by Laura Moore
His expression altered, became shuttered. “I’m sorry to hear that. Have a good rest of the evening.”
“—not,” she finished.
His arms tightened about her. “Sydney,” he whispered roughly. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you?”
She gazed into Harry’s eyes. It was as if he was only now allowing her to see the depth of his desire. “I’m beginning to,” she replied breathlessly. Her body began shaking once more, this time because her heart was hammering so. And then because it was Harry, and he wanted her, and, Lord, she wanted him with a sudden, desperate hunger, she said, “And Harry? Just to let you know, I’m not wearing any panties,” laughing, delirious with happiness and excitement when his grip tightened convulsively around her.
“We, my lovely wicked witch,” he growled, “are getting out of here—now.”
It was nearly three in the morning when Sydney’s BMW inched up the graveled driveway to the Miller house. Sydney sat curled in the passenger seat, facing sideways so she could clasp Harry’s arm as he drove. By the dashboard light Harry’s profile looked stern, his lips pressed in a straight line. He was still dead set against her decision to return to the Millers’ for what remained of the night. He eased the car alongside Alex’s Aston Martin, put the gear in neutral, pulled up the parking brake, and shifted in his seat. He looked at her silently.
“Harry, it’ll be all right. I promise,” she said, her voice quiet in the confines of the car. “I have to go back tonight. All my clothes and papers are there. And I’ve arranged for the tasting at La Plage at eleven. If I stay with you, I’ll doze off in the caviar— because you know we won’t be doing any sleeping.” A smile curved her lips. Harry had been so aroused that Sydney had had trouble getting the condom over him—not just the first frantic, near-violent time, but each time they’d made love. Her body still tingled from the aftershocks of their passion.
“Why don’t you reschedule the tasting?”
“I can’t. A second rescheduling would ruin our relations with Nancy. Then where would we be when our next client requested a catered party in the Hamptons?”
“I don’t want you around Miller, where he can remind you of all the things you’ve spent years thinking you want. Alex is history. You’re mine now, Syd.”
Harry’s possessiveness sent a secret thrill through Sydney. She hadn’t expected him to act like this—but then again, so much of this evening was unexpected, like a wonderful dream. “Don’t you trust me?” she asked, thinking that Harry would be right not to—it wasn’t exactly easy to get over a man like Alex Miller. Even now, languid from the wild passion he’d shown her, a tiny part of her heart ached for Alex.
“Of course I do, Syd. It’s just that—”
“Alex isn’t interested in me, Harry,” she said, and knew she was brave enough to say this only because of Harry’s sweet, savage lovemaking. “He’s said it again and again—and after last night, well, I’m not interested in him. But I have to go. Remember how you told me to do the best damn job I could with the TLM contract? This party for the Miller Group falls under the same rubric, Harry. I intend to do an outstanding job. So take my BMW back to Jeff and Nina’s. I’ll put my bags in Alex’s trunk so when the tasting’s over, you can pick me up at the restaurant.” She leaned into him until her lips hovered next to his and whispered, “In the meantime get some sleep, lover. You’ll need all your strength.”
Sydney felt Harry’s mouth stretch in a smile as he brushed his lips against hers. In a voice low and raspy with arousal, he said, “Could this mean you doubt my powers of recuperation?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. “You haven’t touched me in at least five minutes. I assumed you must be tiring—” With a soft growl, Harry pulled her closer, and kissed her ravenously.
Dizzy from his drugging kisses, wanting only more and more again of what he could give her, Sydney let her hand drift down to his lap. “Oh, Harry,” she breathed against his smiling lips. “I am impressed.”
“Good. Now, lift up your dress, Syd. Slowly. Mmm, yes, that’s very good.”
THIRTEEN
The house was quiet Sunday morning when Gen entered by the kitchen door. Her hair, still wet from her outdoor shower, was combed so it hung straight, brushing her shoulders and leaving two dark patches on her faded Red Sox T-shirt.
She brewed a pot of coffee, poured herself a cup, and grabbed a Granny Smith apple from the fruit bowl sitting in the center of the French provincial table. She crossed the downstairs with her breakfast in hand to enjoy it on the porch as she watched the clouds race one another. Murphy’s nails clicked against the floor as he followed her. Pushing open the old wooden screen door with her hip, she held it as Murphy brushed past.
