He glanced across at his diary. The only appointments he had for the rest of the day were with people who worked for him-easy enough to reschedule. He picked up his briefcase and strode out to his personal assistant’s desk.
“Mandy, clear my calendar for the rest of the day.”
Displaying the efficiency and calmness he’d hired her for, she didn’t bat an eyelash. “Certainly, Mr. Hartley. Will you be back?”
“Not this afternoon.” He hit the elevator’s down arrow. “You’ll be able to reach me on my cell if you need to.”
Once he was in the basement garage, he pulled out his phone and checked for the location of the closest millinery supplies shop, and by the time he reached Pia’s apartment, he had three bags of assorted products.
He buzzed the intercom and waited for her to release the lock to the outside door. He’d suggested she give him a key, but she’d been less than enthusiastic-citing reasons like the short length of his stay.
Truth was, she was keeping him at arm’s length and that wasn’t a bad strategy given that every moment he was in her apartment he wanted to take her in his arms and back her over to that bed in her room. Or the table. Or the wall. Most times, he wasn’t fussy. He simply wanted her with an intensity that was difficult to hide.
But he had pretty much kept it under wraps for the same reason she’d refused him a key-he wasn’t prepared to be lulled into any false states of security, and letting down his guard.
When Pia opened the apartment door, her gaze dropped to the bags. Her hair fell in waves about her shoulders and as she tucked some behind her ears, the elegant, pale skin of her cheek was exposed. A slow burn began down low.
He cleared his throat and handed one of the bags over. “I thought you could use these.”
As she opened the handles, her eyes flicked to his, wide with surprise. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Dragging his gaze from the radiance in her eyes, he shrugged and handed her the other bags. “You’re stuck here all day. I thought it might help.”
Her violet eyes glistened. “That was thoughtful. Thank you.” She peeped into the second bag. “You came home early just for this?”
“Pretty much.” He walked in and slipped his arms from his jacket.
At one end of the dining table Pia had legal documents in piles and at the other end was a pea green creation with a wide brim. Seemingly unable to help herself, she was drawing a roll of snowy white ribbon from the bag he’d brought and was holding it against the hat.
“The woman in the shop said it was a versatile ribbon,” he offered. He’d been unsure how versatile ribbon could be, but he’d taken her word for it.
“It’s double-faced satin. There are a few things I could do with it.” She looped it around a few fingers and it became a flower which she held against the hat again, judging its effect. She’d always been able to do that-transform rudimentary materials into a work of art. Dresses, jewelry, shawls, whatever she tried.
Among her family of hard, dull stones, she’d been a polished ruby, bright and dazzling. And the pull of that luminescence had been stronger than a siren’s call for a hard-edged boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
“Why did you give up dreams of fashion design, Pia?” he asked, moving behind her.
She turned, her startled eyes meeting his, and he glimpsed endless depths of sadness. His chest constricted at being confronted by that bleakness in eyes he’d seen shine with passion and joy.
Then she blinked it away and methodically packed the ribbon into the bag it’d come in. “I grew up.”
Something told him this was too important to her, to them, to brush off. Perhaps it was her repeated use of that phrase. Perhaps it was the stark sadness he’d seen in her eyes. He sat on the edge of his couch bed, resting his loosely linked hands between his knees. “So you’ve said. What does that mean?”
She grew still, then laid the bag he’d given her on the table and sat on the edge of the couch with him. “I guess it’s better you understand,” she said, her voice tentative. “When I fell out that window and our baby…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed. “I realized I had to stop acting like an indulged child. That included choosing a more sensible career and facing some hard truths about us.”
Hard truths? Every muscle in his body clamped down, as if preparing for a blow. “That’s when you broke up with me,” he said without looking at her.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her flinch. “I had to, JT. Being with you brings out the worst parts of me. Every whim, every reckless impulse. And that’s not a safe way to live. If we’d stayed together we would have self-destructed. It was too much. We were too much together. Surely you can see that now looking back?”
His mouth opened to reply, but words failed him. He’d be damned if he’d lie to make her feel better about her actions. The only self-destruction that would have happened was from her doing a cut and run later rather than sooner. If she’d had the courage to stand with him, to simply stay, they could have achieved anything together. So, no, he couldn’t see that they’d been “too much together” when he looked back.
But what he could finally see was how she’d justified her actions for all these years. He shook his head. “You’ve been with safe men in the intervening years, I gather?”
Her eyes darted to his, then away again. “They were men who brought out the best in me.”
He snorted. “None of them lasted, I see.”
“Neither did we,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Because you broke it off.” As soon as the going got tough. He gritted his teeth.
“My recklessness killed our baby, JT. I won’t let anything happen to this baby, and that means us keeping our emotional distance. I’ll be a better mother this way. The mother our baby deserves.”
His veins filled with ice. They might have different perspectives on the past, but on this they could agree-her plan suited him just fine. The last thing he needed was Pia getting thoughts into her head about anything more than co-parenting. When they were young and had dreams of being a family, being together forever, he’d forgotten that nothing is permanent. And that was dangerous. Since then, he’d kept up the pattern from his early childhood of never settling anywhere, moving apartments regularly.
