“Thanks.”
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
“Depends on your point of view.”
“Mike—”
Several people had now twisted around in their chairs, watching avidly, not even bothering to pretend otherwise. Candlelight flickered on the tabletops, and the music shifted to something a little jazzier.
“I asked you to marry me.”
A woman sitting close by gasped and clutched both hands to her chest, giving him a warm smile. A better response than he’d gotten from the woman he loved, Mike thought, grimly focusing again on Kelly.
“And I gave you your answer,” Kelly said quietly, pushing the words through gritted teeth.
“Not the right one.”
“It’s the right one for me.”
“Liar.”
Her head snapped back, her mouth dropped open and her eyes narrowed. She glanced around at the people staring at her, awaiting her response, then turned to Mike again. She looked as if she wanted to throw something. Or scream. He didn’t give her a chance to do either.
“You love me, O’Shea.”
Kelly looked wildly around the room again, as if searching for help from the interested crowd. None was offered. Instead, the place went even quieter, except for the jazz combo playing through the stereo system.
Seconds ticked past and Mike waited. He’d learned patience over the years. In the military, you learned that impatience could get you shot—and military tactics were good practice for his and Kelly’s fights. So, if he had to, he could wait all night.
Kelly didn’t force him to.
She threw her empty tray to the floor, made a sharp about-face turn and stomped toward the kitchen—and escape. Mike didn’t let her get two steps. He caught her up and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her tightly.
“Not a chance, babe,” he said, his voice low enough that only she could hear him over the music still soaring through the room. “Neither one of us leaves until this is settled.”
“Damn it, Mike, you don’t want to marry me. You want to make up for last time.”
Her green eyes swam with tears she refused to let fall, and his heart twisted painfully in his chest. So many years gone, he thought wildly. So much time lost. No more. Not one more second.
“Are you nuts?” he demanded, his voice louder now, stunned that she would think he’d offer her a pity proposal.
“Apparently,” she ground out. “Since I’m still hanging around with you.”
“O’Shea, you’re killin’ me.” He shook his head and smiled. Life with Kelly would never be dull, he thought. And he couldn’t wait to get started on it. His voice loud enough to carry and soft enough to be the caress he couldn’t afford to risk, because he was still too worried about letting her go, he said, “I love you. Loved you then. Love you now.”
“Oh…” A soft sigh came from the woman still clutching her hands to her chest.
“But—” Kelly started.
“No ‘buts,’ Kel,” he said and felt her relax a little, the starch going out of her spine even as the first tear slid from the corner of her eye. “Six years ago, we weren’t ready. Either of us.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, leaning into him a little more.
“Now we are.”
Her mouth twitched, and Mike felt the sweet rush of relief.
“Maybe,” she said.
“And,” he continued, pressing his luck, now that he’d found the chink in her defenses, “if we hurry the hell up, we could get married before I ship out.”
“Before?” she asked, lifting her gaze to his, watching him with wonder shining in those incredible green eyes. “You don’t want to wait until you get back?”
“Are you kidding? No way,” he said tightly. “I want my ring on your finger. I want yours on mine. I want us signed, sealed and delivered. As fast as we can manage it.”
“Really?” She smiled up at him and her eyes shone with the promise of forever.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, sparing one hand now to cup her cheek and wipe away a stray tear. “Marry me, Kelly. Give me someone to come home to. Be my wife. Have my babies.”
Someone in their audience clapped and was suddenly hushed by someone else, waiting for the conclusion.
Kelly dipped her head and said a silent prayer of thanks. She’d found the love of her life. Not once, but twice. And this time he’d fought for her. He’d come back and made her hear him. This time it would work. This time it was right.
When she looked up at him again, she saw everything she’d ever wanted in his steady gaze. And she knew that “the plan” had been destined to fail. He’d been in her heart since the first time she’d seen him. And now she couldn’t imagine life without him.
