"Who wouldn't be?"
"And don't you think they picked up on that?"
She hesitated. "I suppose so."
"So did it ever occur to you that both Roger and Ben decided to beat you to the punch, rather than wait around for you to call a divorce attorney and serve them with papers?"
She started to shake her head, and he said, "Any guy with a serious ego, that's just the sort of thing he'd do. The last thing he'd want is to let his woman get the jump on him. Then he could spread it around what a lousy wife she was, how it was all her fault."
Amanda was giving this some thought, he could tell. She drank deeply from her champagne flute. Her eyes appeared slightly unfocused. She reached past him for the bottle and refilled her glass. Well, at least she'd sleep well tonight.
Could Amanda's disastrous marriages be at the root of her need to be in control? Nick wondered. If he'd been discarded by two wives in rapid succession, if his world and his dreams had been ripped apart not once but twice, he might feel a need to orchestrate every detail of his life, too, from business matters to personal relationships to projecting just the right public persona.
She flopped back against the pillow once more. A few drops of champagne spilled onto her robe, but she didn't seem to notice. "I know you're just trying to make me feel better," she said. "Maybe you even have a point, but it doesn't change the basic facts."
"Which are?"
"I'm no good at being a wife. I'm not cut out for it. Some people are. Some aren't. Once burned, twice shy, they say. Well, I've been burned twice, and that's enough to make me shy for life."
She studied the tiny bubbles in her champagne glass, and he studied her. "They were really bad, weren't they? The divorces?"
She took a sip. "The second one, last year, was the worst. There was a time when just forcing myself to get dressed and go to work was a monumental task. Every day I wondered if this was the day when I'd fall apart. When I'd curl up in a ball and give up on everything."
Nick turned on his side, leaning on an elbow. "But you were stronger than that."
She shrugged. "I got through it. Alone. It's not that Raven and Sunny and Charli didn't care—they did, very much so. But they just never knew what I was going through. I never let them see how bad it was for me."
"Why?"
"I was afraid that if I let myself talk about it, if I relaxed this rigid control I had on my feelings, I'd … just come apart. I'd never be whole again." She glanced at him. "I don't expect you to understand."
He brushed strands of fine blond hair off her forehead. "I think I do." There it was again, the issue of control. "Did you ever get counseling?"
She made a wry face. "I should have, I guess. But like I said, I just couldn't talk about it. And I was kind of in denial, too. I told myself it's not that bad, I can handle this on my own, I've been through it before."
"And not so long before, right?"
She nodded. "My divorce from Roger was finalized three years ago this month. I met Ben on the rebound. He seemed so fun-loving, so candid and sincere. Refreshingly different from Roger. Or so I thought. In the ways that counted, they were cut from the same cloth." She lifted another strawberry from the platter, this one coated in white chocolate, and nibbled at it.
No wonder she was so skittish about relationships, Nick thought. With a history like that, chances were she no longer trusted her choice in men.
Amanda looked slumberous and sensual, sprawled against the pillow with in her pj's and robe, her face flushed from the champagne, her hair slightly mussed. Nick felt himself respond physically, so he resorted to his little trick to distract himself. He selected two distant locations in the city and began mentally calculating the most efficient driving route between them.
Let's see. Times Square to La Guardia Airport. Head east on Fortieth to the FDR Drive
…
Amanda focused her groggy gaze on him. "Now it's your turn."
"To do what?"
"To come clean like I did."
"About what? I've never been divorced. Or even married, for that matter."
She pointed an elegantly manicured finger at him. "That's it on the button. Don't you remember that night after my birthday party, when you said if I told you about my divorces, you'd tell me why you never got married?"
"The way I remember it, I said that if you told me why you married those two losers—not why you divorced them—I'd spill my guts. So you still owe me an answer."
"Why does anyone tie the knot with the wrong person?" Throwing her arms over her head, she stretched languorously.
Nick discreetly adjusted his shirttail, thankful it was a long one. Take the FDR Drive north
to the Triborough Bridge…
Down, boy.
"I'm not letting you get away with that," he said. "What did your exes have in common? Somehow Roger and Ben must have both touched you in the same way."
Amanda started to giggle just as the champagne glass touched her lips, resulting in yet more wine soaking into her robe. "That's just it. They both touched me in the same way, all right." Nick was about to ask what that meant when she added, "I have this unfortunate habit of marrying any man I sleep with." She slapped a hand over her mouth, obviously regretting the tipsy revelation.
"So what you're saying is, Roger and Ben are the only men you've had sex with."
She scowled. "What made me say that?"
Can't imagine, he thought as she reached across him again for the champagne bottle.
"You might want to take it easy with that stuff," he advised. "You're gonna feel like death warmed over in the morning."
"Okay, now you know the shameful truth." She poured herself another glass. "I'm practically a virgin."
"Well, I wouldn't say—"
"So fess up. How come you never married?"
"I almost did, once."
"What happened?" she asked.
"She tried to change me. I didn't like it. So I called it quits."
"Just like that?"
"Nothing is ever 'just like that,'" he said, "but yeah, that's the gist of it."
Amanda cocked her head. "What did she try to change about you?"
