From Seduction to Secrets

by Andrea Laurence

  So far, no luck.

  This was an eventuality she’d been avoiding. The Jeep had been a present from her parents for her high school graduation. Even as she got older, there wasn’t really any reason to replace the car. It was old and didn’t have all the fancy features of newer ones, but it got her from A to B.

  Since she found out she was pregnant, she’d been thinking more seriously about getting a new ride. One with doors, perhaps. It seemed as though her old Jeep was making the decision for her.

  “Please. Just get me home tonight and I’ll promise to sell you to an outdoorsy guy that will fix you up and drive you through all the mud puddles.” Kat tried to turn the engine over again and found her attempts to negotiate had fallen on deaf ears. Because her Jeep didn’t have ears.

  With a whimper, she dropped her head onto the steering wheel in defeat. Why did it have to happen today? And here? Now the family she was trying to impress would have to see her junky old car get towed away from their multi-million-dollar estate. As though she wasn’t already having enough trouble fitting in. She and Grandma Ingrid had hit it off, but most of the other people at the party had just regarded her from a distance.

  When she went to fix a plate, all the ladies near the buffet had hushed until she was gone. It was quite juvenile for grown-ups, really. Kat wasn’t used to being the subject of hot new gossip. And now they could be confident in believing her a gold digger. She didn’t even have a functioning car—of course she was after Finn’s money.

  “Need some help?”

  Kat shot to attention and turned to find Sawyer had silently crept up beside her car. “Did you go to ninja school or something?” she asked, pressing her hand to her rapidly beating heart.

  “Morgan says I’d make a terrible spy. She insists I couldn’t sneak up on her with a marching band going by. I didn’t even try to slip out of the house when we were teenagers because I knew I’d get caught. So I’d say you were distracted.”

  “That’s a word for it,” she said. Turning away from him, she reached for her purse and rummaged around for her cell phone. She needed to call a wrecker. Most of the other guests were gone by now, so hopefully only the family would still be around when it showed up.

  “It’s awfully late,” Sawyer said. “They’re going to charge you extra to drive all the way out here on a weekend after eight. Why don’t I give you a ride home? Then you can call someone to get the car in the morning, or on Monday.”

  Kat turned to him with a sigh. She certainly didn’t want to sit out here in the humid summer air and get eaten by mosquitos while she waited. Then again, accepting a ride home from Sawyer seemed equally perilous. “I can call an Uber.”

  “Don’t be silly. I can give you a ride. No one is going to want to come way out here to get you. Besides, I pass near your neighborhood on my way home, anyway.”

  She regarded him suspiciously for a moment, but when he offered his hand and stood there with an expectant look on his face, she finally gave in. “Okay.”

  He helped her out and only released her hand when he pointed to his car a couple yards away. “Don’t act so put out. Most people would love to be chauffeured around in a brand-new car like mine. It still has the new-car smell.”

  Kat looked in that direction and spied a silver Audi SUV parked beside a bright yellow Porsche Boxster. She held her breath for a moment to see which one lit up when he pulled out his key fob. The lights on the Audi blinked on and off. She should’ve known better than to think that Sawyer would drive the flashier car. If she had learned more about him before that night at the aquarium, she would’ve realized she was with Finn, not Sawyer, when they left for a hotel and got into his bright red Ferrari.

  Sawyer opened the passenger door and held it for her until she was inside. She sat patiently waiting as he came around to his side and started the car. It did have the new-car smell. It also looked as though it was fresh from the dealership. No travel mug in the cup holder, no crumbled-up receipts on the floor. It was immaculate.

  “How long have you had this car?” she asked as they drove off the property.

  “Two months, I think?”

  “Oh,” Kat said with surprise. “I was thinking more like a few days. This thing looks like it’s hardly been driven.”

  “It’s been driven. I just keep it pretty tidy.”

  “Is your place really tidy, too?”

  She watched Sawyer frown at the windshield for a moment before he responded. “Maybe. But I have a cleaning service that comes in twice a week.”

  That sounded nice. She’d love to have one come in twice a month. Kat shook her head. “I bet they hardly do anything. I bet your underwear drawer is organized like a museum exhibit.”

  “My underwear is hardly museum quality,” Sawyer said with a chuckle. “But I do have them rolled and stood on end as Marie Kondo suggests.”

  Kat rolled her eyes and relaxed back into the plush leather seat. “You need a little messy in your life.”

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “You just seem very...straightlaced. Maybe you’re trying to compensate for your brother or something, but you never seem to make a misstep. You need to loosen up. Even your grandmother agrees.”

  Sawyer turned to her with a confused arch of his brow. “You were talking about me with my grandmother?”

  “Yes. She had a lot of nice things to say about you, actually. I think you’re her favorite.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just the way she talks about you. It seems like she really wants you to find someone and settle down. She wants you to find someone who makes you happy, not just someone you think the family will approve of, like your last few girls.”

  Kat watched Sawyer’s knuckles tighten and grow white as he gripped the steering wheel. “I thought this afternoon was about my family getting to know you, not about Grandmother spilling all the family gossip to you.”

