Apprehension lifted the hair on the back of Mari’s neck. The photos would be all the more mortifying if they caught her in this disguise. She needed to get inside suite 5A. Now. The numbered brass plaque told her she was at the right place.
Mari jabbed the buzzer, twice, fast.
“Room service,” she called, keeping her head low.
Seconds ticked by. The risk of stepping inside and hiding her identity from one person seemed far less daunting than hanging out here with the determined group and heaven only knew who else.
Just when she started to panic that time would run out, the door opened, thank God. She rushed past, her arms straining at the weight of the cart and her nose catching a whiff of manly soap. Her favorite scent—clean and crisp rather than cloying and obvious. Her feet tangled for a second.
Tripping over her own feet as she shoved the cart was far from dignified. But she’d always been too gangly to be a glamour girl. She was more of a cerebral type, a proud nerd, much to the frustration of her family’s press secretary, who expected her to present herself in a more dignified manner.
Still, even in her rush to get inside, curiosity nipped at her. What type of man would choose such a simple smell while staying in such opulence? But she didn’t dare risk a peek at him.
She eyed the suite for other occupants, even though the room-service cart only held one meal. One very weighty meal. She shoved the rattling cart past a teak lion. The room appeared empty, the lighting low. Fat leather sofas and a thick wooden table filled the main space. Floor-to-ceiling shutters had been slid aside to reveal the moonlit beach outside a panoramic window. Lights from stars and yachts dotted the horizon. Palms and fruit trees with lanterns illuminated the shore. On a distant islet, a stone church perched on a hill.
She cleared her throat and started toward the table by the window. “I’ll set everything up on the table for you.”
“Thanks,” rumbled a hauntingly familiar voice that froze her in her tracks. “But you can just leave it there by the fireplace.”
Her brain needed less than a second to identify those deep bass tones. Ice trickled down her spine as if snow had hit her African Christmas after all.
She didn’t have to turn around to confirm that fate was having a big laugh at her expense. She’d run from an irritation straight into a major frustration. Out of all the hotel suites she could have entered, somehow she’d landed in the room of Dr. Rowan Boothe.
Her professional nemesis.
A physician whose inventions she’d all but ridiculed in public.
What the hell was he doing here? She’d reviewed the entire program of speakers and she could have sworn he wasn’t listed on the docket until the end of the week.
The door clicked shut behind her. The tread of his footsteps closed in, steady, deliberate, bringing the scent of him drifting her way. She kept her face down, studying his loafers and the well-washed hem of his faded jeans.
She held on to the hope that he wouldn’t recognize her. “I’ll leave your meal right here then,” she said softly. “Have a nice evening.”
His tall, solid body blocked her path. God, she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Her eyes skated to his chest.
A very hard, muscle-bound place encased in a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the tail untucked. She remembered well every muscular—annoying—inch of him.
She just prayed he wouldn’t recognize her from their last encounter five months ago at a conference in London. Already the heat of embarrassment flamed over her.
Even with her face averted, she didn’t need to look further to refresh her memory of that too handsome face of his. Weathered by the sun, his Brad Pitt–level good looks only increased. His sandy blond hair would have been too shaggy for any other medical professional to carry off. But somehow he simply appeared too immersed in philanthropic deeds to be bothered with anything as mundane as a trip to the barber.
The world thought he was Dr. Hot Perfection but she simply couldn’t condone the way he circumvented rules.
“Ma’am,” he said, ducking his head as if to catch her attention, “is there a problem?”
Just keep calm. There was no way for him to identify her from the back. She would rather brave a few pictures in the press than face this man while she wore a flipping Santa Claus hat.
A broad hand slid into view with cash folded over into a tip. “Merry Christmas.”
If she didn’t take the money, that would appear suspicious. She pinched the edge of the folded bills, doing her best to avoid touching him. She plucked the cash free and made a mental note to donate the tip to charity. “Thank you for your generosity.”
“You’re very welcome.” His smooth bass was too appealing coming from such an obnoxiously perfect man.
Exhaling hard, she angled past him. Almost home free. Her hand closed around the cool brass door handle.
“Dr. Mandara, are you really going so soon?” he asked with unmistakable sarcasm. He’d recognized her. Damn. He was probably smirking, too, the bastard.
He took a step closer, the heat of his breath caressing her cheek. “And here I thought you’d gone to all this trouble to sneak into my room so you could seduce me.”
* * *
Dr. Rowan Boothe waited for his words to sink in, the possibility of sparring with the sexy princess/research scientist already pumping excitement through his veins. He didn’t know what it was about Mariama Mandara that turned him inside out, but he’d given up analyzing the why of it long ago. His attraction to Mari was simply a fact of life now.
Her disdain for him was an equally undeniable fact, and to be honest, it was quite possibly part of her allure.
He grew weary with the whole notion of the world painting him as some kind of saint just because he’d rejected the offer of a lucrative practice in North Carolina and opened a clinic in Africa. These days, he had money to burn after his invention of a computerized medical diagnostics program—a program Mari missed no opportunity to dismiss as faux, shortcut medicine. Funding the clinic hadn’t even put a dent in his portfolio so he didn’t see it as worthy of hoopla. Real philanthropy involved sacrifice. And he wasn’t particularly adept at denying himself things he wanted.
Right now, he wanted Mari.
Although from the look of horror on her face, his half-joking come-on line hadn’t struck gold.
She opened and closed her mouth twice, for once at a loss for words. Fine by him. He was cool with just soaking up the sight of her. He leaned back against the wet bar, taking in her long, elegant lines. Others might miss the fine-boned grace beneath the bulky clothes she wore, but he’d studied her often enough to catch the brush of every subtle curve. He could almost feel her, ached to peel her clothes away and taste every inch of her café-au-lait skin.