“Where is Violet?” my PA asks. “I can hardly wait to congratulate her.”
Violet’s mother doesn’t answer the question. She’s suddenly staring at Bailey as if she’s never seen her before.
“My goodness,” she says slowly, “whatever have you done to yourself, Bailey? You look—you look—”
“Magnificent!”
This, from Violet’s father. It’s the first word he’s uttered and from the look his wife shoots him and the way he shrinks into his suit, I figure it might be his last for the night.
“Different,” she says coldly. She turns her attention back to Bailey. “New clothes? New hairstyle? Makeup? I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
I have been holding my drink in one hand and Bailey’s hand in the other. Now, my PA kind of turns towards me so that her body is pressed to mine. She rests her fingers lightly on my chest. Instinctively, I let go of her elbow and slide my arm around her waist.
“Mostly, what’s different is having Matthew in my life,” she purrs.
She turns that lovely face up to mine and after maybe a tenth of a second hesitation, I bend down and kiss her. It’s as natural as it was to put my arm around her and it’s only a light kiss, just the brush of my mouth over hers.
Why not? It’s part of the game.
But when I look into her eyes, I know three things.
One. Bailey is not the slightest bit drunk. She is simply enjoying her coming-out party.
Two. The game has taken on new dimensions.
Three. To hell with Bailey being my PA.
Tonight, she is my woman.
14
Bailey and I keep circulating until we’ve said hello to, I am certain, every human being in the county.
When Bailey starts to exchange her now-empty glass for a full one, I stop her.
“You don’t need it,” I say quietly. “You’re doing just fine on your own.”
She nods. “I hope so,” she whispers.
I bring her hand to my lips. Lots of eyes are on us. People are talking about us; I’m a guy so I’m not usually good at knowing these things, but even I can tell we’re the object of lots of speculation. So, yeah, we’re being watched, but that isn’t why I’m kissing Bailey’s hand.
I’m doing it because she’s Bailey, and Violet’s father got it right.
She’s magnificent.
She always has been. I always knew that, only not the way I know it now. What I mean is, I saw her as intelligent and dedicated and creative and generous. Now I see her as all those things and more. And it isn’t because my duckling has turned into a swan. I told you right away, I’m the kind of dude who’s always done just fine with women, so having a beautiful woman on my arm is nothing new.
Yes, but this beautiful woman is Bailey. At the risk of sounding corny, she’s beautiful inside as well as out.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her. “And I’m proud to be your lover.”
She blushes. I’m not her lover; we both know that. But there’s a feeling between us, a link…
A tension.
Jesus.
I want to sweep her into my arms and carry her out of this place, to our room at the inn.
“Bailey,” I say with whispered urgency, “Bailey…”
She stiffens. And says, “They’re here!”
And so they are. Cousin Violet and Elevator Boy have just come through the door.
No surprises about either of them.
Bailey’s description of Chester was dead accurate. He’s short and paunchy. Yes, he almost surely wears shoes with lifts to give him added height. Not that they do much good. No matter how you look at him, he’s small, and he walks with that sort of aggressively Napoleonic strut some small men seem to need to get through life. What Bailey left out was that he combs his hair sideways from one ear to the other, but the strands are few and far between so the style, if you want to call it that, doesn’t do much to cover his shiny scalp. He’s wearing a dark suit and shiny black shoes. Thanks to Bailey’s description, I pretty much see him wearing those shoes with Bermudas. I also see him as shirtless, and I try hard not to dwell on that.
Violet is…Let’s just say there’s not a guy out there who hasn’t seen his fill of Violets. Lots of hair in a color not produced by nature, every strand shellacked into place. Lots of makeup. A dress that’s too short, too tight, too sparkly, too everything unless the woman wearing it carries a baton and is followed by seventy six trombones—and yes, my Mom loves that old movie so as a kid, I probably saw it a million times.
Even from here, I can see the diamond glinting on her finger.
It looks less like a diamond than a headlight.
