The Game of Love

by Heather Graham

  “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do,” she retorted. “Something.”

  “You’re doing exactly what she wants.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing—I just can’t stand this!”

  “Jade—” He tried to take her into his arms; she spun away from him.

  “I mean it! Straighten your life out first—then call me.”

  For just a second, he looked violent. His eyes were dark as ink, his jaw tense, his entire form taut as wire.

  He threw his hands into the air. “Fine.”

  Then he walked out of the house. Jade watched him go and burst into tears. She sat down on the sofa and didn’t even notice that Sean had walked back into the room until he put an arm around her. She tried to dry her tears, but her son knew her well.

  “Mom, he doesn’t even like her.”

  She caught his hand and smiled through her tears. “I’m sorry, Sean, I—”

  “You’re not being fair, Mom. What’s he supposed to do?”

  “Sean—”

  He interrupted her with a vast sigh. “I know—it’s none of my business and I’m going to bed.”

  She laughed. “No—it is your business, in a way. I love you. I just can’t… Oh, never mind. I can’t explain. Let’s both go to bed, huh?”

  Her words were cheerful enough. But she didn’t think she fooled her son, and she certainly didn’t fool herself.

  She spent the night wide awake, pounding her pillow and feeling sorry for herself. At 1:00 a.m., she decided she had been unfair. At 2:00 a.m., she was wondering what else she could have done. At four she slept from sheer exhaustion. At six-thirty, the alarm went off, and she knew she was in for a miserable day.

  At seven, right before she went in to wake Sean up, the phone started ringing. She hesitated, not knowing if she dreaded hearing Jeff’s voice or longed for it.

  When she answered, he didn’t wait for anything more than her initial “Hello” before starting in.

  “I want to see you. As soon as possible. Lunch?”

  His voice brought all sorts of things back to her. An awful ache of longing, as if it had been weeks instead of hours since she had seen him. She could close her eyes and see his smile, the way the short dark hairs curled on his chest, the darkness of his fingers when they rested against her flesh, the way his eyes looked when they were filled with passion. She could hear his voice, whispering words of love and encouragement.

  “Jade—”

  “Jeff, maybe you should give it a go with Diana. For your son’s sake. Maybe—”

  He interrupted her with a string of violent oaths. “Come on, Jade…be serious! Do you know how foolish that sounds? If it were necessary, I’d happily lie down and die for Ryan. But pretending that Diana and I could ever make it would only hurt him. Surely you realize that! Jade—”

  “I don’t know!” she wailed. “I just don’t know!”

  “Lunch—”

  “No…no! Not today!”

  She slammed the phone back on to the hook, then removed it. If he tried to call back, he’d get a busy signal.

  He didn’t call her at work, and her phone didn’t ring once that night.

  Nor did it ring Wednesday morning. And on Wednesday night, the only calls she received were from Lynn and Miriam. Neither mentioned Jeff—or Diana.

  Thursday afternoon, she didn’t go to practice. She asked Miriam to take both boys.

  She made it through Friday and the weekend. But she didn’t sleep well, and Sandy actually snapped at her, calling her a zombie.

  On Monday morning, she found herself sipping tea and staring at the phone at 6:00 a.m. She was furious with herself, because she was just waiting for the clock to slip around to seven so that she could call him.

  When he answered, she went tense all over.

  “Have you any time today?” she asked, her voice cool.

  He answered slowly, as stiff as she.

  “Yes, when?”

  “Eleven, eleven-thirty?”

  “Yes. Where?”

  Jade drew in a deep breath. “I’ll come by your house.”

  He was silent for several seconds, then he laughed a little bitterly. “I’m supposed to be after your body, Ms. McLane, not the other way around.”

  “Forget it—” she began.

  “I’ll be here all morning. Just come by whenever you feel like it.”

  He hung up on her. She thought about calling him back, then she thought about just not showing up.

  But at eleven o’clock she left her office and drove to the Grange. The gates were open. And the door opened, too, before she could bring her hand up to knock.

  What was she going to say to him? she wondered as the door drifted inward, her hand still in the air.

  Then he was there, towering over her slightly. He closed the door decisively behind her.

  Words, words, words—where were the right words?

  But she didn’t need them. As soon as the door closed, his arms were around her. His lips touched hers in an explosion of heat and urgency. She was so stunned at first that she did not respond; his teeth tugged impatiently at her lower lip. Her lips parted, and fireworks went off as his tongue penetrated deep into her mouth. She was filled with a sense of urgency, a feeling that she would die if she did not have all of him quickly.

  His lips left hers to rain kisses on her face. Sunlight streamed through the house, hit the windows, reflected in a dazzle of gold. But that light did not burn as brightly as the liquid gold that filled her.

  “I missed you so badly,” he whispered. His hands were at the neckline of her blouse. She felt his scent wash over her. Her palm came to his cheek.

  “I had to come.”

  “I couldn’t have waited for you much longer.”

  They were standing in the beautiful foyer with the marble floor, encircled by windows, but she paid no heed to their surroundings. She found her hands on him, her fingers trembling in their hurry to divest him of his shirt.

