Mr. Strictly Business

by Day Leclaire

  “Are you asleep?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you make the deal?”

  He smiled. It was a start. He could be satisfied with that.

  Gabe woke at first light and realized that this time he wasn’t dreaming. This time it was real. He held Catherine safely tucked within his arms, tight against his side, the rhythm of her heart and breath and sleep-laden movements perfectly synchronized with his. He’d always considered her an elegant woman, small and delicate. But not here. Not now. Not when she abandoned herself to sleep and was at her most unguarded. Then he saw through all the defenses and shields to the very core of the woman. Mysterious. Powerful. Gloriously female.

  She’d entwined her body around his, all slender shapely arms and legs. Even in sleep she clung to him, a delicious, possessive hold that cut through all the conflicts and difficulties that separated them and simply lay claim. In the real world she dressed with style, presented herself with calm self-confidence. She’d always impressed him with her cool, professional demeanor. But here in their bed she revealed a passion that never failed to set him on fire.

  He traced the planes of her face, reveling in the sensation of warm, silken skin, skin covering a bone structure of such purity that it quickened his breath and annihilated reason. He thought he would forgot, that over the long months they were apart that time would steal precious memories. But it didn’t. He knew each curve, remembered them all, would have recognized the feel of her, even if he’d been blind.

  She was back. Granted, it wasn’t out of choice. But in time, that would change. He’d make sure of it. His fingers trailed downward, across a pale shoulder, sculpting the feminine dip and swell of waist and hip. The hem of her nightgown had bunched high on her slender thighs, offering him a tantalizing view of the shapely curve of her backside. He’d missed waking up to this. Would she still moan if he caressed those sinewy lines with his fingertips?

  He put thought into action and was rewarded with the lightest of sighs, one of undeniable pleasure. She shifted against him, softening and opening. Her head tipped back, spilling golden curls across their pillow, offering up the long sweep of her throat. He buried his mouth against the hollow at the very base and at the same time cupped her breast through the thin layer of silk covering it. It felt warm within his palm, the nipple a small perfect bud, ripe for the plucking. He grazed the tip. Once. Twice. The third stroke had her stirring with his name on her lips, the sound escaping in a strangled cry of sheer need.

  There wasn’t any just-woke-up confusion about Catherine. There never had been. She went from a dead sleep to aroused woman in the blink of an eye. Her arms circled his neck and she pulled him in for a hot, hungry kiss. He didn’t need further prompting. He rolled over on top of her, sinking into her warmth.

  He’d planned to give her a moment to adjust to both his weight and his embrace. But she took the initiative. Hooking a leg around his waist, she anchored him close and deepened the kiss. In this area they’d always been in perfect accord, each the perfect mate for the other. Her lips parted and he delved inward, stoking the heat. He could feel her tremble in response to his touch, feel her heartbeat pounding against his palm, and his own pulse caught the rapid-fire rhythm and echoed it.

  Need ripened between them, escalating with dizzying speed. As though sensing it, she ended the kiss with a small, nipping tug of his bottom lip. “Not so fast.” The request was half plea, half demand. “Give me time to think.”

  “Forget it, Catherine. No more waiting. This is all that matters,” he told her fiercely. Once again he plied her lips with small, biting kisses while his hands traversed sweetly familiar pathways that had been left unexplored for far too long. “This is what’s important. What we feel right here and right now.”

  “I wish that were true.” Her breath hitched when he reacquainted himself with a particularly vulnerable curve of skin, just along the outer swell of her breast. “But we can’t just forget what came before. What about my reasons for leaving you? What about all the empty space during the time we were apart? As enjoyable as it will be, knotting up the bedsheets isn’t going to make all our problems go away.”

  “But it’ll ground us,” he maintained. “It’ll give us a common base from which to work.” He swept his hand across her heated flesh to prove his point, watching as her eyes glazed and her breath exploded. “We were meant to be together.”

  She managed to shake her head, but he could see the effort it took her. If he pressed, she’d cave. And though parts of him wanted her any way he could have her, the rational part of his brain preferred her willing, not fighting regrets. He leaned in and gave her another wickedly slow, thorough kiss before easing back.

  She eyed him in open suspicion, while she probed her swollen lips with the tip of her tongue. “Are they smoking? They feel like they’re smoking.”

  He choked on a laugh. How did she do it? How did she take him from overwhelming hunger to heart-melting amusement with one simple question? “Your lips aren’t smoking, but your tongue is. Just a little around the edges.” He leaned in. “I can show you where. Make it all better.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “I’ll just bet.” She closed her eyes. “You make it impossible to think.”

  “Then don’t.” He couldn’t keep his hands off her. “Just feel.”

  “That’s not smart. Nor is it safe.”

  “I won’t hurt you, Cate.”

  He felt the tremor that shook her, the quiver of remembered pain. “You already have,” she whispered.

  “Let me heal some of that hurt.”

