“Are you asking, or telling?”
There was something guarded in her eyes, he thought. Though their souls had joined briefly, they were far from together now.
“Asking,” he told her. For now.
She raised herself up on one elbow, her hair spilling over her shoulders, a single strand lingering enticingly over one breast. John’s eyes were drawn there first, and then his hand. He couldn’t resist cupping the creamy skin.
Courtney felt her breath hitching in her throat all over again as the heat of his hand spread along her body. It sparked a fresh serving of desire in her very core.
“How could I be sorry? That was the most absolutely incredible experience of my life.” The flush in her cheeks was part longing, part embarrassment. Sometimes, she talked too much. “I suppose it’s not very sophisticated of me to admit that, but then, I never abided by the rules. If my father were still alive, he could tell you that.”
If her father were still alive, John thought, then he wouldn’t have been here. There would have been no inheritance to gain and she would have had no need of him.
She wouldn’t need him forever. He had to remember that.
Remembering didn’t negate what he was feeling now. He could have devoured her and still remained unsated. He hadn’t thought it was possible to want someone so much immediately after having her. She’d done something to him, tripped off some circuitry that he couldn’t seem to shut off.
Because it was so inviting, he pressed a kiss to her throat. He felt her pulse quiver beneath his lips. The quiver passed right through him. “All right, so now what?”
He was talking about the future. She could only think of the night ahead. A night she didn’t want to spend alone.
Striving for nonchalance, she succeeded only marginally. It was hard to think with his hand massaging her like that, clouding her mind, robbing her tongue of words.
“You could spend the night,” she finally managed, somewhere between a moan and a whimper. “After all, as my husband, you’re supposed to be here. Even Katie thinks you’re supposed to be here.”
It was because of Katie that he was here, but this was between only the two of them. His hand dropped from her breast as he looked into her eyes.
“And what do you think?”
Courtney lay back on the bed again and raised her arms to him. “I think you ask too many questions,” she whispered.
Maybe he did at that, John thought, covering her mouth with his own. Maybe he thought too much. And right now, all he ached for was to feel.
The place beside Courtney was empty when she woke up the next morning. The thought penetrated her consciousness even before she opened her eyes. He was gone. The sheet on his side beneath her hand was cool.
Still half-asleep, she was aware of a sense of bereavement, of loss, seeping into her. It threatened to rob her of the last remnants of euphoria that still clung to her. She hung on to them with the tenacity of a shipwreck survivor grasping the last piece of driftwood.
Being with John was life-sustaining.
She hadn’t slept very much. They hadn’t slept very much, she amended, a deep smile of satisfaction spreading over her lips.
Last night, she’d called him an incredible lover. The word incredible wasn’t nearly adequate enough.
Just thinking of him, of their night together, made her anxious to greet the rest of the day. To find him and be with her. She felt as if she were a schoolgirl again, she thought, kicking back the covers.
No, she’d never felt like this, she realized. Not even when she’d thought herself in love.
Humming, Courtney hit the floor moving, determined to shower and dress in record time.
Unlike Mandy, who could spend hours at her vanity, debating between two shades of the same eyeshadow, Courtney had always had the ability to get ready quickly. Her hair was just barely dry as she hurried out of her room.
She was still flying high on the residual fumes of just barely extinguished passion when she passed John’s room. The sound of his voice brought Courtney to almost a skidding halt in front of his door.
He hadn’t gone downstairs yet. It was nearly eight. Maybe she was rubbing off on him, as well.
The thought made her smile.
She debated just walking in, then decided not to get ahead of herself. Just because she had luxuriated in the breath-stealing sight of his hard, unadorned body didn’t mean she had a right to invade his privacy. There were still spaces to respect.
Courtney raised her hand to knock. A fragment of the conversation coming through the door brought the light plane she was in crashing down to earth. Her heart stilled in her chest as she listened.
“I can’t believe this is really happening, Rick. I can’t wait to get my hands on her again. Those classic lines, that sleek body—I just don’t have the words to describe it. And when I’m in her, I feel like a million dollars.” He laughed. “Give or take a hundred thousand or so.”
Something twisted inside of her, making her sick.
He was bragging. John was bragging to his best man about making love with her. Courtney felt like throwing up.
How could he?
He’d turned out to be exactly what she’d thought he was when he had accepted her bargain. Someone out for her money, nothing else. If it took making love with her to earn more, so be it.
For a while, she’d been lulled into not examining things, not seeing them for what they were. Like a fool, she’d begun to believe that he had pride. She’d even made up excuses for him in her mind, thinking that if he took her money, there had to be some reason for it. Some noble reason that had nothing to do with greed and that she could understand, even sympathize with.
Talk about never learning from your mistakes! She had to be at the head of the class. Hell, she could teach the damn class, she thought angrily.
It had been just an act on his part. She was only a means to an end for him. And here he was, bragging about it to Rick.
She could have killed him.
Furious, hurt beyond words, Courtney pounded on the door and nearly fell into the room when it gave way. He’d left his door unlocked.
