The Contract

by Avril Tremayne

  She led Adam to her car, where she took a plastic bag from the back seat.

  “It’s your shirt. I’ve washed it. It was stupid, childish, to run away like I did, but I thought it was time to draw things to a close and I was…” She shrugged her shoulders, couldn’t find the words. “Anyway, no matter. I’m leaving for China in two days. A business trip. And the contract will lapse while I’m away so we might as well call it quits now. It was a joke from the start in any case.”

  “You’re DeWayning me.”

  Her eyes flickered. “So you know his name. I guess you know all the details. What he did, what he said, that he—”

  “I know I’m nothing like him, and yet you’re planning to deal with me the same way you did with him. Pretending I don’t exist until we run into each other accidentally, and when that happens, being calm and businesslike and remote as Pluto. Before moving on. In his case—new job. In mine—David Bennett.”

  She looked at him, but didn’t speak.

  Her silence was clearly too long for Adam. His nostrils flared and he grabbed her upper arms. “Well I’m demanding my last week. You owe me two to four scheduled appointments when you’re back from China.”

  “We were seeing each other up to seven nights a week for a while, so I can terminate now. There’s a clause that covers it. We’re signed, sealed, delivered—done, Adam.”

  “No we’re not. I’m not sure I’ve given you full value for your money. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  The next second his mouth was on her neck, and she felt his teeth, tongue. He was biting then sucking. Sucking then licking.

  Lane felt herself sway against him, her desire for him immediate and uncontrollable.

  He drew back, looked at where his mouth had been.

  “Like that,” he said, unsmiling. “I’m going home to read my contract, Lane. And if that little clause you mentioned isn’t in there, you’ll be seeing me when you get back from China. And I’ll be marking you every time I see you. Somehow I don’t think Mr. Bennett will feel right taking you to bed with my brand on you.”

  Adam let go of her arms. “I hope China’s a success, Lane. See you soon.”

  Lane got into the car and adjusted the rearview mirror. Saw the scarlet circle Adam had made just left of center.

  She should have been incensed. But she wasn’t. All she felt was a secret joy that she’d have something to remind her of him, for a little while at least.

  A very little while, she told herself. Because nothing had really changed.

  She was going to China. While she was away, the contract would lapse. When she came back, Adam would have moved on.

  * * *

  Erica lolled on Lane’s bed while Lane packed, offering occasional advice.

  Lane was focused and dogged—a way of keeping the scream in—right up until she was choosing pieces to go into the jewelry travel roll she’d borrowed from Erica, and touched the charm bracelet Adam had given her.

  She stopped abruptly and buried her face in her hands. One sob. Just one. Then she choked the tears back.

  Erica came over to her, put her arms around her. “Lane, how long are you going to punish him? Because you’re torturing yourself, too, and I can’t bear it.”

  “What he did…”

  “Yes, yes. As I’ve already told you, I’ve known all along. I knew what he was supposed to do that first night, and I agreed with it. I even warned him not to let you find out.” She pulled back, looked at Lane. “So how come you’re still talking to me, but not to him?”

  “It’s…complicated. Because I…”

  “Because you’re in love with him,” Erica finished for her.

  “Yes.” She buried her face in her hands again. “And I always knew he would never…but I thought…I thought.… I didn’t think…”

  “Yes, very lucid,” Erica said then sighed. “Right,” she said, and grabbed Lane’s hands, yanked them down. “You’ve had enough wallowing time.”

  She pulled Lane out of the bedroom, dragged her to the dining room and pushed her into a chair. “Stay there,” she ordered, and went off to find a notepad and pen.

  “Right,” she said again, returning to sit opposite Lane. “If you were the kind of girl who knew how to throw a massive temper tantrum, I’d encourage you to scream the house down and get over things that way. But you’re not. So we’re doing this in a way that will suit your nice, orderly brain. We’re setting out the argument on paper.”

  She frowned then scribbled something. Read aloud: “One. Situation—Adam was supposed to talk you out of the contract. Fact—he signed.” Darted a look at Lane. “Right?”

  “Yes.”

  Erica bowed her head again, wrote. Read: “Two. Situation—Adam tried not to have sex with you. Fact—failed. Miserably.” This time when she looked at Lane, she smirked. “I mean—look at you! Like a tidal wave of pheromones.”

  Lane winced. “It can’t be that obvious.”

  “Oh, it is, my girl. It is.” More writing. Reading. “Three. Situation—sex-only arrangement. Fact—Adam took you out to dinner, brought over a chick-flick to watch with you—a disgustingly romantic one—took you shopping, accompanied you to an art opening. And sat through the worst dinner party in the history of dinner parties, to which he was not even invited, as well as giving you a bracelet with very specifically chosen charms.”

  “Well…yes.”

  Another pause while Erica put pen to paper, then came: “Four. Situation—Adam never meant to sign, ergo, should be happy it’s over. Fact—Adam insists he gets his last week, and threatens unending series of hickies to discourage David from encroaching.”

  Erica ripped off the sheet, and shoved it across the table. “There’s more, but that’ll do it. Now, you take that goddamned sheet of paper to China and read it every day, Lane, because it tells a very interesting story. If you come back to Sydney and you haven’t forgiven him, I am booking you for a psychiatric evaluation, because you would be insane to let Adam Quinn go.”

