by Cait London
Stefan took off his suit jacket, placed it over a chair and slid off his tie. He flipped open the top buttons of his shirt and watched Rose. He had to tell her. He took an envelope from the table. “This is for you. It’s the money you paid Mike to start his business.”
Rose blinked and stared blankly at him. “What?”
“He asked you for money and you gave it to him. Now he has returned it to you.”
Rose sat slowly onto a chair. She gripped her large black tote tightly. “You saw Mike? Why?”
Once Stefan understood the basics of the encroaching restaurant company, he’d taken a day to deal with Mike. The image of a big man in the greasy, cluttered Ohio garage lined with girlie pictures swept by Stefan. Mike was blond, less than intelligent and far too sure of himself. “I thought it was best to have a discussion with him.”
“You just went out and found him? Just like that?”
Her disbelieving tone deepened Stefan’s guilt. He was uncomfortable in relationships and Rose was definitely volatile. He lacked experience in pacifying a woman like Rose. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and take his fill—also, he wanted her to take her fill, as in equal opportunity. He ran his hand through his hair and realized that facing Rose was much more daunting than facing a horde of argumentative business associates. “I merely visited him. A research agency found him—”
“You hired a private detective?”
Off balance and uncertain now as her eyebrows raised and she placed aside the tote, Stefan nodded grimly. Rose stood and walked across the lush silver carpet to him. She kicked off her shoes and looked up at him. “I said ‘why?”’
Stefan looked down at the feminine fist clutching the front of his shirt. He had other intentions for the evening, and at the moment, the path looked rocky. He wasn’t backing up— “We had a discussion. He agreed that he had made certain bets about you. He took money from you. I thought your honor needed defending—”
Rose’s other fist latched on to Stefan’s shirt. She scowled up at him. “I gave him that money to get him out of town. You just take it right back and you apologize.”
Stefan shook his head, trying to clear it. “Why would you want him out of town? You were engaged when he left. He ran off with your money.”
Rose tried to shake him and failed. “I didn’t want to marry him, get it? I just couldn’t imagine marriage to Mike. Eventually I saw what he was. He was lazy and he talked too much, and he didn’t get along with Dad. In the end, it was just easier giving him money and the idea that Waterville already had too many mechanics. He left because I wanted him to. So you’ve got to apologize and give it back. And what makes you think you’ve got any right to settle my honor, anyway? I’ve never been a damsel in distress. I’ve always managed my own life quite well, without your help.”
“You rejected him?” Stefan’s mind was whirling. Rose hadn’t wanted to marry Mike. “You paid him to leave town?”
Rose tried again to shake Stefan; he stood like a granite boulder. “Even when I caught him with another woman, he still told me he loved me. He was determined to marry me, probably just to prove that he could. I took the easy way out and bribed him with the money I’d saved for that super-duper wedding I’m never going to have. You have to return it and you have to apologize. Mike wasn’t a bad guy, but he wasn’t for me. He’s had a hard life and he was sorry about the bet. I think he would have tried to be faithful, even though he might not have been successful. So you just go to him and tell him how sorry you are and give him back the money I gave him.”
Stefan thought of how badly he’d wanted to brawl with Mike after he’d insinuated that Rose was under par as a lover. But Mike hadn’t taken Stefan’s too quiet invitation. He’d backed off and had taken an hour to get the cash amount. Stefan met Rose’s narrowed eyes. “I do not like orders.”
“You give enough of them. I just watched you course through a meeting like a human shark, tearing apart anything you didn’t like. You can’t manage lives like you do business, bud.”
Stefan’s headache began to throb. He should have known that nothing about Rose was as simple as it seemed. The tag “bud” nettled him. He’d wanted her alone, away from interruptions, and he’d maneuvered her into coming to see him. His pride needed one bit of encouragement that she could care for him as he cared for her. Now she was glaring up at him and, once more, he had offended a woman dear to him.
