She turned her face up to his. "I bet you say that to all the women who torture you." The buzzer began to sound. Margo sighed, wishing that she had a little more time to watch this unfold. "Looks like intermission is over." She nodded toward the door. "Time to go in."
He eyed the entrance dubiously as the crowd shifted from the refreshment counter to the door. "Do we have to?"
She laughed, hooking her arm through his, just in case he had any plans of escaping. "Yes, we have to."
He sighed, a man resigned to walking the last mile, since there was no other choice.
"I was afraid you’d say that." But he allowed a great many other couples to get in front of them before he finally made it back to his seat with Margo. He was in no hurry to sit and watch for another two hours, all the while feeling his posterior fall asleep.
Bruce looked up in distracted annoyance when the intercom on his desk buzzed. Didn’t his secretary understand English? He’d left strict instructions.
Containing a temper that was all too willing to flare up these days, he pressed down the intercom button. "Agnes, I said no telephone calls."
Instead of an apology, he heard a gurgle of distress in response to his admonishment. That was followed by his secretary’s voice addressing someone else. "But you can’t go in there!"
The next moment his door opened and Margo came in. Swept in was more like it. The woman could make an entrance coming out of the bathroom.
What was she doing here?
"This isn’t a telephone call, Bruce," Margo announced needlessly. She set down what looked to be a picnic basket on his desk. "It’s dinner."
Dinner. He was vaguely aware that his stomach had been rumbling off and on for the past fifty minutes. Still, there was no connection between that and her sudden appearance.
"Margo, what are you doing here?"
His secretary, very obviously upset by her inability to keep Margo out, appeared behind her in the doorway. "Mr. Reed, I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop her."
Hardly glancing in her direction, he waved away Agnes’s apology. He was far too taken with what Margo had on to pay strict attention to the other woman. He would have guessed it was spandex, but it was far too formal looking fall in that category.
But it certainly took every breath right along with her. He’d never found himself so taken with the give of a fabric before.
"Don’t worry about it. l doubt any force of nature could stop her."
Margo paused in her unpacking and looked at him, pleasure in her eyes. "Why, Bruce, what a sweet thing to say."
Agnes remained rooted in the doorway. The look in her eyes told Bruce she regarded Margo as no better than a plundering interloper. "Shall I call Security, Mr. Reed?"
"I’ll let you know if I need them," he told her mildly. "On second thought, it’s late, why don’t you go home?"
Agnes looked unconvinced and unwilling to leave him alone with this she-creature. "l still have letters to type."
"Last pickup was hours ago. They’ll keep till morning." He gestured for the woman to leave. Given no choice, she reluctantly complied. Once the door was closed, he looked at Margo. She was busy taking things out of her basket and placing them on the tablecloth she’d spread out on the carpet.
Puzzled, he crossed to her. "So, what’s all this about?"
She glanced at him over her shoulder, then took out a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Your lesson."
Just how many things were there in that basket of hers? It reminded him of one of those trick cars they had in the circus, where seventy-eight clowns marched out of a small car.
"I called and canceled my lesson. remember?" he reminded her.
But Margo didn’t stand corrected. Margo, he was quickly beginning to learn, had her own way of interpreting things. "No, you called and canceled coming over to Elaine’s for your lesson."
Thinking of himself as a reasonably intelligent man, it never ceased to mystify him how quickly she could lose him once he was in a conversation with her. "Isn’t that the same thing?"
·
"Not exactly."
She leaned over to extract a container of potato salad. He watched in fascination as the miracle of Lycra stretched before him. It just molded itself to her body like a second skin.
Margo sat back on her heels to look at him as she made her point. "I didn’t want to stop lessons now, not when you were progressing so well."
He had to admit that when it came to studying a foreign language, he’d learned more from her in the last week and a half than he had in three years of high school. She was also a great deal easier on the eye than old man Feldman had been, as well.
But he couldn’t afford to let lessons, even lessons he was taking because of the company, get in the way of what was really important to him: the completion of the project he was overseeing.
Much as he liked having her here, fussing over dinner if not him, she had to leave.
"Margo, in case you haven’t noticed," he gestured toward his desk and its overflowing files, "I’m very busy."
"I noticed," she assured him. She rose to her feet in a motion so fluidly graceful, water would have been envious. "Your secretary took great pains to point that out." She brushed off her hands before reaching into the basket for the main course. "But you have to eat."
He wasn’t about to argue that. Not when his stomach chose that moment to rumble and underline her statement. "l was planning on sending out."
Taking his hand, she coaxed him down to the makeshift picnic she’d arranged. "Consider this a takeout delivery. And while you chew, you can review."
lt was useless to protest. "Food and poetry, what a woman."