  “He doesn’t belong to me, so I can’t let him go.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Read that sheet Lane.”

  * * *

  Lane had been gone for six days and Adam was ready to tear out his hair, and David Bennett’s entrails.

  That was his excuse for barreling past Erica the moment she opened the door, demanding, “Is she back?”

  “No,” came the calm response.

  “Then when, dammit?”

  “As I said on the phone, Adam, if Lane wanted you to know, she would have told you.”

  “You tell me, or I wait here until she arrives. Your choice.”

  Erica examined Adam, nodded. “Yep. Definitely in love with her.”

  “Well, of course.”

  “You know, girls are funny, Adam—they like to be told.”

  “I’ve made a fool of myself often enough for it to be blindingly obvious. And she won’t let me near enough to tell her, anyway.”

  “Major eye roll, Adam! Like major! You got near enough to give her a hickey!”

  “That was…I lost my head.” His hands scrabbled over his hair. “God, mauling her within minutes of her mother being buried. Who does that if they’re not in love?”

  Erica laughed. “Psychopaths.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is.” She watched as he reached for his hair again. “For such smart people, you two are so stupid.”

  “Look, just help me, will you? Because I’ve been over my copy of that freaking contract with a magnifying glass, and she loopholed me out. So now I have to talk my way back to her—which means I have to see her.”

  “All right. I’m going to give you one important fact. David Bennett has not been in the picture for, oh, eleven weeks…? If you can’t figure out why, you’re not the guy I think you are. And if you can’t work out what to do—when I tell you that she should be home around 6:00 p.m. today, when I will be at Jeremy’s, and that I’m going to leave my key on
the coffee table…” She paused. “Well, I can see you’ve worked it out.”

  Adam smiled.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lane closed her eyes, trying—and failing—to relax as her taxi made its way to her house.

  She fiddled with the amber she was wearing, with her charm bracelet. Touched her neck where Adam’s love bite had been. Remembered how it had felt to have his mouth there.

  I’ll be marking you like that every time I see you.

  She shivered, as she did every time she replayed that scene.

  Well, he’d had time to read the contract, find the clause that spelled out that it really was over and accept it.

  And move on without her.

  Lane put her hand up to her temple. Rubbed hard. Sighed.

  She’d read Erica’s list so many times, the words were memorized. She knew what Erica was trying to make her see: that to Adam, she was not just a body with a lesson plan attached; that he should be forgiven for the way their relationship had started, because it had morphed into something else along the way.

  That he truly cared about her.

  But Lane already knew he cared about her. She only had to remember how he’d been with her the night her mother died.

  He cared about her…but she loved him.

  And that disparity was the crux of the problem.

  What she was really “punishing” Adam for was for not loving her.

  What if he does love you?

  The question arrowed into her head, as it had done so many times in China. only to be dismissed as wishful thinking—because Adam was not into commitment, as Sarah had told her, as he’d told her himself.

  But now she was back, and Adam was within reach, and she wanted so much to believe he did love her, so the question just…stuck there. Undismissed. What if he did love her. What if he could commit, to her?

  Although there was no escaping the fact that if he loved her, he’d had plenty of opportunities to tell her.

  Most recently, the funeral. She knew a cemetery wasn’t the most appropriate place for a declaration. But it wasn’t a great place for bringing up DeWayne or David either, and he’d done that. And it wasn’t the time or place to mark his territory with a giant love bite, but he’d—

  Her eyes shot open. “Marked his territory…” she mused to herself—and, accidentally, to the driver, who looked askance at her via the rearview mirror.

  “Sorry,” she said, abstractedly. “A lot on my mind.”

  She closed her eyes again, and her fingers reflexively went to her neck, where the love bite had been.

  It was number four on Erica’s list, so Erica had thought it was important.

  It was just an alpha male thing, though, wasn’t it? Adam hadn’t liked being compared to DeWayne, or being sandwiched between DeWayne and David. So he’d wanted to mark his territory. If Adam had known she saw him as the silver lining to DeWayne’s dark cloud, he wouldn’t have had to do any territory marking. (It had been a eureka moment when she’d realized it herself, in China—one for which she could have kissed DeWayne.) And if Adam had known she was never going anywhere near David, he—

  Her eyes snapped open.

  But Adam didn’t know that. Because she hadn’t told him how she felt about him.

  Adam, who had seen too many broken relationships, wouldn’t tell her he loved her if he thought she was only using him as a bridge from one man to another!

  Adam had no idea the man she was in love with was him!

  “Oh, my God,” she wailed, and didn’t care that this time the driver turned in his seat to look at her.

  Her mind was racing, thoughts tumbling. Adam didn’t know she loved him. He thought she loved David. And despite having David basically shoved down his throat, he had still wanted her. Had insisted on having her. Had marked her as his.

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  She caught the driver regarding her nervously in the rearview mirror again. “Stop staring at me and put your foot down,” she said. “I’m not insane—just in love.”

