“No, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m Canadian.”
“Visiting, are you?” Glenda eyed him up and down, her faintly raised brows denoting some serious doubts about a man who, dinner suit and flawless manners notwithstanding, could have used a haircut and had calluses on his hands.
Her father’s tactics were even worse. He inspected Michael over the top of his rimless glasses, and made no bones about quizzing him. “What do you do, young man?”
“I’m a building contractor, Mr. Younge.”
“Commercial or industrial?”
“Residential.”
“Humph! High end?”
“Very.” He didn’t try to hide his amusement.
“Any partners?”
“None.”
“Except the bank, I imagine.”
“Not even the bank, although I did have to call on them during a pretty thin period a few years back. But I’m out of the red now.”
Her father digested that for a moment. “Must be a very small operation.”
“I prefer to call it exclusive. My houses are custom designed, and I use only the best materials and trades.”
“What makes you so sure that’s what you’re getting?”
“I know quality when I see it and I pay top dollar to acquire it. There’s nothing shabby about the way I do business.”
“I admire your confidence,” her father said, but his tone suggested “arrogance” might better fit the description. He wasn’t used to having a man thirty years his junior speak to him as if they were equals.
But Michael didn’t seem at all put out at being cross-examined, Camille thought resentfully, so why did he continue giving her the cold shoulder all through dinner and make no effort to engage her in a private tête-à-tête—no effort to flirt with her, as he had on the Thursday evening?
It wasn’t until the live music started and everyone else at their table was on the dance floor that, left with little option other than deserting her altogether, he said, “Well, Camille, are you happy with the evening’s turnout?”
“Yes. Raising funds for the shelter is a project very dear to my heart, and I think we’ll make a lot of money tonight. I couldn’t be more pleased.”
His sudden smile washed over her like warm honey. “Should I take that to mean you’re not finding it too embarrassing having me as your escort, after all?”
“I’d be enjoying it more if you asked me to dance,” she said boldly. “You’ve been so distant, I’m beginning to think you’re the one who’s embarrassed.”
“Then either I’m sending out the wrong message, or you’re not reading me correctly.” He pushed back his chair, and offered her his hand. “On your feet, madam. Let’s go show ’em how it’s done.”
Given that she’d practically forced him into dancing with her, she half expected he’d be more the one-two-three-four box step sort of partner than one who’d lead a woman through a foxtrot without missing a beat, and manage to hold a conversation at the same time—which just went to show it wasn’t wise to make assumptions about people one barely knew.
“So tell me,” he began, weaving a deft path between the couples packed on the floor, “how long have you been sponsoring this women’s shelter?”
“Almost four years. This is our third fund-raising gala.”
He executed a sweeping turn and cut a swath through the crowd. “And what prompted you to take on such a project in the first place?”
“My son’s birth mother,” she said, then let out a tiny yelp as his shoe ground down on her foot.
“Sorry,” he muttered, placing his hand more firmly in the small of her back. “It was step on you or the fat lady behind you, and she’s bigger than I am! Your son’s…birth mother, you say?”
“Jeremy’s adopted,” she told him. “I’d forgotten you wouldn’t know that. We brought him home right before Christmas, when he was just five days old.”
“Did you indeed.”
“Yes.” She smiled, that memory, at least, untarnished by what came after. Within months of Jeremy’s birth, Todd had started drinking again and dabbling in drugs. She’d dreaded the unpredictability that came with his addiction: the rages, followed by undignified displays of remorse; the abandonment of personal and professional responsibility. “Jeremy was the best Christmas gift I ever received.”
“I’m sure he was,” Michael said, rather grimly she thought, “but I don’t see the connection between that and your deciding to finance a women’s shelter.”
“If you’d known his birth mother, you would. She was in such dire straits, poor thing.”
“At having to give up her child?”
“To some extent, yes. But mostly at having no other choice.”
“I’m not sure I follow you. No one held a gun to her head, surely?”
“Not literally, perhaps, but he might as well have.”
“He?”
“Her husband.”
“You make him sound like a monster.”
“He was.” Her dance partner didn’t know his own strength. She winced at the sudden crushing grip of his hand around hers as he swung her into another reverse turn. “He abandoned her with no means of support. If we hadn’t met her when we did, I hate to think what might have become of her and her baby.”
Michael made a sort of choking noise and she looked up to find him staring at her with eyes blazing such an electric shade of blue that they put to shame the spotlights reflecting off the twirling crystal ball overhead.
“I know,” she said, giving the satin lapel of his dinner jacket a consoling pat. “It’s hard to believe a man could be so wickedly unfeeling.”
“Isn’t it, though!”
“On the other hand, if he hadn’t behaved so badly, I wouldn’t be a mother today.”
Michael stretched his neck, as if his shirt collar were a size too small. “Did it ever occur to you there might be another side to this story—one which doesn’t paint the guy in quite such a bad light?”
“When a pregnant woman’s practically living on the street, Michael, there is no other side to the story!”
The music ended just then which was a good thing because he seemed to be on the verge of an asthma attack, or something. Looking rather flushed, he walked her back to their table but when her mother suggested he take her in a turn around the floor, he abruptly refused. “I need some fresh air,” he said. “Excuse me, please.”
