The Contract

by Avril Tremayne

The truth reached through her numbed mind. He wasn’t home. Not home. Not here.

  The last traces of energy deserted Lane and she buckled on Adam’s doorstep.

  She put her head on her knees and closed her eyes as the tears came.

  * * *

  Damn but this weather was wild, Adam thought as he parked the jeep in the garage behind his house.

  It suited his mood.

  He’d driven to four of his sites today, which seemed to be located for maximum inconvenience in four different directions. It was supposed to be a progress check, but he’d ended up pitching in and helping, hoping some hard physical activity would get his mind off Lane.

  It hadn’t worked. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about last night. It had been…magical. And it had felt like hell, leaving her this morning.

  What had her reaction been, when she’d woken to find herself alone in the bed, and that curt little note, so at odds with the drenching emotion of the night before?

  He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. Knowing Lane, it would have suited her way of pigeonholing their relationship. No embarrassing declarations. Just an impersonal note for their next “appointment”.

  He needed to snap out of this maudlin state of mind. Needed to tear the vivid, arousing images of last night from his frazzled brain.

  He needed…a cold shower.

  He got out of the jeep—and realized he had a nice cold shower already falling from the sky. So he exited via the back alley and circled around to the front of the house.

  Enjoying the icy slap of the rain, he reached his gate then checked his mailbox, extracting two envelopes that were half-sodden by the time he tucked them inside his shirt. He turned, wondering about extending his icy walk in the park…and that’s when he noticed the car. Lane’s car. He ran to it, looked inside. No Lane.

  He spun around and raced up to the house. And there she was: her back against his door, knees drawn up, the side of her head resting on her handbag in her lap.

  Adam’s heart leapt into his throat. “Lane?”

  Silence greeted him.

  He went to her, knelt beside her. “Lane?”

  Her eyelids fluttered, and he breathed a sigh of relief, gathering her into his arms.

  “Adam…? I’m c-cold.”

  “Let’s get you inside, sweetheart.” He got to his feet, drawing Lane up with him, then fumbled his key into the lock and threw the door open. Moving quickly, Adam shepherded Lane inside and down the hall into his study, where he sat her in his favorite chair. He left her briefly to fetch a blanket, and then he was beside her again, kneeling in front of her, tucking the blanket around her and taking her hands in his and chafing them with quick, efficient movements.

  Her eyes were lifeless, and there were tear trails down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong, Lane? What happened?”

  “My mother. She—She’s d-dead. S-stroke.” She closed her eyes and fresh tears fell from beneath her closed lids.

  He kissed her hands then drew her against him until her face was pressed against his shoulder. He said nothing, just held her and let her cry.

  Gradually, the tears slowed, but she stayed with her head resting on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know we’re not scheduled, but I n-needed you.”

  A sweet agony twisted through Adam. “Any time you need me, I’m wherever you want me to be.”

  She was silent, letting his hands soothe her as they stroked into her wet, tangled hair.

  “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll run a bath for you and tuck you into bed. We can talk then, if you want to, all right?”

  Lane nodded, narrowly missing Adam’s nose.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll carry you.”

  “I’m too tall.”

  “Lane, I keep telling you, you’re a pygmy. Stop casting aspersions on my manhood.” He brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. “Please, Lane? You look so tired.”

  Lane burst into fresh sobs, and Adam waited no more. He got to his feet, pulled her up into his arms and carried her effortlessly up to his bedroom, where he stripped off her clothes, wrapped her in his dressing robe and laid her down on his bed.

  He went to fill the bath, and when he came back, she was lying exactly as he’d left her. “Are you all right, Lane?”

  “Yes. No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say that. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Adam guided her into the bathroom and prepared to leave.She looked up at him. “Don’t leave. But no lessons tonight.”

  “No, Lane, no lessons.”

  Within thirty minutes, Lane, wearing one of Adam’s shirts, was tucked into bed.

  Only then did Adam do something about getting out of his own drenched clothes and into a hot shower. When he was dry and dressed, he sat beside her on the bed, taking her hand in his, and she told him, haltingly, what had happened since getting the call from her brother.

  “It’s my fault again, you know,” she said at the end. “They were arguing because Brad dropped out of that course and was going to start another and for once, Mum s-said I was right, and they were fighting about me. And then…”

  “It’s not your fault. And not Brad’s fault. If arguing with someone killed them, I’d be a multi-murderer serving fifty concurrent life sentences. Fifty-one, counting the site manager I chewed out earlier today.”

  A watery chuckle greeted that utterance, and Adam leaned down to kiss her before drawing up the covers and leaving her to find something for her to eat.

  When he brought up some canned soup twenty minutes later, Lane was fast asleep. One hand was tucked under her pale cheek. Her hair, still damp, was spread over the pillow.

  He felt a primitive surge of possessiveness at seeing her like this. His woman, in his clothes, in his bed. He put the tray on the table in the corner of the room and came to the side of the bed to watch her.

  He bent down and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Lane,” he breathed against her skin.

  She whimpered in her sleep, moving in the bed as though reaching for something.

