Mistress on His Terms

by Catherine Spencer

  Then, on top of everything else, there was the latest report from the investigator. The information it contained should have vindicated his suspicions about her. Instead it sat in his gut like lead and he wished he’d never embarked on the inquiry in the first place. Suspicion of fraud and conspiracy were ugly words in any context. He didn’t want to believe they applied to her—and if that didn’t go to show what bad shape he was in, maybe it was time he retired from the law and went to work collecting other people’s garbage!

  On the Thursday of the week following the party, his mother phoned him at the office. “Just wanted to remind you we’re going up to the cottage tomorrow afternoon, and spending the weekend there, Sebastian. You’ll come with us, of course?”

  To stare Lily straight in the eye and behave as if the most they’d ever shared was a cool handshake? To pretend he didn’t know how she’d trembled beneath him and begged him with her eyes and her hands and her little urgent cries, to come to her as she hovered on the brink of orgasm? To know he could look as she paraded around in her skinny little bathing suit, but he couldn’t touch? And worst of all, to act as if he didn’t know she was under police investigation in Vancouver?

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m bogged down with work right now.”

  “But that leak in the flashing around the chimney needs to be fixed before it damages the bedroom ceiling, and I can’t have Hugo climbing ladders to the roof at his age! And we’ve done so much entertaining since Lily arrived that I thought a quiet weekend with just the family would make for a nice change.” His mother’s voice sharpened with disappointment. “Honestly, Sebastian, I can’t believe you forgot, though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised since you haven’t shown your face at the house in days.”

  “If you must know, I thought Lily would be heading home any day now and you’d changed your mind. Didn’t she plan to stay here only about three weeks?”

  “Yes. But her father’s convinced her to stay until the Labor Day weekend since there’s no pressing need for her to fly home any sooner.”

  Oh, terrific! One more complication he didn’t need!

  “So, what do you say, Sebastian? Will you join us? You can bring your work with you, if you like. You won’t be the only one. Natalie’s going to have to study part of the time, too, with her finals coming up soon. But it would mean a lot to Hugo to have you there. You know how much he enjoys a man’s company, especially yours, and he’s noticed that you seem to be avoiding coming to the house.”

  Because I’m ashamed to see him—or Lily!

  But in the end, and against his better judgment, he agreed to his mother’s request. He told himself it was because he had to face Hugo sooner or later but there was more to it than that, and he knew it. His attraction to Lily Talbot was out of control. For all that he wished it were otherwise, when the opportunity presented itself, he couldn’t stay away from her.

  Still, when he arrived at the lake the next evening, he tried to keep his distance and, apparently, succeeded too well. Natalie cornered him in the kitchen where she’d coerced him into helping her clean up after dinner, and wasted no time getting straight to the point. “You’ve told her, haven’t you?”

  “Told who what?”

  “You’ve spilled the beans to Lily about her mother.”

  He made a big production of stowing stuff into the refrigerator. “What makes you think that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” she drawled sarcastically. “Perhaps because neither one of you can stand looking the other in the eye. Or perhaps it’s got more to do with the fact that every time she opens her mouth to speak, you act as if she’s not even in the room, but then, when you think no one’s noticing, you watch her like a hawk hovering over its next meal. You did tell her, didn’t you?”

  He heaved a weary sigh and leaned against the refrigerator door. “If you must know, yes, I did. And I wish I hadn’t.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “I think she deserved to be told. In fact, I came looking for you the night of Dad’s birthday party, to try to convince you to tell her, but you’d disappeared.”

  And you’ll never know how close you came to finding me, Nat! “Yes. Revealing family secrets with an audience of a hundred didn’t seem such a hot idea, so we…went off by ourselves.”

  “How did she take the news?”

  He rolled his eyes. For someone bent on a career in social work, Natalie could be astonishingly obtuse when it came to understanding people. “How do you think!”

  “Not well. I can see in her eyes that she’s pretty torn up about it. Does Dad know?”

