“Next weekend?” Steve stalled for time. Over the years he’d attended more weddings than he could count, and that included serving as a groomsman in quite a few. He had an ironclad rule about weddings, though. Always go alone. Taking a date to such an emotional, symbol-laden event was like taking a stroll through a mine field. Unless one thrived on potential disaster, both were best avoided. As for taking Michelle to a private family wedding...
He felt himself beginning to sweat, though there was no external reason for it. He’d had a refreshing shower in the locker room and the day was sunny, but not hot. The heat he was feeling was strictly internal.
“Next weekend is bad for me,” he heard himself saying. “I’m booked solid—with golf games here at the club with half the state senate. I’m sorry, honey.”
“I thought that was probably the case.” Michelle masked her disappointment well. “But I thought—well, there’s no harm in asking.”
Steve was inordinately relieved by her uncomplaining acceptance. “No harm at all.”
Michelle had just freed Squeaky and Burton from their respective cat carriers—this time both cats had made the trip to Washington with her—when the phone rang.
“You’re back!” Steve greeted her exuberantly before she’d even said hello. “It’s about time, too. I’ve been calling all day. How was the wedding?”
She was surprised at his unbridled enthusiasm. Nor had she expected to hear from him tonight. He’d been aloof and detached every time she’d mentioned the wedding. Though she had accepted his “booked solid” excuse, Michelle was well aware that, to Steve, escorting her to her sister’s wedding, was as appealing as radiation poisoning.
“The wedding was lovely,” she said quietly. “Courtney was beautiful, Connor was handsome and little Sarah, the baby they’re adopting, was good as gold all through the ceremony.”
“Good. I’m glad everything worked out for them. Can I come over?”
“Now? Tonight?” Michelle’s heart skipped a beat. All during the drive home she’d been hoping to see him tonight but she’d also recognized the possibility that she might not, depending on his schedule—or his particular whims. As much as she loved him, as close as they were at times, she still wasn’t entirely sure of him. Sometimes she wondered if she ever would be.
“Now, tonight,” Steve repeated affirmatively. “If I leave my place right now, I’ll be there within fifteen minutes, maybe less if the traffic’s light.”
Could he actually have missed her? Michelle wondered, and hope soared within her. Watching Courtney and Connor together this weekend had filled her with powerful longings for a wedding of her own. Which was probably why Steve had opted out of attending the ceremony, she mused grimly. A man as experienced as he would expect such behavior from a woman. But the fact remained—she wanted to marry Steve, not to date him.
Steve arrived, buoyant and vibrant, as high spirited as she’d ever seen him. He gifted the cats with two of the tiny furry toy mice they adored, then presented Michelle with a gift-wrapped box from an exclusive lingerie boutique.
But she didn’t get a chance to open it, for he swept her up in his arms and carried her off to the bedroom. He was on top of the world, the Viking warrior snatching the prettiest wench in the village, the bold knight claiming his fair maiden, the lobbyist with a guarantee that the bill affecting his client would easily pass both state houses during Tuesday morning’s session, granting him a big, big bonus. And he was here with his sweet and sexy lover.
“I think you missed me,” Michelle whispered as he swiftly, deftly removed her teal blue camp shirt and shorts. She was wearing a lacy teddy in a matching shade of teal under it. When she’d put it on, she’d dreamed of him seeing her in it—and removing it.
Which he did with relish. “I did miss you,” he admitted, cupping her breasts. A surge of emotion swept through him, stunning him with its force. It occurred to him that he really had missed her this weekend. Desperately. Alarmingly. But he was not getting dependent on her, he swore to himself.
“I’m not used to spending weekends on my own,” Steve clarified his admission, his voice raspy with passion. His hands glided possessively over the curves of her waist, her hips, her thighs. “I’m not used to going nearly three entire days without sex.”
“Poor, poor Steve.” Michelle helped him pull off his clothes, her hands trembling as she touched the warmth of his skin, the hardness of his muscles. “We’ll have to make up for all that lost time, won’t we?”