Lifting both arms to encircle his neck, she said loudly, for the benefit of not only Mike but their audience, “I’ll marry you, Connelly. I’ll have our babies. And I swear, I’ll love you forever.”
The applause thundered around them, but neither of them heard. For them there were only the two of them in the world and that was just as it should be.
THE DARE AFFAIR
Sheri WhiteFeather
To MJ, my amazing editor, for bringing Barbara, Maureen and me together on this project. And to Richard Cerqueira, my favorite cover model, whose stunning good looks, charming personality and Portuguese heritage inspired the hero in the story.
Chapter 1
Katrina Beaumont hadn’t come to Steam to see Clayton Crawford, the owner of the posh restaurant and trendy blues club. She’d agreed to allow her girlfriends to treat her to a night on the town so she could shed the humiliation of being jilted.
She glanced in Clay’s direction. He stood near the stage, with his back turned. She hadn’t seen him in years, but she recognized him instantly. She could sense his presence, even from across the room.
Katrina reached for her wine, then shifted her gaze, staring at the cocktail napkin in front of her. Clay wasn’t her ex-fiancé he wasn’t the man who’d tromped on her heart. Clay was part of her past, and memories of their youth flickered like a long-lost movie.
“Your mind is drifting again.” Jenny Kincaid, a brown-eyed brunette, tilted her head. Her neatly bobbed hair hugged her chin, swaying lightly to one side.
“We’re worried about you.” This from Anna-Mae Delcott, her other concerned friend, the blond bob.
Over a decade ago, the trio had been introduced into society at the same cotillion. They’d even attended the same private high school and dallied at the same college, furthering their education, in spite of their trust funds.
Katrina sighed. She and her girlfriends occupied a gray marble table that faced the dance floor. Couples swayed, rocking to the beat. The music coming from the band was slow and soulful, filling the club with jailhouse tunes, songs that imprisoned the soul. “I’m trying to enjoy myself.”
“By dwelling on Andrew?” Jenny dipped a cat-fish nugget into a bowl of Cajun tartar sauce. The restaurant was on the second floor, but the club served a variety of appetizers.
“I wasn’t thinking about Andrew.” Katrina sipped her wine. Andrew’s name left a gaping hole in her chest, the pain of being a poor-little-rich-girl, a has-been debutante, a discarded lover. “I was thinking about Clay.”
Anna-Mae leaned forward. “The owner of this decadent establishment?”
“Yes.” The wine slid down her throat, burning her stomach, warming it. Steam was as dark and rich as the man who owned it. Thick velvet drapes, mahogany woods, a single blood-red rose on each table. Was she the only woman aching? The only tortured heiress taking refuge in a blues club? “I haven’t seen him since we were teenagers. His mother used to be my seamstress.”
“Where is he?” Jenny jumped back into the conversation, fanning her mouth, waving away the spicy aftertaste of the appetizer.
“There. Near the stage.” Katrina motioned. His back was still turned. “He’s talking to a cocktail waitress.”
Both bobbed heads str
ained to get a better look. And then Clay flashed his profile, moving closer to the waitress, an intimate motion that sent Katrina’s pulse into a rickety shuffle.
“Swarthy,” Jenny said.
“Wrong side of the tracks,” Anna-Mae added. “Or that’s what I’ve heard. Why didn’t you ever mention him before?”
Katrina faked an unaffected shrug. Clay had been her secret; the boy who used to watch her through dark, dangerous eyes. But boys like Clayton Crawford were off-limits, and delicately bred girls like Katrina knew better.
“I wonder how he afforded to build this place.” Jenny’s voice slipped into its gossip mode. “Do you think he’s connected?”
Katrina dared another glance at him. He was no longer a boy. His features had aged, hardened into sharp angles and shadowed hues. “Connected to what?”
“Criminals.”
Before Katrina could respond, Clay caught sight of her. Trapped in a timeless moment, she fought the air in her lungs, hoping she wasn’t wearing her emotions on her sleeve.
“His ears must be burning.”
