by Dorien Kelly
11
Cara’s Rule for Success 11:
Never sleep with anyone who
could be your future boss…
but if you give into temptation,
make sure you do it with style.
RELAX? MORGAN HAD to be kidding. The last time Cara was in a place like this, it had been a museum with red velvet ropes to keep the commoners’ grubby paws off the furniture.
At least Jerome was a comforting slice of reality. There was no pretense about him, just an appraising look followed by a warm welcome. It seemed she had passed muster, and she was glad for it.
He led them through a kitchen that was pretty much a chef’s orgasm, then to a room he called the library. Cara called it bigger than her entire apartment. It totally intimidated her with its leather-bound elegance.
“Your mother’s with Nicole, helping her pack,” Jerome said to Mark.
He winced. “What you mean is they’re dissecting my personal life.”
The older man laughed. “You weren’t raised a fool, were you, kid?” He smiled at Cara. “Have him pour you a drink. You’re going to need it.”
“That’s an understatement,” Mark muttered.
“Once you’re anesthetized, why don’t you show Cara around?” he suggested to Mark. “I’ll find you when the ladies come downstairs—though it might be a while if they’re discussing your faults.”
Mark grinned. “Yeah, and I love you, too.”
Jerome winked at Cara. “Don’t let him get you into that boathouse,” he said, then left.
“Is there something wrong with the boathouse?” she asked after Jerome had closed the room’s French doors behind him.
Mark’s smile had a sexy curve to it. “Not really. So what would you like?” he asked, gesturing at a small bar set up on what looked to be a glossy and very expensive antique chest of drawers.
“A double shot of tequila, straight up, but I’ll settle for whatever white wine is in that chiller. Now tell me about the boathouse.”
He poured her a wine, then while he dropped a few ice cubes into the bottom of a tumbler and added a healthy measure of Scotch, he said, “When I was a teenager, the sole idea that kept me sane through all that adolescent crap was luring my girlfriend-of-the-month out to the boathouse and finally losing my virginity.”
Okay, she knew he had to have been a virgin at one point, but imagining Morgan without his hot-shit smile was impossible.
“And?” she prompted as he handed her the wine.
“Jerome would let me get out there, but it was like he had radar. Just as things were going to heat up, he’d show up with a tin of chrome cleaner and a rag.”
He picked up his drink and headed toward the doors Jerome had closed. Cara followed.
“It would be about ten at night,” Mark said, “and he’d tell the girl and me that he needed to buff the cleats on the vintage runabout down in the well. After a while I realized the only fittings getting polished on Jerome’s watch were that damn boat’s.”
She raised her glass in a sketchy toast. “So the heir of the manor didn’t have his every whim indulged. That’s comforting.”
His laughter was good-humored. “I’m glad you’re amused, but back then, the local heir wasn’t.”
“I’ll bet. You know what your problem was, Morgan? You strayed from the norm. You should have stuck to conventional locations like the back seat of a car or the sofa when Mom and Dad were out, but I don’t suppose that’s how you did things here in Camelot.”
That smile came back, and Cara’s knees grew a little lazy on the job.
“I got it right, eventually. How about you?” he asked as they paused in front of the doors.
“Nothing so exotic as boathouses and butlers, or whatever Jerome is. Mine was the standard collegiate loss-of-virginity, freshman year in my dorm room. My roommate was out in the hall, knocking on the door. Believe me, it was nothing to write home about.”
He leaned forward and kissed the one spot on her neck that made her susceptible to any suggestion, no matter how insane. “Why don’t we go out to the boathouse and see if we can replace those memories?”
Okay, almost any suggestion. “How about you give me my tour, then I bad-mouth you with your mother and your old girlfriend?”
“It goes without saying that I like my idea better.” He opened the doors and ushered her through. “I’m going to give you the five-cent tour, unless you want more.”
“Five cents is pretty much all the room I have in my budget,” she said. And she had even less stamina remaining for her middle-class psyche to cope with this old-money paradise.