“He doesn’t look very well,” Fran said, staring after him as he fairly bolted for the door. “I hope he’s all right.”
“Might be something he ate,” Camille’s father said. “I thought the shrimp seemed a bit off.”
Mightily offended at being rejected by someone she’d ordinarily have dismissed as being unworthy of notice, her mother was not nearly so disposed to be charitable. “Or else his rented suit’s a shade too tight. I don’t think it was designed to accommodate a man of his proportions.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Mother?” Although puzzled herself by his behavior, Camille felt obligated to spring to his defense.
Glenda Younge gave a dismissive shrug. “The man’s got the build of a laborer. He belongs in dungarees.”
“If I’d known you’d take such exception to his appearance, I’d have arranged for us to sit at another table.”
“Why, dear!” Her mother reared back, one hand splayed across the emeralds at her throat. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about him!”
Until that moment, nor had Camille. Feeling the need to champion a man manifestly able to look after himself surprised her as much as it did her mother. “It isn’t him personally,” she said. “I’d feel the same about any guest of mine being subjected to insult, especially by a member of my family.”
“I made sure he was well out of earshot before I spoke my mind and I hardly think anyone else here will feel the need to repeat what I said.” Glenda, never one to concede an argument if she could possibly avoid it, attacked from another angle. “As for his
being your guest, Camille, I was of the impression he’d bought his own way in here. He made a big enough point about contributing to a worthy cause.”
“Let it rest, Glenda,” her husband warned. “He’s a bit too full of himself, I admit, but there’s nothing wrong with a man working for a living.”
“Oh, David, please don’t you start defending him, too! We all know he’s not one of us. What’s so terrible about stating out the obvious?”
“I’m not sure I know what being one of us really amounts to,” Fran put in, “but for what my opinion’s worth, I happen to like Michael.”
Again, Camille surprised herself. “So do I. Very much. And while you might find him not quite upper-class enough for your refined tastes, Mother, I’m willing to bet he’d never make a public fool of himself the way Todd did the first time we held this gala. I doubt my father and Adam are going to have to pick him up, dead drunk, off the floor and carry him to the car before the evening’s half over.”
Her mother let out a forbearing sigh. “Camille, this isn’t about Todd’s appalling behavior, it’s about your sudden fascination for—”
“You’re right, Mother, it isn’t about Todd. It’s about a man who’s done nothing to deserve your contempt, so if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to go after him and make sure he knows he’s welcome to join us again when he feels up to it.”
She found him down near the man-made lake below the terrace, staring at the sweep of the fairway. He stood so unnervingly still, it was as if the essence of the man had flown away to some other place and left behind just the shell of his body.
Tentatively, she touched his arm. “Michael? Is something wrong?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to elaborate, and when it became obvious he wasn’t going to, said, “Can you tell me about it?”
When at last he turned to her, his eyes were so empty she might have been looking at a dead man. She had no idea whether he was angry, or ill, or just very tired. She did know the way he was acting frightened her. “No. You’re the last person I can talk to,” he said.
“Why?”
He inhaled so deeply, the starch in his shirt crackled. “I have no business being here with you tonight—no right at all cultivating an acquaintance with you.”
“Because we come from different worlds?”
He let out a bark of laughter. “More than you can begin to imagine!”
“If you’re talking about money—”
“I wasn’t, but since you mentioned it, we’re hardly in the same tax bracket. I bet the closest you’ve ever come to a man like me before is the last time you had to call in a plumber. Small wonder your mother just about swallowed her emeralds when she laid eyes on me. She probably thinks you’ve lost your mind.”
“What if I don’t care what my mother thinks?” She slid her fingers down the sleeve of his jacket and found his hand. “I took charge of my life a long time ago, Michael. I choose who I want to spend time with, and tonight I want to be with you.”
“And exactly who do you think I am, Camille?”
“The man who, two days ago, made eyes at me across the Knowltons’ dinner table. The same man whose smile reminded me I’m more than a mother, I’m a woman, too.”
“Don’t go down that road, Camille! It’s a dead end.”
He tried to withdraw his hand, but she wouldn’t let him. She caught it in both of hers and turning it over, traced her fingertips over the calluses on his palm. “Why? What’s changed since Thursday, Michael? If it’s something about me—something I said or did—please give me the chance to put things right again.”
“It isn’t you,” he muttered. “You’re…lovely.”
“But no longer desirable?” She moved closer. Enough to detect the faint scent of soap on his skin. Enough that the warmth of his body feathered over her bare arms and reached inside the low neckline of her dress. “Is that what you’re really saying, Michael?”
A tremor ran through him. “No.”
“Then why are you keeping me at such a distance?”
“Because we’re not a couple of high school kids looking for any chance we can find to grope each other!”
“But we are consenting adults,” she said, trying to smother the pleading tone creeping into her voice. “And rolling around in the bushes is a far cry from treating someone as if you’re afraid, if you get too close, they might infect you with the plague.”
“Sorry if you feel I’ve short-changed you,” he sneered. “Maybe this’ll make you feel better.”