“What?” A little dizzy, she gulped the chardonnay, unsure of who’d spoken. All she could see was Clay coming her way. Would he know that she’d been jilted? Would he sense her discomfort?
He reached their table, and she looked up at him. He wore a black suit with a narrow tie. His dark brown hair was combed away from his face. She’d always been fascinated by his eclectic ancestry, the Portuguese, Scottish and Choctaw roots that claimed him.
“Katrina.”
He said her name in a voice that sizzled with summer nights, with the light rain misting the windows. She could almost feel the heat, the mugginess dampening her skin.
“Clay.” She introduced him to her friends, and he offered a proprietor’s smile.
“Ladies. I trust you’re enjoying your evening.”
Anna-Mae nodded, but Jenny studied him with a critical eye. Still wondering, it seemed, if he were a shady businessman. “This is quite a place you have,” she said.
“I like it.” He raised his brows at her, almost as if he’d read her mind. Then he turned to Katrina. “Where’s your beau tonight?”
She took a nervous breath. He must have read about her engagement in the society column. Andrew Winston’s family hailed from old money, from the kind of prestige that made the papers. Katrina’s family, of course, was cut from the same gilded cloth. Clay knew that better than anyone. “He…we—”
“She’s mourning him,” Anna-Mae said.
Clay’s brows lifted again.
“He didn’t die,” Anna-Mae explained. “He called off the wedding.”
“I knew what you meant.” The man from Katrina’s past didn’t offer an apology. He merely gazed into her eyes and made her knees weak.
She smoothed her French-braided hair, hoping she appeared calmer than she felt, struggling to maintain the ladylike decorum her mother had instilled in her. “It’s only been a few days.”
“A fresh wound,” Clay noted.
“Andrew will come around,” Jenny interjected. “Sometimes men just get cold feet.” She sat ramrod straight, looking a bit too snooty for her own good.
Katrina supposed she looked that way, too. She wondered if Clay cared or if he took women like her, Jenny and Anna-Mae in stride. Steam was the hottest spot in Savannah. He walked on the cutting edge of society, in a world that made their privileged lives seem dull. Clay’s reputation was glamorously forbidden, simply because he’d been poor. The boy from the wrong side of the tracks had come a long way.
“I’ll send over a bottle of wine,” he said. “On the house. For your mourning,” he added with a slight tilt to his lips, a smile that seemed to mock the past.
“Thank you, but that isn’t necessary,” Katrina said, lacking a clever response.
“I insist.” He gave her a polished nod, bade her friends goodbye and walked away, leaving her lonelier than she’d been before.
Hours later Clay stood at the bar, nursing a soda water, keeping an eye on his club. He’d built Steam on blood, sweat and determination. He’d worked hard to improve his family’s station in life, busting his butt for the scholarships that had granted him a higher education. And he’d worked even harder to convince investors to trust him, to prove that he could make Steam a success.
And now?
Now he was a thirty-year-old entrepreneur, still trying to shake Katrina Beaumont from his blood. When they were teenagers, he’d wanted nothing more than to be her equal, to be good enough to date her. But Clay’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks roots and minority-mixed heritage hadn’t meshed with high-society women. Of course, these days, ladies like Katrina flocked to Steam, intent on being part of the flame-licking, blues-palpitating world he’d created.
As music vibrated the walls and bodies made erotic contact on the dance floor, Clay refused to suffer the way he’d done when he was a boy. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and Katrina was smarting over another man.
So who the hell cared?
By the time the headlining act took the stage, Joe Morton approached Clay. The bouncer, competent as he was, looked like a no-necked jock in a dark suit, with short blond hair and a serious nature.
Joe jerked his head. “There’s a little trouble at your lady friend’s table. Do you want me to handle it? Or would you prefer to deal with this yourself?”
Trouble? He shifted his gaze and caught the disagreement going on. Katrina and her companions appeared to be arguing. He stalled, squinted at Joe, struggled with a decision.
“I’ll take care of it,” he finally said.
“That’s what I figured.”