“You’ve seen the kitchen and the library, and you’ll be skewering me in the dining room, so let’s move on to the front salon.”
“Front salon? Jeez, when we were kids, we thought we’d hit the big time when we moved to a house with both a living room and a family room.”
He led her down a broad hallway with entries leading to rooms she figured she also wouldn’t know the names for, and then stopped at a set of open carved mahogany doors.
“I don’t know if you’re much for the Arts and Crafts era,” Mark said, “but my mom has kept this room true to its—”
He drew to a halt. Cara pulled up short behind him. Her wine was threatening to slosh over the sides of its fancy glass, so she had a sip. When she looked up, she saw what had seized Mark’s attention.
This man, as opposed to big brown bear Jerome, had to be Morgan’s father. Cara felt as though she’d been given a glimpse into a crystal ball and was seeing Mark years from now. She smiled at a sudden flash of memory the sight brought, one of her sister—premarriage, kids and possession by Martha Stewart—saying, “Never get serious with a guy until you’ve seen his father. It can be brutal.”
If that was the case, Cara had to admit the view wasn’t bad. A little starchy, maybe, but…
“Dad,” Mark said.
“Mark.”
Nicole’s earlier words about Morgan’s dad were beginning to come clear. There were no “warm and fuzzies” between these two. Cara snuck in another swallow of wine to steel herself for the all-Morgan showdown.
“So you’ll be joining us for dinner?” Mark asked.
“Prior commitments.”
“Of course.”
“Are you going to introduce me to your companion?”
Cara moved forward until she was even with Mark. When he glanced at her, she had the weirdest feeling that he’d forgotten about her.
Recovering with rich-guy aplomb, he said, “This is Cara Adams. Cara works with me at Saperstein, Underwood.”
She offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Morgan.”
The older man hesitated a fraction. The pause chipped at her composed facade.
“Adams…the banking Adams?” he asked, gingerly shaking her hand.
“No, the work-on-the-assembly-line-at-Ford Adams,” she corrected.
“Ah,” he said with the slightest curl of his upper lip.
Ah. One slender syllable that could carry the sort of condescension it took generations to develop. Cara felt a surge of recklessness. She gave him a cheery smile.
“Well, actually, that’s only when we have to work. Mostly, we Adams dream up ways to skirt the rules at the Unemployment Office,” she lied.
Mark shot her an “oh, really?” look. She wasn’t sure whether he was amused or wanted her to shut up, and just then, she didn’t care.
“How interesting,” drawled his father. “Shall I tell Jerome to keep an eye on the silver?”
For the sake of some last-gasp diplomacy, she decided to interpret his words as a joke.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Polishing silver takes way too much effort.”
“Indeed.”
It was a plus that he was a man of few words.
“Well, I guess we’ll be on our way. Mark has promised to show me where the family jewels are hidden.”
Her comment elicited another �
��indeed” from Mr. Morgan the Elder, and what sounded like a suppressed laughter from Mr. Morgan the Younger.
Mark had her down another hallway and to a room she assumed was the rear salon before he asked, “With all that scheming and fraud, how did you ever squeeze in the time for law school?”
At least he was smiling. She probably owed Mark’s dad an apology but she’d sooner eat ground glass than do it. Mark, however, was another matter. “I’m sorry, it was nerves. He pushed a few buttons.”
“That’s Dad’s specialty. But do me a favor, don’t judge all Morgans based on what you saw in him.”
“I wouldn’t. Besides, you’ve already been judged.”
“And how did I rate?”
“Higher than I ever thought possible,” she said, but then added a tart “considering” just so his ego wouldn’t swell.
Mark took her glass and, along with his, set it on a low table next to this fussy-looking sofa Cara had to wonder if anyone actually sat in.
“I need another appetizer,” he said as he neared.
“A what?”
He framed her face with his hands. “This.”
