The Playboy's Office Romance

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  And that was the problem in a nutshell, she decided a couple of hours later when she had eaten the chicken soup he’d made, when she’d let him talk her into playing a game of canasta, when he’d insisted it was time for her to go back to bed…when she’d gone with so little argument as to be practically obedient.

  Bryce was here.

  In her house. In her bed. In her life.

  She didn’t want him to leave. She just wanted not to be so all-fired glad he didn’t go.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offered when she was under the covers again and he was sitting on the bed beside her tracing her cheek with loving fingertips, looking at her in a way that made it impossible, impractical even, to breathe. “You’ll be more comfortable alone.”

  “You can go home now,” she told him, but without emphasis.

  “No.”

  Simple, to-the-point arrogance. Lara knew he would get the totally wrong idea if she didn’t make a stand now and order him gone.

  But, somehow, she just didn’t.

  AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE two days later, Lara suddenly set down her glass and frowned at Bryce. “We’re supposed to be in Boston today.”

  “No, we were supposed to be in Boston yesterday. Today, we’re supposed to be in Hartford.”

  That seemed to give her pause. “I missed a whole day?”

  “Just a memo, apparently. Vic had a conflict, so he shifted the architectural division’s budget meeting in Boston to yesterday and that meant our meeting with Connecticut Health Clubs had to be rescheduled for today.”

  “I’ll call Bridget, ask her if she can stay with Calvin this afternoon until we get back. I wish you’d mentioned this sooner.” Lara glanced at the clock. “She may already have left for her morning class.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because we’re not going to Hartford. The doctor specifically told you not to go into work this entire week. And besides, we’re staying with Cal.” He smiled at the little boy, who had his chin propped on one hand as he spooned oatmeal from the bowl to his mouth so carefully it looked almost painful. “We have books to read, puzzles to put together and cars to crash into walls, don’t we, Cal?”

  Cal looked up. “Yeah,” he said, but his smile lacked its usual gap-toothed delight. He hadn’t run a temperature in over twenty-four hours, didn’t seem to be experiencing any lingering discomfort with his throat, but there was very little trace of his former boisterous little boy self. And Bryce was starting to worry.

  “Please tell me you didn’t cancel today’s meeting, Bryce. We’ve put off the Health Club people twice already. If we want to get the nod for construction from this chain, we have to at least pretend we’re interested enough to meet with them.”

  “We are meeting with them, Lara. Today. But you and I won’t be there.” He smiled at her. “Except in spirit, of course.”

  “Who are you sending?”

  “Allen, John and Peter. Plus, whoever else the three of them feel should be included.”

  She sighed, obviously not satisfied with his arrangements. “I wish you’d talked to me first. Clark Nelson has been working behind the scenes on this deal and I’m not sure John would think to include him. I should probably call in and ask John—”

  “I didn’t talk to you first because I saw no good reason to bother you with company business when you were sick.” Bryce stopped her before she got any further in convincing herself to fix something that wasn’t broken. “And you have been sick.”

  “Yes, but you haven’t,” she pointed out. “There’s no reason you couldn’t have attended both meetings.”

  He’d thought he was making progress in his campaign to show her he was not only the kind of guy she could allow herself to depend on, but also the kind of man she needed to keep around…in sickness and in health. But today, it seemed, she felt better and her independent streak was returning in all its stubborn glory. “My presence is not required at every budget and proposal meeting, Lara. I have qualified people who are ready, willing and able to do their jobs without my supervision. Taking a few days off and letting them actually do those jobs empowers them and helps me remember that I’m not Braddock Industries and Braddock Industries is not me.”

  “But Cal and I are not your responsibility, Bryce, and there’s no reason for you to miss two important meetings because of our having had sore throats.”

  She was the most exasperating woman—most exasperating person—he knew. So focused on getting things done that she completely overlooked what was so much more important. “You and Cal are important to me,” he said simply. “Budgets and proposals aren’t.”

