Loved Me Once (Love, Romance and Business)

by Gail Hewitt

  "You were right."

  "What?"

  "You were right." She looked at him. "It was exactly what you thought. He didn't care anything about me professionally. He just pretended to because he wanted an excuse to keep me around."

  "How long did it take you to figure that out?" he asked, face still expressionless.

  "I didn't. Call me a slow learner. I thought his attitude was odd when I quit the job on Monday — but that was all."

  "You quit? Why didn't you call me?" he leaned across the table and took her hands, his fingers warm on her skin.

  "I didn't think you'd want to hear from me," she told him. "After what you said at the City Club. That au revoir comment was pretty cold."

  "Damn it, Maggie, you should have known I was just . . . just venting. That meeting just about killed me."

  "You could have fooled me. I'm not very good at figuring out things like that. I'm not very good at anything emotional, at least not until you."

  "Yeah, well . . . " He started to smile, then stopped and his expression changed, as if something disturbing had just occurred to him. "Out of curiosity, if you weren't okay with calling me Monday, why'd you decide to text me two days later? What changed?"

  Truth time, she thought, well, sort of truth time.

  "On Wednesday, Tom admitted why he'd hired me and then asked me to marry him. That made me think about everything a lot harder, especially something he said while he was talking about the plane and the yacht and the Venetian chapel and the Vera Wang wedding dress and the British Virgins honeymoon and all the rest of it." She took a deep breath. "He told me you were the one who bought the house in Atlanta. Was he right?"

  "How'd he know?" Miles demanded. "I told the agent . . ."

  "Don't blame the agent. Tom has a 24/7 security force, and for all I know his own credit bureau. They check everything and everybody in which he's vaguely interested, and you made his radar, especially since it was my house that was involved."

  Miles shook his head, but said nothing.

  "Why'd you do it?" she asked him.

  He looked away, then back at her, as if deciding something.

  "I knew how worried you were about money," he said simply. "Whatever happened between us, I didn't want you doing something you'd regret later just because you were concerned about what would happen to your mother. You wouldn't come to work for the company. I knew you wouldn't take money from me. Buying the house was the only way I could think of to take that pressure off you so it wouldn't even be a consideration."

  "A consideration?" She thought about that for a moment. "You thought I'd go to Tom for the money to save the house for my mother?" she asked. "And then I'd feel obligated to him?"

  "Don't look so shocked. It would have made sense but, no, that wasn't what I thought. I'll admit it did occur to me that worrying about the house might distract you from what was really going on and if Scott started offering to help, you might feel you had no choice but to give in."

  "And you weren't even going to tell me you'd done it?"

  "What was the point? I didn't see that buying the house meant I had any special claim on you, just that it prevented anyone else from jumping in who might feel differently."

  "What if I'd agreed to marry him?" She looked at him appraisingly.

  "You had the option to buy it back any time by repaying what had been paid, plus interest. All very businesslike. The mystery buyer would have been out of your life, with you none the wiser. I would almost certainly have made at least as much money as I could have keeping the money where it was. If, on the other hand, the transaction goes through the full five years, I'll almost certainly make money, probably a significant sum. It's a good real-estate investment area."

  "You really didn't want me to know what you'd done?"

  "I wasn't trying to make points. I just didn't want the house used as leverage by someone else, specifically by Scott. Mostly, though, I hated the thought of you worrying when I could do something about it."

  She lowered her head so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. He watched as, after a minute or two, she got up and came around to his side of the table, where she reached down, put her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him, a lingering kiss, a kiss for the record books.

  When they finally stopped for air, she laughed.

  "So you think the sex part of it isn't that important, huh, at least not compared to the commitment thing?" she asked.

  "I didn't say that," he warned, standing up and pulling her close. The heels were so high that she was almost as tall as he was, which did make kissing easier, she realized. Then she remembered something and pulled back, wanting to see his face as he answered.

  "Speaking of reciprocity, what about Aimée Girard?"

  "I tried," he admitted, "but she wasn't you." He took her hands.

  "So you are out of the supermodel business?"

  "Totally out of the supermodel business," he said. "How about you. Are you out of the Scott business?"

  "I told you that I told Tom that I wouldn't marry him. I don't know what else to say."

  "Don't get mad," he said. "That's a lot to walk away from."

  "This is a lot to walk to," she said, kissing him gently on the cheek, thinking that would end it.

  "So you're sure you're done with TTI and Scott?" he persisted.

  "Totally sure," she answered, frowning.

  "No regrets?"

  "No regrets."

  "Not even a backward glance?"

  He was like a bulldog tugging at a rope, she thought, but she answered. "Not one. Just let it go, Miles. It's all over and done with. Everything is but this."

  They stood for a moment, looking at each other silently. Then she took his hand and led him to the door and along the corridor to the Tea Lounge where a discreet sign hung on the door lever said "Private Valentine's Day Party." Through the heavy door the strains of an old love song could be dimly heard. Maggie reached for the lever.

  "It says 'Private.' Should we . . . " Miles started to ask.

