Her Secret Affair

by Arlene James

  “Yes, I know,” he said simply. “Sorry about that.”

  She lifted one knee slightly and attempted to balance her briefcase against it while extracting the file folder. “I’ll just drop off these sketches.”

  She held up the file, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he stepped aside and drew the door wide. “Come in.”

  She thought wildly of tossing the file inside and running. Instead, she stepped decorously over the threshold, letting him know that she didn’t intend to stay. “I’ll just leave them. You can look them over at your leisure and let me know what you think.”

  He didn’t reply directly to that, just closed the door and instructed, “This way,” before turning and walking down the hall.

  She wanted to throw something at his back, but she took a deep, calming breath and followed reluctantly. He took her all the way through to the garden room again, where everything had been rearranged. The fully assembled exercise equipment now occupied one end of the room, with the small forest of plants forming a privacy barrier of sorts. The table and chairs had been placed as close to the glass wall as possible, and a pair of small dry-sink bases had been brought down from the attic and arranged in such a manner that they did not block any portion of the view even while standing handy for service. One now held a pitcher full of iced tea and several slender tumblers. A marble plant stand held an old-fashioned oscillating fan, and a pair of oil lamps hung from two crooked lamp stands that flanked the table. Chey could almost see the room by the soft glow of lamplight, the table laid with china and silver and white linen. A table laid for two. She shook away the vision, commenting, “Someone’s been busy.”

  “Do you approve?” he asked, lifting both arms wide.

  “Very much,” she answered, placing her briefcase atop the table.

  “I won’t mind if you make changes.”

  The way he said it told her a great deal, and she looked at him in a new light. “You did this.”

  He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Grandmama really only has a care for the gardens.” He pushed a hand through his hair, admitting sheepishly, “And I’m getting a little impatient with the house.”

  “Well, maybe these will help,” she said, placing the folder flat on the table.

  He immediately turned away. “Care for some tea?”

  “Oh, no. I have to get back to the shop.”

  “I’d rather just go over them now, together. It’ll save time in the long run.”

  It sounded like an order. Biting back an outright refusal, she pulled out a chair. “In that case, iced tea would be fine.”

  He got busy pouring the tea then carried the drinks to the table and took the chair closest to her. After sipping from his glass, he sat forward and pulled the folder around to flip open its cover. The sketch of his grandmother’s suite was on top of the stack of renderings. He looked at the floor plan carefully, tracing the traffic pattern with his fingertip, then switched to the artistic conception.

  “Oh, she’ll like this. Didn’t I see this sofa in the attic?”

  Chey swallowed the mellow tea in her mouth and said, “Absolutely.” She leaned forward, intending to elucidate, but he laid aside that sheet and picked up the next, which was a rendering of the nursery. Brodie laughed aloud and leaned back in his chair. “This is wonderful!”

  A delicious warmth spread through Chey. “I’m glad you approve.”

  “Very much,” he said, setting aside that one and picking up the next, which was his own. He tilted his head, studying the sketch. Chey found that she was holding her breath, and she literally flinched when he picked up the next sheet with his free hand, that of his office suite. “This is almost perfect,” he finally said.

  She felt an irrational stab of disappointment and immediately scolded herself. Almost perfect was practically unheard of in her business, especially at this stage. “What’s the problem?” she asked anxiously.

  He waved a hand. “Nothing important. It completely has to do with the office. I have my own system, and the office arrangement has to facilitate that. We’ll fix it. Otherwise, I like what you’ve done. Very much.” She smiled, and he smiled back. Then, instead of picking up the next drawing, he leaned toward her suddenly and asked, “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving, and it is almost lunch time.”

  She immediately began to disengage. “Oh, I—”

  “Grandmama has taken Seth on an excursion,” he interrupted, “and I find I’m not crazy about eating alone anymore.” He reached for her hand and folded his own around it, his gaze holding hers. “Have lunch with me? Marcel will be thrilled. He constantly complains that he doesn’t have enough to do.”

