[The Sons of Lily Moreau 02] - Taming the Playboy

by Marie Ferrarella

  That was right up her grandfather’s alley. Miraculously enough,Vienna noted as she set down the tray on the side table, her grandfather seemed to be winning. She began to distribute the bottles, wondering if her grandfather’s winning streak was due to luck or design.

  “How’s it going?” she asked cheerfully, placing an opened bottle before Philippe and then another before Alain.

  Georges frowned as he made a show of studying his hand. “You didn’t tell me that in another life, your grandfather was a riverboat gambler.”

  “Just lucky.” Amos chuckled. He looked as pleased as a child at Christmas who’d discovered Santa Claus’s bag of toys.

  She paused in her bottle distribution to plant a kiss on the crown of his snow-white head. “You always were that,” she agreed affectionately.

  Looking back at the table, he patted the hand that had dropped to his shoulder. “I was to have gotten you as my granddaughter.”

  Taking a last long look at his hand as Amos placed another bet, Alain blew out a breath and folded his cards. “Well, I’m out.”

  Vinniefollowed suit, tossing down his hand. “Me, too.”

  “Call,” Philippe said, tossing in the same number of toothpicks that Amos had used to raise the stacks. A show of the remaining cards around the table had Amos being the big winner again. The old man beamed as he drew the colorful assortment to toothpicks to himself, adding to his pile.

  Smiling to herself,Vienna took her empty tray and retreated to the kitchen.

  “I’m going to sit the next hand out,” Georges announced, rising. Walking into the kitchen, he foundVienna working at the counter, making another batch of sandwiches. She’d been feeding them all night. He’d already told her that she didn’t have to do that, but he couldn’t seem to get her to pay attention. The lady had a mind of her own, he thought fondly.

  “Need any help?” he asked. Taking a long serrated bread knife, she cut the sandwich she’d just completed in half. She noted Gordon had been wolfing them down as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Losing made him hungry, she thought.

  Placing the sandwich on a plate, she turned from the counter and reached for a towel to wipe her fingers. “You’ve already done plenty,” she told him. “All I did was lose a bunch of blue and green toothpicks. And a couple of gold ones,” he recalled. Coming up behind her, he slipped his arms around her waist, enjoying the way they seemed to fit together no matter what the angle. Resting his cheek against the top of her head, he paused to inhale the fragrance of her shampoo. It made him think of wildflowers. “Your grandfather’s one sharp player.”

  Viennalaughed shortly. “And you, sir, are one really poor liar.” Discarding the towel, she turned around to face him, her body brushing against his, sending electrical pulses through them both. “I would have thought that a man with a harem of women in his past history would be a better liar than that.”

  “Whoa, what harem?” he asked, looking properly indignant. “No harem,Vienna . I’m as innocent as a lamb.” Georges did his best to look simple and unworldly.

  She only laughed. The man had probably ceased being innocent the second he’d hit puberty. Rather than strands of jealousy, she felt only affection. “The hell you are.” She threaded her arms around his neck. Ever so subtly, her body leaned into his. “You’ve made him very happy, Georges. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

  He nodded solemnly. “There are times when words fail.” And then, unable to keep a straight face any longer, he laughed as his eyes shone. “Maybe you can show me later instead.”

  “I’d be happy to.” The counter at her back,Vienna rose up on her toes, her eyes never leaving his. She kissed him then, long and hard and with an endless gratitude that seemed to spill out and go on spilling. When they drew apart for a breath, she could still feel her heart swelling with the affection she felt.

  “I love you.” The next moment, to her horror, her words came echoing back to her. Her eyes widened in shock as she looked up at him, trying to read his reaction. God, but she hadn’t meant to say that. Nothing drove a man away faster than hearing those words prematurely. “Sorry,” she apologized quickly.Vienna could feel her throat tightening up as a panic threatened to set in. “That just slipped out. I tend to say ‘I love you’ when I’m very happy. It doesn’t mean anything, really,” she assured him with a wee bit too much feeling.

