“Really?” he said, his voice thick.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, slipping into his arms. “How’s it working?”
“You definitely have my attention,” he said. “Are you—?”
She silenced him with a kiss.
His usual calm facade looked a little rattled by the time she released him. “Um, Susie, don’t you think we should eat a little something?”
“Do you seriously want dinner more than you want me?” she inquired in a way that dared him to say yes.
“Of course not,” he said wisely, “but—”
She grinned at him. “You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
Whatever his reservations were, they fled. “Okay, then,” he said, scooping her into his arms. “You first. Dinner later.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said happily.
For just a little while, in his arms, she could almost forget about her cancer, about the chemo, about being sick at all. She could be nothing more than a woman who was finally with the man she’d always wanted. And nothing else mattered.
Only after they were cooling down and curled together did she think to ask, “How’d things go at the bank?”
“We have a lot to talk about,” he said evasively.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we have a lot to talk about,” he repeated. “We can do that over dinner. Did you sleep all afternoon?”
“Mostly,” she said. “Then Matthew came by.”
Mack stilled, his expression guarded. “Really? Any particular reason?”
“He wanted advice about relationships, if you can believe that.”
“Did he give you any details?”
“Not a one, darn it. I do think it’s serious, though. He seemed really upset. I guess the woman dumped him, and he had no idea why. It must have been a huge blow to his ego. Matthew hasn’t been dropped by a lot of women over the years. He’s always been the golden boy.” She grinned. “He’s a lot like you. I think I was the only woman who ever said no to going out with you.”
He laughed. “And look where we wound up,” he reminded her. “For some of us, no must be some kind of aphrodisiac.”
“I wish I had some idea who this woman is. I hope it’s someone who’s worthy of my brother.”
“Did you ever stop to think it might be Matthew who’s not worthy of her?”
She frowned at the suggestion. “Why would you even ask something like that?” she inquired with sisterly protectiveness. “I always thought you liked Matthew. I know he idolizes you.”
“I think idolizes is probably too strong a word. We get along just fine. He’s a good guy at heart. I just wonder if he’s not in over his head in this situation.”
She studied him with a narrowed gaze. “That almost sounds as if you know something about this that I don’t. Do you?”
Mack leaned in and kissed her thoroughly. “Not at liberty to say,” he said. “And I’m starved. Let’s have dinner.”
Susie’s stomach rumbled. “Obviously, I’m starved, too,” she said. “Otherwise I’d never let you get away with an evasion like that. We’ll take this up again after dessert.”
“Not if I can help it,” he said. “I have much more interesting plans for after dessert.”
“Boy, you must really want to avoid this subject,” she said, studying him intently. “Makes me wonder why.”
“You don’t think it could be because I find my new wife ever so sexy and desirable?”
She laughed. “Well, of course, I know I’m all that, but there’s something else going on here. You might as well fill me in, because I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” he said. “But I look forward to the challenge of not being the one who tips you off.”
“Now you’re just taunting me,” she responded.
Mack winked. “Yes, I am.”
She met his gaze, saw the twinkle in his eye and marveled at how quickly they’d moved from being friends to having the kind of easygoing, loving marriage she’d envied between her parents.
Sobering, she touched his cheek. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“Back at you,” he said softly. “I’m sorry it took us so long to get here.”
“But we did get here, and that’s what counts,” she said. “And we’re going to be exactly like this always.”
He pulled her back down onto the bed with him, dinner forgotten. “Always,” he murmured against her lips.
It was a promise she knew she would hold in her heart all during these horrendous treatments she was undergoing. Because in the end, it gave her a reason to fight.
Laila looked up from Mack’s business proposal to see Matthew O’Brien standing in the doorway to her office. To her annoyance, her heart leaped at the sight of him.
“I thought I told you it was over between us,” she said, trying to keep her voice cool and distant. She knew that giving this particular man the slightest opening would only lead to heartache. “I thought I made myself very clear at dinner at Mick and Megan’s a few weeks ago.”
“You did,” he said, walking into the room and settling into a chair across from her. He crossed his long legs at the ankles and surveyed her with a frankness that made her blood heat. “I decided to ignore you.”
“Matthew,” she protested. “This thing between us, it’s crazy.”
“Possibly,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not incredible.”
“It can’t possibly go anywhere,” she continued. “I’m too old for you.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
She frowned at his flippancy. “See, right there, that’s the problem. You don’t listen to a word I say.”
“I listen to everything you say,” he corrected. “And to what you don’t say, as well.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked in frustration.
“It means that you’re saying what you think is appropriate, even though what you want is something else entirely.”
She scowled at his presumption. “You have no idea what I want.”
“Sure I do,” he said, grinning. “Want me to prove it?”
To her annoyance, her pulse scrambled the way it always did when he made some outrageous proposition designed to rattle her.