Clay didn’t respond. It hadn’t taken Joe long to notice his attraction to Andrew Winston’s former fiancé, to zero in on his frustration.
The bouncer squared his shoulders. “She’s all yours.”
Right. As soon as Clay took a closer look, he realized she was drunk. She’d abused the wine he’d sent to her table.
Great, he thought. Just what he needed, another complication. He strode across the club and placed his hands on the back of her chair, snaring her attention. “What’s going on?” he asked, interrupting the feminine squabble.
“They want to leave.” She swayed a little, moaning to the soulful song. “But I want to stay.”
“She never does this,” the blonde who’d been introduced as Anna-Mae said.
“This is definitely a first,” Jenny, the brunette added.
Clay wasn’t surprised. Katrina Beaumont, with her properly styled auburn hair and elegant clothes, wasn’t the sort of woman to lose control, to misbehave in public. But there she sat in a classy black dress and jeweled choker, three sheets to the wind.
“Short of dragging her out of here and pouring her into my car, we have no idea what to do.” Jenny glanced at her glassy-eyed friend. “Katrina will be mortified later if we cause a scene. But I’m afraid there’s no way to make a discreet exit.”
He maintained his composure, even though he wanted to curse a blue streak. Drunken patrons were his responsibility, especially this one. “I’ll take care of her.”
Jenny gave him an exasperated sigh. “How?”
“I’ll escort her upstairs and give her some time to pull herself together. Then I’ll take her home.”
Katrina’s companions exchanged a concerned look. But even so, it didn’t take them long to accept his offer. Apparently they trusted him enough not to cause a ruckus in his own club. And they probably didn’t realize that upstairs meant Clay’s fourth-floor apartment.
Katrina made a face. “You’re all talking about me as if I wasn’t even here.”
“We know you’re here.” He leaned into her. Her lashes fluttered like hummingbird wings, shadowing her cheeks. “Your friends are going to let you stay. But you’ll have to hang out with me for a while.”
She almost smiled at him. “Jenny thinks you’re a criminal.”
“I do not.” The brunette made an indignant sound. “I can
see that Clay is an upstanding citizen.”
Yeah, right, he thought. As this point, all she saw was the man who was going to take an intoxicated friend off her hands.
“Where are we going?” Katrina asked, as Clay escorted her down a private hallway.
“To my place.” He knew that nothing but time would make her sober, but he intended to give her a cup of coffee, anyway—something to keep her busy.
“It’s so secluded.”
He glanced up at the security cameras that provided surveillance for his front door. Inside his home, a sophisticated alarm system offered high-tech protection.
“Is this it?” Katrina asked upon entrance.
“Yes.” He turned off the alarm. “This is where I live.”
She gave him a fluttery smile. “It’s sexy.”
He glanced around his loft-style apartment. The furniture was modern, with angular tables and canvas prints by his favorite artist—a Peruvian painter who used brilliant colors and sparks of sensuality. The glass lamps were the same style the decorator had used in Steam, and the floors were covered in black-and-white linoleum.
“You’re sexy, too,” she said.
Clay merely looked at her. “That’s the wine talking.”
“I always thought you were hot. A hot-ee.” She cranked up the last syllable, putting more emphasis on it. “Even when we were young.” She slid onto his sofa and cuddled into the cushion. “Do you know what he insinuated to me?”
Uh-oh. Confession time. Clay sat on the edge of the coffee table. He could see a shadowy outline of the verandah through the partially open sheers, and the rainy image made him lonely. “You don’t have to tell me this, Katrina.”
“Kat. You can call me Kat. No one does, but you can.” One of her shoes, a ladylike pump, dangled precariously from her foot. “Andrew wasn’t satisfied with our relationship. He admires my social graces, but—” the dangling shoe dropped to the floor “—I’m just not exciting enough for him. In bed,” she added in a mock whisper, her eyes going gullibly wide.
The Dare Affair: Summer In Savannah Anth. (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 6.5 Page 15