IN THE DARK

by Pamela Burford

  She looked longingly at the full coffeemaker, filling the kitchen with its irresistible perfume.

  "Not for you," he said, shoving the milk under her nose. "And no more wine, either. And if anything has to be lifted, you wait for me."

  She glared. "Are you going to be doing this for the next two and a half weeks?"

  "Doing what? Making sure you look after yourself? And your baby?"

  Your baby. Cat felt a sudden tightness in her chest. "I don't need you badgering me."

  "Yeah, right. You wouldn't even know you're pregnant if I hadn't bought the damn test and made you use it. Drink your milk."

  "You poured me too much." She took a swallow.

  "So. Your folks. What's the story?" When she gave him a disgruntled look he added, "Hey, I came clean with you. I told you stuff I never told anyone. You're not allowed to hold back."

  She wasn't going to win this one. "It's a common story, really. No big deal. My parents divorced."

  "How old were you?"

  "Eight."

  "That's a rough age to go through something like that."

  "Is there a good age?"

  He leaned back. "Do you have siblings?"

  She shook her head. "Mom and Dad despised each other for as long as I can remember, since well before they split. There was this horrible custody battle. Even then I knew it wasn't because they wanted me, it was just to hurt each other."

  "They were using you."

  Now that she'd started talking about it, the memories wouldn't let her stop. "They spent all their money on the lawyers, just trying to wear each other down. Even after the judge warned them that a trial would eat up all their assets, they refused to settle. It was more important to destroy each other than to salvage what they could. In the end there was nothing left, not even the house."

  Brody remained silent, and for that, Cat was grateful. She'd never gotten over it, she realized. She still lived with the pain and confusion of those early years. Her parents' raw, undisguised hatred had spilled over onto her. Even now, she felt tainted by it.

  "So you see," she finally said, her voice shaky, "I know from firsthand experience. Sometimes it's better to have one loving parent than … than the alternative."

  Brody fiddled with the pepper mill, ignoring the black grindings sprinkling the table. "You talk as if divorce is the only alternative. Is that what you think? That you and Greg wouldn't be able to make it work?"

  "Look at the statistics."

  "The statistics also show a lot of couples staying together, Cat."

  "What made you such a big fan of wedded bliss?" she asked, and immediately recalled his own miserable childhood. Chagrined, she added, "Okay. There are worse things than being from a broken family. But, Brody, you have to admit, I'm not … I'm not like your mother."

  "No. You're not. And your child will never go through what I did. For that matter, if you and the baby's father did marry, and did end up divorcing, you wouldn't turn it into a horror show the way your folks did. Most divorces are civilized. Even amicable—that's the word you always hear."

  Cat hadn't thought of it that way. He was right. If she ever divorced, she'd consider the children first. Things would never get that out of control.

  "Your parents were selfish and small-minded," he said. "Is Greg like that?"

  "I don't… No, of course not."

  Brody tossed his hand, as if to say I rest my case.

  Cat said, "You're really eager to marry me off to him, aren't you?" She didn't know who she was more peeved with—Brody for throwing her at her fictional lover, or herself for caring.

  He scanned the countertop as a muscle near his eye twitched. "I just feel a child needs two committed parents whenever possible."

  "Are you looking for your cigarettes? I think I see them on top of the fridge. What are they doing up there?"

  "I forgot. I put them there to remind me not to smoke around you."

  "Brody, this is your house! You have a right to—"

  "Now you want me to smoke?"

  "I didn't say that! Of course I don't want you to smoke!"

  "Then what's the problem?"

  Arguing with Brody was exhausting, and she had no energy to spare. "Do what you want," she muttered, then remembered the painters were due to start upstairs today. "Weren't you going to clear off the dining table so you can work there?"

  "I postponed the painting for a few weeks."

  "Why? I thought you were eager to get the place finished."

  "The paint fumes. You shouldn't be inhaling them."

  "Good grief, Brody, you can't rearrange your entire life around my pregnancy… Of course, there is a solution. We could call it quits now. You could tell Nana you didn't need me as long as you'd thought."

