“Scare the hell out of my kid and embarrass him, of course.”
Chapter 7
Intense shivers wracked Emma’s entire body, making her insides pulsate with pleasure. “Again, please,” she gasped.
Alex chuckled in her ear. “What’s gotten into you, Angel?”
“You.” She giggled. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I want you all the time.”
“If you ask me, I’d say that’s something very right.”
In the past month or so, her body had become ultra sensitive. It made no sense. It seemed more reasonable for the urge to have sex to go away while a woman carried a baby.
“I’m definitely keeping you barefoot and pregnant.” He kissed her, stepping up the tempo of his thrusting.
As the tension inside her coiled tightly again, she froze at the sound of murmuring in the distance. “Wait—do you hear something?”
He nipped at her ear. “Oh, jeez, Em, don’t quit on me, now. I’m about to expl—”
“Stop.” She pushed at his chest. “I think my mother’s talking to someone.”
Huffing, he rolled off her and flopped on his back. “Who gives a damn?” He panted. “Right now, she could be throwin’ a freakin’ Tupperware party for all I care.”
“Well, I care.” She already felt guilty enough about deceiving her mother. “Who’s she talking to at this hour? And what’s she doing awake?”
He turned on his side and caressed her cheek. “If you’d just found out your kid was pregnant, would you be able to sleep? She’s probably unloading on your Aunt Barbara or one of her friends.”
“Maybe.” Emma gnawed on her lip. Her mom had every right to be upset with her.
As he flipped on the lamp, she yanked the sheet up, and an exasperated puff burst from his chest. “When are you going to relax with me, Angel?” He tugged on the corner of the covers. “I’m dying to look at you.”
She’d been freaked out about letting him see her naked before she’d become pregnant—but now that her stomach had started to swell…
“You know, you’ll have to let the doctor examine you.”
“I know.” She chewed on her lip. “But that’s different.”
She didn’t know why she felt so self-conscious about letting Alex see her undressed. Maybe deep down she was simply afraid her body would disappoint him.
“Pleease, Em.” His eyebrows lifted in a pleading arch.
Swallowing hard, she loosened her grip on the sheet enough to let him pull it down several inches to expose her larger breast. Desire leapt in his eyes like the flames on a three-alarm fire. His gaze lingered on her nipple for a few seconds before panic swelled in her chest like a balloon inflating inside her. She flipped off the light. “I think we’d better go to sleep. My mom might hear us.”
“If she hasn’t in the last six months, I seriously doubt she will, now.”
“Aleeex.”
“We can be really quiet. And believe me, I’m so close it will only be a minute.”
She stifled a moan of pleasure as he entered her again. Good to his word, in only twenty seconds, Alex groaned softly, collapsed, and immediately rolled off her. He brushed his lips over hers as he pulled her into the crook of his shoulder and stroked her back. “Thank you, Angel. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she whispered, completely mystified that he could care so much for her, especially considering the way she frustrated him.
Undoubtedly, Brandy would be thrilled to strip for him—as would a hundred other girls in their school. But, of course, they all had bodies straight out of a Playboy magazine. None of them had pubic hair so dark it resembled the Black Forest. Nor did they have an orange-sized boob on one side and a tangerine-sized one on the other. And since her breasts had swelled with her pregnancy, the lack of symmetry in her body had become even more pronounced.
She couldn’t believe Alex hadn’t felt the difference or noticed the extra padding her mom had sewn into the left cup of her bras. Or maybe he was just too nice to say anything.
She snuggled closer and petted his head. If she hoped to keep him interested, she had to get a grip on herself and find a way to stop freezing up whenever he turned on the light.
Sighing, she gazed at the dark ceiling and silently said goodnight to her father the way she always had whenever he’d been away on a long flight. I know you’re probably not happy about me getting pregnant, Daddy, but I love Alex so much. He could’ve had any girl he wanted, and he chose me.
~~~
Roxanne Warrington stepped aside while Chris Dillon took her keys and unlocked her Manhattan penthouse on the Upper East Side. Since March, Jake’s friend had been showing up at her office every Friday evening to visit.
She couldn’t understand why. Gherkin and she had never gotten along. Strangely enough, she could’ve gone for him in a big way in college if she hadn’t already had her sights set on Jake.
And if Chris hadn’t been so obnoxious.
It was probably just as well. With the way Gherkin bed-hopped, he would’ve broken her heart even faster than Jake had.
It had taken her three years to finally pull her life together. After summoning up the courage to end her marriage, she’d watched Alex grow from a distance at his Pop Warner games and had never let him or Jake know she’d been there.
It had been in her son’s best interest for her to stay away until she was clean for a few months. But that had been easier said than done. Attending Alex’s eighth grade graduation and spending time with him had been the carrot she’d dangled in front of herself every time she began jonesing for a fix.
When Alex snubbed her and then sent her the bitter thank you note for the car, it became clear how much he resented her. It was too late to fix the damage she’d done. It still amazed her how she’d found the inner strength to stay clean after his rejection.
Chris swung the door open and handed back her keys.
