The Ruthless Caleb Wilde

by Sandra Marton

  “Good?” Caleb asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I’ll make the sacrifice. I’ll eat it all, to save you from food poisoning.”

  He laughed, leaned over and kissed her.

  They ate every morsel, opened another bottle of the not-really-Champagne.

  Then Caleb wheeled the cart into the dining room and they settled on the floor in front of the flower-filled fireplace, the last of the fizzy non-wine in their glasses, and leaned back against a big stack of black-and-white pillows.

  Caleb drew Sage into the curve of his arm.

  She sighed. Then she said, in a deadly serious tone, “Okay, Caleb Wilde, the time has come.”

  His heart thudded. Was she going to say she’d changed her mind about marrying him?

  “I want to know everything about you.” She looked at him. “For starters,” she said with a smile on her lips, “have you always been a knight?”

  He laughed. “Trust me, sweetheart. I’ve never been that.”

  Her smile faded; her expression turned serious.

  “I do trust you,” she said softly. “And I never thought I’d say that to any man.”

  Caleb kissed her temple. “Want to tell me about it?”

  She hesitated. And then she knew that she did, that this was part of what made everything between them special.

  That they could be honest and open with each other.

  So she sat up straight, scrunched around until she was sitting, cross-legged, facing him.

  “I grew up in Indiana,” she said, “in a little town in the middle of nowhere.”

  Just the two of them, she said, she and her mother. And, she said, without any embarrassment or apology, the same direct way she’d said it before, they’d been poor.

  It hurt him, to think of her as a kid without the things he’d pretty much taken for granted, but what hurt most was when he realized, as she talked, that her childhood, her teen years, her life in that little town in the middle of nowhere, had been defined more by her mother’s bitterness, by the absence of a father, than by poverty.

  His own mother had died when he and his brothers were very small but he had warm memories of the woman who’d become their stepmother. And though none of them could ever pretend their relationship with their father had been warm or traditionally loving, at least they’d had a father.

  She told him how she’d come to New York with two hundred dollars she’d saved from working at the local diner when she was in high school. How she’d found a flat she’d shared with five other girls.

  “Picture it, six women, all fighting for the bathroom,” she said, making light of what he knew must have been a tough couple of years.

  “Then,” she said, “I got a part in a Sandra Bullock movie. I was supposed to just sit near her in a restaurant scene but I ended up with a line to speak.”

  “And you were great.”

  “Of course,” she said archly. They both smiled. “Seriously, I guess I was okay because I got a few more parts and then my agent snagged me a TV ad.” She fluttered her lashes. “I was a talking box of corn flakes.”

  He laughed, took her hand, kissed each finger and said he’d never look at corn flakes the same way again.

  “I met David right after that.” Her tone softened. “He was wonderful. Funny. Caring. Smart. He became the big brother I’d never had. Everybody liked him—except for his father. Once David came out, Caldwell disowned him. He wouldn’t even take his calls.”

  Caleb reached for her and drew her into his lap.

  “I’m sorry for what I did that night. To David, you know? I shouldn’t have—”

  “It was okay. Really.” She smiled. “David said it was a compliment. See, he was trying out for a part where he was going to play a straight guy so he figured if you didn’t think he was gay …” She leaned her head against Caleb’s shoulder. “That’s enough about me. You’re supposed to be telling me about you.”

  “Well,” he said, “let’s see …”

  What could he tell her? He wasn’t a man who liked talking about himself; he knew he’d always held his feelings close, but that was simply the way he was.

  Well, he could tell her about his family.

  His brothers, first.

  He expanded a little on what he’d already said about them, explained that Jake had returned from war a wounded hero, that Travis was fearless, that his sisters were like her.

  “Like me?” she said with a pleased smile.

  “Yes,” he said, because it was true. “They’re pretty and smart, feminine as heck but tough as nails when they have to be. So is Jake’s Addison.” He hugged her. “You’re going to fit right in, sweetheart.”

  “I hope so,” she said softly. “And your father? The general?”

  “Let’s see. Smart. Stuffy. Superior.”

  “The three Ss,” Sage said.

  Caleb smiled. “Exactly. And that’s all of it.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “It is. Two brothers. Three sisters. One father—”

  “You still haven’t said a word about you.”

  He hesitated. Then he figured, okay, why not?

  He told her how he’d gone from wanting to be a cop to wanting to be a lawyer. And then, to his amazement, he found himself talking about his five-year detour into intelligence, how he’d been recruited by one of his law-school profs.

  “I said thanks, but no thanks. I said I was too much of a maverick to be a spy.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I wanted to get a rise out of him but he just said, sure, that was one of the reasons he’d thought I’d be right for the job.”

  “And you were,” Sage said gently.

  “For a while. At first, it was exciting. And fulfilling. But, after a while, I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to spend the rest of my professional life. I saw things …” His mouth twisted.

  “Hell, I did things …”

  She leaned in. Kissed him

  “I bet you never did anything you didn’t think was right.”

