Taking her through the weather tower house had been an even bigger mistake. The innocent expression of surprise mixing with the sensuality of her body when he had kneeled at her feet nearly undid him. He had never seen such legs, long with narrow ankles. All he could think about was lifting her foot to his knee and running his palm along her skin to the juncture between her thighs. When they had ended up in the master bedroom, it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms and take her on the bearskin rug.
His thoughts cemented at the thought. Despite his body’s reaction, he and Vivienne Stansfield weren’t going to happen.
He started to turn away, to head for Bobby McIntyre’s office. But before he could move, Vivienne glanced back as if she was hoping someone had arrived. At the sight of him, her strange gray eyes widened with surprise, then darkened with awareness, quickly followed by a disconcerted embarrassment. She flipped her hand up in a quick, awkward wave, then swiveled away. Clearly he wasn’t the person she was hoping for.
After a glance at his watch that told him he was early, he cursed himself, then approached the bar like a tide pulled back to sea.
“Hello,” he said when he came up next to her.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Landry.”
He could all but feel her cringe.
People had a variety of reactions to him when he entered a room. Excitement, the desire to get closer, intimidation. But he’d never seen anyone cringe.
Refusing to admit that it really ticked him off, he sat down next to her.
He caught a glimpse of her image in the mirrored backsplash of the four-sided bar. The shimmering hair, the sensual mouth. And an unsettling darkness in her pale gray eyes.
“Have a bad day?” he asked.
She blinked, then seemed to focus, as if she hadn’t realized he was there. “I’ve had better.”
“Which would explain your need for a double.”
“What?”
Just then the bartender came up and set a tall, fluted glass in front of her. “A champagne cocktail for the lady.” The man smiled. “With double sugar cubes.”
Max nearly laughed out loud. Leave it to a woman like Vivienne Stansfield to order a double and have it turn out to be extra sugar. He should have known.
“I’ll put it on your tab,” the bartender said.
If Max hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t have noticed how she flinched.
“A tab?” She pursed her lips and sighed sharply. “Of course you have a tab, Vivi,” she muttered under her breath.
She stared at the bartender for one long second before she grabbed her tiny, glittery purse, then rummaged around in the contents. One by one, she pulled things out and set them on the counter. A lipstick. A compact. The tiniest writing pen he had ever seen. A matchbox-sized silver container of breath mints. Her nose wrinkled, her cheeks stained with embarrassment.
Something was wrong, though Max couldn’t imagine how this woman could have any money concerns. “Here, let me get it. Peter, put the lady’s drinks on my bill.”
Max could tell she almost refused. But then she glanced between her purse and the bartender, and she gave in.
“Thank you,” she said, her smile growing bleaker. “I didn’t think.”
“About paying?” he asked, and even he could hear the disbelief in his tone.
She stared at him for a long second, those strange, penetrating eyes seeming to look into him as if she were searching for something. She almost spoke, he was sure, but at the last minute she held back, her gaze clearing, and she laughed. “I didn’t think to bring my wallet. I’ll be happy to repay you.” Her brow furrowed. “I hope,” she added softly, glancing at her watch. “I’ll know in twelve hours, thirteen minutes, and forty-five seconds.”
He looked at her oddly. “No need. Peter, I’ll have a draft.”
“Sure thing, Max.”
Tilting her head, she lowered her chin to her palm and studied him. “You come here often?”
“Now and again. Bobby Mac is a good friend. We do a lot of business together.”
“The quarterback?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I know of him. Who doesn’t? Though I heard he quit football and got married.”
“To Lacey. She’s great. I tell him all the time that she’s the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Vivienne sighed, tucked her hair behind her ear, took a long sip of her champagne, then took another. “True love. I bet happily married Bobby Mac doesn’t work late with women associates.”
Max glanced from her glass to the high color on her cheeks. “How many of those have you had?”
“Not enough. I can still feel.”
She hiccuped, her eyes going wide as she slapped her free hand over her mouth, then she actually giggled. But the giggle quickly gave way to that same gray-eyed darkness.
His gaze narrowed against a sudden tension he sensed winding through her. He saw how she swallowed hard. “Are you all right?”
That’s when it happened, as if the little Dutch boy had pulled his thumb out of the dike. Suddenly Vivienne set her glass down with a thunk, swiveled toward him, and started talking. And talking. He had never seen anything like it.
“My life is falling apart,” she blurted, as if a world of worries had been swelling inside of her, just waiting to spill out. “First, I go see that house in the tower and get all hot and bothered by you just standing next to me.”
She squeaked the words, and he nearly dropped his beer. But she didn’t give him a chance to respond, not that he knew what he possibly would have said, when she hurtled on.
“What is that all about?” she demanded of herself. “I am engaged! I shouldn’t be noticing another man, much less wanting to tangle my fingers in his hair.”
“You wanted to tangle your fingers in my hair?”
“That’s not the point.”
Right that second, he didn’t care about any other point.
“Then this afternoon, depressed beyond belief, I went shopping.”