Never getting too comfortable, never thinking he had it made, was important to keep the edge in business. Everything changes-business and personal. It was a lesson the woman beside him reinforced when she abandoned him the day after their first baby died.
But regardless of how things stood between them, one thing was for sure: He was no Warner Bramson. He hoped to God he’d inherited nothing beyond hair color from that poor excuse of a man, especially his idea of being a father, which had included sending his lover for an abortion and then abandoning her.
He would stand by Pia and their child no matter what it took.
Pia watched JT digest her words, praying she hadn’t been too harsh but knowing she needed all her cards on the table. No misunderstandings, no cross-purposes.
Then he looked up. “If the baby survives the second trimester, we’ll get married,” he said through a clenched jaw.
Emotion stung the back of her nose. He might be bad for her, but JT Hartley was a good man. He was doing the right thing, even as it tore him up inside.
“JT, I’m not marrying you,” she said gently but firmly. “I just explained why I can’t.”
“I’m not talking about hearts and flowers and illusions this time.” His eyes were as hard as granite. “I’m talking about our baby having parents who are legally married.”
Imagining that torturous scenario, she stifled a shudder. To be this close to the man who set her body alight, every day and night for the rest of her life, but not having him? “My answer is still no.”
He nodded once, slowly, not meeting her eyes. “Okay, if the baby makes it to term, we’ll discuss it again.”
A shaft of afternoon sunlight fell across his face,
glinting in his dark hair, illuminating the green of his eyes. She wanted to smile at the majesty of JT. Then, replaying what he’d said, the word “if” jumped out-he’d used it more than once…and understanding dawned. She might be worried about the baby and terrified she’d hurt the tiny person cradled in her womb, but JT didn’t believe their baby would survive.
She laid a hand on his thigh, over the strong muscle that was as tense as the rest of him. “JT, you know this baby has a very good chance of making it, don’t you? It won’t be like the first time.”
He looked at her with eyes that held a world of pain. He’d taken her to the cross he’d carved to help with her grief, but he’d never had a chance to grieve properly himself. Parents should be able to turn to each other at a time like that, but she’d had to break away for her own sanity.
“What did you do when Brianna died?” she asked softly.
He let out a humorless laugh. “Tried to get in to see you mostly.”
The guilt of the pain she’d caused him stabbed into her chest like a hot knife. She swallowed once, twice, to make her voice work. “After that. After we spoke.”
“Went a little wild, I suppose.” He rubbed his chin and frowned. “When I left your hospital room, I got on my bike and rode till I ran out of gas. Then I filled up and rode some more.”
A vision of him then, so young, so vulnerable, flashed in her mind. “JT, I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice barely more than a rasp.
“You did me a favor. One thing I learned from growing up the way I did was that nothing’s permanent,” he said, his tone flat. Emotionless. “Nothing lasts. When we were together, I forgot that for a little while.”
Her hand rose up to circle her throat. This man, who felt so familiar in some ways, was a complete stranger in others. “Do you really believe that?”
“Forever is a fairy tale told to kids.” His lips thinned to a tight line. “Maturity is knowing it’s false and nothing’s forever.”
She reached for his hand and laid it over her belly. “Not even this baby?”
His jaw clenched and he retracted his hand, obviously unwilling to share his dark fears any further. “We’ll wait and see.”
Her heart bled. The world had done this to him. His father, the people who wouldn’t accept the new boy whenever he changed towns. And worst of all was knowing the part she’d played in creating this darkness inside him.
“JT, I hate that-”
“Princess,” he cut her off, cynicism lacing his words, “the last thing I want or need is your sympathy.”
Of course he wouldn’t want her sympathy. She flinched. He wanted nothing from her anymore.
Except one thing.
There was one thing he wanted from her. And it was the only thing she could give him. After everything she’d robbed him of in the past-his child, their relationship, his belief in forever-she had to give him something in this moment. To take away the bleak loss from his eyes.
Heart in her mouth, she stood and gently pushed him back farther into the couch. He allowed the move, but watched her with wary eyes. Then she sank into his lap and rested her hands on his chest.
“What are you doing, Pia?” he asked wearily.
Truth be told, she wasn’t exactly sure-it was the only plan that had come to mind. And now she was so close, enveloped by his scent, feeling his skin’s heat through the fabric of his shirt, she didn’t want to leave. Her pulse picked up, warming her skin, her body.
“We may not make a good couple-” she skimmed her hands across his broad shoulders “-but there’s something we do together that’s magic.”
“And that is?” he said, his voice forbidding, yet strained at the edges.
Nerves across her skin tingled in anticipation. She might have started this to bring the light back to his eyes, but JT filled every thought, every sense, until reasons blurred in her mind and she simply wanted.
Leaning down, her mouth a whisper from his, she said, “Kiss me, JT.”
He didn’t move, didn’t bring his mouth closer, but his heart thumped hard under her hands and hers raced in a matching rhythm. Heaviness suffused her limbs and she wanted to melt into him.
“Why?” he asked, his features hardening.
His breath feathered over her face-coffee and pure JT-and her need beat louder. “Because we can,” she whispered.
