Under the Millionaire's Mistletoe

by Maureen Child

  “No, I suppose not.” For all that she hadn’t known Luke long, she knew him well enough to be certain of that. “But I still don’t want to be caught in the middle of whatever it is. I think Jason really did try to help me while you were gone.”

  “If he did, it was for his own reasons.” The creases in his brow deepened. “He blackmailed my mother.”

  A woman who’d devoted her life to others. A year after her death, the villagers still spoke of her with love, talked about her compassion and understanding and her ability to get things done. They’d probably still be talking about her a decade from now. And Jason had blackmailed her? “No.” He wouldn’t have, would he?

  “Right up until her death. I didn’t find out till I went through her papers in Indonesia.”

  “I remember your saying you’d discovered something about him. You were so angry.”

  “Still am.”

  As Meg repositioned a gold bauble on the tree, she could just make out his distorted reflection in its surface. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I haven’t made a final decision. I want to talk to him first. Confront him with it.”

  “Will you bring charges?” She turned back to him.

  Grimness tightened his mouth. A mouth that could give such pleasure. “Most likely. After I strip him of the car, the house and the job I gave him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t play the disappointed-in-me card, Meg. The man was blackmailing my mother. I owe it to her.”

  “You’re right, and I’m not disappointed.”

  “But?”

  “I just wondered if that was your only option.”

  “Unless you can suggest a better one, one that does justice to my mother?”

  As Meg shook her head, he slid his phone from the pocket of his jeans, punched in a number. “Jason. You should have stuck around.” Did Jason hear the command in the quietly spoken sentence? Meg tuned out the short conversation as she walked away. Luke caught up with her in the kitchen as she was pouring two coffees. “He’ll be back later today.”

  She passed him a mug. As she lifted hers to her nose to inhale the fragrance, the ring on her finger caught her eye. The dinner was over, there was no need for her to wear it any longer. Putting down her coffee, she twisted the simple gold band from her finger and held it out to him.

  He looked at her hand but didn’t reach for the ring and a glimmer of a smile touched his lips. “You can’t give it back to me. I never gave it to you in the first place.”

  Oh. Right. So much for that gesture. Feeling like a fool, she went to slip the ring into her pocket. He did reach for her then. He picked up her left hand and slid the ring back into place. “But leave it there for now. I didn’t want to make you a pawn, Meg. I wanted to give you something.”

  “And to stop Jason getting anything.”

  “Mainly that,” he agreed. “And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t how I planned on starting this morning.”

  She didn’t want to think about what he might mean by that. There were a number of possibilities. All of the ones that sprang to her mind were unwise.

  He tugged her closer, pressed a soft, beguiling kiss to her lips. Very unwise.

  “Good morning,” he said with a smile once he’d pulled away, his gaze locking on to hers.

  All of her tension had melted with just that one kiss. It was a masterful tactic, a potent secret weapon in his arsenal. “Good morning.” Kiss me again.

  But he didn’t. “Have you had breakfast? Or is it lunchtime already again?”

  “Breakfast, and no, I haven’t eaten. But Luke, I think I should go.”

  She watched his face, his eyes, but couldn’t read his reaction. “Eat first,” he finally said. Not, No, don’t go, Meg, which she would have been foolish to expect. Sometimes, though, she was foolish. Last night being the most recent example. Making love to a man she had no future with. Letting herself love him, even just a little.

  In the kitchen, he had her sit on a stool at the breakfast bar while he got out a pan and bacon and eggs. “How did you learn to cook?” No man had ever cooked for her.

  He passed her a mug of coffee. “Mom got heavily into her charity work from an early age. She wasn’t always around a lot. And when I was a teenager I went through several years of being constantly hungry. Appetite’s a great motivator. It’s not like I can produce a gourmet meal or anything, but I can do the basics. You want a filling, sustaining meal after or before a day’s snow skiing or water skiing? I’m your man.”

  I’m your man? The expression was depressingly appealing. As was the man himself.

  Within a few minutes he’d carried two plates of eggs and crispy bacon to the small oak table in the breakfast nook. He sat at a right angle to her and they ate in a silence that would have been restful were it not for Meg’s regret and quiet despair about how soon this was ending.

  Beyond the window, snow flakes began to drift and swirl.

  She hadn’t heard a weather report in days, but Jason had spoken as though more snow was expected. “Thank you.” She stood from the table. “Now I should go.” She had to end it. The sooner the better. Drawn-out goodbyes were too hard, too painful.

  “I thought your car was at the mechanic’s till tomorrow.”

  That was her problem. “It is.” She caught her bottom lip in her teeth. “You could take me to Sally’s?”

  Silver eyes assessed her. “Is that what you want?”

  No, I want you to ask me to stay. To see where this thing we have leads. Unless this thing we have is all in my head. “Yes, it’s what I want.”

  “Because from what I know of you, the things you’ve told me, the things I’ve seen, you don’t always consult your own needs.”

  Meg said nothing. Was she that transparent? She did put other people’s needs ahead of her own. That was how she’d been brought up. That was what she was supposed to do, wasn’t it?

  “You’ve called her?” he asked after a pause.