  His offer provoked tears and they glittered in her eyes like gold dust. He didn’t know if he’d said the right thing, or the wrong. He just knew it was honest, welling from the very core of him. Her arms slid up along his chest in response and she cupped his face. This time she initiated the embrace. It was her lips that sought his and slid like a quiet balm over his mouth. She probed with a delicacy unique to her, dancing lightly. Sweetly. Tenderly.

  Just as he’d reacquainted himself with the dip and swell, the remarkable texture and scent, now so did she. Her hands cruised along his back, testing far harder planes and angles than those he’d examined. “This is where you carry it,” she told him between kisses. “The weight of your responsibilities.”

  He trailed his fingers along her shoulders, scooping up the narrow straps of her nightgown and teasing them down her arms. “I’m strong. I can take a lot of weight.”

  “Not right now. Right now I want you right here. With me. No responsibilities. No interruptions. Just the two of us.”

  Didn’t she understand? “There’s nowhere else for me to be.” And he’d find a way to prove it.

  He painted a series of kisses along the lacy edge of her nightgown where it dipped low over her breasts, and nudged the flimsy barrier from his path. He nearly groaned at the feel of satiny skin against his mouth and cheek. Her breasts were glorious, small, firm, and beautifully shaped, but then so was she. He caught her nipple between his teeth and tugged ever so gently, watching the wash of color that blossomed across her skin and turned her face a delicate shade of rose.

  “Your eyes have gone dark,” he told her. “Like antique gold.”

  “They haven’t gone dark.” Her breath escaped in a wispy groan. “They’ve gone blind.”

  “You don’t need to see. Just feel.”

  More than anything, he wanted to make this perfect for her. To heal some of what had gone before. As much as he wanted to take her, to bury himself in her warmth and create that ultimate joining, this first time would be for her. He’d give her slow. He’d give her gentle. And he’d give her the healing she so desperately craved.

  He danced with her, danced with mouth and hands and quiet caresses, driving her ever higher toward that elusive pinnacle. The air grew thick and heavy with need, tightening around them until all that existed was man and woman and the desire that bound two into one. He drove her, ever upward, kno
wing just how to touch, just where to stroke until her muscles clenched and she hovered on the crest.

  And then he mated their bodies, kissing away the helpless tears that clung to her lashes like a dusting of diamonds. Slow and easy he moved, sliding her up and up and up, before tipping her over and tumbling down the other side with her. For a long time afterward they clung to each other, wrapped together in a slick tangle of limp arms and legs.

  “I can’t remember how to breathe,” he managed to say.

  “Funny. I can’t remember how to move.” She opened a single eye. “If I breathe for you, can you move for me?”

  “I’ll get right on that.” He groaned. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Okay.” She fell silent for so long he thought she’d gone back to sleep. Then she asked, “Why, Gabe?”

  “Why, what?” he asked lazily.

  She opened her eyes, eyes clear and bright and glittering like the sun. “You were always a generous lover. But this morning…This morning was a gift.”

  He grinned. “Then just accept it and say thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “It makes me wonder, though…” A small frown creased her brow, like a thundercloud creeping over the horizon. “Where do we go from here? What do you want from me?”

  He answered honestly. “Whatever you’re willing to give.”

  She absorbed that, turned it over in her mind, before nodding. “That’s easy enough. I can’t give you permanent, but I can give you temporary. We can enjoy each other these next few months. I don’t have a problem with that.”

  His jaw tightened. “And then?”

  Something about her easy smile rang false. “Then we go our separate ways, of course. We tried living together once. It didn’t work, remember?”

  How could she lie beneath him and act as though what they felt was transient? Didn’t she feel the connection, the way their bodies fused one to the other? The way their minds and spirits were so evenly matched? “What if a couple months isn’t enough?” he argued. “It wasn’t last time.”

  He watched her pick and choose her words and his suspicion grew. She was hiding something, keeping a part of herself locked carefully away. “We were different people then. We had different goals in life. You wanted a woman who would take care of the social end of your life. Someone who would nurture you and your home. At the time, I thought that would be enough to satisfy me, too.”

  “Is this about your career?” Relief swept through him and he almost laughed. “You think I object to you running your own business?”

  “No…at least, not yet. But I have a feeling the time will come when you’d expect me to set it aside in order to fulfill more pressing obligations.”

  “More pressing obligations,” he repeated. His eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about children?”

  She refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t want children, Gabe. I want a career. You made it crystal clear to me before I left that you were planning on a large family, just like the one you had growing up.”

  He sat up and thrust a hand through his hair. “Is that why you left?” he demanded in disbelief. “Because you didn’t want to have a baby?”

  “You were pressing for one.”

  “Damn it, I asked you to marry me.”

  “I remember,” she retorted. “It was a beautiful proposal…right up until work reared its ugly head. Roxanne’s call cut me off midsentence, do you even remember that?”

  He fought to recall. She’d been crying. They’d been tears of joy, of that he was certain. She’d been shaking and laughing while those tears had slid down her face. And she’d said something…. Hell. What had it been? “You had something you wanted to tell me.” He shrugged. “I assume it was, ‘Yes, darling, I’ll marry you.’ Or did I get even that wrong?”