  She stopped fidgeting then. “Another way in which you and I are different, Bryce, and another reason why the other night was such a mistake.”

  He couldn’t believe she was serious. Here. Now. At the breakfast table. In front of Cal, who was studiously eating his oatmeal and trying to be invisible. “Because I know people are more important than projects? Oh, come on, Lara. You can’t argue that. If you’re trying to pick a quarrel with me, at least choose a point worth making and a better time to make it.”

  She hesitated, glanced at Calvin, then said tightly, “How about this point—it’s time you left my house.”

  Cal kept his head bent as he reached for his milk glass. But trying so hard to be careful is difficult at four, and when he picked it up in both hands, the glass tipped and milk spilled out across the table edge and ran into his lap. Bryce had his napkin over the spill in seconds, with no harm done to table or lap, but Cal looked completely stricken. “I’m sorry, Aunt Lara,” he said in a panic. “I’m sorry.”

  “Calvin, Calvin.” Lara was out of her chair and drawing the child into her arms within a few seconds, comforting him with a hug, having the good grace to look guilty for discussing adult issues and hauling out adult tensions in front of him. “It’s all right. It’s only a little spill.”

  But Cal would not be comforted as big tears welled into the misery in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I was bein’ real careful.”

  “I know you were, Sweetie. It’s all right. It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it. Did you think I’d be mad at you?”

  He nodded, buried his head against her shoulder, and Lara’s puzzled gaze went to Bryce with a question he couldn’t answer.

  “I can’t be mad at you, Cal,” she murmured against the stubborn cowlick, petting him with soothing strokes of her hand. “You’re my favorite nephew.”

  Cal mumbled something and Lara stopped stroking his tow head. “What? I can’t hear you.”

  Another mumble against her shoulder, accompanied by a snuffle of distress.

  “Cal? Is your throat hurting again? Do you feel sick?”

  He shook his head, still clinging to Lara.

  She looked at Bryce. “I don’t think he has a fever, but maybe we should call the doctor.” Then she put her hands on Cal’s shoulders and gently drew him out until she could see his face. “Where does it hurt, Cal? Tell me where you hurt.”

  Cal kept his chin tucked as he looked first at Bryce and then at Lara. Then slowly, his little hand came up and settled over his heart.

  Lara swallowed. “It hurts…there?”

  He nodded and plunged into an earnest, and obviously well thought-out appeal. “I want to stay with you, Aunt Lara. I don’t wanta live with Shelly. I can be good. I can be really, really good. An’ I won’t make noise. An’ I’ll eat oatmeal. An’ I won’t cry or make messes. An’ I won’t spill stuff anymore, either. Pleeease, let me stay with you.”

  There was enough poignancy in the small gesture, enough anguish in his eyes and in his baby voice to melt a heart of stone. Certainly Bryce’s own, tender heart went flowing right out to this sad, wonderful little boy who only wanted someone to love him, somewhere he could belong. But though Lara’s eyes shimmered with sudden tears, her heart didn’t seem to make the connection.

  “But you love your Aunt Shelly,” she said, trying, God knows why, t
o reason with the child. “You like living with her in the apartment. And you have friends at the day-care center. And you get to see your Aunt Jen, too, and spend time with her. And with your grandpa. They love you, just like I do, and they’d be so sad if you didn’t come back to California to live with them.”

  Cal was no more convinced than Bryce was, but the four-year-old, already no stranger to disappointment, nodded all the same. As if he understood the incomprehensible. As if he believed this family…his family…really had his best interests at heart. And maybe they did. But watching from across the table, being an innocent witness to what, in his mind, amounted to a crime of the heart, Bryce thought this had nothing to do with what was best for Cal. It had everything to do with Lara and the lies she told to herself.

  “I have an idea,” he said because he couldn’t stand there and be silent another second. “Let’s drive down to the beach. It’s a beautiful day and getting out in the sunshine will make both of you invalids feel better. What do you say, Cal? Want to get sand between your toes and maybe build a sand castle?”