  It was true. He hadn’t.

  That was why he’d left The Agency.

  He’d been able to make peace with risking his life, the lives of others, even once or twice implementing the taking of lives, for the security of his country and his people.

  But things had begun to change. The rationale for some of his assignments struck him as murky, even specious.

  He’d balked. Once. Twice. And he and The Agency had parted ways.

  Caleb told Sage about it.

  No details—he would always be bound to secrecy—but he wanted her to know everything about him, the good and the not-so-good.

  Finally, he fell silent.

  And realized he was holding his breath, until she raised her face to his and kissed him.

  “Sir Knight,” she said softly, and when he shook his head, she kissed him again. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known,” she whispered, and his heart swelled with joy.

  After a minute, she said, “Does your family—do they know about us?”

  “No. Not yet. I’ll tell them. Soon. But you got me thinking today. We need some time alone.”

  “Yes. Thank you for that.”

  “The thing is, I love my brothers and I’m crazy about my sisters—but they can be a little overwhelming.”

  “The Wilde Bunch?”

  He laughed. “Actually, that’s what my brothers and I called ourselves, growing up.”

  “So, when will you—”

  “Soon,” he said, and kissed her, and the world went away.

  Morning brought a steady summer rain.

  And a problem.

  “We have to go back to my apartment,” Sage announced as they were finishing breakfast.

  “Because?”

  “Because you should have told me I’d need more than one dress and a pair of jeans!”

  Caleb smirked.

  “What?”

  “I have plans for today,” he said.

  “Whatever they
are, first I have to get some more—Caleb Wilde, what’s with that look?”

  Caleb pushed back his chair.

  “Up,” he said.

  Sage tilted her head. “Are we back to one-word commands?”

  He leaned down, kissed her and smacked his lips.

  “I’m starting to like the taste of herbal tea.”

  “Nice try, but I still want to know what’s going on.”

  “Get dressed. And you’ll see.”

  She put on the jeans and T-shirt she’d brought. He wore jeans, too, with a white cotton sweater. They went down to the lobby, the doorman whistled up a cab and held a big black umbrella over their heads as he hurried them to it.

  Several minutes later, their cab pulled up in front of Saks Fifth Avenue.

  “Caleb,” Sage said in a warning tone.

  “That’s my name,” he said cheerfully.

  “Caleb,” she said, as he hustled her through the rain and into the store, “what are we doing here?”

  “You can’t spend a whole week in one pair of jeans and that blue dress. Of course,” he added, in his best I-am-a-lecher tones, “you could spend it naked in bed with me, but the chambermaid has to get in to clean once in a while.”

  A woman hurrying past them laughed.

  Sage swatted him on the arm.

  “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “And didn’t I tell you that same thing? We have to go to my place so I can get—”

  Caleb took her hand and hurried her past silk scarves and handbags and counters of makeup.

  “No dilly-dallying,” he said briskly. “Not when there’s a bunch of people waiting to meet you.”

  Sage came to a dead stop. “What people?” Understanding rose in her eyes. “If you think I’m going to let you buy—”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  “Caleb, for heaven’s sake, not here, in the middle of—”

  “Right here. Right now. I’ll keep kissing you until you finally say yes, a man can buy a few things for his wife.”

  “I’m not your wife—”

  “Not yet,” he said, and kissed her again.

  “You’re impossible!”

  “I’m also very, very determined. What’s it going to be? A kissing marathon, or a shopping trip?”

  A kissing marathon, she wanted to say. And when he flashed that wicked, sexy grin she loved, she grinned back at him.

  “Okay. You win. But only a few things. Necessities.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Caleb said, lying through his teeth as he led her to the elevators.

  It was clear the sales staff had been expecting him. Or a man like him, one who knew precisely what he wanted.

  Dresses were, he said, necessities. So were jeans and trousers, skirts and tops, lingerie, shoes and sandals and anything and everything in between.

  “Caleb, no,” Sage whispered, “it’s too much.”

  “It’s not half enough,” he answered, loving the pleasure he saw in her eyes as she looked in the mirror, wearing silk and linen and all the things she’d never had before.

  Once he’d arranged for all the bags and boxes to be sent to the hotel, they went back down to the first floor.

  “Pick out a couple of handbags,” he said.

  Sage stared at the bewildering assortment.

  “There are so many …”

  Indeed, and he’d counted on that.

  Once she was busy comparing what looked like bowling bags to what had to be sacks, he took the salesclerk aside.

  “Keep her busy,” he whispered, “for maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Cartier was just minutes away.

  He ran through the rain, found the manager waiting for him with ten beautiful rings laid out on a tray in a private room, but it took no time to decide on the right one: a perfect, blue-white diamond, flanked by sapphires and set in white gold.

  It was a classic, just like the woman who would wear it.

  He put the little red box in his pocket, raced back to Saks and found Sage agonizing over the bowling-ball case, the sack and a lunchbox—at least, that’s what they looked like to him.