John turned around, startled by her unceremonious entry. He’d left her sleeping in her bed, looking like an angel. An angel he was falling in love with. The last thing he’d expected was to see her come crashing into his room like an avenging Fury.
“Courtney, what are you—?”
He had no right to ask questions. That was her prerogative. “How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you brag?”
He had absolutely, idea what she was talking about. John covered the receiver’s mouthpiece, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What?”
The bastard actually had the nerve to play innocent. It wouldn’t wash, not after what she’d just heard.
“How dare you brag about—about—” Courtney’s voice broke under the weight of the tears she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing.
Grasping at the words she flung at him so accusingly, he still had no idea what had made her so angry. “I’m not bragging.”
Furious, Courtney gestured at the receiver in his hand. “Oh, no, then what are you talking about?”
“My car,” he answered.
“Your car,” she echoed. It was her turn to be confused. She was afraid of being taken down another primrose path, even though she wanted so desperately not to believe what she’d heard.
But she knew what happened when she turned a blind eye to things. And she didn’t intend to play the fool ever again, not for anyone.
“My car,” he repeated. Though the subject was dear to him, the words followed each other slowly as he tried to make sense of her actions. “Actually, it’s Rick’s father’s car. Rick inherited it from him and now he’s decided to sell it to me. I’ve been tinkering with it since I was in college, so it’s almost as if it were part mine, anyway.”
It sounded plausible, but that might have been because she wanted to beli
eve him. “And how are you going to pay for this car?”
“Slowly.” Rick was in no hurry for the money, thank goodness. Otherwise, he’d have to pass. Every cent from the bargain he had struck with Courtney, every cent he had available right now, was earmarked for Katie and her operation.
John held the phone out to her, his eyes darkening. “You want to verify my story?”
Courtney looked down at the receiver. It was a test. Gabriel was doing this on purpose, she thought, daring her to believe him. To take his word on faith. But she’d taken other things on faith, only to be made a fool of. She just didn’t have that much faith left to spare.
She took the receiver from him and placed it to her ear. “Rick?”
The voice on the other end greeted her uncertainly. “Hi, Courtney. Um, what’s going on?”
A sinking sensation was beginning to form, but it was too late to back off now. “Nothing much. What are you and Gabriel talking about?”
So, he was Gabriel again, John thought, not John, the way he’d been last night. He noticed that she called him John only when she softened. The woman who called him Gabriel was an adversary, ready to go head-to-head with him over almost everything. The one who called him John was soft and pliant and loving.
The only thing the two had in common was that they were both vulnerable.
“My‘65 Caddy,” Rick answered Courtney. “I just got Gabe to take it off my hands. It’s really more his, anyway. And he loves it. It’s just taking up space in my garage.”
“I see.” Something cold and clammy passed over her. She’d been wrong. “Well, goodbye.” Courtney handed the receiver back to John. “Rick said you just bought his car.”
“Yes, I know. I did.” His face was impassive as he placed the receiver to his ear. “Rick? I’ll see you in a little while,” he promised, hanging up.
The look in his eyes said it all. She hadn’t trusted him and it hurt. A lot. Courtney bit her lip. Part of her just wanted to leave the room. She wasn’t good at apologizing.
Now she couldn’t find the words. To apologize would make her even more vulnerable than she already felt.
But he had apologized to her last night, she remembered. And it hadn’t been easy for him, either. She already knew that words didn’t come as glibly to him as they did to other men. Like Andrew and Derrick.
She owed him this. Courtney laced her fingers together and stared at the back of his head. It looked as if every muscle in his body was shutting her out.
Courtney took in a deep breath, then jumped in. “I’d like to apologize.”
He didn’t bother turning around. Instead, he picked up the clothes he had brought in from her room. The clothes, he thought, a fire flaring briefly within him, that she had taken off him. It was hard to reconcile the woman in his room to the one who had been in his arms last night.
“You don’t have to apologize.” Folding them neatly, he left his jeans on the chair.
“It’s just when I heard you bragging, I thought it was about me, about making love with me. I thought you felt I was your trophy and you were showing it off.” She took a breath, flustered. He wasn’t turning around, damn him. She was standing here, pouring out her heart to the back of his head. “I know that must sound very conceited to you, but you see, it’s just that I’ve been through this before…” Her voice trailed off.
This time he did turn around. Though he said nothing, at least he was listening.
“Oh, I never caught anyone talking about a classic car and thought they meant me.” A sad smile played on her lips. “Nothing that entertaining. I just found out that the man I loved, the one I thought loved me, was making arrangements to spend some time with the girlfriend he hadn’t brains enough or willpower enough to get rid of. Get rid of?” She laughed harshly at her own naivete. “He promised her that after he married me, there would be a lot more money to lavish on her to make up for his ‘unavoidable absences.”’
Her eyes met John’s and he saw the pain that he had inadvertently dredged up for her. “That’s what he thought of the time he spent with me. Unavoidable absences from his girlfriend.”
