“More aftershocks?” he asked against the top of her head as he inhaled her fragrance, adding to his sensory stores.
“They might be before-shocks if you keep that up,” she said, making his cock harden again.
Then her stomach growled, and guilt smacked him. She needed to eat before she went back to work. “Time for lunch,” he said, shifting her gently off him and rolling her toward the back of the couch. Swinging his legs over so he could sit up, he stopped to enjoy the sight of her stretching, from her up-flung hands to her pointed toes, before she levered herself up on her elbow, her flaxen hair drifting over her bare breasts. The smile she gave him was pure feminine satisfaction.
“Let’s eat fast so we have time for dessert,” she said.
He laughed and bent to gather up the clothes he’d so ruthlessly stripped off her, handing them to her before he brushed his lips along her shoulder. “The door over by the stairs is the powder room. Meet me in the kitchen through there.” He pointed toward the opening to the dining room.
She reached up and traced her finger along his jaw as a shadow crossed her face. It reminded him of when she’d gone quiet during the car ride up. He wasn’t going to ask her what she was thinking. Right now he didn’t want to know.
Hannah walked into the kitchen and stopped dead, not because of the impressive, professional-level appliances, nor the enormous, stainless-steel island overhung by a rack holding myriad pots and pans, nor the vividly hued winter garden beyond the glass wall.
It was the sight of Adam standing in front of the massive range, the black of his clothing outlining his tall, sinewy body against the gleaming silver, as he lifted a spoon to his lips and tasted the dish he was cooking with such utter concentration he didn’t even realize she was there. The air around him vibrated with his passion as he scanned a grouping of small, glass bowls beside the stovetop, each filled with a different colored ingredient. His hand moved so fast and with such certainty it almost blurred as he selected what he wanted and stirred it in.
She understood as she never had before that he was an artist. The Aerie wasn’t a business for him; it was the embodiment of his creative genius.
He stirred the pot again, sending the aroma drifting past her nostrils. One inhalation and her eyes drifted shut on a groan of appreciation.
A satisfied chuckle made her force her eyelids open.
“Smells good?” Adam asked, plucking a plate down from a cabinet and filling it with the contents of the various pots and pans around him.
“That would be an understatement,” Hannah said, starting toward him.
He waved her toward a sleek, mahogany table set by the glass wall that looked onto the garden. “Sit. I’ll bring it over.”
She slid into a leather-and-chrome chair, finding its stark shape surprisingly comfortable. The table was already set with clean-lined flatware and forest-green glasses set on brown leather placemats. She filled both glasses with ice water from the matching pitcher as Adam came across the room with plates balanced up both arms.
“I had to be quick, so it’s just homemade fettuccine with crimini, oyster, and shiitake mushrooms grown locally,” he said, setting the dishes in front of her. “And some fresh greens for salad.”
“Just homemade fettuccine,” she said, plunging her fork into the pasta and bringing it to her mouth. The flavors burst on her tongue and sent pleasure signals beaming to her brain. “Oh, yes!”
“If you say it’s better than sex, I’m not cooking for you again,” he said.
“How did you guess?”
His smile turned hot. “The way you said ‘oh, yes’. Very similar to your tone on the couch earlier.”
“So you’d rather be loved for your body than your cooking?” she asked, teasing.
The smile faded as he turned his gaze to the garden. “If I had to choose.”
She’d struck some nerve she didn’t even know existed. “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have to choose,” she said, trying to retrieve the lighter mood, “because I love you for both.”
Poor choice of words. She winced, hoping he wouldn’t notice the “love” part of her comment.
He turned back to her. “I can handle your most basic needs at least.” His tone was humorous, but his eyes were opaque.
“This pasta is not basic in any way.” She allowed herself a few more delicious bites before she brought up the subject hanging over them. “So tell me more about the O’Briens.”
He twirled some fettuccine onto his fork. “They’re perfect.” His voice was flat. “My private investigator can’t find a thing wrong with them.”
“And you’ve told him to try as hard as he can.”
He nodded and put the pasta in his mouth, chewing without any noticeable pleasure.
Hannah put down her fork. “You don’t have to keep looking for flaws in the O’Briens.”
He lifted his eyebrows in a silent question as he took another bite.
She leaned forward. “You don’t need an excuse to keep Matt. You’re his father.”
His fork clattered onto his plate. “I’ve been his father for all of four months.”
“You’ll be his father for the rest of his life.”
“We went through this last night,” he said, making a short, sharp gesture. “How can I be his father when I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day? And those hours are exactly the ones when he’s home and needs a parent. How can I be a father when I don’t even know if I should take him to Disney World to swim with the dolphins, or if that would break his heart because his mother wasn’t there with him?” He flung out his hand again. “How?”
“Every parent has to figure those things out. Sometimes they get the answers wrong at first, but it doesn’t matter because you love Matt. That’s all he’s going to care about.”
Adam stood up, making the chair scrape backward with a squeal of metal on tile. “One thing I learned young is that love is not enough. Children need to be protected as much as loved.”
“You’ve already protected Matt by making sure the O’Briens would be welcoming to him.”