  "It is private. It's a very private party," she told him, pulling open the door and walking hand in hand with him to the empty dance floor.

  He looked up at the canopy, stopped, looked back. "Maggie loves Miles, huh? It should read Miles loves Maggie. It should be a loop."

  "Don't be so anal retentive," she told him, holding onto his arm as the pianist swung into a jazzy rendition of All the Things You Are.

  Miles began to move her around the floor, one hand holding her hand, the other arm lightly encircling her waist. She thought of all the times they'd seen each other — all the pleasant times in all the different places — and of the time she'd finally really seen him, here, dancing in a way that almost broke her heart, being nice to someone he didn't know for no particular reason other than that he was Miles and that was the sort of thing Miles did. She nuzzled his neck, and he swung her around.

  "You think it might be time to commit?" he whispered.

  "Are you sure about this?" she asked him, pulling back so that he could see it was a serous question.

  "Absolutely," he said.

  They left the dance floor holding hands and did not speak as they moved down the corridor and into the tiny elevator and across the hall to the suite. Inside, the lights were turned low so that the colors of the roses in the huge bouquet on the table by the window were muted almost to gray, and the strains of Cyndi Lauper singing At Last came softly from the bedroom. Maggie struck a match and held it to the already-laid kindling, then turned around to ask Miles if he'd like some champagne, to find his arms already reaching for her, and there was no conversation, no champagne, just clothing fastenings that were frustratingly difficult to undo and hands that couldn't stop exploring whatever could be reached. As their need drew them into the bedroom, they were down to underwear, white cotton tee and briefs for Miles, the white lacy lingerie for Maggie.

  Miles held her shoulders in the soft light and looked her up and down. "Wow."
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br />   She started to tug at a strap to remove the bra, when he stopped her. "Let me," he whispered. He slid the straps from her shoulders. "Turn around." He undid the bra's rear closure, then turned her to face him and slid it away from her body, down her arms, leaving her breasts bare.

  "The only way you could look better than in this," he tossed the bra to one side, "is to have on nothing at all."

  He reached down and nuzzled her neck. Then, reluctantly removing his hands from her breasts, he pulled the short lacy slip down her body, leaving her wearing only the thong, the garter belt, and the lace-topped stockings. "Wow," he said again.

  Maggie slipped out of the thong as he watched. "Shall I keep the rest of it?" she asked, indicating the hosiery and belt.

  "I don't care," he told her, "as long as it doesn't get in the way."

  She laughed as he turned her toward the bed.

  Later, much later, the stockings and garter belt long discarded, the iPod cut off so they could hear themselves, they lay wrapped around each other, the sexy tenderness almost more than Maggie could bear.

  "I think we've missed dinner," he murmured, stroking her neck, making her nipples harden.

  "Nope, I've got the candy — just like before. If you really want it," she whispered, leaning over to kiss his chest, lightly tickling it with her tongue, moving her mouth over his body, stroking him gently with her fingertips, the warmth rising from his skin fueling her desire.

  "Well, it's one way to go," he said, reaching for her.

  Afterwards, still breathing hard, they lay side by side on the bed, caressing each other. He rolled over, turned on the bedside lamp, and sat up cross-legged in order to look down at her, an unexpectedly serious expression on his face.

  "Are we gonna do this thing, Maggie? I mean, really do the til-death-do-us-part, you-and-me-forever thing? Just us?" "We're gonna do this thing," she told him, taking his hand and bringing it to her lips.

  "We can't get a New York license until Monday," he warned her. "I looked into it before."

  "That works just fine," she told him. "The suite's reserved until Monday, with an option to renew. So we're good."

  The End

  If you enjoyed this book

  preview the sequel!

  On the following pages you will find

  Chapter One

  of

  LOVE ME NOW

  The sequel to

  LOVED ME ONCE

  In which the story of Maggie and the men in her life continues!

  THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF HER LIFE?

  Maggie McLaurin awoke in the darkened bedroom of the Prince Albert Suite at Lake View Lodge, where drapes that hadn't been pulled the night before were open just enough to show that the sun had risen. It was February 15, 2009, the day after Valentine's Day, and it took her a moment to remember where she was and why she was lying, nude, in the oversized bed with undoubtedly expensive Egyptian cotton sheets twisted around her legs. Then everything came back to her, and she smiled. Yesterday was the day she had summoned Miles Brewster to Lake View, the day he had reluctantly appeared, and the day they had settled things between them.

