by Arlene James
“Her Majesty is a bit impatient today,” Parker said, smoothing her hair with his fingertips, “and I have a perfectly good omelet drying out in the oven.” He stepped up next to her and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
She belted the robe, slipped her arm through his and squeezed, then released him. “You go on. I’ll be right there. I just want to wash my face.”
He looked at her searchingly for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, but don’t be long.”
She smiled. “Promise.”
He left her, and she padded into the bathroom, performing an abbreviated morning ritual while pondering what she’d done, letting him make love to her. She couldn’t tell herself that she hadn’t wanted it, because she had—still did, in fact—but that didn’t mean it had been wise, not that it made any difference now. What had been done couldn’t be undone. What she really had to think about was what she was going to do now.
It hadn’t seemed to matter last night that he hadn’t said anything about love. Nothing had seemed to matter last night but what was happening. Now she wasn’t so sure. Had anything changed really? Did he want, expect, her to stay? She didn’t know what to think, but it seemed to her that she had no particular reason to hope. It wasn’t as if the sex act itself had ever before represented any kind of commitment to Parker.
But he wasn’t married to any of those other women, said a desperate voice inside her head. On the other hand, she reminded herself sternly, these days, marriage could be as temporary as any one-night stand. She looked her mirror image in the eye and admitted the truth. She had been irresponsible and foolish. She had no one to blame for what had happened but herself, and whatever happened next would be up to Parker. She had no choice but to follow his lead unless she wanted to look like the ninny she was. It was horribly simple really. If he wanted her to stay, she would stay and without the slightest hesitation, but if he didn’t want her... Well, pride was a cold comfort, but it was better than no comfort at all.
Chapter Twelve
The omelet was dry as a brick, but it could have been perfect and still tasted like dust to Kendra. She seemed to have no immediate sensory perception. It was as if her body were intent upon reliving every moment of last night’s lovemaking, despite the fact that she sat at the kitchen table calmly eating breakfast while Parker grinned at her. He leaned against the counter, Darla perched on one hip, and simply watched, his every look loaded with sexual innuendo. She wished desperately that she had taken time to dress. She felt naked sitting there in his bathrobe, and the way he moved his eyes over her told her that he, too, was very aware of her nudity. She tried desperately not to remember how it had felt to be touched by him, to be wanted by him, to be filled by him. Tried, and failed. And he knew it, damn his hide, he knew it.
She pushed away her plate, afraid that she’d gag if she put even one more bite into her mouth. Parker’s brows lifted in silent question. Smiling tremulously, she smoothed the robe over her abdomen in a gesture of fullness. “Guess I’m not very hungry.”
“Okay,” he said. “No problem. It wasn’t one of my best efforts anyway.” He smoothed down Darla’s hair and smiled at Kendra over the top of her head. “Ms. Hatcher would be so disappointed.”
Kendra laughed, and Darla instantly mimicked her, which made for fresh laughter all around. Then the laughter dwindled into silence, and with the silence came an awkwardness that Kendra had been dreading since the moment he had awakened her. She opened her mouth to excuse herself, intending to make a quick escape, but he suddenly leapt into the breach with speech.
“What do you want to do today? The princess and I are at your disposal, so you just name it, sweetheart. What’ll it be? Christmas shopping, a movie? Maybe you’d like a back rub and a long, hot soak in the tub, hmm?”
A back rub. She took a deep breath, her body betraying her again as sensations she had not even experienced consumed her. She managed to shake her head. “Uh, the bath, or...or a shower, probably.”
He nodded. “All right, first a shower. Then what? You must have a dozen errands you need to run.”
“N-no.”
“Maybe you just want to curl up with a good book,” he suggested. “I could make us some hot cocoa and build a fire, and the three of us could—”
“Uh, no, no, I don’t think so. I...I’m not in the mood for...reading.”
Darla’s hair was standing up again. He smoothed it down thoughtfully. “Then what are you in the mood for?”
