by Lilian Darcy
“But what’s that story about the oak tree and the reeds?” she went on. “The reeds bend to the storm and survive, while the oak tree stands stiffly and gets torn up by the roots.”
“You’re expecting to get torn up by the roots?” he asked.
There was an electronic whooping sound as he released the alarm and the locks on his car. It was a dry, cold night and the rivulets of water in the gutters were frozen. He held the car door open for her, then put his hand beneath her elbow, because it was slippery on the ground. She was wearing her unique scent. Jasmine and orange blossom. He should be immune to it by now, but he wasn’t. If anything, its power over his senses was getting stronger.
“I just wish I could learn to go with the flow a little more,” she said. “I see other people doing it—like you—and I find myself kind of studying the technique.”
She slid into the passenger seat, handling the bulk of her pregnancy and the flowing fabric of her dress with surprising grace.
“Is that what you were doing on Christmas Eve at the church party?” he asked, seeing an image of her face in his memory, suddenly. A particular frown, a particular hunger in her expression. They’d scared him at the time. But if he’d gotten it wrong…
“I guess,” she agreed. “Probably. Only it’s crazy, because that’s going to work about as well as someone trying to learn to play piano by watching a concert virtuoso. Hey, how did we get to this?”
She fixed him with an accusing stare as he started the car, and he laughed and lifted his hands from the wheel, a weight gone from his mind. She was trying to learn to be a parent from watching him? From watching him? That wasn’t scary. It was…funny, really. What answers did he have? None!
“Not my fault,” he said. “I asked one simple question about the way you take what life dishes out.”
“It wasn’t simple,” she argued. “It was personal and perceptive, and the kind of thing that makes an expectant mother start thinking too damn much for New Year’s Eve! I’m having a good time tonight, and don’t you forget it!”
“Is that part of my professional brief? To give you a good time?”
“Believe it, Mr. Lachlan!”
He spared her a quick glance as he drove, and saw her jutting chin and pink cheeks. “Gee, Ms. Van Shuyler, I wonder if I can handle an assignment this tough!” he said softly.
“If necessary, I’ll give you some on-the-job training.”
“And just how will you do that?”
“How do you think, Mr. Lachlan?”
“Ah…well, I guess I could come up with a couple of ideas.”
So she could flirt, too?
It was another facet of Lauren Van Shuyler that he hadn’t seen before. This was hardly surprising. There hadn’t been many opportunities for her lighter side to show through. He began to look forward to the evening far too much.
This party was the Van Shuyler Corporation’s major social event of the year, with an open bar, a sumptuous buffet and live music for dancing. Lauren’s father put in only a token appearance, leaving before nine-thirty, so Lauren was left with the task of working the room. She did it with style and grace—an ability that came partly from practice but mostly from an intuition that couldn’t be taught.
Shadowing her closely in the crowded venue, Daniel appreciated the way she so carefully spread her attention, the way she committed new names to memory, and the way she managed to move from one group to another without giving offense. She took very little notice of him, which was fine.
At first it was fine. But what was this feeling building inside him as the evening wore on? He couldn’t put a name to it, but it didn’t feel good.
Okay, yes, she had to chat to the wife of the head of the accounting section. Sure, she had to make sure that the creative director from the advertising firm that handled the lucrative Van Shuyler account connected with the head of the design team responsible for the overall look of the company’s outlets.
But did that really mean that the things she said to him had to be limited to, “Get yourself some supper whenever you want, Daniel,” and “You can find a partner and dance if you like. You don’t have to shadow me at every step. I’m fine.”
It wasn’t his job to eat or to dance. It was his job to shadow her.
“Your dad wanted me to make sure you weren’t overdoing it.” He growled the words like a bear with its head stuck in a tin can. It was around ten-thirty now.
“I’m not overdoing it,” she answered.
“You haven’t sat down, and you’ve just picked at a few finger foods.”
“I’ll eat later, when I’ve talked to everyone.”
“If there’s any food left, and if you’ve still got the energy to pick up a fork. You’re nearly eight and a half months pregnant.”
“I’m fine.” Her tone changed and she moved away. “Phil! How are you? Is Cindy here tonight?”
Daniel shored his shoulders up against a wall and watched her continued progress through the room, wondering if she had even noticed he was no longer by her side. Apparently she did eventually, because she came looking for him about twenty minutes later, and told him, “I’m ready to eat now. Want to join me?”
“Just to make sure you sit down.”
“Hey, that’s why I’m doing it! To make sure that you do!”
“Yeah, well…”
His tongue felt thick and he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Who was this stranger who had invaded his body? He wasn’t usually short of words when he needed them. He didn’t usually behave like a professional thug, either, watching a paying client in morose silence the entire evening.
If Lauren minded, she didn’t let it show, just worked her way through the healthy supper she’d chosen.
“Don’t you get sick of grilled vegetables and salad with no dressing?”
Way to go, Lock, old buddy! This is how you talked to girls when you were sixteen!
He was so busy cursing himself that he didn’t even hear her reply. He tried again a minute later with something inane about the music, felt the muscles around his temples tighten and finally came up with, “Would you like to dance, or something?”