  “It doesn’t matter, anymore, does it? Because you left.” She spoke carefully, as though holding those long-ago emotions at a cautious distance. “You left me there with the beautiful flowers and an uneaten dinner congealing on the plate. You left me with your gorgeous ring and empty promises echoing in my ear. Because when it came right down to it, your top priority was and always will be Piretti’s. So you left, explaining without saying a word where our relationship rated in the grand scheme of things, and you didn’t come home again. Not that day. And not the next.”

  “Hell, Catherine. You may not have known about the attempted takeover two years ago, but I explained all this to you yesterday at your apartment. What was I supposed to do? Let Piretti’s go under? Let those bastards take my business from me?” He stood and yanked on his clothes. “And I did come home. I came home to find a stilted little note from you and the ring you’d cried such pretty tears over sitting on my damned dresser.”

  If nothing else, their lovemaking had opened a wide crack in her defenses, allowing him to see all she’d kept buried before. And what he saw was pain and fear and vulnerability. “Why would you expect anything else, Gabe? Do you think I’m some sort of plaything that you can pick up and discard when it suits you? Did you ever wonder what I did while you were off running your empire? Or did you simply stick me on a shelf and forget about me until it was time to come home and pick me up again? I don’t go into hibernation like one of your damn computers.”

  “I never said—” He thrust a hand through his hair and blew out his breath, fighting for calm. “Is there a reason we’re dredging all this up again? I know what happened. And I know that you wanted more from our relationship than I could give you before. I’m willing to do that. But I don’t see the point in rehashing the past.”

  “If not now, then when?” She tilted her head to one side. “Or were you hoping it no longer matters and move on?”

  “You’re good at pointing the finger, Catherine. And I’m being as honest as I know how. I screwed up. I made mistakes. But if we’re going to go there and dig into all that muck, then you have to be honest, too.”

  Her eyes widened. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning…I’m willing to continue this conversation when you stop lying and tell me what really happened. Why did you really leave me?”

  She shook her head in instant denial. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Bull. Just cut the bull, will you?”

  He snatched a deep breath and fought for control. For some reason his gaze landed on the bedside table. A cell phone sat there, not his. He eyed it for a long minute as he considered how and when Catherine had left it there. And then he knew. She hadn’t taken the bedroom at the end of the hallway when she’d moved in the previous day. She’d moved her things in here with him, at least initially. He could make a pretty accurate guess when that had changed and why. Crossing the room, he picked up the phone and tossed it to her.

  “Call your partner,” he instructed. “Have her meet us at Piretti’s in an hour.”

  “Excuse me? We were in the middle of a—”

  “An argument?” he shot at her.

  “A discussion.”

  Right. “Well, it’s one we’re going to set aside until you come clean. Until then, it’s off the table.”

  Indignation shot across her face and reverberated in her voice. “Just like that?”

  He inclined his head. “Just like that.” He deliberately changed the subject. “I saw some of your financial records last night. And I did a quick scan of the documents you provided when I returned to the office yesterday. You told me your partner handles the books?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I want to meet her. Now.” She opened her mouth to argue again, and he cut her off without compunction. “You came to me for help,” he reminded her. “This is how I help.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll call her.”

  “I’m going to shower. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  He managed a smile. “I’ll hold you to that.” He started toward the bathroom, then paused. “The breakup in our relatio
nship? It wasn’t about children or careers, Catherine. There’s something else going on. I just haven’t figured out what, yet. But I will. And when I do, we’ll do more than put it back on the table. We’re going to have this out, once and for all.”

  Six

  T hey accomplished the brief ride from the apartment to Piretti’s in silence. Catherine appeared a little paler than Gabe liked, but whether it was the result of the upcoming meeting with her partner, or because of their argument, he wasn’t certain. Perhaps a bit of both.

  Roxanne was already at her desk when they arrived, and he watched with interest as the two women exchanged a long look. Another brewing problem, one he needed to think about before determining how best to resolve it.

  They entered his office just as Catherine’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me a minute,” she murmured. After answering the call, she listened at length, her expression growing more and more concerned. “Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Problem?” he asked once she’d disconnected the call.

  “I have the Collington wedding scheduled for a week from tomorrow. The bride just called in to cancel our services.”

  “At this late date?”

  Catherine shook her head. “Obviously, she heard about what happened at the Marconis’ and it’s panicked her. Di—my partner managed to get her to agree to meet with me for lunch.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t argue. “Normally, I’d be able to handle it. Brides are often in crazy mode by now. I’m used to it.”

  “But trying to calm her down after hearing about everything that went wrong with Natalie’s party…”

  “Will prove challenging. Fortunately, I have an ace in the hole.” She smiled, the first natural one she’d offered since their argument. “You. You’ve always had a way about you, an ability to smooth ruffled feathers.”

  “I’ll do my best.” He checked his watch. “Your partner is late.”

  “Maybe she hit traffic.”