John drew closer to her, but for now, he refrained from taking her into his arms. He knew she wouldn’t stand still for pity, so he gave her none. Only his support. “He was a jerk.”
A ghost of a smile passed her lips. “I called him a few stronger things. But I thought he had at least taught me a lesson—until I fell in love with Derrick and it happened all over again.” She shrugged at her own stupidity. “Different name, different circumstances, same end result. He was making love to my money, not to me. Derrick was very upset when he discovered that my father’s will had a clause in it. You know, the one that brought you into my life.”
She said it so cavalierly, he was hard-pressed to guess what she was feeling.
“He was very helpful, though,” Courtney remembered. “He offered to arrange for me to marry a working-class friend of his. Was all for it, actually. I think he had something kinky in mind. It upset Derrick terribly when I refused to go along with it. And he really became upset when I suggested that we just forget about my socalled inheritance. You see—” she looked off, unable to look at John as she made her admission “—Derrick wasn’t nearly as well off as I would be with the inheritance. Without it, I just lost my appeal.”
John would have taken her barefoot and penniless. Actually, he would have preferred it that way. But her story explained a great deal. “So when you heard me on the telephone»—”
She shrugged again. It had been a natural mistake. “I jumped to a conclusion.” Striving to save face, she smiled ruefully at him. “After all, you were talking about classic lines.”
He allowed his eyes to skim over her body and thought of the image of her, nude and bathed in moonlight, forever etched into his mind.
“You do have those.” His heart went out to her as he brought her into his arms. “Courtney, what happened between us last night isn’t available for show-and-tell. I didn’t want to have it happen to begin with,” he admitted. “I certainly wasn’t going to brag about it.”
She stiffened, hurt. “I don’t remember forcing myself on you.”
Though she tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let her. She was going to hear him out. If they were going to survive the next two years together, they were going to be nothing but honest with each other.
“With every movement of. that beautiful body of yours, you compel me. You are very difficult to resist, Courtney Tamberlaine, even with a track record like mine hanging over my head.”
She softened against him, looking up into his eyes. “You never finished telling me about your track record.”
John didn’t want to go into the whole story now. Besides, it was getting late. “Some other time. I told Rick that Katie and I would be right over. He’s taking half a day off, but he does have to get to work.”
She didn’t know anything about his best friend, a man she instinctively knew he shared confidences with. Maybe she could start here. “What does Rick do?”
John released her. “He’s a detective. Newport Beach.” He crossed to the door, then turned and looked at her. Somehow, he’d just expected her to follow. But he realized now that she wouldn’t. Not without an invitation. “Would you like to come along?”
She grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He hadn’t thought he was going to. Not until he’d turned around. Looking at her face, he couldn’t help himself.
He put his hand out to her. “Well then, let’s not keep him waiting any longer.”
Chapter Thirteen
It looked like a butterfly on valium.
John sighed in exasperation as he undid the two ends of his black bow tie for what seemed like the twentieth time. He had no idea why he had to wear one of these things. Or why he even had to come along to the fundraiser in the first place. It wasn’t as if Courtney really needed him.
He muttered under his breath and tried again.
“I helped Mommy fix her hair.” She pointed proudly to Courtney’s upsweep, zeroing in on an area. “I pushed that pin in, there.”
John caught the look in Courtney’s eyes in the mirror and smiled. “Did she draw blood?” he asked quietly.
“Just about,” she whispered. Exercising a sleight of hand, she’d been able to rearrange the bobby pin Katie had pushed deep into her hair without the little girl noticing.
Katie was scrambling onto the chair next to the bureau. She beckoned her father over, her eyes on the limp tie.
“I can do that, Daddy. I can help you, too.”
She probably couldn’t do any worse than he was right now, John thought. He stopped fumbling with the bow tie and leaned over toward Katie.
“If you really wanted to help me, you’d get me out of this shindig.”
The bow was clearly proving harder to master than she’d thought. Katie frowned, her brows drawn together in deep concentration. “What’s a shindig?”
Still bowed over, he slanted a look at Courtney before answering. “It’s an old-fashioned word that means letting someone dig your grave for you, starting at shin level.”
Katie blew out a breath and began reworking the bow. She looked just like her father when she did that, Courtney thought fondly.
“Very funny. Don’t listen to him, Katie. He just likes to complain.” Courtney paused, debating whether or not to offer her assistance. She didn’t want the little girl feeling she was usurping her place with her father. But they couldn’t stay here all night, either. “Need any help with that?”
Katie nodded solemnly. “It’s not working,” she lamented. She let the ends drop. “I’m not very good at it.”
“That’s only because you need practice,” Courtney assured her. “Here, let’s give it another try.”
Rather than moving her aside, Courtney stood behind the little girl and covered the small hands with her own. Very carefully, she guided Katie’s movements, threading her own fingers in where she could. It was awkward that way and took twice as long, but a bow finally emerged that could have passed even the strictest judge’s approval..
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