“I was afraid you’d never ask,” she said.
She leaned forward to bestow a flirty smile upon him, accidentally offering a far better view than she realized of the contours below the neckline of her dress. He liked those contours. He’d been wanting to get a better look at them for weeks. Taken totally by surprise, he almost groaned aloud at the instant and unmistakable response from his body.
Chapter 8
Why did I say it? Oh, why?
It wasn’t even true.
Until she and Daniel had sat down to supper, Lauren had been well on target toward fulfilling Dad’s brief for the evening.
“Have a good time, but make sure you talk to everyone you need to first,” he’d told her.
Finally, she couldn’t see anyone she hadn’t greeted or chatted with, and then she had realized that Daniel was no longer a looming and vigilant presence just a few steps away. It was crazy, but she missed him. He hadn’t teased or flirted with her since the car ride, but she liked the strong, silent Daniel just as much. Better, probably, in this context. Everyone else was sharing news, making jokes, asking questions. His alert silence was restful, reassuring. It was the same over supper. She hadn’t minded a bit that he said so little.
And then, when both their plates were empty, and still he’d said nothing more than a couple of trivial things that, judging by his dark expression, he obviously felt were an irritating waste of his precious breath, she had been so sure that he would retreat to the edge of the room, once more, to watch her. She hadn’t wanted that. Her heart was already sinking in anticipation.
Instead, he’d asked her to dance and she’d jumped at him with the bald truth. Yes, she truly had been afraid he was never going to ask.
She wanted him to ask.
It seemed a miracle that he actually had.
; They both moved awkwardly into the middle of the dance floor. She was more than eight months pregnant—she was awkward all the time. But what was his excuse? Likely he hadn’t wanted to do this at all. He was just being polite and—
One of Daniel’s arms, heavy and warm, laced carefully around her bared shoulders. The other curved at her waist. Too much baby there. He moved it across the fabric of her dress until it rested low in the small of her back. Instinctively, she nestled against his chest, hearing his steady breathing, feeling his solid warmth.
“Lauren—”
“Don’t talk. I’ve talked half the night.”
“That’s fine.” She felt his chin come to rest against her hair.
It was the only place in the world that she wanted to be, and she couldn’t believe how quickly midnight came. The band’s singer finished a swoony love song and announced, “Count down now, folks. No time for a long speech. And it’s ten, nine, eight…”
Lauren lifted her cheek from its pillowed position on Daniel’s shirt and blinked.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he said suddenly.
“No.”
She looked up at his face, five inches away. His lashes were long and thick, screening the darkness of his eyes as he stared down at her. She didn’t know what he was thinking, apart from the fact that he’d decided not to kiss her. Which meant that it didn’t make sense that his lips had shaped themselves into the perfect shape for doing just that.
“Four, three, two…”
“I am,” he said. “I am going to.”
“Yes.” Much better idea!
“Happy New Year!”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I am…”
“Please! Oh, please!”
His mouth touched hers, parting her lips. It clung for a moment, tasting sweet, feeling like warm berries, then he dragged it away. A sound of protest thrummed in her throat. “I’m going to take you home,” he said.
“Don’t.”
“I’m a security consultant for the corporation.” His jaw was tight. “I can’t do this with the entire corporate staff watching. I’m going to take you home.”
“Where no one will be watching you while you kiss me?” She tightened her arms around him.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. I know. It would be nice if it was.”
“I’m not going to make love to you, Lauren. I want to. I’ve wanted to since I first held your body against mine seven months ago, but there are so many reasons not to.”
“I want to hear them.”
“You know them.”
“Remind me. I can’t remember any of them tonight.”
“We’re in the same place, both of us, and it’s the wrong place for this.”
“Maybe we’ve moved. I want to move. I’m sick of this place, where I can never relax, where everything is planned and scrutinized and worked for and struggled over. I want to do something easy. I want you to make love to me, Daniel.”
“Making love isn’t easy.”
“It’s the easiest thing in the world. You close your eyes, and you touch each other, and it happens. I want that.” Deliberately, she cupped her hand against the well-fitting seat of his dinner-suit trousers, brushed her mouth whisper-soft and slow across his and heard him groan.
“You could have it,” he muttered. “If that’s what you’re trying to prove, keep pushing and you’ll get it, the whole deal.”
“Yes…”
“But, Lauren, I want you to tell me no. Think about it, really think about it, for one minute more, and then tell me no.”
“I won’t.”
“You need a man who’s going to stick around, who’s going to love you like nothing else, and that man’s not me. I don’t have it in me to be that man. Not now. Not yet. Not after Becky, and not the way your life is, right now.”
He didn’t mention Ben’s baby, but then he didn’t have to. She knew it was what he meant.
“Maybe I won’t ever have it in me. If you want the truth, that’s probably the biggest reason why I never got in contact with you seven months ago, even when it would have been so easy. How much would you hate yourself, how much would you be hurting your baby’s future, if you let me into your bed tonight?”
Lauren still had to let him into her house.