When Rose picked up her tote, preparing to leave, Stefan had to act. He rubbed his chest and wondered how she could have surrendered to him so sweetly just a moment ago and how his plans could go so wrong. It seemed that from the first day he met her, he was making mistakes. He should have known from his experience with his mother and daughter and wife that simplicity wasn’t the nature of a woman. He was a man alone, unsteady at the helm of a relationship he wanted very much. He was vulnerable and that made him uneasy. He sorted through his options—what would make Rose want to kiss him again? After a long, deep breath, he reluctantly said, “Very well. If it means so much to you, I will apologize to Mike and give him back the money.”
“Thank you,” Rose said tightly.
Stefan studied her, the tote gripped tightly in her hands. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” The single word sounded like the falling of a tombstone on his plans for a romantic evening with Rose.
“Fine,” he said, not wanting to humiliate himself further with her. He’d draw back, consider another approach and wait until she was more receptive to logic.
“Fine,” she echoed, meeting his gaze.
The air stilled, quivered and heated between them and each stood perfectly still, Rose clutching her tote. “I’m hungry,” she said suddenly and dug inside her bag to retrieve a large homemade cookie. “Granola. Nuts. Raisins. Courtesy of Mrs. Wilkins. She’s already warming her oven up for the sympathy dishes. Want one?”
He wanted Rose. “Thanks,” he said, his senses heating when her tongue crept out to claim a crumb.
His secretary chose that unfortunate time to put through a call from an irate chef, unhappy with Stefan’s decision to revamp the new restaurant’s kitchen. The intrusion reminded Stefan that he had little time alone with Rose. “Quit then, if that is what you want. All your specialty dishes are the property of Donatien Restaurants—I taught them to you—they are recipes that have been in my family for generations. You will have to develop complete new ones, if you work elsewhere.”
Stefan punched the intercom button to Megan, his secretary. “I told you to hold all calls. One more and there goes your Christmas bonus.”
Megan was silent in the way that meant she was not pleased. He regretted speaking sharply to a woman he respected. He trusted her logical decisions as to the importance of calls. An irate chef could cause bad publicity for Donatien’s and she had been right to put through the call. Ordinarily Stefan would have called her back and thanked her. Business and his relationship with Rose were not compatible ingredients. “I apologize, Megan. I am under stress,” he admitted. “You are very efficient and I am grateful for your help. Your bonus is intact. You were right to put through this call. Thank you.”
Tonight, however, he wanted no interruptions. Rose eyed him as he took the cookie, automatically assessing the ingredients. “You’re having a bad day, aren’t you?”
He’d had a bad two weeks without her, but a man’s pride would only let him say so much. “Yes.”
He caught Rose’s soft, motherly look and tossed it away. He wanted her all-woman look, the one that said he wasn’t a “bud.” “But spare me the sympathy.”
They ate the cookies and Rose studied him. “You’ve got that little-boy look again. If you’re doing it on purpose, it’s a killer. You’re pouting, aren’t you?”
“Mike is a lowlife,” Stefan muttered. “I do not pout.”
“You didn’t hurt him, did you?” she asked worriedly. “He talks like he’s tough, but he’s really not in shape. Even I could take him in a wrestling matc
h. In fact I did. He’s big and slow. I pinned him in ten seconds.”
Stefan did not like the low growl that was his own. In his mind he was tearing Mike from Rose and challenging him to a duel at dawn, in the fog-draped trees. “When are you returning?”
She glanced at the big chrome clock on the wall. “In about five hours.”
Five hours alone with Rose could be heaven. Stefan’s hopes lifted. Perhaps he could correct the errors he had made with her. “Have dinner with me?”
She shrugged. “Okay, but if it’s too much trouble, the sandwiches at the vending machines in the airport are fine.” She smiled at his grimace.
Later, after a fried chicken and potato salad meal, she sipped her iced tea—just perfect, the way she liked it, with sugar added to the pitcher. “I didn’t know dinner was going to be here, in your apartment. You’re pretty good at home cooking. This is quite a meal for late afternoon.”