He muttered an unintelligible exclamation and pulled her into his arms for a deep, hungry kiss, devastating in its intensity. Without breaking the kiss, he lowered her to the bed, slipping his thigh between her legs. Pliant and yearning, Michelle arched her body into the hard warmth of his.
During the weekend apart, both had thought constantly of each other, hungered for each other, and now that they were together, they were primed and ready for the rapturous pleasure and release they always found in each other’s arms.
“Steve, love me now,” cried Michelle, clinging to him, wanting him with a fervid need that was elemental and profound and almost painful in its intensity.
“Yes, baby.” With a low, sexy sound, he did just that, filling her, making her moan as their bodies moved together in a timeless rhythm that was universal yet uniquely their own. Passion and urgency swept them into a vortex of wild, mindless pleasure that built and grew and finally exploded into a burst of sensual rapture.
Languid and mellow in the sweet aftermath, Michelle cuddled close and kissed him lightly, lovingly. “I love you, Steve.”
It was only much later, after he’d awakened at dawn, that Steve realized a certain, shocking omission, the first one of his life. He’d been in such an all-fired hurry to get over here to Michelle that he’d forgotten all about taking precautions. He’d completely forgotten the vital step that for years had ensured him freedom and peace of mind.
Surprisingly he didn’t go rigid with horror. He was feeling far too confident to worry about a single lapse. Everything was going his way. He was on a career high and his personal life was deeper, richer, more satisfying than ever before.
Steve gazed down at Michelle, sleeping soundly on her back, her lips slightly parted, her lovely face completely relaxed in repose. He couldn’t bring himself to leave her tonight and return to his own place to spend the night, as he usually did. He smiled, remembering how thrilled she’d been that he had agreed to spend the night. He really should do it more often, he decided. He liked sleeping with her, literally sleeping. But not as much as he enjoyed making love to her. He wanted her again, in the most urgent way. Steve paused for only a moment before reaching for her.
A single lapse. Well, he was feeling lucky now. In retrospect, when had he ever not been lucky? He expected things to go well for him and they inevitably did. Wanting Michelle as much as he did, he could certainly risk a double lapse. Besides, he couldn’t not make love to Michelle. He had been able to turn away from women in the past if and when he chose, but tonight, right now, there was no choice to make. It was as if he and Michelle were destined to make love, and within a few passionate moments, they were experiencing the same desperate passion all over again.
Nine
July 4
It was now or never. Steve surveyed the members of the extended Saraceni clan, plus assorted friends and neighbors, gathered in the backyard of his parents’ Merlton, New Jersey, home. The yard was much too small to accommodate all the guests who spilled boisterously into the house and front yard. People juggled their plates and their drinks while they ate, standing or sitting on the grass.
Because he was a glamorous out-of-towner, as well as the adored eldest and only son, Steve was always assured a place at the sturdy, polished picnic table that his father had crafted years ago. Steve toyed with his ravioli—handmade by his grandmother because what would the Fourth of July be without Grandma’s ravioli?—then laid down his fork, his expression grimly determined.
He stood up, raised his voice to deep-pitched resonance and said, “I have an announcement to make.” A respectful hush fell over the crowd. When Steve Saraceni spoke, his adoring family and friends listened. Steve cleared his throat. “I’m getting married,” he announced.
There was a momentary stunned silence, and then pandemonium erupted. His mother and aunts began to cry joyful tears, his father and uncles rushed to shake his hand and jovially slap his back. His grandmother caught him in a bear hug whose force left him winded despite her diminutive size. Steve answered his well-wishers questions with his usual suavity, smiling and joking, rather enjoying being the center of such enthusiastic, ebullient attention.
Until he happened to catch a glimpse of his sister Jamie. She was standing a few feet away from him, apart from his crowd of admirers and watching him, her face devoid of expression. But her big dark eyes were flashing and Steve read the message in them. Jamie wasn’t buying it, not at all, and that one look from her sent him plunging painfully back to reality. Depressing, painful reality.
