Eden’s heart was beating so fast that she was afraid she might pass out. Instead she forced herself to raise her chin. “Yes, but we’ve both admitted that that’s mere physical attraction. It’s natural to feel that way given the amount of time we’re together. And, I think…it’s okay as long as we’re both aware that this is going nowhere. Neither of us wants it to get out of hand, but can’t we still be—I don’t know. Business associates and friends? This arrangement was friendly for a while. For the short time we’re going to be working together, can’t we try to get back to that?”
His smile was thin. He blew out a long breath and muttered a word beneath his breath that she had never heard him use. “Are you sure you heard what I said and that you understand the impending difficulties of our arrangement?”
“Yes,” she said solemnly. “You want to sleep with me, but you won’t.”
Jeremy groaned. “That was such a schoolteacher tone, so matter-of-fact.”
She shrugged. “It’s who I am,” she said casually, although she wasn’t feeling anything even close to casual.
“You want me to agree to be friends?”
“And business associates. Let me go back to just being a good employee again.”
Jeremy studied the sky he couldn’t see clearly. Then he laughed a bit harshly. “Who knew that I would ever develop a conscience?”
Maybe they could go backward, Eden thought. Maybe she could get over him if they tried to turn back the clock. “Friends?” she asked again.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re very persistent?”
“Had to be. I had to feed and raise a bunch of kids.”
He nodded. “All right. Friends. And for the record, I missed you, too.”
“That’s because we’re biking buddies.”
He gave her a look. No, he gave her the look, the one that said that biking wasn’t what he most wanted to do with her.
“Okay, I won’t push it,” she said.
Jeremy laughed. “You always push.” And then he reached down and took her hand. “You wanted to know if there would be dancing at this party. There is.”
He pulled her into his arms and they moved over the uneven ground. Jeremy had clearly been dancing from birth, because his steps were faultless. Eden, who had never been an accomplished dancer, knew that she wouldn’t fall as long as he was holding her. It was heaven. Very temporary heaven, she amended.
They were friends again, even though she was feeling something more than friendship, something she didn’t want to think about.
And I won’t think about it, she told herself. I can be careful for just a few more weeks.
“It’s a boy,” Barry said, the minute he walked into the room the next day.
Jeremy felt all the blood drain from his face. He had fathered a child. He’d known that for days. Now he knew more.
“Where? Who?” he asked. He avoided looking at Eden. He did his best to keep his expression calm so that she wouldn’t see how much this was affecting him.
“I don’t know, yet. Another employee of the agency saw one of my messages. She remembered you and the mother and she said she was relatively certain that the child was yours. She might have more information soon.”
Jeremy’s heart was pounding fast. Panic threatened even as he pushed it away.
His eyesight was getting worse. When he had looked at Eden last evening and held her while they danced, there had been…less of her even as his feelings were growing more powerful.
“All right, keep at it,” he said casually. He turned to Eden. “Progress of sorts,” he said, and he actually managed to smile.
“I’m glad,” she said.
And now? A real child with a past and a future and dreams that could easily be shattered. What could he do about that? he asked himself later when he was alone in his room.
But the world felt dark and the answers wouldn’t come. He knew all too much about loss and injustice. Sometimes the sins of adults were paid for by children.
“And sometimes you end up hoping all your life not to be like your father but in the end, you are him,” Jeremy said. A person whose careless, selfish deeds kept punishing others.
The only bright light in this scenario was that he hadn’t given way to temptation and taken advantage of Eden. She was still relatively unharmed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
EDEN tried to concentrate on work, but nothing was getting done. She couldn’t stop thinking about how Jeremy had tried to hide his concern when Barry had told him about the child.
Giving up, Eden left the library and returned to the cottage. She wandered the rooms a much-younger Jeremy had once wandered. He had come here when he was upset.
He was upset now. And she remembered how he had once comforted her in her distress. She knew he wouldn’t want her to reciprocate.
She should try to distract herself. Reading would be good. Eden scanned the shelves of books she’d studied before. Kipling. Terry Pratchett. Stephen King. Hermann Hesse. Vonnegut. There was plenty to choose from, but her hand strayed to the one tome she had forbidden herself to look at. It was so innocent looking and yet…Eden’s hand shook when she reached for it. She pulled away.
A journal of some sort. The corners were damaged and looked as if they had been wet at one time. Had it been Jeremy’s? Was it another one of those things his aunt had tossed and Lula had rescued and returned recently?
“If it was, it’s none of your business,” she told herself. “You can’t look.” She picked it up, prepared to put it with the photos she had found earlier, out of harm’s way and out of sight so that there would be no question of prying or guilty glances.
But as she did, a bit of paper fell to the floor, something that had been sandwiched between the journal and the book next to it.
Eden picked up the paper and found herself staring at an old newspaper clipping of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Jeremy. The caption under the photo was incomplete, but Eden clearly saw the words Jemma Fulton, engaged to be married to Peter Bowers. Half the clipping was ripped away.
