My Phony Valentine

by Marie Ferrarella

  What the hell? If he thought she was Theresa, then she was going to be Theresa. All the way. And tomorrow, when he was on his plane, flying away from her and into forever, she would revert back to being dependable, safe, unexciting T.J.

  But right now there was tonight.

  She shifted in her seat, chafing, anxious. Anticipation marched through her like a well-drilled military band playing John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. The seat belt dug into her shoulder, a reminder that things were best played safe. Should she? Should she just continue being safe? Or should she, just once in her life, grab the brass ring and run with it? No one would know the difference.

  They wouldn’t, she thought, slanting another glance at Christopher, even know it was her.

  Temptation whispered seductively in her ear. Would Christopher do the same if she let him? Would his warm breath skim along her skin when he spoke?

  That was something, TJ. decided, she really wanted to find out. A smile curved her mouth as her blood began to hum with mounting excitement. Desire was winning the battle against common sense.

  Guiding the car into the driveway, she pulled up the hand brake and turned toward him.

  “You’re awfully quiet.” He’d hardly said anything on the way home. “Was it something I said?”

  He’d been content just watching her. Just watching the shadows from the towering trees that lined the neighborhood streets play over her face as streetlights shone through them.

  “Everything you said.”

  Uh-oh. One layer of her newly applied bravado began slipping away. But the look on his face told her that everything was still all right.

  “Actually, I was just thinking how funny fate is.”

  Yes, it was a riot, all right. Otherwise, how would they have ever wound up here, in front of her door, contemplating a step she’d never taken so rapidly before? Covering the sudden burst of nerves dancing through her, T.J. opened her door and got out.

  “Oh?” She tried to keep her voice nonchalant, light. Her stomach felt as if it were knotting up.

  Getting out on his side, Christopher looked at her over the roof of the navy car. “I almost didn’t come down here to meet you,” he admitted.

  She didn’t understand. It was his practice to conduct these interviews. And his father had done it before him. “But you always—”

  He nodded, casually slipping his arm through hers as they came up the walk. “Yes, that’s just it. I ‘always,’ just like my father ‘always’ before me. It was a pattern and perhaps a rut. Life’s gotten too complicated and busy for luxuries like two people meeting and sizing one another up before contracts. Besides, we both know that contracts can be easily broken if one of us is dissatisfied, no matter how ironclad those contracts appear.”

  With a calendar teeming full of appointments, he’d almost made a fatal mistake. He’d almost not come here and missed the opportunity of his life. “I toyed, if you’ll forgive the expression, with the idea of perhaps implementing a new set of procedures. Trusting my investigators to give me the entire background on the people I deal with.”

  T.J. had taken out her key, but was just holding it, stunned. Christopher took it from her hand and unlocked the front door. Opening it, he waited until she crossed the threshold before following. When he gave the key back to her, she felt a jolt where his hand touched hers. It shocked her back to awareness.

  He wouldn’t have come and she wouldn’t have been here with him now, not being herself. T.J. didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  The living room was dark. Only a small lamp pooled light along the hallway. Cecilia and Megan were asleep. The house was quiet.

  She was alone with him, she realized. Completely alone. The thought must have occurred to him, as well. She could read that in his eyes. They were touching her, stirring her. She found the breath backing up in her throat.

  “I’m glad I decided against it. They certainly were wrong in their report on you.”

  She tossed her head the way she’d seen Theresa do when she was flirting. Her stomach churned nervously as she hoped she hadn’t overplayed her hand. How desperately she wanted what she knew.she shouldn’t have.

  “And why is that?” The question rang husky, uttered through cotton dry lips.

  Very lightly, he combed his fingers through her hair. She wore it unadorned, free, like a dark ocean beckoning him to swim in it. He watched her eyes grow large and it pleasured him.

  “What they said led me to believe that you were a rather vain, rather shallow party girl who left the running of her company to very capable subordinates.” Reynolds and Wagner were guilty of slacking off and letting the tabloids do their work for them. They’d been good men up to now, but he was going to have to talk to them about this when he returned. They hadn’t managed to dig below the surface.

  “But I’m—”

  “Not,” he corrected.

  She couldn’t spring to Theresa’s defense without risking giving herself away. She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. Wouldn’t touch her like that. She couldn’t think when he did. And if she couldn’t think, she was going to make a fatal blunder. It was only a matter of time.

  “They were obviously wrong on all counts.” He stood back just a little to regard her in the dim, silvery light the moon was shepherding through the bay window. “You’re not vain, although there’s a great deal you could be vain about. You’re certainly not shallow and you’ve obviously worked on the presentation yourself, not left it to any subordinates to put together.”

  “T.J.—” The protest never managed to even leave her lips.

  Loyalty, too. The tally was mounting. He couldn’t help wondering why she wouldn’t take credit for her own designs. “That, I think, is a smoke screen.”

  She shook her head. “No, she—”

  Theresa was going to insist that T.J. had done the work. He might have believed her if she hadn’t made that impromptu sketch.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. “That sketch you did for me on the napkin at the restaurant... The style matched the drawings in your den.”

