned as she pulled away from her mother. “For what, probably dying a virgin?”

  “No, for being more levelheaded than I was at your age,” she said, her voice quivering a bit because she was close to tears. “I’ve told you that because I got pregnant with you when I was eighteen I’m sometimes harder on you than I should be. Having me as a mother can’t be easy.”

  “Having you for a mother is a blessing,” Danielle told her frankly. “I know I don’t tell you often enough, but you’re my greatest role model. No one in my life has influenced me more. You don’t have to worry about me, Ma. I’ve got my head on straight.”

  Then she kissed her mother’s cheek and told her good-night.

  Cherisse sat on the couch a few minutes longer, reflecting on the night. She flushed just thinking about those passionate kisses she’d shared with Harry.

  “Hold on tight,” she said to herself. “This is going to be an interesting ride.”

  Going against her better judgment, she was looking forward to seeing where this attraction to Harry Payne, a man she would never think would be interested in her, would take her.

  “Harry, you’re making this too easy for me,” Davis Winters said the next morning as he tapped the golf ball into the hole and finished their final round with a lower score than Harry’s. “Your head simply wasn’t in the game today.” He laughed shortly and he walked beside Harry to the waiting golf cart. “Do I have to ask where your mind was?”

  Harry was barely listening. He was consulting his watch. It was after eleven. Cherisse and Danielle would be on the road by now. God, how he had wanted to walk off the course any number of times this morning and rush back to the hotel in time to kiss Cherisse goodbye. But Davis had taken his sweet time, calculating each swing, talking through them, gossiping about m
utual friends while Harry ground his teeth in frustration.

  As Harry started the golf cart and Davis got in, he said, “Cherisse Washington.”

  “A beautiful woman,” Davis said. “Danielle’s a cute kid, too. Dante’s smitten, but boys his age are smitten with some girl every few weeks.”

  The day was cold and the sky a clear Colorado blue.

  Harry remained in a reflective mood as he drove. Davis, more gregarious, continued to chat in spite of his friend’s silence. “You, on the other hand, are not easily smitten. You didn’t look at that reporter the way you look at Ms. Washington. Why is that, Harry? Dante told me she’s a nurse. An honorable profession for certain, but will she make a suitable mate for you? I think not. You’re a very successful businessman, Harry. You need someone more glamorous, a woman who is well-traveled and well-educated.”

  Harry looked at Davis sharply. “Davis, you and I have been friends for nearly twenty years but if you say anything else negative about Cherisse Washington I’m going to pop you one right in the mouth.”

  Davis laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. “I knew it! Put your fist away, I was just testing you. Man, Harry. You really like Ms. Washington. Could this be the one? Dating a mother is new for you, though, isn’t it? Mothers are different, Harry. Their first priority is to their children. So Ms. Washington will probably not be able to traipse all over creation with you at the drop of a hat. You’re going to have to give her a break on that. And no spending the night together, either. A mother doesn’t want her child, especially if it’s a girl, to know she’s sleeping with anyone. Touchy subject, but I’m sure when the time comes you’ll handle it.”

  Referring to the fact that Davis held a position in the White House, Harry said, “I’m amazed they let you have security clearance. You never shut up.”

  Davis laughed. “I’m simply giving you the benefit of my experience.”

  Harry laughed this time. “What experience? You and Eva have been married since you were a senior in college. Twenty years now, right? You’ve never dated a single mother that I know of.”