  She shrugged and turned back to the road. “We talked about me a lot, too. And about Finn. About Jade and Morgan’s situation. Ingrid really seemed to take a liking to me for some reason. I don’t know why.”

  “Really?”

  “What do you mean, really?” Kat turned toward Sawyer as he slowed to a stop in front of her house.

  He turned off his engine and looked at her. “My grandmother enjoys the company of interesting people. I don’t know why you would think you aren’t interesting enough to keep her attention. You’re smart, you’re easy to talk to, you’re an artist. There’s a lot of layers to you that I’m sure she would find fascinating. I certainly enjoy talking to you.”

  Kat noticed he said the last part a little more quietly than the rest. It was a curious admittance from a man who had at one time seemed adamant that she was some kind of crook out to fleece his family. “I enjoy talking to you, too,” she admitted.

  An awkward silence followed. With any other man in any other situation, Kat would’ve expected Sawyer to lean in and kiss her good-night. That was the natural progression of a conversation like that. She could sense the statically charged energy inside the car. Even with the air-conditioning on, she could feel the heat of his body nearby and smell the lingering scent of his cologne.

  It was enough to make her want to slip off her seat belt and scoot closer to him. Judging by the blood racing hotly through her veins and the tingle that sizzled down her spine when he looked her way, it was clear that Kat wanted him to kiss her. And yet he hesitated. And she understood why.

  Their attraction to each other was nothing more than mistaken identity combined with a cruel trick of chemistry. She needed to just thank him, get out of his car and go into her house. She needed to look at her finances and start thinking about buying a new car, not about Sawyer and the way his blazer clung to his broad shoulders. Or the way the deep brown of his eyes reminded her of decadent dark chocolate.


  Yes, that was what she needed to do. With a surge of self-control, she reached for the door handle and turned to say goodbye. “Would you like to come in for some coffee or something?” she said, instead of good-night or thanks for the ride.

  The words slipped from her lips before she could stop herself. Why would she invite Sawyer into her house? The last time they’d spent any real time alone, they’d ended up kissing, and that was in public at her studio. What would happen late on a Saturday night at her house? With no one there to interrupt or know what was happening inside?

  Her belly clenched as she awaited his answer.

  “I’d like that.”

  A surge of excitement and a good dose of worry washed over her. Kat was about to find out exactly what would happen if they were alone again. And deep inside, she couldn’t wait.

  * * *

  What are you doing? What are you doing?

  Every step Sawyer took up the path to Kat’s piazza raised a chorus of doubts in his mind. He followed her inside, knowing full well that he was heading into dangerous territory.

  It’s just coffee, he told himself, but he knew that was a lie even as the thought entered his mind. If he crossed that threshold into Kat’s home, it was like the point of no return. He already ached to kiss her. It had taken everything he had on the ride back not to reach over and cup her bare knee with his hand. He wanted to stroke the smooth skin he’d been eyeing all afternoon.

  It was stupid. It was reckless. It was everything Sawyer typically looked upon with disapproval. And yet he couldn’t help himself. He felt a bit like Finn, doing what he wanted without thinking about what others thought.

  Inside her house, he watched Kat set down her things and kick off her heels with a sigh of relief. “That’s the best thing to happen to me all day,” she said with a soft smile. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to make some coffee.”

  He watched her disappear into the kitchen as he happily shrugged out of his blazer and tossed it over the back of a chair. Then he set about checking out more of Kat’s place. He had been here before, when he’d delivered the dress from Jade, but he’d been too stressed out to pay much attention to his surroundings then. Now, with her in the other room, he was able to walk around and take in the place Kat called home.

  The first thing he noticed was the collection of wood carvings around the living room. He recognized them as similar in style to some of her projects at her studio. There was a tall, narrow carving of a mermaid reaching toward the surface of the water, a couple embracing as the wind twirled her hair around them, and Kat’s coffee table was an oval sheet of glass resting on the back of a green sea turtle. She really was a talented artist.

  The piece that didn’t seem to fit in was a large canvas painting above the sofa. It was a chaotic mash of colors that up close seemed like a mess, but from far away, you could see a little girl in a yellow slicker splashing in a rain puddle. He looked at the signature and recognized the name from Kat’s background check. It was by her mother, Astrid Elliott. When he’d first read the name, it had sounded familiar, but now that he saw one of her pieces in front of him, he made the connection. Astrid had been a successful artist when she was alive, with the price of her works skyrocketing after her death. He’d even seen one of her pieces in the museum downtown.

  On the fireplace mantel, he saw a framed family portrait that had to have been taken not long before the accident that killed both Astrid and Brent McIntyre, Kat’s father. Kat looked like a younger, happier version of the woman he knew, surrounded by the parents who loved her.

  He noticed it was the only picture around the house. There was nothing more recent. He supposed that was because she didn’t want to have pictures taken of herself alone. It seemed like a depressing thing to do, although the idea had never occurred to him until now. He’d always had more family than he knew what to do with. Lately, he’d gained a sister and two new brothers-in-law. He didn’t know what it would be like to be alone in the world the way Kat was.

  “How do you take your coffee?” Kat asked, as she came into the room with two mugs on a small tray.