Subtlety is definitely not Vi’s middle name.
I tend to be a doodler. I guess it goes with designing things. If I were doodling Violet, she’d be a bunch of circles. Maybe some dudes are into that. The overly curved thing. Not me. The architect in me prefers the elegance of linear structures.
Like my Bailey.
There’s a grand piano in the corner. A guy’s been noodling at it, and now he bangs out a few chords and leans into a mike that’s on top of the piano.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom!”
There’s applause. A couple of cheers. Violet clings to her groom’s arm. Maybe she’s afraid he’ll turn and run. She waves. Marie Antoinette couldn’t do it better. More cheers. She and Elevator Boy move forward. Violet looks around the room at the peasants. She is beaming. Her gaze skims over the aunts, the uncles, the cousins, the parents, us…
Her gaze sweeps back.
And settles on Bailey.
I can almost hear what she’s thinking. Who is that woman? Could it be…No. It isn’t. Wait. It is. No. It isn’t…
Chester is trying to head for his parents, but Violet has other ideas. She tugs one way. He tugs the other. They tussle silently for a couple of seconds, but she wins the war.
They’re coming straight through the crowd. To us.
“Matthew,” my PA, my Bailey, whispers. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
I still have my arm around her. And I can feel her starting to tremble.
“Baby,” I say, just loud enough so the people nearest to us can hear me.
She looks up at me. And, no hesitation this time, I lower my head and claim her mouth. It’s trembling too, and I kiss her until her lips soften and, crowd or no crowd, she gives herself up to me.
It isn’t easy to end the kiss, but I do.
Vituperative Vi and Napoleon the Launderette Tycoon are standing before us.
“Bailey?” Violet says.
She sounds the way I figure Stanley must have sounded when he confronted Dr. Livingston.
I keep my arm around my woman. “Violet,” she says, and I want to cheer because her tone is firm and calm.
“Aunt Rose said you were coming, but I didn’t actually believe…”
“Hi,” I say briskly. I stick out my hand. Napoleon takes it. It’s like holding onto a dead fish and when I let go, I fight back the desire to wipe my fingers against my trousers. “I’m Matt O’Malley.” I turn to Violet and hold out my hand again. She takes it and I know that the happy couple has at least the dead fish thing in common. “It’s my fault Bailey didn’t get back to you sooner.” I draw my girl closer to my side. “I have to admit, I didn’t want us to give up our long weekend in the Hamptons. We don’t get the chance to get out there as often as we’d like.”
Okay. I’m lying. But not completely. I do like the Hamptons. Bailey likes Jones Beach. Sure, one’s pricey real estate and one’s a public park, but so what? They’re both out east on Long Island, and ol’ Vi isn’t likely to know the difference.
Yeah, but she hasn’t bought into the whole story either. Not quite yet.
“So,” she says, looking at Bailey, “this is your boss?”
“Well, yes. Matthew is—”
“I hope I’m much more than that,” I say with a quick smile. �
�Right, honey?”
Bailey looks up at me. The situation is getting to her. I can see it. Actually, I can feel it. Her posture has stiffened.
“And you’ve been—dating—for how long?”
The dating drips with innuendo. I wait a beat. Bailey remains silent. I can’t believe she’s going to let this round go to Violet.
“Three weeks,” I say.
“Three months,” Bailey says.
We’ve both tried to make up for the mistake we made with Vi’s parents earlier.
“Time flies,” I say softly, and I touch the tip of my index finger to Bailey’s lips.
She lets out a little breath. And smiles. Hey, I am nothing if not a problem-solver.
Violet isn’t satisfied. Her eyes—they’re piggy eyes, kind of small and too close together—narrow. Must be a family trait.
“Which is it?” she demands. “Three weeks? Or three months?”
And just that fast, Bailey takes control.