She tried for nonchalance, hitching up one shoulder in a weak shrug. “I don’t know.”
He slid her a brooding look that said he recognized her reluctance and the reason for it. Then suddenly he brightened, shifting the baby up into his arms. “Why don’t you think about it a moment while I put the baby down? It’s past time for her nap, but I knew you’d want to see her.”
“Yes, of course, but I haven’t even gotten to hold her,” she said, getting to her feet. “Why not let me put her down?”
His smile was soft and warm as he placed the baby in her arms. “I’ve been putting her down in the family room,” he said. “Her room is just too far from my work area for my comfort. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the possibility of having an intercom system installed, but there just hasn’t been time lately.”
“You don’t need my permission,” she said lightly. “It’s your house.”
He stiffened, an odd reaction, but one she chose not to question. Instead, she carried Darla out of the kitchen and down across the gallery to the large multipurpose area they called the family room. Her playpen, several toys and a colorful, slowly drifting mobile had been arranged on an area of tiled floor near the corner that Parker had appropriated as his work space. Kendra saw that a fluffy down comforter had been folded to fit the playpen and covered with a cotton sheet secured to the playpen foundation with special ring-type clips. Speaking softly to the child, Kendra bent and laid her on this soft cushion. Instantly Darla sat up, one tiny hand rubbing her eyes. Kendra picked her up and kissed her, whispering that it was naptime, then gently put her down again. This time the little one merely rolled over onto her side and lifted her leg to pull at the ruffled cuff of her sock. Kendra removed both soft shoes and socks from the baby’s feet, then covered her with a blanket that had been left draped over one end of the playpen. Winding the music box on the mobile, she sat down on the floor and reached through the narrowly spaced wood bars to gently stroke Darla’s back and arm.
The baby fretted and kicked one foot up and down beneath the blanket, but Kendra hummed softly and patted her back. Soon Darla’s thumb crept into her mouth, and then her lashes drooped down to lay dark and wispy-thick against chubby, porcelain cheeks. Before the music box had played out its tune, she was breathing deeply and evenly, adrift in her own little dreamworld. Kendra watched her for some moments, enthralled by the infantile beauty in the small, round face with its delicately pointed chin and cap of dark, glossy hair.
Wistfully, she rose and padded silently from the room, wanting to be gone when Parker came in to work or read or whatever he had in mind. To her surprise he was waiting for her, leaning against the gallery wall, his hands buried in the pockets of pleated corduroy pants. She bowed her head and started past him, muttering that she was off to shower, but he stepped into her path, his hands coming up to trap her shoulders. Instinctively, she recoiled. His hands curled on air and dropped to his sides.
“We have to talk,” he said quietly, urgently, but her heart was already pounding like a jackhammer.
She shook her head. “I really ought to get dressed. The...the day’s half g-gone, and I—”
“Stop it!” he hissed.
Seizing her arm, he marched her farther from the family room door, across the gallery and down onto the living room floor. He steered her toward a chair and released her, but the expression on his face quelled any idea she might have had of escaping him. Reluctantly she sat down and tucked the bathrobe tightly around her, refusing to look up at him
. After a tense moment, he crouched before her, his hands going to the arms of the chair.
“Kendra, we can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”
She turned her head away, at a loss for words. On one hand, she wanted desperately to throw her arms around him and declare that their lovemaking had been the most moving experience of her life. On the other, she wanted, needed, to pretend that it had never happened. It could not possibly have meant to him what it had to her. For him, it could be nothing more than another in a very lengthy string of similar encounters, and that knowledge was a deep, reverberating pain inside her. She did not need to be told that while last night had been pleasant, it meant nothing for the two of them. Indeed, she could not bear to hear him say it. “I—I don’t know what to say to you,” she finally managed, “and I don’t think I want to hear what you have to say to me.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers tighten on the arm of the chair. “I hope you don’t mean that,” he said roughly.