  She knew without doubt that she shouldn’t, though she’d had lunch with clients before, of course. Yet, this was different. Staying would definitely be foolish, so she smiled, shook her head and intended to say, No, thank you. What came out was simply, “Thank you.”

  “Excellent!” He was up and moving before she could correct herself. He disappeared into the house, and returned again moments later. “I hope you like seafood salad in pita bread with yam chips. Marcel is a genius with yams.” He sat down and leaned close once more. “Marcel is a genius with food, period. Now let’s have a look at the rest of these.” She smiled wanly and watched in silence, puzzled by her own acquiescence, as he went over the renderings of the downstairs rooms.

  He made a few suggestions about the game room, saying that he’d found among the articles in the attic a sideboard which would make a marvelous wet bar and a classic old billiards table for which he’d ordered new slate. She took out a pencil and lightly sketched in the changes, barely noticing how closely together their heads were bent until he took the pencil out of her hand. Looking up, she sat back and watched as he made a few changes himself, her heart suddenly pounding with awareness.

  “Will that work, do you think?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against hers.

  She barely glanced at the paper. “Appears workable to me.”

  He looked up, something dark and intense shadowing his blue, blue eyes. Just then, a tall man dressed all in white wheeled a cart into the room. Having already met his wife, small, pale Kate, Chey was somehow unprepared for big, black Marcel with his round, shaved head and hands the size of small hams.

  “Ah, company at last!” he exclaimed, flashing her a smile.

  “I promised Marcel that he would get to cook for a great many people,” Brodie explained indulgently, “and he’s growing impatient.” The big man chuckled as he prepared the table with the previously imagined china, silver and white linen. All that was missing, Chey mused wryly to herself, was the lamplight, and thank God for that!

  Marcel took his leave the moment the food was on the table. Brodie hadn’t exaggerated the big man’s talent, and it only took one bite to know it. The flavors of diced shrimp, crab, clams, celery, brown rice, pecans, onion, bell pepper and mayonnaise flavored with chili powder and other spices mingled on her tongue. When she followed it with a cinnamony sweet yam chip, the effect was exquisite.

  “Coconut cream cake for dessert,” Brodie announced before taking a huge bite of his own pita.

  Chey rolled her eyes and shook her head, but her traitorous gaze strayed to the second tier of the serving cart where an old-fashioned shortcake had been piled high with custard, whipped cream and toasted coconut.

  “I’d get fat if I lived in this house,” she blurted.

  His blue gaze swept over her. “I don’t think so. You seem to have a naturally svelte figure. I’d lay odds you don’t even work out.”

  “I’d have to if I ate like this all the time,” she retorted, tacitly admitting that he was correct and purposefully ignoring what felt very much like a compliment.

  “Some workouts are hugely satisfying,” he said softly, then looked away before she could determine what exactly he meant by that. He went on, admitting, “I love good food. It’s one of the great luxuries of life, don’t you think?”

  With he
r mouth full of the most scrumptious seafood salad she’d ever eaten, she could do nothing more than nod her head in agreement. He smiled at her, a slow, lazy, speculative smile that set her insides to quaking. Determinedly, she fixed her mind on work, specifically this very room. What a lovely place it was with its view of the gardens and pool. The potted plants seemed to bring the outside indoors. She looked up, thinking that two or three ceiling fans would be welcome additions. She imagined strings of twinkling lights, tables scattered among the plants for an informal dinner party. How charming it would be.

  “You know,” she said absently, “since you expect to entertain a good deal, we may want to rethink how you’re using this room.”

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked, leaning on one elbow. She told him and could see the approval building in his eyes. “Okay, sounds good, but you didn’t say where the workout equipment would go.”

  She thought about it, winnowing through her ideas aloud. “We could use the old smoking room, turn it into a regular gym, but it’s right in the middle of the formal rooms downstairs, and I don’t like the feel of that.”