She brushed a kiss over his lips, and her heart missed a beat as she breathed in his virile scent. “Thanks for dinner, Gherkin, I had a great time.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d ask you in for a nightcap, but it’s already almost one.”
And her willpower to resist him was frighteningly low.
“So what? It’s the weekend. You can sleep late.” He stepped inside the apartment and closed the door. “When are you gonna stop this ridiculous charade?”
She tossed her purse on the white damask armchair. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The hell you don’t.” Chris loosened his tie. “Why do you insist on pretending there’s nothing more than friendship between us?”
“Why do you persist in trying to make our relationship more than that?” She strolled over to the large window and stared out at the twinkling lights on the opposing bank of the East River. “For the first time in twenty-one years, you and I can spend an evening together without sniping at each other. I don’t want to lose that by sleeping with you.”
He stared at her for a heartbeat and snorted. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you, you little fool?”
“Figured out what?”
“That the only reason I took those cheap shots was so Jake wouldn’t realize how crazy I was about you.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her into his arms. “Damn it, Rox, you have no idea how much I ached for you in college. Or how much I still love you.”
She’d known Chris would’ve been happy to get her into bed, but she’d never dreamed he’d been in love with her. And it seemed even less likely he could still care after all these years.
Her breasts hardened to two points under her plum silk sheath as he slanted his mouth over hers in a hungry, demanding kiss. His tongue dueled with hers in an erotic thrust and parry. “Oh, baby,” he murmured into her lips. “Why do you think I’ve never gotten married?”
She drew back and stared into his kelly-green eyes. “Judging from the duration of your numerous relationships, I’d say it’s because you have the fidelity of an alley
cat.”
“That’s only because I’ve never found anyone I could care about the way I do you.”
Right. And how many months would it be before he lost interest in her, too. “So then why wait until now to tell me?”
“Because after your divorce, you needed a chance to pull your life together. And then, after you did, I had to give you time to see if you would work things out with Jake. But I don’t see that happening—and we’re not gettin’ any younger.”
“Oh, I get it.” She snorted and sank onto the gray sofa. “You’re just afraid your middle-aged dick will shrivel up before you finally nail me.”
Pain flashed in his eyes. “I’m not interested in just sleeping with you, Rox. I want to marry you. Then I wanna nail you.”
“Marry me?” She stared up at him in a daze. “Chris, are you demented? Do you have any concept of what a poor excuse for a person I am?”
“You can’t be any worse than I am.”
“You don’t think so?” She arched her eyebrows. “Jake doesn’t even know half the wrongs I’ve done him, and you want to take over where he left off?”
Chris strolled over to the bar and poured a snifter of brandy for himself and a club soda for her. “If we played a little game of true confessions, you might find out we’re an evenly matched set of miserable human beings.”
“Fine. You want to hear the kind of guilt I live with? I knew the day Jake married me that he’d gotten Maggie pregnant.”
“What?” Chris did a double take as he settled next to her and handed her the glass he’d filled for her. “How’d you know? He didn’t even tell me till the morning of your wedding.”
“I found out the day I got home from Europe.” She’d been so eager to see Jake again she literally skidded down the airport hallway after clearing customs that afternoon. She threw her arms around his neck, and he was as prickly as a cactus.
“When my father caught up to us, he sent me to help my stepmother with my baby sister so he could talk to Jake alone. But I circled around behind them in the crowd and eavesdropped to find out what was so damned private.”
“How the hell did your dad find out?”
“Apparently one of his vice presidents had been entertaining a client at the same restaurant in Philadelphia where Jake took Maggie when she came to tell him she was pregnant. The man was seated at the table next to theirs.”
“Right. And he recognized Jake?”
Roxanne nodded. She could still hear her father’s imperious tone. Let me share a few pearls of wisdom I’ve gained during my years of being a high profile individual, Jake. Anyone whose face is on the cover of Sports Illustrated shouldn’t kiss butter off a girl in Le Bec Fin if he doesn’t want people to know he’s involved with her.
“My father told him everything the man overheard. Jake explained how it had happened and that Maggie had aborted the baby.”
“He was devastated, Rox.”
“So I later learned. My dad pointed out that I wouldn’t be getting a dime from my trust fund until I was thirty-five. He made Jake sign a prenup so he’d understand how much he’d lose if I ever found out he’d cheated on me again.”
“If you found out? You mean your father didn’t care if Jake was unfaithful as long as you didn’t catch him?”
“Exactly.” She wiped away the tears welling in her eyes as Alexander’s words echoed through her memory as if he’d just uttered them.
I realize your celebrity status will draw women to you like a designer suit attracts cat hair, Jake—just as my money does for me. I won’t be a hypocrite and tell you I’ve never been unfaithful. I’ve screwed around plenty. However, if you’re not discreet in the future and you let my daughter get wind of your affairs, I’ll crucify you. And don’t go developing a guilty conscience and confess what you did to her. Roxanne doesn’t ever need to know about it.
Unfortunately, she already did, and it had ended up destroying her.
