No, that wasn’t all. He could deny it. Deny it was happening. “Suppose I don’t want to take those steps? Suppose I already know where they’ll end up and I don’t want to go there?”
She knew he wasn’t talking about falling in love. He was talking about the consequences. The ones he’d suffered for loving his wife. But it didn’t have to be that way.
“The interesting thing about a road, Alec, is that it can be widened, redirected, landscaped. You just never know until you go down it again just where it might actually lead.”
She was making prophecies now. He grinned. “You’re really getting into the part, aren’t you?”
“Consider it a reading. On the house.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder again and let the music take her away.
Whatever else happened, she had this moment and she was going to savor it.
Chapter Eleven
“It was a lovely party, wasn’t it?” Marissa asked as she entered the living room. She had just finished checking on the children. Both were still asleep. She’d decided to leave Christopher in Andrea’s room for the night, rather than take him back with her to their quarters. There was a baby monitor set up in her quarters that would alert her if either of the children was up and needed her. It was one of several units she’d had Alec purchase.
Roberta had left immediately after they’d arrived, declaring herself “too tired to talk.” For all intents, they were alone.
It was late, time to call it a night. And yet he couldn’t leave the room, couldn’t take his eyes off Marissa as she walked toward him, her skirt swirling sensually around her legs with each step.
“Yes,” he agreed, “it was nice.”
She was surprised at the admission. “I think you actually mean that.” It was a little thing, but it made her happy to know that he had enjoyed himself with her. Marissa stood in front of him, knowing she should be going, wanting to be exactly where she was. “What happened to the disgruntled Gypsy prince?”
“He became gruntled.” Alec laughed. He was talking nonsense and enjoying it. Treading on quicksand again. How had that happened? “I guess I’m feeling a little intoxicated.”
On one glass of wine? She sincerely doubted it. “I only saw you take one drink.”
His eyes met hers and found themselves imprisoned. Alec rested his hands on her shoulders. “I wasn’t talking about alcohol.”
He held her so that her body was almost touching his. “Oh?”
“Yes, ‘oh.’”
He slid his finger along the large hoop at her ear and with a slight tap, sent it swaying hypnotically. Everything about her was hypnotic. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall under her spell. As if he hadn’t already.
“You do things to me, Marissa. Things I like. Things I don’t think I should like.”
The feeling was more than mutual. One look from him set off a tidal wave of emotion within her. “Why?”
He sighed, knowing he shouldn’t hold her like this, knowing he was just making things worse down the line. But he couldn’t help himself. Every time he was near her, he wanted her.
“Because if I do, I’ll feel again.” He was lying. He already was feeling things. Feeling things for her that scared him even as he ran to embrace the wild, exhilarating rush they created.
But then, he never did have much sense.
Marissa tilted her head up, searching his eyes, trying to understand what he was telling her. “And is that such a bad thing? To feel?”
“It is, for me.” He traced his thumb slowly along her lower lip and felt desire grow within him. Saw it bloom in her eyes. “Marissa, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Ever so lightly, she pressed a kiss to his thumb. “You won’t.”
She sounded so confident. She didn’t know, he thought, couldn’t know. Her husband had left her, but their love had died before then. It wasn’t ripped away suddenly without warning.
“I will,” he insisted, his voice low. “Because I can’t give you what you want. A home. A family. Stability.” He knew the kind of woman she was, even though she had never made a single demand on him. He knew just by listening to her, by watching her. She had needs he couldn’t fulfill.
She looked around the room. He already had a home and a family. She just wanted a small place within that. “I don’t understand. You can’t share this with me?”
It wasn’t a place or a thing, it was larger than that. He could give her shelter, a house that went beyond anything she’d dreamed. But what she really wanted, he couldn’t give her.
“I can’t share me with you.” It upset him to see the look in her eyes and to know he was responsible for it, but better a small hurt now than a much larger one later. “I’m a coward, Marissa. I’ve been there once. To hell.” He said the words as if he were feeling the pain all over again. “It was all I could do to find my way back again. If it wasn’t that I had Andrea to take care of, I wouldn’t have made it.” His eyes touched her face, hoping she could find it in her heart to forgive him. “I don’t want to go to hell again.”
Why did he have to pronounce what was between them dead before it ever had a chance to live? “No one’s sending you there, Alec.”
Christine hadn’t expected to die, either. But things happened. And left behind shards of glass that slashed away pieces of a grieving heart. “But it’s there, waiting for me. If—”
“If,” she repeated. She knew what he was about to say. “If I should die.” Marissa pressed her lips together, promising herself she wasn’t going to cry. Tears weren’t going to help. “Did I tell you longevity runs in my family? I have a great-aunt who’s almost a hundred. And a few scattered relatives in their eighties.” She took a deep breath. This wasn’t about longevity, or dying. This was about fear. “You can’t approach life just staring at a bottom line. The bottom line is there for all of us, eventually. But it’s what we do before we reach it that counts.” Her eyes pleaded with him to cross the line he’d drawn for himself. “I would rather have a little of something good than an eternity of nothing at all.” She released a breath, searching his face for a sign that she had gotten through. “Does that make sense to you?”
