by Beth Yarnall
He only hoped Lucy wouldn’t think all this work had been done for her because she couldn’t be trusted to turn up in something appropriate. Who was he kidding? That was exactly why all this work had been done on her behalf. His publicist wanted Lucy to wear a dress that would be—in her words—flattering, yet modest, appropriate, yet cutting edge, tasteful, yet elegant. Whatever all that bull meant. All he really wanted was for Lucy to look and feel beautiful. And if the dress showed a lot of cleavage, he’d be extra happy, but he had a feeling that tasteful meant a lack of exposed skin.
As soon as Charity left he gathered up his things, anxious to see his wife and daughter. Felicia knocked and then entered the room, shutting the door behind her.
“What is it, Felicia?” Cal asked.
“I know you’re about to head home, but Mrs. Gleason is here. She says it’s urgent.”
He snapped his briefcase closed and set it next to his desk. “Send her in.”
He finished setting his desk to rights as Felicia went to get Anne Gleason. He wondered what could be so all-fired important that she needed to see him at six o’clock in the evening without her husband. This couldn’t be good.
Anne swept into the room, wearing one of those dresses that tied around the neck and pushed a woman’s breasts up to her chin. He had to give it to her, she had nice tits, but they didn’t hold a candle to Lucy’s. Still he looked. He was a guy after all, and she’d put them out there to be looked at.
“Cal, darling. Thank you for seeing me without an appointment.”
She hit him with her whole body, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a full-on kiss on the lips. Behind her he saw Felicia’s scowl before she shut the door. Shit.
He unwound Anne’s arms and pushed her back. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Gleason?”
She had the nerve to pout as she stroked the lapel of his suit jacket. “Now, Cal, I thought we were friends. When you call me Mrs. Gleason, it makes me think of my mother-in-law, and she was an awful bitch. Call me Anne.”
He pulled her hand off him and gestured for her to have a seat in one of the chairs on the other side of his desk. “Please have a seat…Anne.”
Instead of doing what he wanted her to do, she propped her hip on top of his desk and leaned forward so he had a clear view down the front of her dress. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
“I’m so glad you could see me. I wanted to thank you again for the lovely dinner at your house,” she said.
“Your thanks belong to Lucy. She did all the work. I’ll be sure to pass them along to her again.”
“Joel was quite taken with her. It was Lucy this and Lucy that all the way home. He’s become a bit obsessed. So I’ve come to invite you to dinner in our home. Just the two of you. We’ve got a wonderful wine cellar, so you might want to plan for an overnight stay so you can thoroughly enjoy yourself.”
“I’ll arrange for a driver that evening. What night are we talking about?”
“Oh, the sooner the better. How about this Friday, say around seven? Dress casually. I’m thinking of having Indian food. We’ll sit on pillows on the floor. It will all be very decadent and intimate.”
Lucy was going to hate spending another evening with the Gleasons, especially in a setting they couldn’t control. But he really couldn’t afford to say no. Buying Joel Gleason’s company would give him what he needed to not have to depend on investors for future projects. And he was looking forward to the day when he wouldn’t have to deal with investors.
“Let me check with Lucy to make sure we don’t already have plans, and get back to you.”
She clapped her hands together. “Lovely. I hope you can make it. I have something very special in mind for us.” She winked and hopped off his desk, making her breasts jiggle. Before he could stop her, she planted another kiss on his lips, then walked out the door with a wiggle of her ass.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then rubbed off her lipstick with one of the hand-stitched handkerchiefs Lucy had made him. If the way Anne behaved was any indication, they were going to be spending the evening getting backed into corners and swatting away hands. There was no way he was going to subject Lucy to that. He’d have to find another way to persuade Joel to sell him his company.
*****
Lucy stared at the gorgeous clothes scattered across her bed and hanging from the back of the closet doors. There was no note, just a comment from their housekeeper Hazel about how they were for her from Cal. Six evening gowns with matching shoes and bags and four different skirt-and-blouse combinations with accessories. What could they be for? She’d already bought what she thought was a nice dress for the Dallas Young Professionals Ball next week. Did he not trust her judgment?
She hadn’t spent as much on her dress as these dresses must have cost, but hers was still nice. And it fit. Fitting had been an issue in the dressing room and the reason she hadn’t bought the dress she’d really wanted. That and the money. She couldn’t bring herself to pay more than she would’ve if she’d been using her own money instead of Cal’s. It just didn’t feel right to her.
There was a knock on her bedroom door. She opened it to find Cal filling up the doorway. Her body reacted before her mind could with a stuttering in her chest followed by a flush that brought a tightening of her nipples and a wetness between her legs. If he threw her on the bed right now, she’d be ready to take him. It was as though her body recognized him as her mate and prepared itself for him. She’d never felt this with any other man except Cal. It both frightened and thrilled her.
“Hello, darlin’.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek.