  Adam stripped off his clothes and climbed into bed beside her.

  Taking her in his arms, he closed his eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The pain, when Lane woke the next morning, came in a rush.

  Her mother. The hospital, doctors, Brad.

  She remembered driving through the rain. Knocking on Adam’s door. Collapsing on his doorstep. And then, somehow, she’d been inside, her head on Adam’s shoulder. Adam had tucked her into bed.

  His bed.

  She looked at her arms, noted the length of the sleeves.

  His shirt.

  She caught a glint of green on the left-hand bedside table—Adam’s side. The jade apple.

  Slowly, she got out of bed.

  She loved this room. The scale of it—large and masculine. The solid, carved bed. The Persian rugs. The antique chair in the corner—she should get her damp handbag off that before the wood warped. The two bold paintings. They were amazing. So…hmm…familiar. The paintings were…familiar, somehow.

  She walked closer to one of them.

  Yes, she’d seen paintings like it online yesterday when she was researching her presentation for Beijing. The artist was Ding Yi if she was not mistaken. And—deep breath—the painting was probably worth a few hundred thousand dollars.

  Her heart started thumping uncomfortably.

  She went to the other painting. A different artist, she thought Liu Wei. Possibly worth even more.

  Oh. My. God.

  There were artworks all over the house, but she’d had no idea any of them were valuable.

  Valuable? More than that—probably worth millions if these two were anything to go by.

  Not that she would have known, even if she were an art expert—because she’d always been too focused on Adam to see anything in detail in this house, except him.

  She laughed, a little hysterically
. She had been paying a man with a multi-million dollar art collection for sex.

  She could hear his steps outside the room, and turned to face him as he entered.

  He was carrying a tray piled high with fruit, toast, pastries and coffee. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  She flinched at the endearment.

  Adam checked at her reaction, but then calmly set the tray down.

  She swallowed. “You have a lot of money.”

  “Yes, you know that,” he said, clearly puzzled.

  “No, I don’t. Your clothes. The jeep…”

  “My clothes are comfortable. And the jeep is my work vehicle. I like it, so I usually drive that. But I have another car. You’ve seen it.”

  Staring. “That was your car? The Jaguar? Not a hire car?”

  He watched her for a moment. “Lane, just because I don’t drive around every day in a flashy convertible like some pretentious corporate banker—”

  “He drives a Mercedes. Sedan, not convertible.”

  “—or wear a designer label suit to work, it doesn’t mean—” He broke off, looking at her strangely. “You knew I wasn’t doing this for the money.”

  “I didn’t know the extent.” She gestured wildly towards the walls. “The paintings.”

  Adam was unsmiling. “So now you do know. I like art. It’s not a secret. I was speaking to David Bennett about it for long enough.”

  “I wasn’t listening. I was—” She whirled away. Turned back. “How could you not realize I didn’t know? Why would I think…the money…I was paying…”

  “I would have done it for free, but you made it clear that paying was important to you. Crystal clear. And I thought you said it was ridiculous to argue over money? So why are we talking about this?”

  “I knew there was an imbalance,” she said, more to herself than to him. “But not this big.”

  “I received an inheritance from my grandfather, shared with Sarah. We don’t go around broadcasting it, just like we don’t go around talking about our parents’ divorce. And I don’t understand what the problem is.”

  “And I don’t understand why you would give up three months of your life for some chickenfeed loose change.”

  “We didn’t think it would come to that.”

  Oh. No. No, no. “What does that mean?”

  Adam had that watch-wait look again. Alert. Figuring out tactics. Wondering how she’d react.

  “Don’t give me that look, Adam. Just tell me what you mean.”

  “All right, Lane. I’ll tell you. That night—the first night—I was supposed to put you off the idea. If I was unpleasant enough, Sarah thought you’d run a mile rather than go through with it.”

  Lane’s stomach pitched. “Sarah never really intended to help me?”

  “She thought getting you to back out of it was the best help she could give. It didn’t work, though. You were too determined and I—Well, I thought I was a better bet than anyone else would be.” Short, humorless laugh. “I felt protective of you even then.”

  Lane whirled away, went to the window and looked blindly out of it.

  “Lane, don’t you realize what could have happened to you if you got the wrong guy?”

  “Yes, I see,” she said, her voice dead.

  He reached her in three strides. Turned her. Took her hands, which she snatched back.

  “Do you, Lane? Do you see everything?” he asked, and his temper was clearly building now. “Do you see how I feel about you? And will that change anything?”

  “What do you mean, change anything?”

  “Will you still go to David?”

  She wanted to lie, tell him yes, she was going to David immediately, that very moment. But the words wouldn’t come out. “I’d better call the office and tell them I’ll be late.”

  Adam’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t be in at all.”

  “You were hired for sex, Adam, not to be my nursemaid.”

  His eyes blazed at her now. “Why did you come to me last night?”

  Her face heated. She didn’t answer.

  “You needed me,” he told her.

  “Don’t let it concern you,” Lane told him. “I have no desire to marry you so I won’t be hanging around your neck like a millstone any more.”