  “No one will use the equipment other than me, anyway,” he commented.

  “Then we should dedicate a space for it in your suite,” she said, reaching for the folder that had been pushed to one side. She flipped open the cover and removed the drawing she wanted, then shoved aside her plate and plucked the pencil from behind her ear. Swiftly, she began sketching again. Brodie shifted his chair closer and watched, munching his pita idly. “If we removed this wall,” she muttered, marking it out, “and opened the dressing room this way, we could put in an exercise room. We could make the bathroom a little smaller if needed.”

  “Uh-uh,” he said. “I like that bathroom. I love that bathroom.”

  “Okay, leave the bathroom,” she said, putting back what she’d been removing. She tilted her head, studying the drawing again, and tapped an area of it with two fingers. “I wonder which of these rooms is the largest. I plugged the data into the computer, of course, but I didn’t put the figures on the print out, and naturally I can’t remember now.”

  Brodie popped the last of his pita into his mouth and pushed back his chair. “If you’ve had enough to eat, why don’t we just go look? I have a measuring tape around here somewhere.”

  “Good idea.”

  He got up and pulled her chair out for her as she followed suit. Marcel appeared as they were moving away from the table. “You can remove the lunch plates,” Brodie said genially, “but leave the dessert. We’ll be back for it.”

  “That seafood salad was luscious,” Chey told the chef, and he beamed.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Brodie told her, pulling her arm through his.

  “What?”

  “He’ll meet you at the door with a plate of food the next time you arrive,” Brodie warned, only half joking. “Marcel lives to cook. Feeding people wonderful food is his primary mission in life. I sometimes worry that if I don’t get some empty bellies in here for him to fill he’ll leave and go back to restaurant work.”

  “No wonder you’re impatient to get the house into shape,” she said.

  “The satisfaction of my stomach depends upon it,” he quipped dryly.

  She shook her head, laughing, and only later, as he escorted her upstairs, did she reflect that this man’s charm was lethal. They went into his office, where he searched out a small, flimsy measuring tape that did not exceed ten feet in length. Just to complicate matters, the silly thing would retract without warning, snapping right out of her fingers, which meant they often had to start all over again. It took several tries to get two measurements in the outer chamber, and by the time they managed it, Chey was holding on to the end of that tape measure for dear life, reluctant to let go for any reason, so when it retracted again and it seemed she couldn’t stop it, she stupidly followed it—right into Brodie Todd.

  She bumped against his chest and, startled, looked up, the tape measure and their hands trapped between them. For an instant, he seemed as shocked as she was, but then he let go of the measuring tape case, and it hit the floor between her feet with a clunk, leaving her with the end of the tape still clamped between her fingertips and her wide gaze trapped by his own rapidly darkening one. He moved his hand, dropping it slightly and opening it to slide his palm across her ribs, just beneath her breast. The other hand he clamped around the nape of her neck. She couldn’t seem to look away or move.

  He bent his head, then brought her mouth to his with the gentle pressure of his hand at the back of her head. Sensation swamped her, radiating from his hands and mouth into her skin, muscles and bones, suffusing her with a trembling warmth that sent her good sense begging and pooled heavily in her breasts and belly. At first the kiss was light, tender, easy, just a simple meeting of lips. Then, entirely of their own accord, her eyelids fluttered shut, and everything changed.

  He wrapped his arms around her, tilted his head, and opened her mouth with his, sliding his tongue inside. She heard a hiss and was dimly aware that it must have been the tape sliding into the case, which meant, of course, that she had let go of the end, which would explain how her hands came to be sliding up his chest and around his neck. He made a sound of acute pleasure and tightened his arms, plastering her body to his as his tongue delved deeper.

  She forgot why this was a bad idea. She forgot everything but the desire for more. She wanted to be closer, to feel more, to do more. She needed more from his mouth, more from the hard, sculpted planes of his body, more from the hands now kneading her flesh with mounting urgency as she moved against him. As if he knew exactly what she needed most, he dropped a hand to her bottom, cupping and lifting her against him even as he wedged a knee between hers, shoving her skirt indecently high. She melted from the inside out, undulating instinctively against him.

