Make-Believe Mistress

by Katherine Garbera

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  His deep voice brushed over her, sounding like something straight out of her dreams. Tears burned the back of her eyes, because she had dreamed so many times of him holding her like this.

  “I’m not…oh, heck, Adam. I’m not used to getting so intimate so fast.”

  He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Don’t think about that. Whatever’s between us is different.”

  For her, she knew that. But she was positive that Adam was used to women falling all over him and she wanted to be distinctive, not part of the pack.

  He tipped her head back. “What are you thinking?”

  “That I’m an idiot.”

  “Gracie…”

  “No one’s ever called me a nickname before,” she said, the words slipping out without her permission.

  She’d had two serious relationships since she’d left home and neither of them had lasted more than a year. She was afraid suddenly that Adam would be gone as quickly. Not because she needed a man to cling to, but because he was the first person to make her feel like who she was was enough. That she didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. And that really scared her, because she’d never been comfortable in her own skin.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked.

  “I’m standing naked in your shower. I think we’ve gone past the point where personal questions are out of bounds.”

  “Why do you wear baggy clothes?”

  “I…They’re just more comfortable.”

  “I thought we agreed there’d be no lies between us.”

  “Did we agree to that?”

  “Stop stalling.”

  She reached for the loofah sponge and put some shower gel on it. “Turn around and I’ll wash your back.”

  He arched one eyebrow at her but did as she asked. She scrubbed his back and noticed the scar that ran along the base of his spine. She touched it, wondering where it came from. “I wear the baggy clothes because my body distracts men. Makes them think of sin instead of business.”

  “Grace.”

  She stepped away from him, retreating to the far corner of the shower, sponging herself. Actually, now that she’d said the words out loud, she knew that she’d revealed too much. She felt more naked than she had on the lounge chair with his mouth between her legs.

  “I don’t know who said that to you, but that is not what your body makes me think of.”

  She tipped her head to the side, studying him. Trying to gauge the truth in his words. “What do I make you think of, Adam?”

  He dropped his gaze from her for a second and then lifted his eyes to hers again. “You make me think of home, Gracie.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that, and it seemed neither did Adam. They each washed their own hair and got out of the shower without saying another word. It scared her to realize that Adam knew some of her deepest secrets, but she knew she also knew one of his. The man who had everything his heart desired was searching for something the same way she was.

  Six

  The sound of raised voices filtered through her locked office door. Panicked at the thought of getting caught half naked in his arms, she started to push away from him.

  But he held her close, wrapping his strong arms around her. “I’ve got you.”

  Grace hugged him to her and closed her eyes, reminding herself that this was just loneliness and she hadn’t found the man she’d been secretly dreaming of.

  Excerpt from “Adam’s Mistress” by Stephanie Grace

  Two weeks later, Grace had managed to keep Adam at arm’s length. Not an easy decision on her part, but she knew that dating him publicly was the absolute worst thing she could do as an administrator. Plus, she was scared.

  She would admit it only to herself, but she’d let Adam get much closer in one night that she’d ever intended to. Seeing him every day at the school was a bittersweet thing. After hearing from two concerned parents about the amount of time she was spending with Adam on campus, she was almost afraid to be alone with him.

  Afraid that if anyone thought there was something inappropriate going on between her and Adam, it might fuel Malcolm’s campaign to close the school. Sue-Ellen and the PTA had really run with the fundraising and money was starting to come in from the alumni group. But Grace knew any small mistake could set Malcolm off.

  More disconcerting, her file folder with the story had shown back up on her desk. Where had it been? Had it been there the entire time?

  She glanced at the pages and knew she should probably shred the thing before someone definitely saw it. The office shredder was in Bruce’s cubicle and she’d tried a couple of times to use it but someone always walked by.

  There was a brief knock on her door before it opened and Adam filled the doorway.

  She shoved the folder under the blotter on her desk. She flushed a little and hated that. She wanted to come off as more sophisticated than she was, but no matter how hard she tried she was always going to be a small-town girl.

  “Good afternoon, Grace. Do you have a minute?” Adam asked.

  Quickly she closed the Internet window on her computer where she’d been reading an article about Adam that had been in Entrepreneur magazine last fall.

  “Sure,” she said.

  He closed the door behind him. He wore a pair of dark dress pants and a blue shirt that really brought out his eyes.

  “Please leave the door open.”

  “What?”

  “Sue-Ellen thinks I’m spending too much time with you behind closed doors. You know she goes straight to Malcolm with her concerns, so I really don’t want to give her any more fodder.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and made no move to open the door. She didn’t want to force the issue. Worrying about a closed door seemed kind of silly to her, but she was willing to do whatever was needed to keep the school open.

  “Is that why you’ve been too busy to have dinner with me the last two weeks?” he asked.