She bit her lip. “Please...”
His hands left the arms of the chair and slipped beneath the hem of the robe, skimming her shins as they moved upward. “Kendra,” he said softly, seductively, “I’m not sorry. I very much wanted last night to happen. You must know that.”
“Yes.” She gasped and pressed her legs together as his hands slid over her knees.
“I won’t apologize for wanting you,” he went on, stroking the fronts of her thighs, “and you can’t deny wanting me.” He pushed his hands higher.
She clamped her legs together convulsively, her head falling back as every treasured and unwelcome memory of the night before rushed over her. “Please!” she said raggedly. “Oh, please!”
He spread his fingers, hands pushing to the very tops of her legs, thumbs delving between them. “Let it happen!” he urged, his voice silky and pleading. “Just let it happen, Kendra. Whatever happens between us is meant to be, can’t you see that?”
She shook her head, trembling so violently that the gesture seemed stifled, aborted. “I have to protect myself!” she cried.
He went onto his knees, straddling her feet and pressing himself against her. “Not from me!” he declared huskily, pushing his hands up to span her belly. “Never from me!” He slid his hands higher, forcing them beneath the belt at her waist and loosening it.
“Stop!” She clamped her hands over his forearms near the elbow. “I want you to stop!”
“No, you don’t,” he said, opening the robe and effortlessly lifting his hands to cup her breasts.
She jerked as if electrocuted. Her nipples hardened instantly, peaking as her flesh swelled beneath his palms. Her hands tightened on his arms, but to no effect. She wasn’t impeding him, merely hanging on while her senses reeled.
“Make love to me, Kendra. Now! You want me as badly as I want you, as badly as you wanted me last night. Don’t deny it. Don’t cheat us of this chance to—”
“Take your hands off her!”
The familiar voice wrenched them both from the swirling fog of sensation and emotion, but it was Kendra who gasped his name.
“Edward!”
He stood in the center of the room, his tan twill overcoat hanging open over his rumpled business suit, hands balled into fists the size of sledgehammers, his handsome face set like angry stone. What struck Kendra most, though, with painful, damning clarity, was the hurt that glittered in his light blue eyes. It was the first time she had ever seen Edward White as frightening, and she knew with chilling certainty that he was much more dangerous than she’d ever suspected. Suddenly he was not the great big, cuddly teddy bear she had always known, but a grizzly ready to unleash his claws. She yanked the robe together protectively, glancing up at Parker, who had rocked back onto his feet and risen in one fluid movement. He stepped squarely into Edward’s line of vision, shielding her as much as possible as she stood and knotted the belt securely at her waist.
“You selfish son of a bitch!” Edward snarled. “I knew you’d try to take advantage of her!”
Parker’s reply was strangely casual and somehow all the more intimidating because of it. “You know, Ed, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of looking up to find you standing in my house glowering like some demented guardian angel. I’m not going to tell you again. You knock, and you wait, before you walk in my door.”
Edward’s smile was thin and contemptuous. “It’s hell getting caught at being a slime ball, isn’t it, old buddy?
“I wouldn’t know,” Parker said calmly. “I was just having a very private conversation with my wife when you came butting in where you’re not wanted!”
“You may not want me here just now,” Edward retorted, “but your wife will undoubtedly thank me for this interruption. In case it’s escaped your notice, she’s not some slut you can buy for the price of a good dinner and a bottle of wine!”
Parker stiffened, his own hands fisting now. “You self-righteous, high-handed bastard! What makes you think—”
Kendra grabbed his forearm and stepped in front of him, hoping to derail what could quickly become a very ugly physical confrontation, one she feared Parker would get the worst of. “Stop it!” she demanded. “Both of you stop it right now!” She faced Edward squarely, lifted her chin and lied through her teeth. “I don’t need rescuing, Edward. You needn’t be concerned. Parker and I have an understanding. Nothing important was happening here, nothing that—” she swallowed “—mattered to either one of us.”
