by Mardi Ballou
Tired of battling her lawn, she took off her shoes and went over to the Jag to tell Ned what was going on. “I’m going in the house now with one of the men, Pete. I need to talk to him. Won’t take long.”
“Is that advisable, miss?” Ned’s brows furrowed with concern.
She smiled. “It’s all right. I know him. Ned, I’ll be making some coffee and breakfast. Anything I can get you?”
The older man smiled. “Thanks, miss. That’s very kind of you. Actually had a bit of breakfast before, but I’d be happy for some coffee. Black.”
“I’ll be out with it as soon as it’s made.”
Pete was lounging at the table, his long tights-clad legs stretched out. Gwyn rejected her first plan, to make fancy French toast. She didn’t want to spend the time needed to put together a really nice breakfast. Cold cereal and milk, along with coffee, of course, would do just fine. She got the coffee brewing, then put out two bowls, spoons, milk in its carton, Frosted Flakes for Pete and granola for herself. Pete poured himself cereal and began eating in sullen silence. As soon as the coffee was brewed, Gwyn poured a mug for Ned and went to the door. “I’ll be right back,” she said when Pete looked up inquiringly. “You can pour yourself a cup.”
“Where are you going?”
“I want to take Ned, Mr. Laredo’s driver, some coffee.”
Pete drew his brows together. “Why did Laredo’s driver bring you home this morning? And why is he waiting around?”
“We’ll talk as soon as I get back,” she said, hurrying out to Ned so he’d get the coffee while it was still hot.
“Thank you, miss,” he said, carefully taking the mug from her. He took a big sip and sighed. “Is there anything I can do to help you right now?”
“I’m fine, Ned. I’m going to eat a quick breakfast. I should know more about the schedule after that. So why don’t you relax a bit. Would you like me to bring you a paper or a magazine?”
“Very kind of you, miss, but I’m fine. Do let me know as soon as possible if you want Mr. Laredo to send a van or a truck for your things. I know he’s anxious to get everything organized.”
Gwyn assured Ned that she’d keep him posted. Walking back to the house, she noticed the two Super Heroes still fast asleep.
Now that she was actually with Pete, she dreaded telling him that their relationship was over. Even in situations like theirs, where no real commitment ever existed, breaking up was no picnic. She squared her shoulders and went back inside.
Pete was pouring himself a second bowl of cereal. Gwyn wasn’t really hungry. She poured herself some coffee, then sat down opposite Pete. He looked at her. Gwyn smiled to herself as she sipped her coffee. He really did resemble Peter Pan. Funny how she’d never noticed before.
“Okay. So let’s talk, Gwyn. For starters, where have you been all night?”
Might as well cut to the chase, she thought. “I was on the Bound for Pleasure. With Dominic Laredo.”
He put down his spoon and frowned at her. “You were there all night with him?”
She nodded.
Pete appeared to digest this news for several heartbeats. “Uh, did he try anything… funny?”
She nearly choked on her coffee. She supposed it would be inaccurate to call anything that had passed between them funny.
Pete was drumming his fingers on the table, frowning at her. “The guy’s got a terrible reputation. Dressing like Captain Hook showed his true colors.”
Gwyn thought back to Dominic doffing his tricorne, to him showing her his hook and his handcuffs, and the uses they’d put those cuffs to. “Stop,” she said to Pete. “Just stop.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You want me to stop talking?”
Gwyn nodded. “Pete, just listen. I have to be honest with you.” She paused to choose her words. “Last night I was with Dominic Laredo—in every sense of the word. This morning I woke up in his arms. And I’m going away with him tomorrow.”
Pete jumped up and threw down his spoon, splashing milk and bits of cereal all over the table. “The hell you are. I can’t believe it. You were with that bastard all last night? He pretended to take you somewhere to rest, and all the time he was…” Pete bounded over to her side of the table and looked like he was going to grab her and throttle her.