"The same thing my parents tried to change. What I did for a living."
"Oh. Well, maybe they just recognized your potential, wanted something better for you."
"Samantha wanted something better for herself, if you ask me. Though I have to admit, it must've been a shocker for all of them when I quit my job to become a cabbie and part-time carpenter."
"What kind of job did you have?"
"I was a fund manager for Paragon Investments," Nick said.
Amanda's jaw dropped. "You're kidding!"
"Is it so hard to believe?"
She stared at him. "No. No, it isn't. I'm sorry, I'm just … surprised. Oh, God…" she groaned, cradling her forehead in her hand.
"What?"
"What I said to you, during that ride home after my birthday party. Remember? I said I couldn't tell people you were a financial analyst. I said what if someone asked you about it and discovered you can't discuss the subject."
"Actually, the term you used was 'converse intelligently.'" He smiled, remembering. "You expressed doubts about my ability to pass myself off as a financial analyst or a neurosurgeon. If it makes you feel any better, I'm dumb as a stump when it comes to brain surgery."
"I must've sounded so…"
"Don't worry about it. How were you to know what I did in a previous incarnation?"
"But that's just it. I didn't know. I assumed. I never even asked you about yourself."
"You asked what I wear under my breeches."
She sent him a sidelong smirk. "That doesn't count."
Are you still curious? He bit his tongue to keep from asking it.
"So you obviously went to college," she said.
He nodded. "I have a degree from Carnegie Mellon."
Her eyes grew round. "And you threw all that away?"
&
nbsp; "I don't feel like I threw anything away. I worked in the investment field for seven long years. I can't tell you how frustrated I was in that environment. It wasn't for me—the hustling, the back stabbing, being cooped up in an office all day. Finally I admitted to myself that I'm just not suited to the corporate grind."
"So you started driving a cab."
"It was supposed to be a temporary thing." he said. "I found out I liked it."
"And you've never looked back."
"I've never looked back."
After a moment she said, "I guess that takes a kind of courage, trusting your instincts enough to make such a drastic change in your life."
"I don't know about courage, but I'm a lot more content than I was then. My income may not be what it was, but the money's steady enough and I'm not eating cat food."
"So you have everything you need."
"Everything I need, perhaps. Not everything I want."
"Does anyone ever have everything they want? I want to see a subscription to Grasshopper in every English-speaking home where there's a child under ten. But I'm a realist. I know that's not going to happen in my lifetime."
"What about in your personal life?" he asked. "What do you want most of all?"
"That's easy. I want my well-meaning pals to stop trying to set me up with Mr. Right."
"Maybe they just hate seeing you lonely."
"Who says I'm lonely? I have friends, relatives, a business that keeps me hopping." Responding to his dubious expression, she shot back, "So let me ask you—are you lonely?"
"As a matter of fact, I am." The admission surprised her, he could tell. "I don't think I was meant to live alone."
She said, "And yet you've chosen not to marry."
"I've chosen not to marry the wrong person."
"Ah." She touched her chest. "My particular specialty."
They polished off the hors d'oeuvres in silence. Nick got up and carried the empty platter, bottle and glasses to the table. Amanda's heavy-eyed gaze tracked his movements. He leaned over her, bracing his arms on either side of her.
"Happy New Year again," he murmured, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Their eyes met and something arced between them. When their lips touched, he couldn't say who initiated it, but it no longer mattered. The energy flowed both ways, feeding on itself. And still the only point of contact was their mouths.
That changed. Amanda's arms snaked around his neck, pulling him to her, and he didn't fight it He was helpless to fight it. He'd wanted this woman since the day he'd first set eyes on her. He joined her on the bed, half lying on her, their limbs tangled. The kiss went on seemingly without end, deep and hungry, as if they'd waited nearly three months for just this moment.
Nick lifted his head at last and stared down at Amanda. His gaze traveled from her slumberous eyes to her rosy cheeks to her mouth, now damp and parted and slightly swollen. He felt himself tugged in two directions. Amanda's hand slid under his loose shirttail and over his bareback, nudging his will in the direction of his heart rather than his head.
He kissed her throat, that tender patch of skin where her neck curved into her shoulder, the very spot he'd had his eye on for so long, wondering how it tasted. It tasted like Amanda always smelled, warm and womanly and mysterious. She arched against him with a soft gasp, clinging to him. She had to feel his erection, pressing against her hip.
He felt her mounting excitement as she pushed his shirt up, as her hands wandered from his back to his chest, touching, stroking. Nick struggled to restrain himself, but it was a losing battle. She filled his senses—her supple heat under his hands, the scent of her in his nostrils, the lingering taste of her on his lips—until all he could think about was feeding his hunger for her.
He tore at the tie of her robe and spread it open. Her chest rose and fell in a heightened rhythm, the nipples of her small breasts jutting against the thin silk of her pajamas. Nick felt reason desert him as he lowered his mouth to one erect peak. Amanda cried out, bucking beneath him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders under his nicked-up shirt.
