Lucy had wanted to spend her honeymoon in San Francisco, but Josh had wanted the Caribbean. Hot sand and warm ocean. So the Caribbean it had been. It was bittersweet for Lucy to be in San Francisco now, for the first time and by herself. She pushed the thought out of her mind. She hadn't wallowed in pity over the demise of her marriage for years, and there was no reason to start again.
She was relaxed tonight. For the first time in weeks, really. A plate of hot pasta, the cool fog outside, a glass of wine and now the sambuca. And Lucy had formulated a Plan B in case Derrick's publicity storm didn't work. This plan had hatched back in the Muir Woods, after the kiss with Sterling. You catch more flies with honey, right? That's what her mother used to tell her all the time. As a teenager, she'd been incapable of understanding that idea. Back then, Lucy came across socially as something akin to a battering ram.
But maybe—just maybe—she'd been going about Sterling Matthew the wrong way.
There was still chemistry between them. That much was crystal clear. Lucy had no idea how it had survived fifteen years of wildly different lives—not to mention other lovers—but somehow it had. The kiss back in the forest proved that. Maybe there was a way she could use that chemistry to get what she wanted ... another year for the Kids Kamp. If she could just buy one more year, she'd have another chance to convince whomever succeeded Sterling as head of the Inn.
Sterling was looking at her intently. She saw a gently smoldering flame in his eyes. Oh this might be like taking candy from a baby. "Penny for your thoughts," Sterling said.
"Inflation?"
"Nickel for your thoughts."
"They're not for sale."
Sterling tilted his wine glass back and let the last half inch of wine pour into his mouth, an action that he made look outrageously sexy. He set the glass back down on the table. "Last week in your office," he began. "You said you came back to the Inn with your husband. But you didn't say what happened after that."
"I thought you said no shop talk tonight."
"I thought I was asking a pretty personal question, actually. But you don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Lucy shrugged. She wasn't ashamed of what had happened. She had been, for a couple years afterward. But it was what it was. She wasn't the first person whose marriage went up in smoke.
"We had plans to celebrate our third anniversary at the Inn. The night before, he informed me that he had fallen in love with someone else and wanted a divorce."
Sterling grimaced. "The night before your anniversary? That's callous. And ... you went to the Inn by yourself?"
"Why not? It was too late to cancel the reservation. And after that, I needed a little pampering at a resort. If I'd stayed home, I might have killed someone. Then I met your father, he was looking for a marketing director, I was working in marketing at Marriott at the time. By the end of the weekend, I had a new job."
"And you don't get bored in St. Caroline?"
"No. I have a job I love. Friends I love. I live right on the water in a beautiful, historic town. Nothing boring about it." Skepticism flickered in Sterling's eyes. "Why did you come back if you hate it so much?" Lucy challenged.
"I have to run my parents' business."
"Can't Sarah hire a CEO?"
"Actually, no. The Inn can't afford to. I'm working for free. And my mother can't afford to have the Inn go under."
"Couldn't you sell the Inn?"
"We could. The land alone is worth a fortune. But my mother doesn't want to. Or my father doesn't want her to, which is what I suspect is the case, and she will honor his wishes even after he's gone."
"Your parents love each other very much. I can't tell you how much I enjoy seeing them together. My father got the hell out of dodge when I was eight, and my mother never met anyone else. No one else who stuck around."
"Yeah well. That's part of the problem here. Love doesn't have the rationality that sound business decisions require."
"I thought we weren't supposed to be talking about business," Lucy pointed out.
"No, we're not. Let's go back to talking about you." Lucy heard the challenge, the dare, in Sterling's voice. She also heard the low huskiness of his voice, and she couldn't help wondering if that's how he sounded in bed. As teenagers, they hadn't really spoken much. Their lovemaking had been all urgent mouths and jumbled limbs.
"So what did you do after that summer?" Sterling asked. "No, wait. Where did you come from before then?"
"Is this like twenty questions?"