If he looked stricken at that, it was no more than she felt. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, though the air was pumping in and out of her lungs with hasty regularity. She folded her arms across her middle and stiffened her spine, feeling Parker at her back.
“I’m only human, Edward,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I have my own needs, and as an adult I’m fully capable of deciding how and with whom I want to fill them. Now, I’ll thank you not to meddle again in what is not your concern.”
He seemed incredulous. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped, but he would never know how it was tearing her up inside. She saw her own folly only too clearly, but it was too late for anything except regret. All she could do now was live with it and try to salvage some shred of her pride. She made herself look him squarely in the eye and delivered the death blow. “Look at it this way,” she said, reaching for a light tone and managing only a crude tremor. “Now that your worst fears have been confirmed, you can stop worrying about it.”
His face literally paled. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.”
She flinched and wrenched her chin up another notch. “I want you to go now, Edward.” He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. She closed her eyes, unable to bear it. “Just go!” After a long moment of silence, she opened them again.
His back was to her. He was standing with one foot on the step leading to the entry foyer. He turned his head slightly, speaking over his shoulder. “The court date is late January,” he said dully, “but I’ll ask for a continuance, give you time to find another lawyer.”
Kendra covered her mouth with her hand and struggled to master the tears burning her eyes and the back of her throat. He walked up the steps and disappeared. A moment later, she heard the door close behind him. Every particle of resentment she had ever felt for Parker Sugarman came screaming together into one loathsome, churning ball of rage. She whirled on him, ready to blame him for this, but the look on his face was clearly that of a man who had just lost his best friend. He looked sick, angry, cut to the very core, and she recognized in him everything she was feeling herself, which was only fitting. They were both to blame. They had made something meant to be noble and kind into something ugly and hateful. It wouldn’t help either of them to indulge in invective now. She swallowed the recriminations and dropped her gaze.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she mumbled, but suddenly he was the one striding away.
“Y
ou go wherever you want,” he told her bitterly. “See whoever you want, do whatever you want!” He swung around to point a finger at her. “But don’t you ever come to me with your needs, Kendra. Never again.”
Her mouth dropped open. Unfair! “You’re one to talk!” she cried defensively. “I wasn’t exactly alone in that bed last night!”
“Neither of us were,” he said caustically, “but obviously I might as well have been.” He turned down the hall, making for the back door.
She just stared, shocked beyond words. How could he say that? Why would he say that? Had Edward meant so much to him then? Was that friendship more important than anything they might have had together? Dear God, what a mistake this had been, what a travesty! But she knew, deep down, that it was no more than she deserved. And no less.
* * *
Nothing important...nothing that mattered to either one of us. The words simply would not leave his head. He had tried to drink them away. He had tried to think them away. He had tried to pretend them away. He had even prayed over them, and God knew he had never been a praying sort of man, but somehow leaving home that day for his favorite bar, he had wound up in the cemetery, looking down at his brother’s headstone, talking aloud to God. It had calmed him, and yet he couldn’t get her words out of his mind. Nothing that mattered to either one of them. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It mattered to him. Oh, how it mattered to him. And that told him how stupid he had been all those years, how foolish, how selfish.
All those women. All those women had been looking for love. His object had been pleasure, and the fact that he’d never made any secret of it didn’t seem to absolve him anymore. He knew suddenly how it felt to hope for love even when the odds were against it. She had promised him six months, but he had not been able to keep himself from hoping that she would come to want more. Much more. He had not been able to stop himself from hoping that the physical pleasure they shared would come to mean more to her than merely that. It hadn’t, but that didn’t change what he wanted from his heart, and he knew that too many times he had been on the other side of the equation. He thought of Jeanna Crowe and so many others like her who had hoped he would be the one even while he had told them he would not, and for the first time he was sorry. He was sorry and he was heartsick, and he couldn’t help it. He just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t get those words out of his mind. Nothing important...nothing that mattered.