All Through the Night

by Mixed authors

  It sure blurred the outlines. Prettied things up. Made everything softer, fuzzier. Bearable.

  And now—?

  Maybe you should fight fire with fire…

  What? She bolted upright.

  What was that thought?

  Don’t let them bulldoze you, either of them. Why not just… ?

  Just—what?

  Lord, she was tired. Or else she was having a nightmare.

  … just let Bobby catch you… ?

  Yep—sound asleep, not in her right mind.

  Or maybe you’re not as upset as you’re pretending to be?

  Maybe Tony was right and that’s why you’re so upset?

  No, it was the headache talking—she was delirious. Not thinking straight. Thinking… what?

  Thinking she would just hand herself over to Bobby on a silver platter?

  Wearing a little paper frill around her neck.…

  And nothing else…

  Cute thought. She eased back down on the sofa. I need

  some aspirin. My head feels like a basketball. Needy but beautiful girls who are too full of themselves should never fall in love with young, rich, bad boys who are too full of themselves.

  It had been a recipe for disaster…

  And yet—and yet… he came back—for her…

  How? Why?

  Why her? Why now?

  They were different people now. They didn’t know each other. Whatever Bobby thought he came back for didn’t exist. She wasn’t malleable anymore; she was too strong, too headstrong, less emotional, absolutely in control except when people turned up where they shouldn’t be.

  So… why not just—go with it?

  Oh, something hadn’t changed. That insidious little thread of hope knotted around her heart…

  Just go with it—and turn it all around…

  * * *

  Chapter Four

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  So—he’d set his plan in motion, and Regan was already running as fast as she could. Or had Tony made sure she was nowhere around when he arrived for his appointment this morning?

  Catch me if you can…

  Regan Torrance, broker on the go, who, being a modern kind of woman, had never relinquished her divorced husband’s name.

  It was enough to give a man hope.

  Business. First.

  The storefront where the paper was housed was small, too small for the plans he had for it. The title closed this afternoon. His walk-through was scheduled for this morning. And it was definitely part of his plan to have Regan find him the right commercial space.

  So where was Regan at ten in the morning?

  “Out with a client,” Tony said blandly, pushing agency papers in front of him with all the disclosures and percentages spelled out.

  Bobby signed the papers. “When can we start?”

  “After your closing, if you like.”

  Bobby took his copies and folded them away. A couple of hours now, he thought, he’d own the building, the assets, everything.

  Everything except Regan.

  And that was on the docket, the next item to be attended to.

  Tony escorted him to the door.

  “Well, talk about timing,” Bobby said, keeping his tone neutral. “Here comes Regan.”

  And there she was, her dark hair whipping in the morning wind, long and lean in a severe pantsuit, a classic polo coat and big round sunglasses out of a nineteen sixties issue of Vogue.

  And Angie.

  A client. Now what did that mean, Tony’s deliberate lie?

  “Ang.” He nodded at her curtly as they came close enough to speak. “Tony. I’ll call this afternoon. I’ll assume Regan will have time to show me something then.”

  “Sure,” Tony said, sending a warning look to Regan, who was about to protest. “We’ll set up a couple interesting things that are available. Whenever you’re ready.”

  Angie looked at Tony. “I have to go.”

  “Bye, Ang.” Tony held open the door for Regan as Angie and Bobby went off together. “Back to work, hotshot. We’ve got megabucks on the line here.”

  “Maybe I need a vacation,” Regan muttered as she followed Tony into the office. “Maybe I should get out of town for a couple of weeks until this brainstorm passes, and Bobby leaves town to pursue more profitable ventures.”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t have thought the Herald would qualify as a profit center for Torrance Media, but obviously Bobby’s pinpointed something there that’s worth his time and energy,” Tony said. “So, you’ll sell the man some space.”

  “No sacrifice is too great,” Regan murmured, “to fill the company coffers.” For sure, she thought grimly. Bobby’s money was as good as anybody else’s, and nothing personal would ever get in the way of that, even for Tony.

  The deal was done by noon, the deed signed and in his pocket, and the doors of the Herald open for business as usual. And Regan was waiting.

  Or rather, Regan was at her desk, not at all looking like she was waiting. But when he hovered at the door, she put aside her papers and grabbed her coat.

  “Okay, Bobby. Let’s go. We could cab if you want.”

  “I have my car.” Business as usual. But what did he expect?

  She shrugged. “All right. We want the building at Endicott and Metro.”

  It took ten minutes through village traffic at the noon hour.

  “Here we go,” Bobby said, expertly drawing into a parking space in which he had perhaps an inch between the fenders, front and back.

  Good at everything, Bobby was.

  Regan launched into the sell. “This is the Endicott Building. They’ll subdivide, build to suit. Price per square foot is unequaled anywhere in Manhattan right now. Not the best neighborhood, not the worst. Up and coming, and after the right tenant moves in and leads the way, there’ll be no stopping development here. This is super space for your purposes.”

  However, it was the top floor of a five-story elevator building right near the el, which would need a gut renovation to bring it up to code for his operation.