Taking out the breadsticks she’d forgotten she’d brought, Margo offered him one. "Flattery is not going to get you out of this."
He cocked his head, studying her. Damn, but she was a beautiful woman. "What will?"
"Satisfying me." When she raised her eyes to his like that. he knew he was in danger of chewing on his tongue instead of the breadstick. "And I’ll let you know when I’m satisfied."
He had an urge, just for a moment, to explore that statement in an entirely different context. To see if he could bring her to an entirely different realm of satisfaction.
Her eyes wicked, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, Margo pointed to the platter of cold fried chicken she’d prepared. "All right, now what’s this?"
With a sigh, knowing there was no way out, Bruce said, "Pollo."
Like someone playing charades, Margo touched her fingers together and then drew them slowly apart, as if she were attempting to make him stretch out what he was saying.
He raised one brow in amusement. "It’s a chicken made out of taffy?"
"I was trying to get you to say fried chicken." Laughing, she hit him with her breadstick. It broke, a piece falling into his glass of wine. He took it out and bit off the soggy end experimentally. He let the flavor dissolve on his tongue. "I think you might have stumbled on a new taste sensation."
She lifted a shoulder in response, letting it drop again. She had a way of making everything look so regal, so cool at the same time, that it brought the temperature of his blood up another degree.
"Wine makes everything better, and you’re just trying to distract me."
"Why not? Turnaround is fair play and you certainly distract me." His eyes on hers, he dipped the tip of his index finger into his glass, then set it down. "Lean forward."
She did as he requested, but asked. "Why?"
"I’m going to test out your theory." Ever so lightly, he traced the outline of her lips with his index finger and succeeded in getting them both excited. He’d forgotten what it felt like, to feel this way around a woman.
His pulse accelerating to double time, he touched his mouth to hers. All it took was a touch and he felt himself intoxicated. There was no doubt about it, she made his head spin. Not a good way to go if he had work to do.
"You’re right." He drew his hea
d back, fighting off the temptation to kiss her again. "Wine does make everything taste better."
For just the tiniest moment, Margo had thought they were experiencing a blackout. And then she realized that it was only him. And her. When he kissed her, no, even before then, as he’d drawn closer with the promise of a kiss between them, he’d made the room fade away. Margo couldn’t remember that ever happening to her before.
She wet her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, tasting the wine. Tasting him. "You’re sure about that?" she breathed.
"Maybe we need to perform a second test." He drew her onto his lap. "As a control."
She settled in, being just the slightest bit unsettled at the same time. Determined to ignore it, Margo turned a deaf ear to the disquietude echoing through her as she laced her arms around his neck. "As long as it’s in the name of science, how can I refuse?"
He grinned. He liked holding her like this, liked feeling the weight of her body against his. "That’s very noble of you."
"I try," she murmured as his lips touched hers again. The smile on both their lips melted into the kiss. And into something more.
And then the pinwheels started. The pinwheels that whirled and turned within her brain each time Bruce kissed her.
Except that they weren’t pinwheels any longer. They were now the size of windmills. Windmills with long, powerful arms that stirred the forces of nature even as they were being stirred.
That worried her a little, that they were windmills now. Windmills were harder to control, not at all like pinwheels.
But this was only temporary, she reminded herself with fierce urgency. It was all right to enjoy this, to allow herself to sink in a little more deeply than she normally did, to allow herself to enjoy this man a little more than was her habit. There was no danger here. In less than a month they would be in two different countries.
There was no harm in kissing him, in letting her head swirl and her blood warm. No harm at all. It wasn’t as if she would let herself get hooked. She wasn’t the same naive, idealistic young girl she’d once been. She’d learned her lesson well.
And this was just recess.
Still, the strength of her reaction did threaten to pull her under. She splayed her hands against his chest, creating a wedge between them.
"All right." she said, trying very hard to catch her breath. "Enough procrastination. Tell me what we just did."
It took a moment for the roaring in his ears to subside. "Came very close to setting the rug on fire?"
Yes. there certainly was that, but it wasn’t what she was going for. "In Italian."
His arms still tucked comfortably around her. Bruce shrugged. "l don’t know how to say that in Italian."
Margo knew she should move back, create a little space between them, but she couldn’t seem to make herself act on that thought. It felt too good being like this.
"How about kiss? Can you at least say that in Italian?" She’d given him a list to study earlier in the week and that had been one of the words on it. Surely he recalled such a simple word.
"Baciare, to kiss." He congratulated himself on remembering. Triumph faded as he looked at her. "Danne un baccio, Margo."
