Not just survive—to triumph.
She lifted the cake and started for the door to the hall—and discovered Ned filling it, clad in a gray silk tuxedo. His bow tie was a muted red, thin, underlining his thin lips. His hair was barely tamed, curling down over his collar in back, and his eyes danced with pleasure as he regarded her.
“You look good,” she let slip.
“You look almost as good as you looked in the bathtub,” he told her. She blushed, partly from embarrassment and partly from arousal. “Don’t drop the cake,” he said, hurrying into the room and taking the tray from her.
“Thanks,” she whispered as he set the tray on the counter. “I don’t think I can handle another disaster.”
“You,” he murmured, “can handle anything. That’s one of the things I like best about you.” He took her hands in his and drew her toward him, lowering his mouth to hers.
She held her breath, waiting for his kiss, needing it. Just as his lips were a whisper away from hers, his sister’s voice blasted into the kitchen, preceding the rest of her by a good couple of seconds. “Where are they? All right, I want them now. Where are they?”
Claudia sprang back and jerked her hands away from Ned’s. “Where’s what?”
“My mother’s jewels.”
“Oh—right here,” Claudia said, pulling the ring and bracelet from her apron pocket.
“Thief!” Melanie howled. “She’s a thief! Arrest that woman!”
Chapter Eight
7:48 p.m.
MORE THAN TWO HOURS had passed since Melanie Steele had accused Claudia of stealing her mother’s jewels, but the accusation still smarted.
The kitchen was redolent with the aromas of delectable entrées. A battalion of waiters conveyed trays of food from the kitchen to the dining room. The chocolate and vanilla valentine cakes stood in proud display in the ballroom, where a chamber orchestra played to a rapidly dwindling throng. The presentation of the town’s richest young ladies was grand, dancing was amusing, checking out one another’s gowns was important—but Claudia’s gourmet catering was currently the major attraction for the first annual Glenwood debutante cotillion’s ravenous guests. Claudia ought to have taken satisfaction in that.
Edie was treating Claudia with surprising courtesy. In fact, it was she who had suggested that Claudia step outside for a breath of air. “I’ll make sure everything stays hot until it’s served,” Edie assured her. “you go out and clear your head.”
She stood outside the kitchen door, trying not to shiver in the frigid night air. Everything was going smoothly. She had endured calamity after catastrophe after debacle and somehow she’d pulled this thing off.
So why did she feel miserable?
Surely it had nothing to do with the fact that once Ned had chewed out his sister and ordered her to apologize to Claudia, he’d vanished into the glamorous swarm of guests. The party had begun and Ned had transformed into a full-blooded Wyatt. Flirting benignly with the giggling debutantes, ushering blue-haired dowagers to chairs, schmoozing with other male guests about golfing and investments, he was the proper Wyatt host. Claudia could almost see the Roman-numeral IV in his posture, his demeanor.
Who was she kidding? All day long he’d been nothing more than a man on the prowl, trying his luck with the lady caterer. But he knew his place—in the ballroom with the guests. And she knew hers.
The orchestra played gamely on; she heard the strains of music coming from the ballroom.
“Care to dance?”
Claudia flinched and spun around to see Ned stepping through the kitchen doorway. She suffered the same acute reaction to him as she had earlier: he was as suited to suave gray silk tailoring as he was to black denim. He looked as sexy shaved and combed as he did scruffy and windswept. Dressed up or dressed down, he was irresistible.
She resisted, anyway.
“You ought to go back to the party,” she said quietly, turning back to gaze at the cars parked beyond the tiny porch.
Ned sidled up next to her and slung his arm around her shoulders. “I’d rather party with you.”
“Ned.” She didn’t hide her exasperation. “I’m working.”
“Edie’s holding down the fort. Dinner is a major success, by the way. They’re scarfing it up like there’s no tomorrow.
“Why don’t you go back inside and scarf it up, too?”
