“Like you’re shivering now?”
“That’s the cold.”
“Lucy, I don’t think so. I think you’re shivering for the same reason you were looking at my mouth. You want that feeling.”
“No, I don’t. I want Frederick’s mouth. He’ll get it figured out.”
“If it’s not there, it’s not there.” He brushed errant tendrils of hair from her eyes. “The real question is why are you willing to give up something so important?”
“Kissing is not that important. It wouldn’t even have made my list if I hadn’t given in to peer pressure.”
“You’re not giving up kissing. You’re giving up shivering, a whole lifetime of shivering when the man you love touches you. Can you do that? Is it worth it?”
He made it sound as if it was the most important thing in the world. What was she giving up besides a few goose bumps?
After a moment, she said, “It has to be.”
“Why?”
She looked at him for several tortured seconds, wondering if she could explain to him why she had to marry Frederick. “I don’t need to shiver, Noah. I need to feel safe. Frederick can do that. He’s a good man. He keeps his promises, and that’s more important to me than anything else.”
“Frederick doesn’t hold the franchise on keeping promises. Lots of men keep them.”
“My father never did, and I won’t let my kids go through that. It’s too heartbreaking to be let down again and again. It destroys your faith, little by little, until you don’t believe in anyone anymore.”
“So this isn’t about you? It’s about the children you haven’t had? Maybe you need to take some time, get out in the world, do some reality testing, and figure out what Lucy wants.”
“Lucy knows what she wants. And what’s wrong with planning ahead? I want children, and it would be irresponsible not to think long and hard about who their father will be, especially when I know how much harm can be done.”
Lucy had gone through her childhood thinking she was responsible not just for her parents’ failed marriage, but for the kind of man her father had become. If she hadn’t come into their life, he would have been happy with her mother, and he wouldn’t have been driven to lying, cheating, and stealing. She blamed herself, as children often do when adults misbehave and marriages fail. She was the interloper. She had disrupted their relationship, and therefore deserved his callous, hurtful behavior.
Noah was quiet for a moment. “Do you think it’s possible that you’re planning ahead to avoid what you need to do now?”
“No!”
The force of her objection startled both of them, and she quickly apologized. “Noah, even if I were dying to find out what it would be like to kiss you, I can’t. I can’t be frivolous about something like this.”
“Let’s go inside,” he said.
“So I can stop shivering.” She laughed, but it was bittersweet.
Once they were inside, he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I shouldn’t have pushed this, and I’m sorry if I upset you. I wish you well in whatever you decide to do.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m saying good-bye,” he said. “That seems the best thing, everything considered.”
“Everything considered,” she echoed. What else could she do?
“Right, then, I’ll leave you alone.”
He went to pack his toolbox, and it hit home that she wasn’t going to see him again. There was nothing to bring them back together now that the briefcase issue had been resolved. He would not be a part of her life in any way, and for some reason that was an unbearable thought to Lucy.
As he turned to go, she noticed the shopping bag. “Wait! You’re forgetting the briefcase.”
She picked up the bag, knowing she should give it to him. But she couldn’t seem to let go of the purple rope handle. “You’re leaving?” she said. “Just like that?”
“Yeah, I thought—”
“What about your speech about my not being committed to Frederick?” she blundered on, caught between needing him to stay and wanting to let him go. “I am, of course, but what if I wasn’t? It would be important to find out, right? Important for me to know that I was doing the right thing, making the right choice? Maybe it is important to know rather than to wonder. Maybe—”
He cut her off midsentence. She hadn’t seen him coming at all. She had her head down and was talking fast and clutching the bag, when suddenly he lifted her chin and bent as if to kiss her. The rope handle slipped from her fingers, and she swayed toward him eagerly, dizzily, touching his lips with hers, loving the heat and sizzle of his lips on hers.
It was a test kiss. Just a test.
She lifted up on her toes for another one. You couldn’t be too sure, after all. But he stepped back and looked her over.
“So?”
“S-so? Oh!” She managed a little shake of her head. “No, nothing really. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine?”
“Yes, thank you, fine. But I’m glad we did that. It’s better to know.”
She made her way around him—and the shopping bag—and walked to the elevator in a daze. She really did feel fine as she approached the car and pushed the DOWN button. Steady as she goes. It was only as she stepped inside and the doors closed around her that she had the presence of mind to take hold of the railing. By that time everything had begun to tremble, and she could barely hold herself up.
What was happening? She would love to have blamed it on the creaky old elevator. But it was her this time. She was shaking to pieces. At this rate, there would be nothing left of her by the time she reached the lobby—and she did not want to think about what that meant.
Chapter Five
LUCY would never have described herself as beautiful. Not in a million years. Attractive, maybe. Even slightly sultry with the dark hair veiling her eye, but not beautiful. Her father had told her once that she wasn’t a pretty child, and she’d taken it as one more reason that he seemed to resent her very existence. Now she knew that he was a profoundly self-centered man and an opportunist, who didn’t want to share the stage with anyone, not even a baby daughter. But the little girl she’d been hadn’t known that, and his words had cut deeply.