  Didn’t it? he wondered. Looking into her eyes, he found he couldn’t tell. She’d suddenly masked her feelings from him.

  “That’s a shame,” he told her. “Because it sounded nice.” He’d never had a woman tell him that before. That she loved him. Partly because, he surmised, he had never stayed around long enough for a woman to feel the kind of emotions that would prompt her to say that. Until this very moment, he’d always thought himself lucky not to be entangled in that sort of web, where basic feelings came out to play and wound up complicating everything they came in contact with.

  Maybe he was wrong, Georges thought now as he looked down into her face. Maybe he hadn’t been lucky not to hear it. Because hearing her say she loved him had stirred something inside him, something that had been dormant—possibly forever.

  He wasn’t really sure what to do with this new feeling, but he knew it bore closer scrutiny. Had she upset him? Was he serious? She hadn’t a clue. Her best bet, she decided, was to be philosophical, because she had absolutely no idea what kind of ground she was standing on, whether it was rock solid or oatmeal soft.

  “Well, it certainly does sound nicer than hearing someone shout, ‘I hate you,’” she agreed. The tips of her fingers grew damp. Time to change the subject quick, she thought, before there turned out to be no way out.

  She cleared her throat and nodded toward the large rectangular box she had on the far end of the counter. She’d brought it home with her from the bakery. Very carefully, she removed her arms from around his neck and took a step away. She picked up the sandwich she’d just made for Gordon. “Since you want to help, why don’t you carry that box in for me?”

  He went to do as she asked. The box was huge. Georges glanced at her over his shoulder. “Another defibrillator?” he teased. “I’ve still got the one my mother gave me in the trunk of my car.”

  He’d been meaning to put it away since the night at the gallery, but somehow, he never thought of it until well after he was already home and in bed, usually exhausted beyond words after putting in double shifts at the hospital.

  “No, something some people might say necessitates having a defibrillator in the trunk of your car.” She paused to point at the logo on the side of the box. It was a drawing of a girl munching a jelly donut. Her grandfather had once told her he’d given a photo of her at age four to an artist and this was what he had designed. “Pastries,” she told him.

  He picked up the box, ready to follow her out. “I knew that.” Coming back into the dining room again,Vienna was greeted by the sound of her grandfather’s laughter as the man responded to something Philippe said to him. It warmed her heart.

  “Thanks,” Gordon said heartily as she placed a roast beef sandwich before him. She smiled her response, then looked at the other faces around the oval table. “All right, gentlemen,” she announced, “whenever you’re ready, there are pastries from my grandfather’s bakery awaiting your pleasure.” Once Georges placed the box on the side table, she removed the lid to expose more than twenty different kinds of confection.

  She could almost hear everyone’s mouth watering.

  “Ourbakery,” Amos corrected, raising his voice as he looked at her pointedly. “Everything that’s mine is yours,Vienna , you know that.”

  She pretended to eye the colorful mass of toothpicks gathered on the table before him. “Including your toothpicks?” she teased.

  Without realizing it, she slanted a look toward Georges. If she were the evening’s big winner and he the loser, she knew exactly what she’d ask for as her prize. A huge, pleased grin slipped over her grandfather’s face. His color
had completely returned and he looked exactly the way she always thought of him, exactly the way he had looked when he had first come into her life to take care of her.

  “Almosteverything,” Amos amended. And then he took on his rightful role as host, gesturing toward the box of pastries. “Please,” he urged his guests, “eat up and then we will continue playing.” His expression was positively mischievous as he added, “I have leaves in my gutters that need removing.”

  His mouth full of a cruller,Vinnie glanced atVienna . “Is that some kind of Austrian idiom?”

  “Only for those Austrians with rain gutters,” she deadpanned. And then she laughed as Georges came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the contented look on her grandfather’s face as he sat back in his chair, observing them.