“Because there is a tomorrow,” he said, urging her around to face him. “I’ve done my duty to my niece, danced with my mother, made chitchat with the garden-club ladies and their boring husbands—and now I’m on my own time. I want to spend it with you.”
His eyes were luminous in the silvery light. His smile was earnest yet surprisingly seductive. She had to force herself to remember that, just as he’d said, there was a tomorrow. Whatever silly dreams she’d entertained about a romance with him would vanish as soon as the moon set on Valentine’s Day.
“Come upstairs with me,” he murmured.
Her bones seemed to melt in the heat of his gaze. She couldn’t give this man her heart, and she couldn’t give him anything else without giving him her heart as well.
Who was she kidding? Her heart was already his. She was going to wind up despondent whether she went upstairs with him or not.
He leaned toward her, brushed her lips with his…and she resigned herself to the inevitable, to her own imperative yearning. She loved him. He had stood by her all day, helping her, supporting her, rescuing her, defending her. She loved him.
There was a back stairway—the servants’ stairs, she thought ironically, wondering whether Ned had ever had a reason to use these stairs before now. He held her hand tightly as he led her along the second-floor hallway to the room in which she’d washed up and dressed for the party a few hours ago. Once they were inside, he locked the door and gathered her into his arms. “I almost dove into the tub with you this afternoon,” he confessed, unclasping her barrette and fluffing her hair loose about her shoulders.
“I almost invited you to dive in,” she admitted.
He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight that filtered through the curtains by the bed. “We should have done it,” he said, tugging his bow tie until it hung in two narrow red ribbons. “We should have forgotten all about the cotillion and spent the rest of our lives in the tub.”
“No. In fact, I should be downstairs right now—”
“Edie’s taking care of everything,” he said, sliding his jacket from his shoulders. He removed the onyx links pinning his cuffs and then the matching studs adorning the front of his shirt. Claudia recalled her little fantasy of him stripping off his tuxedo. The reality was much more enthralling.
“Are you sure? I don’t want anything to go wrong. And Edie doesn’t like me.”
“As long as she’s in charge of the kitchen, she loves you,” he reassured her. “Running the kitchen is all she ever wanted to do.”
“She wanted to destroy my cakes,’ Claudia muttered, her gaze fixed on the crisp white front of Ned’s shirt as he removed the last stud. “I don’t know why she suddenly turned nice.”
“I gave her a kiss,” he explained. At Claudia’s startled look, he grinned and tugged his shirttails free of his trousers. “One of your chocolate kisses. A single bite and she understood why I’m crazy about you.”
“My kisses, huh.” Claudia was aware of the tightness in her voice as her vision filled with the magnificent sight of his naked chest, a plane of streamlined muscle accented with a dart of black hair. “You want me for my kisses.”
“For starters. He tossed his shirt aside, then reached for her. She automatically lifted her hands to his head, combing her fingers through the mop of his hair and tracing the warm, responsive skin of his face. His deep sigh caused his chest to vibrate .
He took the kiss he wanted, sliding his tongue deep, filling her mouth as he sought and found the zipper at the back of her dress. She felt a brief chill as he drew it down to her waist, then a flash of heat as he returne
d to undo the clasp of her bra. If there was a cotillion going on downstairs she didn’t know about it. If the future of her company was at stake she didn’t care. All that mattered was Ned’s hands on her back, his mouth on hers, his kisses sweeter and more complicated than anything she’d ever concocted in her kitchen.
Her dress tumbled to the floor at her feet, and then her bra, her slip, her stockings. Ned guided her hands to his trousers and she opened them, refusing to think beyond the moment, the power of his hardness bulging against the smooth gray fabric, the ragged tempo of his breath as she eased his briefs over his hips and down his long, well-toned legs.
Ned scooped her into his arms and carried her to the grand four-poster. He joined her on the crisp linen sheets, stretching out on his side and gazing lovingly at her body as it lay in the spill of moonlight. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered before setting his hand loose on her skin, exploring the lines of her collarbones and then the hollow between her breasts, the concave stretch of her abdomen.