  She licked her lips, trying again. “Our styles are a lot alike—”

  She’d just proved what he had surmised. Very slowly he glided the palms of his hands along her bare arms. “See, if you were vain or shallow, you’d be preening, taking the credit instead of trying to lay it on someone else’s doorstep. I’m very impressed, Theresa. With the campaign.” His eyes held her fast. “With you.”

  Her pulse quickened again as she began to feel herself turn to liquid. She wanted this, wanted this oh-so-desperately, and yet, it was dishonest. He thought—he thought—

  Christopher lowered his mouth to hers and her mind joined the rest of her liquefied state.

  The hell with what he thought.

  T.J. fisted her hands in his thick, dark hair and gave herself to him, body and soul. She didn’t think how this might make things sticky for Theresa later. She couldn’t think that far ahead. Or even clearly. If she had to put up with the discomfort of pretending to be Theresa, she was damn well going to reap the rewards, just this one time. Theresa wouldn’t care that he was leaving tomorrow. Theresa would be counting on it, happy not to be involved with a commitment.

  Just once, she was going to see what it was like to really live like Theresa.

  Not that she had a choice about it. And not because of him. She knew instinctively if she said no, it would stop here, in her living room. Dark, sensual, incredibly exciting, Christopher just wasn’t the type to force himself on a woman.

  No, the choice she didn’t have was her own. She wanted this, needed this, more than she’d needed anything in a very, very long time.

  The rush felt wonderful, timeless. If his hands weren’t on her, she was fairly certain that she could float.

  IN ANOTHER MOMENT, he thought his self-control would snap. Though he saw desire in her eyes, he wanted to be sure that this was what she wanted.

&n
bsp; “Maybe we’d better go somewhere a little more private?” Christopher laced his hand through hers, waiting for her to demur, praying that she wouldn’t. “There’s this little out-of-the-way room I’ve been staying in that would be perfect.”

  It was all she could manage to nod her head. T.J. didn’t even know if she smiled in response. But the rest of her was smiling. One huge grin from top to toe.

  He made her feel as if she were glowing.

  Christopher led her down the hallway. To her bedroom. She didn’t remember walking. T.J. heard the door close behind her and the sound reverberated in her head as she looked up into his eyes.

  Waiting.

  Theresa wouldn’t wait, she told herself. She would act.

  With hands that were surprisingly steady, she undid his tie, slowly sliding the silken material down his shirtfront.

  He’d never experienced anything so sensual in his life. He’d been with enough women to know. It was all he could do not to rush this. To bring it to where this pent-up feeling within him would be released.

  But he didn’t.

  Wouldn’t.

  This was going to be a night to remember, for both of them. Christopher wanted their time together to stand out in her mind. He wanted to be head and shoulders above the others who had been in her life before.

  There weren’t, he vowed to himself, going to be any in her life hereafter. By her own choice. And for that, he was determined that he would go slow, that each moment would be burned into her brain so that there could be no room for any other men in her mind.

  He would do whatever it took for her to choose him. For he had already chosen her.

  It wasn’t what she had expected, this lovemaking with him. It was soft, slow, liquid. Lyrical poetry. She’d never experienced agony that was sweet before. He made her ache for him with every movement, every kiss, every touch. Every tender caress. Ache for fulfillment and yet pray that it wouldn’t come too soon. Not yet. She wanted this wonderful sensation of hot, palpitating anticipation to go on just a little longer.

  She had no idea she could feel this way. Drugged yet excited, eager yet hesitant. Wild. He brought things out of her that she would have never believed existed. She hardly recognized herself. T.J. forgot to playact and just reacted.

  Laughter bubbled and mingled with the fire in her veins.

  Their clothes strewn on the floor, their limbs tangled up with each other, they left the earthly confines of her bedroom to enter a world where there was room for only two.

  And that was enough.

  And when it was over, when his sleek, hard body had left hers limp and glowing, he held her against him, cradling her lovingly. As if they’d always been this way. As if he’d always been her lover.

  Theresa’s lover, she tried to remind herself, not hers. It didn’t matter. Right now, it didn’t matter. For tonight she was Theresa. Her heart was bursting with happiness and she hugged it to her.

  She wanted to tell him that she had never done this before, never reacted with such intensity to a man before. Even with Peter, it had taken six months before they had made love with one another, and then only after he’d slipped an engagement ring on her finger. And that had turned out to be more promise than fulfillment.

  Not this. This was something entirely new, entirely different.

  But she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t tell Christopher that she’d never made love with a man she hardly knew, and yet knew with all her soul. Theresa had had men in her life. He knew that. If she said anything, he’d laugh at her. Or think she was lying. Her mouth twisted. Ironic, wasn’t it?

  Yet she desperately wanted to tell him something. Wanted him to know how special this was for her. How wonderfully different.

  The words came without preamble. “I’ve never done this before.”

  Propping himself on his elbow, he raised a quizzical brow. He could feel her hair feathering along his chest as she picked up her head to look at him.

  “Made love to a client.”

  He didn’t know if he believed her. He knew he wanted to. “Then I guess this makes me your first.” He’d settle for that, he thought. For now. Bowing his head, he brushed his lips against hers.

