Her stomach growled as if on cue and they both laughed. Pulling on the robe, she rose from the rumpled sheets and tied the chenille belt around her waist. “It’s a little late, I suppose, to pretend I couldn’t eat a thing.”
“I’d be real disappointed if you did. Breakfast is almost ready.”
Delight bloomed. “You made it? Oh, my gosh. You’re a regular Renaissance man.”
His eyebrows elevated. “Now that’s something I can honestly say I’ve never been called.”
“It’s what you are, though. I have yet to see anything you’re unable to do. You keep this entire complex running, you cook, you’re very good in…well.” Cheeks heating as she glanced at the bed, she cleared her throat.
He grinned and slung his arm around her waist, guiding her from the room. “You’re very good in…well, too.” Splaying his workingman’s hand possessively over her hip, he gazed down at her with warm eyes. “I have to tell you, Ellen, that last night was the best time I’ve had in years.”
“For me, too.”
He halted in front of the bathroom and she thought he was going to kiss her. He did, but it was a butterfly peck on her lips, there one second then gone, with only a whisper of sensation left in its wake. When he raised his head he tipped it toward the bathroom door. “Would you like a minute in the…?”
Lord, she was crazy about this man. “Yes, please. In fact, give me a few minutes and I’ll join you in the kitchen.”
“You got it. What would you like to drink with your omelet?”
“Tea, please. If you’ll just turn on the kettle, I’ll select which kind when I get there.”
She used the facilities, washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth. As she attempted to bully her hair into something that resembled an actual style instead of the obvious case of bed head it was, she thought about the man in her kitchen.
And she smiled. Mack might prefer a select number of positions when it came to lovemaking, but that certainly hadn’t detracted from the quality of his work. She got dreamy-eyed just thinking about it. The first time had been all hot, frantic passion. But the second time had been slow hands and dark words and a fever that had built and built until she’d thought she’d spontaneously combust. And he was a postcoital cuddler. She grinned at her image in the mirror. A postcoital cuddler who cooked.
Life didn’t get much better than that.
She saw when she rejoined him that he’d used her best everyday dishes and set a pretty table. It even included a motley arrangement of flowers, which he must have picked from the grounds and jammed into a water glass.
He handed her a mug of steaming water as he passed her on his way to the table with a short stack of buttered toast. She quickly chose an Irish Breakfast blend out of her selection in the cupboard and glanced at Mack over her shoulder as she brewed her cup of tea. “What can I do to help?”
“Come take your seat. I just have to grab the platter out of the oven and we’re in business.” He pulled out a chair for her and ran callused fingertips over her bare skin where the collar of her robe slipped as she sat.
She shivered in pleasure. Winston had possessed banker’s hands—all smooth skin and manicured nails, and for more than two decades she’d loved their touch. She’d had no idea until she’d felt Mack’s hard-textured hands on her last night that rough-skinned fingers could contribute such an exciting level of tactile eroticism to the senses.
He served them omelets rich with green onions, tomatoes and cheese, along with fried potatoes and toast. Their conversation was desultory as they made inroads into his fare.
Ellen finally pushed her plate back and sighed. “Oh, my,” she said with utter contentment. “That was a treat.”
He accepted her compliment, but then gave her one of his no-nonsense looks. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”
She planted her chin in her palm and smiled, enjoying simply looking at his solid shoulders and lived-in face. “And?”
“And I think we get on well together. Very well.”
“I think we do, too. It’s pretty amazing, really, considering all the fussing and fighting we did up until a few days ago.”
“Yeah, well.” Dull red climbed his strong neck. “Much as I hate to admit it, I have to take the blame for most of that. The first time I saw you I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever clapped eyes on and wanted you on the spot. But instead of saying so, I regressed to grade-school behavior. It must be clear to you by now that my courting skills began and ended with Maryanne. I met her in the sixth grade and married her right out of high school.”
“No kidding?” The knowledge startled her. “I had no idea you’d married that young.”
“Yeah. We managed to defy the failure-rate statistics for teenage weddings and had a marriage that actually grew stronger over the years instead of falling apart by the time we’d reached our midtwenties.” He gave his head an impatient shake. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Like I said, you and I mesh really well together. I think we ought to make this relationship permanent.”
She straightened in her seat. “As in get married?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s a great idea.”
“It’s an insane idea. Mack, we’ve had one date.”
“And look how well that turned out.” He pushed his plate aside and folded his forearms on the table, leaning toward her with a winning smile. “I considered just living together, but I’ve got two impressionable daughters to think about.”
“Who, if I remember correctly, are thirty-six and thirty-three years old.” But she couldn’t prevent the smile that curled her lips. He looked so good, sitting across from her with his strong arms resting on the table and his dark eyes intent on getting his way. But it was his you-gotta-love-me grin that really grabbed her heart.
“Okay, so they’re not exactly babes in the woods anymore,” he admitted. “Still, I’m sure they’d much rather see their old man duly wed than living in sin with the last of the red-hot librarians.” His smile turned downright cocky. “And admit it. You’re tempted.”