Nerves began to jump around within her like so many tiny tree frogs fleeing the security of their home as a fire threatened to engulf them. "Very good, but you have your
tenses confused. What we did is now in the past. You’re using the present tense for give me a kiss."
"l know." he said softly. Gently. he cupped her cheek. His eyes on hers. Bruce repeated the words. " Danne un baccio, Margo."
She could feel it beating. Her heart as it rose up and lodged itself dead center in her throat, she could feel it beating. Wetting her lips, she drew in her breath and laced her arms around his neck again. "I believe positive reinforcement is in order."
"In Italian. Margo," he teased.
"In any language," she answered just before his mouth took hers.
CHAPTER NINE
Bruce pushed back from the dining room table, afraid that if he didn’t do it now, he wouldn’t be able to get up later. He would have been hard—pressed to say who was the better cook, Melanie or her mother. More than likely, it was a draw. He was going to have to see about getting in some extra time at the gym to make up for the sinful way he’d indulged himself tonight.
Extra time. The thought almost made him laugh. It seemed like these days he didn’t have any time, much less extra. What with the intense push at work to complete his project before deadline and the language lessons, he didn’t have a spare moment to himself.
.
He had to admit that the language lessons weren’t the hardship he’d envisioned. Smiling, he glanced at Margo sitting beside him. The lessons were turning out to be the highlight of his day. More accurately put, Margo was turning out to be the highlight of his day. She seemed to infect everything she touched with sunshine and laughter. Especially him.
.
Up until a few weeks ago, he never would have guessed that he could feel this way again. That he was even capable of feeling this way again. And yet, he was, he did, and it was all because of Margo.
He’d come a long-way from the barren wasteland his life had seemed just a year ago. He had a family again, Bruce thought, looking at Lance. And he felt lighter, happier than he had in a very long time.
"Wonderful meal, Melanie," he told her. "Everything was excellent."
"It’s not over yet." Melanie rose, picking up Bess’s empty plate and placing it on top of her own. "There’s still dessert."
Bruce would have groaned if it wouldn’t have seemed rude. Right now, the thought of dessert wasn’t as appealing as it should have been.
"Let me help you with those," Margo offered, reaching for Lance’s plate.
But Lance was faster. "That’s okay, Mom. I’ve got it." Picking up his plate, he piled his father’s and Margo’s on top of it. "Be back in a minute," he promised, hurrying after Melanie.
She was already depositing the dishes into the dishwasher. Taking Lance’s pile from him, she lowered her voice. "Do you think anything’s going on between them?" She indicated the other room with her eyes.
He’d been wondering that himself ever since his father and Margo had arrived with Bess. There seemed to be something, an intense electricity, buzzing between them.
"I don't know," Lance answered honestly. "Dad seems a lot happier, but don’t forget, I don’t have that much to compare it to. Still," Lance considered as Melanie put the finishing touches on the cake she had baked earlier, "there's this spring in his walk that only a woman can put there."
Dipping his finger into the bowl of whipped cream she was using as frosting, he popped it into his mouth. Melanie continued slathering the foamy confection along the sides of her cake with a spatula. Without missing a beat, she slapped his hand away when he went to take a second taste.
"Guess I’ll have to satisfy my craving for sweets another way," he theorized, then stole a kiss from her.
Melanie merely shook her head as she spread a white. glob across the top of the cake. "Is that the best you can do?"
Lance gave her a wickedly lecherous look. "Stick around after everyone’s gone tonight, lady, and I’ll show you the best I can do."
Bess cleared her throat loudly before entering the small kitchen. "I just came in to see if you two need any help with the dessert, since it seemed to be taking you so long." She eyed them. "But I guess I can see what the problem is now."
Lance laughed, giving his aunt a quick kiss on the cheek that succeeded in catching her completely by surprise. Though she’d been both mother and father to him for a number of years while he’d been growing up and she knew he loved her, Lance had never been outwardly affectionate.
What a difference a woman made in a man’s life. Bess thought.
"All my problems should be like this," Lance told her as Melanie finished up the cake. He stole one last lick from the bowl as he placed it in the dishwash
er.
Bess shook her head. "Between the way you two’ve been exchanging looks all evening. and the way they’ve been looking at each other," she nodded toward the living room where Lance had moved the dining table to accommodate everyone, "I’m beginning to feel like I should have brought someone with me just to have someone to talk to." The older woman narrowed her eyes as she pinned Lance with a look. He’d been acting like a cat that had just inherited an aviary all evening. "What’s all the mystery about?"
"You feel it, too? About Dad and Mama?" Melanie prompted when Bess turned to look at her, puzzled.
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