  The combustion was instantaneous. The fire roared hotter than before.

  THE TELEPHONE ROUSED HER. The jangling noise intruded into her dreams, breaking them up like so many soap bubbles in a sink.

  When she managed to open her eyes a crack, she saw that light was flooding the room. Morning. How had it come so quickly?

  The noise persisted. The phone—she had to answer the phone.

  As she groped for the receiver, TJ. realized that she wasn’t alone. There was a warm body next to hers. A nude warm body.

  Christopher.

  Last night.

  This morning.

  Oh, God!

  T.J. jerked into wakefulness as she simultaneously glanced over her shoulder to see if he was still asleep and rasped a “hello” into the receiver.

  “T.J.?” Theresa’s voice, far too exhilarated, filled her ear.

  Christopher was stirring beside her. The telephone had woken him up. T.J. turned her body away from him, gathering the sheet to her as she lowered her voice.

  “Yes?”

  “T.J., it’s Theresa.” This time, she sounded puzzled. “I’m finally home. Just got in this morning. The resident doctor wanted to check me out himself.” She laughed, the sound pregnant and familiar. “I’m seeing him again tonight, So, how did it go Friday?”

  “Fine.” The response was terse. She hoped that Theresa would take the hint and hang up.

  Luck wasn’t with her. All she had managed to do was rouse Theresa’s curiosity. “Why are you whispering? Is something wrong?”

  “I’ll explain later,” T.J. whispered. Theresa had certainly received enough inopportune phone calls herself to know when someone else wanted to get off. Why wasn’t she taking the hint?

  T.J. felt Christopher’s hand on her bare shoulder and nearly groaned as his fingers lightly skimmed along her skin. She knew she squirmed as memories of their lovemaking haunted her body.

  Theresa sounded as if she wanted to settle in for a chat. “No, tell me now. Did MacAffee like what you had to show him?”

  The man in question cupped her breast, teasing the end with his thumb. T.J. sucked in her breath. The words were tight when she spoke. “I think so.”

  “Are you all right?” Theresa repeated. “You sound funny.”

  “I’m fine, just fine. I’ll get back to you later, Th—T.J.” Biting the tip of her tongue, T.J. broke off the conversation. That had been close.

  “TJ.?” Theresa’s voice echoed as T.J. hung up the telephone.

  Suddenly she found herself being turned around until she was flat on her back, gazing up into the greenest eyes God ever created.

  “That was T.J.,” she murmured.

  He began to nibble at her neck, loving the way she twisted beneath him. Excitement pulsed through his loins in anticipation.

  “So I gathered.”

  T.J. could feel the words along her throat. She arched, wanting to feel more. To feel him.

  “She seems very conscientious, calling you on a Sunday.”

  T.J. swallowed before she could continue. “You don’t know the half of it.” She tried to muster some strength. There wasn’t much to spare and what there was, she had a hunch, she was going to need soon. “So, what do you want for breakfast?”

  He raised his head to look at her, his eyes teasing. “You.”

  Once more with feeling, she thought, happiness spreading like golden marmalade all through her. T.J. twined her arms around his neck, bringing him closer to her. “One serving, over easy, coming up.”

  It was the last thing either one of them said for a while.

  “ABOUT TIME THE TWO OF YOU showed up for breakfast.” Cecilia raised her brows, amused, in Christopher’s direction. “I see you got your strength back.” She made no effort to hide her knowing gr
in as she placed a plate of French toast before each of them on the table. She grinned at Christopher before turning to T.J. “I am taking Megan to the park in case you would like to continue those undercover negotiations you were conducting.”

  Certainly wasn’t shy about things, was she? “How did you know?” he asked the woman. They hadn’t made any noise. And the hour had been sufficiently late when they returned. He’d assumed the housekeeper had been asleep.

  “Cecilia likes to think she knows everything. She makes good guesses.” TJ. looked at Cecilia pointedly. “But not this time.”

  T.J. could see it in the other woman’s eyes. Cecilia was thinking, Yeah, right. T.J. pressed on. What she’d shared with him had been exquisite, but now it was over and she had to come to terms with that.

  “There aren’t going to be any more negotiations,” T.J. told her. She deliberately avoided Cecilia’s eyes. “We seemed to have settled everything to both our satisfaction.” The housekeeper was chuckling to herself. TJ. looked at Christopher. “What time do you want Emmett here to take you to the airport?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Christopher smiled at her. He knew perfectly well that he hadn’t. It was a surprise. One he’d just come up with. He’d made the necessary arrangements while she’d been in the shower. “I’ve decided to stay around for a few more days.”

  T.J. dropped her fork.

  8

  T.J. QUICKLY PICKED UP her fork again. She stared at the man sitting across from her at the kitchen table. The man who had made her body sing.

  The man who had to leave before he found out he had made love to the wrong woman.

  T.J. had to clear her throat twice before she could speak. “Excuse me?”

  He’d hoped for a slightly less violent reaction. “I’ve decided to remain here for a few more days.”

  To be here with you. He almost said it out loud, but stopped himself. It would sound absurd for him to have developed such strong feelings for her so quickly. And maybe it was. He had to find out.