“Three months,” she says. “But we didn’t let anyone at the office know until three weeks ago. It wouldn’t have been good protocol.” She flashes me a sexy glance from under half-lowered lashes. “Then it just got so difficult to keep our hands off each other, even in the office…”
Napoleon’s eyebrows try to fly into his non-existent hairline. Violet’s mouth drops open. I know a cue when I hear one, and I happily perform what is clearly becoming my night’s duty again.
I smile, lower my head, and kiss my woman.
And my woman kisses me back.
* * *
The evening goes quickly.
Violet and Napoleon sail off to conquer the crowd, although anyone can see it’s my girl who’s done the conquering. She jokes, she smiles, she talks, she listens. She’s finally the woman she’s always been—she just kept that woman hidden.
I am enthralled.
I love watching her. Love listening to her, even when she decides to take on Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arthur is my Uncle Harry by a different name. He’s got an opinion on everything, and he’s convinced his opinions are facts.
People roll their eyes.
Bailey rolls her intellect.
She and Uncle Arthur debate the world scene. The national economy. Climate change. The environment. Bailey is firm but polite. And when Uncle Arthur suddenly grins, grabs both her hands, kisses her on each cheek and says he loves how she stands up to him, it’s all I can do not to applaud.
There’s a buffet, and we eat. Not much, though. Neither of us seems to have an appetite.
There’s also music. Soft, easy stuff. A drummer and a bassist join the pianist and a few couples take over the minuscule dance floor.
I start leading Bailey to it. She holds back.
“I don’t dance,” she says.
I shrug. “That’s good, because neither do I.”
It’s not really true. I’m not John Travolta, but I can manage. Still, the white lie works. She holds my hand and we head for the dance floor, where she goes into my arms. She’s a little stiff, but I stroke my hand down her back and tell her to just feel the music, and after a few minutes, she does.
Good. All I want is to give her family yet another view of this woman they’ve only discovered tonight.
Come on, O’Malley. Be honest.
What I want is an excuse to hold her in my arms. Like this. Just like this. Her head on my shoulder. Her hair silky and soft against my jaw. My hands at the base of her spine, gently urging her to come closer. And she does. She moves into me. Leans against me. Presses the length of her soft, sweet body against mine.
She sighs and winds her arms around my neck.
I nuzzle a curl away from her ear. I feel her tremble, but I know that this time it isn’t from fear.
We’ve been moving slowly, staying with the soft music. We’ve reached the edge of the little dance floor. There’s a hallway beyond it that probably leads to another room. It’s barely lit and I dance us into those waiting shadows.
She gets even closer to me. I feel her hands in the hair at the nape of my neck.
I’ve managed to control my body. Until now. But the feel of her breasts against me, her thighs…
The inevitable happens.
My erection rises hot and hard against her.
“Hell,” I murmur. “Bailey. Honey, I’m sorry…”
She leans back in my arms. You know that thing they say? About a woman’s eyes filling with stars? Turns out it isn’t just a line. It’s true. I can see starlight and moonlight and all the promises a man could ever want glittering in her beautiful eyes.
And she moves against me. Delicately. But deliberately. She moves, and I grit my teeth to keep from lifting her in my arms and carrying her into the waiting shadows.
“Bailey.” My voice is low. A warning growl. “Bailey,” I say again, and she silences me by rising on her toes and pressing her lips to mine.
Then she clasps my face between her hands.
“Matthew,” she whispers. “Please. Take me to bed.”
15
We slip away without saying anything to anyone.
There’s a door in that dark hallway and we use it. It leads to the parking lot and, dammit, where’s the kid who parked my car?
I am holding Bailey tight against me. My hand is splayed over her hip and I can feel the heat of her skin right through her sexy blue dress.
There he is. The kid in the white jacket who parked my car.
“Hey,” I say, and he jumps a little. I don’t think he’s accustomed to the restaurant patrons appearing at this end of the lot.
“Yessir?”
I fumble in my jacket pocket, find the little plastic card he gave me and hand it over. “The Corvette.”