“Matt, this is my office. You can’t come in here and have this kind of inappropriate conversation. It just shows me how immature you are.”
Sparks of annoyance flashed in his eyes. She thought for an instant he’d turned the comment into some kind of a dare, and she knew from experience what a mistake it would be to let that happen.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she added quickly.
He laughed. “You always give me ideas.”
“Well, I shouldn’t. I don’t mean to,” she said, sounding a little desperate even to her own ears. “Go away. I have work to do.”
“So do I. I’ve been out of the office most of the afternoon, but I’m not leaving here until we’ve reached some kind of an understanding.”
“About what? It’s over, Matthew. It was a mistake. I don’t know how to be any clearer than that.”
Even as she said the words, a part of her was screaming that she was the one making the mistake. She hadn’t felt so desirable, so carefree, in years. Matthew had breathed new life into her stodgy, boring existence. If only it hadn’t felt so wrong. Then again, maybe that was part of his appeal, the idea of how shocked people would be if they knew about the two of them.
He leveled a look into her eyes that gave her goose bumps. “And I can’t make myself any clearer, either,” he said quietly. “It’s not over, Laila. Not by a long shot. You can tell me to go a hundred different ways, but I’m not letting you run me off.”
“Matthew, this is crazy,” she repeated.
“So you’ve mentioned. Nonetheless, I’m in it for the duration. I think we owe it to ourselves to see where this takes us.”
“Nowhere,” she said staunch
ly. “It’ll take us nowhere.”
He shook his head. “I’m not convinced of that.”
“Why are you being so stubborn about this?”
“I’m an O’Brien. Stubborn is just who we are.”
“But you’re supposed to be from the sensible side of the family,” she said in frustration.
“Have you met Susie? She waited around for years for Mack to get his act together. No one thought there was a chance they’d ever get together. Just look at them now. Their relationship might be implausible, but it’s working.”
“You’re suggesting that you and I have a similar fate in store for us?” Laila asked, unable to hide her astonishment.
“We won’t know unless we give it a chance,” he said. “Look, I’m willing to play by your rules for a little longer and keep this whole thing a secret, but I’m not willing to walk away without a fight.”
“But why? There are dozens of women in this town, in this region, for that matter, who’d be a whole lot less complicated than me.”
“That’s just part of your charm,” he said. “Apparently I like complicated.”
Laila sighed. It was clear she wasn’t going to get him out of here unless she agreed to whatever he wanted. Which was what exactly?
She studied him with a narrowed gaze. “Matthew, what’s it going to take to get you to leave?”
“You agreeing to let me fix dinner for you tonight,” he said at once.
“You can cook?” she asked, surprised.
“Well enough to keep us from starvation. So, is it a deal?”
“I suppose,” she said, desire trumping all of her very sensible reservations.
“Your place or mine?”
She hesitated, knowing that dinner was far from the only thing on the menu. “Your place,” she said eventually. There was something about having him in her space that made her start picturing the future, a future that simply couldn’t be.
“Seven o’clock?” he asked.
“I’ll be there,” she said.
He stood up then and brushed a lingering kiss across her lips. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
She gave him an exasperated look as he walked away, looking thoroughly satisfied with himself. The man had no idea just how hard it had been. Another five minutes and she might very well have locked her office door, swept everything off her desk and dragged him into her arms right there.
It seemed Matthew O’Brien had the ability to rob her of common sense, reason, logic—all of those things on which she prided herself. And that made him not only the most inappropriate man she’d ever dated, but the most dangerous.
14
Mack had intended to tell Susie about Kristen Lewis over dinner, but the evening had gotten away from them. He hadn’t wanted to spoil Susie’s rare upbeat mood and seductive overtures by introducing a topic that was bound to ruin the moment.
At least that’s what he told himself to justify putting the discussion on hold. But when he mentioned his meeting with Laila to Will and Jake, both men regarded him skeptically.
“You didn’t tell Susie because you were scared of her reaction,” Will argued. “You know she’s going to hate the whole idea of bringing one of your ex-lovers to town, no matter how innocent you claim it’s going to be.”
“Bree would tear me apart if I ever tried something like that,” Jake said.
“Ditto with Jess,” Will added. “It’s a really bad idea, Mack, especially now, with so much of Susie’s future up in the air.”
Mack wasn’t quite ready to concede defeat, despite the validity of their arguments. “But Kristen has skills that are critical to making this whole newspaper proposition fly,” he said. Even as he heard the words, he acknowledged they were outweighed by what Kristen’s presence might do to Susie’s fragile self-esteem right now.
“You can justify it all you want, and your intentions may be a thousand percent honorable, but look at it through Susie’s eyes,” Will persisted. “It has the potential to be seen as betrayal written all over it. Do you really want her worrying every second about whether you’re starting up again with this woman?”