Her hips shifted uncomfortably; her nipples grew taut in anticipation of his touch. “You’re beautiful, too,” she said, skimming her hand along the ridge of his shoulder and then roaming forward into the wiry hair that darkened his upper chest.
“Oh, God.” It was half a groan, half a growl. “I’ve been wanting this all day. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”
With a mischievous smile, she moved her hand down across his abdomen, curious to see if his condition bore out his words. At her glancing touch he groaned again. She did, too.
He grabbed her hand and pulled it away. Rising above her, he pressed her arms to the mattress and bowed to kiss her breasts. “Everything about you tastes so good,” he murmured, swirling his tongue over the beaded tip of one breast. “Peppermint pink frosting doesn’t come close.”
“What a relief,” she joked, although she was feeling far from relieved. Her body surged under him, ached for him, felt uncomfortably empty and feverish. She arched her hips and he rubbed against her, hot and heavy. They gasped in unison.
“Claudia…” He let go of her wrists and slid down her body, nibbling her belly, stroking her navel with his tongue, grazing down farther until he pressed a fierce, hungry kiss between her legs. When she was sure she couldn’t hold back any longer, he kissed his way back up.
Her body rose to meet his conquering thrust. She gripped his shoulders, clinging to him as he withdrew and thrust again. She felt as if her heart had split in two, her soul, her spirit, her very essence, all of it opening to let him in, to let him take possession of her. She was his.
His surges were deep, hard, shuddering. The muscles in his back flexed and stretched; he wove the fingers of one hand into her hair while the other cupped her bottom, lifting her to maximize every plunge, every sensation. The tension inside her built to a wild, almost agonizing pitch—and then burst, releasing her into ecstasy.
She felt him hover in her arms, suspended at the peak, and then let go, sinking down on her, relaxing his hands, his lips. “Claudia,” he sighed, a hushed, prayer-like sound.
He closed his eyes and let his head sink onto her shoulder. She stroked his sweat-damp hair back from his face, feeling oddly protective of him. At that one instant, as passion receded and left a sensuous languor in its place, Claudia felt she and Ned were truly equals. She wasn’t the poor girl from the local diner. He wasn’t the lord of Wyatt Hall. They were simply lovers.
Ned’s breathing grew more regular, his head heavier as he dozed. Through the stillness she heard the faint, distant sounds of the party downstairs.
Claudia cuddled Ned to herself, aware of how transient this moment was. Soon reality would return.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she batted them away. She loved Ned, but as he’d said, there was a tomorrow. And when it came, she would be a blue-collar Mulcahey and he would be John Edward Wyatt IV.
The gap was too wide; not even love could bridge it.
Chapter Nine
11:55 p.m.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, this is your room?”
Ned loitered in the doorway of the bedroom, watching as Claudia gathered her clothing and assorted her toiletries. “I mean,” he said calmly, “this room was mine when I was growing up.”
She didn’t know why she should care that the room he’d let her use—the room in which he’d made love to her—was his room and not just some anonymous guest room. But she did care. And it bothered her.
She was tired, edgy, anxious to get home. Downstairs, the party was over and the guests had been replaced with a maintenance crew.
Claudia’s hands trembled as she folded her jeans and stuffed them into her tote bag. She couldn’t look at the rumpled bed. Seeing it would only remind her of what had occurred there a few hours ago, what had occurred in her heart. What would never occur again.
The party was definitely over.
“Please, Claudia. Stay the night. Stay with me,” he said.
She glanced at him and felt her refusal lodge in her throat. She could think of nothing she’d rather do than stay the night with him, stay the year, stay for all eternity with him. But she couldn’t. Just as making love with him had been inevitable, leaving him was inevitable. She’d realized that when they’d emerged from the bedroom and headed downstairs. Three waiters had assailed her with questions. One of the debutantes had flounced over to Ned, grabbed his arm and squealed, “Amy’s so lucky to have such a hot uncle. Come dance with me.”