“I can protect him from outside things,” Adam said. “I can’t protect him from myself.”
“Are you still worried about punching the sous-chef?” she asked. “Because that was a long time ago and you were a different person.”
“No, I’m the same person.” He leaned forward across the table. “Last night I opened the minibar in my hotel room and saw all those tiny bottles of oblivion beckoning to me. The only way I kept myself from drinking them all was to call Matt. It’s a battle I fight every day.” He banged his fist on the table, making the dishes jump. “Every. Single. Day.”
He lowered his head so she could no longer see his face. His despair seemed to weigh down even the air between them.
“And every day you don’t give into that urge,” she said. “You do the right thing every single day.”
He shook his head without looking at her.
“Matt would help you, just like he did last night,” she said. “Maybe that’s what you’re missing: a reason not to dive into the bottle.”
That got his attention, and she almost wished it hadn’t. The look he gave her was scorching in its fury. “You think running a multimillion-dollar business isn’t a good enough reason to stay sober?”
“You tell me. Is it?” She had the napkin in her lap rolled into a ball and was crushing it in her hands.
He avoided her question. “I’m not going to use Matt as some sort of life preserver.”
She wanted to reach out to him, to soothe him the way she would an abused, frightened animal who won’t allow anyone to come near. Except Adam was afraid of himself and the damage he might do to someone he loved.
“What about me? Will you let me stay around?” she asked, knowing the answer meant more than she wanted it to.
His head snapped back, almost as though she’d struck him. “What do you mean?”
Not good. “Well, it seems as though we’re going down the road to a relationship,” she said. “I’m wondering about where it will take us.”
He closed his eyes, the tendons in his neck standing out with tension.
“I don’t expect a declaration of undying love,” she backpedaled, “but if there’s no hope for the future, I’d like to be prepared.”
After a long silence, his stance went from strained to relaxed and he opened his eyes. “It’s a legitimate question,” he said, his voice level and rational. “I should have told you right from the start that former alcoholics are a bad bet for long-term relationships. I already mentioned the track record for chefs when it comes to divorce.”
“If I believed in nothing but statistics, I wouldn’t bother treating many of my patients. But I’ve seen how the love between a human and an animal can heal them both. Look at how strongly you feel about Trace.” She stood up and gestured toward the dog, where he lay with his gaze firmly on his master.
Adam’s expression softened as he glanced toward the dog, but his voice was bleak. “Trace has been seriously injured twice while he’s been with me.”
“No one can keep another being safe all the time. Life is risk. Your love helped him heal both times.” Frustration made her voice rise, so she lowered it. “You’re pretty arrogant if you think you can’t be healed by love as well.”
“Arrogant? Of course, I am. I’m a chef.” He shook his head, a humorless half-smile curling his lips. “No, in this case, I’m realistic.” He took a step back from the table.
She wanted to leap across the barrier between them, grab fistfuls of his shirt, and shake some sense into him. Instead she hurled her napkin on top of her unfinished plate. “Why did you start something you had no intention of finishing?”
That made him flinch and look away. “I didn’t intend to start it.” He swung his gaze back to her with that same half-smile. “You’re a beautiful woman who bathes everyone you know in warmth and light. I’m a selfish man and I couldn’t resist you.”
She felt the anguish of loss hollow out her chest. “Don’t try.”
He took another step away from her. “If we keep going, I won’t have the strength to stop it.”
“Stopping doesn’t take strength. Letting yourself love someone does.” She grabbed the back of her chair. “I’m willing to risk being hurt to prove you have that strength.”
He dragged both his hands through his hair. “If I hurt you, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Anger burned through her, and she shoved herself away from the chair. “Maybe you should stop avoiding trouble and face up to it instead. You pushed me to do that.”
She started to walk out of the kitchen when she remembered he had driven her to his house. Keeping her back to him, she thrust her hand out to the side, palm up. “Give me the keys. I’ll drive myself back to work. You can pick up your car there later.”
“It’s not an easy car to drive. Let me—”
“No!” She couldn’t bear the thought of being shut in the enclosed space of the Maserati with him for the long drive down the mountain. “Don’t worry. I’ll go slowly and carefully. I won’t wreck it.”
“Hannah, I don’t care about the car. You’re upset. I don’t want you to get hurt driving it.”
“I know how to drive a stick shift. The keys,” she said, shoving her hand out further.
She heard his footsteps on the tile floor and a jingling sound before the cold weight of keys dropped into her hand. She made a fist over the metal, letting the sharp edges dig into her skin to counterbalance the stabbing ache in her chest. “I’m an adult, so I’ll get over you. But Matt won’t. He will always feel rejected by his father, no matter how hard you try to pretend he’ll be happy with some other family.” Taking a breath, she turned to meet Adam’s eyes. “I hope you find the courage to love Matt. For his sake.”
He went completely still, his face as hard as though it was carved from the local limestone.
“Why do you think I’m an alcoholic?” His breathing was audible. “It’s because I don’t have the courage to face each day without blurring the edges. I’m a coward, Hannah.”
She wanted to scream that she hadn’t meant it that way, but he was already walking past her to the front door, his shoulders held stiffly.