His jaw muscles ticked. “I hardly think the thought of running your fingers through my hair should depress you,” he muttered.
“Of course it should. If I didn’t feel depressed by it, I’d have to feel guilty. And I really, really don’t like doing guilty.”
He tried to follow her logic.
“So I went with depressed, which meant I had to go shopping. Besides, I needed a pair of shoes to go with my wedding dress. And I found them.” Her porcelain features turned dreamy. “White satin, with the most elegant beading you’ve ever seen.”
“I’m still not clear on how this relates to my hair.”
She shook herself. “It doesn’t! The shoes were just the next step in my life spiraling out of control.”
“Perfect shoes. Life going out of control. I’m not making the connection.”
She took another sip and sighed. “My credit cards were rejected. Can you believe it? Me! Rejected in front of every female shopper in El Paso.”
“I can’t imagine anyone noticed.”
“Everyone notices when someone’s credit card gets rejected.” She took a drink of her champagne and waved his comment away. “Though that was the least of my concerns after I went to the ATM to get money.” Her expression shifted, and her delicate forehead creased. “I’m overdrawn.”
“You, overdrawn?”
“My thoughts exactly.” She swiveled back and dropped her head into her hands, hiccuping once again. “How can I be overdrawn?”
Truth be told, right that second he didn’t want to know. Despite the heat that sliced through him at the sight of her legs, despite her comment about running her fingers through his hair, he wanted to get as far away from her as possible. She was upset, about to cry, and he really wasn’t good with women who cried.
He wished he had minded his own damned business and stayed away. Hell, he should have turned around and left the minute he saw her, then called Bobby Mac from his cell phone to tell him the
y’d meet another time.
Scanning the room, he looked for help. But not a single soul looked his way.
“Hey, Peter,” he called out hopefully. “Is Bobby Mac back yet?”
Vivienne jerked upright. “Hello! I’m in pain here.”
And to think that yesterday he had thought maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as spoiled as he had heard.
“Something has happened to my money.”
Since she was the only child of Jennings Stansfield, it was hard to get too worked up for her. “Shouldn’t you be telling your father about this instead of me?”
“He’s traveling.”
“How about your mother?”
“Also traveling.”
“Your fiancé? Surely he can help.”
She groaned and dropped her head back into her hands. “He’s busy.”
“Busy?”
“What is this? Fifty questions?”
His jaw went tight. “My apologies for any show of concern.”
Her breath caught and she looked at him with large doe eyes of surprise. “You hate me, too.”
“Do you come with an instruction book? A step-by-step guide to your pinball method of all-over-the-board conversation?”
“You really hate me.”
This time Max groaned. “I don’t hate you.”
“You were probably in that line at the shoe salon,” she lamented, taking another swallow of champagne. “I could have sworn there was a really big woman at the back with a five o’clock shadow.”
His hand went to his jaw.
Vivienne didn’t notice. “I bet Sharon from Grady’s office has never been rejected in a checkout line.”
“Who?”
Her face screwed up and turned red. “Sharon Willis. The new female associate at Martin, Melby, and Mathers. She’s smart and sexy—that is, if you go for blondes who can make a business suit look like lingerie from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.” She looked down at the ruffles on her lavender dress. “She’s everything I’m not.”
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her. Really looked. “What are you?” he asked, surprising himself but wanting to know.
The question startled her and she blinked. As quickly as it had begun, the flood of emotion stopped. Her shoulders came back. Her face cleared, then she laughed self-consciously, waving her hand, scoffing, and pushing the champagne away. “I’m being ridiculous. I’m fine. Really. Totally fine. So she’s beautiful. So she’s smart. So she’s working late night after night with my fiancé. That doesn’t mean Grady’s going to fall in love with her and leave me. I have plenty to offer a man.”
The hint of red returned to her porcelain white skin, her brow furrowing with vulnerability as she looked at him.
“Don’t I?” she asked quietly.
Something washed through him. Something softer than he had felt in ages, something that he had intentionally set aside in the years he’d had to fight and claw to work his way up from being the poor kid from the wrong side of town.
Without thinking, he reached out and touched her chin, just barely, but enough that the heat returned, hard and swift. He wanted nothing to do with this woman. But again and again he found it hard to look away. “Of course. You’re very beautiful.”
The pale gray of her eyes darkened to pewter, but she wasn’t deterred. “I’m not talking about beauty. You think I’m nice, right?”
She asked the question as if being nice was far more important to her than being beautiful.
He dropped his hand away. “Sure. You’re great.”
“And smart?”
“Real smart.”
“You didn’t say that like you meant it.”
“I don’t know you all that well,” he replied with an indifferent shrug that he didn’t feel as he picked up his beer.
“True.” She turned back to the bar.
They sat quietly for a moment, each lost to their own thoughts.
“But what if the money really is gone?” she whispered, as if she had been afraid to put words to the fear, as if somehow that would make it more real.