  Regan was striding around the huge floor, pointing out places where he could install things, partition things off and possibly set up the plant.

  Striding was the word for it. Like she didn’t want anything remotely sensual between them. Like she didn’t look sensationally sexy in that pantsuit and camel hair coat.

  Don’t think about it. It’s not about sex.

  Hell, everything was about sex.

  Back to business. “Is the building for sale?”

  She consulted her notes. “Nope. I could put out the suggestion, if you’re really interested.”

  “I’m probably going to have my architect look at each of the properties before I make an offer. So…” He was at the opposite side of the room, which was big and lofty as a warehouse. If he took a flying leap across the room… ?

  “Okay, I’ve seen enough.”

  “It’s a good opportunity,” Regan said. “It’s great space.”

  Too much space, he thought, between them. Still.

  “You think? A printing plant on the top floor? I think we’d have a lot of shoring up to do every which way.”

  She looked up at him. Big mistake. Even in as vast a space as this, she felt his power. He was formidable. Maybe even more than someone like her could handle, given the spheres he traveled in these days.

  Fire with fire? Maybe she was the one who had had a brainstorm. Up close and personal, it just wasn’t realistic. She’d get burned to a crisp. It was way too late. It was.

  “Maybe so,” she said finally, tearing her gaze away, and moving restlessly across the room. “But at this price, it’s doable.”

  “Anything is doable—for a price,” Bobby said. “The only questions you have to answer are, is it worth the price, and do you want to pay the price…”

  She stopped in her tracks. “You’re giving up an awful lot to come back and take on a business that to the outside world looks like
small potatoes.”

  “I’m giving up nothing,” he said softly, “in comparison to what I’m going to gain.”

  What? What were they talking about—really?

  “Are we finished here?”

  “Finished here,” Bobby said. “Only just beginning elsewhere. ”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat. Ignore him.

  Down the service elevator they went. Into the car, and out from between the cars with three flicks of his wrist, and… “Have lunch with me.”

  “I don’t think so, Bobby.”

  “Business lunch.”

  Backed her right into a corner. She didn’t like this line where her past intersected with her present. Go with it—?

  Faster to fantasize than to do… even though he was bent on making it easy. Painless. Close your eyes and let it rip. But how did you mend the tears and make the fabric whole after so many years?

  He clearly didn’t care what he had to use to get what he wanted.

  Maybe she should take her cues from him.

  “Whatever the client wants,” she murmured. God, she sounded like a paid escort. Anything for the client, whether it was for a flat rate commission or a flat out fee.

  He couldn’t help the faint smile playing around his mouth.

  Whatever the client wants? It wasn’t printable what the client wanted. Just the thought of Regan wreaked havoc with his body. Having her beside him in the car was pure torture.

  And he’d better stop thinking about her as if she were a fantasy. He’d lived with that Regan for far too long. The reality was so much better.

  And prickly as hell. Without so many words, she was making it perfectly plain that business was business, and personal things were not allowed on the table.

  He could get around that. Even that obstinate expression. That intent stare at the road ahead as he maneuvered his Mercedes into another tight parking space in front of Gus’s. “Gus’s okay?”

  “Just fine.”

  The place was nearly empty, anyway. Gus was not at the bar. A hostess took them to a booth in the back, and they settled in there, Regan shrugging out of her coat with a sexy shimmy of her shoulders. And totally unaware of it, too.

  “Regan?”

  She lifted her gaze to his. This was too civilized, she thought. This is dangerous. Bobby had a look on his face that was pure predator.

  “Yes, Bobby?” Tony hadn’t exaggerated. Firecrackers. Boom, boom, boom. Flash and burn—she had to remember that. And sputtering down to nothing. She had to decide— now. Go with the fantasy or forever hold her peace…

  And he saw it, just a shadow of past pain and shared memory.

  “We’re not the same people.”

  “Of course we’re not.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Not in the least,” she agreed, picking up the menu the hostess had left on the table. Don’t make it easy.

  “So let’s just proceed as if we’d just met and felt this attraction.”

  “Or, we can choose not to proceed,” she countered. “Much cleaner that way, Bobby.”

  “You’re not denying what’s going on.”

  “What do you think is going on, Bobby?” Hard to get was good, she thought, make him earn it. Or was it just a ploy for her to get some distance before she took the unthinkable leap?

  … Tony was right, you know…

  Fire with fire… go with it, and let him catch you—

  But not quite yet…

  “You have some fantastic notion that because you want to rekindle something that burned to a crisp seven years ago, that I’d be willing to scrape and saw to get the flame going again. I’m not going to go through that again. It’s too late for anything like that.”

  “It’s not too late, damnit. And our past has nothing to do with what’s going on now.”

  “What’s going on now is lunch. I’m perfectly willing to talk about anything—except this.”

  “And I’m not willing to talk about anything else.”

  Stand-off. Now what? He was too close, she felt too vulnerable. Things she didn’t want on the table were spread out like a buffet for him to chew on.

  He was about to devour her.