  He studied her so intently, Cat had to break eye contact. "You really hate this, don't you?" he asked softly. "Working with me."

  "It's not that." Conflicting impulses bombarded Cat: the urge to run away and safeguard her secret; and the almost overwhelming need to blurt out the truth, as well as the futile, foolhardy yearnings of her heart. You're going to be a father. Stay with me. Stay and watch our child grow.

  Even if she told him the baby was his, the fact remained that Brody didn't want to be a father. He'd admitted that he wouldn't necessarily "do the right thing" himself, though he expected Greg to. She supposed she should be thankful for his candor.

  "This assignment is just uncomfortable for me," she said. "You know that. And you know why."

  Brody kept his gaze directed at the pepper mill, which he was lining up just so next to the salt shaker. "I thought things had kind of changed between us, these last few weeks." He glanced at his hands, grubby with ground pepper, and wiped them on his jeans. "I mean, I thought we've been getting along pretty well."

  He was right. Things had indeed changed between them. They'd spent every weekday together for the past month and a half, working, eating, running errands, sometimes just shooting the breeze. Practically living together. They'd begun to connect on a fundamental level. Cat had tried to tell herself it was inevitable, the result of enforced togetherness, but she could no longer fool herself. It was more than that.

  She'd be lying if she claimed she didn't enjoy Brody's company, even looked forward to it on the long drive from Tarrytown each morning. To call it an uncomfortable arrangement was laughable. But neither of them was laughing. In different circumstances, she could fall in love with Brody Mikhailov. The thought terrified her.

  In truth, she needed to get away from Brody because of their growing closeness—not because she was uncomfortable with him but because she was too comfortable. It felt too good being with him, too right. Her future and her child's depended on following through with her original plan. The King of Sling had done his part, albeit unwittingly. In two and a half weeks she had to walk away and never look back.

  Cat met his gaze resolutely, while her hands clenched in her lap around fistfuls of her white cotton sundress. "Don't ask Nana to extend my service with you again, Brody. If you do, I'll refuse. If that means I lose my job, so be it."

  A desolate shadow touched his eyes, fleetingly, before his features hardened. Cat was reminded of the defenseless child he'd been, shunned and neglected, and forced herself not to look away. Receiving this kind of blunt rejection from his office mom had to trigger unwanted memories of his real mother.

  "Don't worry," he said, rising. His sullen gaze lit briefly on the pack of cigarettes on top of the refrigerator, but he didn't reach for them. "I'll give you a glowing recommendation. Your job is safe, but for how long? Have you decided what you're going to do when Nana realizes her favorite employee isn't the vestal virgin she thought?"

  "I … haven't gotten that far. I'll get something—some kind of job—till the baby comes."

  "But how long can you—" He broke off, then shoved his chair under the table with more force than necessary, making her jump. "Like you said, it's your business. But if I were in your shoes, I'd be
making sure the kid's father lived up to his responsibility. That's all I'm going to say about it."

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  Brody was as good as his word. Over the next nine days, he restrained the overwhelming urge to challenge Cat about her maddeningly nebulous future plans. Instead, he made sure she ate right and relaxed with her feet up every afternoon. He badgered her until she saw an obstetrician, who pronounced her pregnancy normal and free of complications.

  He had central air-conditioning installed to make her last couple of weeks with him more comfortable. Even if he never turned it on after she left, the expression on her face when she stepped out of the August swelter into his glacial living room made it worth every penny.

  The cigarettes stayed on the fridge, the vodka stayed in the freezer and the coffee carafe stayed empty—from noon to eight, anyway, when his office mom was in residence. Cat accused him of being overprotective, but somebody had to look after her!

  His pack-a-day cigarette habit had been whittled down to a handful of smokes, one or two in the morning before she arrived, and the rest late at night while he worked on Demonic!, the book about the Demons baseball team that would expose its crooked and carnal underbelly to the glaring light of public scrutiny, and make an entire major league ball club and its millions of fans mad as hell at him.