  “Jade…”

  “I can’t help it. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  Her silk blouse fell to the marble with a whisper. His fingers were on her bra hook and then on the bare flesh of her back. He inhaled raggedly as he caressed her breasts, crushing her against his bare chest. She shivered at the touch of his naked chest against hers, the coarse hair erotic against her nipples.

  “I missed you. Missed you—”

  “So badly.”

  “All I’ve thought about—”

  “I haven’t slept.”

  “I’ve wanted you. Nothing else.”

  Their shoes were off. Her stockings and his socks followed. Her skirt joined her blouse in a soft heap. The marble was cold against their feet; maybe it wasn’t so cold, maybe it was just that they were so very hot.

  “I love you.” He said it vehemently, harshly. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  She was in his arms, and they were moving up the stairs. There were so many windows, all of them open to the sun, and they were naked beneath it. Jade didn’t feel at all exposed. Beyond the windows were two acres of lush foliage, like a jungle, stretches of banyan and seagrape as wild as any primeval land.

  Moments later she was on his bed, feeling the cool sheets, the heat of his body. She loved him with every fiber of her being. She drank him in as if it had been a lifetime since she had seen him. She noticed all the little things she loved: the arch of his brow, the line of his mouth, the texture of his cheek, his chest, his hip…his manhood. Everything. She was starved for him. She needed the feel of his fingers stroking her, the caress of his mouth, his kiss, the pressure of his body.

  “Yes…”

  “Oh, yes…”

  Time stood still. They made love in a frenzy, then they made love all over again, slowly; once again, they came together in a frenzy. Her energy could not be depleted; each time she tired, he aroused her again. Each time she thought herself entirely sated, she learned that he could
touch her in a new erogenous zone, and her desire would come bursting to life again.

  Eventually, she took a sheet from the bed, wrapped it around herself and sat before the tower window, looking out at the water. She knew he was watching her from the bed. She knew that he was feeling lazy and contented, yet his eyes were sharp, as if he wanted to read her words in her face before she spoke them.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. When I’m with you, everything is perfect. When I have to leave, the anxiety sets in again. The fear, the wondering.”

  “You have to believe that I love you.”

  She smiled softly, ruefully. “I do. I can’t help it. It’s just that I know all the other parents in the league are talking about us. I know that your ex-wife is watching us with amusement. I know that everyone assumes I’m a brief fling for you—after all, you are Jeffrey Martin. I’m a passing fancy, an ordinary person. I know people think I should just enjoy it while it lasts. After all, I’m deriving such benefits from our relationship. My car, the commission on this place. Hell, according to some of them, I should hang in until I wind up with a pair of diamond earrings or something.”

  He was smiling, she noted, smiling very lazily, with all the charm that had captured her in the first place. She stood up, clutching the sheet around her, approaching him angrily.

  “You find that amusing?”

  She threw a pillow on top of him. He laughed and asked her. “Would you like a pair of diamond earrings?

  “No.”

  “You didn’t mind the commission from the house.”

  “I’m a real estate agent. That’s what I do for a living. I earned that.”

  “I’d say you’ve earned a dozen pairs of diamond earrings, too.”

  “You son of a bit—”

  She raised a hand to hit him; he caught it and then laughed as he pulled her beneath him.

  “Jade! I’m teasing! I can’t see why you let the opinions of others bother you. You were the one after my body today, remember?”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “You were. As desperately as I was after yours.”

  “So?”

  He smiled again, a crooked, sensual grin. He laughed softly, and planted a light kiss on her lips.

  “So marry me.”

  “What?”

  “Marry me. That is what people do when they’re in love, isn’t it? Marry me—shut them all up.”

  She didn’t answer right away. It was so sudden. She had been so afraid that he wanted to marry Diana again that Jade had never even thought about his proposing to her.

  “Well?”

  “I—”

  “You claim to love me.”

  “I do. I just—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes.

  “Maybe I’m afraid that marrying you would make me…what they say. A gold digger.”

  He groaned. “Can’t we forget the damned money? This is ridiculous.”

  “We can’t just get married.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. Ryan will have a fit—”

  “Ryan will come around.”

  “He wants you to get back together with his mother—”

  “Which will never happen. There’s no point in allowing him to live under that delusion.”

  “Then there’s Diana.”

  “What about her?” His eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t want to be a buffer—”

  “A buffer? Damn you, Jade. You claim to love me, yet you don’t trust a thing I say.”

  “Jeff! She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. How—”

  “She’s beautiful, Jade, yes. A painting can be beautiful, and a dress can be beautiful. A house, a day, a sunset. All in different ways. A child can be beautiful. An old woman handing cookies to a little girl can be beautiful. Real beauty is in the heart, Jade. Diana is beautiful to look at, but she is entirely self-centered. I tried to make it work for Ryan’s sake. I tried a long, long time before I filed for divorce. But I realized that sacrificing my own happiness did not make me a good parent. You can’t be miserable and make life good for others at the same time. I don’t hate Diana. But any love I felt for her died a long time before we parted.”

