What a Woman Wants Read online

  “What took you so long?” she asked Faith, refusing to give in to temptation and glance back over at the mechanic as they pulled away.

  “I stopped for gas. Remember I told you that I would.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot.” Although Shannon didn’t want to think about the mechanic, she had to admit he was a looker—a well-built looker. Her pulse raced, and she hated the thought of dealing with him again when she came later to pick up her car.

  Adam Corbain couldn’t help but grin as he watched the woman drive off in the car. She had to have been the snootiest yet most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Dark brown shredded hair fell to her shoulders, and her eyes had been the color of gingerbread. When she’d walked off, he had tried not to stare, but he hadn’t missed the generous curves showcased in the pair of shorts she was wearing.

  She had tried looking down on him like he was a cockroach, but that was only after he detected that hot look of interest in her eyes. Sexual chemistry was hard to resist, and he had felt it the same moment she had, when their gazes first connected. And when she had given him her car keys and business card and their fingers had touched, he had actually felt her tremble, which sparked a need he’d ignored for the past six months. His desire for her had been just that spontaneous. In all his thirty-seven years, he had never experienced such a thing before. He glanced down at the business card in his hand.

  Dr. Shannon Carmichael

  Professor of English and American Literature

  Duke University

  “Hey, man, whose car is this?”

  Adam turned around at the sound of his old friend’s voice. For as long as Adam could remember, Kent Scott was a person who loved tinkering with automobiles, so no one was really surprised after they’d graduated from high school that Kent went to college to obtain a degree in mechanical engineering. After working a few years designing cars for General Motors, he began his NASCAR career and earned the reputation of being both a high-performance mechanic and a fearless race car driver. However, the latter came to a screeching halt when he met and later married Lori. Now he was a family man and the owner of several profitable high-performance repair shops around the country. His clientele included sport figures and celebrities looking for classic cars to add to their collection.

  “A woman brought it in,” Adam finally answered. “She heard a knocking sound and wants you to check it out.”

  Kent raised a curious brow. “And she just left it here?” he asked, eyeing the sports car, a sleek and stylish Porsche.

  Adam smiled as he handed him the keys and the business card. “Yes. She thought I was one of your mechanics.”

  A grin flickered across Kent’s lips. “You, a mechanic? Not Mr. Ivy League graduate. Mr. Suave Attorney. How on earth could she assume such a thing?”

  “Probably from the way I’m dressed, which wasn’t to impress,” Adam said, glancing down at himself. His jeans and his T-shirt had seen better days.

  Shaking his head, Adam walked over to the car he had been about to work on before he’d noticed Ms. Carmichael sitting in the parked car. In a way, it was kind of comical that for the next month or so he would be just what Shannon Carmichael thought he was. A mechanic.

  Kent had contacted him a few months ago, letting him know he’d located a 1969 Pontiac GTO, and that all it needed was a little work. “A little work” to Kent meant a lot of work to anyone else. So Adam took a month’s leave from the family law office in Memphis to come to Hilton Head. And because he intended to spend the majority of his days and, in some cases, late into the night working on the vehicle, Kent suggested he occupy the empty apartment over the garage. Perfect.

  So for one month he would shed the role of Adam Corbain, the cool, sophisticated, and suave Memphis attorney and become a man on a mission to restore what he considered as the beauty of all muscle cars. He intended to make the vehicle into nothing less than one hell of a commemorative collectors’ item that would be an added bonus to his five-car garage.

  “So was she good-looking?”

  Adam glanced over his shoulder. “Who?”

  “The woman driving this set of wheels.”

  Adam smiled. “You’re married, remember.”

  “I wasn’t asking for myself but for you.”

  Adam lifted the hood, not wanting to meet Kent’s eyes when he said, “She looked all right.”

  “She drove this kind of car and just looked all right?”

  Adam shrugged. “Couldn’t see just how good she looked for her uppity attitude.” Adam wished he could claim that her snobbish manner had been a turnoff, but in essence everything about Dr. Shannon Carmichael had been a total turn-on.

  “Well, I’ll check out her car and see what’s wrong with it,” Kent said.

  “She wants you to call her before any repairs are done.”

  “Hey, that’s the way we do business around here. By the way, Lori wants you to come to dinner tonight. She’s grilling steaks.”

  “Then count me in,” Adam said, smiling.

  He couldn’t help listening when Kent started the engine on Shannon Carmichael’s car. A few minutes later, he called out to Kent and said, “Sounds like it could use a tune-up for starters.”

  “Yes,” Kent joked, “maybe the same thing holds true for the woman who drives it.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “I didn’t come here to get involved with a woman. Don’t have the time. This baby here is the only thing that will be getting my attention over the next four weeks.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And I do,” Adam said before grabbing a wrench and beginning to work.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait on you?” Monique asked Shannon as she got out of the car.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Shannon told her. “The person who called said my car was ready, so all I have to do is pay for the repairs and leave. No big deal.”

  Monique glanced around, and the first thing she noticed was that there weren’t any junky-looking cars all over the place. At least the place looked neat and clean. “All right, if you’re sure.” She then quickly asked, “You got your cell phone, right?”