His kiss was a tease of warmth and whisky, too soon gone. “Don’t ever let my father intimidate you.”
Her heart picked up. Implicit in those words was that he’d have opportunity to so. This was new territory, talk of something past this moment…talk as though they were a couple. She wasn’t opposed to it, so much as not able to get her arms around the concept.
Mark’s face was set in serious lines—not the hard ones she saw when opposing counsel was trying to weasel around him, but a deadly earnest look. “I’ve wanted to tell you something for a couple of weeks, now. What you said about me back in law school, that I viewed the rest of you as fodder—you were right. At that point, it was all I knew, with my father as a role model. If you’re a Morgan, you never show weakness. You never open up. But I have a weakness now, Cara, and I want you to know what it is…. It’s you.”
Whoa. Now her heart was pounding as if she’d run a marathon—which was more his gig, for sure. “Mark, I—”
“You don’t need to say anything.” His smile was rueful. “In fact, we’re probably both better off if you don’t.”
She felt impossibly mushy and fluttery inside, a regular stew of a girl. And what these emotions brimming in her heart meant, she’d analyze later, when she could think clearly. Cara traced the line of his jaw, rough with its hint of five o’clock shadow, and worked on being the person she knew she was deep down inside.
“You know, I think I need a little nibble, myself,” she said.
This kiss was hers—slow, thorough and more than enough to bring to mind thoughts of a boathouse and forbidden pleasures. It might have continued forever, but for someone loudly clearing his throat to announce his arrival.
“Figures,” Mark muttered.
Cara didn’t have to turn to know who stood behind her, and Mark kept her wrapped tightly in his arms, anyway.
“The ladies await you in the dining room,” Jerome said. “That is, if you two can untangle yourselves long enough to join them.”
Mark settled a kiss on her forehead, then whispered, “See? Radar, just like I said.”
A GUY’S DEFINITION of hell: Dinner with his mother, his ex-fiancée and his current girlfriend. Mark was two-thirds of the way there. Only Cara’s status as his girlfriend was open for interpretation, and that would be a done deal if they could just find the time to be alone without work jimmying its way between them.
Of the three women at the table, Cara was being the least brutal to his ego, but that wasn’t saying much. The coven had already discussed why in the two-and-a-half years since he and Nic had wisely canceled the wedding that out of sheer apathy they had never quite gotten around to scheduling, he hadn’t dated anyone for longer than a month.
If they’d let him get a word in edgewise, he’d tell them why—to avoid dinners such as this.
On the bright side, Cara and his mother were already fast friends. Maybe now he’d be fully forgiven for not marrying Nic. He’d bet a year’s pay that visions of stupid frilly baby outfits and obscenely expensive toys were responsible for the current soft look in Frances’s eyes.
This was the annoying part of being an only child, and one born late in life, at that. He couldn’t reproduce quickly enough for his mom. And he couldn’t get Cara naked fast enough to please himself. Not that the two thoughts intersected in any fashion.
Mark felt someone’s gaze on him and glanced across the table to see Cara quickly look away. A gorgeous rosy color painted her cheeks. Subtlety was not her forte, any more than clean pure thoughts were his.
He knew he’d spooked her earlier with his talk of weakness—a word lawyers flat-out hated wrapping their lips around, unless applied to the opposing side—but he’d needed to give her back a piece of the power that his father had tried to wrest from her. No doubt about it, in a contest of wills with the old man, Cara could hold her own. But why should she have to?
The rest of dinner passed pleasantly enough. After they’d convinced Jerome they couldn’t possibly eat another bite of his outstanding food, conversation began to dwindle. Nic was semisuccessfully stifling tired yawns. His mother was frowning as though she were thinking through a plan for world peace. Cara was busy drinking him two-for-one through the rest of the Puilly Fuissé. He hoped wine didn’t have the same effect on her as a pitcher of margaritas.
Nic stood and settled a hand over her midsection.
“If you don’t mind, Bonzo here, says I need to get some sleep. I have an early flight.”