He yanked her against him and bent to pin her mouth beneath his, his manner so far removed from tender that she might as well have been kissed by a brick wall. At least, that’s the way things started out. But no sooner had their lips made contact than the spark he’d tried to deny ignited as brilliantly as a burst of fireworks across the night sky.
If it scorched her, it seemed almost to destroy him. A groan escaped him, torn reluctantly from some deep well of pain inside. The unyielding pressure of his mouth softened to a caress. His hands let go their iron grip of her waist and smoothed a hypnotic path up her spine. She felt his fingers steal through her hair, the brush of his eyelashes against her brow, the heavy, uneven beat of his heart against her breast.
She was scarcely a novice where lovemaking was concerned. For at least seven of the eight years she and Todd had been married, they’d tried every means known to man and science to conceive a child. Ovulation charts, fertility thermometers, candlelight, body oils, seductive music, chocolate, oysters, massages—atmosphere by the bushel, not to mention plain old-fashioned intercourse, they’d tried them all.
But not once in all those times had she experienced the wild blossoming of pleasure she found in Michael D’Alessandro’s arms—as if she’d faint if he didn’t stop. As if she’d die if he did.
She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him. Scarcely waited for the questing nudge of his lips against hers before she opened to admit him. As to what followed…how was it possible that his probing exploration of her mouth could effect such far-reaching results? How could the pulsing rhythm of his tongue engaging hers find an echoing spasm between her legs—as if a direct line of contact were hot-wired between the two zones? When had her pelvis taken it upon itself to undulate against his and revel in the painful pressure of his arousal?
Sweet heaven, where were her scruples that when he began inching her dress up past her knees, she parted her thighs in wanton surrender?
He must have asked himself the same question and not liked the answer. “Cripes!” he exclaimed, wrenching his mouth away from hers and releasing her so suddenly she almost fell over. “You really are willing to roll around in the bushes, aren’t you?”
If half the town had caught her having sex stark naked in the middle of Calder’s main street, she couldn’t have been more humiliated. Face burning, hand scrubbing at her mouth, feet stumbling over themselves, she struggled to recoup her dignity. To fell him with a few well-chosen words so pithy he’d be left speechless.
Instead, she heard disgust in his voice, saw it in his expression, and was struck dumb herself. Because he was right: she would have rolled in the bushes with him, if he’d allowed it. She’d have guided his hand inside her panties and let him touch her until she was ready to scream for him to fill her with his big, vibrant masculine strength.
She must be mad!
He buttoned his dinner jacket, and shot his shirt cuffs into place. “If you don’t want people asking awkward questions, you’d better pay a visit to the powder room before you go back to your table. You look a bit disheveled.”
“If anyone asks questions,” she shot back, “I’ll refer them to you.”
“Not a chance! I’ve had all the country club hoo-ha I can take for one night. I’m out of here, sweetheart. I’d offer to drive you home, but under the circumstances—”
“Oh, please! Don’t do me any more favors!”
He shrugged and, without another
word, loped up the steps to the terrace. By the time she found her way there, he’d already disappeared around the side of the clubhouse. And a good thing, too. If he’d hung around another moment, he’d have seen she was crying and that was one satisfaction she wouldn’t afford him.
Face averted, she scuttled through the foyer to the ladies’ room and locked herself in the nearest stall. The evening, which had started out so full of promise, had ended in a shambles. This was one fund-raising gala she couldn’t wait to forget.
Of course, he was an utter jerk. But she had to share some of the blame, coming on to him like that and practically begging him to do her! Sheesh, what did she think? That he was dead from the waist down? That he was as blind as he must be stupid, not to have noticed she outshone every woman in the room when it came to sheer sex appeal?
But trying to excuse his behavior as he hurled the car around the narrow curves of the road back to Calder did nothing to erase the image of her wide-eyed hurt, and even less to diminish the lingering ache of desire which had damn near crippled him.
His B and B lay on the far side of town, right on the river. He parked on the graveled area reserved for guest cars, but instead of letting himself into the house, followed a path running under a flower-draped trellis to the water. No point in trying to sleep. He needed to get her out of his system first. Wash away the taste of her with a blast of night air. Rid himself of the scent of her. Forget the texture of her skin, her hair, her mouth.
“If I hadn’t been around to take that phone call a couple of weeks back, I wouldn’t be in this mess now,” he complained to the night at large.
The river rolled on by, scarcely breaking a ripple. Too late, buddy!
True enough. It had been too late the minute the woman on the other end of the line had opened her mouth.
“My name’s Diana Moon,” she’d said. “I’m a volunteer at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco and I’m calling on behalf of Rita Osborne, a patient in our oncology unit.”
It had taken him a minute to clue in because although Kay had been born Rita Kay Osborne, she’d always gone by her middle name, and had taken D’Alessandro as her surname after their marriage. By the time he’d made the connection, the ominous connotation behind oncology unit had sunk home, and the die was cast. Divorced or not, he couldn’t turn his back on her, knowing she was dying. Probably couldn’t have, even if she’d been a stranger. To learn she was asking for him merely added extra poignancy to the whole sorry business.
D'Alessandro's Child Page 3