  “But you—”

  “Yes, after we divorced, I was with her a few times. It didn’t mean anything, except that adults have needs. She holds no lure for me that I can’t resist. I hope she lives long, well, happily and merrily—just so long as it isn’t with me. Jade, I am in love with you. I’m in love with everything that we can have together. A lifetime of loving, of waking up together, going to sleep together. Coming home every night of our lives to be together. Believing in each other. Even arguing—together. Meals together. A life together. Honest-to-God together. Jade, I want that. I want that more than I could ever tell you in words. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, Ryan is going to be a problem. Yes, I’m going to have to ask you to tolerate some difficult moments. And in return, I can only swear that I love you. Really love you. With all my heart, all of me.”

  She stared into his eyes and was mesmerized by the love she saw there.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  He held her cheeks between his palms, and kissed her lips lightly, with reverence. Then he kissed her with a newfound hunger. Finally he lifted his lips from hers.

  “You are beautiful,” he told her. “Outside, inside. I’ve never known anyone as beautiful as you. When we make love and I see the emotion, the passion and the caring in your eyes, you’re beautiful. Honest and real and beautiful. And to my eyes, no other woman can compare.”

  “Oh, Jeffrey,” she said, and tears stung her eyes. “When?”

  “When?”

  “When can we get married?”

  He paused just a second. Then he grinned. “Next week. Sunday, as soon as I’m off work, we’ll fly to Georgia. Monday we’ll be married. We could get a license here and be married in three days, but I’d rather go away. I’d like to have a little time together—alone.”

  “The boys—”

  “Toby and Lynn will happily take the kids for a few days. I wish it could be more, but we both have so many commitments right now. How does it all sound to you?”

  She just nodded, a little dazed.

  “What about my work?”

  “That’s up to you. Keep your job if you want; chuck it if you don’t. Just do me one more favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Be late getting back from lunch today. Make love with me one more time…give me a few dreams so I can survive this last week of waiting.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jade breathed. “Oh, yes…”

  CHAPTER 10

  Jade and Jeff decided not to say anything to the boys until Friday. Then the four of them could have dinner together somewhere, go to a movie or for a walk, and the two adults could break the news to the boys.

  Sean, she was certain, would be ecstatic.

  Ryan, she was equally certain, would be upset.

  But she had stopped mentioning that fact; every time she did, Jeff scowled and said he was sorry, but Ryan would just have to be upset.

  Jade had to agree that Jeff couldn’t live his life to humor Ryan. In the end, such a thing would actually be cruel to the child. Still, news of his father’s marriage was going to hit Ryan hard.

  * * *

  When Jade and Sean arrived at the Grange the next day, they were in for a surpirse. The front door was opened by an elderly woman who looked perfect for the role of somebody’s grandmother. She had snow white hair pulled back into a bun, dark merry eyes, red cheeks and a spotless white apron over a plump little body.

  “Hello?” she inquired cheerfully.

  “Uh, hi,” Jade said. “I’m Jade Mc—”

  “Oh, yes! Come in, dear, come in! And this must be Sean!”

  Sean gave Jade a quizzical gaze that silently asked, O
h, no! She isn’t going to kiss me, is she?

  The woman laughed delightedly. “I’m Mattie Percival. I worked on and off for Jeff in Chicago—he had a much smaller place there, though. I’m going to be his full-time housekeeper here.” She glanced at Sean with a winning smile. “Ryan is out back, playing. Why don’t you go join him? I’ll throw some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill for you two in a few minutes, if you’d like.”

  Sean nodded, relieved that he wasn’t going to be kissed. He glanced at Jade for permission, and she inclined her head. Sean mumbled out a “Thanks” to Mattie Percival, then went racing out.

  Mattie looked at Jade, openly surveying her and seeming to approve of what she saw. “Thought I’d get the young man out of the way for a minute, since I understand the boys haven’t been told the good news yet. I want to rephrase what I said. I’m the full-time housekeeper—with your approval.”

  Jade laughed. “You definitely have my approval, and it’s nice to know it counts. Is Jeff here?”

  “He certainly is. He’s upstairs in his den. Go right on up.”

  “Thanks,” Jade replied. She started up the stairs, then paused, smiling back at Mattie a little uncertainly. A housekeeper. Full-time. It was a nice thought. “Mattie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you mind terribly—I’ve put in a long day at the office and I’d love a drink.”

  “I have some chilled Chablis. I’ll be right up with some frosted glasses.”

  Jade hurried on up the stairway. The doorway to the den was open; Jeff was sitting at the desk, poring over a set of newspaper clippings. He probably was planning his next telecast. She paused, wondering if she should interrupt his work.

  “Jeff?”

  He glanced up at her, and his slow, easy, wonderfully crooked grin wiped away all her doubts about disturbing him. He stood, coming to her quickly and taking her into his arms for a quick but breathtaking kiss.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said to her, still holding her and staring into her eyes as if he could never see enough of her face. “I would have warned you about Mattie. What do you think? This place is so big. She’s going to have some extra help now and then for floors and things, but she’s crazy about kids, and she’s a miracle worker when it comes to keeping order.”