by JoAnn Ross
9
LILY WAS WAITING when Connor arrived at her apartment the following morning. Her eyes were bright and clear, revealing she’d slept well. Her hair, held back with a braided white headband, had been brushed to a silky sheen.
“I like that outfit.”
Her floaty top was softly striped in pastel colors—delicate pink, pale peach and soft sea green. The full, gossamer skirt echoed the shades of the blouse. A pair of white sandals revealed she’d painted her toenails a soft pink hue that brought to mind the inside of a sea shell.
“Thank you.”
“You remind me of a dish of sherbet.” He was struck with a sudden urge to lick her all over. “Pretty and cool and absolutely delicious.”
His lips were curved in a friendly smile that echoed the easy confidence in his eyes. Lily wished he wouldn’t look at her that way, wished he didn’t make her feel this way.
Mac Sullivan had her thinking of things she had no business thinking. Had her wanting things she had no business wanting.
“We’d better get going.” She picked up her purse from the table, along with some pages torn from today’s paper. “I’ve circled the best choices. I thought, if you didn’t have any objections, that we’d begin with the ‘85 Civic in Long Beach, then—”
“No.” He plucked the sheaf of papers from her hand and tossed them back onto the table.
“No?” A flare of anger made her eyes hot and dark. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he answered amiably, “not on a bet.”
She lifted a blond brow. “Excuse me?”
It took a special woman to pull off such a display of haughtiness while wearing a pastel maternity outfit and her hair pulled back in an Alice in Wonderland style. “There is no way I’m going to allow you to risk your life driving some wreck of a skateboard on these freeways.”
“You’re going to allow?” She glared up at him, a small, pregnant woman with right on her side.
Enjoying her anger, he folded his arms across his chest. “I believe that’s what I said.”
Never, not even when she discovered Junior was having an affair, had Lily been so tempted to swing at anyone. Struggling to resist temptation, she gripped her purse so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Well.” She tossed her head back in a furious gesture that pleased Connor enormously. He’d suspected all along that Lily was a great deal more passionate than even she believed. This flare of temper only proved his suspicions. “Shall you call the Rolls dealer and tell him we’re coming by, or shall I?”
“That may be a bit beyond your budget,” he allowed. “Even with an excellent negotiator such as myself brokering the deal. But if we put our heads together, we can probably come up with a compromise.”
His easygoing attitude punctured her ire. She felt her anger drifting away, like air from a balloon. “I really can’t afford a new car.”
“Why don’t we wait and see?”
“You don’t know my bank account.”
“And you still haven’t realized the extent of my bargaining talents. Besides,” he said, looping an arm around her shoulder and leading her to the door, “new car financing rates are lower, which lets more money go toward the car, instead of interest.”
She glanced up at him, clearly surprised. “Is that true?”
“Absolutely.” As they walked out of the apartment into the bright California sunshine, Connor was feeling more than a little pleased with himself.
Twenty minutes later, Lily was staring down at a sporty cloud white Neon parked on the showroom floor. “Isn’t it darling?”
It crossed Connor’s mind that he’d sell his soul to have her look at him with that amount of overt lust. “Darling,” he agreed. “And small. How about that one?”
Taking hold of her elbow, he led her over to a gleaming jet black New Yorker. The window sticker proclaimed it to be loaded with every option known to man.
“It’s nice. But I’d feel as if I were captaining a battleship.” She frowned as she perused the sticker. “Not to mention the little fact that even with your alleged wheeler-dealer expertise, I’d have to rob a bank to pay for it.”
As if drawn by a magnet, she drifted back to the Neon.
“I think your wife has made up her mind,” the salesman said with a smile that revealed his satisfaction at the idea of closing a sale—even if it wasn’t the New Yorker—within an hour of opening.
Connor opened his mouth to explain that Lily wasn’t his wife. Then shut it. The idea, as radical as it was, sounded eminently appealing.
“Look, my name’s Connor Mackay,” he said, hoping Lily wouldn’t notice he’d taken the salesman aside. Not that there was much chance of that. She was running her hands over the roof of the car, stroking it in a way that did nothing to ease Connor’s building need. “I spoke with your owner this morning.”
“Ah, yes.” The salesman nodded. “He mentioned your call, Mr. Mackay.”
Connor tried assuring himself that arranging to make up the difference between what Lily’s car cost and what she could actually afford was not exactly lying.
Hell. Of course it was. But at least his heart was in the right place, he decided, watching Lily’s absolute delight with what he thought looked like a cartoon car.
“For the time being, the name’s Sullivan,” he said.
“Of course, sir.” Another nod. “Whatever you wish.”
The deferential attitude was more than a little familiar. And, he suspected, it was a great deal different than the one Mac Sullivan would receive were the part-time handyman in the market for a new car.
Connor felt another twinge of guilt for cheating in his quest to live as an average, ordinary man. But as he watched Lily climb into the sky blue bucket seat, he reminded himself that his subterfuge was for a good cause.
