by Nan Comargue
The words were like a blow, making her stomach hollow as if from a physical strike. She curled her fingers over her belly, as if to hold the pain inside.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shifted his forearm to review the blue glint of one eye. “For what?”
“For making you hate me. What else?”
He turned his attention to the gauzy material draped over the bed. “I don’t hate you, Mal. I just think I do on occasion. It was easier when you were married and out of my reach. Then I could almost convince myself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Stop apologizing,” he nearly snarled at her.
She swallowed the next automatic apology.
“Why won’t you tell me why you left me?” Jamie’s voice was no longer commanding but resigned.
Mallory noted the shift. He wasn’t asking for an explanation this time. He was asking why he couldn’t have that explanation.
“It’s not my secret to tell.”
Immediately afterward, when he slashed her a dark-blue glance, she knew that she had already said too much.
Chapter Five
“It must have been quite a night,” Enid commented, taking up her favorite perch on the edge of Mallory’s desk. “You look like death.”
“Thanks,” said Mallory.
“Sorry,” her assistant said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “But I happen to know from experience that the best nights are the ones that take a while to recover from. So are you going to tell me about it or am I going to have to drag the details out of you?”
Mallory covered her eyes with her fingertips. She knew she shouldn’t have come into work that morning. Even with only half the lights switched on, the office was too bright and Enid’s voice was going straight through her.
But it wasn’t her assistant’s fault she felt like crap today. No, that blame fell firmly on…
“It was Jamie, wasn’t it?”
Mallory squinted up at the other woman. Was she about to add mind-reading to her list of skills?
“What?”
“Last night,” Enid explained. “The man you went out with. The one who sent you the flowers. His name was Jamie, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.” She nearly faltered over the simple words. “That was him.”
What would Enid think if she knew the Jamie of last night was also the drool-worthy James Reynolds from the magazines?
She probably wouldn’t even believe it, Mallory realized. Boring old Mallory Scott—not-so-gay divorcée, proprietress of a failing design firm, and otherwise unremarkable person—with a handsome, successful younger man like James Reynolds? Nothing about that formula made any sense—not unless the audience had seen them together in bed. That was the only place she and Jamie fit together perfectly.
Even thinking about their lovemaking made Mallory’s cheeks feel hot.
“You’re blushing!” Enid crowed, recrossing her legs and shifting into a more comfortable position. “I knew it! So tell me about this Jamie person. What’s he like? What does he do for a living? Does he have any younger relatives who can make a lady blush in that same way?”
“Enid!”
Her assistant rolled her eyes expressively. “Oh come on, Mal, don’t go all shy on me now. After that prematurely aged man you were married to, you deserve to let down your hair and have a little fun now and then. You’re single now, remember?”
Single. After last night she had felt reborn. But now she was just a failure with a marriage and divorce already behind in her in the rearview mirror. Single no longer described her status. Used up was more like it.
“So are you going to see this Jamie again?”
Finally she had the appropriate response to at least one of Enid’s questions.
“No. Definitely not.”
“Why?”
Sometimes I think I hate you. The words echoed through her head. The pain she’d felt had almost choked her and it hadn’t lessened much now in the light of day.
It was no more than she deserved after the way she’d treated him.
Mallory could only shake her head, unable to put the wealth of emotion she felt into easily articulated words.
“I’d be interested in that answer myself.”
For once Enid’s door sense had failed her. Neither woman had heard the front door to the office being wrenched open but their visitor was nonetheless real. Tall, blond and utterly sexy in gray slacks and a black knit shirt that clung sensuously to his chest. He at least, didn’t seem to be suffering any aftereffects from last night.
Enid jumped off the desk and moved quickly to waylay the guest, extending her hand and a dazzling smile.
“Hello, I’m Enid, Ms. Scott’s executive assistant. Do you have an appointment?”
The greeting proved that, when called upon, Enid could be moderately professional.
“It’s okay,” Mallory said, refusing to meet Jamie’s blue-eyed stare. “I know him.”
However, Jamie didn’t seem to know his lines at all. After the initial brusque handshake, he completely ignored the other woman, focusing on Mallory’s now pale face.
“You left last night without saying goodbye. I woke up at five this morning and you were gone.”
Enid, who had backed up to the doorway, now halted. She gave Jamie’s broad back a wide-eyed glance then motioned frantically to Mallory by fanning her face, presumably indicating Jamie’s hotness, then giving two enthusiastic thumbs up to show she approved of her taste in men. In response, Mallory shooed her away with one hand but the younger woman refused to take the hint.
“You wouldn’t be Jamie, would you?”
Jamie turned at the sound of the other woman’s voice. He smiled briefly. “Yes, I’m James Reynolds. I’m an old friend of Mallory’s.”
Enid’s eyes widened even more. She’d obviously made the connection between the man and the magazine photos.
“Wow,” she gushed, “with friends like you, who needs sex toys, right?”
A moment later she clapped her hands over her mouth as she looked at her boss.
Mallory was mortified. “Enid!”