“The crazy thing is, I am. But I’m a cautious woman by nature and—”
He snorted. “Oh, yeah, I could tell that by the way you hauled me in here by my tie last night.”
Although she felt her cheeks flame again, she knew this particular heat was generated by a covert pride, not embarrassment. She had to admit she’d considered that a pretty hot-mama move, herself.
Still. “That was an impulse—and an extremely uncharacteristic one, I might add. Also, while I might have been a bit precipitous jumping into bed with you, I definitely don’t leap into marriage with someone with whom, up until a few short days ago, I’ve done nothing but trade insults.”
“But you’re not blowing off the idea entirely, right?”
She gave him her most demure smile. “Let’s just say I’m not dismissing the possibility for some future date.”
“Some near future date,” he promptly stated. “Neither one of us is getting any younger.”
“No, we aren’t. Which to me means we’re mature enough to get to know each other before we go rushing off to the Chapel of Love. So convince me a permanent relationship would be a smart move on our part, then we’ll talk timing.”
“All right, now we’re talking my language.” Rubbing his hands together, he rose to his feet and came around to pull out her chair. “Let’s step into your office and I’ll give you a quick lesson on how a master negotiator operates.”
“Or a master operator negotiates,” she suggested drily. Heat started building deep inside of her, but she gave him her don’t-mess-with-the-librarian face. “This ‘office’ would be my bedroom, I take it?”
He wagged his eyebrows at her.
“You do realize, don’t you, that by getting to know each other I meant in more than merely the biblical sense?” Then without awaiting an answer, she demanded, “Besides, what happened to being an ‘old guy’ that I’d worn out?”
; “Well, it’s the damnedest thing,” he murmured as he hustled her down the hall. “Turns out I recover a helluva lot quicker than I thought.”
THE MUSIC FOR THE audition’s final number died away but Treena kept moving to keep her muscles warm until her heart rate decreased. She stepped side to side, alternately shaking out and stretching her arms.
“Thank you,” called la Stravaganza’s general manager from the darkness of the auditorium. The other dancers milled around as they, too, went through their cool down routines. Treena could tell the ones who weren’t familiar with the show’s procedure, because they tried to peer past the bright lights that flooded the stage, clearly expecting to hear an immediate verdict from the judges. Treena, knowing Vernetta-Grace’s spiel by heart, headed for the dressing rooms, and Carly fell into step beside her.
The GM’s voice followed them backstage. “Those of you who already dance for la Stravaganza,” she called in her usual brisk, no-nonsense tones, “may expect a letter informing you whether your contract will be renewed on your station by the end of the last show Thursday night. If we require anything further from the rest of you, we’ll contact you by phone Friday morning.”
“Thank you for participating and have a good day,” Carly recited in crisp unison with Vernetta-Grace’s dwindling voice as she and Treena headed down the backstage corridor.
They were the first ones in the dressing room and all the energy Treena had summoned to get her through the tryout dribbled away like water through a preschooler’s hands. Only sheer stubborn pride had kept her moving for the past hour and a half—she’d worked too damn hard to let some man torpedo everything she’d been killing herself to achieve. So she had emptied her mind of everything except the performance she needed to give in order to pass the audition. Now that it was over, however, she could barely hold her head upright, and the dam she’d hastily erected to keep the pain of Jax’s betrayal at bay was springing leaks faster than Hans Brinker’s dike.
Still, she felt a wisp of pride as she turned to look at her friend. “I think I did it,” she said wearily. “I think I passed.”
“I know you did,” Carly said. “You were amazing—and I don’t just mean because of the extraordinary circumstances.”
“I hurt in every muscle in my body, though,” she admitted. “What I wouldn’t give for a good night’s sleep.” Her eyes burned from all the tears she’d cried earlier, but when she looked at her reflection in the mirror she was surprised to see that the ice-bath therapy Carly had insisted upon before they’d left home had actually done the trick. It had involved Treena plunging her face into a bowl full of ice water while her friend held her hair back, but between that and the tea bags she’d pressed to her eyes while Carly had driven them to the Avventurado, her swollen face and bloodshot eyes had been reduced to a manageable level. Extra makeup had taken care of the rest—or so she preferred to believe.
Catching a glimpse of Carly stripping out of her crop-top next to her elicited a sudden sharp tug to her conscience. Good God, Treena, have you had one thought today that included anyone other than you?
“I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “I didn’t even ask how you did.” In previous years she’d had a good idea of how everyone had performed at an audition, but today it had been all she could do to focus on her own performance.
Her friend looked up from peeling down her tights with the tiny built-in panties and grinned. “I aced it, girlfriend, and so did you. But you know who didn’t?” A deep-throated laugh slid out of her. “Our good pal Julie-Ann.”
Surprise filtered through Treena’s general misery. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. Oh, it was nothing dramatic like her blowing the thing all to hell and gone. But she was a far cry from her usual standards, and I gotta tell you, toots, it was a joy to see. Did you notice the brunette with the jazz-baby haircut? About twenty-two, maybe twenty-three years old, wearing a red unitard?”
She shook her head.