  She smiled again, thinking of how definitively they had been settled throughout a very busy night. She stretched, pleasantly aware of her body, which felt as it did when she'd just finished a lap in the pool, thoroughly but pleasurably used. A shiver of delight ran up and down her torso. The sheets smelled faintly of musk, and a slash of lacy white silk lying an arm's length away proved to be the garter belt she'd been wearing when she and Miles fell into bed in such a state of mad intoxication that he'd barely entered her before he came for the first of many times. Which opened up an interesting train of thought – how many times had they done it anyway? First, there was the half-on, half-off the bed, with one of her feet still touching the floor. Then he'd rolled her to the center of the bed, straddled her chest, took her hands and used them to squeeze her breasts together, and then braced himself and began thrusting between them, stopping only to pump cream into her cleavage from the container she'd left on the bedside table. Then he rolled her over and then . . . As she worked it out – had there been an inch of the bed they hadn't used? – she slipped around the covers to collect the belt. Well, she thought, that was one piece of lingerie that wouldn't be usable again. Evidently it had not gone easily into that good night. She giggled. It was an odd line of thought. Somehow, a paraphrase of Dylan Thomas at his most depressing didn't seem appropriate for this sybaritic and definitely non-depressing scene. But it was more than the memory of excellent sex that made her smile. Miles loved her just as she loved him. They were together, would be together, and something she hadn't known was missing from her life was suddenly there, making all prospects sweeter.

  She could hear Miles' voice through the partly open door to the sitting room. He was talking on the phone, so softly she couldn't make any sense of it. Probably ordering breakfast, she thought, yawning. Well, when it arrived, he would have to come and get her because she was entirely too comfortable to get up unless highly motivated. She snuggled into the covers, and fell asleep with the scent of Miles all around her.

  Later she woke again, this time to silence and a feeling that more time had passed than she'd intended. She sat up and stretched, yawning, suddenly starving. Reaching out to the drawer of the bedside stand, she removed the small alarm with which she always traveled. No wonder she was so hungry. It was almost eleven o'clock, and the light coming through the narrow opening in the drapes was much brighter even though the room itself remained largely in shadows. She wondered what had happened to the breakfast that Miles had presumably been ordering earlier. For that matter, where was Miles himself?

  She slipped out of bed and walked to the large wardrobe in the corner of the room where she'd put her clothes when she arrived two days before, on Friday, nervous about what she was about to do, doubtful that Miles would even show. The door of the wardrobe had an elegantly framed full-length mirror. As she walked toward it, she could see reflected the bed behind her and, beyond, in the shadows, a rather ornate armchair in which a figure was sitting. Maggie instinctively whirled around, and Miles laughed as he got up and came toward her.

  "You scared me," she told him, her heart racing. "What on earth are you doing?"

  "I've been watching you," he told her, pulling her naked body to him. "I plan on watching you for the rest of our lives."

  "That's sweet," she said, "but I'm not sure I like being watched while I'm asleep."

  "Well, I'm not sure how sweet it was," he murmured, kneading one of her breasts. "I was thinking of all the things we could do, all the things I'd like to do to you." He took the tip of the nipple between his thumb and forefinger and pinched so hard that she involuntarily cried out.

  "Sorry," he said, "that was a little too much. What I meant to do was this." And he took the other nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinched it almost as hard. This time she was ready, and she was able to keep from crying out, but just barely. Her breasts were already tender from the things they'd done the night before, and the pinch had been seriously painful.

  "That's not funny," she told him. It wasn't.

  He laughed and tugged at the belt of the hotel robe that he wore, simultaneously drawing her body closer to his so that her nipples were touching his bare chest.

  "Next time I'll ice them first. You'll like it. You'll see."

  His hands began to caress her back.

  "You have the softest skin I've ever felt. It's like velvet, creamy velvet." He began pulling her toward the bed. "I want to kiss every inch of you," he whispered as he urged her backwards on the rumpled sheets, immediately beginning to suit action to words. His hot lips worked their way across her body, stopping only to suck first one breast and then another so vigorously that she instinctively tried to shift away. He was so intent that he didn't notice her discomfort, but began to nibble, pulling on the very tip of her nipple with his teeth. When she tried to move, he really hurt her, not nibb
ling but biting the nipple even as he squeezed the other breast so hard that she cried out in pain.

  This time she pushed him away, and he began to kiss her face, ending with his tongue halfway down her throat. As they kissed, his hand went between her legs, and he began to work first one finger and then another inside her as she thrust her body upward to meet his probing thrust.

  She felt his penis pushing against her leg, and moved so her fingers lightly brushed its engorged tip.

  "That does it," he murmured. Pulling reluctantly away, he rolled over to the other side of the bed and reached for one of the Valentine-candy condoms she'd brought from the city. He was putting it on when a brisk knock sounded at the hall door.

  "Damn," he muttered, tossing down the condom and grabbing the robe. "I forgot I ordered breakfast."

  By the time the waiter had set up the table before the big windows overlooking the lake and departed, Maggie had put on the other robe and was walking into the room.

  "Sorry for the interruption," Miles told her, grinning sheepishly.

  "Me too," Maggie told him, "but I'll admit I'm hungry. I don't think I've eaten a serious meal in days."

  Miles pulled out a chair for her as she sat down, managing in the process to pull the robe loose from her shoulders so that she was for all practical purposes naked to the waist. She looked down automatically. Her usually pale pink nipples were bright red and slightly swollen looking.

  "They look good like that, makes me think of what we did to get them that way," Miles murmured. "Are they sore?"

  "A little," she admitted.

  "Then it's definitely time for some cold therapy." He opened the small ice bucket that the waiter had brought with the bottled water and selected two cubes, then turned back to her, a cube in each hand.