Only This Night (Silhouette Reissued)

by Suzanne Simms

  The relatively short drive through Northbrook to the adjacent suburb of Glenview was made in companionable silence. They both were aware of the rare summer night that surrounded them, that seemed to cloak them in its protective darkness. A faint breeze stirred the trees on either side of the highway as Garrett turned onto a quiet street.

  “Well, here we are,” he announced at last as he pulled up in front of a red brick building discreetly set back from the street.

  “Are you sure this place is open?” Brenna asked in a tentative voice as she gazed out the window on the passenger’s side of the car.

  There was only a small brass plate on the door to give any indication that the building housed a restaurant. Squinting her eyes, she tried to read the name by the dim light of the brass lantern hanging above the door.

  “Alfredo’s,” Garrett told her with what sounded like an amused chuckle.

  “Alfredo’s?” she repeated, turning to look at him with a puzzled expression on her face.

  “That’s the name of the restaurant and, yes, it is open,” he assured her as he eased his long legs from the sports car and came around to open her door.

  Alfredo’s was indeed open, as Brenna discovered for herself the minute Garrett ushered her into the restaurant. It was everything he had said it would be and more. There were the white linen tablecloths and the crystal chandeliers and the candles burning low on each table. There was the soft music playing unobtrusively in the background. And it was, without a doubt, the most elegant, the most romantic setting she had ever seen.

  “How in the world did you find this place?” she whispered as they were shown to their table. “I’ve lived in the Chicago area for years and I had no idea that it even existed.”

  “When you eat in restaurants as frequently as I do, you soon learn to find the little out-of-the-way places,” Garrett nonchalantly informed her as they were being seated. “Would you like to order a drink before dinner?” he inquired as the waitress approached their table.

  “No, thank you,” she responded. “Perhaps a little wine later.”

  “We don’t care to order a drink now,” he told the young woman with the assurance of a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. “We would like our menus, and I’ll see the wine list, please.” Then he turned his attention back to Brenna and smiled at her in that special way that only he could. “I’ve just realized that I don’t know the first thing about what you like to eat—besides hot dogs with mustard and ketchup, of course.”

  “Actually, I like just about anything but hot dogs. It must have been the beer I drank at the picnic that induced me to eat them that night,” she confessed with a sheepish grin.

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, hot dogs are definitely not on the menu here,” Garrett said in a teasing manner. “I can personally recommend the filet mignon, and the stuffed crab and the duck are excellent, if you care for that kind of thing.”

  “It all sounds delicious,” Brenna commented as the waitress returned with their menus. She suddenly realized she was starved! And little wonder. The last thing she’d had to eat was that pathetic plate of fruit when she got home from work the night before. She wasn’t about to count the single scoop of chocolate ice cream she’d had this afternoon. “I think I’ll start with the hearts of palm,” she murmured without looking up from her menu. “I’m so hungry I feel like I could eat the whole darned tree right about now.”

  At that, Garrett put his head back and let out a delighted whoop of laughter, setting the tone for the entire evening to come. The conversation quickly moved from an animated discussion of their favorite foods to their personal tastes in wine. Brenna found herself savoring every bite of the delicious meal she was served, from the slightly pungent but smooth hearts of palm salad to the perfectly spiced stuffed crab.

  It wasn’t until much later, as she took a sip of her third glass of Chenin Blanc, that it occurred to her that Garrett had been waging a subtle campaign to draw information from her during the course of their dinner. And she had to admit, with some chagrin, that his campaign had been an unqualified success. He now knew of her preference for lyric opera and detective novels and of her secret passion for maudlin poetry. She’d gone on at some length about the business of running a chain of health spas. And, good Lord, she’d even bored him with the latest news of her parents and their recent move from Fort Wayne to Charlotte, North Carolina.

  “I’m sorry, Garrett,” she mumbled self-consciously, taking the linen napkin from her lap and touching it to her lips. “I didn’t mean to go on so.”

  He met her eyes across the table, holding her gaze for a moment before his mouth lifted in a dazzling smile. “There’s no need to apologize, honey. I enjoy listening to you talk.” And she could tell that he meant it. “Would you care for a little more Chenin Blanc?” he asked, raising the wine bottle and motioning toward her glass.

  “No,” she gulped, stifling an errant hiccup. “I think I’ve had quite enough, thank you. Why don’t you finish it?” she added as an afterthought.

  “Since I’m driving tonight, I think a cup of black coffee would be a more sensible choice on my part,” he pointed out as he signaled for their waitress.

  “Well, in that case, since I’m not driving tonight…” Brenna picked up her wineglass and held it toward him. “I do hate to see such a fine wine go to waste, don’t you?” she asked him with great gravity in her voice.

  “I only hope you feel the same way in the morning,” Garrett admonished with a wry smile.

  “I have a great idea,” she burst out as he took her arm some minutes later and escorted her through the door of Alfredo’s. “Why don’t we go dancing?”

  “Dancing? Tonight?” He slanted her a dark, speculative look. “I think the only place you’re going to be dancing, sweetheart, is to bed,” he commented as she leaned into him for support.