  “That I’ve told her? No.”

  “Well, if you don’t want him to guess for himself, you’d better get cracking on some sort of damage control. I’ve thought ever since the party that she’s been quieter than usual, but it wasn’t until you showed up tonight that I figured out why. Heck, Sebastian, I thought she was going to faint when she saw you!”

  It wasn’t often that he followed Natalie’s nineteen-year-old advice but, for once, she had a point worth taking. He strolled out to the porch and found Lily, with Katie at her feet, chatting idly with Hugo and his mother. Slapping the flat of his hand to his waist, he said casually, “I need to walk off that meal. Come with me, Lily, and I’ll show you the neighborhood.”

  He saw the stubborn cast to her chin and knew she was about to refuse him. Hauling her off the wicker love seat, he marched her down the steps before she could voice her protest aloud and strong-armed her down the path to the lakefront. “Don’t bother telling me you’d rather keep company with a pit viper,” he informed her, when they were out of sight and earshot. “I’ve already received that message loud and clear. But I need to talk to you. Privately.”

  “I hope it’s urgent,” she snapped, massaging her wrist. “I don’t appreciate being man-handled like this. And if you’ve dug up more dirt on my mother, you can keep it. I’m not bartering my self-respect a second time to hear things better left unsaid.”

  He caught her elbow and pulled her around to face him. “Lily, please!”

  “Don’t touch me!” Angrily she shrugged him off.

  He raised both hands in surrender. “Okay. I won’t touch you. But will you at least hear me out?”

  “Do I have any choice?”

  She was putting up a good front, but he could see the effort it cost her. Her eyes were glazed with tears, her voice shook. “Look,” he said gently, “I can see you’ve gone through hell, this last couple of weeks, but if it makes you feel any better, it’s been no walk in the park for me, either.”

  “Why? Because you broke your promise to Hugo?”

  He nodded. “I should have listened to him. Respected his judgment, his wisdom. He recognized from the first that your knowing about Genevieve’s mistakes would cause nothing but unnecessary trouble and hurt.”

  “I’ve come to terms with her mistakes,” Lily said flatly. “She wasn’t perfect, but who is? Not Hugo and certainly not you or I. Yes, I was shocked to hear what had happened, but I can live with it because there’s another truth that counts for more than things that happened before I was born. Whatever her faults, Genevieve was a good mother. Both my parents were the best—and I’m not talking about Hugo when I say that.”

  “Then why are you still so unhappy? I found your earring, if that’s what’s bothering you. I was planning to get it back to you but hadn’t figured out how to do so discreetly. I didn’t think you’d appreciate my presenting it to you in front of everyone else, and saying I’d found it between the cushions of my couch.”

  She stared at him. “You have the nerve to suggest a piece of jewelry is the reason I’m upset?”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed but he knew for a fact it was well before his tenth birthday. As if to make up for the time elapsed since then, an embarrassing heat spread over his face. “Of course not. It’s because we…were together.”

  “Good heavens, Sebastian, don’t try to sugar
coat the facts now!” she said scornfully. “We screwed! Had a one-night stand! Isn’t that how you men phrase it when you’re intimate with a woman you don’t care about and never want to see again, once the romp between the sheets—or, in this case, the sliding around on your leather couch—is over?”

  “Stop it, Lily! I won’t listen to that kind of talk.”

  “Why? Am I making you uncomfortable? Speaking the truth too plainly?”

  “It’s not the truth, and you know it.”

  “No?” A lone tear, bright as a diamond, trembled on her lower lashes. “Well, here’s something that is. I feel cheap and dirty because of the way I behaved with you. You might not have been my first lover, but you are the first man who made me feel like a whore!”

  “Don’t talk like that!” Overcoming her efforts to evade him, he grabbed hold of her again. “And unless you want to hurt yourself, stop fighting me. Because I’m not letting go.”