Sterling leaned back in his chair and regarded her serenely. "Maybe."
"I grew up in southwestern Virginia."
"What is that like?"
"Mountains. Poor. Beautiful."
Sterling nodded thoughtfully. "And so you went back there after camp."
"I went back and finished high school, then got a scholarship to Virginia Tech. After that, I moved to Washington, DC. That's the nearest big city, the nearest place with any jobs."
"And what kind of job did you get?"
"I got a job in guest relations at a Marriott downtown, then moved over to corporate headquarters in Bethesda."
"And you got married at some point."
"Yes, I married Josh when I was twenty-three. Too young, in retrospect."
"And what did he do?"
"Well, he was in law school when we met. Then he was an associate at a law firm. I thought I was all set when it came to life. I had a stable job at a big company and I'd married a lawyer. Then it all came crashing down around me."
"That's when you moved to St. Caroline."
"Hmm-hmm. What about you? What did you do after camp?"
"I went off to college. Brown University, where I was a remarkably mediocre student."
"What did you major in?" Lucy asked.
"Economics, officially. Skiing, unofficially. I can proudly say that I have skied every mountain in New England."
"And to think some people in St. Caroline say you've never accomplished anything."
Sterling threw back his head and laughed. "By some people, you mean my parents?"
"Actually, your parents haven't spoken about you much. Not to me, anyway."
"If I had siblings, I'd be the black sheep of the family." Sterling shrugged. "Actually, I seem to be the black sheep of the family even without siblings."
"Your mother seems to be happy that you're home."
Sterling signaled the waiter for a coffee. "She needs me to be home."
Lucy had sometimes wondered why Sarah never said much about her son. "I can't believe that's all she cares about."
Sterling changed the subject. "So you weren't worried about running into me when you started working at the Inn? Your first ... boy?"
Lucy smiled at the way he described himself. That was exactly the way she often phrased it to herself. My first boy.
"Well, you didn't seem to be around when your father interviewed me. He took me on a pretty comprehensive tour of the Inn's offices and departments. I didn't see you and no one mentioned you. So I figured you were working somewhere else. Not everyone goes into the family business. After I started working at the Inn, eventually I heard people talking about the ne-er do well playboy son. I assumed they meant you."
Sterling smiled. "Ne-er do well playboy son. I like that title better than chief executive officer. Pays better, too."
After dinner, Sterling and Lucy took a leisurely, meandering route back to the hotel. Lucy wasn't especially eager for the evening to end, and it seemed to her that Sterling wasn't either. They strolled past Washington Square Park where elderly Chinese were doing tai chi in the fading light. Lucy shivered against the chill of the spreading fog. Her outfit had been warm enough earlier but now she wished she'd brought along a sweater.
St. Caroline got fog, too, but San Francisco's fog seemed different to Lucy. In St. Caroline, the fog rolled in off the bay in one giant, mindless cloud. Here, the fog seemed less cloud-like, more spectral. It didn't hover overhead, instead it cam
e right down to the ground, dividing itself and filling street after street, insinuating itself between lovers and parked cars.
"Cold?" Sterling asked. He didn't wait for a reply. He draped an arm across Lucy's shoulders and pulled her against him. Lucy had to admit, she was warmer nestled next to Sterling's chest—though whether that was from the heat radiating off his body or the fireworks going off in hers, Lucy couldn't tell. She was struggling just to breathe normally.
In the hotel elevator, Lucy punched the button for her floor. Sterling did nothing.
"Your room is on five too?"
"No. But I'm seeing you back to yours. Contrary to popular opinion, I am concerned about the welfare of my staff."
They were alone in the elevator and the atmosphere was decidedly tense. They had gone from walking hip to hip to "welfare of my staff" as soon as the hotel's revolving door spit them out into the brightly-lit lobby. Lucy stared straight ahead at the elevator's gleaming brass door. Plan B was foundering. Despite her teenaged reputation, she was no great seductress. That required a confidence and a coolness of head that Lucy had never possessed. She imagined Elle Scott-Thomas pulling it off without a hitch.