  With the resilience of childhood, Cal blinked away his teary despair. “Can I take my cars?”

  “You bet,” Bryce said, smiling encouragement. “We’ll build a sand castle garage.”

  The light came back into his eyes. “You wanta help us, Aunt Lara?”

  Bryce stood ready and willing to overrule any objection, any protest, no matter what it might cost him personally, but Lara, wisely, didn’t voice a single one.

  WATCH HILL bustled with the touristy tides of summer. Traffic moved like an inchworm through the sea grass waves of pedestrians. Sunbathers, seafarers and souvenir-seekers mingled alike along the arcade of shops which fronted the harbor. Little Narragansett Bay flirted outrageously with the late July sunshine and drifted toward a lazy rendezvous with the Atlantic. Dozens upon dozens of boats dotted the surface of the ocean blue water, and seemed a much better way of touring the beach resort than by car.

  Lara wasn’t in the mood to battle traffic, or crowds, or much of anything else, but since Bryce was driving she really had no excuse for the impatience and restlessness that had beset her. This trip was not for her benefit. She was just along for the ride. In the back seat, Cal seemed almost like his old self. A little quieter, maybe. A little paler, perhaps. But after blurting out what had been on his mind, he seemed okay with a day at the beach, in lieu of living permanently with her in Rhode Island.

  She felt badly about that—of course, she did—but there was simply no way she could keep him. She was the least maternal person she knew, the least suited to have the care and upbringing of a child, the very worst at setting someone else’s needs before her own. She was busy. She was selfish. She had a life too on-the-go to include a little boy. Any attempts at permanency would be a disaster from start to chaotic finish. She would be a disaster at mothering, and Cal would end up begging to go to Shelly.

  He didn’t really want to stay with her, Lara decided. Her house was just a nice little respite from his normal routine, a quiet place to recover after his unsettling experience with his worthless father. For now, Cal was content with her, but in another month, he’d be crying that he missed Shelly, Jen and his grandpa.

  Never mind that he hadn’t cried for them even once since she’d brought him home with her. Never mind that he didn’t seem to miss that other life at all. What did that prove, anyway? Nothing. It proved nothing at all.

  But knowing she was doing the right thing didn’t necessarily make it easy to do. She would miss Calvin when he left, acknowledged that he would leave a little hole in her life. But he could come to visit. As often as he wanted, and as her schedule permitted. Why, he was only four years old. Two months from now, he might not even remember these weeks he’d spent with her.

  Which did not make her feel a bit better.

  Maybe she’d take some pictures of her house, of his room, of her, of some of the places they’d been together before he left, put them in a little photo album, hope he’d look at them, and not forget her.

  But returning him to California was for the best.

  It really was.

  “I think you’ll have to park back there,” she said when Bryce made a quick turn off the main road and away from the public beach.

  “Hey, Cal,” Bryce said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Great!”

  “A few more minutes and we’ll be ready to start construction on that sand castle garage.”

  Cal smiled.

  Lara knew that because Bryce was smiling over his shoulder at the boy and Cal, being Cal and generally a very sweet-natured child, would be smiling back. It wasn’t her imagination, either, that she was being subtly excluded from this exchange of smiles, that throughout the trip, Bryce had directed questions to the back seat rather than the front, that he’d answered her few remarks with the barest of replies, if he’d answered at all.

  He was angry with her.

  She hadn’t thought he ever got angry about anything, and was a little surprised to find he could be so with her. She was even more surprised to realize how much it bothered her, how downright awful it made her feel. For two days now, she’d been examining her feelings for him, turning every part of his courtship over in her mind, thinking about the women he’d been with before her, doing her best to talk herself out of love.

  But though she could delineate the facts, weigh the odds, explain how badly this love affair would undoubtedly end, her heart obstinately refused to listen. Bryce had gotten around her defenses, had come closer than anyone ever had to persuading her he deserved her love and her trust

  And now he was angry…and, as ridiculous as it seemed, she felt betrayed.

