by Raye Morgan
“Kane,” she said, wondering if he could hear her affection for him, “it’s always been wonderful working for you. But it took a while, and gradual but consistent success, to make myself into that sort of person at work. And the more I pretended to have it all together, the more it became the reality. At the office, I was in control. But at home, I was a basket case. And then when I started working for you…” She turned toward him with a smile in her voice. “Working for you was what really brought me out, Kane. You helped me gain the confidence I needed.”
“I’m glad, Maggie.” His voice hardened. “But I wish I could blot out all the rest of it for you,” he murmured angrily. “I wish I could make it so that it had never happened.”
He finally understood why she had been so hesitant to marry again. He had his own reasons for not trusting marriage, but hers put his to shame. Here he’d been making a big deal over Crystal choosing money over love. So what? All he had to do was get rid of her. Maggie had lived in a nightmare.
“One more thing, Kane,” she went on with quiet intensity, “I want to make this very clear. I would never let myself live like that again. I’ve grown a lot since those days. I’m stronger. And I know I don’t have to live that way. I won’t.”
He didn’t say anything. What could he do? Promise he would never treat her that way? What good were those sorts of promises? But he knew it wouldn’t happen between them. He respected her too much. And he just couldn’t imagine being that sort of man anyway. But how could he prove that to her at this point?
“Now you know all about me. But I know so little about you.”
“There’s nothing to know,” he told her. And he pretty much meant it. He was an open book, after all.
She hesitated. “I hope you don’t mind, but Jill told me about Crystal.”
He winced. There was that. “Crystal? Who’s Crystal?”
Maggie was sure he was just avoiding the issue, but just in case, she elaborated. “You know. Your first wife.”
“Never heard of her,” was his immediate response.
Maggie sighed, then smiled in the dark. So Jill had been right. He wasn’t going to talk about it. And here she’d gone on and on about her own past problems. Oh well, she’d told him now. She could put that away and not think about it again. And she did feel better for having told him. She yawned, sleepy all of a sudden.
“I guess it’s finally time to go to sleep, isn’t it?” she said. “Goodnight, Kane. Sleep tight.”
“Good night, Maggie. Sweet dreams.”
Kane sat in the dark for a long time, listening to her breathe. Even after he could tell she’d fallen asleep, he stayed where he was, listening. He’d wanted to comfort her so badly. He’d ached to take her in his arms and kiss away her pain—and maybe let her cry the unshed tears he had a feeling she still needed to release.
But he couldn’t do that. If he did that, he knew very well he would be walking through a door that he’d vowed to keep barred—opening the very Pandora’s box they had both sworn to keep tightly shut.
So he stayed where he was, filled with the totally male impulse to do something about what had happened to her, but frustrated. The men who had hurt her weren’t available for any sort of revenge. And he couldn’t take her in his arms without risking destroying their arrangement—an arrangement only two days old that was supposed to last for the rest of their lives.
The background she’d revealed haunted him all the next day.
He had declared their last honeymoon day to be dedicated to shopping. After all, she needed maternity clothes and a lot of new things for her move into his apartment. So they spent the morning going up one side of Michigan Avenue—the Magnificent Mile—had lunch in a cute little trendy spot and then worked their way back down the other side of the street, visiting every exclusive boutique along with each big department store.
Maggie resisted him spending too much money on her at first, but once she got into it, she seemed to develop a taste for shopping, and she began relishing it, admitting to him that she had never felt free to buy much for herself before.
He enjoyed watching her pleasure. It made him angry to think she’d gone through as much unhappiness as she had. But then, when you came right down to it, if it took that to make her into the wonderful woman she’d become…. No, he decided. It wasn’t worth it. But it did give you something to think about.
She didn’t mention any of her old problems during the day, and he hoped she’d forgotten all she’d told him. Everything they purchased was sent to his apartment and they returned to their hotel room in the evening pretty thoroughly exhausted. They took turns using the Jacuzzi, both thinking how much more fun it would have been to do it together, then shared a light meal in their room and went to bed early, falling asleep right away.
But just after midnight, Kane awoke with a start and listened. Did he hear her crying? No, but she was talking in her sleep. The few words he could understand didn’t make any sense, but she sounded restless and unhappy, and he couldn’t just ignore it. Slowly, he rose from the chair and went to her.
“Maggie,” he said softly, taking hold of her shoulder and shaking it a bit. “Maggie, are you okay?”
“Oh,” she said, raising her head. “What?”
“You were talking in your sleep.”
“Oh.” She roused herself. “Yes. I was dreaming.” She shuddered. “Ugh. Not a nice dream.”
He stood over her, torn. He could barely see her in the gloom. He wanted to stay with her, to comfort her. Her skin had felt like warm silk to his hand. He longed to hold her in his arms. But if he did, he knew very well what would happen. So he turned and went back to his chair, his insides tied in knots.
He thought she would go right back to sleep, but in another moment he heard her getting out of the bed and slipping into her robe.