By the time they arrived at Lucy's hotel room door, she was a bundle of nerves. It was now or never ... but could she do it? Even as she fumbled in her purse for the room key, she wasn't sure. The key was about to slip out of her fingers and fall to the carpeted floor below when Sterling reached out and, in one smooth graceful move, caught the card and swiped it through the reader. The lock clicked and he pushed open the door.
"Here." He held the key out to her.
What the hell. It worked when I was sixteen. Lucy ignored the key in his strong, outstretched fingers. Instead, she reached up, cupped his face with her hands and pulled his lips down onto hers. It's now or never. He moaned against her lips and she tasted the mix of wine and coffee on his breath. He pressed the full length of his hard body against hers and walked her, backward, into the room. Lucy heard the door close behind them.
"Lucy Lou," she heard him say and then his lips were on hers again, this time harder and more insistent. She felt his hands splayed across her lower back, warm and strong through the thin linen cloth of her blouse. This wasn't the gentle, exploring kiss from Muir Woods. This was a searing, demanding kiss, a kiss that wanted more—and wanted it soon. Lucy was taken aback by how quickly Sterling had responded to her advance—and taken aback by how strongly her body was responding to the sensation of his lips hungrily devouring hers.
She allowed her lips to part slightly. That was all the invitation Sterling needed. He pulled her tight against him and slipped his tongue between her lips. Lucy's spine was on fire, a scalding lick of flame that was spreading across her body. Next thing she knew, Sterling's lips were kissing her jawline, kisses that ended with his head nestled into the curve of her neck. His lips were exploring the ridge of her collarbone, then the little dip at the base of her throat. Lucy could feel his warm breath fluttering beneath the neckline of her blouse.
Sterling loosened his grasp on Lucy for a moment and slipped his hand inside her shirt. Lucy gasped at the feeling of his warm hand on the bare skin of her back. Her breasts were rising and falling with her ragged breathing. Sterling looked at them with naked admiration.
"We're not teenagers anymore," he said, as his hand traced a path from her back around to her stomach. His thumb drew a circle around her navel with an excruciating slowness.
Lucy began to worry she might pass out. "No, we're not," she said, her voice husky with desire. Plan B was working on Sterling. But she hadn't expected it to work quite so well on herself. It was working so well at the moment that she was barely capable of rational thought. All she could think about was how much she wanted Sterling Matthew, and wanted him right now. She wanted to see him undressed. She wanted to look at his naked body, every inch of it, and she wanted to take her good, sweet time doing it. The last time, they'd both been so worried about getting caught, that they had rushed through everything. Torn off each other's clothes, a few hurried kisses and caresses and then it was over. Lucy wanted it to be slow this time. She wanted him to touch her so slowly, she'd be in danger of losing her mind.
Sterling looked her in the face, with eyes that were as dark with lust as her own were. A mischievous smile played around his lips, lips that Lucy was desperate to kiss again. She knew he could read that desperation all over her face.
"I was a terrible lover back then," he said. His hand had moved to her back again, only this time higher. He teasingly played with the hooks of her bra. "I'm better now. Much, much better"
Chapter 14
When Lucy woke the next morning, she instinctively reached out for Sterling. But the other side of the bed was empty and cold. Her sleepiness evaporated in an instant. She sat up in bed, hiking up the sheets to cover her nakedness. She listened for the sound of water in the shower. Nothing. She scanned the room. Yup. His clothes were no longer strewn across the floor, where she had left them.
Ah. A page from the hotel notepad had been left on the nightstand. Lucy stretched her body across the bed to retrieve it.
Conference call at 7. Meet you after last session today. Marin.