  “I’ll have a salad,” she said abruptly.

  “I’ll have you,” he said in kind.

  She flushed. That was as overt as he had been since their conversation at Mary Lee’s party. Boy, it was one thing to decide not to ignore him, quite another to deal with him mano a mano.

  “Pretend we’re strangers,” he said. “We have no history. We have no past. We just have two high-powered people lighting each other up.”

  “And sparking and fizzling out.”

  “You’re a regular romantic.”

  “I’m a regular pragmatist.”

  Her stubbornness made him impatient. “Regan—”

  “You said it yourself. It’s all about sex.”

  “Isn’t it?” he murmured. “All right… It’s all about sex.”

  Oh, yes, the sex. Sex with an older, wiser, more experienced Bobby. She shuddered; she saw him, the boy, the body she’d idolized, saw him naked and young and bursting in her mind’s eye. That Bobby… that… part of Bobby… she’d wanted to hold it and fold it deep inside her where she could keep it safe.

  He didn’t miss the slight movement of her body.

  “It’s about you,” he added softly.

  There was a statement that could melt glass. Could melt a woman. Bobby Torrance, at his high-powered, highhanded, most arrogant best, in spite of all that vaunted new maturity.

  Ignoring him right now was not a bad strategy.

  They ate in silence, Bobby having ordered a hamburger and a beer. Her salad was tasteless, with all that sizzled between them, and she couldn’t wait to get away from the intimacy of the booth. “Are you ready?” she asked briskly, gathering up her notebook and bag.

  “Are you?” Bobby murmured, signaling for the bill.

  “For the next showing,” Regan said, keeping her tone neutral, and clamping down on the creamy feeling that assaulted her vitals. He was stalking her with words and that look in his eye. Very effective, too.

  Next time, she thought, she’d bring a chair and whip.

  “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got to show me,” Bobby said, tossing a five dollar bill down on the table for the waitress.

  “Nothing that can’t be seen in public,” she retorted.

  A ground-floor property this time. Ground zero. Quick in and out.

  Oh, God—it was getting worse the longer she was in his company.

  Same area, but this lower floor came with access to the full basement, which put this property way on the plus side.

  Plus Regan prowling the perimeter to keep as far away as possible from him because she was feeling everything he was feeling. And more.

  It was amusing, and it was irritating.

  And she was not distinterested.

  And he didn’t give a shit about the dynamics of space and cost per square foot at that moment.

  Regan—?“

  She turned to look at him.

  God… that mouth, those eyes—

  That body, even clothed to the neck in Ralph Lauren…

  A ton of bricks all over again. It was the only way to describe it. Knocked sidewise, on his ass, all over again.

  His whole body surged.

  She was feeling it too. Shaken. Uncertain.

  He could walk over there, take her in his arms and… he was moving, it was almost as if everything were in slow motion. Moving, going to her, to where she was waiting, she’d always been waiting—this moment seemed right, inevitable, here, now…

  Too easy—

  So close… don’t move… not too late—

  His mouth found hers, soft, testing, pliant, and then suddenly, explosively deep, probing, wet, intense.

  She hadn’t expected this—this instant connection, this hunger that came roaring up from deep in her core and nulle
d her into the undertow. She wanted to surrender everything to that mouth, and that was wholly unexpected—devastating, even.

  She had no defenses. He pressed deeper and deeper, demanding more and more. She remembered this, remembered how she always wanted to imprint herself on him, how she couldn’t get close enough to him. She wanted to open herself to him; she shuddered as the familiar excitement gushed through her like a waterfall.

  Oh, Lord, she’d missed this. Needed it. Rejected it. Suppressed it deep inside her like some dirty little secret.

  … Bobby… known and unknown… so familiar, so different, so much more in every way…

  This… as his hand slid down toward her buttocks…

  … this…

  … as he slipped between her legs…

  … this—her body jolting as his fingers pressed against her fully clothed vulva…

  … and this—as she canted her hips to feel it, feel him, harder, tighter—her body creaming, yearning, reaching—

  What????

  Oh, God, what was she doing?

  … come and get me—

  He had. So easily, too quickly—

  NO! NO! She wrenched away, out of his kiss, out of his reach, her body heaving with the force of her arousal.

  “We’re finished for today.”

  “We’re not finished,” Bobby said, his eyes glittering. He was breathing hard, too, and he didn’t feel equal to taking no for answer. He was too hot, too hard, too fired up and too long without Regan except in his dreams.

  Regan froze. There it was, that certainty, that presumption. You kiss your ex-wife, and she’s yours, and seven barren years and everything bad just vanished into the ether somehow, and nothing else needed to be said.

  “You can take me back to the office.”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “I’m not going anyplace with you but back to the office. Or I’ll walk.”

  He knew that expression on her face. She would walk. Some things hadn’t changed despite the differences. His gut knew it, he had to accept it—she was in strict control where her emotions were concerned.

  Except just now. Just now had nothing to do with her strength and her firewalls, and everything to do with the things she wouldn’t admit she was feeling.

  “We’re not finished,” he said.