  Brenna met his eyes with a challenging gaze. “You think I’ve had too much to drink, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t say that, honey. But it is nearly midnight and we’ve both had a long day.”

  “Now, where have I heard that before?” she puzzled a little groggily as he settled her in the low-slung seat of his sports car. “What kind of car is this, anyway?” she asked as Garrett eased his tall frame behind the steering wheel.

  “It’s an M.G.,” he told her in an easy voice.

  “They don’t make M.G.s anymore, do they?” she said, carefully enunciating each word. She hated to admit it, but her lips were quite numb.

  “No, they don’t,” he replied, apparently amused by her sudden show of curiosity. “I used to dream about owning a car like this when I was a kid, so when I finally had the money I bought one.”

  “Then it was like a dream come true for you,” Brenna hazarded in a softly speculative voice, letting her head fall back against the leather seat.

  “Something like that,” Garrett admitted as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. “And like most dreams, the dream was better than the reality. I seem to have this damned thing in for repairs every time I turn around. Of course, it was a used car when I bought it.”

  “Do you suppose that’s the way it always is?” she inquired in a sleepy voice.

  “No, some cars, new or used, are just lemons from the start,” he blithely replied as they passed the City Limits sign into Northbrook.

  “No, no, I don’t mean about the car,” she struggled to explain. “I meant that part about the dream being better than the reality.”

  “I suppose that’s the way it is in a lot of cases,” he answered her with unexpected seriousness. “Of course, then there are always those dreams that are far better when they do come true,” he observed, his dark gaze roving the length of the slim body beside his.

  Brenna opened her mouth and the question popped out before she realized what she was saying. “Do you dream about me, Garrett?” She quickly opened her mouth a second time to take the words back, but it was t
oo late.

  “Ah-hah!” ft was truly amazing, she decided, how much could be conveyed in a single, exclamatory utterance. “You’re not content to know what I’ve done or what I think, are you, Brenna? Now you want to know what I dream about as well.”

  “Please forget I said that,” she stammered in a self-conscious whisper. “I… I can’t think why I did.”

  “That’s okay, honey. I don’t mind telling you,” he assured her, his mouth curving in a totally masculine kind of smile. “I do dream about you,” he admitted in a husky voice. “In fact, I have every night for the past week. But, let me tell you, lady, you’re much better than anything I’ve dreamed.”

  Speechless, Brenna turned and gazed out the window, surprised to find that they were pulling up in front of her house. “We’re home!” she announced, but her tone of voice sounded as though she were saying, “Thank God!”

  “So we are,” Garrett acknowledged, apparently perturbed about something. He stretched his long legs and took his own good time getting out of the car.

  “It was a lovely dinner,” she commented, breaking the silence that had suddenly been driven between them like an immovable wedge. She took out her key and on the second attempt managed to unlock the front door. Walking into the house, she switched on a light in the entrance hall, expecting Garrett to follow her. When she realized he was still standing in the doorway, she quickly backtracked and looked up at him questioningly. “Aren’t you going to come in?”

  For one awful moment she thought he was going to say no. It was with a genuine sense of relief that she saw him finally nod his head and step inside. “All right.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she offered, dispensing with her hand-crocheted bag by tossing it onto the parson’s table in the hallway. “Or perhaps some of that chocolate-chip ice cream you gave me earlier?” she heard herself tack on in a bright and utterly false tone of voice. It would be so much easier if she could feel her lips move, Brenna privately acknowledged.

  He stood there studying her with dark, watchful eyes. “No, thank you. I really don’t care for anything,” he politely declined.

  She turned around and discovered he was only a step behind her. “Garrett?” Reaching up, she tentatively ran her fingertips along the side of his face in a slightly unsteady caress, tracing a line from the tip of one ear to the jut of his masculine chin. She searched his eyes for an answer to the question she was finally forced to ask aloud. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, there’s nothing wrong,” he growled impatiently, capturing her fingers in his larger and stronger grip. He drew the palm of her hand toward him and pressed his lips to the sensitive underside. It was a simple gesture, but it created a shiver of excitement, of unnerving, unsettling expectancy in Brenna. “I’m a little tired, that’s all,” he finally admitted, staring down at her.

  “You know, there’s only one sensible thing to do if you’re tired,” she murmured seductively, slipping her hands inside his jacket and around his trim waistline to the muscular curve of his back, feeling, savoring the warmth of him beneath the fine material of his shirt.

  “You’re absolutely right, of course,” Garrett agreed in a husky voice as he bent his head and took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss. It was a kiss that immediately left her begging for more.

  “Oh darling, I want you as I’ve never wanted any other man,” she confessed in a soft whisper. She slid sensitive fingers around his neck and gently tugged on the finely textured hair at his nape. “I need you, Garrett,” she breathed into his mouth, feeling the familiar sensual tension curling through her lower body.

  “And I need you,” he disclosed in a low, velvety voice, his own instinctive response to her boldly revealing itself. “But you must admit you’ve had one too many glasses of wine tonight,” he pointed out as he drew back.