  “Not yet.” But she would, and could only hope that Sally kept her questions to herself. For her months here she’d pretended she’d had a real marriage. Now, two days after her husband’s return, she was seeking sanctuary at her friend’s place. But fortunately, in those two months, Sally truly had become a friend.

  “What does staying at Sally’s achieve?”

  Couldn’t he just let it go? She sighed and tried to keep her voice neutral. “Distance. Perspective. It gives you your home and your life back.” But mainly, it would stop her doing dumb things like watching his hands as he held his fork or his cup and remembering the feel of those hands on her.

  Luke looked toward the window but said nothing.

  Meg paused at the doorway. “I’ll need an hour to gather up all my things from around the house and finish packing.”

  He gave a single abrupt nod and she left the room. It was easy enough to pack up her clothes and belongings from the master bedroom, but she took her time, folding slowly, uncharacteristically uncertain about how best to pack her bags. In the wardrobe, she let herself touch Luke’s suits, his sweaters. Beside the bed, she straightened the fishing magazine and the book that she’d left all this time on the bedside table. She’d read the book-a thriller-her first month here. Imagining a connection with him as she did so. Her fingers turning the same pages his had.

  She lingered in front of the wide window. Its view over the lake had always brought her a measure of serenity. It didn’t today. Today, the dark turbulent sky matched the oppression she felt.

  She finished in the bedroom but needed to check the rest of the rooms. Over the months she’d lived here, she’d managed to spread herself and her bits and pieces throughout the house. She’d have to do a room-by-room search.

  At the door to the library, she paused, not sure she wanted to face the scene of last night’s…encounter. She toyed with the idea of just buying a new book to replace the half read one she’d l
eft in there, then decided she was being ridiculous. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  Luke sat on the couch, a sheaf of hand-written papers on his lap, his long denim-clad legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He looked up as she entered and the memories came flooding back.

  Memories of sights; shadows and contours, and scents; his shampoo, his sweat, the essence of Luke himself and sensation; frantic hands, warm lips on skin, desperate longing and utter completion filled her mind. Images of her own reckless abandon.

  “I just,” she cleared her throat, “came to get my book.” She pointed at the book on the small table beside him. He watched her silently as she dashed forward to snatch it up and backed out of the room.

  As she shut the door behind her again, she thought she heard him speak. A short phrase, too indistinct for her to make out. Show me. She was imagining things. Nothing to show. No stockings today, no red lace. White and a little lacy, with a small bow between her breasts. But mainly plain. That’s who she really was. But for a few forbidden seconds she imagined the things she could wear for him if- She cut off her own thoughts. No ifs. No maybes. They’d had an agreement. She’d lived up to her part of it. And now she was going. Last night was…a bonus. Such an inadequate word. A night’s insight into a world of possibilities, of pleasure and promise and wholeness.

  Ten minutes later he found her on the stairway, strode up to meet her and took her case from her hand. He carried it down, set it by the Christmas tree in the entrance. “There’s more?”

  “One.”

  She followed him up to the bedroom. Her second case, bulging and heavy, sat at the base of the bed. He looked about the room, his gaze sweeping from the bed to her face. “I’ll think of you when I’m sleeping in here.”

  “Don’t, Luke.”

  “Don’t think of you when I’m sleeping in here? Or don’t tell you that I will?”

  “Don’t…tell me.” It was only fair that he think of her; she’d thought of him often enough as she’d lain there, and knew she would think of him still wherever she went next. For a time at least. But time healed all, dulled memories and yearnings. Eventually she’d forget him. Forget last night. Move on. She had to.

  “I spoke to Mark this morning.”

  The simple statement doused the recollections. Mark was his attorney as well as his friend. “And?”

  “And he’s coming round tomorrow morning. But he said, whatever we do, we shouldn’t sleep together.” His lips twitched.

  How could he think this was funny? But his amusement called a response from her, a spark of un-Meg-like mischief. Mark would surely be appalled at how incautious their actions had been. “Did you tell him?”

  Luke shook his head. “Didn’t want to spoil his weekend. I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

  “It won’t make a difference, you know.” She wanted Luke to know that. “I don’t want anything from you. I never did. The fact that we slept together doesn’t change that.”

  “Nothing, Meg?” He picked up her case as though it was weightless. “When you have money, it seems everyone wants something from you. It’s hard to believe that there are people who really don’t.”

  Maybe he wouldn’t truly believe that till she walked away from him.

  “Even my mother. She only approved of me and what I did because it meant I could donate money to her causes. And maybe she was right.”

  “That wasn’t the only reason she approved of you. She loved you.”

  “I’m sure she did.” He spoke without conviction.

  “She couldn’t not have.” Meg spoke with more vehemence than she’d meant to. She half loved him herself and she’d known him only a whisper of time.

  Luke’s eyebrows lifted. And Meg regretted the intensity of her words. Did they reveal too much? Too much of what? She couldn’t even say herself. Her feelings, her heart, were galloping ahead to places her mind knew they shouldn’t. They’d passed like, and attraction, passed fascination and warmth, were mired in enthrallment, a deep drugging spell of connection and wanting and rightness. But she wouldn’t let it be anything more than that. It was a spell that could, and would have to, be broken. Because she was leaving.