From behind, Alex’s voice greeted her. “Good morning.”
Gen swallowed a yelp of surprise. “Hi,” she said, trying for a casual tone even though her heart had skipped about a thousand beats. She hadn’t seen Alex since last night. But the memory of him gallantly carrying her in his arms was still fresh in her mind. She felt awkward and shy, like some naive bumpkin— aware that she was reacting out of all proportion to something that had no romantic significance at all.
Drawing a breath to compose herself, she turned and her heart took another acrobatic leap. Alex was lounging in the painted rocking chair, looking rumpled and sexy in jeans and an untucked button-down shirt. That his feet were bare and that his jaw was shadowed with light brown stubble did nothing to help her composure. It was unnerving how Alex seemed more good-looking every time she saw him—an achievement well nigh impossible since she’d already thought he was one of the handsomest men she’d ever laid eyes on. But her earlier appreciation had been that of an artist’s. What made Alex so devastatingly attractive now was that she was beginning to like him so much as a man.
The thought made her stumble, hot coffee sloshing onto the back of her hand. She winced and muttered, “Ouch. Clumsy of me,” then lifted the angry red mark on her skin to her mouth. Silently she chastised herself, You deserve to get burned, Monaghan, if you’re foolish enough to contemplate playing with a fire as dangerous as Alex Miller.
“Are you okay? Can I get you something?” he asked. His eyes were riveted on her mouth soothing the back of her hand.
Gen immediately pulled her hand away. “No, thanks, it just stings a little.” She sat down into the rocker beside his, bit a chunk out of her apple, and chewed vigorously, hoping that would normalize the situation: two people on a porch, one eating an apple. No big deal.
So why was her heart still playing leap-frog?
“No swimming today?” Alex asked.
So much for normalcy, she thought as her cheeks flamed. She cast a sideways glance at Alex. He was staring at the shoreline where she and Murphy had been swimming the other day. “No, the water’s a bit too rough for Murphy. I don’t want him getting rolled.”
Alex bent over and scratched Murphy vigorously behind the ear. Murphy’s tail thumped in ecstasy. Sipping her coffee, she eyed him with a touch of pique that he’d won her dog over so quickly and that he could make her heart go thump, thump just as effortlessly. “How about you?” she said. “Why are you up so early? Lifeguard duty? Or reserving your seat for the peep show?”
“I had work to do. Though I admit the chance to see you naked was definitely enough to get me up.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned wickedly.
Dear Lord, Alex was flirting with her and she liked it, she really liked it. Rattled, she blurted out, “So I guess Sydney’s not an early riser,” dropping his girlfriend’s name like a ton of bricks between them.
Alex’s grin lost its teasing allure. “I’m sure she’ll be down for breakfast,” he replied. “We have to go to a tasting at eleven.”
“A tasting?”
“Yes, a restaurant is catering the party I’m giving next weekend. I’d like to invite you to it—though I’m afraid I can’t promise you the excitement of a softball game.
”
“Oh, well, my family’s parties are a bit special. Uh, thank you for inviting me.” Inwardly Gen cringed, already imagining what the party would be like. A crowd of movers and shakers. She wouldn’t fit in, wouldn’t know what to say to them. And they, in return, would have nothing to say to her. “I’ll probably be working, though. And, um, big parties aren’t really my thing. Won’t Sydney be going to the party?”
“Of course,” Alex replied, a distinct note of frustration entering his voice. “Listen, Gen. About Sydney and me. Our relationship, it’s not what you think—”
Gen had gone completely still listening to him, and only realized why he’d stopped when the porch door opened behind her. She turned and her stomach twisted.
Sydney walked toward them, dressed in a burgundy silk robe that clung to her shapely body. With her hair tumbling in dark waves about her shoulders, she looked incredibly glamorous, like a movie star from the forties.
“Good morning,” she said. “I was just going in search of some coffee when I heard my name.”
“We were talking about the party next weekend,” Alex replied evenly, glossing over the fact that the conversation had assumed a far more personal note. “I’ve invited Gen,” he informed Sydney.
