by Janice Lynn
His brow rose. “Yoda?”
“My dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“Yes, a miniature poodle.”
“A miniature poodle?” His nose curled with unpleasantness. “Not much in the way of protection.”
“You’d be surprised. Yoda might be small but he has the heart of a lion.”
He smirked. “You’re not one of those women who puts clothes and bows and such on her pet, are you?”
Faith didn’t answer.
He burst out laughing. “You are, aren’t you? My little miss organized neurologist plays dress-up with her dog.”
She took a deep breath. “Yoda happens to like his Darth Poodle pajamas.”
Vale snorted. “May the force be with him, because he’s going to need all the help he can get when the other dogs who still have theirs get through with him.”
“Yeah, well, other than Miss Cupcakes, Mrs. Beasley’s female Chihuahua, Yoda doesn’t spend a lot of time around other dogs. He’d like to, but I’m always at work and Mrs. Beasley’s idea of a walk is to the end of the block and back for potty breaks.”
He glanced toward her. “I’m sensing some latent resentment. Are you telling me you’re working too many hours?”
“I am working too many hours.” What was wrong with her? Why was she telling him this? Eighteen months she’d busted her butt without a single word of complaint. Eighteen months she’d gone above and beyond whatever needed to be done just to impress him.
What had they highlighted her hair with? Truth serum?
Or was his kiss what had loosened her tongue?
“Which is why we should forget the Parkinson project for the weekend and just enjoy ourselves. The rest will be good for both of us, will have our minds refreshed when we return on Sunday,” he mused, not looking at her. “Too bad we didn’t bring Yoda with us. He might have gotten a chance to show off his fancy duds on the beach.”
Faith’s gaze narrowed in his direction, not that he noticed as he was watching traffic and not her. “Quit making fun of my dog.”
“If you put clothes on your dog, you have to expect him to be made fun of. By real men and real dogs.”
“I expect no such thing and Yoda is a real dog. The best dog. The sweaters are to keep him warm.”
“And here I thought that’s what fur was for.” He shot a horrified look her way. “You didn’t shave him, did you?”
“No.” Taking an exasperated breath, she shook her head, pursed her lips at him. “I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t going to work.”
He had the audacity to glance at her, all innocence and good looks. “What isn’t going to work?”
As if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing.
“What you’re doing.”
“Which is?”
“Trying to get me flustered about the dog so that I will forget to make my case regarding this not being a working weekend.” She fixed him with a determined glare. “This is a working weekend, Vale.”
Changing lanes on the parkway, he passed a slower car. “What’s wrong with us just having some fun?”
Was he kidding? “The only reason I’m here is because this is a working weekend.”
“That’s not true. I asked you to accompany me this weekend because my mother was determined to parade every single female at the wedding in front of me in the hope I’ll not be able to resist making a walk down a long aisle to a short-noosed rope.” He pulled off the parkway, zipped through the EZ Pass lane at the toll booth, and headed toward downtown Cape May. “With you by my side, she’ll leave me alone. I can spend time with my family without having to call out the National Guard.”
The National Guard? Did he expect such a rush of female would-be suitors? Casting another quick look at him, she decided that, yes, he probably did and rightly so. Forget his money, power and prestige, Dr. Vale Wakefield was still the finest catch in New York.
For the weekend she was to defend his bachelorhood? Where was the 1-800 hotline to the National Guard? She’d be the one needing reinforcements.
“She won’t buy that I’m anything more than a colleague.”
Vale shot her a quick look. “Why wouldn’t she?”
Should she list the reasons? Write him a thesis perhaps? “I’m not your type.”
“Obviously, you are.” And obviously he found her comment amusing since he chuckled.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You like tall, willowy women with IQs lower than their bust sizes,” she reminded him.
“I kissed you,” he parried.
As if those three little words explained everything.
She bit her lower lip. “Why did you?”
“I wanted to.”
He’d wanted to. Pleasure bubbled inside her like just uncorked champagne, overflowing with rich, foamy giddiness, intoxicating her senses.
She was drugged. Drugged by the insanity being around a man as potent as Vale caused. She didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel this way. Not about him or any man.
“What about what I wanted?”
“Are you saying you didn’t want me to kiss you? Because I don’t believe you.” His expression said, Yeah, right. Tell me another one.
“I stopped you,” she reminded him, chin high.
“Not until after a good bit of tongue thrusting and spit swapping had taken place. Face it, Faith, you wanted me to kiss you as much as I wanted to kiss you.”
“Eww.” Ignoring his second sentence, she wrinkled her nose at his coarse words. “Don’t be gross, Vale.”
“I was making a point.”
“Grossing me out is more like it.”
They came to a stop at a traffic light and he turned to face her, his eyes boring into her soul. “Kissing me grossed you out?”
With his gaze fixed on her, she couldn’t lie to him. Not even when that was what she really wanted to do. Instead she blurted out the embarrassing facts in the most revealing of ways.
“Kissing you didn’t gross me out.” Except at the abandoned way she’d kissed him back when she knew better.