“Whoops, sorry!” The other woman quickly slipped out the door, calling, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Reynolds.”
Mallory didn’t know where to look. She sensed that Jamie’s mouth was curved into a smile but she had no intention of meeting his mocking eyes. As if he didn’t already know how absolutely devastating he was at close quarters.
Her eyes on her computer screen, she asked, “What can I do for you, Jamie?”
Perhaps if she treated him like a stranger, she would eventually come to think of him as one—and not keep imagining how hot and urgent his mouth had been on her body last night, or how hard his cock had pounded her.
His words surprised her.
“I’d like to set up a meeting.”
“A meeting?” Mallory almost reached to click into her office calendar before suspicion took over. “What kind of meeting?”
Wasn’t last night enough? she wanted to ask him. How much more would she have to pay?
Yet it wasn’t really punishment that he was inflicting on her. His tactics were far more subtle. It was torture being with him and not having any better hold on him than what her pussy could provide to his penis.
Any more nights like last night and she was afraid that she would start going crazy.
Jamie glanced down at his wrist. “You’ll find out in a couple minutes.”
His words sounded ominous, as though a ticking clock was counting down her last moments of freedom.
Perhaps it was.
Her guest made no attempt to make small talk and Mallory was far too anxious to go about her work.
It was a relief when there was a tap on her office door and Enid once again poked her head inside.
“You have another visitor.”
Mallory flicked a glance at Jamie but his face gave nothing away.
“Thanks, Enid. Please s
how them in.”
Jamie stood as the second woman entered the office. Mallory’s legs suddenly didn’t have the strength to do the same.
Her visitor was Jamie’s aunt, Kelsey Douglas.
The two women had seen each other over the years, of course. The design industry was too small to avoid one’s colleagues altogether. But time had brought its own barriers. From stilted polite conversation, they had progressed to bare greetings then mere nods of acknowledgement. Over the last few years they had ignored each other altogether.
“Hello, Kel.” The nickname slipped from Mallory’s lips before she could think about it. “Please have a seat.”
Jamie slid into the second chair, leaving his aunt seated directly in front of her. Kelsey sat down as if she feared the chair might be contaminated. In her lap she clutched her clunky vintage purse with both hands.
Her former friend looked older than her years due to a wide streak of gray in her brown hair and the lines bracketing her mouth. The lines made her look ill-tempered and perpetually worried.
She no longer resembled the woman Mallory had once known.
The three of them hadn’t been in a room together since—well, since their campaign had succeeded in breaking Jamie up with his girlfriend. Mallory frowned. What had the girl’s name been? Emma? Edna? Neither name sounded right. It was shocking to her now that she couldn’t even remember the girl’s name.
When it became apparent that neither nephew nor aunt intended to start off the conversation Mallory made an attempt.
“How have you been, Kelsey?”
Kelsey’s mouth trembled—not with emotion as Mallory first thought, but with scarcely controlled anger.
“How could you, you bitch? How could you tell him? You promised me.”
The words tumbled from her mouth like tiny iron pellets. It took Jamie a few seconds to react to the torrent.
“Aunt Kel, that’s enough. Mallory hasn’t told me anything—yet.” He paused, a dark look replacing his initial surprise. “And don’t ever speak to her like that again.”
Kelsey didn’t even turn to acknowledge him. “Go ahead, take her side. I knew you would. She’s turned you against me.”
Mallory drew back at the sound of the other woman’s voice rising hysterically but Jamie leaned closer to his aunt, his brow furrowed.
“Listen to me, Aunt Kel. Mallory hasn’t said anything or done anything to turn me against you. I love you—but I love Mallory too. And I need to know the truth of what happened ten years ago. I need to know that now.”
Mallory knew he had continued speaking but her senses seemed to overload at those three incredible words. He loved her. Jamie loved her!
She shook her head but the motion didn’t dislodge the memory. It was true. He had actually just spoken those words.
Kelsey’s eyes slanted to Mallory. The venom in those blue depths startled her.
“You told him,” Kelsey said in a low hiss. “Maybe not in so many words but you let him somehow find out that it was my fault. My plan. What did you do, cry to him that you would never have left him if it hadn’t been for me? Well did you also tell him that you two would have never gotten together if it weren’t for me? That it was all my idea in the first place? That I practically had to beg you to go to him?”
Jamie stared at his aunt. “What the hell are you talking about?”
The question carried the force of a whiplash and Mallory felt a twinge of sympathy as Kelsey cringed away from it.
It spilled out then in the same rapid-fire pace she’d first taken, the entire story from start to finish. The girlfriend Kelsey had feared would take him away from his education and from her, the way she’d capitalized on her friendship with Mallory to urge her to seduce Jamie, even the way she’d been unable to stomach remaining friends with Mallory after she’d followed through with the plan.
