Jade started looking for her shoes. She had to get out of the house and away from Jeffrey Martin.
Diana moved into the room and strolled over to the window. Jade wondered furiously if Jeffrey were imagining her naked there.
“This is a stunning place, Jeff,” she said enthusiastically. “You did buy it? And Ms. McLane, you found it for him. I know, you see, because I went by your office. That nice man where Jeff is staying gave me the name of the firm. You must be very good. This place is perfect for Jeff.”
“Yes, it’s just perfect for him.” Jade agreed stiffly, wanting only to leave as quickly as possible. She slid a foot into the shoe she found near the closet door.
Diana made a tsking sound and picked up Jeffrey’s red plaid shirt. “Jeff, you’re still as messy as ever. Always anxious…”
Jade found her other shoe. “Mrs. Martin, it was a pleasure meeting you,” she said flatly. “Excuse me. I’m sure you two have a lot to discuss.”
She fled from the room, barely aware of Jeff shouting her name. She didn’t have her car, but it didn’t matter. Her own house wasn’t more than six or seven blocks away.
“Jade!”
He was chasing her down the stairway, still barefoot and shirtless. At the door he caught her arm. She went rigid, then strained desperately to escape him. She couldn’t. His grip was like iron.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded furiously, and she wondered how his eyes had ever reminded her of the sky on a clear day. They looked like a dark tempest now.
“What’s the matter with me?” she repeated in furious amazement. “How can you—”
“Dammit! I didn’t invite her! She just barged in.”
“Well, that’s your problem, not mine!”
He swore and threw the door open. Maintaining his death grip on her arm, he dragged her down the driveway to his car.
“Let me go! I don’t want to talk to you—”
“You damned well are going to talk to me. You can’t go flying out on me like this. Not after this afternoon.”
Again she tried to wrench her arm from his grasp. He only held her tighter. “Stop it!”
“I want you to let me go!” Tears stung her eyes suddenly, viciously. “Go back to your wife!”
“She’s my ex-wife. Now you’re going to listen to me whether you want to or not.”
“I’m—”
He forced her into the car and slammed the door after her. Before she had a chance to get back out he was gunning the engine.
“You son of a bitch! You can’t do this—”
“I believe I’m doing it.”
The car screeched down the long drive, slid out onto the road and turned down Main onto Jade’s street. They reached her driveway in record time.
Tears shimmered in Jade’s eyes. “Damn you, Jeffrey Martin—”
He spun on her, taut as a wire, exasperated, frustrated, still furious—and a little bit desperate.
“No! Damn you, Jade! Damn you for thinking so little of us that you could possibly behave this way!”
He jerked the car door open and practically dragged her out. “Invite me in, Mrs. McLane, because I’m coming in whether you do or not. We are going to talk.”
“I—”
“You, at the very least, are going to listen.”
CHAPTER 8
Seconds later Jade was standing in her living room, amazed that he could be so angry with her when she was the one who had been wronged. But he was angry—terribly so. He paced the floor, casting her gazes that spoke of a wealth of emotion just barely held in control.
“What the hell is the matter with you? Running out like that! You weren’t dragged into anything, you weren’t coerced, and I was under the impression that you cared. Deeply. Yet all of a sudden you’re hopping about like a teenager caught in the act by her parents. Damn it, Jade! I didn’t ask her to come to Miami, but I can hardly forbid her to set foot in the city.”
“Wait a minute! Wait just a minute! Your ex-wife crashes in on us and you’re yelling at me?”
“I didn’t go running out like a frightened rabbit!”
“And why would you have? You were the one she was there to see. You told me that you’ve slept with her since the divorce.”
“I told you how long ago it was, too. And that we were never, never—in a thousand years never—going to get back together. Nice damned couple we make.”
“Couple? Aren’t you assuming a lot after just one afternoon?”
“Couple! And no I’m not assuming anything on that score. Hell, what is this? You sound as if you’d like to gift wrap me and hand me back to Diana. If you were ashamed of being in bed with me, maybe you shouldn’t have been there at all.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been.”
He chose to ignore that.
“And if you weren’t ashamed, you shouldn’t have run out as if you were.”
He’d stopped pacing. He was staring straight at her. Challenging her, daring her—or pleading with her? She didn’t know.
“If you mean so little to each other,” Jade shouted, “why would she just waltz in on you like that?”
“Because we’re not enemies!” Jeffrey shouted back. He raked his fingers through his hair and drew in a deep breath. “Jade, she missed Ryan. She came down, and Toby told her where to find me. I left the door open—I thought that I’d locked it.”
Jade was silent for a second. She couldn’t seem to think rationally. She had finally gone to bed with a man, a man she had been falling in love with, a man she had thought too perfect to be true. Idiot…well, she probably deserved this one. She’d known there was an ex-wife. What had she expected?
She’d expected Diana to stay in Chicago where she belonged.
“Dammit, Jade, do you care or not?”
Care? Yes, she cared. More than she wanted to admit. But she was frightened, too.
“I—”
“What?”