“Oh.” There was the tiniest pause. Then with a tight smile, she said, “I’ll add her to the seating arrangement.”
“Did you sleep well, Sydney?” Gen asked, desperate to switch the topic of conversation and avoid any awkwardness.
Sydney’s smile relaxed into an enchanting curve. She shook her head. “Yes, but not nearly enough. I guess I’ll survive, though.” As if underscoring her lack of rest, she yawned delicately, raising her chin slightly to stifle it.
From her lower vantage point in the rocking chair, Gen looked up to see the pink abrasions marring the smooth skin along Sydney’s jaw. No sooner had the words “beard stubble” popped into her head than, like a shot from a catapult, she bounded from her chair. “There’s a pot of freshly brewed coffee,” she said, brushing past Sydney as she headed for the door. “I’ve got to start Mrs. Miller’s breakfast, but I’ll be happy to make something for you as well, Sydney.”
“Gen, you don’t have to—” Alex began.
“That’s what I’m here for,” she interrupted, careful not to look back as with a yank of the screen door she slipped inside, leaving Alex and Sydney on the porch. Murphy, following her, nearly got his tail pinched in the door for his efforts. Gen didn’t even pause to apologize to him as she fled from the man she’d come to want far too much, and from the woman lucky enough to have him.
After bringing Mrs. Miller her tray, Gen cloistered herself in the studio and tried to work. And failed.
It was a rare event when she couldn’t block out the world and immerse herself in her art, but this morning it was she who was blocked. She blamed her low spirits on the weather. The clouds had become heavy and oppressive, turning the sky a dull, dismal gray, like an ugly, unwashed curtain shuttering the sun. As the light was all wrong, Gen couldn’t finish her painting of Mrs. Miller’s garden. Instead she dug out her sketch pad from her backpack and dragged her stool over to the worktable, where she laid out the notes and drawings she’d made of the hospital wing. She intended to make some preliminary sketches for the composition, but instead of scenes, shapes, or even colors, her mind drew only a frustrating blank.
She was scowling at the empty newsprint, cursing her inability to come up with even a smidgeon of an idea for the painting, when a knock sounded on the door. The speed of Murphy’s wagging tail made it annoyingly easy to guess who was knocking.
She swiveled on her stool to face him. Alex, dressed for the city, had changed into sage-gray trousers and an ivory shirt—all pressed and freshly shaven. Her scowl deepened as Sydney’s abraded skin flashed in her mind with a mocking, sharp clarity. Now there was an image she saw all too well.
“Yes?” she said impatiently.
His eyebrows rose at the sharpness of her tone. “I’m leaving. I wanted to say good-bye.”
She shrugged. “Right. See you.” She made to turn back to her notes, dismissing him, but then he spoke.
“Have I done something to annoy you?” he asked. Involuntarily she glanced at his face. His gaze, a penetrating blue, pierced her.
She returned it defiantly. “What could you possibly do to annoy me?” she replied.
“Good question.” The coolness of his voice matched hers. “But obviously I have. I’d apologize, but from the look on your face, it’s clear you’re not going to bother to enlighten me as to what crime I’ve committed.”
A wave of guilt flooded her. It wasn’t Alex’s fault she was plagued by this ridiculous jealousy; the problem was hers alone. She hated this feeling, how it turned her into a churlish wretch and made her act small and mean. She’d deal with it, master it, but she certainly wasn’t about to explain the whys and wherefores to him. “Look, I really need to get back to work.” She gestured to her drawing pad.
Alex’s eyes narrowed and he looked as if he wanted to say something. From outside came the sound of his car horn honking impatiently.
“I believe you’re wanted,” she said silkily.
His mouth flattened into a hard line. “Good-bye, Gen,” he said and was gone.
Disgusted with her childish behavior, Gen propped her elbows on the table, covering her face with her hands. But that only magnified the rumble of Alex’s car and the crunch of tires rolling over gravel. Like a cruel taunt it reverberated throughout the studio long afterward.
The evening was a cool one, damp from the rain that the bloated clouds had eventually let loose. With Alex gone, the house suddenly seemed far too large for the two women.