“What did kissing me do?” His voice was husky, confident, as if he knew exactly what his kisses did to women.
Of course he knew what his kisses did to women.
Just as she knew.
Kissing Vale made women crazy, fanatical, addicted. She knew that. She’d watched his effect on women, knew the dangers of being near him in any capacity not business-related.
Vale didn’t mix business and pleasure. He just didn’t. Not ever.
Only he had by kissing her.
“Kissing you made me think I’m crazy for agreeing to this when I had the opportunity to spend a weekend relaxing at home because you’d have been otherwise occupied, not calling me to meet you at the office for yet more work.”
His eyes narrowed into deep blue slits. “You don’t like working with me?”
“I love my job, but someday I do hope to have a life outside work.”
“What kind of life?”
Why on earth had she started this conversation? Or had he started it? Either way, she wanted out.
“The usual,” she said dryly, grateful they’d moved beyond what his kisses did to her, but hoping he’d let their new subject drop.
“What usual?”
Of course he wouldn’t. Not the great Dr. Vale Wakefield, New York’s most eligible bachelor.
“You know,” she admitted reluctantly. “A house in some smarmy little suburb that I can call my own. A yard for Yoda to dig holes in. A neighborhood where I can take him for long walks.”
His brows drew together in a deep furrow, his lips tight with displeasure. “That’s your idea of the usual? What about marriage? Children? That usual?”
Maybe that was usual for some women. To Faith there was nothing usual about marriage or having children. Not in the marriages she’d witnessed. And, although she was mightily attracted to Vale, she didn’t kid herself that it was anything more than that. Men did
n’t stick around. Even men who promised to, and Vale wasn’t the type to make such promises to begin with.
“Women who want to make it in a high-powered career shouldn’t reveal to the boss that they also want to have a family,” she answered in the hope of steering him in a direction other than the truth. “Not if they want to be taken seriously.”
“You think I’d penalize you if you said you wanted a family?”
“I think you’re more likely to advance someone who didn’t have to take time off for maternity leave and pediatric visits.” Dear Lord, someone really had slipped her some truth serum. She couldn’t shut up. “My career is important to me. I told you that from the beginning.”
“Yes, you were quite vocal that day.”
Why did the way he spoke make her think he was mocking her?
“Laugh if you want to, but I’m serious.” She shrugged. “After I’ve achieved my career goals I’ll think about marriage.”
Not that she’d want marriage ever. She was more than happy with Yoda. Her dog would never leave her for another woman—except perhaps Mrs. Beasley and her cutie pie Miss Cupcake.
He seemed to digest her comment. “After you’ve achieved your career goals you plan to marry and have kids?”
“After I achieve my career goals…” tired of the picking apart of her life goals, she gestured toward the green light that had changed at some point during their conversation, but neither had noticed “…I’ll make plans for the rest of my life.”
Faith had already decided she wasn’t going to allow herself to be intimidated by the Wakefield family fortune. She just wasn’t.
Yes, she knew the family was as iconic as the Vanderbilts, the Kennedys, and the Fords, but Wakefields were human beings, too, just like her. No better. No worse.
Telling herself this and actually being able to keep her jaw from dropping when Vale whipped his low-slung red road devourer into the circle drive of a house that looked more like a hotel were two different things. Holy medulla oblongata! This was really just a house?
“This is your family’s beach home?”
He glanced at the lumbering three-story beige house with balconies jutting out on every level. “The East Coast one, yes. My mother had the old house torn down, and this one built a few years ago. Personally, I preferred the former one.”
They had a beach house for each coast? Had torn down their previous beach house to rebuild another? Somehow, she doubted the East Coast home had been torn down due to being rundown. Faith let that digest. Sure, Vale had money, lots of money, but the side she generally saw of him could have been just another hard-working physician, not the son of a family worth billions.
Except for the society-page photos with women hanging all over him. Those she could do without.
Vale switched off the ignition, but made no move to get out of the car. Stretching forward, his arms wrapped around the steering-wheel, he took a deep breath. “Remind me why I’m doing this wedding again.”
Wondering exactly the same thing, Faith tore her gaze away from the monstrosity where they’d be staying and unbuckled her seat belt with shaky fingers. “Because your cousin Sharon expects you to be here.”
“And Sharon must get her way.”
Did she? Faith had never met any of Vale’s family, but could only imagine that they must be used to the world bowing at their privileged Italian leather–covered feet. Just looking at the enormous house before her made her knees want to buckle. She was so out of her league.
“Must run in the family,” she mused.
“Must.” He grinned, opening the door of his car that probably cost more than triple her annual salary. “Let’s go in. I’ll grab our luggage later.”
First checking her appearance to make sure she wasn’t committing some faux pas such as lipstick on her teeth, Faith reached for her doorhandle and was surprised when the door opened before she could.
“What are you doing?” She blinked up at Vale. Lord, the man was fast. In so many ways, a total speed demon.
“Opening your door.”
“Why?”