  Let them do their worst. He'd rather face an army of large and powerful, tobacco-spitting, crotch-grabbing, baseball-bat-wielding professional athletes than one more nightmare featuring that morgue shot of Serena Milton.

  Brody had to admit, though, that his heart wasn't in Demonic!, and not only because the bulk of his "facts" came courtesy of jilted groupies, ambitious rookie rivals and embittered ex-wives. His taste for mudslinging had waned in recent weeks; he found he no longer had the stomach for it. The notoriety he'd once craved had begun to lose its seductive allure.

  Not that he would ever allow his newfound aversion to undermine his career. As he'd told Cat, he had a reputation to protect—and to cash in on. No coffee-table tomes for him yet.

  Lately, however, he felt increasingly detached from his professional persona of Jake Beckett. It was as if, in his own mind at least, Brody had begun to distance himself from his infamous alter ego, the hack writer unencumbered by scruples or lofty aspirations.

  Jake Beckett had become more than Brody Mikhailov's pen name; he'd become a separate and distinct personality, whose corrosive mind-set Brody had to actively call forth every time he sat down to work on Demonic!

  He heard the shower start upstairs and deliberately tormented himself with the mental image of Cat rinsing beach sand off her body—that lovely body he'd know in the dark but which he'd never seen.

  From his reclining position on the living room sofa, flipping through the latest issue of Cineaste, Brody gazed at the ceiling and imagined his office mom standing under the warm spray, rubbing herself all over to shed the fine white sand, paying special attention to those delightful nooks and crannies he remembered in graphic detail.

  When he'd told her to bring a swimsuit today for an excursion to Jones Beach, his overactive imagination had conjured an abbreviated tiger-stripe bikini, thong style. Naturally, she'd opted for a sensible, dark green one-piece, but he hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her.

  He'd had Cat rub sunscreen all over him, of course, but the only place she'd permitted him to return the favor was on the scant square inches of her back not covered by the racer-style suit. The rest she'd done herself.

  Brody had already showered and thrown on a pair of denim shorts. He laid the magazine facedown on his bare chest, listening to the murmur of water in the old pipes, still staring at the ceiling. He supposed the fact that Cat was pregnant—with another man's child, no less—should be a sexual turnoff, but it wasn't. Perhaps that would change when she started to show. Then he remembered that he wouldn't get to see her become big with child. He'd never see her again after next week.

  A strange heaviness weighed him down. Even though Mr. Perfect had turned into Mr. Deadbeat, Cat was still crazy about him. Why else would she be so dead set against extending her assignment with Brody? He was her "horrendous mistake" in the flesh—a constant reminder of how she'd unwittingly betrayed the jerk she was in love with.

  Brody could call her bluff, of course, and try to rehire her for another month, another three months, a year. Would she really dig in her heels, as she'd threatened, and refuse to continue working with him? Probably. She was just bullheaded enough to spill the beans to Nana herself, in order to beat Brody to the punch.

  Not that he'd tell Nana a damn thing about that night in the agency's apartment. At one time he would have, without a qualm, but no longer. He couldn't do that to Cat, and not just because she'd lose her job. He hated to think how excruciatingly embarrassed she would be to have her respected employer find out what she'd done.

  Of course, Cat didn't know his threat had no teeth. And he intended to keep it that way; her fear of being fired was all that kept her from walking out of his home and out of his life, at least for the next week.

  And after next week? As Brody pondered what it might take to keep her with him through the fall, and perhaps the winter as well, the answer whacked him on the head, just as the shower was turned off upstairs. Okay, he was still a selfish bastard, but at least he'd gone from coercion to harmless manipulation.

  A muffled thud interrupted his thoughts, followed by a sharp cry. He was upstairs and down the hall before he knew he was moving. "Cat!" He slammed his fist on the bathroom door. "What happened?"

  Brody didn't wait for a response, but threw open the door. Through the scented steam and foggy glass of the tub enclosure he saw she was doubled over. "Cat!" He hauled the sliding glass door aside.