“Stop, Pete! “ she said, scrambling out of her chair and out of his reach. When Pete had frozen where he was, she pointed to the chair he’d nearly turned over. “Sit back down so we can finish talking like adults.”
Pete started to say something, glared, then shrugged, and sat down.
Gwyn took a deep breath and returned to her own chair. “I’m not going to go into details about last night. But I’ve thought a lot about my life, maybe more in the last twenty-four hours than in years. And I’ve realized a whole lot about myself, things I hadn’t wanted to face before. And Pete, it’s clear to me that you and I are over. Finished. It just hasn’t been working out, and it’s never going to. So please understand, and maybe you can even be happy for me.” She held out her hands to him to ask for his good wishes. “I’ve decided to take Dominic up on his invitation—and see the world with him.”
“Dominic,” Pete echoed, his voice sounding ugly and his eyes narrowing to two blue pinpoints.
Clearly Pete wasn’t interested in ending their relationship on a high note. But the look on his face was far nastier than Gwyn would have expected, given the way he’d always taken her for granted. Where was Pete coming from now? “Look, I realize this is a surprise for you. I’m trying to make things as easy for everyone as I can. And I’ve got to get busy so we can take off tomorrow. I just came back home to arrange what I need to.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Oh, and I suppose telling me your grand plans is just one of those arrangements you need to see to?”
Gwyn winced. “I’d give anything not to have to hurt your feelings. But you must realize, even without Dominic, it’s over between us.”
“That’s news to me. I thought we had something good going.”
Gwyn couldn’t believe it. Had the two of them ever really been on the same page? “Pete, face it. You and I together have been headed exactly nowhere for a long time. That was clear to me last night, even before Dominic came over to me.”
He shook his head, reached across the table, and put his hand around her wrist. She thought she saw genuine pain in his eyes. “I don’t know anything like that,” he said in a near growl. “I thought things were great between us. Up ‘til I took you on that thieving pirate’s tub.”
Gwyn shrugged off his hand. She still couldn’t believe how oblivious he was to her needs. “Things haven’t been great. Not even okay. Take Friday night, when I slaved to make you a nice dinner, then you just left me to go be with your buddies.”
“You’re going to hold one night against me? What about all the times I stayed?”
“It’s not just the one night. It’s how deaf and blind you’ve been to my needs for ages.” How was she going to prove to him in a few minutes what he hadn’t been able to get in two year? “Look, Pete. Maybe the bottom line is I’m just not the right woman to get you to respond. You’ve never understood what I wanted when I told you. And there’s been lots I’ve never felt comfortable telling you.”
“Like what?” he challenged, folding his arms in front of him and leaning back in his chair with his legs splayed out in front of him. “What haven’t you been comfortable telling me?”
She squirmed. “Fantasies. Needs that Dominic sensed as soon as he met me.”
Pete’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “That guy’s screwed every broad from here to London and back. Not to mention running Fantasia Resorts. He didn’t sense anything. He knows women’s minds. That’s what’s made him a millionaire. A billionaire. And all you are is one more notch in his money clip.”
Pete’s accusations hit too close to her own fears to be waved off. Gwyn pushed away the doubts about her experience that were already beginning to infiltrate her joy a
t the prospect of being with Dominic. “That’s not fair, Pete, or true. You don’t know anything about what happened between us.”
He laughed harshly. “You’re talking about being fair? After you went to the party as my date and abandoned me for Mr. Got-Bucks?”
“Abandoned?” she said, cringing as she heard her voice rise. “You want to talk about abandoned? You left me stuck at a party where I knew no one so you could laugh it up with your buddies.” She looked down at her hands. “You know I have abandonment issues, what with the way my mother left me…”
“All you had to do was come over and join us,” he thundered. “I was trying to be considerate because I know how much football bores you.”
“I did come over. You told me to go look for the guys’ dates—who I never did manage to find.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“No. But you shouldn’t have put me in that position in the first place. Why couldn’t you just have waited for another time to talk to them about the friggin’ football?” she hissed. “It’s not as if you don’t seem them every day at work. And you’re all constantly e-mailing each other.”