“He was wrong,” she murmured, studying herself in the full-length mirror.
“Who was wrong? That handsome fiancé of yours?” Elsa, the alterations lady, looked up from where she was kneeling on the carpet, pinning the hem of Lucy’s wedding gown. It was nearly seven on a Friday evening, and the staff had left for the weekend, so they’d decided to set up in one of the company’s unused conference rooms, where they would have plenty of space.
Now, Elsa was beautiful, Lucy thought. She was a Swedish import, in her late twenties, and an aspiring designer. Except for the pin cushion attached with red ribbon to her wrist, she looked more like a streamlined blond supermodel than a seamstress.
“No one,” Lucy assured her with a smile. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“We’re almost finished here.” Elsa worked the pins as gracefully as any harpist plucking strings. “Once I have the hem done, I’ll take a couple of tucks in the bodice, and the dress should fit like a glove. You’re going to be a gorgeous bride.”
“How could I be anything else in this gown,” Lucy said, returning to her reflection in the mirror they’d borrowed from the ladies’ lounge. “You’ve wrought a miracle, Elsa.”
Lucy blinked away the threat of tears as she looked at herself. Her throat ached with the awareness that her father really was wrong. She felt like a princess in this dress. She knew that brides-to-be from time immemorial had felt this way, but she wasn’t every bride, and she had never seen such radiance gazing back at her. The antique white satin fabric gave ocean depths to her blue-gray eyes and put a rose petal tint in her cheeks. It made her skin look like just-poured cream, and her figure both voluptuous and slender.
Frederick had actually found the dress at a local bridal shop, and w
ith his usual eye, he’d known the fitted waist and princess lines would be perfect for Lucy. But the size was wrong, and it had needed alterations, so he’d found Elsa and hired her. Frederick could always be counted on to do whatever was needed.
Lucy didn’t want to look away from the mirror. It was still hard to believe the radiant creature in the glass was her, Lucy Sexton. She didn’t know whether the dress was responsible, or whether she had always looked like this but hadn’t been able to see it until now.
Courtesy of her father, probably. She hadn’t heard from him since he disappeared nearly twenty years ago, one step ahead of the law, and she had no idea where he was. But the sooner she shut the door on that part of her life the better. Just to declare herself felt good.
She heard noises in the hallway and looked at her watch. She’d thought everyone was gone. As she craned around to see who was out there, her mother walked in the door.
Lydia Sexton saw her daughter, stopped short, and whistled. “Wow,” she said softly. “My baby’s all grown up, and she’s a knockout.”
“Do you like it?” Lucy asked. “Tell the truth.” She wasn’t at all surprised that her mother was still in the building—or that she would be more than happy to weigh in on the dress.
Lydia cocked her head, scrutinizing Lucy from head to toe. After a moment, she said, “Want my honest opinion?”
“Of course.”
She raised a motherly eyebrow. “Maybe a touch too much cleavage?”
Lucy glanced down at the lushness revealed by her gaping bodice and laughed. “Not to worry, Mother. Elsa has a couple of tucks planned. I’ll be decent for the ceremony.”
“No need to go that far,” her mother said with a wink. “Farewell, my chickadee. You’re stunning, and I’m starving. I’m going to hit a take-out place on my way home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Elsa went back to pinning, and Lucy went back to day-dreaming once her mother was gone. Guilt welled as she thought about the stack of work she had to take home with her tonight. She had a tough case coming up, and instead of staring at herself in the mirror, she should have been mentally planning strategies and thinking her way around the possible obstacles. But the pull of her imagination was strong, and it wanted nothing to do with conflict resolution.
She was in a dreamy mood, and that was rare for her. It was impossible not to imagine herself in the church at the moment the doors to the flower-adorned chapel opened, and the wedding march began to play. Her mother would walk her down the aisle, where her dashing groom awaited, fighting emotion as he realized that this day had really come, and what it meant, that his bride was giving not only herself, but two much more precious gifts: her love and devotion.
“Lucy? Where are you?”
A familiar male voice brought her back from dreamland.
“Frederick,” she called out, “is that you? I’m down here in the conference room, but wait! You’re not supposed to see me.”
Lucy glanced back in the mirror and felt an impulse sweep over her. “Oh, come and look anyway,” she said, giving her head a shake to discipline her hair. “Tell me what you think. Am I beautiful?”
She didn’t hear his answer, but that didn’t stop her. She wanted to share this moment, and she couldn’t wait any longer.
“Just a minute, Elsa,” she said, carefully extricating herself from the seamstress and her pins. Lifting her skirts, she picked her way over to the doorway and saw him at the end of the hall.
Was that Frederick? He seemed taller, but with the light behind him, she couldn’t see his features well. Her heart went a little crazy as she stepped out into the hallway and faced him. Her feet seemed to want to move before she was ready, and she heard her own nervous laughter. This had to be how a bride would feel as she began her walk down the aisle.
Lucy’s gaze was fixed on the dark figure, but as the angle of the light changed, she realized it wasn’t Frederick. He was too tall, his posture too casual. She let out a soft gasp as she saw who it was. The man waiting for her at the end of the hallway was Noah, and she couldn’t drag her eyes away from him.
