For Now, for Always

by Lynn Turner

  Could she trust the man who had once betrayed her?

  Lacey Hartmann had come a long way since the night her husband had thrown her out. After eight years of struggle, she had rebuilt her life, her twin sons adored her, her business was thriving, and an attractive man wanted her.

  Then her husband came to town. And Neil—a man who always got what he wanted—now wanted his wife back.

  Lacey wanted to believe things would be different, but her memories wouldn’t let her. Dare she open her heart again to the man who had violated her love in the past?

  The new, compelling stories of passionate romance for today’s woman.

  “I’ve loved you in the dark before..

  Neil’s lips were at her ear. “Remember, Lacey? Remember what we used to do to each other in bed? You knew how to drive me wild. I want you to do that again, and I’ll….”

  The rest was breathed hotly into her ear, as Lacey moved her head from side to side, trying not to hear his erotic promises. He knew exactly where to press, where to stroke.

  Desperate to resist the effect he was having on her love-starved senses, she finally gasped, “Neil, don’t do this. It’s too late to start over.”

  Dear Reader,

  We at Harlequin are extremely proud to introduce our new series, HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION. Romance publishing today is exciting, expanding and innovative. We have responded to the ever-changing demands of you, the reader, by creating this new, more sensuous series. Between the covers of each HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION you will find an irresistible story to stimulate your imagination and warm your heart.

  Styles in romance change, and these highly sensuous stories may not be to every reader’s taste. But Harlequin continues its commitment to satisfy all your romance-reading needs with books of the highest quality. Our sincerest wish is that HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION will bring you many hours of pleasurable reading.

  THE EDITORS

  U.S.

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION 2504 WEST SOUTHERN AVE. TEMPE, ARIZONA 85282

  CAN.

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION P.O. BOX 2800 POSTAL STATION “A” WELLOWDALE, ONTARIO M2N5T5

  For Now, For Always

  Lynn Turner

  Published April 1984

  ISBN 0-373 510B-4

  Copyright 01964 by Lynn Turner, All rights reserved Philippine copyright 1984, Australian copyright 1964. Except lor use in any review, the reproduction or utilization ot this work in whole or in part in any form by arty electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, pitotocopyingand recording. Of in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission ot the publisher. Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill ftoed. Don Mills, Ontario. Canada M3B3K9.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination o( the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any Individual known or unknown to the author, and aJI Incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trademarks, consisting of the words. TEMPTATION. HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION. HARLEQUIN TEMPTATIONS, and the portrayal ot a Harlequin, are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited; ttie portrayal ot a Harlequin is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and In the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  Printed In Canada

  CHAPTER ONE

  Something told Lacey Hartmann to put down the insurance-premium schedule and glance at the slim gold watch on her wrist,

  “Damn!” she muttered. Lacey quickly came out from behind her desk, collecting her purse as she headed for the door. “I almost forgot the boys’ soccer practice,” she explained to the two women in the outer office as she hurried through.

  Ellen, the elder of the two, assured her they’d hold the fort until she got back. Lacey flashed a quick smile of gratitude and swept out the door, under the large swinging sign that identified the renovated clapboard house as Meinert Realty & Insurance.

  Ten minutes later her silver Audi pulled into the drive of a tri-level redwood-and-stone house on a quiet residential street. Before the car had rolled to a complete stop, two children burst out the front door.

  “Gosh, mom, we’re gonna be late again,” That was seven-year-old Todd, admonishing her as he crawled into the back seat.

  “So what—it’s no big deal if we’re five minutes late.” His twin, Scott, the peacemaker, threw Lacey a forgiving grin as he climbed into the front beside her and closed the door. Lacey reached over to ruffle his dark hair before shifting into reverse to back out of the drive.

  “Well, almost everybody else is always on time,” came the mild grumble from the back seat.

  “Almost everybody else has moms who don’t do anything but stay home and watch tv all day, too,” Scott pointed out reasonably.

  “Yeah, but our mom’s a businesswoman.” The smug pride in Todd’s voice made Lacey chuckle.

  “Well, this businesswoman has to to get back to work as soon as I drop you guys off at practice. I hope you had a snack to hold you over until supper. It may be late tonight.”

  Scott nodded for both of them. “Mrs. Moore made us baloney and cheese sandwiches.”

  “With ketchup and mayonnaise,” Todd put in.

  “And dill pickles.”

  “And chocolate ice-cream cones for dessert.”

  “Yech!” Lacey commented with an exaggerated shudder, and they all laughed together.

  When they reached the soccer-practice pitch she got out to ask Paul Rossi what time she should return to collect the boys. He was showing off for the kids again, she noticed—juggling the soccer ball with feet, knees and muscular thighs, bouncing it off his forehead, ducking under it to catch it with a heei and send it back over his head. Paul loved an appreciative audience, especially if that audience included an attractive woman. When he decided the performance had gone on long enough, he deftly caught the ball in one hand and turned to her with a boyish grin. Lacey smiled back and gave him what he wanted.

  “Very impressive. Did you learn all that in Italy or Argentina?”