Cara and Nic shared an awkward hug.
“Get the Newby deal closed before I reenact Alien, okay?” the pregnant woman ordered.
“Absolutely,” Cara promised.
Mark gave Nic a quick kiss on the cheek and promised he’d catch her in the morning before Jerome drove her to the airport.
After Nic headed upstairs, his mother began to meddle.
“Take a walk,” she ordered. She was into directives these days—they contained fewer words. “Sh-show Cara around.”
He knew the only reason she hadn’t mentioned the boathouse was because she didn’t feel inclined to wrestle with the word.
Cara had gone back to the table for her wine. She chugged the last of the glass, then said, “We have a few minutes before I should get home. I’d love to see the gardens.”
There he had it: the one person he most wanted to take to the boathouse, didn’t want to go. Life in Camelot wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
FLOWER GARDENS ALL looked the same in the twilight—dim. It was no loss to Cara. She’d asked to see them purely as a matter of subterfuge. After all, the gardens had to be closer to the boathouse than the dining room was.
Sometime between his kisses and words—both of which had rocked her soul—making love to Morgan had hit the top of Cara’s list. She had never gotten around to the bikini wax, but those things hurt like hell, anyway.
Cara glanced back at the house. It was a tad off-putting to know that two women and one fairy godfather were probably peeking out the windows at this moment. A little embarrassment, however, wasn’t going to sway her.
She took Mark’s hand and wove her fingers between his. “I’d like to see the boathouse.”
Smart guy that he was, he didn’t miss her meaning. And noble guy that he was, she could tell that he was going to give her a chance to back out. They both stood silent. Somewhere, a cricket began its nighttime song.
Finally, Mark spoke. “Cara—”
“I mean it. I want to see the boathouse. Now.”
His eyebrows edged upward.
Okay, maybe she’d sounded a little imperious. A little demanding.
She added a slightly less strident, “Please.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything.”
She took a step in the direction of the water, but he drew her bac
k. “There’s no pretending this didn’t happen, no going back to the way things were. You know that, right?”
She’d earned his doubt; now she wanted to earn his trust. Cara took his other hand. “Why would I want to go back when everything looks so wonderful right here, in front of me?”
He turned his face upward, toward the inky blue sky. He wasn’t going to refuse her, she knew that—or at least she was pretty sure she knew that. And she doubted that he was thinking the same thing she was: please don’t let me mess this up.
He freed one hand, and then gave their other, still-linked hands a gentle tug.
“This way,” he said, leading her down a winding flagstone path lit by small footlights on either side.
Cara teetered a bit on the conservative but really skinny heels of her strappy black sandals. She’d had more wine than usual at dinner, not because she was nervous about the possibility of this moment, but because she’d figured drinking some pricey French courage might make her feel less stupid if she chose the wrong fork from the array of four at her place setting. Being a commoner wasn’t always easy.
Whatever the reason she’d downed the wine, the end effect was the same. She was feeling loose and ready to rock-and-roll. Amazing, considering the last time she’d had sex—back during the Pleistocene Era—it had been an arid firework-free event.
She repeated her plea to the do-over gods: Please, please, please don’t let me mess this up. A warm breeze curled around her. Cara chose to take it as a sign. Why be picky about her omens?
She and Mark walked through an arched arbor, heavy with vines, and around a bend. Ahead waited the boathouse, its white clapboard exterior washed in the glow of more landscaping lights. His Camelot sure had its share of romantic settings. This one jutted out over the water, anchored to land at the back. A dock wrapped around its water-facing sides at ground level, and a broad wooden stairway led up to the second floor.
Mark’s grip on her hand grew firmer and he picked up his pace. When the guy made up his mind, he meant business. He ushered her up the stairway. In the time it took her to register the two Adirondack chairs sitting on this upper porch and give a quick glance at the enormous sweep of lake beyond, Mark had opened the door, reached his hand in and flicked on some lights. He led her inside.