He studied her reflection in the mirror and realized she truly was worried. He couldn’t imagine anything was wrong with Jennings Stansfield or his money—and as a result, he couldn’t imagine that anything was wrong with Vivienne Stansfield’s situation.
“Bank errors happen all the time,” he offered, wanting distance, needing distance.
But she swiveled to face him, her eyes intense. “But what if it’s not a mistake?”
He stared at her, his gaze taking in the elegant line of her cheek and the slim column of her neck. “Then you’d do what most people do. You’d get a job.”
“A job?”
She said the words as if he had spoken a foreign language.
“You’ve heard of those, haven’t you? That human endeavor where you go out and work for money. Time cards and paychecks.”
She shot him a narrow-eyed gaze. “I know what a job is.” She bit her lip. “I’m just not sure what I could do.”
“Didn’t you go to college?”
“Yes. My degree is in art history.” She sighed. “I wasn’t thinking job when I chose my major.”
They both stared at the pattern in the fine wood grain of the counter.
“What about working for the art museum?” he tossed out.
“Even I’ve heard about the cutbacks.”
“Then teach art.”
“Didn’t get a teaching certificate.”
“Typing?”
“Never have.”
“McDonald’s?”
Visibly, she shuddered. “Would I have to wear their uniform?”
His brows slammed together. “Surely you can do something.”
“You’d think.”
He’d never heard anyone sound so glum.
Max swore, hating that he actually felt sorry for her. But there it was. Sympathy.
“Look,” he said with impatience. “Everything is going to be fine. As soon as the bank opens, you’ll see it’s all a mistake. And if worse comes to worst, there are all kinds of jobs out there. Take me, for instance. I need someone to take care of my sisters. Surely you could do something like that.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“Well, that’s not what I—”
“That is so great of you.” Then she stopped and her expression turned to confusion. “You’re responsible for your sisters? How old are they?”
“Fourteen and eleven.”
“And you’re?”
“Thirty.”
Max recognized the all too familiar surprise over the idea that anyone would have children spread out between thirty and eleven. He hated the way his shoulders tightened in response.
“My parents had eight children,” he explained, holding any trace of emotion at bay. “I’m the oldest. The year I turned eighteen, my mother got pregnant again. Dad ran off. So when Mom died a year later, I took over.” As if it were that simple.
He thought of the last decade, of the confusion, of trying to learn how to become a man and be a father at the same time. It was amazing any of them had survived. “I’ve had custody since then. But now everyone’s on their own except my two youngest sisters.”
He saw the distaste that lined her perfect forehead, the wrinkle in her upturned nose. But she surprised him when she spoke.
“How is it possible that there are still men out there who’d rather run off than accept responsibility?” She reached over and placed her hand over his. “It must have been hard for you.”
She said the words with genuine emotion. It was ridiculous that he cared. Ridiculous that he appreciated her feelings about his father—all feelings that he had lived with for a lifetime.
“I did what I had to do,” he said, pulling away from her hand and the unaccustomed emotion she brought up in him.
“What about your other siblings?” she asked. “Can’t they take care of your sisters?”
“They’ve got liv
es of their own.”
“And you don’t?”
He almost smiled at the way her chin rose indignantly. It was an odd sensation to have someone feel protective of him.
“It used to be easier,” he explained. “With eight of us, someone was always home. But now with Chris out of the house, Nicki is the oldest. At fourteen, she’s technically old enough to baby-sit, but I can’t expect her to take care of Lila all the time. I need someone there to drive the girls to school. Take care of the house. Cook. Generally run the place. On top of that, since I have real estate deals and construction projects all over the South-west, I want an adult in the house full-time.”
“And you think I’d be good at that,” she stated, amazed.
“Well, again, that wasn’t—”
She patted his hand despite the fact that he had already pulled it away once. “You are so sweet,” she said.
Sweet? Him? His thoughts cemented.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” she continued with a lilting laugh. “I feel better already. There are things I can do. But I’m sure you’re right. By tomorrow, this whole mess will be straightened out and I’ll be mortified that I even mentioned it.”
She gathered her purse, then climbed off the stool. Out of habit, Max stood.
“No need to see me out. Thank you for paying.” She hesitated. “And for listening, too. Good luck with your caretaker search.”
He watched her slip away, the heavy door swinging shut behind her, the dark wood closing out her delicate beauty.
He sat down and could no longer hold back the memory that had been trying to push forward since the moment she had walked into his office. The memory of Vivienne Stansfield as a little girl, dressed up in mounds of ruffles and crinolines, wearing a glittering tiara, standing next to her father as they opened a new manufacturing plant in south El Paso. The red ribbon. The snip of scissors. The ends fluttering to the ground. But most of all, he saw Vivienne.
He hadn’t lied when he said they had never met. But he had seen her, nearly touched her. A princess to his pauper.
He had been ten, weaving his way through the thick crowd of neighborhood people and dignitaries, wearing his best jeans with only a few holes in them and his Sunday shirt. Max had gotten as close as he could to the low stage. Then even closer.
The Wedding Diaries Page 3