Confusion made her blood rush. She felt light and unsteady, as if her feet had lost contact with the ground. The heavy satin of her dress became difficult to manage, but she continued her walk down the aisle that the hallway had become. Just moments ago she’d been lost in daydreams of her wedding ceremony, and it was exactly like this. But she hadn’t clearly seen the man she was walking toward. Of course, she hadn’t needed to see his face to know it was Frederick. Who else would it be? But now she wondered if in the back of her mind it could have been Noah she was imagining. Was it his image locked in her subconscious?
And was that why her heart pounded so hard now?
Frederick didn’t make her heart pound. He calmed her flights.
She watched Noah’s expression change from one of disbelief to an intrigued smile that was very sexy. There was awe and appreciation, too. In fact, there was everything she’d ever wanted to see in a man’s face as she walked down the aisle toward him.
She felt as if she were floating. Her fantasies took on a strange reality, and by the time she reached the man at the end, she was dangerously close to believing that he was the one she wanted waiting for her at the altar. But she also knew that was ridiculous. She’d never had a crazier notion in her life. She had to marry Frederick. He was perfect for her. He made her feel safe.
Noah spoke first, his voice husky. “I stopped by on the chance you might still be here,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting a bride.”
“I thought you were Frederick,” she said, hoping to explain away the breathlessness. Surely he could see the stars in her eyes.
“You are beautiful, by the way,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as you in that dress.”
“Really? Are you sure?” She glanced down at the gaping neckline.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“Not too much cleavage? My mom thought there was too much cleavage.”
Naturally, his gaze dropped to her breasts and she could see what the sight did to him. A muscle clenched in his jaw, putting an end to his smile.
“Obviously your mother and I place a different value on cleavage,” he said, clearing his throat of its rasp.
Suddenly she felt very naked, but in a good way.
“You look nothing but ravishing,” he added.
“Ravishing,” Lucy echoed. Heat flashed toward her throat, burning a crimson path in its wake, and she realized she couldn’t hide that from him either, not with all this skin showing. “I really can’t look ravishing right now. I’m just not up to it. Besides, it’s not me.”
“Ms. Sexton? Can we finish?” Elsa had come out into the hallway, and she was calling Lucy back.
“I’ll be right there,” Lucy said, fixing her gaze on Noah. “Why are you here?” she asked him.
“I wanted to see you. Why else would I be here?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here. We put it to the test, and it didn’t work, which only proves I was right. Frederick is the one.”
“What didn’t work?”
“The kiss. There’s no chemistry.”
He glanced at her lips and something inside her turned over and sighed. Her mouth had already gone dry, which it always did when she tried to tell a big fat lie. She was her own built-in lie detector. Her job might require her to bluff on occasion, but that was different.
He startled her by unbuckling his tool belt and taking it off. “I’d bet this belt on us, Lucy. If we don’t have something—call it chemistry or whatever you want to call it—I’ll donate this to a good cause.”
“Don’t be ridicu—”
“And keep this in mind,” he said, cutting her off. His voice was low, challenging. “You kissed me. I didn’t kiss you.”
Now there was an argument she hadn’t expected. It wasn’t easy to force the shakiness from her voice. “Noah, I’m gettin
g married next week.” She lifted her skirts, preparing to turn around. “We can’t see each other again. You can’t drop by.”
“No chemistry, huh?”
She swung herself around, managing to get out the word “None” as she did so. Elsa had gone back into the conference room, so at least Lucy didn’t have to worry about trying to hide her ragged nerves as she made her way back.
She knew he was watching and she prayed for balance and coordination. Don’t let me trip. Which of course, she did, almost immediately. It was just a little stumble, but she feared he might try to help her.
“I’m fine,” she called out.
He didn’t answer, which made her want to look over her shoulder to see if he was still there. What would she do if he wasn’t? Run after him? Have another change of heart, the way she did last night? Was he the one?
“No,” she said under her breath. No, he wasn’t. She wanted the father of her children to be everything her own father wasn’t: honest, compassionate, sensitive, smart, well-educated, and successful in life. He had to be a good role model and a man any child could look up to. Frederick was all of those things—and Noah? Noah made her sparkle. It was no contest.
She didn’t look back. She’d given in to enough crazy impulses for awhile.
But as she marched up the aisle, going the wrong way, she had the strongest sense that this had something to do with the direction of her life as well. Was she going the wrong way? It weighed heavily on her that she might never see Noah again. Would never see him again. She’d made that clear to him. Now she had to stick to it.
But she already felt a void, as if something vital had been cut from her life and some part of her was in danger of dying off. But that didn’t make sense. How could a man she barely knew have such an impact?
Was she supposed to disrupt her entire life because he’d come along and made her sparkle? The Fates were perverse in their timing, but she had a long-term plan, one she’d had since childhood, and she was sticking to it. There was a wedding next week, and she was going to be there, walking up the aisle the right way and joining in holy matrimony with the right man. Right? Right.
Man of My Dreams Page 20