He took her hands in his. She was a sweet, sweet woman and she deserved so much more than he could give her. She deserved someone who could love her unconditionally, without fear. That wasn’t him.
“Logically, yes. Emotionally…”
She bit her lip. She’d meant it when she said she would take a little and be satisfied with it. “I’m not asking for commitments.”
He knew better, even if she thought she was telling him the truth. His heart swelled at the sacrifice she was prepared to make. The one he couldn’t allow her to make. “Your lips aren’t. But your eyes are. You’re not the sort of woman who would be satisfied with a casual affair.”
Her eyes glinted like twin pools of warm, inviting water. “Try me.”
He wished she would stop. He only had so much strength, so much willpower. A man had his limits. “I won’t do that to you.”
She felt the tears begin to slip past her safeguards, wetting her lashes. Marissa drew herself up. “God, but you are noble.” She backed away, trying to save a shred of her pride. She’d just thrown herself at a man and had him step aside, letting her fall. She felt as if she’d just crashed onto the concrete from a five-story drop. She had to leave now, before he saw her crying. “Well, I have an early day tomorrow.” She turned away from him just in time. One tear slid down her cheek, paving a way for others. “So, if you’ll excuse me.”
She was walking away, leaving, taking temptation with her. It was going to be all right. All he had to do was retreat. Turn around and walk up the stairs to his bedroom.
He could tell by the set of her shoulders how much he had hurt her by refusing what she was so generously giving. Nobility warred with needs. It wasn’t even close.
“Marissa?”
If he was going to tell her that this was for the best, she was goin
g to hit him. This was hard enough to endure without being told that it was good for her. Because it wasn’t. He was good for her. Alec made her happy, made her son happy. How could not being together be good for her?
Marissa barely had time to turn around before Alec swept her into his arms, his mouth coming down hard on hers. The passion he’d been trying so hard to deny captivated her, white hot and searing, instantly drawing a matching response from within her.
She tasted of tears, he thought. Tears he was responsible for. It was just the beginning, he knew, but he could no more stop himself than he could walk on water. It was beyond his control now.
Yes. Yes! Marissa wound her arms around him, wound herself around him. She kissed him as if her very life had been given back to her.
Because it had.
His mouth raced along her face as Alec tugged at the edge of her blouse, pulling it out of the waistband of her skirt. He wanted to touch her, wanted to be with her in the wondrous, intimate way a man could be with a woman. The way he needed to be now, quickly, before common sense and his conscience caught up to him. Because everything he had said to her was true. He couldn’t give her what she needed most, but he just couldn’t help himself, either. This need for what she could give him was far too great.
He felt the blood rushing in his ears as he splayed his hands along her waist, holding her to him, worshipping her with his lips. Hungrily, he found his way back to her mouth. Over and over again, he kissed her, finding bits of himself within her offering.
Everything within her cried out for this moment. For at this moment, he was hers completely. She knew it was only a small window in time, but it was enough. It was all she needed to wedge in and find a place for herself within his heart.
She had needed this opportunity and now, suddenly, it .was here in front of her.
And then, just as suddenly, it disappeared, chased away by the wail of a baby. By an urgent cry. Not any more urgent than what they were both feeling, but for the moment, at least, more important.
Marissa could almost feel her heart sinking within her breast. She knew if the passion stopped now, before it had time to bloom, before he could fully understand how much they truly did need each other, it might never begin again.
But they couldn’t take one another when a child needed them.
“The baby,” she whispered, her breath heavy against his cheek.
“Yours or mine?”
His brain swimming, Alec couldn’t distinguish the difference between their cries. It was sheer agony to pull away from her, but he did. Andrea or Christopher needed her. And they were the ones who truly counted here, not this insistent burning within his loins.
Marissa dragged air into her lungs. It wasn’t enough to still her racing pulse or silence the wild beating of her heart in her ears. She felt a sob rising in her throat and suppressed it.
“Yours.” It was a pitiful, bleating sound that could mean anything. Most likely just a diaper that needed changing, but she had to be sure. Marissa was already backing away. “I’d better go see what she needs.”
He could only nod, trying to pull himself together. “You’d better,” he agreed quietly.
As she left the room, Alec sank down onto the sofa, rubbing his hand over his face, trying to gather his wits together. God, what had he almost gone and done? If Andrea hadn’t cried out just then, he would have taken Marissa in the middle of his living room like some rutting animal, like some creature that couldn’t think or use any selfcontrol.
Just to satisfy his physical needs.
He wouldn’t glorify it, that’s what it was. An overwhelming physical need that sprouted, hoary and demanding, whenever he was around her.
He had nothing to offer her. Nothing. He was empty inside. What love there still was belonged to Andrea. The rest, what a man should feel for a woman, just wasn’t there.
And she deserved more.
When Marissa walked into the living room twenty minutes later, Alec was gone. She knew he would be, al though she had hoped otherwise.