She loved how he called her darlin’ with that long, slow drawl of his like a long, slow, full-body caress. Heat flashed through her again, and she was sure her cheeks were as pink as her blouse.
“Hey there, cowboy. How was your day?”
“Better now that I’m home. Can I come in?”
She opened the door wider, inviting him in. She loved how he asked her permission, putting her in control. He’d said he liked it and that it kept him honest, but she had a suspicion he wasn’t confident he’d get a yes every time. That had to be the most attractive thing about this new Cal. This man who was her husband and lover had given her the gift to heal at great personal risk.
“Ah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, surveying the clothes scattered across the bedroom. “I see the delivery arrived.”
“I’m assuming there’s a reason you did this.”
“It wasn’t so much me as my publicist, Charity. She seems to feel that the right clothes make the right impression.”
“I see. So until now I’ve been making the wrong impression?”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them palms up. “No, darlin’, not at all. That isn’t why these clothes are here.”
“So why are they here?”
“The dresses are for the ball. Charity says that as my wife you have to look the part, especially now with the negative publicity because of your asshole ex.”
“I already bought a dress though.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know that.” He walked over and examined three of the dresses that hung from the back of one of the closet doors. “I did have one requirement that it looks like Charity somehow managed to fulfill.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling insecure about this Charity fulfilling any of Cal’s requests. “What was that?”
He pulled a long, thin, lidded box from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it out to her. “They had to go with these.” When she didn’t immediately take it, he extended it out farther. “Go on. Open it.”
She accepted the box, frowning over the expensive gold lettering from an upscale jeweler downtown. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“I know.”
She pulled the ribbon off and lifted the lid. Nestled inside was a fine filigree
pendant with pearls, sapphires, and diamonds on a long, thin chain and a pair of earrings that perfectly matched. She couldn’t stop staring at them, tracing a finger over the intricate design that matched the engagement ring he’d given her. It was too extravagant and too expensive for someone like her, but she loved it. She absolutely loved it.
“Do you like them?”
She’d almost forgotten he was in the room. She’d been so taken with the beauty and intricacy of the design and the thought that something as beautiful as these could belong to her.
“They match your ring, except that I had pearls added. They’re Poppy’s birthstone.”
He sounded nervous. She glanced up to find him watching her with a look so intense her breath caught. He expected her to reject them, to reject him.
“I know,” she said. “They’re absolutely beautiful. But why?”
He let out a breath as if he’d been holding it waiting for her answer. “I wanted you to have something pretty.”
“These aren’t pretty, they’re absolutely gorgeous.”
His mouth curved up into a smile as his confidence fully returned. “I’m glad you like them.” He lifted her left hand. “I know colored stones aren’t what’s fashionable, but the sapphires reminded me of your eyes.”
Damn it! When he said things like that, it made her eyes all watery.
“Hey, are you crying?” He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “Are those happy tears?”
She nodded and sniffed, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with his handkerchief. “You always know what to say to make me turn into a watering pot.”
“Come here, darlin’.” He took her into his arms and rubbed her back. “I’m glad you like the jewelry. That’s stressful stuff for a man.”
“I like how you included Poppy in it.” She sniffed back more tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I was pregnant with her. I’m sorry you weren’t there when she was born and for all the months since. You’re a really good father.”
“Aww, Jesus, darlin’, when you talk like that… I didn’t deserve to be a father to her, but now I think I might. I’m trying real hard, and the truth of it is, she’s the best thing I’ve ever done, however accidentally and messed up I did it. I’m glad I’ve got this chance with her and with you.”
“Me too.”
She pulled back enough so she could go up on her toes and kiss him. As with everything with Cal, things got out of hand quickly, and before she knew it he’d backed her up against the dresses on the closet door with a knee between her legs, one hand on her breast and the other lifting up her skirt. Poppy started crying, and his hands fell away.
He put his forehead to hers and let out a breath. “Damn, darlin’, you’ve get me going from zero to sixty in about two seconds.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. “I’ll go get her.” He left to tend to his daughter.
She’d grown accustomed to having a real parenting partner since their marriage. Poppy lit up around her daddy. It was a treasure to watch the two of them together. She was starting to think that maybe things could work out for them. And that got her tearing up again. She unfolded Cal’s handkerchief to dry her eyes and froze. Lipstick. Red lipstick on the handkerchief she’d hand embroidered and had given to him. And he’d used it to wipe lipstick off. Off of what? And whose lipstick was it?
“Here she is.” Cal came into the room holding Poppy. “Sam said she heard my voice and started crying for me.”
He turned his face and kissed their daughter, and she saw the smudge of red at the side of his mouth. Her heart kicked out a ragged beat, and she flushed for an entirely different reason. This was how it had started the first time. Little signs that Lucy had ignored or made excuses for. In the end all of her denial couldn’t excuse the secretary Cal had bent over his desk and almost screwed. Hell, maybe he already had, and that scene in his office was one of many times he’d cheated on her. She only had his word to go by, and she wasn’t sure how good that word really was.