  “Yes, you are,” she cried, aiming a kick at his shin and, when she missed, bursting into tears of frustration.

  As it had more than once before, her mouth reminded him of a rose carelessly crushed underfoot. Her eyes wore the look of bruised pansies. When he pulled her into the shelter of his arms, the sobs shaking her body made her feel as frail as the thin glazing of ice that covered the lake in early winter and crumbled at a touch.

  “You want to know something?” he muttered, rocking her against him and burying his face in her hair. “I wish I had been your first lover. I wish I’d been the one to teach you what passion’s all about. And I wish we could have met under different circumstances. Perhaps if we had…”

  Even though he left the sentence unfinished, she guessed the direction his thoughts had been taking. “We might have fallen in love?” She drew in a tortured breath. “I don’t think so, Sebastian. Love doesn’t come calling only when it’s convenient. It’s not that calculating, or that easily controlled.”

  Nor was desire! Holding her close again revived the same pulsing ache that had gotten him into so much trouble two weeks before. Rational thought dissolved into hot, urgent need. She was warm to his touch, her skin soft. So smooth and satin soft he wanted to stroke her all over. And taste her—the delicate flower fragrance of her mouth, the sweet secret honey of her femininity.

  She tilted her face up to his. The fading light touched her tear tracks with gold, sparkled on her wet lashes, kissed the curve of her mouth with a familiarity he resented. “Please let me go, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I can’t bear your being kind to me like this.”

  “But it isn’t kindness.” His voice became trapped in a throat grown thick with an emotion that didn’t bear close analysis, something that went beyond mere passion. “God help me, I want you, Lily. More than ever. And I think you want me, too.”

  She looked away and refused to answer.

  He gave her a little shake, slight enough, to be sure, but it didn’t take much for the undulation of her body against his to increase his hunger to fever pitch. “Don’t you?” he persisted urgently.

  “Stop cross-examining me,” she retorted. “You’re not in the courtroom now, and I’m not on trial.”

  “Answer the question,” he begged, against her mouth. “And if I’m wrong, I’ll let you go.”

  “Oh, I want you,” she said hopelessly. “And I despise myself for it.”

  Above them on the rise of land where the cottage stood, a sudden flood of light spilled into the dusk. Anyone standing at the windows would easily spot them, might even think to join them for the neighborhood tour he’d so flippantly come up with as an excuse to get her alone. Never mind that his reason for doing so had changed. What mattered now was that they not be deflected from a course as inevitable as the pattern of early stars pricking the sky.

  “There’s a dinghy in the boathouse,” he said, turning back to the foot of the path that had brought them to the waterfront. “Come out on the lake with me. We’ll be alone there, with no chance of anyone walking in on us.”

  She hesitated. Pulled away from him until the tips of their fingers barely touched, yet he felt her indecision as clearly as if he were grasping a live electric wire.

  “Please,” he said, increasing his hold and inching her back toward him. “Come with me, Lily.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE lake was limpid as smoked glass. Except for the muted slap of the oars and the cry of a distant loon, not a sound broke the silence of the night. Rowing swiftly, he angled the boat to the far side of an island lying about a mile offshore.

  “We used to come here as kids,” he said, after they’d waded onto the sliver of beach and he’d tied up the dinghy to a nearby tree.

  “And as adults?”

  A simple enough question on the surface, but he heard another in her voice and said, “I’ve never brought a woman here until tonight, Lily, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re the first.”

  He tried to catch her hand and draw her to him, but she slipped away and walked parallel to the water, head bent and footsteps whispering in the soft, white sand. She wore shorts and a cotton top. Her skin, tanned honey-gold by day, took on a richer tone in the gloom against the pale color of her clothes. Her hair, caught back in combs, spilled down her back dark as midnight silk.

  Although he’d have preferred to have her close in his arms, viewing her from a distance gave him a better appreciation of her slender elegance. How had he missed it, when they’d first met? Wherever had he come up with the idea that she was unremarkable? Her kind of understated good looks put more flamboyant beauty to shame.