  “Where were you?” she whispered. “I wanted your opinion—”

  “In the men’s room,” he said blithely, and told the clerk they’d take all three.

  Caleb Wilde, world-class problem-solver.

  “I keep telling you,” Sage said, all bluster but with something indescribably tender in her eyes, “that you’re impossible.”

  “I am,” he said somberly …

  And then a funny thing happened.

  A lightning bolt came straight out of the ceiling.

  It might as well have, because all at once and with unerring certainty, he knew he wasn’t impossible at all.

  He was simply a man head over heels in love.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CALEB poured himself a brandy, stood at the windows looking out at Central Park, and told himself to calm down.

  Sage was in the bedroom.

  He could see her whenever he turned around, surrounded by boxes and shopping bags and all the things he’d bought for her.

  She was excited and happy.

  He was excited and happy … and an absolute wreck.

  The little red box was burning a hole in his pocket.

  He brought the brandy snifter to his lips, took a slow, warming mouthful of the amber liquid.

  Asking her to marry him had been easy. Well, more or less. Proposing had been a logical choice.

  Telling a woman you loved her didn’t have anything to do with logic.

  It meant putting your heart on the line. And he’d never done anything remotely like it before.

  The glass shook in his hand.

  Amazing.

  He’d faced capture by the enemy, torture, even death. But this—telling Sage he loved her …

  What if she didn’t love him? What if she said, “That’s very nice to hear, Caleb, and I like you, I like going to bed with you but …”

  Sage must have felt his eyes on her because she spun toward the door and when he saw the joy in her face, his heart lifted.

  “You crazy man,” she said, “buying me all this!”

  “Just so you know,” he said, straight-faced, “I have a no-returns policy.”

  She laughed. So did he. He put down the snifter, opened his arms and she flew into them. Her laughter turned to tears and when he asked why she was crying she said it was because she was so happy.

  “Right,” he said, gathering her closer, feeling her tears on his throat.

  No wonder the idea of baring his soul to her scared the crap out of him.

  That was why finding the right time, the right place to give her the ring and tell her he loved her was so important.

  Women didn’t operate on the same emotional plane as men. They were impossible to predict, impossible to comprehend, and, God, holding her like this was everything.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  So he kissed her. Caressed her. Took her to bed.

  And he knew it was crazy but he wanted to tell her he loved her when he could concentrate on finding the right words, and he couldn’t concentrate on anything but this, this, when she was naked beneath him; this, when he was deep, so deep inside her …

  By the time sanity returned, they were running late.

  The concierge had snagged him last-minute dinner reservations at Daniel and front-row-center tickets for a play that had just opened to glowing reviews.

  The restaurant was perfect, as always; the service impeccable, the meal itself elegant—but it wasn’t the place to give her the ring and tell her he loved her because if he did, they’d never make it to the theater, and the entire evening, from start to finish, was all for her.

  At the theater, while she watched the actors, Caleb watched her, loving her total concentration, her absolute stillness. He reached for her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers.

  “Hey,” he said so
ftly, at the end of the first act, and she gave him a private, tender smile that leached the fear right out of him.

  She loved him.

  He was certain of it.

  All he had to do was get through the next couple of hours and then he could tell her what was in his heart.

  At last, they were going home. Well, not “home” but to the penthouse suite that had become their own private world.

  They rode the elevator in the best kind of silence, she with her head on his shoulder, he with his arm tightly around her waist. When they reached their door, Caleb opened it, then swung her up into his arms and elbowed the door shut behind him.

  He was done with waiting.

  It was time.

  He kissed her. Set her down slowly on her feet …

  And saw the blinking red light on the sitting-room telephone.

  No, he told himself, dammit, no! He was not putting this off for another minute …

  “There’s a message,” Sage said.

  Caleb shook his head. “It’s only a message if we listen to it.”

  She laughed. “A lovely thought, but don’t you want to find out what it is?”

  “No.” He locked his hands at the base of her spine. She leaned back, raised her arms, draped them around his neck, hands linked at the nape. “I’m not interested in messages tonight. That’s why I shut off my cell phone hours ago.”

  “Ah.”

  He ducked his head, nuzzled a silky strand of hair back from her throat. “Ah, what?”

  “Ah, then maybe whoever’s trying to reach you is really, really trying to reach you.”

  That stopped him.

  Maybe she was right.

  He hadn’t even looked at his phone since the afternoon.

  “Okay,” he said, reluctantly. “I’ll check.”

  “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s all you get.”

  He tugged her closer and kissed her.

  “Two minutes is all I’ll need.”

  She smiled. “I’m going to get undressed.”

  “Don’t,” he said with a wicked grin. “That’s my job, remember?”

  She blushed, laughed, kissed him again. He watched her walk into the bedroom. Then he reached for the phone and followed its automated directions.

  Sage shook her hair loose and brushed it.