  “No. I have a life. I wasn’t just sitting alone in my house waiting for you to start asking me out.” She hoped he’d never know how many nights she’d spent sitting alone in her house thinking of him. Fantasizing about what it would be like to be in his arms. Her dreams had now become fevered remembrances of his mouth on her body. Her hands on him. She squirmed a little in her chair just at the thought of the intimacies they’d shared.

  “Too bad for me,” he said with a self-deprecating grin that made her smile back at him.

  “What did you want to discuss?” she asked, knowing if she didn’t change the subject she was going to do something she’d regret, like tell him to lock the door then seduce him on her desk.

  “The gym needs a new floor. And that’s not in your budget,” he said, leaning back against the still-closed door.

  “What do you suggest we do?” she asked. The school needed a lot of repairs. The tuitions that they’d had to refund after the scandal broke had left them in a sticky place.

  “Coach Jarrett and the boys’ team suggested a charity basketball game to raise money. We’d use the outdoor courts for play.”

  That was a great idea, but she wondered how many games they’d have to play to earn enough money to re-surface the floor. “Okay. But I don’t think we’re going to raise enough with just our team. Attendance at the games hasn’t been that high.”

  “I’m going to contact a few of the musicians on my label and get them to come and play.”

  “I approve that idea. When were you thinking of having the event?”

  “The weekend prior to spring break. I think that will give us some high-profile press coverage and we can maximize it to bring our enrollment numbers up.”

  “Sounds good. I have some local media contacts we can use. And Barbara Langdon would be a great parent to coordinate this. She’s super-organized. Do you want me to set that up?”

  “Yes. I’ve given Bruce all the information on the artists I think will particip
ate.”

  She made a few notes on her computer calendar. Adam came farther into her office, leaning one hip on the side of her desk right next to her.

  “Now that we’ve got school business out of the way….”

  She pushed her chair away from the desk to put more space between them. “Yes?”

  “I’ve got tickets to the Stars. Want to join me?” he asked.

  She wanted to say yes. She’d never been to a professional sports game. Ever. And the Dallas Stars were a really good hockey team. She knew they were going for the Stanley Cup.

  But more than any interest in sports, she wanted to spend time with Adam. To feed the obsession that had grown in the weeks when they’d been dealing with each other only for the school’s business. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. What will the board think?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. If the school closes down, you still have a job.”

  “Do you think I’m that callous?”

  “No,” she said. “But I do think you’re used to everyone doing what you want them to.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Why do I have to be afraid? Malcolm is just looking for an excuse to get the board to fire me.”

  “Going to a hockey game with me isn’t going to affect your job.”

  He had a point. She knew it. But she was starting to care for him and she was afraid if they got any closer that she was never going to recover when he moved on. And he would move on, because there wasn’t anything to hold him here in Plano. She wasn’t the kind of woman that made a man stop roaming around. Much as she wanted to be.

  “Okay,” she said, realizing that she was running from herself again. She had to stop running away if she really wanted to find herself.

  Adam was surprised by how challenging he found the work at Tremmel-Bowen. The school was one of those connections to his parents that he’d distanced himself from. They’d been very involved in the running of the school and, at twenty-five, when he’d learned the truth about himself, he’d been angry. Carrying on his family’s traditions hadn’t seemed important.

  But without intending to, Grace was giving him a chance to see the pride that his father must have felt in the school. Talking to the students and seeing the campus, he felt a connection to the Bowens that he’d lost when he’d heard a few sentences uttered from a distant relative. A relative who had made the loving family he’d always taken for granted a big lie.

  It was why he was a stickler about the truth.

  Tonight he promised himself that he would bring up the subject of Grace’s erotic story. He’d find a way to make her tell him about it and then admit he’d read it.

  He knew they’d both retreated after the intimacy they’d shared on his pool deck. And he’d come to some strange conclusions about himself and Grace. No matter why he’d first become attracted to her, the need to know her and bind her to him had grown.

  He rang the doorbell at her house a few minutes early. Grace lived in a neatly kept townhome community. A small, wrought-iron bench sat to the left on her small porch and a Welcome wreath hung on the door. The scene felt welcoming in a way he associated only with Grace.

  He heard her footsteps on some kind of hardwood or tile floor before the door opened. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore a pair of baggy jeans and a cute pink T-shirt. He smiled to himself at the way she carefully concealed her curvy body.

  He didn’t like that she hid that part of herself. She had the kind of body that he’d always dreamed of holding. And she was embarrassed by it. Her words—that she was made for sin—still lingered in the back of his mind.

  Even if he left Grace with nothing other than the school, he’d first make her see herself through his eyes. To see that she was so much more than that long-ago image she had of herself.

  “I just need to put on my shoes and change my purse. Do you want to come in for a drink?”