“Stop yelling at me! Yes! I care! That’s why I’m frightened, you idiot! She’s so beautiful, how can I compete? And you two are still so friendly. It unnerves me and it scares me and I don’t know if I’m being an idiot—or intelligent enough to see what the outcome of all this might be.”
He turned around and slammed a fist against the wall. “I won’t let you do this,” he said at last. “I just won’t let you do it. You’re everything I’ve been looking for, everything I’ve longed for, and dammit, we’re perfect together. You can’t say that it isn’t so. Every day has been better than the one before, and you know it.” He turned back and came to her, gripping her shoulders too tightly. “Jade. You can’t just run out on me!”
She stared at him, swallowing, painfully aware that she hadn’t wanted to run out on him. And she hadn’t “run out”; she had run away—from Diana, from him and from herself. She’d been certain that she had lost the battle before it could even begin. But he had followed her. That had to mean something. Did it mean that he cared about her?
But if he knew that his marriage to Diana was over, he was alone in his conviction. Having met Diana, Jade was convinced that Jeffrey’s ex-wife did not mean to maintain her “ex” status forever.
Jade was certain Diana didn’t see her as a threat. Diana had been amused by the interlude, nothing more. Obviously, she was convinced that she would soon have a place in Jeffrey’s life again. All she had to do was bide her time until he felt the irresitible pull of her beauty.
The worst part, Jade realized, was that she was terrified Diana might be right. Nonetheless, she was more in love with Jeffrey than ever. It hurt to be in love, but she cared about him so much that she was willing to gamble. She would pit herself against Diana, and pray that she was the one he would choose.
“Jeffrey…” She spoke his name in misery. He had told her that they were perfect together, that he wouldn’t let her walk away. But what if it wasn’t really true?
“Jade, I love you. Please, don’t let her come between us.”
<
br /> She was in love. She had to believe him. She swallowed again. “Where is Diana now?”
“I don’t know. I assume she’s still at the house.”
Jade closed her eyes, feeling a little ill.
“She’s going to stay there?”
“Of course not!”
“But—”
“I didn’t have time to talk to her. I had to sprint the five-hundred to catch up with you. All I told her was that she was always welcome to see her son, but that she’d caused a problem in my personal life and she’d just have to wait until I had talked to you.”
“Is she…is she moving down here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, God…”
“Jade!” His arm slipped around her. He tilted her chin up with his free hand, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Didn’t you hear me? Didn’t you listen? Or doesn’t it matter to you? I’m in love with you. I think it started the day we met. And the more I saw you, the more all the little things began to haunt me. The way you smiled. The way you looked. The sound of your voice. Your passion, your knowledge. I’d watch you pour water for the kids, and I couldn’t remember where I was. I’d watch you talk to my son, laugh, ruffle his hair, and I was jealous of my own child. I wanted you to touch me so badly. The physical longing was constant agony—until this afternoon. But the other, the love, was always there, too, waiting to be nurtured. Jade, it’s precious, and it’s special, and some people never know it. You can’t just throw it away because I was married before. I can’t change that; even if I could, I probably wouldn’t, because Ryan came from that marriage, and he has been the most wonderful part of my life. Jade!”
She was closing her eyes again. He’d said he loved her. She knew he probably wouldn’t have said it today except that circumstances had pushed him.
“Jade…”
She opened her eyes.
“I love you, too, Jeff.”
“Love me enough. Love me enough to stand by me.”
She started to nod, but then she shook her head. “It’s been such a short time since we met. I don’t know what we are. I mean—”
“Lovers,” he told her huskily.
“But only once.”
His tension eased at last. The slow, easy, sensual smile that was so much a part of what she loved about him slid onto his mouth.
“I can change that.”
“But Jeff—she’s waiting. For you.”
“She can wait.”
It was insane. But didn’t falling in love make a woman a little bit insane? His ex-wife had just interrupted them in bed, and now she was ready to crawl back into bed with him again.
“The kids…”
“Are fine. They’re with Toby. We’re alone. And we need time together for you to feel—”
“Feel secure?”
“For you to believe in me.”
“I do believe in you.”
She did. She believed when he kissed her, when sparklers of white light burst before her eyes and her body caught fire. It was just a kiss, but it made her body feel limp, and at the same time, it brought life to every pore, every cell, every nerve. She might have felt it even if he hadn’t touched her. She might have known the same delicious ache if he’d just looked at her across the room. It was thrilling. It was the beautiful part of falling in love.
She found herself in his arms next. She was smiling into his eyes.
“I am crazy,” she muttered.
“I love you,” he told her. She reached up to touch his hair. She smoothed a lock behind his ear. He knew the way to her bedroom. In seconds they would lie down and tear at each other’s clothing…
To her surprise, he didn’t lie down on the bed. He went straight into the bathroom.
“Actually,” she said, “you’re crazy.”
He laughed. “No, I’m not. I thought we could take a shower together. An intimate thing, hmm?”
She laughed, realizing that he was right. She needed, desperately wanted, all the intimate little moments with him. Because Diana had had them all.