  He shrugged as he walked over to her. Paul had the gait of a natural athlete. He moved lightly, on the balls of his feet, and in the soccer shoes he was wearing now his walk was slightly pigeon-toed. He was altogether a fine specimen, and if she’d been in the market for the kind of casual affair he was geared to, she knew she could have had him at a crook of her little finger. It wasn’t a vain thought, merely realistic and a bit regretful.

  He stopped a scant foot in front of her. In her three-inch heels Lacey could look him squarely in the eye, and she did, still smiling. Yes, he was certainly a good-looking man: dose-cropped dark curly hair, laughing brown eyes and a classic Roman nose above a full, sensual mouth and firm chin.

  Paul was thirty, two years older than her, and still a bachelor. He’d come here as consulting engineer for a plastics company from his native Italy, via Argentina, where he’d spent two years doing similar work. Paul was open and warm, with an artless charm that made hirn easy to talk to and increased his appeal to the opposite sex. His compact body was lean and tough, and the undeniably male aura he projected was all the more potent for being unstudied, completely natural.

  Lacey instinctively knew that in bed he would be playful and tender, a considerate, unselfish lover who gave as much as he took. For a moment she was tempted to consider the subtle and sometimes not-so- subtle invitations he’d been sending out for the past year. But only for a moment.

  “Both,” he said, in answer to the question she’d forgotten asking. “I have played since I was a child, and the company I worked for in Argentina sponsored a team that was very good. Playing there helped to sharpen my skills.”

 
His accent was one of the most attractive things about him, a fact he was well aware of. Lacey had noticed that it became more pronounced when he spoke to a pretty young girl, and it was sometimes even comically exaggerated when there was a really stunning mature woman around. Ironically, though he’d pursued her with more determination than he had any other female in town, the accent all but disappeared when he spoke to her. it was a sign of his respect for her intelligence, she knew. The respect was mutual. With one notable exception, Paul had the finest mind of any man she’d ever known, though he often masked it behind his easygoing charm.

  Now he tilted his head to give her a frankly admiring look that ranged from her short, sun-streaked hair, over her tailored ivory linen suit and open-necked blouse of forest green silk, down the shapely curve of her calves to the thin straps of her tan leather sandals.

  “You are not staying to watch today?” he asked in disappointment.

  Lacey shook her head. ” ‘Fraid not. My In tray overflowed. When should I come back for the boys?”

  “We will be finished by five-thirty, t think. If it’s earlier than that, I’ll bring them to your office.”

  ‘That would be very nice of you, Paul,” she said sincerely, and he flashed her a devilish grin.

  “Perhaps if I am nice enough to you, cara. …”

  The murmured suggestion never got finished, because at that moment one of Lacey’s sons darted between them in hot pursuit of a soccer ball.

  “Looks like practice has started without you, coach,” she chuckled as Paul reached down to catch her offending offspring by an arm.

  “If only they would run like that during a match,” he muttered wryly, then turned the boy around to see the lettering on the back of his yellow T-shirt. “Welt, Scott, since you’re so full of energy, you can be spiker today.”

  The boy looked up with a mischievous grin, and Lacey burst out laughing. At Paul’s puzzled expression, she explained,

  “They’ve switched shirts on you again. That’s Todd.”

  Paul shook his head as the boy ran off giggling. “Living with them must be constant confusion, Lacey. How on earth do you tell them apart?”

  ‘They’re mine,” she answered simply, then gave him a direct, slightly provocative look. “And I can always recognize what’s mine, as well as what’s not.”

  “Always?” Paul asked softly.

  “Always! I really do have to run, Paul. See you later,” she threw over her shoulder as she turned for the car.

  It was true that the twins were identical to every* one but Lacey and Mrs. Moore, the widowed neighbor who stayed with them during the day. Even their teachers couldn’t tell which was which. But from their birth each had possessed his own distinct personality. Lacey often thought they were like a coin: sometimes back to back, representing the opposite sides; other times so attuned to each other they were iike a single entity, the halves merging into a whoie.

  Physically they were so alike that even their own pediatrician sometimes confused them: soft, thick hair so dark it looked black in certain lights; eyes large and round, of an unusual deep copper color; still small for their ages, as twins often are. Vet despite their slight stature, they were mentally and emotionally mature beyond their years, excelling at whatever athletic activity they threw themselves into. Both swam on the country-club team—at seven, the two youngest swimmers competing in area meets—and now they were showing a natural affinity for soccer, as well.

  Paul had shaken his head in perplexity when he praised their talent to her. It went beyond athletic ability, he said, it was almost as if they could read each others minds. One always knew exactly where the other would be before he got there, what play he would make before he made it. Lacey merely smiled. It was nothing new to her.

  Paul was genuinely fond of the boys, she knew. Yet he never tried to exploit his growing friendship with them to get closer to her, a testimonial to his personal code of ethics. As she pulled into her parking space she frowned, remembering something he’d said when the three of them had returned from a week’s vacation in Florida the week before. Commenting on how deeply tanned the boys had become, he teased that they must have a drop or two of Italian blnod from their father’s side of the family.

  She had smiled and said no, not that she knew of, but she was secretly upset by the reminder of their father.