  * * *

  By the time she dragged her wheelie bag up the path to her house, Lane’s nerves were out of control. Her fingers appeared to be in a state of rigor mortis, and no amount of wiggling would ease the tension.

  She was going to have to down a glass of Erica’s vodka before calling Adam. Maybe two.

  She shoved her key at the lock.

  The instant Adam answered the phone she would blurt it out. She would—

  Oof.

  Lane stumbled over the threshold as the door was jerked open and she collided with a hard male chest.

  She blinked as she looked up, and her heart leaped into her throat.

  “Adam,” she breathed.

  In staccato bursts of movement, he yanked her inside, grabbed her bag and briefcase off the front step and reefed them in, too, booted the door closed and reached for her.

  She opened her mouth to speak but before she could utter a syllable, she was crushed in his arms and he was kissing her.

  “Wait,” Lane said against his mouth.

  “No.” He kissed her again.

  “Adam, I’ve got to tell you—”

  “Lane, shut up.”

  And then his mouth was on hers again and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Hands in her hair, on her face, her shoulders, her back.

  At last, with a shuddering kind of groan, he pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he said and winced as he looked down at her. “I didn’t meant to start off tonight by mauling you. I just—”Lane cut him off. “No, I’m sorry. About David. I don’t want David.” She huffed out a relieved breath. “There. I said it.”

  Adam smiled at her, right into her eyes. “Just as well you don’t want him, because you’re not getting him. You’re getting me. And I’m not willing to share.” He touched her neck and the smile faded. “But I shouldn’t have done that to you just to prove it.”

  She looked at him in confusion. “That?”

  “The love bite,” he clarified.

  “Oh. Is it bad? Because I want to do it to you. I’ve been thinking about where I could put it.”

  “Lane,” he groaned and reached for her again, only to pull himself up. He shook his head, stepped back. “Sanity time,” he said, and stared at her. Watching. Waiting. “Lane, we don’t have a contract any more.”

  Lane understood. There was nothing to hide behind. “No contract.”

  “Which means…if we’re together, it’s because we want to be.”

  Another nod. Heart racing. Pulse thrumming. Breath quickening.

  “Which means…? You tell me, what does it mean, Lane?”

  “It means,” she said, almost breathless, “I love you. Only you. It was always you.”

  He closed his eyes, just for a heartbeat. Smiled as he opened them. “Yep. I like that answer,” he said, and tried to take her back into his arms.

  She held him off. “You’re supposed to say it back, you know.”

  “Oh, am I?” He was still smiling. “Well, you’ve made me angrier, more frustrated, more nervous, crazier, and I’d have to say hornier, than I’ve ever been before. And I guess that’s love, because surely to God nothing else could feel this crappy and terrifying and wonderful at the same time.” He cupped her face with his hands, no longer smiling. “Yes, Lane, I love you. Like a madman.”

  Lane sighed blissfully and put her arms around Adam’s waist.

  Adam, tightening his arms around her, kissed the top of her head. “I do, however, have one stipulation.”

  She nestled closer still. “Hmm?”

  He undid her hair, one-handed, and started smoothing the strands. “You can’t bring any of the furniture Erica leaves behind.”

  “Bring any of the furniture where?” she asked dreamily.

  “To my place. When you move in.”

  “Why am I moving in?

  “With Erica moving out, you’re going to need a housemate.”

  She drew out of his arms, fro
wning. “Housemate?”

  “Come on, Lane. Keep up.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought we were just going to…you know…date, like normal people. And I wasn’t going to put any pressure on about the next stage. I thought…you know…you might want to ease into the commitment thing.”

  “There’s been no easing into anything with you so far, Lane, so why start now?”

  “Huh?”

  “Keep up, Lane.” He bent to kiss her quickly. “Lesson Number—Oh, hell, we gave up numbering them, didn’t we? It’s not a lesson anyway, it’s a fact. You’re mine, and that means you belong with me. And that’s an alpha male thing. As your exhaustive research into the alpha male would have indicated, there’s no use arguing.”

  He yanked her closer, so quickly and roughly her hip knocked against the front of his jeans.

  “Hey, careful,” Lane said. “I’ve paid for those goods. I want them in working order.”

  “The goods are fine.”

  Lane laughed as she started unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Getting finer by the second,” he said as she slid the shirt off his shoulders. “By the nanosecond,” he murmured as her mouth fastened to his neck then slid lower. “By the—Whoa!”

  Lane raised her head and examined the love-bite she’d made, with a smile of great satisfaction. “I marked my territory. Does that make me an alpha female?”

  Adam grinned. “I always thought you were.”

  Avril Tremayne has been an avid reader all her life. She always wanted to be a writer, but took the scenic route getting there, dabbling in shoe selling, nursing and teaching (among other things) before ending up as a public relations executive in global aviation. She has a degree in communications and a diploma in education, and has—much less successfully—taken the occasional course…pottery, oil painting, millinery, Egyptology, German and Arabic, to name but a few. Avril currently resides in her hometown of Sydney, Australia, where her husband and daughter try to keep her out of trouble—not always successfully. When she’s not writing or reading, she can generally be found eating! The Contract is her first book. Visit her at www.avriltremayne.com.