And Jeremy’s name was Fulton, not Bowers. What had happened?
“None of your business,” she told herself again. And yet, whatever had happened then was still affecting Jeremy today. It was the reason he was who he was and why he felt such a great guilt about her and about the child.
With only the slightest hint of conscience, Eden flipped on her computer monitor. Whatever had happened had been a long time ago, but the Fultons were a significant family. They were news. Perhaps if she knew more…
In a short while she did know more. She also knew that she should leave well enough alone.
But she couldn’t do that.
Getting up, she went out into the dark and crossed to the mansion. She let herself into the quiet building and climbed the curving staircase to the second floor where only Jeremy stayed.
There were twelve bedrooms, but she knew which was his. Her heart clenched, her mouth was dry, and she was shaking.
She should leave, but he was up here alone, condemning himself. Eden approached the door and knocked softly. She heard a muttered curse.
“It’s me. Eden,” she said, and the door opened. He stood there, his white shirt open all the way, chest bared, his longish hair a bit wild, like some modern-day Heathcliff. But not Heathcliff. Nothing like the brooding fictional brute.
Jeremy. She thought the word, and then she said it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I’m not in control right now.”
“I don’t care.” She held out the clipping, took his hand and led his fingers to it. “I’m sorry. I found the picture of your mother. I nosed around and read some snippets about her. Your father was in this photo, wasn’t he?”
Jeremy’s expression was practically a snarl. “Did you read what he did?”
“You told me. About jilting your aunt.”
He laughed, a harsh sound. “That wasn’t all.”
“I didn’t
think it was.”
“And you want to know the rest. All the ugly truth.”
“I want to come in,” she said on a shaky breath.
“That wouldn’t be wise.”
“I’m aware of that, but I still want to come in. And then, yes, I want you to tell me the rest of the story.”
He looked to the side, the anger clearly simmering just beneath the surface. “I’m surprised at you, Eden. I never took you for the nosy type.”
“Well, I am. When necessary.”
“And you think it’s necessary for you to know all my dirty, little secrets?”
“No, but in this case, yes.”
He raised a brow. He still hadn’t invited her in. “Why?”
And now came the hard part. “You’re always warning me about yourself. You’re the big bad wolf and I’m apparently Bo Peep. But that’s never really stopped me, partially because you’ve always been a mystery. I have a fascination with you and apparently it’s a bit mutual.”
“A bit,” he agreed with a grim look.
“I think…I think that if there’s complete openness between us, then all the little mysteries we built up as teenagers will disappear. Because, despite all the bad things you and others have related about your past, my infatuation persists. I think I began to realize that when we were talking about Cinderella.”
“You keep expecting me to turn into a prince.”
“Not exactly, but…sort of. And you think I might have a glass slipper in my future, that I’m more interesting than I am.”
Okay, he did smile then.
“Jeremy, the child…it was so unavoidable. I hate that you blame yourself for that.”
Now he was shaking his head. He took her hand and drew her farther into the room, closing the door behind her. “Eden,” he said, reaching out and cupping her jaw with his hand. “I knew you came here tonight to help me. All that stuff about getting over your infatuation was a ruse.”
“A little, maybe, but it’s also absolutely true,” she said. “I hate the fact that I still have a crush on you. I don’t want to want you.”
He took a deep breath. “Good. But you did have some humanitarian plan, too, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Okay, yes. I just don’t want you to feel such a burden and to have to carry it alone. Believe me, I know about those kinds of things. Sometimes, in my mother’s more lucid moments, I know she felt guilt that she couldn’t care for her children, and the guilt only made things worse.”
“Because then you tried to take some of the guilt from her.”
Eden frowned. “I’m no saint. I was angry most of the time. There were babies who needed their mother, but…my father had abandoned her. He shouldn’t have left her that way, and my uncle should have been more helpful.”
“Men haven’t been nice to you, have they?”
“No, but those men are gone, so I don’t have that problem anymore.” Except for the danger of wanting Jeremy, another man who would, inevitably, fail her if she asked for the impossible.
“All right, I’ll tell you what you came here to find out,” he said. “You know about my father and my aunt. He got my mother pregnant and got engaged to her, but then he never actually married her. He jilted her just the way he jilted my aunt. I’m a Fulton in fact, not just because my mother chose to keep her maiden name. She wasn’t given a choice. Both the Fulton women were betrayed by the same man. I sometimes wonder if my aunt wasn’t a different person before him. The incident destroyed her relationship with my mother.”
Eden hesitated. “You think you’re like him, don’t you?”
“In ways I am. I’ve certainly hurt people in the way he did, by not following through or being able to commit. At least I admit that much. I’m not sure he did. He just kept hurting people. There were times it was probably unintentional, but it still happened and people’s lives were changed.”
Jeremy was one of those, Eden knew. Money and a big house couldn’t take away shame, the loss of a parent or the indignities that followed. She knew that so well.
Against her will, tears began to slide down her cheeks.
