by Sara Daniel
He flinched, the urge to weep alongside her welling inside him. But he’d cried for her before, and it hadn’t changed shit. For better or worse, he would not live the rest of his life in a suspended, married-but-not-married state.
“I’m sorry I shocked you with my presence.” He wasn’t sorry for surprising her, but he regretted how unwelcome his surprise had been.
She swiped at her eyes and began rummaging in the glove compartment. “You have my phone number. You could have warned me you were coming.”
His chest tightened. “Those stiff, formal calls don’t change anything, except suck away my soul. I needed to shake things up.”
“So you decided to burst in during the biggest business crisis I’ve ever faced?” She extracted a pack of tissues from the compartment and mopped her beautiful face. “I hope you have a better strategy to save my company, or we’re doomed.”
With the pressure to convince her to believe in him more intense than during his meeting with Mr. Gladstone, he crouched next to her seat. “While we work together to fix Sunburst’s crisis, we have a chance to bridge the distance between us, too.”
Mouth gaping, she met his gaze again. “Your idea of bridging the distance is to ambush me in my own conference room and then introduce yourself like we’re freaking strangers?”
Failure tasted metallic and bitter in his mouth. In his plans, he’d skipped straight to wowing her with his marketing prowess. He hadn’t considered he’d upset her so much she wouldn’t stick around to listen to his spiel. “No, I played my ace card. You put your trust in Gladstone PR. I made myself the face of Gladstone so we’d have enough common business interests that you wouldn’t immediately kick me out of your personal life.”
Marcia squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “I don’t have time to think about anything personal right now, and I certainly can’t let my employees see me as an emotional wreck. They’re counting on me to lead them with a solid plan.”
Business and her career didn’t just come first in her heart. They owned her whole heart. Adrian had been a fool to lose sight of that. Burying his own hurt and frustration, he said, “I have a beautiful plan for the company. We’ll put it in action together.” Afterward, he’d have to decide if he could handle coming in a distant second place with her for the rest of his life. “Trust me.”
She stared at the steering wheel for a long time before turning to him. “I have to. You’re my only hope.”
He’d take her acceptance, however grudging. Despite the awkwardness of her sitting in the car and him kneeling outside, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her warm body against his chest for the first time in far too many years. Oh, how he’d missed the closeness and sweetness of holding her. “Have dinner with me tonight, so I can tell you all the things I’m still holding out hope for.”
With a gentle but firm nudge, she forced him to release her, the calm, professional façade once again encasing the woman he’d vowed to love and cherish forever. “We are having dinner together. In a conference room. With a half-dozen people from both our companies who are looking to us for guidance.”
He stood and backed away. At least she’d stopped screaming at him to get out of her sight, as she had when he’d first opened the car door. In fact, they’d scraped the surface of a serious conversation.
“Your ten-minute break is over. I’ll meet you upstairs.” She emerged from the car. Heels clicking on the concrete floor, she marched toward the building, never glancing back.
Her raw emotions, though, proved she still felt something for him. And he’d circled his arms around her, however briefly. The day had been his biggest breakthrough in seven years. Best of all, it wasn’t even half over.
***
Marcia repaired her makeup with careful precision, thankful she’d splurged for the very best concealer. She couldn’t reverse Adrian seeing her in a moment of weakness, but she could ensure no one else in the meeting room guessed she’d been sobbing her heart out.
Smoothing the flyaways escaping from the sleek bun at her nape, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Assured she’d fixed every imperfection that could be concealed, she took a deep breath and strode from the restroom to the elevator.
Entering alongside a couple of anxious employees from accounting, she plastered on a confident expression. After they exited, she kept the mask in place as she continued to the executive level and headed for the conference room, prepared for another face-to-face encounter with her husband.
As she stepped into the room, Adrian lifted his head and acknowledged her with the kind of nod that symbolized respect rather than threatened to spill the details of her humiliating crying jag.
Needing to establish her leadership position, she made eye contact with each person at the table before sitting down. “Is everyone ready to resume the meeting?”
“I’m eager to pick up where we left off,” Adrian said, holding her gaze.
They’d dated for a mere six months before they’d married. Then they’d spent their first year of married life having sex, studying for senior exams, having really hot sex, writing term papers, having more sex, interviewing for jobs, arguing, and no longer having sex. They’d self-destructed, with nothing left to pick up where they’d left off.
“The theme for the rest of today is rediscovering the magic,” he continued.
Rediscovering every inch of his magic would be her greatest pleasure. First, she’d straddle him in his chair and bump her hips with his in a lap dance that would drive him wild. Then she’d demand he take her across the table, and he’d drive into her until she screamed…or until the table collapsed under her weight.
Shit. His body might still be magical, but hers sure as hell wasn’t.
“Your customers started coming to Sunburst for a variety of reasons,” Adrian said, his tone all business but with the ever-present Spanish accent that warmed her insides and dampened her panties. “The ones who returned did so because they fell in love with your hotel.”