Lucy glanced at the alarm clock. It was ten o'clock already? Yikes. She never slept that late back in St. Caroline, even on the weekend. She'd already missed her first conference session. Ah, who cares. She laid back onto the hotel's fluffy down pillows and closed her eyes. She wanted to relive last night for a few minutes before washing it all away in a long, hot shower.
Just thinking about last night made her face flush. Sterling had learned a thing or two since he was sixteen. Make that a thing or twenty.
After a shower and quick cup of coffee, Lucy made it to the second session. She made no attempt to even pretend to be listening to the speaker, however. If someone had asked her the title of the session she was sitting in, Lucy would have had no clue. Wow. That was all she could think. The way Sterling had made her body feel last night was simply wow. Josh had never made her feel that way. Lucy had loved Josh madly. She wouldn't have married him otherwise. But it had been a more intellectual love. In honest moments, Lucy sometimes wondered whether she had married Josh partly because he hadn't made her feel that way. He had been safe and steady, fun to be around. But his kisses had never unleashed a flurry of butterflies in her stomach. Or made every vertabra in her spine feel like it was a glowing hot coal. Or made her toes curl and her eyes roll back in her head.
In the end, of course, she hadn't made him feel that way either.
Lucy doodled flowers and moons on her notepad as all around her, other conference attendees furiously scribbled or typed down every word the speaker uttered. Lucy wasn't interested in learning anything new about marketing today.
But Plan B. Was it going to work? How could she go from last night to getting Sterling to change his mind about the camp? She hoped it wouldn't involve sleeping with him again. Not because she wouldn't like to do that again. There was definitely a very vocal sexy little devil perched on her shoulder right now, whispering to her that she should just dump this silly conference session, go find Sterling and drag him back to her room before the hotel's official check-out time.
Oh, yes. Lucy wouldn't mind doing that one bit.
But if they made love like that again, Lucy knew she wouldn't be able to stop. Not willingly anyway. The last thing she needed was to make a complete and utter fool of herself over Sterling Matthew. Over her boss. Her friends' son. She would have to leave St. Caroline then.
When the last session ended at four pm, Sterling was waiting for her in the lobby of the hotel. He greeted her with a long, searching kiss.
"I've been waiting all day to do that," he said with a smile.
He tossed her luggage into the trunk of the rental car. Fifteen minutes later, they were cruising across the majestic Golden Gate Bridge toward Sausalito and, further north, Elle and Edward's bed and breakfast. Lucy was not exactly looking forwa
rd to a weekend spent with Elle. This was not going to be a relaxing two days, though Sterling seemed to think otherwise. Lucy mentally calculated the hours between now and when their flight took off for home on Sunday.
She looked over at Sterling, confidently driving through the Friday evening traffic on the bridge. He was whistling a tune Lucy couldn't identify. He had certainly found that weekend mindset. Lucy had never been able to turn on and off her moods like that; she envied people who could.
"How did your call go this morning?" she asked.
Sterling turned and trained his megawatt smile on her. "Fine. We're close to a new financing deal. Very close." He turned his attention back to the road.
Close to a deal. Lucy wondered whether that was a deal with the camp or without.
"Just a few final plans to nail down," Sterling added, seemingly reading her mind.
When the car stopped at the head of the B&B's long, gently curving stone driveway, Elle and Edward were waiting for them. Honestly, Lucy wasn't sure she'd have recognized Elle if she hadn't been expecting to see her. Elle's long red hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and her tall, slender form was encased in faded Levis and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Definitely not the immaculately pulled-together consultant she was used to seeing.
The bed and breakfast also wasn't what Lucy was expecting. She'd had a vision in her mind of an old, gracious Victorian—like the "painted ladies" they had driven past in San Francisco or the B&B she and Josh had stayed at once in Vermont. But Elle and Edward's B&B looked like an oversized Craftsman-style ranch with muted, earth-toned colors and squared-off stone columns. A small cairn stood piled next to the wooden front door and a string of colorful Buddhist prayer flags stretched between two grand old trees. Dozens of ornate copper bells hung from a pavilion to the side.
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