“Nothing to it. A simple meal.” Stefan did not want to tell her that he’d salvaged time from his tightly packed days to prepare the same dinner for his staff. He’d kept chicken and potatoes on hand every day, just waiting for Rose to appear. He’d noted the staff’s comments and adjusted from his first failures. He also noted that Rose was in a better mood, because she had a loving heart and once she’d said her piece, she was ready to move on.
Stefan was also ready to move on—straight into making love with her. His body told him that lovemaking would seal and settle their future, that all else would fall into place after the event. His logic told him to move slowly, carefully with Rose, to obtain her in the most gentlest of ways, to make certain that she received her due as a well-loved woman. “Let’s move to the couch,” he suggested. “You must have had a long day. Let me rub your feet.”
The road to desire started with her toes and insoles, Rose decided twenty minutes later as she lay on the couch—and the path wound upward. With soft music playing, Stefan’s big, warm hands on her feet, and the good meal filling her, she was ready for more dessert than the rest of the cookies. Sitting on the couch, Stefan had that appealing, male-at-home look, his shirt opened to show that fascinating wedge of hair on his chest. She studied his expression, that infinite concentration as his hands moved carefully over her, massaging her feet in his lap. She’d seen him in action, laying out the foundation for acquiring a new company, curtly itemizing the changes that needed to be made, the contract clauses that needed defining. He’d methodically ripped through a mountain of decisions, slashing his signature on paperwork at the same time. Rose had listened to his voice very carefully; not once did his voice lower and that seductive accent appear.
Yet she had known that every moment, he was aware of her. Those darkened eyes had periodically pinned her. His smile was brief and pleased, before he cruised into the business meeting like a warlord moving through battle. The intensity of that knowledge had shocked her. Once, while he was pacing, wrapped in the business takeover and staff changes, he had stopped those curt, one-two-three sentences and touched her hair. He had lifted it to the light and smiled tenderly at her. “Catch any pigs lately?” he’d asked huskily as his accent curled intimately around her.
Everyone in the room had studied her critically, the woman who had Stefan Donatien’s attention. “One or two,” she’d answered, because she’d been in charge of the children’s greased pig contest at the town fair.
He’d run a fingertip across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and smiled softly at the other businesspeople in the room. “She has freckles. I think they are kisses from faeries. Isn’t Rose beautiful?” he’d noted softly, in the slight accent that said his emotions were touched. Then he had stroked her hair once and turned back to business as if it were never interrupted…as if she weren’t blushing and everyone in the room smiling knowingly at her. They had been good, warm, honest smiles, as if they were pleased that Stefan was pleased.
She frowned now, listening to Stefan’s low, rumbling voice. “I will apologize. I will apologize. I will be sweet.”
“I do appreciate you trying,” she said, smiling at him and realizing how difficult the apology would be for him. It seemed very natural to sit up and tug his head closer to kiss his cheek. “I forgive you for not answering my telephone call, and you’ll take the wages, of course. I know they are only a pittance compared to what you earn, but my pride is important to me.”
Stefan nodded, and watched her in that dark, smoldering way. “I have not entertained another woman in this apartment,” he stated quietly. “In many ways, you are the first for me.”
“I think—” Rose inhaled and closed her eyes, because Stefan’s soft, tempting kiss had stopped all her thoughts. She jerked back the hand she had just slid inside his shirt to smooth that wonderful chest.
He turned slightly, kissed the side of her mouth and then the other. He pressed her hand over his heart. “Did you miss me?”
“Yes,” she whispered against his lips, mentally scolding herself for dropping into the danger zone with him. The taste of him filled her, throbbed low in her body, rocketed through her like a heat-seeking missile. She realized dimly that she was bending over him, and Stefan was really only responding to her kisses—she was seeking him, her arms around him. His head lay back on the cushion, and she was definitely making all the moves.
Rose, the adventuress, wanted him. Rose, the woman who had been hurt, feared coming too close—and then Stefan’s hands began to smooth her body and with a sigh, she gave herself to the pleasure. She feared the tenderness she felt for Stefan, more than a physical need.