  “Black, normally, but it’s too late for that. Cream, no sugar, or I’ll be up all night.”

  Kat looked at him curiously for a moment, the curve of her mouth inching upward in an amused expression before she nodded and set the tray down on the coffee table. Thinking over his words in the current context of being alone in her house late at night, he could see why. Coffee or not, he might very well be up all night. God, he wanted to be up all night.

  He was about to sit down on the sofa when he noticed her fidgeting in her lace dress. “Would you like to change out of your party clothes? You seem uncomfortable.”

  “Yes,” she said with a relieved sigh, as she poured cream into his coffee and then straightened. “This lace has gotten itchier as the night goes on. I just hope I can get ahold of the zipper.”

  “I can get that for you,” Sawyer offered.

  Kat’s gaze fixed on his for a moment. It seemed as though neither of them took a breath the entire time as she thought over his helpful suggestion and what could come of it. “Okay,” she said at last.

  Kat swooped her long red hair up off her neck to expose the zipper, and turned her back to him.

  Sawyer’s hands were almost trembling as he reached out to grasp the tab and hold the fabric taut. He tugged down, separating the teeth and exposing more and more of Kat’s bare skin as he went. His fingertips brushed over the clasp of her pale pink bra before they continued down to the curve of her back. The zipper stopped there, just where the top of her panties would be visible. But they weren’t.

  “Did you go commando to my grandmother’s garden party?” Sawyer managed to ask, his mouth suddenly as dry as sand.

  Kat chuckled and swept her hair over her shoulder as she turned to him. “I had to. This dress showed panty lines pretty badly and I’ve never really been a fan of thongs.”

  The smile faded slowly from her face when she looked him in the eye. He wasn’t sure what she saw there, but he was certain every feeling he was trying to hide was visible if she peered hard enough. He was usually good at disguising his feelings, but that was because he rarely had any. Now, standing here with her dress about to slip from her shoulders, he was overwhelmed with feelings like never before.

  Without saying a word, Sawyer reached out and caught the neckline of her dress where it rested across her skin. He heard Kat’s breath catch in her throat as he pulled at the coral fabric. It slipped off her shoulder, the weight of the dress pulling it from her other shoulder, as well. Kat didn’t try to stop it as it slid down her body and pooled at her bare feet.

  Sawyer swallowed hard as his gaze raked across Kat’s virtually naked body. When she finally did move, it wasn’t to grab her dress or cover herself. She reached behind her back and unfastened her bra. In a moment, it fell to the floor with her dress, leaving nothing but the red waves of her hair to cover any of her body from him.

  He let out a ragged breath as he studied her pale, creamy skin. He was drawn to her full breasts and the hardened peach nipples that seemed to reach out to him, begging him to touch them. He wanted to. It was wrong, but he wanted to. He was conflicted enough that he was frozen on the spot, unable to leave and unable to pursue her.

  Instead, Kat closed the gap between them. She stepped gingerly out of her dress and stopped just short of having her nipples graze the cotton of his dress shirt. “Don’t you want to touch me, Sawyer?” she asked.

  Hearing her specifically say his name, not his brother’s, lit a fire deep inside his belly. This wasn’t just a case of mistaken identity. She wanted him. In this moment, naked and vulnerable in front of him, she wanted Sawyer to touch her, and he was desperate to give her what she needed.

  “More than anything,” he admitted, and he meant it. He couldn’t remember another woman in his life who had gotten
under his skin, or taken over his thoughts, the way Kat had.

  “Then touch me. Please. I want you to.”

  She wanted this. He wanted this. In that moment, Sawyer decided that nothing else mattered. He had to have Kat or he was going to make himself crazy with unfulfilled desire. He would regret not taking the chance, just as he would probably regret sleeping with her, so he might as well do what he wanted to in the heat of the moment.

  Reaching out, he cupped one breast in his hand. Kat’s head tipped back and her eyes closed as she savored the sensation. Her skin was soft as silk as his thumb traced over it and then teased the taut peak that pressed insistently into his palm.

  With his other hand, Sawyer reached around the back of her neck, weaving his fingers through her hair and pulling her mouth up to meet his. She opened herself to him, moaning softly with pleasure as his tongue grazed hers. He drank her in, enjoying the lingering taste of strawberries on her lips from the flavored seltzers she’d sipped all afternoon.

  He felt her fingers at his throat and pulled away from her mouth long enough for Kat to tug his tie loose and throw it onto the floor. She unfastened the top button of his shirt, which was always his favorite moment of the day. He supposed it was like Kat kicking off her uncomfortable shoes. He sighed in relief, and was about to dip his head down to taste her breasts when Kat pressed insistently on his chest, forcing him backward until his calves met with the couch behind him.

  She pushed him back onto the sofa and crawled onto his lap to sit astride him. Her fingers worked feverishly to unbutton his dress shirt and push the fabric out of her way. Sawyer’s hands gripped the flesh of her hips as she dragged her nails through his chest hair to his belly, then unfastened his belt.

  Kat rose up on her knees long enough to let him slide his pants down his thighs, then she slowly, deliberately, lowered herself onto him.