  He looked happy, she thought. Maybe happinesscould go on indefinitely. At least she could hope.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He’sin his element, and he’s happy.”

  Abruptly breaking the silence and the rhythm of slow, easy breathing that came after lovemaking,Vienna began talking to Georges about her grandfather.

  Though he’d asked after the man’s health, Georges hardly heard her. His own thoughts were filling up the spaces in his head. They were lying on his bed. An initial outing that had the preview of a new, Broadway-bound play at its core had somehow morphed into this, another wild, tempestuous meeting of the body and the soul.

  It was not the first time they’d gotten sidetracked like this. The exceedingly enjoyable interlude just further fueled the realization that, after six weeks together—hardly a lifetime—ViennaHollenbeck was swiftly becoming the center of his universe, something that had never happened to him before, and certainly not to this degree.

  It also brought home the fact that he needed to get out—now—before there was no turning back. Before he stood there naked in the town square, waiting to be incinerated. Because he knew, by example, that it could happen.

  “But I can’t help feeling that he’s doing too much,”Vienna was saying. “He refuses to take things slow, no matter what I say. He went back full-time last week, working hours like he used to. All his customers were thrilled to see him, and he looked like a kid at Christmas.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, still staring up at the ceiling, trying to find a way to bank down her fears. About everything. “Ordinarily, I’d say that was the best medicine in the world for him, but—”

  It took a beat for him to realize that she’d stopped talking. That, her voice trailing off, she’d turned to look at him.

  She was waiting for him to say something. He replayed her words in his head as best he could. There were gaps. “You’re worried about him.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying.” Georges’ response bothered her. He wasn’t here tonight, she thought. Even at the height of their lovemaking, when she felt as if the very walls were catching fire, she’d had this distant, uneasy sense that part of him wasn’t there with her. That hadn’t happened before.

  The beginning of the end?Vienna wondered. All along, amid her happiness, she’d been dreading this. Anticipating this. Pretending it wasn’t going to come, knowing that it would because he was who he was. She was a nester and he was a man who moved from hotel to hotel. In her heart, she’d always known that she was just a stop along his route.

  When in doubt, make doctor noises, Georges thought. Besides, though the last exam had been excellent,Vienna might have a point. Her grandfather might be having some kind of relapse. No sense in taking a chance.

  “Bring him by the hospital tomorrow,” he said. “I can have a few tests done.” He smiled at her. “Put your fears to rest.”

  Not that easy, she said silently. In either case. But out loud, she only focused on one concern. “He’ll say he’s too busy.”

  Georges smiled. “If anyone can make him, you can. Besides, I’m his doctor. And he likes me.”

  She did her best not to let him sense the tension that all but snapped through her veins. “Yes, he does.”

  And so do I, God help me. So much that I can hardly breathe. How am I going to stand it when you go? Georges took in a long breath and glanced at his watch. “Well, our little detour cost us the play. Sorry about that,” he apologized. “No sense in walking in on the last third—unless you want to,” he tagged on, giving her the option.

  But she shook her head. “No, that’s all right,”Vienna murmured.

  “We still have late reservations at the restaurant,” he remembered. “We could easily make that.”

  Whatever appetite she’d had had fled in the wake of this uneasiness. “No, I’m not really hungry. Maybe we should just call it a night.”

  If he’d had his head caught in a cement mixer, he would have still picked up on the desolation in her voice. Georges sat up. “Something wrong?” Now there’s an understatement. The smile that curved her mouth was the epitome of sadness even though she tried hard to lock her feelings away. “Depends if you’re you or me.”