Getting married? Michelle hated his guts! She thought he’d used her to gain confidential information. He had made her pregnant, and she’d left town after telling him she never wanted to see him again.
An hour later, needing a breather from the pressing adulation, Steve slipped upstairs to seek refuge in his old bedroom. It was exactly as he’d left it when he had permanently moved out after college, a sort of shrine to his boyhood and adolescence. His sister Jamie was in there, diapering her nearly seven-month-old son, Matthew, on the bed. Steve tried to unobtrusively back out. The last person he wanted to talk to was—
“What are you up to now, Steve Saraceni?” Jamie’s voice, stern and disapproving, caught him before he could make his escape.
He managed a sickly smile. “I guess you’re as surprised as everybody else about my, uh, uh, big news, eh, Jame?”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Jamie said flatly. “I don’t know what’s going on with you but you’ve sunk to new depths this time, dragging the entire family into your latest devious scheme. Didn’t it ever occur to you that Mom and Dad and Grandma have been living for the day when you finally get married? That they’re going to be hurt and disappointed when—”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might be telling the truth?” Steve snapped. Jamie’s condemnatory harangues had always irritated him, never more so than now. “That maybe I really am getting married?”
“No. I seemed to be the only one who noticed the very conspicuous absence of the bride-to-be.” Jamie scowled at him, dark eyes snapping. “Oh, sure, you explained that she’s visiting her family. That just doesn’t ring true, Steve. If you, of all people, really were engaged you’d have your fiancee with you when you made the announcement, and don’t tell me how I know that, I just do. I know you, Steve. Very, very well. So whatever this nasty little plot you’ve concocted is about—”
“Okay, okay. Maybe I was a bit, er, premature with my announcement.” Steve’s defenses crumpled. He sat down on the bed and gazed blindly at his small nephew who was sucking vigorously on a pacifier. The baby had a shock of straight, dark hair and gazed up at Steve with his huge dark eyes, so like his mother’s, so like his uncle’s, then grinned widely around the pacifier.
“He’s a charmer.” Steve touched the baby’s small, sturdy fist.
“Mom and Grandma tell me constantly that he looks exactly like you did as a baby. I can understand why they doted on you so,” Jamie said dryly. She picked up little Matthew, smiling at him and cuddling him close. “But heaven help us, Rand and I aren’t going to spoil Matthew the way you’ve been spoiled, Steve. All your life you’ve gotten what you wanted by—”
“Your baby is so cute, Jamie,” Steve interrupted distractedly, awestruck by the child’s appeal. Little Matthew was laughing over his mother’s shoulder. When the pacifier dropped out of his mouth, he emitted a loud sound of baby protest, then began to chuckle again. Steve couldn’t take his eyes off him. “Why, he’s adorable! And he’s obviously smart and—”
“Cassie’s boys were just as cute and sweet as Matthew as babies,” Jamie cut in loyally. “You just never glanced their way until they turned five and could talk about TV shows and video games with you.”
Steve swallowed. “I’ve changed, Jamie. I’m different from the guy you’ve known—and disapproved of—all these years.”
Why, it was true! Steve was thunderstruck by the revelation. Though he hadn’t fully realized it until this moment, he really had changed! The simple fact that he’d dated Michelle exclusively—and been faithful to her for the past six months—was proof enough. But the changes within him, as their relationship deepened and evolved, had been so gradual and so natural, that he hadn’t even been aware of them. Until now.
“You claim you’ve changed.” Jamie eyed him skeptically. “And now you expect me to believe that you’re seriously interested in marriage and babies?”
Steve nodded with all the verve and vigor of a true believer. And now that he’d decided on his course of action, marrying Michelle, he would pull out all stops to achieve his ends. Convincing the dubious Jamie seemed a necessary prelude in winning back Michelle. He smiled his most effective, heart-melting smile. “Jamie, do you think if I had a, um, a baby, he would look like your little Matthew? I really hope so, although a little blue-eyed blonde would certainly be nice, too.”