She followed him in silence, wishing she could yank back all the words that had spilled out of her mouth in the last few minutes. Wishing they could go back to being tangled together on the couch, their bodies attuned to each other in a way their emotions were not. How had she created such a catastrophe?
She swallowed hard. She was trying to save him from making a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
If Adam gave his son away, he would never heal from the wound.
Adam walked back into the house after watching the taillights of his car disappear around the bend of his driveway. Trace sat waiting for him, his tail sweeping across the stone floor.
Anguish swamped Adam, and he moaned through gritted teeth. Trace shoved his head under Adam’s hand, whining.
A bigger wave, this one laced with regret and guilt, crashed over him. He dropped to his knees to bury his face in Trace’s thick ruff. His fingers burrowed into the dog’s warm, comforting fur. The sound that wrenched itself from within his chest made Trace whimper and lick Adam’s ear.
Adam stayed there, holding onto Trace, using the dog’s living, breathing presence to brace himself against the longing for a drink that was building inside him, making him nearly dizzy with the desire for the oblivion alcohol could bring. The chilly, stone floor made his knees ache as he waged a silent battle deep within himself.
Finally, he let out a nearly inhuman groan and released the dog. Grabbing a set of keys from the hook by the door, he slammed out the front door and strode down the shaded path to the rear entrance of The Aerie. Letting himself in, he nodded to a couple of staff members as he made his way to a utilitarian staircase leading down into the bowels of the mountain.
He stopped in front of a heavy oak door and tried to fit a shiny silver key into the high-security lock. His hand was shaking so hard it took him two tries to insert it in the keyhole.
He stood with his other hand flat against the wood for a long moment before he turned the key and stepped inside the dimly lit room lined with bottles, the glass gleaming beneath a thin film of dust.
In the center was a rectangular table surrounded by eight chairs upholstered in cognac-colored leather held in place by brass nail heads. It was overhung with a rack containing crystal wineglasses of all shapes and sizes. This was where The Aerie held professional-level wine and Scotch tastings a few times a year.
Adam slid a large wineglass from the rack and set it in front of the chair at the head of the table. Then he prowled through the racks until he found a Pétrus, one of the rarest and most expensive bottles in The Aerie’s elite wine cellar.
“Even though it doesn’t matter a damn as long as there’s alcohol in it,” he muttered, dusting the bottle off with a linen napkin.
He retrieved a simple waiter’s corkscrew from the rack and removed the cork with a flex of his wrist. The wine deserved to be decanted and allowed to breathe, but he didn’t have time for that. The craving swelled inside him, and with an unsteady hand, he poured the rich, red liquid into the glass, spilling a few drops in his haste.
He sat down in the chair and curled his fingers around the stem of the glass, staring into the luminous depths of the wine. Lifting it, he swirled it under his nose, closing his eyes as the exquisite scent filled his nostrils and fed his yearning.
A nagging voice in the recesses of his brain made him set the glass down again as he wrestled with the knowledge that he was about to wipe out nine years of hard-won discip
line and agonizing self-denial.
But then Hannah’s voice whispered through his mind, speaking the truth he hated most about himself. He’d spent his life running away.
He brought the glass to his lips and tilted the bottom high, letting the elixir of forgetfulness flood his mouth.
Adam sat on the stone terrace of his house, staring out over the graying mountains as the late afternoon light faded around him. The chill sank through the thin wool of his trousers and suit jacket, but he couldn’t unclench his grip on the arms of the chair, even though the hard edges dug into his tendons. He needed an anchor to hold himself together after his trip to the cellar.
One of the French doors swung open, and he turned his head slowly to see Matt saunter toward him, dressed in jeans and a forest-green, hooded sweatshirt, with Trace at his heels. “Hey,” his son said. “Mrs. Duckworth said you had something for me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up. How’s Satchmo?” Adam asked.
Matt’s blue eyes blazed with happiness in the dusk. “He’s doing good. Ms. Sydenstricker let me take him out on the lead line on a trail by myself. She said the change of scenery would do him good, and she trusted me to keep him from taking off at a gallop.” Matt gave a lopsided smile. “That was her little joke since Satch still isn’t Mr. Energetic these days. But he liked it. I think he was walking faster at the end of the walk than at the beginning.”
Adam watched the expressions play across his son’s face, trying to memorize each one. “Sounds like he’s on the road to recovery.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, plopping down in the chair next to his father’s while Trace lay down between them. “Dr. Tim came out to check on him and said Dr. Linden did an amazing job.”
“Dr. Linden didn’t come?” Adam felt the pinch of regret. She probably didn’t want to risk encountering him at the stable.
“Nah, she had some meeting or something.”
He remembered now. Paul Taggart had news for her. He hoped it was good. “She’ll be back tomorrow, I’m sure.” He tightened his grip on the wooden arms as it occurred to him that she probably wouldn’t be coming to Thanksgiving. He’d driven away his one ally in introducing Matt to his relatives. “The O’Briens are looking forward to meeting you. They’re arriving Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving and staying until Friday morning.”
The Place I Belong Page 24