“The lady obviously has made her decision.” Although he would have preferred her choosing something more substantial—like a Bradley tank—her rapt expression reminded Connor of a little girl looking in the window of a doll store on Christmas Eve. “Let’s get the paperwork drawn up.”
Lily couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more in her life. Not even that fire-engine red ten-speed she’d wanted for her eleventh birthday. After a late season thunderstorm had taken out most of the corn crop, she’d known there was no way her parents could afford that bike.
But that hadn’t stopped her from wanting it. Desperate, she’d wished on first stars, included it in her nightly prayers, and had even, overlooking the fact that the Padgetts had always been Methodists, sought outside divine intercession by lighting a candle at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church.
At the time, she’d been convinced, with an adolescent’s unwavering conviction, that she’d literally die if she didn’t get it.
Which, of course, considering the sorry state of the family finances, she hadn’t. Her father had come up with a perfectly good used three-speed which, painted with Rust-Oleum and oiled, had proven more than adequate. But she’d never forgotten how desperately she hungered for that beautiful red bike.
And as ridiculous as it might seem to any sane, rational person, Lily felt exactly the same way now.
“Mac,” she whispered as they were ushered into the financial manager’s wood-paneled office, “it’s still too much.”
Her hand was on his arm. Connor covered it with his own. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have a good feeling about this.”
It took every ounce of her concentration to answer the questions that appeared on the man’s computer screen. Her name, age, date of birth, marital status, social security number, bank account numbers, address, and on and on until she thought she was going to scream.
She wanted to tell him just to get to the bottom line. Was she going to get the car or not? But he continued to drone on, laboriously typing in each answer.
“All right, now.” He turned toward them, his smile friendly. Remembering a neighbor’s dog, a boxer mix, who’d look
ed at her in much the same way, just before taking a painful nip out of her arm, Lily wasn’t fooled by his affable demeanor. “Do you have a trade-in?”
“No.” Lily didn’t mention that Junior had totaled the Jag. And the money she’d gotten when she’d sold the Volvo had gone to pay off debts. “I’m afraid not.” Her heart sank as low as her spirits.
Connor reached over and squeezed her hand. “You don’t need a trade-in,” he assured her.
“Of course not,” the man said with a hearty goodwill Lily suspected was mostly feigned. “May I ask what kind of down payment you were thinking of?”
She opened her mouth to tell him that she thought she could afford twenty-five hundred—so long as she didn’t spend an extra dime beyond food and rent for the next six months—when Connor said, “Five hundred.”
“Mac—”
“Five hundred sounds just fine,” the manager surprised her by saying. He typed the figure onto the screen while Lily shot Connor a puzzled look.
“And what price were you thinking of paying?” the salesman asked when he turned back toward them.
Connor pretended to think a minute, then wrote a number, which was amazingly close to what she’d planned to pay for the ten-year-old Civic, on a piece of paper, which he handed across the desk.
The man glanced down at the number, then looked up at Connor, then back down to the piece of paper again. Lily did not find his frown an encouraging sign. Neither did she like the way he ran the back of his finger along his silver mustache.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I’d love to put Ms. Van Cortlandt into the car right now. But the owner would fire me on the spot if I agreed to this.”
She knew it! Lily wished she’d never seen the car. Because then she wouldn’t have felt such a cold, bleak loss.
Connor turned toward her, surprising her with a quick wink that suggested he’d been expecting just this outcome. “I see. How low can you go? Without getting canned?”
Without hesitation the financial manager wrote his own number on a second piece of paper, which he handed to Connor. Watching, Lily found the entire scenario ridiculously male. Why didn’t they just say the prices out loud?
Connor leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him as he eyed the paper thoughtfully. The numbers were getting closer to what she could afford, but they were still far apart.
Too far, she feared. Glancing out the window that looked onto the showroom floor, she saw another couple eyeing the Neon—her Neon!—and felt a sudden urge to race out there and tell them it was taken.
The waiting was driving her crazy! Why didn’t he say anything?
“I believe, when we drove up, I saw a sign in the window referring to a college graduate discount,” Connor said finally.
“Why, that’s right.” The man turned toward Lily. “You’re a graduate?”
“I have a B.A. in history,” Lily said. “Actually, I’ve had one year of law school.”
“There you go,” Connor said, obviously pleased to have thought of the tactic.
The number came down another significant notch. Enough that Lily was madly trying to think of what she had left from her broken marriage that she could sell to come up with the additional funds, when Connor’s next words stopped her whirling mind in midspin.
“I don’t suppose there’s an additional discount for an Ivy League school. Since statistics show the earning potential tends to be higher than that of most state institutions.”
The man looked at Lily again.
“Brown,” she answered obligingly, deciding not to mention what Gage Remington was paying her. Needless to say, it was not your average Ivy League entry level salary.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” The man rubbed his hands together, then picked up his pen.
“I don’t believe it!” Lily said ten minutes later. As remarkable as it seemed, she was now the owner of a brand-new, sporty white Neon.