He suckled her, drawing on her hard, scraping her lightly with his teeth, licking her with firm strokes through the wet silk. The desperate, breathy sounds she made tested the limits of his control. Too impatient for buttons, he pushed her pajama top up to her shoulders. A dark flush of arousal stained her chest. She moved restlessly against him, an invitation impossible to resist.
Nick kissed her panting mouth before moving lower to press openmouthed kisses to her perfect, gently rounded breasts, to the rosy tips, now tightly puckered. Amanda moved her head from side to side; he let her whimpers of pleasure guide him.
When at last he raised his head, she yanked his shirt up and off of him, leaving his torso bare. She slid her hands down his back to his buttocks and pulled him hard against her, kissing him hungrily.
Dangerously close to stripping off her pajama bottoms and plunging into her right then and there, Nick forced himself to pull back, trembling with the effort He forced himself to say, "Amanda, honey, we have to stop."
"No, we don't."
"Yes." He kissed her lightly, pulling down her pajama top to cover her. "We do." He started to rise. She stopped him.
"Nick." Amanda smiled up at him, a candid smile that held nothing back, not her need, sharp and sweet, nor her heady sense of anticipation. She revealed it all, trusting him. "I want you. I want to make love with you."
She tried to kiss him. Gently he touched her lips, thwarting her. With a teasing smile he said, "Aren't you the lady with the unfortunate habit of marrying any man she sleeps with?"
"Is that what you're worried about? Never fear. I've decided to eliminate all my bad habits, starting with that one."
"That's not what I'm worried about." Nick couldn't make his brain function when he was lying entwined with her; he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "I want to make love with you, too, but it's not a good idea. Not right now."
A wary watchfulness had dimmed her smile. "Sure feels like it is."
"You won't think so in the morning."
"You don't think I know my own mind?"
"Amanda. You've had a lot of champagne, honey. You're going to feel miserable enough tomorrow without having something like this to regret."
"It's not the champagne making me want to…" Her words trailed off. His expression must have told her it wasn't going to happen. Embarrassed color suffused her face. She sat up and drew the sides of her robe together.
Nick knew he'd hurt her, and he hated himself for it. He should never have allowed things to get this out of hand. The last thing he wanted was to contribute to her feelings of rejection and abandonment, after what her ex-husbands had put her through.
But he'd never taken advantage of an inebriated woman, and he wasn't about to start now. Not with this of all women. Amanda hadn't been with a man for well over a year, since sometime before her divorce from Ben. She wasn't just tipsy, she was emotionally vulnerable. If they made love now, Nick had no doubt she'd regret it. She'd regret it and she'd withdraw from him, and that would be counterproductive to his overriding goal.
He lifted her hand and softly kissed her knuckles. His grandmother's platinum-and-diamond ring glittered on her finger. "Amanda—"
She jerked her hand away and tied the sash on her robe. She didn't look at him. "Good night, Nick."
"This is my fault," he said. She didn't respond. Rising, he picked up his shirt from the foot of the bed where she'd flung it. "We'll talk about this in the morning." He let himself into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
* * *
Chapter 10
«^»
They didn't talk about it in the morning. Nick tried to, but Amanda stonewalled him. She knew there was nothing to talk about.
"I want you," she'd pleaded, as she'd practically torn his clothes off. "I want to make love with you." And he'd claimed to want her, too, lying like the gentleman he was, right before he peeled her off of himself a
nd hightailed it out of there.
Even now, five days later, as she headed for the exit at Saks Fifth Avenue
with her bulging shopping bag, Amanda felt a scalding rush of shame. Not for the first time, she wished she'd drunk enough that night to forget what a monumental fool she'd made of herself. She'd certainly drunk enough to produce a hellish hangover the next morning. Nick had been right about that.
He'd been right, too, about sex with him being a bad idea. She knew that now. She also knew it wasn't the champagne that had made her want him so desperately on New Year's Eve. But if he ever pressed her, she'd swear it had been precisely that, the alcohol going to her head.
Meanwhile she'd managed to avoid that promised conversation for five days. With any luck, they'd never have it. After all, their "relationship" only needed to last another six days. January 11 would mark three months from the date she'd first started seeing Nick. Under the renegotiated terms of the Wedding Ring pact, as long as she became engaged and the two of them had been dating for three months, she could call it quits anytime after that and be off the hook forevermore as far as Wedding Ring matchmaking attempts were concerned.
She'd give it at least a week after the eleventh, maybe two, so the timing wouldn't look too suspicious, then she'd make the announcement Thanks for all your unsolicited help, guys, but the wedding's off.
If the thought of being free of Nick in the next couple of weeks didn't make her feel all warm and fuzzy, that was only because she'd gotten used to having him around. Maybe they could remain friends, she thought. Maybe she and Nick could get together for dinner once in a while, just to chew the fat, without the Wedding Ring crew breathing down their necks.
It was lunchtime and the street-level selling floor of Saks was choked with customers. Amanda wove through them with the ease and skill of the power shopper she was, past glass counters and merchandise displays, her eye on the revolving doors.
"Amanda!"
She turned and spied Ben making a beeline for her from the direction of the men's department. No fewer than four shopping bags dangled from his fingers. When it came to power-shopping, her second ex-husband put her to shame.
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