“Yessir. I remember. I parked it way in the back, where it would be safe.”
Right now, nothing is safe. Bailey is burrowing against me. I need to get us away from here. Fast.
I hand the kid a fifty. “Get the car to me in less than two minutes and I’ll double that,” I say.
He looks from me to Bailey and then to me again.
“Yessir!”
He trots off. Maybe sixty seconds later, the ’Vette roars up to where we’re standing. The kid gets out; I fork over the other fifty. He looks at it and gives me a goofy grin.
“Hey, thanks, man…”
We are in the car and gone.
I reach for Bailey’s hand. It’s cool. Her fingers are shaking. I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss it. Then we clasp the gear shifter together and I step hard on the gas.
It took us twenty minutes to get here.
It takes us ten to get back.
A fast trip…but long enough for a faint glint of sanity to pierce my brain.
In other words, just as we pull up at the inn, Coop’s voice is in my head.
Dude! What the fuck are you doing?
I’m supposed to be helping Bailey stand up to her cousin. A masquerade. A no-sex, no- involvement, no-nothing-but-me-playing-Good-Samaritan game.
Who am I kidding?
It stopped being that the first time I held my PA in my arms. Sure, I was only trying to comfort her…And I did. I have. The problem is that the more I comforted her, the more I got to know her, the more she became a woman, a very special woman, as opposed to being my assistant.
She whispers my name.
I take a deep breath.
Years and years ago, a saffron-robed monk taught me the concept of mindfulness. How to leave the body and reach for your center.
Breathe in. Hold for a five-count. Breathe out. Slowly. That’s it. Repeat. And again…
Bailey makes a little sound. She reaches for the door. “It’s okay,” she says in a small, shaky voice. “I understand.”
No. She does not understand. I know she’s thinking I don’t want her and, God, she’s all I want, all I’ve truly, honestly, deeply wanted in a very long time. I’m what she wants too, but is this the right thing to do? Will taking Bailey to bed be wrong? Cooper
would think it’s wrong. My sister would think it’s wrong. Yes, but Coop and Casey have nothing to do with this. This is about Bailey and me.
To hell with mindfulness, with logic, with sanity. I’m out of the car and around it so fast that she has no choice but to step into my arms.
“No,” she says, “no, Matthew, I underst…”
I kiss her. I cup her face and kiss her, gently at first and then harder and deeper. She responds and when she does, I clasp her hand and bring it between us. I need her to know, positively know, how much I want her.
The desk clerk gave me a key to the front door.
“We lock up at ten,” he’d said.
A damn good thing, because if I had to stop to get a key right now I’d probably vault the desk and grab the poor bastard by the throat if he took more than a second to give it to me.
I dredge the key from my pocket and fumble with it—my hands are not as steady as they might be. Then we’re inside and somehow we get up the stairs to our room.
The question of whether or not this is a bridal suite has been answered. At the very least it’s a suite for romance, and for this night.
The lamps on the bedside tables have been turned on. Turned on low, so that the bed is softly lit. A bottle of champagne is chilling in a bucket beside one of the lamps. The comforter has been turned down and a long stemmed red rose lies on each of our pillows.
A dude with a thing for sarcasm might say all that’s missing is soft music, but I am not that dude tonight.
What I am is a man who wants only to make love to his woman.
I elbow the door shut and turn to her.
“Bailey,” I say thickly.
She smiles. Then she is in my arms, our mouths fused in a kiss so intense it almost drives me to my knees.
I peel off her black silk jacket.
She pushes my suit coat back on my shoulders. I shrug it off; it falls to the floor. I press my mouth to the hollow of her throat. She makes a little sound that sends my already racing pulse into overdrive. It’s a sigh, a moan, a primal admission of need that rocks me to my core.
I tell myself to move slowly. Not to lose control. That’s not going to be easy. What I want is to pull up her skirt, tear off whatever she’s wearing under it, unzip my fly and take her here, right against the wall.
The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy Page 15