Now he was back at it. She’d been right not to trust him. Her mother had trusted her daddy even when he came home reeking of perfume with love bites on his neck. The last thing Lucy wanted for herself or for Poppy was a recreation of her childhood. Poppy would never hide in her room while her father fucked another woman as soon as her mother left the house. And she sure as hell didn’t want to ever look the other way like her mother did.
She reached up, swiped the lipstick off with her thumb and showed it to him along with the stained handkerchief. “Looks like you didn’t get rid of all the evidence. You’re getting sloppy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Oh, that.” He chuckled. “Anne Gleason stopped by my office to invite us to dinner.”
“And you kissed her.”
“She kissed me.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you implying?”
“It’s not like there’s no history here.”
“We’re not having this out in front of our daughter.”
He left the room. Lucy stewed like an overfilled pressure cooker. She didn’t have the self-confidence she’d had the first time she’d caught Cal cheating, but what she did have was a limit for how long she’d listen to him stammer and make excuses as to why he fell face first into another woman’s cleavage. Or why he couldn’t seem to keep his lips off another woman’s lips.
He came back and closed the door behind him. “You’re right. There is a history here, but it’s ancient history. I’m not cheating on you.”
“Yet? Or not at all?”
“Not at all.”
“What am I supposed to think when I find this?” She shook the lipstick-stained handkerchief at him. “How would you feel if you found evidence that I’d been with another man? How would you feel if you walked in on me with another man?”
“Before or after I punched him in the face?”
“I told you when we started this that I couldn’t take you cheating on me again.”
“I’m not. I wouldn’t.”
She stared at him, trying to find the truth in his expression. He hadn’t gotten to where he was without perfecting his poker face. But he wasn’t doing it this time. He stared straight back at her, and she could see the regret mixed in with something else—desperation. He not only wanted her to trust him, he needed her to. Her eyes teared up for a whole other reason.
She started to dab at her eyes with the stained handkerchief, then pulled the gesture in disgust and threw it on the ground. “I believe you.”
He sagged in visible relief. “It’s the truth, darlin’. I haven’t touched another woman since you stormed out of my office and out of my life. Every time I started to think I could be with someone else, thoughts of you would pop into my head, and everything in me would freeze up. No matter how many women I dated after we split up, none of them were you. None of them tossed their hair over their shoulder and jutted out a hip like you do. None of them made me feel both humble and like a conquering hero like you do. And I knew if I took them to bed that none of them would make that sound you make when I first thrust inside you.
“Or make me come so hard I think I might just die from it. And none of them would ever make me want to drop to my knees and beg to be believed. Because if you don’t believe me, we’re over. And I can’t be without you again, Lucy. I just can’t. So I’m thanking God you believe me. And I’m thanking you for giving me this second chance with you.”
She was sobbing now, covering her face with both hands, as he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I won’t screw this up. I won’t.”
She cradled his head against her chest and cried harder. She was right to trust in him. She knew how aggressive Anne Gleason was toward Cal and how she hadn’t hid her desire to sleep with him. His words played over and over in her head. He hadn’t been with another woman since they’d split up? She could hardly wrap her mind around it. He’d gone without for seventeen months while she’d given herself to some
one who had ruined her life and was still ruining it.
She cried for the time they’d lost together and the mistakes they’d made and for the sheer joy of finding each other again after all they’d been through. She couldn’t seem to stop crying until Cal lifted his head to look up at her and she bent to kiss him. The rising tide of sorrow and regret inside her spilled over, catching fire and morphing into something else altogether.
And then she was kissing him for an entirely different reason that had nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future, their future together. She dropped to her knees in front of him, yanking on his shirt, desperate for the feel of him under her hands. She managed the first couple of buttons and then just pulled the whole thing over his head. Her blouse hit the floor next to his shirt.
Cal let her have her way, shoving at his clothes, then hers. She believed him. When he’d never given her any reason to in the past. He’d lied back then and hid things from her and offered up the worst kind of betrayal. And she’d taken him back, taken him into her bed and her heart again. It was all he could think about as he laid her down on and crawled between her wide-spread legs, as he rolled the condom on and lowered himself over her.
He entered her slowly, watching her face and the way she dropped her head back and arched into his entry. He thrust hard into her just to hear the sound she made when he was fully seated. God he loved her. He pulled back and then came at her again a little harder, and then again and again, building the pressure between them until he was sweating from the effort and she was crying out so loud he was sure the whole house heard her.
When he finally let loose, rocking deep into her, it did feel like he might die. There was no other moment more perfect than being inside Lucy. He’d live inside her if he could.
Her hot breath blew on his cheek as he lay on top of her. He knew she was looking at him, but he couldn’t quite meet her gaze yet. The rawness of being inside her, of pressing himself into her, was still too new. He needed another moment before he could look into her eyes without tearing his heart out of his chest and laying it at her feet.