Yet although they had known each other only a short time, it seemed as if they had been together forever. She felt no fear, no uneasiness with him. She was too enthralled by the sensation of his fingertips against her back as he unfastened the halter dress and let it fall to the floor. It was as if he had lived with her always. Quickly he adjusted the water, started the shower, shed his clothing and dragged her beneath the spray.
For a moment she felt the pulse of the water. Then he was behind her with the bar of soap. He slid his arms around her middle, soaping the undersides of her breasts, her belly and below. The coarse hair of his chest teased her back. The force of his desire thrilled her. His hands moved over her breasts, caressing them, teasing the nipples to peaks.
She gasped as he turned her, and shuddered with the delicious sensation of his body entering her. The water beat like the thunder of her pulse, heated her with his every thrust. Never had she known such excitement. Never had she known that movement could thrill her so easily.
She felt his hands on her hips, holding her, moving her, caressing her. Each touch intensified the excitement inside her. The feeling built and built, and she was dimly aware that her inarticulate cries joined with the rush and sizzle of the water.
She would have thought she’d hate making love in the shower, but it was sheer ecstasy. When the end finally came she could have fallen. He was there to catch her, to kiss her.
She stared up at him, her drenched hair flowing down her back, the lines of her face clean and beautiful. Her eyes were wide with awe.
“Can life really go on like this?” she wondered aloud.
He brought his hands to her face and cupped it. He kissed the tip of her nose, her forehead, her lips again.
“If you let it.”
He turned off the water. They stepped from the shower and dried each other.
And then he brought her to the bed.
* * *
Finally, resting there in his arms, Jade voiced some of her fears.
“Jeffrey…”
“What?”
“I don’t think you begin to see the problems we’re going to face.”
“I see them all.”
“Ryan…Ryan is going to want…”
“Jade, naturally Ryan would like his mother and me to get back together. We’ve discussed it. I’ve told him that our life-styles are just too different.”
A little boy is not going to understand that, Jade thought. But at the moment, she wasn’t going to say so.
“Jade, I love you.”
She sighed, still thrilled with her sense of physical well-being, but frightened, too.
“So you tell me, what happens now?”
“Now I’ll go back and see Diana. I’ll tell her to please knock when she appears at my house from now on. I’ll explain that you are a permanent part of my life, one I’ll never relinquish. Then I’ll drive back to Toby’s; she can take Ryan for the night, and tomorrow. I have to work tomorrow, anyway. I’ll pick Sean up and bring him here. Unless you want to come with me.”
“Come with you?”
“Sure.”
Jade gnawed her lower lip slightly. She wanted to go with him, because she didn’t want to let him out of her sight. But she didn’t want to be a buffer between him and Diana. Someone to hold on to, just so that he didn’t find himself in his ex-wife’s arms.
No, he had to go alone. She wasn’t even sure it would be right for him to come back tonight. For Ryan’s sake, he should probably do something with Diana and his son.
“Jeff…no, I don’t want to go with you. You and Diana have to straighten things out together.” She swung around to stare at him. “I won’t be a shield against her.”
He laughed, holding her to him. “There’s my tigress! But I don’t need a shield against her.
“She’s very beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
“You loved her once.”
“Maybe. It was so long ago, I don’t remember.”
Jade was almost startled by his tone. He sounded bored by the thought of his ex-wife.
Oh, dear God, she prayed silently, please let that be true.
“I don’t think you should get Sean. I’ll get him. Why don’t you take Diana and Ryan to dinner or—”
“No!” He was staring at her incredulously. “Jade, I won’t play games like that.”
“But Ryan—”
“I would do almost anything in the world for Ryan. I don’t ever say anything derogatory about Diana to him. We make an effort to get along in front of him. But I won’t—”
“Ryan will—”
“Jade, don’t you see? It would be worse to do anything to encourage his fantasy that we could get back together.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
He stood up, stretched and headed for the bathroom to retrieve his clothing. Jade felt dizzy; her heart seemed to catch in her throat as she watched him. He was so beautiful in the nude. All muscled and without a speck of extra flesh. It made her tremble all over again just to see him and know that he had been hers.
He returned, dressed and bent to kiss her again. A shiver of misery struck her; he was going to see Diana.
“What’s the matter?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“Just that I took so long to fall in love, and it’s so painful. I was so slow, and so careful. I always knew that it would hurt. I thought I was mature and sophisticated and smart. And now this: I’m in love with a man who has a beautiful barracuda for an ex-wife and I know that disaster is looming ahead.”
She tried to laugh, but it didn’t work. He sat down beside her and took her into his arms. “Jade, I know it isn’t going to be easy. I know that she’s a problem, and that we’ll have a few problems with Ryan. Please, Jade. Trust in me. Love me enough.”
“I want to,” she whispered.
He kissed her lips. “I’ll be back soon.”
When he left, her imagination tormented her with visions of Diana smiling as he walked back into the house, of Jeffrey taking his ex-wife into his arms. Diana was just so beautiful. What man could resist her?
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