“I already told you why,” he said with exaggerated patience. “This weekend, you’re my girl. A gentleman opens the door for his girl.”
A thousand birds took flight in her belly at once.
“No, Vale.” She spoke just as slowly as he had so there would be no misunderstanding between them. “For the record, I’m not your girl and you are not a gentleman.”
Reaching for her hand to help her out, he gave her a mock sympathetic look. “You’re wasting your breath. We’ve already established that we Wakefields always get our way.”
True, but being here as his colleague for a working weekend was one thing, pretending to be his girl or whatever it was he wanted from her was something completely different. Not when part of her wanted to be his girl. For real.
“And to set the record straight—” his grin was lethal “—I’m always a gentleman when it comes to the ladies.”
Stepping from the low-slung sports car, she turned to face him, determined to make him understand. “Vale, I won’t—”
Tugging on her hand, he pulled her flush to him and she forgot how to breathe. The respiratory centers of her brain literally shut down and left her woozy.
“Sure you will, and you’ll have fun. I promise.”
Looking into his twinkling eyes, Faith believed him. Being his girl, even for a weekend, would be fun. Only then she’d have to pay the piper the price for that fun. And, dear Lord, could she please have some oxygen in her lungs please?
“Don’t look now, but we’re being watched.”
She started turning toward the house, but Vale’s forehead lowered to rest against hers, and, grinning, he said, “My mother and aunt are standing at the window and I told you not to look.”
“Yes, but if this isn’t a working weekend, you’re not my boss, are you?” she bit out, trying not to gasp for air.
He started to speak, but she rushed on.
“I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do and you can’t make me because I don’t have to do as you say. Not away from work. And when I don’t do as Your Highness commands, you’re not going to say a word to this lady who has her own mind and isn’t afraid to use it.” She pulled away from him, shut her car door herself, then smiled as pretty as you please, only feeling slightly dizzy in the process, especially when he immediately recaptured her in his arms. “Because you’re a gentlemen when it comes to the ladies, remember?”
CHAPTER FOUR
VALE conceded that Faith had made a great point, wondering why he was suddenly as nervous as he’d been during his first stint in the operating room, wondering why he cared so much what Faith thought of his family, why it felt so right to have her in his arms when nothing could be further than the truth.
His gaze lowered to her all-too-kissable lips. “I’m always the boss, Faith. Always.”
Eyes wide, she swallowed. “Your family is originally from Philadelphia, aren’t they?”
So she wanted to change the subject? He’d let her, but he wasn’t letting her go, even if she was squirming against him, trying to free herself. Actually, he should let her go because she was squirming against him and he was rapidly getting turned on. Talking about his family should cure that.
“Yes, Philadelphia is their home base, but we spend more time together here.” With his arms still wrapped around her waist, he glanced toward the house his mother had thought they’d needed a few years back. He missed the more traditional beach house she’d had torn down to make room for its too-modern, too-big replacement. She hadn’t been able to bear the original beach house after his father had died, though, and Vale had never contradicted her claims that they’d needed more room.
“These days,” he continued, “it’s rare for the entire family to be together, though. Holidays and special occasions. That’s about it.”
“You worked through last Christmas,” she reminded him, no longer struggling to free
herself and staring at him with her amazing eyes. He’d swear he could look into her eyes for hours on end without getting bored. Not with the ever-changing gold flecks and the deep rings around her green irises.
“I flew to Philly for Christmas morning and spent the day with my family.” He pressed his palms into her low back, relishing how she molded to him, how his gut tightened with the desire to feel her naked beneath him.
“You were back home that night, working,” she gulped, staring at him as if she could read his mind and wasn’t sure what to think of this change in him. Hell, he didn’t know what to think of these new reactions to her either.
“How do you know I came back that night?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because, no thought whatsoever to my holiday, you called, wanting me to assist on the Parkinson’s article you were writing.”
Ah, now he remembered. He’d been alone, digging through medical records, compiling data for his article, wishing Faith was there. Before he’d thought twice about the day being Christmas, he’d dialed her cell number. “You came.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes taking on a far-away look. “You called, and I came running. Even on Christmas Day. My career is important to me, remember? Having my name next to yours in a prestigious medical journal looks good on my résumé.”
Had she been with her someone special? Unwrapping presents and sitting on the sofa, watching multicolored lights flicker on the tree?
“Did I interrupt a Christmas dinner?”
Her face pinched. “Nothing that I minded having interrupted.”
“You weren’t with lover-boy?”
“Who?”
“Whoever you spend your time with when you’re not with me?”
“I spent Christmas Day with my mother and stepfather. Your call was a mixed blessing.”
He’d met Faith’s mother once. A vivacious woman with lots of spirit who’d stopped by the clinic unexpectedly. He’d liked her instantly, but a flustered Faith had rushed her mother and her stepfather out the door within minutes of their arrival. “What’s your stepfather’s name? Curtis?”
Nose curling, Faith sighed. “Curtis was her previous husband. This one’s name is John.”