Pete started to say something, then bit his lip. “Sorry, Gwyn,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
She nearly fainted. In all their time together, Pete had never apologized for anything. He looked contrite. Was it possible he’d changed? “Apology accepted, Pete.” She reached out her hand to him. “I’m happy we’ll be able to part on a good note, as friends.”
He kissed her hand, something else he’d never done before. Gwyn shivered as goose bumps raced up and down her spine. She realized with some irony that she’d started training Pete well. The next woman in his life would probably benefit from her hard work. “What do you mean, part?” he asked, his eyes overflowing with innocence and adoration.
She pulled her hand back. “I guess it didn’t register. Dominic invited me to sail away with him, and I’ve accepted. We leave tomorrow morning. I have to make the necessary arrangements about my house and job today.”
He shook his head. “I guess you’re the one who things aren’t registering for,” he said. “But listen up, Gwyn. Dominic Laredo is every woman’s worst nightmare. You’d be safer jogging blindfolded on the freeway than going off with him. Even if you and I are really through, which I don’t accept. Don’t go off with him.”
“I’m tired of trying to play it safe. Unless you hide cowering under your bed, life is filled with taking chances,” she said.
“Which is why I’ve decided to take one with you,” he responded. “Gwyn Verde, marry me.”
She nearly fell off her chair. She’d wanted some romance, some indication that Pete cared for her beyond the regular sex. But marriage had been further outside her thought processes than a vacation at Fantasia Resorts. Gwyn was speechless.
“You want me to get down on my knees, Gwyn? I will.” He went over to her and knelt down, taking her hands in his. She remembered when she’d knelt in front of him, just two nights before, and taken his cock in her mouth. And how he’d left her afterward.
“Marry me, Gwyn. I’ll get you a house with a white picket fence. I’ll even give you an engagement ring, as soon as I buy one. What do you say? My legs are beginning to cramp.”
She laughed. “Stand up, Pete.”
He did.
Now her head was really whirling. Two such different proposals in the space of less then twenty-four hours. Gwyn felt like she’d landed in some alternative universe.
Pete wanted to marry her. Dominic had dazzled her and convinced her to walk away from her life in San Diego and take off with him. She’d felt so alive with Dominic—from the lovemaking and the talk and the sheer wonder of being with him. But how much of that was just an illusion Dominic continuously spun out to keep his enormous ego fed?
This morning was like the sting of a cold shower. Now that she’d explored some of her wildest fantasies, maybe it was finally time for Gwyn to grow up. She knew all the details of how life would be with Pete. She knew where she’d be living, the texture of everyday life. She knew Pete’s good points and his rough spots. He’d proposed—marriage, a real and tangible bond. Maybe she needed to listen to him and to say yes. Maybe it was time to consign her night with Dominic to her memories—which had been her intention for most of their…interlude.
Or, maybe she needed to choose none of the above.
“You haven’t answered,” Pete said.
“You have to give a girl a chance to think,” she said, pushing herself back from him a bit. “After all, it’s not every day someone asks her the most important question of her life.”
He gave her his crooked, boyish grin, the one that always had melted her heart in the past. Now that she was back on terra firma, in her own cottage, surrounded by the reality of her life, the danger of what she’d been about to do came crashing down around her. Pete was offering her a sure thing. Surely Aunt Nora would have approved. Gwyn’s mature, rational self stepped up to the helm of her sinking lifeboat.
But she couldn’t bring her mouth to form the word yes. Every time she opened her lips to produce the one syllable he was waiting to hear, she felt too strong a pang of loss. She couldn’t wrap her mind around believing she’d never again be with her pirate captain, her love slave, her gangster boss—her Dominic. The silence stretched embarrassingly. Finally, Gwyn said, “Pete, I need time. I promise, I won’t do anything rash or without telling you.”
He looked less than thrilled with her hesitation. “You’re not going to just take off?”
Gwyn sighed. “No. So first I need to go out to tell the driver to leave. No sense having him hang around.”