  Cat jerked up, releasing the foot she'd been clutching. "Brody!" She tried to close the door, but he wouldn't release it. "Get out of here!"

  "Are you hurt?" He made a grab for her foot, but she yanked it away.

  "Hand me my towel!" she demanded. Whatever mishap Cat had suffered, it wasn't enough to override her outraged modesty.

  He stopped and looked at her then, really looked at her. She stood in the tub soaking wet, stark naked and scowling murderously. She made no attempt to cover herself with her hands, but simply stood there, arms at her sides, waiting for Brody to miraculously turn into a gentleman and offer her the towel.

  "Oh, Cat…" A slow smile stretched his face. "Honey, you are so beautiful."

  Her scowl faltered. He watched a range of emotions dance in her crystalline eyes. Now her hands came up, tentatively, to shield herself from his view. He seized them gently, held them out at her sides.

  She had a redhead's pale skin, slightly pink from the sun everywhere her suit hadn't covered her, despite the sunblock she'd slathered on. Her body didn't conform to the prevailing ideals of female beauty. She was neither boyish nor butch: her ribs didn't show; her muscles weren't defined. But to him she was perfect, all soft, seductive curves. All woman.

  She took his breath away.

  Cat tugged against him, but he only tightened his grip. Wavy tendrils of wet hair clung to her face. "Brody. Let me go."

  Instead, he pulled her out of the tub, belatedly recalling why he'd barged into the john in the first place. He looked at her foot as she reached for the blue-and-white-striped towel she'd placed on the vanity.

  "What did you do?" he asked.

  She wrapped the towel around herself. "I dropped the shampoo bottle on my foot when I went to put it back on the shelf."

  The bottle was heavy, the tub shelf high. "Ouch." He sat her down on the toilet lid and squatted to examine her foot. A red spot had already blossomed on the instep, heralding the nasty bruise to come. Tenderly he cradled her foot, massaged it.

  "It's nothing," Cat said. Her voice quavered slightly.

  He looked past her foot, to her rosy calves and knees, to her glistening thighs and the mysterious shadow between. The damp towe
l barely covered her hips, barely concealed the lush triangle he now knew to be dark auburn. She clutched the towel tighter to her breasts.

  Brody looked into her eyes. He read her turmoil. He felt the haunting drumbeat of memories like a shared pulse. His hand curled around her ankle and she flinched.

  Quietly he said, "You owe him nothing."

  She parted her lips to speak; the words died in her throat.

  "Nothing," he repeated, burning his gaze into hers. He shifted closer to her, resting one knee on the floor tiles. He propped her foot on his thigh and stroked his fingers up the back of her calf.

  Her mouth quivered, but the only plea came from her eyes.

  "You'll have to say it, Cat." His fingertips traced the moist crease at the back of her knee. "If you want me to stop, you'll have to tell me."

  Cat closed her eyes, and opened them slowly. She held the towel closed with one hand and reached down to grasp his wrist with the other, which didn't keep him from lightly fondling the back of her raised thigh. Her breath caught.

  "You want me to stop?" he asked. "Say the word. I'll stop."

  He felt a grim satisfaction watching her struggle with her conflicting emotions. She hadn't given everything to Mr. Perfect. She'd held a little piece of herself back, and that little piece called to him like a Siren.

  "You think about it, don't you?" he asked, still caressing her. "That night. What we did in the dark. You don't want to, but you do."

  A ragged sigh escaped her. She released his wrist. "It never should have happened."

  It was the party line, but this time it lacked conviction. Brody smiled. "You think about it when you're alone." He slid his hand along her inner thigh. She looked away. "What do you do then?" he asked. "Do you touch yourself?"

  "Brody…" She sounded out of breath.

  He felt her fine tremors, inhaled her soapy, womanly scent. His fingers disappeared under the towel. They brushed past damp hair to the slippery, swollen petals. Cat made a guttural sound as if in pain. Brody cupped her face with his free hand and made her look at him. Her eyes were slumberous, her mouth half-open.