  When he drove into the drive of one of the lovely beach houses which dotted the promontory leading to the Watch Hill Lighthouse, Lara thought perhaps he was turning around. But he cut off the engine and opened his door. “Everybody out,” he said, turning another smile right past Lara to her nephew. “We’re here.”

  “Is this the beach?” Cal wanted to know.

  “No, this is my house on the beach.” Bryce stepped out of the car, leaving Lara and Cal to follow him into the house.

  “I didn’t know you owned a house here,” Lara said, although he was a Braddock and she should have known, sailor that he was, he’d have a place on the water. “Is this where you keep your boat?”

  “One of them.” He switched on ceiling fans as he led the way through the comfortable house to a room with full windows and a breathtaking view. Lara didn’t have to ask if he spent much time here. Somehow she knew that he did. She knew, intuitively, too, that he showed this corner of his world to only a select few. His brothers, probably. A handful of friends, perhaps. Before the weekend, had she known about this house in Watch Hill, Lara would have assumed it was his love nest, a convenient trysting point for his various and assorted affairs. But she would have been wrong.

  The house felt too well lived in, too much a shelter from the outside world, to have harbored a passion other than for solitude and studied dreams. It was a house, a home, that won her approval in the same easy way Bryce had won her heart. Just by letting her be who she really was.

  “Wow!” Cal pressed palms and face against the glass. “There’s the sand!”

  “When we’re through playing here,” Bryce said, his voice warm with promise, “we’ll walk into town and ride the Flying Horse Carousel.”

  Cal’s eyes got big with excitement. “What’s a car’sel?”

  “It’s like a big toy that goes around and around and around.”

  “Wow,” Cal said again. “Wow. Can I go play now?”

  “You betcha.” Bryce led him outside, and the two of them settled in to take off their shoes and play on the strip of sandy shoreline that was Bryce’s own private beach.

  Lara felt shut out. Like the only one without a date on Saturday night. Like the last one without a place to sit in a game of musical chairs. She wanted to blame Bryce, wante
d to castigate him for being angry with her over something that was not only none of his business, but not her fault. Something she couldn’t fix.

  But in the end, she simply sat on the steps alone, and watched the two most important people in her life tear down the castles they built in the sand.

  Chapter Eleven

  All the way back to East Side, Bryce told himself he was wrong to be angry with Lara. She was no more at fault than Cal for what was, ultimately, other people’s failure. It was Cal’s misfortune to have two parents who didn’t want him. Lara couldn’t be held responsible for their irresponsibility. She and her sisters had made the best of a bad situation. They deserved praise for what they had done to save Cal, not condemned for what they couldn’t do.

  But Bryce couldn’t find any words of praise that didn’t seem like so much drivel. He knew he was identifying too closely with the boy, taking part in a rejection that wasn’t his to share, imagining a future that was bleaker than it might turn out to be. Look at his own life. He knew his mother’s desertion and his father’s lack of parenting skills had, for him, been a blessing in disguise. He’d grown up under the loving care of two very wonderful people. His grandparents had stepped in, had wanted him, had given him security, love and an abundance of all the other ingredients a little lost boy required. It had been more than enough and he knew how lucky he’d been.

  And that was the problem. He, perhaps better than any of the principal players in this drama, understood the bottom line of this misfortune and knew Cal needed what he couldn’t have. A home. At least one genuine parent. A real family of which he was not just an extension, but an integral part.

  And no matter how Bryce turned it over in his head, no matter how many times he told himself there was no good solution, he knew there was one…and that Lara would almost certainly reject it.

  LARA REALIZED she had lost something important, but she didn’t know exactly how it had happened or what she was supposed to do to get it back.

  Over the next few days, she was aware of Bryce studying her, of a certain solemnity in his manner, and she knew he was preparing to argue Cal’s case. She wished he wouldn’t, wished he’d get it out in the open and over with, wished he didn’t feel the need to discuss it at all.