  “That would be nice,” he said, catching a glimpse of her decor over her shoulder. The floor was a dark hardwood, probably oak. A coat tree stood to one side, hung with Grace’s coats, and a brightly colored scarf lay draped over a small table.

  She led the way through her house. It was elegantly decorated with some homey touches—photos on the mantel, antiques in the hallways. As he glanced around her private sanctuary he realized he was seeing another layer of that private woman. The house suited her.

  “I’ve got iced tea, beer and some white wine,” she said, opening the refrigerator and glancing inside it.

  “Tea would be great.”

  “It’s not sweet.”

  “Perfect.” He realized she was nervous about having him here. And he liked that. She was always so confident of herself, moving through life as though nothing really bothered her, that he liked shaking her up.

  She got a glass with ice and poured the tea. She set it on the breakfast bar and moved to the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter next to the refrigerator and watching him as if she wasn’t sure what to do with him.

  “I’m not going to pounce on you now that we’re finally alone again.” Though he wanted to. His arms were empty without her in them. He wanted to kiss and caress her, to keep their relationship on a level that he easily understood, and fit the mold of what he expected from the women in his life, instead of dealing with all the other things that she brought to the surface. The longings for home and permanency that he’d thought he’d shed a long time ago.

  “I didn’t think you would,” she said with a tart note in her voice.

  “Then what’s up?” he asked, after taking a sip of his iced tea.

  She shrugged. “My house is so much smaller than yours.”

  He was coming to realize that one of Grace’s major hang-ups was the fact that she was conscious of what other people had and measured herself against them. Why would she think he’d be judging her by the size of her house?

  If she knew the truth about him—the fact that he was a fake Bowen—she might not care that his house was bigger than hers. But he knew it was his money, the money he’d earned on his own, that provided the basis for his wealth. He’d taken his parents’ entire fortune and donated it to charities that he knew his mother would have supported.

  “I like your house, Gracie. It’s a lot like you.”

  “How?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her waist. He had the feeling that if he said the wrong thing she was going to retreat even further into herself and disappear completely.

  “Well, this kitchen is bright and welcoming. Your house if filled with photos and antiques, stuff that has a lasting feeling to it.”

  She nodded and her arms dropped to her sides. “I always wanted roots. When I was growing up, my father served in a lot of different communities in Texas. We were constantly moving.”

  “And you’ve put them down.” He knew she had. The way she spoke about moving made it very clear exactly what she thought of it. He realized that, if there was going to be any real lasting relationship between the two of them, he’d have to change his ways. And he wondered if she would be worth staying for.

  She nodded. “The antiques aren’t heirlooms. I bought them at auctions and estate sales.”

  “That doesn’t change what they represent about you.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I’ll be quick getting ready.”

  “Take your time. Do you mind if I explore your house?”

  She released a long breath. “Okay.”

  Grace enjoyed having Adam in her house. He was the missing piece of the puzzle that she’d created of a picture-perfect life. He’d been the fantasy in her head for a long time, the man who’d make this little empty house feel more like home—and now he was here.

  Her fear was that she only liked him because he did fill the hole in her life. That she wasn’t infatuated with a real man. It was complicated and she wanted it to be simple. For a relationship with Adam to be easier than it was.
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br />   She’d wasted some time when she’d gotten home, writing down her latest fantasy about him. In her dream relationship, he was completely enthralled with her and her body.

  She finished getting ready and then went to find Adam. To her dismay, he was in her home office, sitting at her desk. She knew that her handwritten notes on “Adam’s Mistress” were there. The printed copy of her story was still at work, but she’d been editing a handwritten version of it earlier that day, adding in details from the night at his home.

  She noticed he was studying something on her desk. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. She’d die if he’d found that story. In fact, tomorrow she was going to shred the thing at work and destroy this copy.

  “You like Viper?” he asked.

  For a minute it was as if he were speaking a different language. Then she realized her mouse pad featured the heavy metal alternative band.

  “Yes. I do. Their music is different.”

  “You know they’re one of my artists. Actually, the first band I signed.”

  “I did know that,” she said. She’d checked them out originally because she knew that Adam liked them.

  “I can get you an autograph,” he said, with one of those silly grins of his.

  “Really. Then maybe I’ll like you.”

  He laughed, a full-bodied one that made her feel good. “All the girls say that, but as soon as they get their autograph…”

  “I’m not like other girls, Adam.”

  He pushed to his feet and came around the front of her desk. It was a cheap one that she’d gotten at a scratch-and-dent sale. He leaned against the front of it, legs crossed at the ankles, arms resting on either side of his hips.

  “I know that.”

  “Why are you here? I mean really. I’m not your usual type of date.”

  She’d tried not to think about him. Had focused on the school and keeping it going. But in the back of her mind she’d been looking for excuses to keep him at arm’s length. Not because she didn’t want him closer but because she feared what would happen if she did and it turned out he wasn’t as interested in her.