  Shannon grinned. “Yes, Mother, I have my cell phone.”

  Monique aimed a don’t play with me like that smile at her friend. “Of all the people in the world, please don’t tell me I’m sounding like your mother.”

  “But you are.”

  “Okay, I get the message. I’ll see you back at the house.” She waved and drove off.

  Shannon took a moment to thank her lucky stars that Monique had been the one to bring her to the auto shop and not Faith. No matter how she might have insisted, Faith would not have left her here alone. Shannon then glanced around. Well, she wasn’t alone exactly. It seemed the man from earlier was still there. His back was to her, and she couldn’t see his face since his head was stuck under the hood of an old beat-up-looking car. But she would recognize the lower part of him anywhere.

  With every step toward him, she felt tension reaching its full height within her. What was there about this man, this mechanic who probably had no aspirations to be anything else, that was making her nervous? No, nervous wasn’t the right word. Hot was better.

  The man who’d called to tell her how much the repair would cost and then again to let her know it was ready to pick up wasn’t this guy. They had exchanged few words, but she knew it wasn’t the same voice on the telephone,

  He must have heard her footsteps because at that moment he pulled his head from underneath the hood of the car and turned. What she suddenly felt then was totally unexpected in one way, and not such a surprise in another. She stopped walking when his gaze slowly made its way down her body, and she all but suppressed a gasp. Her lower body started to sizzle in the intensity of his stare.

  Yes, she’d seen him earlier that day, but now she was really seeing him. He looked more handsome, manlier, sexier—and dirtier. His T-shirt was smeared with grease and oil, and there was a tear on the knee of his jeans tha
t hadn’t been there hours ago. There was even a smudge of grease on his chin, but she barely registered any of that, mesmerized by his stance as he leaned against the vehicle he was working on.

  There was something utterly raw and savage about him, an attitude that almost bordered on uncivilized. In the past, a man with a clean-shaven head had never set any sparks flying with her. But not only were they flying, they were landing on some pretty interesting spots.

  He was looking at her with a concentration that intensified the attraction she felt toward him, making it that much wilder. Her pulse rushed, her skin felt hotter, and she had to concede that although he was probably the most unrefined man she’d ever willingly encountered, he was also the most intriguing. The words bad boy were written all over him.

  She gathered the composure to speak. “I got a call that my car is ready.”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her with intense dark eyes before he finally said, “Kent’s inside.”

  The sound of his voice was like the feel of fingertips grazing across her skin. She swallowed. “Kent?”

  “Yeah, the owner.”

  “Oh. And who’re you?”

  He lifted a brow. “Who am I?”

  “Yes, don’t you have a name?”

  “Yes, I have one.”

  When moments ticked and it appeared he wouldn’t give it to her without her asking, she did. “Well, what is it?”

  “Adam. Adam Corbain.” Then as if he didn’t have anything else to say to her, he turned his back, leaned forward to resume what he’d been doing under the hood of the car. The urge to take a few steps and snuggle up against his back, wrap her arms around him, settle her body right smack up against his well-defined butt, was a temptation Shannon had to fight hard not to give in to. Instead she quickly walked over to the door of a small office.

  When she walked back out of the office less than ten minutes later, he was still there with his head underneath the hood of the car. She glanced his way for only a second before walking to her car and getting into it. He turned around when he heard the sound of her engine.

  Their gazes locked, held, and she could actually feel heat leap across the span of distance separating them. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and she couldn’t understand it. Why, of all the men she could be attracted to on this island, did it have to be him? A man who looked the part of a Neanderthal with a capital N. A man named after the first man on this earth. Adam. The same man whose rib started womanhood. Go figure.

  She pulled out of the garage, determined not to glance back in her rearview mirror, but she couldn’t help herself and did anyway. He was leaning against that car and staring, and for a brief moment it looked as if he would actually smile. But he didn’t. She’d dare any woman to actually make his lips tilt at the corners. Just try it. The thought of doing so captivated her, made every cell within her body vibrate, made her already scorching body even hotter.

  She breathed in slowly. At that moment, as crazy as it was, she knew her manhunt had ended before it had a chance to begin, in forbidden territory. Although she didn’t know anything about the man, she had to accept the obvious.

  She had found her prey.

  5

  Adrianna Ross-Fuller scooped up a handful of laundry from the dryer and went into her bedroom to fold and put it away. She smiled, remembering the call on her answering machine from that morning: Zach had let her know he was coming to Hilton Head for a visit.

  Technically Zachary Wainwright was her god-brother, but it was hard to think of him that way, since the two of them had met only a little over a year ago. The day he had tracked her down in her emergency room in San Diego was unforgettable. In a span of a couple of hours, he had convinced her that the family she thought had renounced her more than thirty years ago had actually been looking for her. They had not disowned her because her late father had married a Vietnamese girl during the war.