Right. They were talking about the company crisis, not their marriage and definitely not the magic they used to make between the sheets. Or in the shower. Or on every inch of counter space.
She squirmed in her chair, but nothing eased the need spreading through her core.
“We’ve damaged the bond and tested their love, so they don’t feel comfortable coming back on their own.”
He was right. Once she’d left him, she’d been too afraid to return, afraid she wouldn’t be welcome, that he wouldn’t love her anymore.
“The bond, however, is only damaged, not severed. We need to entice them to rediscover the magic now before an irreparable break occurs.”
The sound of his voice could entice her to do anything and follow him anywhere.
“We need to brainstorm some fun ways to hook our customers into returning to us, and we need to craft an apology. I propose we split into two groups. I’d like to see what kind of ideas everyone comes up with without Marcia and me influencing your direction. So, while you all do that, she and I will go to a different room to work on a soul-baring apology for our mistakes. Sound good?”
Her breath caught. Were they going to address the company gaffes or really bare their souls and wade into their personal mistakes? So far, she’d failed at keeping her focus on the former.
“Yes, we need to apologize to our customers and the public before we can move on. We can set up a press conference for later this afternoon.” Finally, she sounded like the professional everyone expected her to be.
“Perfect,” Adrian said. “Lead the way to where you’d like to work.”
The outward focus might be in the right place, but her energy and lusty thoughts were consumed by the man and the things she could do alone with him. Her big wooden desk would hold their weight.
Heart pounding, she led him down the hall. As she held open the door, he glanced from the name plate to her. “Your office, huh?”
“Yep. Some things need
a little extra privacy.”
“Indeed they do.” He winked and brushed her chest as he sauntered inside.
The arousal blooming in her shriveled. How could he not notice how big she’d gotten when she interfered with his ability to walk through a doorway?
Chapter Four
Marcia slapped the door shut with more force than necessary. Better to keep everything professional and avoid making a fool of herself. But neither of them would be able to concentrate on business if they didn’t clear the air first.
“Let’s get the personal apologies out of the way, since we both know I’ve owed you one for years.” When he opened his mouth, she held up her hand, needing to say her piece so she could move on. “After we got married, every time I talked to my mother, she harped about how she didn’t want me to waste my college education to follow you to your job and support your career.”
“I remember.” Cold bitterness infiltrated his tone. “According to your father, all the money he spent on your education should have gotten you a lot better husband than a lousy Hispanic whose family sent money to ‘those drug lords across the border’ every month.”
Hearing Adrian say the words in her father’s typical arrogant tone, Marcia cringed. Not only would he have said such a thing to Adrian’s face, he’d believed it, too. “I can’t even begin to apologize for his bigotry.”
“Don’t apologize for him. You’re not responsible for his actions.”
But begging forgiveness for her father’s bad behavior was easier than admitting her own. She paced around the desk. “I swore to my mother I’d have a career of my own and wouldn’t sacrifice my dreams for yours.”
“Congratulations. You kept your promise.”
To her mother. But Marcia had made promises to Adrian, too.
“You have a damned good career here,” he said, brushing his fingers over her desktop.
“I did until this week,” she corrected. “My determination to prove to my parents that marrying you didn’t ruin my chances of a good career led me to interview and take a job on the West Coast without consulting you.”
“Because even talking about it with me would have ruined your career?” Sarcasm edged into his tone as he stalked behind the desk.
“Because you might have talked me out of it and then they would have been right.” She sighed. “At that point in my life, nothing seemed worse than hearing my parents say ‘I told you so.’”
What she wouldn’t give for a do-over, but she couldn’t alter her choices, only the future. And she’d already sacrificed her future with Adrian for her career. Marcia sank onto the desk chair. “Let’s work on this company apology and see if we can save my job. Although, for the record, my career wasn’t worth it.”
He whirled the chair until she faced him. Bracing his palms on the armrests, he loomed over her. “What do you mean?”
Staring into his eyes, she wished she could lose herself in the deep-brown depths the way she often had when their relationship had been a blissful fairy tale. But she had apologies to make, first the personal and then the professional one. She didn’t have time to get lost in fairy tales and wishes.
“Throwing away our marriage, turning my back on our relationship, and blowing off our partnership wasn’t worth whatever success I’ve achieved. I’m sorry. I screwed up. I was wrong.”
She attempted to spin away, but Adrian held her in place, bending toward her as though he might kiss her. After three long heartbeats, he released her without a word.
She would never be forgiven and didn’t deserve to be. Forcing herself to move on to the business at hand, she opened a blank document on her laptop and typed, I’m sorry. I screwed up.
“Change ‘I’ to ‘we,’” he said over her shoulder.
Her fingers trembled on the keys. His correction focused on the preferred pronouns for a corporate statement, rather than admit he’d contributed to their relationship missteps. After all, he’d argued they should hash out their post-graduation plans together, and she’d pushed him away.
While he pulled another chair next to hers, she typed a couple lines about the company’s security problem and the technical repair.