Jamie’s heart appeared to remain unmelted. She did, however, gasp with shock and sink down onto the bed, the baby wriggling in her arms. “Holy saints!” she exclaimed, sounding a lot like Grandma. “Now I get it! You’re going to be a father! This woman, this Michelle, the one you say you’re going to marry, the one Saran told us you’d been seeing quite a lot of... she’s pregnant, isn’t she, Steve?”
Steve’s smile dissolved. A hideous lump of what felt like ground glass swelled in his throat and he couldn’t make a sound, only nod his head.
“Oh, Steve, how could you? Poor Michelle! No wonder she’s not here. When she told you the news, you told her it was her tough luck, didn’t you? You told her to get lost!”
“No, no! You’ve got it all wrong!” Steve stood up and began to agitatedly pace the room. “I didn’t say any of those things, Jamie. I made a date to see her at dinner to talk things out but she was gone when I arrived at her place. I tried to contact her. I called her stepsister who lives in New York but only got the answering machine and I don’t know where the stepsister in D.C. lives since her marriage in May so I—”
“Did you ask Michelle to marry you when she told you she was pregnant?” Jamie demanded. “Did you tell her you loved her and that you were happy she was carrying your child?”
Steve blanched. “No. I—I was shocked, Jamie. I never expected—”
“You are such a snake!” Jamie raged. She stood up and began to pace, too. “You aren’t careful and then you have the nerve to be shocked by the natural consequences! You didn’t say what that poor girl desperately needed to hear, and now you have the nerve to whine that she ran out on you.”
Jamie snatched a magazine from the nightstand, rolled it up and began whacking Steve with it. Matthew waved his chubby little arms and chimed in vociferously with his own baby syllables.
“Hey, what’s this? The latest sortie in Saraceni sibling warfare?” Rand Marshall, Jamie’s husband, entered the room and took in the scene at a glance. Baby Matthew crowed with delight at the sight of Rand and launched himself into his father’s arms. “Stop picking on poor Steve, Jamie,” Rand added drolly. “After all, he’s only twice your size.”
Jamie dropped the magazine but her dark eyes were glittering with emotion. “Oh, Rand, he’s really done it this time. He got a girl pregnant and rejected her and now he’s telling the family he intends to marry her when he doesn’t.” “But I do!” Steve exclaimed. “I really want to marry her. After I made the announcement to the family, I—I realized that I wanted it to be true. And having to defend myself to you total
ly convinced me, Jamie. I want to marry Michelle.”
“Do you love her?” Rand asked wryly.
“Yes.” Steve’s dark eyes were filled with pain. It was the first time he had admitted it, even to himself. If only Michelle had been around to hear it. “I love her. More than I wanted to. I never wanted to fall in love. But it happened and I want her forever. I’ll never be happy without her, I know that now.”
“Why don’t you tell her so?” suggested Rand.
“Only leave out all the I-never-wanted-to-love-you angst,” Jamie added. “Instead, say that you—”
“Honey, you don’t have to write a script for him,” Rand said amusedly. “When it comes to making a case for himself, your brother is in a class all his own.”
“Not this time.” Dispirited, Steve sat down in his old desk chair. “You see, there’s an additional complication. Michelle thinks I used her to obtain inside information for one of my clients about a bill her boss introduced.”
“Did you?” Jamie asked severely.
Steve winced. “No. I had some confidential inside information, but not from Michelle. I learned where the sites being considered for hazardous waste elimination centers by the committee were to be located and passed on the word to my client. They bought property in the proposed counties. When the bill passed, they were light there, as owners of the land.”
“So your clients got the contracts to build the centers, you got a nice fat bonus, but Michelle ended up pregnant, feeling used and abandoned.” Jamie shook hferbead. “There’s no easy way out of this one, brother dear.” Rather tentatively, she patted his arm. “For the first time in our lives, I actually feel sorry for you. And if you really love Michelle, I hope she’ll give you another chance to prove it.”
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