Three things were immediately apparent.
One was that the sound she’d heard? The low rumble? It was coming from an enormous jetted hot tub.
Which was currently filled with two naked people: a man and a woman.
Neither of which were Cade Archer.
The couple was kissing passionately. She could see the long, slim back of the tanned woman as she pressed against the man’s chest, her arms wrapped around him. He’d stopped kissing her, though, and was staring at Audrey in surprise. They were bare chested and though she could see nothing untoward, it was pretty obvious what their goal was.
Audrey cleared her throat.
The woman jerked around, saw Audrey, and then slapped the man she was mauling. “You told me you weren’t seeing anyone else!”
He winced, rubbing his cheek. “I’m not. I don’t know who she is.” He pinned Audrey with an irritated look. “Who are you?”
They were both glaring at her like she was the intruder. Worse, like she was a bug. A really unattractive bug. Audrey bristled. “I should be asking that of you, shouldn’t I? This is Cade Archer’s private getaway.”
“So it is,” the man drawled lazily. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on as to why. “Which makes me wonder why you’re here.”
“I’m supposed to be here,” Audrey said in a clipped voice. “My sister was assured that the cabin was available for her use for the next month.”
He gave Audrey a wink and pulled the topless woman back against him. “We’ll be done with it in a few hours.”
Ugh. Audrey couldn’t hide her expression of distaste. “I hope you’ll drain the water from the hot tub when you’re done. No one else is going to want to swim in your DNA.”
He chuckled.
The woman scowled at him, pushing off his chest. “You didn’t set this up as a threesome, did you?”
“Of course not, Camilla.”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “I can assure you that the last thing I plan on doing is crawling in that hot tub with the two of you.”
“Reese.” The girl pouted, sinking into the bubbling water. “I thought this was going to be our private weekend.”
“I thought so, too,” he told her, still watching Audrey. She was irritated to see that he was still grinning like he was amused, his mouth framed by a rakish goatee.
“Sorry,” Audrey said crisply. “This cabin is already reserved. I’m sure the two of you can find someplace else to go and make out like teenagers.”
“Reese,” Camilla nagged again.
Audrey’s memory jarred, and she narrowed her eyes at the man. His hair was slicked down and he had a goatee, but . . . She raised a hand in her vision, covering the lower half of his jaw, and gasped. “Reese Durham.”
“You said you didn’t know her,” Camilla said, splashing him.
“I don’t,” he replied, shielding his eyes. “Cut it out.”
“I’m Logan Hawkings’s assistant,” Audrey said in her most efficient voice. That was where she’d seen him before. Normally she’d seen him in a suit and clean shaven, his hair perfectly parted. He was one of Logan’s cadre, one of the six men she privately referred to as the “deadly half dozen,” since they always seemed to hang out together. She’d seen him plenty of times in and out of the Hawkings office and at business functions. He’d clearly never noticed her before.
Then again, she’d never seen him shirtless and wet.
“Who’s out there?” Daphne hissed from behind the door.
Audrey glanced back at her, noting the strained, pale face of her twin. “One of Cade’s buddies is here with a date.”
“Shit.” She didn’t think it was possible, but Daphne got even paler. “Can you get rid of them? If the paps find out I’m here, they’re going to be crawling up my ass the entire time.”
The worry in her twin’s face was enough to spur Audrey into action. “Go upstairs,” she whispered. “I’ll get rid of them.” Turning back to the two in the hot tub, she pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Reese asked in a warning tone.
“Documenting this rendezvous,” Audrey said blandly, turning on the camera and beginning to take pictures. “I’m sure someone out there will be quite interested in private photos of billionaire playboy Reese Durham and his date—”
“Don’t you dare,” Camilla screamed, lurching from the hot tub at the same time that Reese did.
Audrey ignored them, continuing to take pictures. “If you’re not going to leave, I’m going to have to—” Her words cut off as a wet man grabbed her arms and tried to wrestle the phone from her. “Don’t touch me!”
“Give me that damn phone.”
“No!” She held it out from her body as Camilla wrapped a towel around her torso and scuttled past. As he reached again, Audrey continued to maneuver, holding the phone out of his grasp by wiggling and bending. It was childish and ridiculous . . .
And she was determined to win, damn it.
His arms were long and so was his reach, so she turned her back to him and bent over her phone, protecting it. To her shock, strong arms wrapped around her torso and she was hauled against the wet, naked body, his hands clutching perilously close to her br**sts.
“Give me the phone, little assistant,” he murmured, sounding more amused than outraged.
She wriggled against him, trying to free the arms that he had trapped. They were at an impasse. He pinned her arms to her side, which prevented him from reaching for the phone, but prevented her from doing anything with it, either. “Let me go.”
“Nope. I can do this all day.”
She shifted and, to her horror, she felt something hard against her hip. Audrey drew in a scandalized breath. “That better not be your dick I feel against my leg.”
He chuckled. “Can I help it if you’re squirming?”
“You are a loathsome man!”
“Hey, if you chased my date off, I’m happy to trade out and give you a chance—”
That did it. She dropped her phone on the ground. “There. You win. Happy? My phone’s gone. Now let me go.”
Just as quickly, he released her and scooped up the phone. Before she could protest, he tossed it into the hot tub, and Audrey made an outraged sound. “That was my phone!”