~~~
“I guess it’s true people never hear anything good when they eavesdrop.” Chris stared into Roxanne’s copper eyes and squeezed her tightly. With the way her old man treated her, it was no wonder she’d become an addict. “I’m surprised you went through with the ceremony.”
“I convinced myself Jake had simply been sowing some wild oats before our wedding. Then when he begged me not to use my diaphragm on our wedding night, I realized he wanted to replace the baby he’d lost. I thought if I gave him a child it would be all right. But after he fell asleep that night, I discovered how wrong I’d been. The first year we were married, Jake moaned Maggie’s name at least once a week in his sleep.”
Chris knew all about the kind of pain she must have endured. He’d roomed with Jake for three years. His friend talked constantly at night. Chris could imagine how awful it had been for her, knowing the man she loved pined for another woman.
“When you told Jake what he was doing, what’d he say?”
“I didn’t mention it until after Alex was born. By then, Jake was only having the dreams every few months. He was away with the team so much I was terrified some groupie would steal him from me.” She took a sip of her seltzer. “When I finally confronted him, Jake confessed everything and swore his dreams were just about a lot of unresolved bitterness.”
Shifting sideways on the sofa, Chris stroked her cheek. “But you still wondered if he was being faithful to you while he was on the road, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “You have no idea how it felt to see women at the supermarket magazine racks staring at pictures of my half-naked husband like he was some centerfold.”
Chris understood her jealousy completely. He’d walked in Jake’s shadow all through college, rebounding the women his friend didn’t want and waiting for Jake to get tired of the only one Chris had ever really wanted.
Ironically enough, he’d made matters worse by asking Barb to get Jake a girl who could tempt him to stray. By that night, he’d already developed a case of cold feet all on his own. If Chris hadn’t mistaken Maggie for the hooker, Jake probably would’ve called off his wedding. Instead, his grief over Maggie’s abortion had made him that much more determined to get married and have a family.
Chris threaded his fingers through Roxanne’s long russet waves. “I’m probably shootin’ myself in the foot, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t tell you what he said the night your divorce was final. While Jake was three sheets to the wind, he confided that the closest he ever came to screwing around on you was when one of the team’s fuck bunnies broke into his hotel room while he was asleep. Even with a naked bimbo actively trying to seduce him, he didn’t do more than think about letting her stay.”
“He might not have cheated on me physically, but I saw how aroused he became during his dreams. And I knew a lot more than resentment was causing them. They were satisfying a need in him I couldn’t fill.”
The pain in her voice made Chris’s throat tighten. He’d probably kick himself in the morning for trying to convince her of his friend’s devotion, but he couldn’t stand seeing her feel so deficient. “Rox, believe me, Jake loved you, and he still does.”
“Not the way I needed him to.” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and sniffled. “A few months before he was injured, I stupidly took advantage of his erection while he was in the middle of one of his X-rated dreams about Maggie.”
Talk about being a glutton for punishment. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“I guess I wanted to know what it was like to have him want me that much. So I climbed on and took a midnight ride. It was as if he’d eaten a bushel of oysters and chased them down with a bottle of Viagra.”
Chris gritted his teeth. He really didn’t want to hear what a stud his friend was.
“I knew he was still half asleep because he kept groaning Maggie’s name. Except I couldn’t stop myself. It had never been so....” Her voice trailed off indicating she was as uncomfortable telling him as Chris was listening to her describe the incid
ent. “Then, just as Jake was about to come, he opened his eyes. The disappointment on his face when he realized it was me....” Roxanne buried her face in Chris’s shoulder. “I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.”
He rubbed his cheek in her silky hair. “I still don’t see what you did that was so terrible.”
“For years after I had Alex, Jake kept trying to talk me into getting pregnant again.”
“I think he realizes now it’s just as well you didn’t.”
“But I did.” She looked away. “Twice. I aborted two of our babies. What kind of person does that make me—especially knowing how devastated he was when Maggie did it? He’d never forgive me if he knew. And that only tops the list of my sins.”
“Don’t you think it’s time to stop beating yourself up?”
“I don’t think I can until I do the ninth of my twelve steps.”
Clearly it had something to do with her NA program. “I have no idea what the ninth step is.”
“The eighth step is to list all of the people you’ve hurt. The ninth is to make amends. I don’t want Jake to hate me.”
Chris closed his eyes and bit his lip. “Well, after I tell you what I did, you’ll probably hate me. You see, it was all my fault Maggie ended up in Jake’s bed. None of the pain the two of you have had would’ve happened except for my jealousy.”
“I don’t see how you were respon—”
“I wanted you so much Rox.” He explained about his plan to make Jake stray and the case of mistaken identity that night.
“Oh, Gherkin, I should smack you. But all I can think about is kissing you.”
“You might not want to after you hear what else I did.” He told her how Barb and he had manipulated Maggie into moving to Jake’s school district. “Unfortunately, my plan to get them to meet again backfired.”
“In what way?”
“Barbara told me Alex is dating Maggie’s daughter, and Jake is clueless that his son’s girl is her kid.”
Roxanne’s copper eyes rounded like two tarnished pennies. She slapped her hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter. “Oh, my. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he finally figures it out.”
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu Page 10