  When she’d gone about twenty yards, she stopped and turned to face him. Her voice carried clearly in the night. “I don’t suppose I’ll be the last, though,” she said.

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. But I do know every time I tell myself that becoming involved with you is a bad idea, another part of me doesn’t want to accept it.”

  “I can imagine which part!”

  “I’m talking about a connection that goes beyond physical attraction.”

  “But you can’t put a name to it. Or won’t.” There was no missing the barbed edge in her words.

  “You want me to call it love, but we both know it’s too soon for that.” He stifled a sigh. “We’ve known each other less than two months. Can’t we agree to table definitions until the end of the summer, and just let things evolve at their own pace? See how things work out between us?”

  “Sneak around having sex, you mean, but lead the family to believe we’re just good friends?”

  “Would it be so bad if friendship’s the best we could manage?”

  “But we won’t manage that, and we both know it.” The moon slid out from behind the low rise of hills to the east. Limned in its light, she looked achingly lonely and vulnerable. “When an affair goes sour, Sebastian, it never ends in friendship. It ends in pain and bitterness and regret.”

  He couldn’t look that far down the line. There were too many unknowns. “All I really know at this minute is that I want to hold you.” He opened his arms. “Come here, sweetheart, please.”

  She scuffed her bare toes in the sand and dragged her feet, an outward show of resistance to combat the desire she couldn’t deny so exactly mirroring his own ambivalence that he almost smiled. But the way she was looking at him, the sultry curve of her mouth, the way she ran her tongue over her upper lip and let her hand trail suggestively all the way from her throat to her breast and down the length of her thigh, were no laughing matter. They spoke of passion about to be unleashed, of a magnetic pull that had her suddenly giving in to its force and running toward him.

  He met her halfway and they collapsed together on the cool sand. Her mouth softened beneath his. Opened. Welcomed. Her fingers inched inside his shirt, traced lightly over his ribs, slid to his navel.

  The heat in his belly raged, left him throbbing. He wanted to savor the moment, enjoy the feast she presented. Dwell in close detail on every satin inch
of her. But a dozen demons drove him, savaging his control. He had to have her…now…!

  Dimly he heard cotton and denim shrieking softly as they were flung aside; the protesting gasp of silky under-things too roughly handled. He felt her, hot and moist against his cupped hand, heard her inarticulate little cry when he touched her sensitized flesh.

  She deserved to be loved with leisurely expertise. With finesse and sophistication, and respect. But he’d left it too late, tormented himself for too long. There was room for nothing in his universe but the sheer heaven of finding himself inside her and then, mere seconds later, losing himself inside her, utterly and completely.

  Eventually he lifted his head and looked down at her. Her mouth was swollen from his kisses, her eyes luminous in the moonlight. “I should probably apologize for that,” he said, when his breathing allowed him to speak, “but regret isn’t the emotion uppermost in my mind right now.”

  The slow, sweet radiance of her smile and the way she stroked the hair off his forehead moved him unbearably. Flirtation, teasing, sexual gratification pure and simple—these things he could deal with in a woman. But tenderness, Lily Talbot style, left him wide-open to a baffling array of emotions.

  Too bad that regret sat so close to the top of the list!

  Averting his gaze, Sebastian wished for the umpteenth time that he’d accepted her at face value and never started the investigative process. Just knowing that all the time they were making love, his West Coast spy was compiling an ever-incriminating dossier that laid bare every particle of her life for his inspection, made him ill.

  Pursue this and send more details, he’d instructed his man, but the guy had run up against a brick wall. Police weren’t forthcoming about ongoing investigations, and the odds were he’d learn nothing new until charges were laid.

  “What are you thinking about?” Lily asked him softly.

  Squirming inwardly at the uncomfortable shot of guilt flushing through him, he said, “That we should go swimming.”

  She gave a captivating gurgle of laughter. “Here?”