Eyes cold and remote, he picked her up and deposited her beside him on the couch. “I don’t want pity sex, Pia.”
Robbed of his warmth, of the intimacy of touch, she struggled to make her brain work. “You,” she began weakly, then stopped. “You don’t want me?”
Coughing out a humorless laugh, he stood and stalked to the other side of the room. “I’d have to be dead to not want you.”
She blinked rapidly, focusing on JT’s words over the sound of her still-racing heart. He wanted her but was rejecting her because he’d somehow picked up on what had been going on in her mind earlier. She may have been feeling sympathetic ten minutes ago, but that had morphed into something else the moment she’d touched him. Which always seemed to happen with this man.
“The way I feel in this moment isn’t pity, I promise you,” she said as she stood from her place on the sofa.
Long fingers speared through his hair as he gripped on to a handful of dark waves by the roots. “When you want me,” he said, dropping his arm, his eyes intense, “purely for the sake of making love with me, then say the word. Tell me that and I’ll be here.”
For a whole week of having him in her apartment, she’d managed to keep her distance, to not walk to his makeshift bed in the middle of the night and crawl under the blankets with him. But that ended now. Her skin tightened unbearably. One more minute without him touching her was beyond endurance.
She followed and stood before him, heart thudding an uneven rhythm.
“JT, what’s the word?” she asked quietly.
A muscle worked on the side of his jaw. “What do you mean?”
“The word I can say-” on shaking legs, she took a small step forward, to within touching distance “-if I want you. Just for the sake of making love with you.”
His eyes half closed, masking his expression. “You want that word now?”
“You said you’d be here if I say it.” She moistened her dry lips and he watched the motion. “I want to know what it is.”
A battle raged inside him, she could feel it pulling him in two directions at once, his body held rigid as the war thundered on.
“My name,” he finally said as if the words were ripped from his throat. “All you ever have to do is say my name and mean it.”
“JT,” she said and reached for his hand with trembling fingers. She could feel the beat of his heart in her blood.
As he interlaced his fingers with hers, his other hand tucked wayward strands of her hair behind her ears. “You really want this?”
Need for him clawed inside her, stole her breath, and she had to be honest. “I’ve been trying to deny it for fourteen years, but I’ve never wanted any other man the way I wanted-still want-you. Every moment of every day. With everything inside me.”
A shiver ran through his body and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Pia, I can’t promise-”
“I don’t want promises. That route doesn’t work for us, but this,” she said as she brought his hand to her waist. “This,” she said as she kissed the roughness of his chin. “This is something I want more than I can say.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment, then he lifted her chin with gentle fingers and his sensual lips touched hers.
Chapter Eight
Pia parted her lips as JT’s mouth captured hers, needing his kiss more than she could ever imagine needing another thing on this earth. Heat bloomed under her skin as his lips moved slowly, deliciously across hers.
And with that one kiss, the fire between them exploded to life, blazing as hot as ever. This was the passion that had been missing in other relationships. Only JT
had ever inspired anything close to this level of flammability. She bit gently at his bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth and he groaned low in his throat. The sound reverberated through her body, all the way down to a spot below her navel that pulled tight with need.
His arms encircled her waist, drawing her closer, and wanting more, she scraped her nails over the fabric covering his back, wanting everything. There was something wild and wanton about making love with JT. His teeth scraped at the hollow of her shoulder and a jolt of searing pleasure washed through her. With other lovers, it’d been more like sex-by-numbers, pleasurable but predictable. With JT, it was as if anything were possible-exhilarating, but a little scary for the tenuous thread she held on her self-control. Which was why she’d been wary of seeing him again-he brought out the bad side of her. The wanton, obsessive, crazy side of her. But-she stroked her thumbs along his biceps-the time for second-guessing and backtracking was gone. She needed him here and now. Any fallout could be dealt with later.
Fingers jittery, desperate, she pulled the tails of his shirt from his trousers and ran her hands up his chest. His skin was smooth and scorching and when she met the smattering of hair in the middle of his chest, she traced the pads of her fingers across it, reveling in the crisp sensation.
“There’s no one in the world like you,” he said close to her ear, his breath warm and fast, and she melted a little more. He kissed her again, tongue sliding in an erotic, wet caress inside her mouth and she closed her eyes, drunk on the dark male flavor of him. She couldn’t bear to end the kiss, wanting to stay connected to him forever, until finally she broke away to drag air into her burning lungs.
He walked her backward, toward her bedroom door, and she let him guide her steps, pulling his tie loose on the way. The tie landed on the back of a chair and her fingers set to unbuttoning his shirt.
As she worked, his hands slid over the sides of her breasts and she shivered. Simple touches-all he had to do was touch her and she was his for the taking. All he’d ever had to do was touch her…
As his shirt fell on the floor, she tugged his belt loose and discarded it, and he walked her backward again until the backs of her legs met the side of her bed. With nowhere left to go, she was pinned to the edge of the high mattress as he pressed along her, the jut of his erection pushing against her belly. She swayed side to side-small, slow movements-to better feel the shape of him.
Return of the Secret Heir Page 9