  That day changed her life. He had convinced her to return with him to D.C. and meet her father’s family as well as the godfather she hadn’t known existed. It was an incredible night filled with amazing people. Since then, she’d forged a close relationship with her paternal grandparents, uncle, and his family, as well as her godparents and the cousins she’d been introduced to. But nothing came close to the impact that Zach Wainwright had made on her life. She’d felt initially overwhelmed by the magnitude of love pouring forth from virtual strangers, but he had been right there for her, just a glance away, reassuring her that he was a friend she could count on. She had believed him. She’d trusted him, and eventually she fell in love with him.

  She began folding up her underthings, utterly contented. Zach was not a hard person to love. One of the brightest and most sought-after attorneys in D.C., he was the subject of speculation: Zachary Wainwright. Would he eventually follow in the footsteps of his father, the senator from Florida, and choose a political career? Adri-anna couldn’t help noticing that whenever anyone brought up the possibility, he was quick to deflect the rumor.

  It was also her opinion that Zach was extremely handsome, always the perfect gentleman, soft-spoken, caring, and private in certain ways. According to his sister Noelle, whom Adrianna had also gotten close to over the year, Zach had developed an extremely disciplined social life since his wife’s death five years ago, on September 11. She had been a flight attendant on the Washington-to-Los Angeles American Airlines Flight 77 that ill-fated day.

  Adrianna sighed deeply. No one knew about her inner feelings for Zach, and she planned to keep it that way. There was no telling what her newfound family would think if they were to discover her secret. And there was certainly no telling what Zach would think. He saw her as a close friend and nothing more. And she refused to do anything that would ruin that friendship, despite the voices she sometimes heard in her head: Go ahead, take the first step. Let him know how you feel.

  But she couldn’t take that step. She had been rejected once by the family of a man she had intended to marry, and she couldn’t risk another loss like that, especially not with this family, a family she could finally claim as her own. So when it came to Zach, she had to keep a good head on her shoulders and never act reckless.

  Adrianna continued to fold up her clothes, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to rein her overjoyed heart. Zach would be coming to see her in a few weeks, and that alone made her extremely happy.

  Washington, D. C.

  Zach Wainwright turned away from the window when he heard his parents enter the room. He met their curious gazes. It was late afternoon, and he knew they were wondering why he had called that morning with such urgency in his voice, asking to speak with the both of them.

  He studied them before speaking. Noah and Leigh Wainwright were always such a striking couple, even after thirty-seven years of marriage. His tall, handsome, and dashing father, Florida’s senator Noah Wainwright, and his beautiful wife, Leigh Murdock Wainwright—lovely, vivacious, and the most gracious hostess in all of the District of Columbia and surrounding areas. Zach knew how very much in love they were. Over the years they had given him and Noelle strong role models for healthy relationships. He had always wanted to bring what his parents had in their marriage to his own, but he hadn’t been given the chance. He had lost Shaun after only a couple of years of marriage, and for the longest while, all his hope and dreams had died with her on board that plane. Only strong family support and love had gotten him through that time intact.

  “Zach? Are you all right?” The concern in his mother’s voice matched the worried look on her face.

  His father, on the other hand, just continued to stare at him with those intense, dark eyes of his, and not for the first time did Zach wonder if Noah Wainwright could read his mind. It wouldn’t surprise him if he could, since they had always been so close. The retired senator was one of those men who’d always made time for his family, no matter what political aspirations he had. Family had always come first, and Zach knew it always
would.

  Zach crossed the room and gently took his mother’s hand in his. “I’m fine, Mom. I just wanted to talk to you and Dad about something that’s important to me.”

  Leigh nodded before glancing over her shoulder at her husband, and Zach could tell from her expression that she was wondering if he were already privy to what this was about. Guessing exactly that, Noah chuckled and said, “No, sweetheart, I don’t know why our son called this meeting, but I’m sure he won’t be keeping us in the dark for long. Let’s go ahead and sit down.”

  Zach’s parents perched on the sofa in the Wainwrights’ study. It occurred to him that on that same sofa, over a year ago, he had ended his father and Randolph Fuller’s search for Adrianna Fuller. She had sat there beside Zach while he held her hand, giving her the courage and confidence she needed to confront the family she assumed had turned their backs on her for thirty-four years. That night lies had been exposed, understandings forged, miscommunications cleared up, and, in the end, all the love Noah Wainwright had felt for his deceased best friend—and all the love and admiration Randolph Fuller had felt for his deceased brother, Ross Donovan Fuller—was alive, cultivated anew in Ross’s daughter, Adrianna, whom everyone called Anna.

  “Zach?”

  The sound of his mother’s voice brought his thoughts back to the present. Again he heard that apprehension. She was anxious to hear what he had to say. “I’m sure you saw the article in the papers this morning,” he started off.

  His father nodded automatically. “The one that claimed you’ll be making an announcement soon as to whether or not you plan to ever run for public office?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.” For the past couple of years the media had speculated on the possibility. As far as they were concerned, he was following in his father’s footstep and a stint in the political arena was inevitable. But Zach hadn’t made any commitments, and at first he had laughed off the media’s inquiries as ludicrous. But now ...

  “And what about it, Zach?” his mother asked, bringing his attention back to her. She had to be the strongest and the most genuine woman he knew, even in a town where most people constantly performed, as if they were on a stage.