“Well, the girl was dynamite, and I think it occurred to little Miz Julie-A for probably the first time in her life that maybe she’d be wiser to look to her own laurels rather than spending all her time ragging on the older dancers in the troupe. Because if there’s one given you can count on in this biz it’s that there will always be a new crop of younger, prettier, better dancers out there ready and willing to take your job.”
Treena didn’t even pretend patience for Julie-Ann’s woes. “What did the self-absorbed twit think, that she’d be the youngest dancer in the troupe forever?”
“I doubt she’s ever thought about it, period. Julie-baby hasn’t had her teeth kicked down her throat as often as the rest of us have yet, and self-absorbed is the word for her. But I think she caught a glimpse of her future seeing Red Unitard dance circles around everyone. And let me tell you, toots, it shook her right down to the ground, because you can be sure Vernetta-Grace is going to hire the girl if there’s an opening, and just knowing that is giving J-A a taste of what it feels like to have someone breathing down your neck.” Carly smiled with sheer pleasure. “You gotta love karma.”
She went on to critique other performances, but Treena quit listening. Dancers began filtering into the room in twos and threes, laughing and talking and making plans to blow off some steam now that the audition was behind them, and the cheerful din unleashed all the wretchedness she’d been holding back. She tried desperately not to give in to it but knew she wouldn’t be able to stave off the misery for long. Hell, she’d deem it a success story if she could simply keep from falling apart until she got home.
Not wanting to be pulled into any of the conversations going on around her, she finished changing, then shoved her damp dance togs into her bag and leaned over to interrupt Carly, who was happily dissecting the audition with Eve. “I’ll wait for you outside the showroom.”
Telling the other dancer to hang on a sec, Carly dug in her bag until she came up with her key ring. She handed it to Treena. “Take the car. I’m going to stick around and grab a drink with Eve and Michelle.”
Eve leaned around Carly. “You oughtta come, too, hon.”
“I don’t feel too good, Eve. I think I’m gonna just head for home.”
A stricken look flashed across Carly’s face and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Treen,” she said under her breath. “I forgot everything else for a minute in the euphoria of having the tryouts finally over for another year. I’ll drive you home.” She reached to take back the keys.
Treena whipped them out of reach. Oh, God, she didn’t want that. She’d actually felt a moment’s relief knowing she’d soon be alone. She didn’t want to see anybody, have to talk to anybody. “Don’t be silly,” she said and hoped she didn’t sound as desperate to escape as she felt. Grabbing her dance bag, she rose to her feet. “Go and have a good time—I’ll be fine. I’ll see you all later,” she said to the room in general, then left before anyone could stop her.
She didn’t draw a steady breath until she hit the darkened auditorium and felt she could safely quit worrying about breaking down in front of everyone she knew. They were her friends and would be staunchly on her side, but she’d never been comfortable with flopping her emotions down for wholesale consumption. No comfort awaited her in the usual slice-and-dice the troupe indulged in when a man broke the heart of one of their own.
She was almost home free, however, and her heartbeat finally started to settle down as she pushed through the showroom doors. She might make it back to her nest without a meltdown after all.
“Treena.”
Ice slithered down her spine, and she jerked. Nooooooo! Dammit, she wasn’t ready for this! But there was no mistaking that voice and blast Jax’s black soul, the last man she wanted to see was here whether she was prepared to deal with him or not.
Jax knew even as he straightened that this wasn’t going to be easy. His emotions had been all over the map since the moment she’d shoved him out her apartment door and slammed it shut behind him.
/> When he’d first walked away he’d simply felt defeated and ashamed. But as he’d driven back to the Avventurato defensiveness had begun to kick in. Hey, he’d planned to tell her the truth, hadn’t he? That ought to count for something. And she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about when it came to his father. By the time he’d stalked bare-chested and barefoot through the hotel to reach his room he’d been determined to turn the goddamn baseball over to Kirov, win the final game tonight and get the hell out of Vegas.
Instead, he’d removed the baseball from its Plexiglas holder, locked it in his room safe and gone down to the casino to play some cards. When things went to hell, he’d always found that gambling took his mind off his troubles.
Not today, though. He lost hand after hand, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was how damn alone he felt in the crowd. It shouldn’t have bothered him, for it was certainly nothing new. Yet, in the short time he’d known Treena he’d grown accustomed to feeling like he belonged to someone. He discovered he cared a lot.
Desperate to know how Treena’s audition was going, he couldn’t concentrate worth shit on the cards and finally cashed in his few remaining chips and headed back up to the room. He knew what he had to do.
So here he was, with a gift bag in one hand and his other hand stuffed in his pocket, and Treena was blowing right past him as if he were invisible. He made a move to block her.
She jerked violently out of his path. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Careful not to crowd too closely, he turned and walked alongside her. “Please. I’ll only take a minute of your time.”
She ignored him, but he matched his stride to hers until finally she stopped and turned to face him, her normally warm eyes ice-cold and the hands that had patted and stroked him fisted so tightly on the strap of her dance bag that her knuckles were white. “What do you want, Jackson?”
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