“Let’s sit inside, shall we, Genevieve?” Mrs. Miller said after they’d finished dinner. “I dare say it’s cold enough to warrant a fire.”
“Nothing I love more than sitting in front of a fire,” Gen said with a determined cheerfulness, for Mrs. Miller seemed in an uncharacteristically melancholy mood. After lighting the kindling beneath the logs and waiting for the flames to catch, their orange and blue tongues dancing around the wood, Gen rocked back on her heels and straightened. “I think I’ll make a pot of tea,” she said, dusting her hands on her jeans. “Would you care for some, Mrs. Miller?”
“No, thank you. Grappa’s the thing to ward away the chill of a damp night.”
Gen smiled. “A grappa and tea then.”
When she returned to the sitting room, the fire was crackling hungrily. Mrs. Miller was seated on the sofa, staring into the flames. Gen set the lacquered tray on the narrow rectangular coffee table, then sat down at the other end of the sofa. “Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Miller?” she asked.
The older woman mustered a smile. “Yes, I was just thinking of Alex and how good it is of him to come out and relieve an old woman’s loneliness.”
“But surely he enjoys coming to stay with you. It’s beautiful here.”
“Genevieve, Alex is a handsome, thirty-three-year-old, unattached male,” she said dryly. “He’s more than wealthy enough to buy a house of his own where he can entertain his friends. Instead, he makes a point of spending his weekends with me. He actually worriesabout me.” She sighed and her smile held a touch of sadness as she continued. “He reminds me of my own Alexander in so many ways. Both were men who put others’ happiness before their own. I only wish my Alexander could have seen what a fine man he’s become—though I swear, when I look at Alex now, it’s as though I’ve taken a fifty-year step back in time.”
“So there’s a strong family resemblance?”
“Uncanny. Would you like to see some pictures?” Mrs. Miller asked, already leaning forward as if to rise from her seat.
Gen couldn’t resist the elderly woman’s patent eagerness, nor could she resist her own curiosity to learn more about Alex’s family. “Yes, very much. I love family albums.”
Mrs. Miller needed no further encouragement. She got to her feet and
crossed the room to the paneled cabinet and opened one of the doors. From the bottom shelf she selected one of many thick albums. “This is the family album. The others are pictures Alexander and I took during our travels,” she told Gen as she came and sat close to Gen so the album’s pages lay across both their laps.
Then, with Mrs. Miller’s wrinkled finger pointing, moving from one black-and-white picture to another, the stories began. The first pages of the album were devoted to Grace and Alexander Miller’s wedding day. Gen saw Grace, some sixty years younger, an ethereal beauty in white silk, smiling into the camera with stars in her eyes. Next to her was a tall, blond man, dashing in his cutaway. From the smile on his face as he looked at Grace, Gen knew that this was Alexander Miller, Alex’s uncle.
“And who’s this?” Gen asked, pointing to another photo, which showed the bride and groom standing next to a man who bore the same, handsome features as Alexander Miller.
“That’s Jack, Alexander’s younger brother,” she answered. “Jack was Alexander’s best man. Look, here he is again with our wedding present.”
Gen stared, entranced at the man with the laughing grin who held a beautiful German shepherd pup in his arms. “He gave you a puppy?” she asked.
“Yes.” Affection filled her voice. “Definitely not your everyday wedding present. But that was Jack through and through. He made his own rules—Alex takes after him in that respect, too. Ajax was a marvelous dog. He lived to a ripe age of thirteen.”
Mrs. Miller turned the page and Gen saw another wedding ceremony. “This was Jack’s wedding,” she said. “Alexander was best man, and I was Mary’s matron of honor.”
Gen found herself studying these photographs even more closely. So these were Alex’s parents, she thought.
“Mary was a wonderful woman, strong and quiet,” Mrs. Miller said. “She and Jack were so happy together.” She turned to the next page and faded Kodachrome colors leapt out at Gen. “Ahh,” Mrs. Miller said wistfully. “Here are the children—Tom, Alex, and little Cassie. We’d only just bought this house when Cassie was born. Jack and Mary and the children would come and summer with us. Here’s Cassie at her first horse show at the Hampton Classic. She was six.”