“But we know we can’t just fix the tangible problem. We have to address the ways we’ve failed and thereby hurt you,” Adrian dictated.
As his pathetic excuse for a wife, she’d failed and hurt him. “We broke your trust, and we have to earn it back. We don’t expect that to be easy, but we’ll—”
Throat too clogged, she couldn’t speak the word try as she typed it. No bonds remained in their marriage for them to try to repair. The apology could serve both a personal and professional purpose, but the reparations only had a chance on the professional side.
Adrian placed his palm on her cheek, rotating her head toward his. “We can try. Look at us. We’re in the same room, wanting the same thing.”
Chest aching and electricity zipping through her, she couldn’t look away. “How could you possibly know what I want when I don’t even know?”
Leaning closer, he brushed his lips across hers. “You want this.”
Yes. Dear God, yes.
He caressed her mouth again, lingering.
She closed her eyes, savoring his warmth and gentle strength.
“You want more. I know because I want it, too.” Using both hands to frame her cheeks, he pressed his lips to hers, his tongue probing for entry.
She’d never been able to resist his seduction. Oh, how she’d missed the way passion sizzled through her veins and filled her core. Tears leaked down her cheeks.
Breaking contact with her mouth, he kept his palms on her jaw, smearing her tears across her cheeks with his fingertips. “What did I do to make you cry?”
She shook her head and gulped in deep breaths, refusing to think about enduring the rest of her life without his embrace. “I’m just a giant waterfall today.” Wrenching free, she plunked a tissue from a nearby box. So much for her expensive concealer.
“Most gorgeous waterfall I’ve ever met.”
She couldn’t accept his compliments and indulge in sexy banter, not without falling for him all over again. “We’re supposed to be working. I don’t flirt and kiss in my office.”
“Do you do those things somewhere else? Say the word, and I’ll go there with you.”
She didn’t make out anywhere with anyone, not because of a personal policy, but because she’d never had eyes for anyone but him. If only she could take him up on his suggestion. They could sink into each other and pretend they were still young and head-over-heels in love.
But unlike when they’d blown off class because they couldn’t take their hands off each other long enough to get dressed, the moment he touched her curves, neither of them would be able to pretend nothing had changed between them.
Refocusing on the company apology on her computer screen, she added, “We recognize all the gimmicks in the world won’t bring you back unless we can establish a bond of trust, one stronger than the bond we broke.”
“For the record, I don’t consider kissing to be a gimmick,” Adrian said.
Staring at the screen, Marcia willed her eyes not to blur. If she turned to him, she’d mold her mouth to his and let the taste of him send her to blissful oblivion, gimmick or not. “I’m the one who’s supposed to apologize, not you.”
“You don’t think I’m as much to blame?”
She shook her head. The responsibility lay with her. She’d left him, and she didn’t deserve forgiveness, let alone a chance to fix what she’d ruined.
“Instead of trying to find a job in the same area as you, I interviewed for jobs on the opposite side of the country,” he said. “Call me stubborn, defensive, hurt, just plain stupid, whatever. I was all those things when I decided we could both play the ‘I refuse to compromise my career’ game.”
Instead of angering her, Adrian’s admission filled her with relief. The entire blame in their relationship no longer rested on her shoulders.
&
nbsp; He tipped her face toward him. “You can’t use any of that in your Sunburst statement, so take your hands off the keyboard and look at me. We both made mistakes. We both have to apologize.”
And then what? They’d thrown away something so rare and precious because they’d been too shortsighted to see what a gift they had in each other, and they couldn’t simply retrieve it. “Can we move on together from this apology, or have we just tied up the loose ends so now we have nothing left between us?”
“That’s up to us.” His regretful yet sensuous smile caressed her from the inside out. “What do you think?”
Her heart lightened, and she returned his smile. “I want to try your kissing gimmick again.”
Unable to get enough of her smooth skin, Adrian stroked his wife’s cheeks, her chin, and even her temples. When he embraced her like she’d asked, she melted against him. Oh yes, he could make out with her forever. Being so stubborn and letting her get away had cost them both too much.
He traced his tongue over her lips, rejoicing as she parted for him. She’d never played games or withheld her affection and passion. Circling the back of her neck, he pulled her closer, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and wallowing in her warmth and sweetness.
She squeezed his shoulders, his bulky suit coat and starched shirt preventing her nails from biting into his skin. He longed to shed his clothing and absorb the pain. Then, after she’d scored him, he craved her tender exploration down his chest.
Dragging his fingers through her hair, Adrian popped out the pins holding her fancy ’do in place, allowing the auburn tresses to fall in silky waves over his hands. What he wouldn’t give for her hair to sweep across his bare chest while she kissed her way down to his aching groin.
The intercom on the desk buzzed.
She leaped away from him, her expression shocked and horrified.
“Mr. Sunburst is here,” a woman’s voice announced.
Guilt added to the horror on Marcia’s face. Hands shaking, she gathered her hair at her nape, the action pulling her blouse tight against her lush chest.