  “Maybe I like millstones. Damn. I didn’t mean—Just…just forget I said that. Lane, just wait while I call your office, then I’ll come back and we’ll get this thing sorted out.”“This…thing.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Did she? No, she really felt she did not. But anything to get Adam out of the room. “All right. Yes, please call my office,” she said. “But I—I think I’ll go back to bed, and we can talk later, if that’s all right.”

  “I’ll come and check on you soon, and I’ll leave the tray. You need to eat something.”

  She nodded.

  He hovered, looking troubled. “Lane…?”

  The scream was building inside her again. Get out, get out, get out. “Thank you, I’m fine,” she said, colorlessly.

  She walked calmly to the bed and slid under the covers, and after another long moment of hesitation, Adam finally left.

  Lane stared up at the ceiling, trying to think past the great wave of pain, of despair, that washed over her.

  She had never been anything but a charity case. A laughingstock. What had Sarah said to him? Poor, pathetic Lane Davis needs a man to teach her about sex—talk her out of it, will you, Adam?

  Lane had never been in control. Not from the first day.

  They must have been chortling away behind her back. Sniggering at her naïveté, laughing at how proud she was of the way she was improving with those lessons. The lessons Adam had tried so hard, for so long, not to give her.

  This was on par with what DeWayne had done to her—no, worse, because she loved Adam. Loved him.

  She leaped out of bed, scanning the room for her clothes. There was no sign of them. She glanced down at the shirt she wore. Adam’s shirt. Her hands smoothed over the fabric. So soft. She could smell him in the fabric. Such a beautiful, clean smell.…

  Lane caught herself up. What was she doing? The only important thing about the shirt was that it came to midthigh. Modest enough to allow her to leave the house without having to ask Adam for her clothes.

  If she were Erica, she would stay, face him and storm out in front of him.

  Ha! If she were Erica, she wouldn’t be in this predicament! Erica was a strong, confident, desirable woman—not a pathetic charity case.

  And pathetic charity cases slunk away—they didn’t storm.

  Heart racing, she grabbed her bag, edged cautiously down the stairs and out to her car.

  And drove calmly home.

  She let herself into her house then just stood in the entrance hall, feeling lost and tragic and alone.

  * * *

  The day of the funeral was overcast.

  It suited Lane’s mood, the constant lead-like ache in her chest. The grief over her mother’s death. A futile yearning to go back, have one last time with her mother to try and fix everything that was wrong between them. And the desperate, gnawing pain of missing Adam.

  Adam’s persistent efforts to see her, talk to her, over the past few days had made the pain worse—but the intensity of mortification she felt always stopped her from opening the door when he pounded on it and picking up the phone when he called, called, called, called.

  Now, as she gave her black-swathed frame a last look in the mirror, she realized even the heavy cloud of this day had a silver lining—she had something more important than her own wounded heart to think about.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The service was simple. Prayers. Hymns. Tributes. Brad’s tearful eulogy.

  Brad spoke eloquently, lovingly. It made Lane feel like a complete outsider to hear him talk of his special bond with their mother—a bond Lane hadn’t had. A mother Lane hadn’t had.

  Lane understood the pain, the grief
, her mother hadn’t been able to overcome, and wished she’d been able to find the key to breaching the yawning gulf of it. She would have liked to have thought, at the end, her mother had started to see her at last. She’d taken Lane’s side that one time with Brad, so maybe…

  But there was no point in maybes. Lane knew she had to let the curveball go. And there was a sort of comfort in that.

  Comfort…and loneliness.

  Lane drove by herself to the cemetery. She stood by herself at the graveside, deliberately edging slightly away from everyone else. She was scared she wouldn’t be able to hold it together, now that the moment had come to say the final goodbye and she didn’t want anyone to see her fall apart.

  The minister spoke, but Lane had no idea what he said. She was blinking, blinking, trying not to look at anyone. She felt so hopeless. So lost. So completely and utterly alone.

  She felt one tear fall and hurriedly averted her eyes—and that’s when she saw him.

  Adam.

  He stood a long way apart, but he was unmistakable: the tall frame in a respectful back suit, black hair, the harsh planes of his face, those burning dark eyes.

  He was watching her.

  She felt her heart leap with joy and terror and determinedly didn’t look at him after the first hot stab of recognition.

  Then the coffin was being lowered and she made some sound of distress, and Adam was suddenly beside her, gripping her elbow. “I’m here, Lane. Hold on to me.”

  Adam stayed close to her, a silent support, while mourners—a smattering of family and friends of her mother—came over to speak to her. He stayed when Brad sidled up to her to murmur something about going on ahead to the house.

  Then Brad was gone, the small group dissipated, and they were alone.

  “Come home with me, Lane. We need to talk.”

  “I can’t. We have people coming to the house, and I need to be there.”

  He took both her hands. “If you can’t see me today, see me tomorrow.”

  “I’m going through my mother’s papers tomorrow and I—” Her voice broke.

  “Then the next day. Or the day after that.”

  Lane turned away, breaking his hold on her hands. “I have something for you. In the car. I—I was going to give it to Sarah for you. But since you’re here…”