  That was what they’d agreed.

  Six

  Luke carried Meg’s suitcase downstairs, set it beside the first and said what he’d known for the last hour. “We’re going to have to wait till the snow stops and the roads are cleared.” She followed his gaze through the panes of glass bordering the door. Snow had blanketed the pines and the ground outside in white and was still falling.

  He didn’t know what to expect. Frustration that she couldn’t get away, as she so clearly wanted to, or resignation that she was stuck here with him for longer still? He didn’t expect her to step toward the door and place her fingertips on the glass, soft wonderment in her expression. “I grew up in southern California. It never snowed.” She glanced at him. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, turning back to the window.

  As she was, beautiful and serene and unspoiled, like the snow outside.

  And always able to find a silver lining.

  “It might be. But it’s no good for driving in.” He was deliberately brusque because it beat the hell out of getting sappy, of letting the way she affected him on so many levels show. They’d made love last night, but she was going this morning. It was for the best. Too much time with her was blurring the lines between what he ought to do, send her off so that she could find someone less jaded, someone who shared her optimism and her dreams, and what he wanted to do, take her back upstairs to his bed, make her his, hope a winter-long blizzard moved in.

  He needed to find some kind of middle ground. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Her slow smile of pleasure and approval warmed him. Or maybe all she felt was relief at not being trapped indoors with him. He handed her her coat from the closet. “There are so many things we’ll never do together. But we’ve got this day, whether we like it or not.”

  She’d be gone soon enough. A walk in the snow couldn’t hurt. Layers and layers of clothing. And it was surely better than being inside with her with little to do except be ambushed by thoughts of making love to her again, sinking into her heat, of watching a different kind of wonderment on her face, of seeing her ecstasy. Which was how he’d spent the morning. Staying out of her way but acutely aware of her.

  She was her own kind of delirium. He could no longer pretend his reaction to her was a product of fever, and honesty compelled him to admit that something about her had called to him well before his infection had become serious. The attraction of innocence, of her optimism? Wanting to drench himself in her aura. Snap out of it. He shoved his arms into his coat, hands into gloves and his feet into snow boots and stood apart from her, not so much as looking at her, while he listened to her movements, the rustle of clothing, the zipper on her jacket sliding up, a soft stomp as she pushed her feet into boots.

  He opened the door and stepped outside, breathed deeply of the Meg-free air. The door closed behind him. Her shoulder nestled against his. Her scent assailed him. The scent he’d reveled in last night.

  She walked ahead, tripping lightly down the steps, her footsteps crunching through snow as she skipped ahead, her brightly colored Sherpa hat bobbing with her footsteps, the tassels by her ears swinging like braids. Already she was committed to an idea that was nothing more than an off-the-cuff suggestion to find a way through the situation. Luke followed, gloved hands in his pockets, his step measured and slow. She stopped, flung her arms wide, tipped her face skyward and spun in a slow circle, embracing the day. Already her nose and cheeks were pink. He wanted to kiss her. Heaven help him. He wanted to kiss those cheeks, those eyes, those lips. “Help me make a snowman.” She crouched down, gathered a ball of snow and began rolling it.

  She’d make a great mother. Not something he’d ever thought before about the women he’d been involved with. She had so much of the carefree spi
rit of a child within her. And yet she’d seen hardship, she’d been confronted with it daily in Indonesia. Seen it and chosen to keep the flame of optimism alight within her. He crouched, too, began rolling a second snowball. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this, certainly not since he was a child. He stacked his snowball on top of the larger one she’d rolled and began rolling a third for the head.

  “Carrot,” she announced, “for the nose. And I don’t suppose you have buttons?”

  He shook his head.

  She headed back to the house. “I’ll find something.”

  Luke was settling the head in place when Meg came hurrying back with a carrot and two plums. She pressed the carrot and fruit into place, one of the plums shedding a single purple tear. Then she wrapped her scarf around the snowman’s neck and pulled a camera from her pocket. “Stand by Frosty.”

  “Frosty?”

  “It’s almost Christmas. What else are we supposed to call him?”

  He reached for the camera. “You stand by…Frosty. I’ll take your picture.”

  She shook her head and the light in her eyes dimmed just a little. “I’d like one of you.”

  To remember him by? “For that matter, I’d like one of you.” To remember her by. Even though he had the feeling his problem was going to be in trying to forget her.

  She shrugged and stood by the snowman. “Come stand with us. My arm is just long enough to take a picture of us both.”

  He stood at her side and taking a glove off, eased the camera from her hand. “My arm’s longer.” She pressed up against him and without thinking, he slid his free arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer. The thinking occurred too late, when he inhaled the fragrance of her shampoo. “On three. One. Two. Three.” The shutter clicked.

  “One more,” she said. “Just in case.”

  “On three again.” This time on three, as the shutter clicked she wriggled in his hold and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

  “Let me see it,” she said as though she hadn’t just done that-kissed him as though it was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. Which, perhaps with someone else it would be, but from Meg it hadn’t felt ordinary. It had felt like a gift.