“She’s still mad at me for turning away from her,” Kelsey cried out, her words becoming more mumbled as she started to sob. “Her career went downhill afterward. I didn’t do it on purpose but eventually I stopped wanting to work with her and the bosses wanted to know why. I swear I just told them that we’d fallen out, not the whole story. I couldn’t share that with them. It involved you far too much, Jamie. It was their choice to move her off their big accounts, not mine!”
Her eyes pleaded with her nephew for understanding but Jamie’s expression remained wary.
The revelations must be overwhelming to him, Mallory realized. Even she was not exempt. She’d suspected before that Kelsey had been instrumental in sabotaging her job with their former employer but she’d never guessed how much.
It was only when he spoke that she heard the anger concealed behind his expressionless features.
“Do you always prostitute your friends to solve your personal problems, Aunt Kel? Or was this a special case? How did you decide to pick on Mallory anyway?”
Kelsey’s gaze dropped to her purse. “I knew you had a crush on her, ever since that time you were concussed and she came to see you in the hospital. You just lit up when you saw her. Now looking back, it seems strange that you hadn’t outgrown the crush by the time I asked her to…”
Her voice trailed away but Jamie deliberately picked up the thread.
“By the time you asked her to come on to me? To seduce me? To fuck me?” Jamie’s voice was almost unrecognizable. “Speak up, Aunt Kel, which one was it? How far exactly did you ask Mal to go?”
This time Kelsey’s voice was a whisper. “I asked her to sleep with you.”
The look Jamie gave his aunt made Mallory cringe but the one he sent in her direction was even darker.
When he spoke though, his voice was back under control. “I understand now why you couldn’t tell me the truth.”
Mallory hid behind lowered eyelashes. He was right. She’d known that this would happen. That he would hate her as soon as he found out.
The only part she hadn’t known was that he had loved her first. That piece of knowledge made her pain nearly unbearable.
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
“Stop apologizing.” He responded with the same words he’d used before only this time his tone was not angry but defeated.
Mallory stared hard at her keyboard until the letters started to blur and disintegrate. She dared not lift a hand to wipe the tears away and draw attention to the fact that she was crying. Two weeping women were two more than Jamie deserved on his hands at that moment.
“Darling…” Jamie’s voice was so soft that both women looked up, startled.
He got out of his chair, pushing past his aunt to come around the desk. He crouched down by Mallory’s chair, cupping the back of her neck with one hand and resting his cheek against hers.
“My sweet love. Don’t cry.”
Shivers took hold of Mallory’s frame. Hesitantly, she turned her face toward his and was pleased so see that he no longer looked angry or defeated.
Jamie moved his lips in an aborted smile. “Do the tears mean that you care for me?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
He went on, more gently than ever. “Did you know that when you accepted Aunt Kel’s plan?”
Mallory had to try twice to find her voice. “I knew I cared for you. Why else would I have agreed to do it? I cared for you both—you and Kelsey—very much. I couldn’t watch you throw your life away and break your aunt’s heart.”
Jamie lifted his hand to wipe her tear-stained cheeks. “So you broke my heart instead.”
“I didn’t know how you felt about me.”
His fingers went still. “How I feel,” he corrected.
She had to blink away new tears. “Jamie…” Mallory broke off, frowning. “But if what you’re saying is true, that you’ve felt like this about me for so long—”
“Loved you for so long,” he interjected.
“Then why did you wait for so long?” She lifted her eyes to his face. “And why did you push me away?”
His jaw was set
in a harsh line. “By the time I was out of school you were married. My parents played fast and loose with their marriage vows but somehow I knew you wouldn’t be the same way. So I waited.”
“You predicted that my marriage would end?”
“I knew it had to end. We belonged together. Not you and him or anyone else.”
Mallory marveled at his strength of conviction. All those years—all that wasted time.
But looking back it didn’t seem wasted. He’d needed to grow up and the time apart had allowed him to do that. She loved him now as she could have never loved him before.
Yet she still couldn’t bring herself to say those words. Not now. Not in front of his aunt.
“Look at me, Mal.” He brought her chin up. “I waited because I didn’t want to jump into bed like we had done that first time. I needed to know why you left me all those years ago. I was terrified of making the same mistake this time and losing you all over again.”
“Oh, Jamie.” Her heart ached for him. That she could have so much power over this strong man humbled her. “I felt so guilty being around you and I knew that you deserved to be angry after how I had treated you.”
He leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I didn’t deserve to be angry and I didn’t want to punish you. That’s why you kept letting me back into your life, isn’t it?”
He was astute.
“I hurt you and I thought you might need some payback. I certainly deserved it.”
This time he kissed her mouth hard. “I never wanted revenge, my love. I told you before, I was afraid of messing up our second chance together. I wanted to know the truth. But even that didn’t really matter when it came down to it. As long as I had you in my arms, nothing else mattered.”
His kiss made her whole body tingle but it was nothing compared to the warmth and passion she saw in those midnight-blue eyes. She wanted him, all of him, right now.
Jamie seemed to read the naked desire written on her face because hard color rose to stain his cheeks.
He spoke without turning his head. “Leave us alone, Aunt Kel. And take Enid with you.”