Claudia hadn’t seen him again—until now. She’d packed up the leftover food to be delivered to a soup kitchen in Bridgeport, lugged her equipment out of the van and then trudged up the stairs to gather her personal belongings.
She had assumed Ned had left the house when the other guests had, but now he was standing in the doorway, blocking her exit. His tie dangled from his open collar, a graphic reminder of the hasty, eager way he’d undressed earlier. His eyes, while sleepy from the late hour, were as bright with longing as they’d been then.
He and Claudia had been good in bed. Better than good. She had given him everything. But she couldn’t give it again, not when they would only be going their separate ways tomorrow.
“You have all your stuff here,” he went on. “Why not stay?”
“If I didn’t trust you,” she murmured, “I’d think you told me to take a bath and change here at Wyatt Hall just so I’d have a change of clothes with me.”
He didn’t deny it. She glanced his way and found him smiling sheepishly. “So I was planning ahead,” he admitted without remorse. “I brought a change of clothes for myself, too.”
“Do you bring all your girlfriends to Wyatt Hall to seduce them?”
His smile faded. “No. I didn’t seduce you, Claudia. I made love with you.”
“Did you really?”
His gaze narrowed into a frown. “What would you call it?”
Love, she thought. She’d made love, given love, reveled in love. She wanted to say the word aloud, pledge it and hear him say he felt exactly as she did.
But she was afraid she wouldn’t hear what she wanted, so she said nothing at all.
He came up behind her, reached around her and stilled her trembling hands against the tote bag. “Here,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small hinged box. “Take it. Don’t say no. It’s Valentine’s Day.”
Her heart stopped beating, then started again, accelerating to a crazy speed. Holding her breath, she opened the box. In a bed of velvet sat a beautiful round chocolate kiss.
“What?”
“Oops—wrong box,” he said, shoving it aside and groping in another pocket for a second box.
The shiny gold ring inside featured a large ruby flanked by two smaller diamonds. “Oh, my God,” Claudia gasped.
“Put it on.”
“Ned—”
“Don’t say no.” He pulled the ring out of the box and slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. Then he turned her to face him. “Hap
py Valentine’s Day.”
“I can’t accept this,” she said, even as her gaze lingered on the ring. It fit perfectly.
“Why can’t you accept it?”
“Well, it would imply…”
“That we’re going to get married,” he completed the thought. He slipped his thumb under her chin and tilted her face up so their eyes met. He looked solemn and—if she dared to believe it—very much in love. “Is that a problem?”
She couldn’t shake the fear that it was a problem, but she wasn’t ready to face it yet. “You didn’t steal this from your mother, did you?”
He smiled slightly. “No. You’re the jewel thief, not me.” When she stiffened indignantly, he hastened to add, “I bought it this afternoon. The jeweler down on Main Street was open for last-minute Valentine’s Day business. He must have known someone might get notions of marriage at the eleventh hour.”
“But your sister hates me,” she reminded him.
“So don’t marry her. Marry me.”
No more evasion. He’d proposed and asked if she had a problem. It was time to confront the issue head-on. “I’m a Mulcahey, Ned.”
“Do you want to keep your last name? No problem.”
“I’m being serious. The closest I’ve ever gotten to the world you live in is through the kitchen door.”
“The world I live in is right here.” He tapped his chest in the vicinity of his heart. “And it’s right there—” he gestured toward the bed. “you’re already in my world, Claudia, and I want you to stay.”
There was no sense hiding from her feelings. More than anything, she wanted to stay in his world. “I love you,” she told him.
“Then say yes.”
“Yes.”
He folded his arms around her and covered her mouth with his. His kiss spoke eloquently of love, of joy, of growing desire. Before things got out of control, he pulled back and caught his breath. “You understand what this means,” he warned.
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