She feared trusting him, and yet she sensed that Stefan wouldn’t hurt her, that he would be very protective and safe.
She feared “safe.”
“I’m not too certain about this,” she said in an attempt to be logical. Despite her will, her body was coming to life, pounding with the need to make up for all those lonely, restless nights.
“Well, then,” he murmured against her throat. “I am. Continue, please…if you wish, that is.”
The formal phrase pleased her because Stefan was very affected by her. Men normally weren’t; excitement brewed within her. Was it possible that she could seduce Stefan? Heat shimmered through him, she could feel his heart racing against her hand. The hard texture of a male nipple etched her palm. And yet, Stefan held very still, a vein in his temple throbbing. She kissed his temple, wanting to soothe him. In the taste of Stefan’s skin, in the beat of his heart, she found pleasure she had never experienced. When she’d made love with Mike, it was an experiment with a novelty—to test herself and see if she were still “womanly,” and it was over very quickly. She sensed that Stefan would linger and savor and pleasure and be very thorough.
“I regret—” Stefan tensed as she kissed his throat. “I regret that I am sometimes grim and formal. It is not because I do not feel, it is because—”
“I know,” she whispered softly, allowing her tongue to flick that dark, wonderful texture of his jaw. She shook when she saw his hand enclose her breast and cuddle it gently. He eased the fabric aside and studied the creamy mound, and his body vibrated with the tension racking hers. His eyes closed momentarily as if he were taking the sight into him to hoard. The sight of him so pleasured, so engrossed in her body, enchanted Rose.
Rose-who-feared knew she should be listening to reason—that Stefan wasn’t meant to live in small rural towns like Waterville, and she couldn’t think of living anywhere else. She should be thinking about how she’d feel when he left. But she wasn’t—because right now, he looked too delicious to resist. Like a great big package that just needed unwrapping to discover the good stuff inside.
“Be careful,” he whispered as she moved to sit on his lap and stroke his hair. She’d wanted to do that since that night he held her when she cried. She wanted those strong, safe arms around her. “You think you will have me and fly away home, don’t you?” he asked unevenly and eased away from her.
He stood, ran a trembling hand th
rough his hair, and walked to a small cabinet. He opened it and poured a small amount of wine into an elegant glass. He swirled the drink and shook his head. “I have feelings for you. They are deeper than a momentary feeding of needs. I think if I took you quickly, you might excuse that passion as an impulse, some indulgence between flights. I want you to be very certain about me, that it is not only a seduction I wish, but also a relationship. I do not wish to be considered a ‘bud.’ Therefore, I think it best to adjourn.”
Rose’s heart flip-flopped and fell into anger. She stood and straightened her clothing, her hands shaking. “You could at least drop the business language at a moment like this.”
“It is how I speak when deeply affected. I apologize. How little would it mean, if we were to hurriedly make love. I would feel used, a sexual object, rather than a companion of the heart. You would be able to justify your actions as a weakness you indulged and regretted. You would have to comfort me, because you have a soft heart and do not wish to wound anyone, and then I might misinterpret that kindness and make love to you again, and then our roles would become a habit. Each of us might be uncertain of the whys and hows of the true relationship. I wish no regrets on either of our parts. If you wish to rest in my bed, I will not bother you. But I would like to lie beside you. In bed. With my clothes on. Without touching you.” Stefan’s deep voice was uneven, his body tense as he spoke. “I would wish to touch you, of course, to hold you close and naked against me—but it is not time yet.”
“You’re not in control of this situation, you know,” she said unevenly, images of Stefan’s tall muscled body tangled with hers stunning her. He’d be all rumpled and cuddly and magnificent. “It’s a share-and-share-alike deal. And we’re not on a specified schedule.”
He nodded grimly. “I must make certain that you know my intentions are not frivolous. Base rules are always a necessity. I would not like to immediately hit a home run and then lose the game. It would be like taking a soufflé too soon from the oven.”