Marissa let out a long sigh and shook her head. Maybe she was being an idiot, putting herself through all this. But Alec was the first man she had cared about since Antonio.
Maybe even, she amended, the first real man she’d ever cared about, period. Real men knew about the sacrifices that love demanded, that love needed. And Alec had pledged his heart once to a woman who was no longer there. He’d remained faithful to that pledge.
She had to respect him for his decision.
If only she didn’t feel as if she literally bloomed whenever he was near her. As if she needed to feel the touch of his hand on her skin, or his eyes on hers to go on existing.
Fresh tears rose, melding into her lashes like unshed diamonds. She was only fooling herself. This wasn’t a situation that could continue indefinitely. One way or another, it was going to have to be resolved.
Tears slid down her cheeks as she walked out. Optimist or not, Marissa had a sinking feeling she knew how it would ultimately be resolved.
Alec had kept his distance.
It wasn’t hard. Work would have practically consumed him if he allowed it. Every time he turned around, there was something else demanding his attention, his expertise. With Maxwell’s new backing, the company was expanding so rapidly, it was a struggle just keeping up. He certainly felt as if he needed a break.
But there was no way he could get a respite. If he left some of the madness behind and worked out of the house, she would be there, singing to the children, cooking, taking care of the house, him and every detail in his life with such an effortlessness that he would get comfortable again.
And he knew where that would lead. To a fatal mistake. The one he had almost made before his daughter had inadvertently rescued him.
Rex thought that he was lucky, having someone like Marissa in his life. Alec didn’t feel lucky. He felt tortured.
Rex popped into the corner office to see if Alec was still there. Disbelief and disapproval crisscrossed his furrowed brow as he entered.
Rex leaned a hip against the drawing table. If Alec didn’t take the cake, he didn’t know who did.
“Personally, I think you’re an idiot. Brilliant,” Rex qualified when Alec looked up at him sharply, “but an idiot.”
Alec rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had been staring at the same screen now for fifteen minutes and his eyes were tired. His head was throbbing, making him irritable. “And to what do I owe this assessment?”
Alec had never been able to play dumb very well. “You know damn well what you owe it to.” Rex leaned forward, getting closer to his friend, though his voice filled the entire room. “You’ve got a gorgeous woman in your house and you don’t do anything about it.”
The chair squeaked as Alec leaned back. Just what he needed, someone else to tell him how to live his life. “And what do you propose I do about it?”
Rex threw up his hands. “At the very least, sleep with her.”
This was going to be a dead-end conversation. Alec didn’t need or want any more advice from anyone. “How do you know I don’t?”
Rex snorted. “Because I know you. You’re so damn honorable, you don’t believe in one-night stands.” A sly look slipped over his wide features. “Although her particular stand deserves at least a month’s dallying, if not more.”
Alec could feel his temper simmering. “That’s enough, Rex.”
Rex spread his hands in mock innocence. “Hey, if she were in my house, I’d certainly avail myself of what she has to offer. Why don’t you?”
Dark brows touched over the bridge of his nose as Alec scowled at the man he considered his friend. His voice was steely, dangerous. “I said, that’s enough, Rex.”
Rex smiled in triumph, the lecherous look leaving his face as if it had never existed. “Yes, I do believe it is.”
Giving up, Alec abandoned the computer screen altogether. He turned his chair around to face Rex squarely. “What the hell are you talking
about?”
“An experiment,” Rex answered mildly. “I just proved my point.”
Alec was in no mood for playing any games. His temper was just about rubbed raw. “Which is?”
“That you’re in love with her.”
Alec stared at Rex for a second, stunned, before he finally found his voice. “You’re crazy.”
“No, but you are,” Rex insisted seriously, “if you screw this up and let Marissa get away.” He saw Alec opening his mouth to protest, and continued quickly. “In the last two weeks, you’ve been spending more time here than Joe and me put together.” And there was only one reason for it. “You’re hiding.”
“I’m working.” This was ridiculous. He didn’t have time to defend himself like this. Had Rex gone completely crazy? “Hey, you’re the one who keeps telling me we need all this—” exasperated, Alec gestured at the piles on his desk “—done yesterday.”
It was an excuse and they both knew it. “Yes, but it’s my job to run around like a chicken without a head.” They’d had so-called crises before and Alec had never practically lived in the office. He was too much of a family man for that. “You’re supposed to be like Scotty on the Enterprise and tell me that you ‘Canna do it, cap’n.’”
Rex rendered probably what would have gone down as the worst impression of the popular character in history. Alec would have laughed at it if he weren’t so annoyed with him.
“And then you work a miracle or two and get it done. But not immediately. Take some time, breathe. We set up a workstation for you at home, for God’s sake. Use it,” Rex ordered.
He didn’t need Rex to remind him of the workstation at home. Home was where his problem was.
“I do,” he growled.
“Yeah. On Wednesdays, when she’s at class.” Rex knew all about her classes. Under prodding, Alec had told him a few things about Marissa the Monday after the party.
“That was my arrangement with her,” he said coldly.
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