“Kane, do you mind?” she asked him quietly. “Could I just open the drapes and let a little light in? I feel so claustrophobic all of a sudden.”
“Sure,” he said. “Go ahead.”
She pulled them open, revealing the floor-to-ceiling window and the lights of the city sparkled before them, looking like a midnight wonderland of diamonds.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said, standing at the window with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yes,” he answered, watching her. “Maggie, are you okay?”
“Oh sure.” She half laughed, turning toward him. “I don’t know what that was all about. I think maybe all those things we talked about last night brought up a lot of bad memories that I’ve pretty much suppressed lately. And once they were out in the open, my mind has to sort of shuffle them back down again. That’s all.”
She smiled at him, then turned back to the window. He loved the way she looked in the moonlight. Her nightgown and robe formed a gauzy haze around the vague outlines of her body and her hair fell around her shoulders like a lacy shawl. But he could tell by the way she was carrying herself that her dream had affected her more than she was admitting. His heart went out to her. He had to do something about her pain.
“Maggie…” He reached for her hand.
She let him take hold of it but resisted as he tugged her toward where he sat in the big overstuffed chair.
“Come here,” he said, tugging harder. “Come on. I just want to comfort you. You obviously need more than words.”.
Reluctantly, she let him pull her down to snuggle with him in the chair. He chucked her under the chin as though she were a little girl, just to prove his intentions were honorable. “I just want to hear a smile in your voice again,” he told her.
She looked into his eyes for a long moment, then sighed and let her head fall against his chest. “It’s your turn to tell me a story,” she said, relaxing against him.
“Okay,” he answered, breathing in the sweet scent of her body heat as it filled his head and forcing back the quick response his body wanted to make.
He thought for a moment, going back into his own past
, digging deep into his treasure trove of experiences, looking for something that might amuse her. Holding her in the circle of his arms, he began by telling her about the time he’d made a mistake and ended up taking two girls to the prom, dashing back and forth between the two of them, satisfying neither.
She smiled at that one, so he went on, telling her about his early boyhood attempts at the business world, selling home-made cookies to his friends. Imagine his surprise when he was accused by their parents of trying to poison the neighborhood when everyone coincidentally came down with chicken pox. This time she actually giggled.
“One more,” she said, cuddling in more closely.
He forced himself to ignore how good she felt against him and thought hard, finally remembering the time he’d gone late to give a speech and in the rush, ended up giving a talk which included jokes about “cooking the books” to the wrong group—instead of the business gathering he was supposed to address, he was talking to a cooking club, all of whom looked very puzzled at his topic.
“It was pretty embarrassing,” he told her. “But the ladies were very nice about it. They even invited me to stay for the quiche demonstration when the real chef finally arrived.”
She laughed out loud. “And what about your lonely businessmen, sitting in some room waiting to hear about how to get away with accounting fraud?”
“It wasn’t really fraud,” he reassured her. “I was exaggerating.”
She chuckled and he congratulated himself. Keep them laughing, he told himself. As long as she was laughing, maybe he could ignore the fact that this beautiful body—this beautiful nearly naked body—felt so good pressed against his. Now maybe she could get up and go back to her own bed and go to sleep with a lighter heart.
She sighed. She’d become so comfortable, she’d melted against him, as though her bones were made of wax. Tilting her head, she looked up into his eyes.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re welcome,” he said back, but she was lifting her lips to give him a quick kiss, and suddenly his mouth was covering hers and the quick kiss turned out to be the spark that lit the flame that had been banked between them, a fire that had just been waiting for its chance to spread its heat. Her mouth was so hot, her skin so soft, her tongue so slippery. He’d been carefully avoiding touching her too suggestively, but now his hand slid right over her sweet round breast and his body came to life beneath her in a way she couldn’t possibly ignore.
And she wanted him, too. Every sense told him so—the way her body arched beneath his touch, the way her breath quickened in his ear, the moan he heard deep in her throat.
He had to stop this.
“Maggie,” he groaned, his breath ragged.
“Shhh,” she whispered, placing a finger before his lips to quiet him. And then she began to drop tiny nipping kisses along the cord of his neck, and he knew he was lost.
They made love on the chair like two wild things, and then they lay together whispering and laughing, like teenagers who’d done something daring and found it dangerously delicious.
Then they switched to the bed and he pulled off her nightgown, feasting his eyes on how her breasts looked in the light that streamed in from the wide window, her beautiful nipples swollen and throbbing to his touch, and they made love again, this time so slowly, so sweetly, he thought he would die of pure delight. She fell asleep right afterwards, but he didn’t.
He lay awake for a long, long time, looking at her. She was so beautiful and what they’d just shared had been so very good. He loved looking at her naked body, loved the swelling stomach where she carried his child, loved the long legs and graceful spine. His desire for her stirred again and he groaned, forcing it back. Making love to her had been better than anything he’d ever done. He couldn’t deny he would do it again in a heartbeat.