  He had been thirty-five when she met him, head of his own pharmaceuticals company, self-assured to the point of arrogance. An uncompromising businessman with a deserved reputation for ruthlessness, he had never revealed any details of his past. Others had told her of his difficult childhood as an orphan, shunted from one foster home to another.

  Until Paul’s casual remark, she hadn’t thought of him in months. Oh, it still hurt sometimes to look at the twins; they were so like him, duplicates in miniature of the hard, taciturn man who had fathered them without even knowing it. But most of the time her life was too full for thoughts of the past, and that was the way she wanted it. She’d built a new life for herself, on her own. She was justifiably proud of what she’d accomplished by sheer hard work and force of will, because not many women could have done as much with as little. Not many men, either, in fact.

  Until she had married Neil Hartmann, her life had been an easy one. As an only child, she had been denied little. So when attractive, sophisticated Neil proposed to her after a brief courtship, she was dismayed by her parents’ response.

  Her father pointed out that Nei! was too old for her, that their backgrounds were vastly different, that as his wife she would be exposed to a world she’d never known before—expected to entertain his business associates, assist him whenever possible in his dealings with strange people, spend hours and sometimes days alone while he was occupied with company matters and then make herself available as a sounding board when he did come home. But, to a starry-eyed eighteen-year-old, the “arguments” had been all the encouragement Lacey needed to cement her decision.

  For the first few weeks their life together had seemed like heaven, but it didn’t take long for the stardust to begin to wear off. Neil was practically never at home, and when he was he refused to talk to her about his work or anything else. He treated her like a child—worse, like a doll, to be dressed up and occasionally put on display for his friends and associates. He took pride in her beauty but didn’t seem concerned about her mind or feelings. And he was almost obsessively possessive, withdrawing into a grim silence if she made even casual conversation with another man on the rare occasions when they went out.

  Lacey had begun to feel she was slowly starving to death for the love he denied her. She tried everything to make him aware of her as his equal, his partner. Nothing worked. Gradually she began to withdraw from him, her pride and her heart shattered by his continued coldness. Eventually the only thing they shared was sex; she couldn’t think of it as making love. Not that it wasn’t good. Neil was a magnificent lover, but that was only to be expected, she supposed, considering his age and experience.

  For almost two years they existed like strangers living under the same roof, communicating only in the darkness of their bedroom, when he would turn to her and drive her out of her mind with pleasure, never speaking, never murmuring soft love words in her ear; telling her with his hands and mouth and body exactly what he wanted from her, and what he was prepared to give in return.

  And then, one horrible pain-filted night nearly eight years ago, he had savagely and brutally destroyed whatever feeling she had left for him and ripped her secure world apart at the seams.

  Ellen and Vi were laughing when Lacey entered the office, still under the brooding spell of her lapse into the past. She asked what was funny, and Vi explained.

  “It’s old man Sawyer. He called while you were out. Now he wants to insure his new bird dog against sterility!”

  Lacey rolled her eyes, and then joined into their laughter. Royal Sawyer had read about such coverage a year ago in one of his farm journals. Since then he’d bought
sterility insurance on a stud bull and a prize Appaloosa stallion.

  “Next he’ll want us to write a polity on his rooster,” Ellen remarked with a grin.

  “As long as Mrs. Sawyer doesn’t ask for one on him,” Lacey responded dryly as she headed for her private office.

  “At his age!” Vi scoffed. “But can we do it? Insure the bird dog, I mean?”

  Lacey left the door open as she went to her desk. “I don’t see why not. I’ll check for a precedent, but if we can write a policy for a bull or a horse, why not a dog?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” Ellen followed her, a sheet of notepaper in her hand. “Believe it or not, we got a call about the Miller place.”

  Lacey sat back in surprise. “You’re kidding! Nobody local, I’ll bet.”

  Ellen’s expression was wry. “Well, no, but he seemed familiar with the property. Asked if it was the old Miller farm out on Claypool Road, He wanted to see it, but I explained that both our salespeople were out of the office. He said he might just drive out on his own and have a look at the place.”

  “Let’s hope he waits until after dark,” Lacey muttered as she held out a hand for the paper.

  “Oh, don’t be such a pessimist. He could be one of those handyman types looking for a fixer-upper. He sure sounded like a take-charge guy on the phone.” Ellen handed over the paper with the potential buyer’s name and turned for the outer office. At the door she paused briefly with an encouraging smile. “Besides, I think it’s a good omen that he’s got the same last name as you. I’ll bet we finaliy unload that place!”

  Lacey didn’t hear the hopeful prediction. Her eyes were fastened in sick horror on the name Ellen had copied in her elegant script: Neil Hartmann,

  Her hand shook as she gripped the paper. It couldn’t be! Not after all this time!

  In the beginning she’d been terrified that her husband might come after her, try to find her. She had used her mother’s maiden name for a while, just in case he did. Since then both her parents had been killed in a pileup on an Interstate in California. By the time she had paid for their funeral, there was no money left. For over a year, she had been virtually penniless and homeless, with no one to turn to if Neil decided to come after her.