“Come on, Susie’s reasonable,” Mack protested. “She’s going to understand.”
“Maybe,” Will said. “Theoretically.”
“But she’s a woman,” Jake said. “They don’t think like we do.”
“Isn’t there another person in the entire world of journalism you could recruit for this job?” Will asked.
“Probably,” Mack said. “But Kristen’s the one I know, and she’s damn good at what she does.”
“Is having her here worth risking your marriage?” Will asked pointedly.
“Come on,” Mack protested. “It’s not going to come to that. Susie wants this paper to happen as much as I do. She’ll go along with this once I explain how important it is. I’m not going to give her a single reason to doubt me and my love for her.”
“You can try,” Will agreed. “And I can tell your mind is made up, but if you want my advice, kill this idea now.”
Mack looked to Jake for support.
“Sorry, pal. I’m with Will on this. It’s just begging for disaster.”
Mack sighed heavily. He heard what they were saying. He’d known in his gut ever since his conversation with Laila that involving Kristen would be a risk to his marriage, but he also trusted in Susie and their feelings for one another. He didn’t have any doubts. Why should she? Even with the cancer in the mix, surely she would be able to take a pragmatic view of what was necessary to get this newspaper up and running.
He scowled at his friends. “I thought you’d be my backup on this,” he grumbled.
“We both get where you’re coming from,” Will said. “We just think you’re delusional where Susie’s concerned.”
“Big-time delusional,” Jake confirmed.
With those discouraging words ringing in his ears, Mack headed back home. At least he would run the idea past Susie. If she was uncomfortable with it, he’d drop the idea of hiring Kristen and find someone else for the job. He even promised himself he’d be attuned to more than the words she spoke. He’d watch and listen for the subtext, all the things she wasn’t likely to say for fear of letting him see her insecurities.
“Susie, you here?” he called out when he entered the apartment.
She came to the doorway of the bedroom, looking vaguely green, her eyes dull. “Where else would I be? I haven’t been able to get ten feet from the bathroom this morning.”
Mack winced. He should have realized the chemo aftereffects could have kicked in with a vengeance by this morning. Sometimes she was fine for hours after a treatment, sometimes even for a day, and then she’d get sick as a dog. A few days later the nausea would be a thing of the past…until the next time.
“What can I do?” he asked at once. “Want some crackers? Ginger ale?”
She shook her head.
“Get back in bed and I’ll get a cool washcloth for your head.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Thanks.”
He went in to sit beside her on the edge of the bed, putting the cool cloth on her brow. “Better?”
“For now,” she said. “I hate this, Mack. It’s not how I envisioned our first year of marriage going, with me so sick I can barely sit up in bed some days.”
“There are plenty of other days when you can get up and even out of the house,” he reminded her. “The chemo won’t last forever. And you need to stop focusing on what it’s costing you and remember that this is the treatment that’s going to cure you. Concentrate on the goal. View all those nasty chemicals as your friends.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Whoever knew back when you were lighting up a gridiron that you also had amazing talents as a cheerleader, too?”
Mack laughed. “Just get me some pom-poms and I’ll do one of those old routines here and now. I’m pretty sure they’re burned into my memory.”
“Because you hardly ever took your eyes off Emma
Martin,” she teased. “Or was it Bee-Bee Leggett?”
“Depends on which year you’re talking about,” he responded.
“Or which month,” she said.
“I was a cad, no question about it,” he admitted. He smoothed her hair back from her face. “But no more. You know that, don’t you? I’m all yours.”
“I want to believe it,” she said, a faintly wistful note in her voice.
“You can,” he said firmly. He drew in a deep breath, wondered if this was a good time or possibly the worst, but plunged in anyway. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Are you up to it?”
“Sure. Anything to keep my mind off the fact that my stomach is dancing a particularly energetic jig at the moment.”
“We talked a little about my meeting with Laila yesterday, but we didn’t get into all of it.” He grinned. “You were having your wicked way with me, and I got sidetracked.”
“You said Laila had reservations about the loan.”
“She does, but I pitched an idea to her that seemed to relieve some of her concerns.”
“What idea?”
“There’s someone I’d like to hire to create the paper’s online presence, a woman I worked with in Baltimore.” He regarded her earnestly. “She’s good, Susie, one of the best in the business, and she’s way ahead of the trend. She’d be a huge asset. Laila agrees about that. In fact, she pretty much made it a condition of the loan.”
She nodded, studying him intently. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Then why not hire her, if it could clinch the deal at the bank? Why are you hesitating? Why even run it past me? The newspaper’s your baby, Mack. You certainly don’t have to get my approval for something like this.”
“I think I do,” he said.
“Why?”
Mack could hear the trepidation in her voice and knew she already suspected there was much more to the story. He looked away, drew in a deep breath, then said, “Because I slept with her.”
“I see,” she said softly, looking shaken.
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