In theory, it shouldn’t have been a problem. She’d had him in her town house enough times already, checking locks and windows, playing the tape on her answering machine. It shouldn’t have been a big deal.
Somehow, tonight was different. The air in every room was thick with their awareness of each other. He searched each space in silence and she followed him and watched him do it. Watched him brushing aside the curtains, opening closet doors, sweeping every piece of furniture with his gaze.
She couldn’t stand it.
“There hasn’t been the slightest evidence that this is necessary, Daniel. Not for weeks, since we changed the locks. There’s only been the stuff that’s centered around company headquarters. The graffiti and the letters. No further escalation of the threat, and nothing at all here at the town house. Even my friends have stopped asking about it.”
“I’ll check your room.”
She followed him, angry at his stubbornness, and they collided just inside the bedroom door, when he turned to ask her a question that never got past his lips.
His lips…
Her eyes closed automatically as soon as his arms shot out to steady her, after her pregnancy had lumbered against his hip. She searched blindly for the touch of his mouth on hers and found it by turning her face upward just as his hands came to rest on her shoulders.
“Hell, why is it so hard to resist this?” he breathed.
“Because it’s so good.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know. Stop telling me that! Let me have just a few moments where nothing else is important except what I want, what I want now!”
She anchored his face between her hands and ravished his mouth. A very female sense of triumph and heat uncoiled itself inside her as she felt his response and understood the extent of what she was doing to him. He needn’t try to pretend that any of this was one-sided. They both felt it. It consumed both of them.
His mouth was open, slick, hot and hungry. He spread his fingers and threaded them into her hair, loosening it from its clip until it fell. He dragged his lips from hers and buried his face in the slippery waves. She felt tendrils tickling her cheek, felt his hands stroke it back over her shoulders, then drop to cup and lift her breasts. Her nipples peaked instantly, and she shuddered, rocked her hips like an exotic dancer, would have gotten a whole lot closer if the baby hadn’t been in the way.
“Daniel, oh, yes!” Her breathing was shallow and irregular and she throbbed all over.
“Do you want me to take you to bed? Do you, Lauren?” He dragged his mouth from hers and gestured at the queen-size bed that dominated the room. “There it is. It’s so close. And whatever you might have heard, let me tell you, it’s possible when you’re this far along and I’m told it can be real good. If you don’t want this, tell me that now, before we get even closer.”
The bed was covered in an antique wedding ring quilt, which Lauren’s mother had rescued from a yard sale years ago. She’d had it professionally restored, but it was fragile and Lauren took great care of it. Just tonight, struggling to put on her panty hose, she’d been so tempted to sit down on it.
In the end she hadn’t. She never did.
But someone else hadn’t taken the same care.
She froze as she took in the evidence.
“That feels like a no,” Daniel said. His arms were still tight around her, and she could sense his arousal, mirroring the thickened pool of sensation in her own body. “I should be happy about that, right?” He wasn’t happy. His voice croaked with regret.
“Someone’s been in here,” she said through tight lips.
She felt his gaze slicing to her face. Was she joking? �
�How do you know?”
“The quilt on the bed. I never sit on it. It’s too fragile now. But someone has. Right there, next to the night table. You can see it’s not smooth, and one of the seams has split. Just a half inch. The fabric inside the seam hasn’t faded the way the rest has, so it stands out. It wasn’t like that when I left the house.”
“Lauren, there’s no evidence of a breakin.”
“I’m sure about this.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying it’s someone who’s gotten access to a key since we changed the locks, who knows the alarm code, and who’s taken a lot of care that you didn’t sense any disturbance. The quilt is pretty subtle. I wouldn’t have picked up on it.”
“You’re right. It’s weird, isn’t it? Why does a guy spray my parking place with graffiti and then tiptoe around in here—” She stopped suddenly and grabbed his arm, slid her fingers in a jerking motion up the braided muscles. “I wish I hadn’t said that. About tiptoeing. It’s too creepy.” She shuddered, let him go, clasped her hands against her chest. “How on earth did he get in?”
Daniel’s arm wrapped around her shoulder like a metal brace, and the chemistry had disappeared, evaporated by the unnerving sense of an intruder’s recent presence. She shuddered again, then reined in her emotions like lacing a Victorian corset.
“Creepy,” she repeated. “And worse, it just doesn’t make sense!”
“That’s because we’ve been looking at it all wrong,” Daniel said. “It’s not ‘the guy.’ Lauren, we’re looking at two different people.” He swore. “But I was wrong about the college kid idea. What makes me think I’m any more on the ball with this? Even so, I’m sure we’re looking at two different people.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she joked in an edgy way. “That I have two people out for my blood? Or my underwear! Two people stalking me, going through my stuff. Oh, mercy, my stuff!”
A prickle of electricity rippled down her spine and she pushed his arm away. “My drawers? My closets?”
She kept most of her clothes in the adjoining dressing room, but there was an antique tallboy in this room, and she kept her underwear in it, laid on tissue paper lining. One of her few truly wicked indulgences was her underwear. She wore, by turns, Italian silk knit tank top and panty sets with panels of lace, saucy French satin teddies and pretty Swiss cotton bras, depending on her mood.