  “Well, it’s not as though you were trying to ply me with liquor all evening in order to take advantage of me,” Brenna gently teased through the alcohol-induced haze that seemed to stubbornly hold any rational thought at bay. “I’d let you take advantage of me, Mr. Forsyte, even if I were stone-cold sober.” She quickly assured him by wrapping her arms around his waist as she pressed her hips into the seductive intimacy of his.

  “Damn, honey, you’re only making this harder on both of us,” Garrett softly swore as his hands came down to grasp her shoulders, his fingers digging into the flesh beneath her blouse. He took a deep breath and went on in a dark, gritty baritone. “I am not going to make love to you, Brenna.”

  She could only stare up at him with a kind of stunned bewilderment written on her face. “You’re not?”

  He gave a decisive shake of his head. “No, I’m not,” he repeated in a tone of voice that clearly stated he would brook no argument from her on the subject.

  “Don’t you want to make love to me?” she asked with a suddenly deflated sense of her own attraction.

  Garrett briefly closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain that was sure to follow. “Dammit, of course I want to,” he told her tightly. “But we don’t always get what we want, as I found out earlier tonight.”

  “But if we want each other, why are you punishing me and yourself this way?” she pleaded with a kind of desperate need to understand what was happening.

  “I’m not trying to punish either one of us,” he said, his mouth held in a thin line. “But in the future our relationship is going to be purely platonic.”

  A burst of laughter escaped Brenna. “Purely platonic? You’ve got to be kidding!” The man had obviously taken leave of his senses!

  “No, I’m not kidding,” he declared defiantly, an expression of irritation crossing his drawn face.

  She looked up at him, shaking her head. “But why? For God’s sake, why?”

  He carefully weighed his words before he spelled it out for her. “Because I want more than just an affair with you, Brenna Richards. I want it all. I want a wife and a home and children. And I love you too damned much to settle for anything less.” He paused for a moment and then ploughed ahead. “You told me tonight you wouldn’t marry me because we could never be friends, because all there was between the two of us was this physical need we have of each other. Well, I think you’re dead wrong, lady. I know that a marriage between us would work and I intend to prove it.”

  “You intend to prove it!” The words exploded softly from her lips. What kind of crazy game was he playing now? “You’re nuts, do you know that?” she declared, staring up at him with wild eyes.

  “I may well be,” he growled as he gave her shoulders a violent little shake. “But dammit, honey, we’re going to be friends even if it kills me!” Then he dropped his hands, looking at her for a moment longer before he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  “Garrett?” She wailed his name softly.

  He looked back over his shoulder at her. “I’ll pick you up for lunch tomorrow at one o’clock. And, Brenna, we are going to be friends even if it kills both of us!”

  Stunned, she could only watch as the door closed behind him.

  9

  Well, she didn’t know about Garrett, but this latest and craziest idea of his was certainly doing an excellent job on her, Brenna had to admit as she pushed the stack of papers on her desk aside and rested her head in her hands.

  She had been with the man almost every night for the past three weeks and every day on the weekends. They had gone out to dinner, to the movies, to the Chicago Symphony, to numerous museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago in Grant Park where they viewed its famous collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French paintings, and even to a Cubs baseball game.

  They’d drunk champagne by Lake Michigan and eaten hot dogs while strolling through a summer street festival; and talked for hours. And, she had to admit, it had been fun despite the unsatisfactory conclusion to each evening.

  For each evening when he brought her home, Garrett would dutifully and very carefully kiss her good night at the door a
nd walk away, leaving her with a strange, empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The first several nights she’d been angry and disbelieving. Then her anger had turned into a kind of feminine revenge as she did everything in her power to weaken his resolve. She’d worn the most alluring dresses in her wardrobe, fixed her hair in the style she knew he liked best and seized every opportunity that presented itself to touch him in knowingly intimate little ways. In fact, she’d done everything but serve herself to him on a silver platter. Brenna felt a furious blush of color wash over her face as she sat there remembering.

  It had all been to no avail, of course. She’d quickly discovered that Garrett Forsyte’s resolve was stronger than tempered steel. His mind was made up and that was all there was to it. He was determined, it seemed, to give both of them the chance to find out if they could truly be friends, if there was anything in the cards for them beyond a brief love affair. He was obviously willing to gamble everything on his belief that they had a future together and that that future included marriage.

  And then a strange thing had begun to happen to her, Brenna acknowledged as she raised her head and stared out her office window with unseeing eyes. She found she was actually enjoying, eagerly looking forward to their days and evenings together. She was beginning to see facets of the man’s personality she had never before dreamed existed. She was gradually opening herself up to him as well. And in the process they had discovered something truly amazing. They liked each other!

  Well, there was no accounting for taste. She chuckled silently to herself. At this rate, she would be eagerly consuming gallons of “goody goody gumdrop” ice cream by the end of the summer!

  Perhaps it was true she’d been something of a coward, afraid to try new things and new people—or at least a new man in her life. She’d learned a great deal about herself in the past few weeks. She supposed she had Garrett to thank for that. The process had not been without pain, but then she’d found out a long time ago that there were far worse things in this life than a little pain.