Connor grinned down at her, enjoying her joy. “I told you I was a pretty good negotiator.”
“You were better than good!” They were standing in the parking lot in front of the dealership, waiting for the salesman to deliver the car. She clutched the shiny gold key ring in her hand as if it were a talisman. Her bright and breezy laugh slipped beneath his skin. “You were absolutely magnificent!”
Swept away with the wonder of it all, Lily went up on her toes and flung her arms around Connor’s neck. Her eyes were laughing up at him as she pressed her mouth against his.
Connor put his left hand behind her neck and pulled her close. Reminding himself they were in a public place and to keep his right hand out of trouble, he settled it at the small of her back and hoped it would stay there.
The kiss, as impulsive as the one he’d given her, was every bit as sweet. But this time it was brimming over with a buoyant vivacity he suspected—rightly—that Lily hadn’t felt for a very long time.
Connor tried to accept it for what it was, a gesture of appreciation. Friendship. But as she dropped back down again, breaking the heated contact of her soft lips against his, Connor found himself feeling far more than friendship.
“What was that for?” Despite the fact that the quick kiss left his blood swimming, Connor’s lips curved in response to the brilliant lights shining in her eyes.
“To thank you.”
Connor saw the car coming toward them and knew he’d made all the progress he was going to for now. “Beats the hell out of a greeting card.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against hers, rewarded with her slight intake of breath when his teeth nipped at her lower lip.
“I’ve got some errands to run,” he said, purposefully omitting the salient little fact that they happened to be at Xanadu Studios. He flicked a finger down the delicate slope of her nose. “Enjoy the car.”
As he walked over to the rental car he was still driving, Lily felt an almost overwhelming urge to call him back. Then she heard the salesman call her name.
She turned, experiencing another surge of sheer pleasure when she viewed her shiny new car.
As she drove out of the parking lot, a burst of the once characteristic optimism she thought she’d lost forever surged through her.
By the time she turned on Wilshire, headed home toward Bachelor Arms, Lily decided that the Neon was a sign. A sign that her life truly had turned around.
* * *
THIS SIMPLY HAD TO STOP!
A week after she’d moved into Bachelor Arms, Lily stood in her doorway, watching Mac stroll back to his own apartment across the courtyard, and swore this was truly the last time she was going to let him talk his way into her apartment.
It had, of course, begun with the car. By letting him accompany her to the dealer’s, she’d given him the impression that she would be equally open to spending more personal time with him.
Not that he’d proven pushy. On the contrary, the evening she’d returned home with the car, she’d secretly waited for him to show up at her door. By midnight, she’d given up waiting. By three that morning, she was ready to kill Mac Sullivan for messing up her head when she already had enough problems.
Although she hadn’t heard from the Van Cortlandts’ attorneys since moving to Los Angeles, she was not naive enough to think that her former in-laws had changed their mind about challenging her right to keep her child.
She had enough to deal with, Lily had told herself during that long and lonely night. The custody battle, the move, her new job, not to mention the little fact that in a few short weeks she was going to be a mother. She couldn’t afford any distractions.
Especially when the distraction in question was capable of making her forget all the reasons she’d sworn off men.
Despite all her protests to the contrary, Lily could not deny that when Mac showed up the following morning, with fresh bagels, cream cheese and red ripe strawberries nearly as large as a child’s fist, she experienced a flood of something that could only be described as pleasure.
“It’s fat free,” he assured her.
“Then it will taste like wallpaper paste.”
“Trust me, you’ll love it. The company’s supposedly run by a bunch of refugees from the sixties who live on a commune outside Santa Cruz and support themselves by making dairy products from cows who only eat organically grown dandelions, grass and hay.”
She tilted her head and gave him a long look. “You’re making that up.”
“Scout’s honor, it’s the absolute truth.” Refraining from telling her that she was looking at the major stockholder of Contented Cows, Inc., Connor spread the creamy white mixture atop a raisin-and-cinnamon bagel and held it out to her. “Try it.”
Telling herself that she had to stop succumbing to every temptation Mac dangled in front of her, Lily took a tentative bite.
“It’s delicious.”
“And fat free,” he reminded her. “As are the berries.” When he held out one particularly succulent looking strawberry, Lily threw up her hands. Both literally and figuratively.
“I give up.”
Her capitulation achieved, he’d wasted no time. Somehow, before she knew it, he was dropping by every day. Sometimes twice a day. And on not one of those occasions did he arrive empty-handed.
She really was going to have to do something, Lily mused as she climbed into her bed that night. Soon.
Patience had never been Connor’s long suit. And it wasn’t now. But having known Lily’s former husband, which gave him some understanding of what she’d been through, he was willing to bide his time. For as long as it took.
One afternoon, he dropped by with an order of take-out Chinese. Over lunch, as she’d demonstrated how she was teaching herself to use the computer Gage had delivered to network with data bases all over the country, she’d reminded him of an eager school girl.