But he couldn’t let that happen. As he finally came to his senses, he was swearing at himself and anger swelled in his chest. He’d just violated his own rules. What was the matter with him? Now he’d risked ruining everything. This was supposed to stay platonic. The whole point was to avoid the fantasy world of love and love-making. It was supposed to be a business deal where they both knew what to expect from each other. Now who knew what she expected from him? He didn’t even know what he expected from her. He might just have destroyed something very fine.
But maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe if he drew back…? He nodded slowly to himself. He had to draw back. Going forward like this was just too risky. What seemed so good at first could turn so rotten. He’d lived it and he wouldn’t let something like that contaminate their relationship. She needed him to be strong, and he needed her to be wise. And that meant they had to go back to the way things had been before this happened. It had to be that way.
Chapter Nine
“Maggie, I hate to bug you on the day you get back from your honeymoon, but a lot of us are really upset about the rumors that the day-care center may not happen. Do you think that you could talk to Kane and see if you can find out what’s going on?”
Maggie frowned. “Of course, Jen. I’ll do it right away. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something.”
Maggie replaced the receiver and groaned. How could she have forgotten all about this issue? She needed to find out the answer just as much as anyone else. But sitting at her desk, she hesitated. Kane was in his office and it would be a simple thing to walk in and ask him what the deal was. But something told her he wasn’t going to be receptive to the question.
They’d been back at work since early that morning and it was late afternoon now, but she and Kane had barely had time to say two words to each other. There had been all kinds of small disasters while they were away and they were both busy trying to mop them all up.
She’d woken up that morning in the hotel room and the first thing she’d thought of was Kane’s beautiful body and the way they’d made love together the night before. She’d never known love could be like that—so warm, so gentle, and so exciting at the same time. Kane was wonderful, and she was completely in love with him.
What had happened to her hesitation, her apprehension, her fears? The slate hadn’t been wiped clean. They were still hanging around underneath her current happiness, ready to jump back out if they were needed. But she was hopeful again. Things were looking good.
“I’m just a fool for love,” she admitted to the morning, stretching her arms over her head and reveling in her memories.
Kane was in the shower. She could hear the water running. She waited a few minutes, then remembered that she had her own bathroom. Laughing at herself, she’d gone ahead and taken her shower, too. By the time she was up and dressed, it was getting late and they’d had to hurry to make it to the office in time for a conference call Kane had scheduled the week before.
In all the rush, Kane had seemed distracted. She’d hoped they would be on a new level of affectionate intimacy because of what had happened, but she’d seen no evidence of that as yet.
Still, she could certainly understand that it might take a while for them to settle into their marriage. There would be ups and downs—that was only natural. She could wait. The happy glow from the night they’d spent together would sustain her.
And yet, she had to admit that something was keeping her from dashing right in to talk to Kane about the day-care center. She wasn’t sure why, but she was having a hard time doing it, finding lots of little jobs that needed to be done first. When she stopped to think about it, she realized she was avoiding the issue, and that wasn’t good.
“Enough dawdling,” she told herself at last, pushing up and out of her chair and heading for his office.
He’d had the door closed because he was taking calls and she rapped sharply on it before pushing it open and walking in. There he was, bent over some papers, his brow furrowed as though things weren’t going well at all.
“Kane,” she said, walking in to lean on his desk. “I’m getting questions from people about th
e day-care center….”
“What about it?” he interjected sharply, his attention still on the letter he was going over.
She blinked, surprised at his tone. “They are saying that we might not be getting it.”
His face didn’t show annoyance, but there was no warmth there either. “Look, I’ll handle that. Just give me some time. All hell is breaking loose here.”
She knew there were problems. There had been a small fire in a storage room and Coldair, a major client, was angry about some billing they disputed and was threatening to change accounting firms.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I know you’re busy. But if I could just give people some reassurance that you’re working on it…?”
“Maggie, I said to leave the day-care center to me.”
She was taken aback. He’d never spoken to her so shortly before. It was obvious that whatever was going wrong with the day-care center, he was stressed out about it—along with everything else.
“Yes sir,” she said, giving him a military salute and turning on her heel to go back to her desk.
“Maggie, wait a minute,” he said, and she turned back with a smile, sure that he was going to apologize.
But she was disappointed again. He merely frowned as he shuffled papers and said, distractedly, “You know that Coldair is giving us a lot of trouble. It looks like I’m going to have to go deal with it personally. So I’m going to have to go out of town for a few days.”
Her heart fell, but she understood. Some things just couldn’t be helped. This was business.
He frowned again, shaking his head and finally looking up to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry to do this just when you’re moving into the penthouse. I called Mark. He’ll help you move your things.” Rising, he took her shoulders in his hands and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’ve got that suitcase that I always keep packed for emergencies, so I won’t have to go home first. I’m taking the next flight out for Pittsburgh. Sorry about this, Maggie.”