“Right,” Pete said. “I’ll go with you. Then we can tell the Super Heroes to go home. Their guard duties are done.”
Gwyn chuckled. Those Super Heroes had done an impressive job of guarding.
When Gwyn and Pete arrived at the Jag, Ned Smithers had just ended a phone call. He got out of the car, handed Gwyn the empty coffee mug, and thanked her. “What can I do for you now, miss?” he asked, looking from Gwyn to Pete and back.
“Actually,” she said, blushing, “you can go back to the yacht. There’s nothing further for you to do here.”
“Nothing further, miss?” Ned’s face remained impassive, but his voice sounded a bit higher than before. “But don’t you need me to order a vehicle to transport your things? I’ve already arranged for a storage facility, though I can change that if the size doesn’t suit you.”
“Thank you so much for everything,” Gwyn said, feeling unwelcome tears start to rise. “Please, go back to the yacht. Tell Mr. Laredo thanks, but no thanks. He’ll understand.”
Ned shook his head. “Very well, miss. If you’re sure.” He turned on the ignition, then turned it off. “If you change your mind or think of anything at all, please contact me on the car phone.” He gave her a small white card with his name and the number. Then he drove off.
“Laredo’s lackey,” Pete muttered under his breath.
“He’s really a very sweet man,” Gwyn murmured.
“Whatever,” Pete said. He went over to his buddies. Spiderman was already showing signs of life. Gwyn supposed it was nice that Pete had such good friends. After all, they’d been willing to spend an uncomfortable night sleeping on a lawn for him. But she couldn’t help wishing he made as much time and effort to be with her as with them.
When they came back to the house, Pete sat down on the couch, Gwyn in one of the armchairs. She should have felt relieved, but all she felt was empty. “You haven’t given me your answer yet,” Pete reminded her.
“It’s only been ten minutes,” Gwyn said. “I need to think, and you have to give me the time and space.”
“I thought a marriage proposal was what you wanted,” Pete snapped.
Gwyn shook her head slowly. Life had just become so much more complicated. “I’m flattered, Pete. But what I wanted from you, what I needed from you, was romance. Caring. I wan
ted to feel that you think about me, try to plan ways to let me know you care.”
“A proposal of marriage doesn’t do that for you?”
“I think that’s premature,” she said. “After last night, I feel like you and I don’t really know each other. And maybe we need to get to know each other a lot better before we think about marriage or any commitment.”
“But you felt you got to know Laredo so well in one night that you were willing to chuck everything to be with him.”
“I really don’t want to talk about…”
Pete jumped up and began pacing. “What the hell happened between you two? Must have been some dynamite, mind-blowing sex to have you all turned inside out today. What’s the guy have, a ten-inch cock? If so, he probably bought four inches. Had himself surgically enhanced or something.”
“Sit down, Pete. You’re making me dizzy with your pacing.”
Pete perched at the edge of the couch, looking like he was going to jump out of his skin. “You’ve got to tell me, Gwyn. What exactly happened between you two? You owe it to me.”
She shook her head. “If you keep talking like this, I’m going to ask you to leave, Pete.”
“Oh, no. Listen, if it’s the sex, you’ve got to give me a chance to show you. Anything he can do, I can do better, harder, faster, longer.” He got up and came over to her, holding out his hand. “Come on, Gwyn. Let’s take this to the bedroom. Let me show you what and who I am. I’ll make you forget you ever met Dominic Laredo.” His voice had grown very low.
This was too much. Gwyn jumped up and waved Pete away from her. “Pete, I want you to leave now.” When he’d backed off a bit, she continued. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen between the two of us. But if you stay much longer, I’m sure we’ll both regret what happens. And then there really won’t be any future for us.”
Just then someone started hammering on the door, demanding to be let in.
“Don’t answer that,” Pete ordered.
Gwyn crossed to the door and opened it. Looking like Captain Hook right before he hurled captives into the sea, Dominic stormed in.