  Suddenly they were two wild things, grabbing and grinding, trying to devour each other. She was so lost that she didn’t even hear the little voice that shattered it. All she knew was that one moment she wanted to tear his skin open and crawl beneath it, and the next instant he was shoving her away. She blinked up into his face, astonished to be doing so and then more astonished by all that had just happened. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed, thankfully, because Seth hurtled past her and threw himself at Brodie.

  “Daddy, I saw pishes!” He held out his arms. “Gweat big pishes!”

  Brodie finally looked away from her and smiled down at his son. “That’s great!” Chey became aware of another person entering the room then, and heat bloomed in her cheeks. She turned away, folding her arms, and pretended to be studying the far wall. “Did you go to the aquarium?” she heard Brodie ask.

  Viola answered him. “No. We were walking along the street and…”

  Chey barely listened to the story, something about a truck delivering fish to a local restaurant and a broken crate, ice going everywhere. Chey became aware, belatedly, that everyone was laughing, but she couldn’t manage more than a smile as the full realization of what she’d done finally settled over her.

  Kiss seemed too small a word for what they’d shared. A mere kiss didn’t make your insides tremble and clench long after the fact. It didn’t make you curl your hands into fists just to keep from reaching out for more. Even her throat was trembling so badly that she could barely swallow. Suddenly she had to get out of there.

  “I think I have everything I need for now,” she announced abruptly, turning and heading toward the door. “I’ll show myself out.” He said something to Viola, then Chey heard him coming after her and picked up the pace.

  He caught her at the top of the stairs, hauled her around easily, his big, exquisite hands with those long, tapered fingers and wide palms encircling her upper arms. His blue gaze plumbed hers. “Chey, we haven’t even had dessert.”

  She managed to look away. “None for me, thank you. I really have to go.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Soon.”
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br />   “Very soon, I hope.” His voice was rough, husky. “As soon as possible.”

  “As soon as possible,” she agreed, which wouldn’t be soon at all. He slid his hands up and down her arms, and then he finally let her go.

  She was in the car before she remembered that she’d left her designs and briefcase in the garden room. She didn’t go back for them. She didn’t dare.

  Chapter Four

  Brodie strangled the telephone receiver with both hands, then closed his eyes and tamped down his temper before calmly going back to the conversation.

  “Will you please give Ms. Simmons another message,” he said, keeping his tone light and breezy, until the end when he allowed the underlying steel to show through. “Tell her that if she doesn’t present herself on my doorstep within the next twenty-four hours I will personally hunt her down and drag her here!”

  He rolled his eyes, allowing her prissy assistant to nervously rattle on and on about how busy she’d been and how hard she was working and how he was personally sure that she’d be back in touch as soon as possible. He’d heard it all before and was no closer to buying it now than the first time. The little coward was avoiding him, but no longer. He wasn’t above using any of the weapons in his arsenal, which was formidable, and she might as well learn it now.

  “Twenty-four hours,” he interrupted flatly and turned off the phone.

  It had been more than a week since that kiss. He’d called repeatedly, even dropped by her shop to return her briefcase and sketches, but the only face he’d seen, the only voice he’d heard, belonged to that fashionable fireplug of an assistant of hers. George, he thought the name was.

  Brodie personally hated assistants. He’d tried to work with them, but they invariably got in his way. It was easier just to do what had to be done himself than to delegate everything. Besides, the business pretty much ran itself from the corporate offices in Dallas. He had a lean, efficient staff operating a mere dozen offices around the world and a state-of-the-art web site. It was a neat, tight operation and a lucrative one. Oh, he knew he could make some fast bucks in a big way if he’d go public, put a BMT Travel Agency on every other street corner, but he knew instinctively that in the long run it would be the death of the thing.