“Eden?” Jeremy stroked his finger over her jaw, and the tears dampened his skin. “Eden, you’re breaking my heart. I wish you had had a more perfect childhood,” he said gently. “I wish, back when I had the chance, that I could have been more sensitive or knowledgeable and made things better for you.”
She shook her head. “I’m okay with my past. I want you to be okay with yours.”
He kissed her palm, and she leaned into his touch. “Still nurturing others, Eden?”
Eden couldn’t breathe, could barely think. “I never met your father, but you can’t make me believe you’re like him. And I don’t want you to blame yourself for the child.”
He froze at that. “We’ll see. I have to find out more about him first. Let’s take this one step at a time.”
All right, she knew she wasn’t going to win on this one. “Jeremy?”
“Yes?” he said, stroking his hand over her head, his fingers tangling in her hair.
“I lied about wanting to know about your father. I already knew all of it. I got nosy and looked it all up online.”
She felt his smile.
“You’re not angry?”
“No.”
“You should be. I invaded your privacy.”
“You did it for a good cause. You seem to be a bit of a crusader. I seem to be your current project. I’ve accepted that.”
She sighed and leaned against him.
“But you should go,” he told her. “Because we’re in my bedroom with your palm against my naked chest, and I’m just not strong enough to resist that kind of temptation.”
Eden looked at where her palm touched his skin in the golden light from the lamp on the bedside table. Longing overtook her. Couldn’t she have something for herself just one time?
“I’ll be gone soon, Jeremy,” she said, swallowing hard. “I…I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like. I want this.”
He closed his eyes and his body tensed. A groan escaped him. She felt his chest rise and fall beneath her fingertips.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” he finally said, his voice deeper than usual. “Nighttime has a way of making people take irrational, unwise steps. You’ll feel different come morning. And I’ll feel—”
She leaned forward and lightly pressed her lips to his. “Don’t say it. Guilt isn’t going to be any part of this. We both know the rules. We’re not going to have a future together. We want different things in life and our feet are set on different paths, but the past seems to color everything we say and do. I don’t want to keep thinking about yesterday when tomorrow is all we can control. I know we have no future, Jeremy, but…could we have a tonight? Then I won’t ever again have to wonder what I missed.”
“Eden…” He reached out and caught her close, then in two quick steps moved forward and tumbled her gently down onto the bed. He came down over her, above her, his lips close but not touching.
“Tell me you’re sure,” he said.
“Never more sure.”
“Tell me you won’t hate me in the morning.”
She placed his hand over her lips and smiled. “I could never hate you,” she said against his skin.
“I’ve fought this so long, it’s hard to stop fighting.”
Eden stilled. “I don’t want to force you, Jeremy.”
And with that he tilted his head back and laughed. “You amaze me, constantly. You enchant me. And you make me very…hot.” He leaned close and nipped lightly at her neck.
Heat sluiced through her body. She moaned. Her arms came up to twine around his neck. Love me, she wanted to say, but she bit her lip. “Kiss me. Make love to me,” she said instead.
Jeremy took her in his arms. He peeled her clothing away and exposed her skin inch by inch. He kissed her, everywhere.
Then he shrugged out of his shirt and
the rest of his clothes. Taking her in his arms, he kissed her deeply.
“Tell me to stop now if you’ve changed your mind.”
With his body against hers, she could barely think. She reached up and twined her arms about him. “Just tonight,” she said. “Please.”
A low growl escaped Jeremy. He kissed her again. And when he joined his body to hers, the world tipped over. It turned bright, and heat suffused her body. Desire climbed and climbed and climbed until she thought she would break or ignite. She cried his name as he touched her again, and she lost control completely. Pleasure ripped through her and she rose and fell on a tide of blissful sensation.
With the tremors still rocking her, she held him in her arms.
He kissed her under her jaw. “No regrets,” he said sleepily.
“None,” she promised. And when she crawled from his bed later, leaving him smiling in his sleep, she didn’t regret. Yet.
She had finally had what she’d always wanted. A night in Jeremy’s arms. It was all she could have of the man, and now she had to get on with her work and look forward, not back to what could never be.
Loss, pain and regrets were bound to follow…as she had known they would. But that would be later.
Jeremy woke with the summer flower scent of Eden on his pillow and the memory of her in his arms. Her kiss was imprinted on his body in a hundred places, and his vision of last night was more wonderful than he could ever have imagined.
But he swept his hand out across the bed and confirmed what his senses had already told him. She was gone.
One night, his own personal Cinderella had said. We’re not going to have a future together, she had told him. I don’t want you to blame yourself had been her words. About the lovemaking, about the past and about the child.
And a man couldn’t spend the night feeling guilt when he held a beautiful, desirable woman in his arms, could he?
He frowned. It wasn’t that he doubted that Eden had wanted to make love with him. She was a passionate woman, but she had also wanted to help him, to make him forget his pain. Given their earlier conversation, he was sure of that, and he had known that even as he joined his body to hers.
Her Millionaire, His Miracle Page 12