  Something was very wrong here, Georges thought. Was she clairvoyant despite her protests? Had she picked up on something, on the thoughts shuffling through his head? He didn’t want to hurt her for the world. He just didn’t want to hurt himself, either. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Because you don’t follow, you lead.”Vienna sat up, too, and as she did, she reached for the clothes that had been haphazardly tossed aside in the frantic quest for fulfillment and fleeting ecstasy. “Look, we both know that this is just an interlude.” She got out of bed. “A wonderful, wonderful interlude, at least for me, but it’s not the beginning of something.”Vienna turned to face him, regal in her stance despite the fact that the only clothing she had on was what she was holding against her. Her eyes held his for a moment. “When this is over—” she couldn’t bring herself to pronounce its demise just yet “—I want you to tell me. I don’t want you here a moment longer than you want to be.”

  He wished he could somehow reassure her even as he wanted to back away. “What brought this on?”

  “You.”Vienna held her clothes tighter, as if that could somehow keep her from crying. “I can feel you withdrawing.”

  God, she knew him better than he knew himself, he thought. Very softly, she told him, “I just want you to know I understand.”Vienna looked away, afraid that she was going to break down. There was an emptiness hovering on the edges of her being, threaten-ingto leap forward and swallow her up if she didn’t keep moving, didn’t keep sidestepping it somehow. “I’d like to go home now, if you don’t mind.”

  Viennadidn’t wait for his answer. Instead, she went into his bathroom and shut the door. When she came out five minutes later, he was already dressed. He wasn’t trying to talk her out of it. Wasn’t even trying to deny what she’d guessed. Which meant that she was right.

  It was over. She was making it easy for him. She knew that. But then, she didn’t want to cling to him. It wouldn’t mean anything that way. The only way she wanted him in her life was if he truly wanted to be there. And it was obvious that he didn’t.

  The ride home was filled with music from the radio, but it didn’t block out the silence within the car. The silence encroaching like a malevolent force, feeding on itself.

  Viennawas painfully aware of it. Painfully aware that for the first time since she’d met him, Georges wasn’t talking to her, wasn’t making her laugh or feel better about a given situation. His silence was agreement. She’d never hated being right so much in her life.

  The ache inside her grew with every passing moment, every passing mile. And then they were at her door. He pulled the car up at the curb in front of her mailbox.

  She had her hand on the door handle, ready to leap from the car. “You don’t have to come out,” she protested, but he did anyway. He still wasn’t sure what had happened, how this had evolved out of some of the most satisfying lovemaking he’d ever experienced. Either he was transparent to he
r, he decided, or she really was clairvoyant.

  In either case, he wasn’t just going to eject her out of the vehicle and take off. “I’m walking you to your door,” he told her firmly. Maybe this was a mistake. Even though part of him was grateful to her for making it so easy for him, for giving him an escape hatch, part of him felt an incredible, overwhelming sadness descend over him, the magnitude of which he’d never dealt with before. The sadness told him that maybe it already was too late. Maybe this one had come to mean more to him than anyone before her and that he’d be a fool to leave her.

  Damn, up was down and down was up, and he’d lost his compass. His course of action with women had always been so clear-cut, so natural for him before now. He’d never been confused before, never had his emotions tied up in knots before. Because no one had ever meant more than just having a good time and living in the moment.

  He wanted more. He wanted lots of moments.

  Damn it, go! Go before you make the biggest mistake of your life,a voice in his head ordered urgently, even as he walked her to the door.

  “I was serious about you bringing him in tomorrow,” he told her. Viennanodded, valiantly trying to concentrate on her grandfather and his health, and nothing more. AmosSchwarzwalden deserved nothing less from her and she was going to wrap herself up in her responsibilities and duties, using them to help her get over this.

  She tried her best not to allow her voice to sound shaky. “I’ll get in touch with you after I have a chance to talk to my grandfather.”

  Georges nodded. Guilt, indecision and sorrow dueled madly within him, gluing him in place.

  “Vienna—” he began, not knowing what he was going to say after that.

  There was no need to worry. She was already turning away. A second later, she’d let herself into the house, closing the door behind her. Georges stood for a moment, staring at the door, wondering if he should make an excuse to knock and ask her to let him come in. But then he took a breath and turned away. He began to walk to his car.