Tempting

by Susan Mallery

  “Thanks for doing that. I'll go up and check on the kids. Come find me before you leave."

  "I will."

  Fiona left. Katherine turned toward the staircase, but before she took a step, she heard the garage door. That could only mean one thing- Mark was home.

  She knew it was completely foolish, but even after twenty-seven years, her heart still beat faster whenever she thought about seeing her husband. So many of her friends talked about the spark going out of their marriage-how nothing was ever exciting or fresh. It wasn't like that for Katherine- it never had been. Her love for Mark had only grown. In the cliché of movies and TV, he was her handsome prince. While she loved her children, he was the one who truly claimed her heart.

  She ran a hand over her hair, then smoothed the front of her jacket. There wasn't time to freshen her makeup, so she bit her lips to make them redder and drew in a breath. Being pretty for Mark mattered. Seconds later the utility room door opened and he stepped into the kitchen.

  He looked exactly as he had the first time she'd seen him. Tall and handsome with dark blond hair and deep blue eyes. Those eyes always crinkled slightly, as if he knew a really funny secret. He still took her breath away every time she saw him.

  "Hi, sweetheart" he said as he moved toward her. "How are you?"

  "Good. You're home early."

  "I wanted to see you."

  Her heart quickened at his words.

  He leaned in and kissed her. The second his mouth touched hers, the familiar wanting flared to life. She hid her reaction to the casual kiss-a trick she'd learned in the first few months of her marriage. But that didn't make the need go away.

  Years ago she'd read an article about relationships. The author claimed that in most marriages there was the one who adored and the one who was adored. She knew that was true for them. Mark loved her, but he didn't worship her. He didn't understand how deeply her feelings ran. She'd learned to control the wild, romantic and sexual feelings swirling inside of her whenever he was close, but she'd never been able to make them go away. He was the only man for her. At least she'd been lucky enough to marry him.

  He took her hand in his and smiled. "Come on. Let's go talk."

  "Don't you want to say hi to the kids?"

  "Later. I want to talk to you first."

  Mark was a typical guy. Despite his ability to chat with contributors for hours and never break a sweat, anytime she suggested they talk, he had a thousand other things he needed to be doing. So why the sudden change? What was there to talk about? She shivered slightly.

  They went into his book-lined study. He shut the door behind them, then led her to the leather sofa. His expression was unfamiliar. Was he upset? No, that wasn't right. More resigned. About what? Cold, hard fear knotted in her belly.

  Was he leaving her?

  Her brain pointed out that even if he was desperate to get away, leaving his wife while exploring the possibility of running for president wasn't a good idea. Her heart whispered that of course he loved her. He'd been busier than usual lately, but that was to be expected. She should stop worrying about nothing. Still, her hands trembled slightly as she folded them in her lap and looked at him.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  She would guess that from the outside, she appeared totally calm and in control. That's what Mark would see. What she wanted him to see.

  "A young woman came to meet me today," Mark told her. "Or maybe not so young. She's twenty-eight. I guess that means I'm getting old. Are you still interested in being married to an old guy? After all, you're the hot one in our relationship."

  He spoke easily, smiling, holding her gaze. She should have been relaxed. But she wasn't. She was terrified and she couldn't say why.

  "You're not an old guy," she said, doing her best not to visibly tremble.

  "Fifty-four."

  "I'm fifty-six " she pointed out. "Are you going to trade me in for a younger model?"

  "You're the most beautiful woman in the world," he told her. "You're my wife."

  Soothing words that should have made her feel better. But they didn't.

  "So who is this young woman?"

  "Her name is Dani Buchanan. Dani for Danielle, Alex told me later."

  "Alex? What does he have to do with this?"

  "Not anything, really. He was there and he met her. Tried to run her off. Your son is quite the watchdog."

  "He cares about his family."

  "I know." Mark touched her cheek. "Katherine, do you remember when we were engaged the first time? How you ended things with me?"

  She nodded slowly. She'd been an only child from an old money East Coast family. Her parents hadn't approved of her relationship with a brash young man from Seattle. Mark had charm and energy but no family to speak of and certainly no pedigree. Still, Katherine had loved him and had won her family over to her way of thinking. Mark had proposed and she had accepted. But six weeks after the engagement, she'd broken things off. She'd been unable to tell Mark the truth about herself. Rather than have him pity her, then leave her, she'd ended their engagement and he'd gone back to Seattle.

  "I came home to figure out what to do with my life," he said. "While I was here, I met someone. I didn't mean for anything to happen, but it did."

  The fear turned sharp, cutting her from the inside. She felt both cold and hot. Her whole body ached and still she sat there unmoving, determined to show nothing.

  "You had a relationship with this woman?" she asked calmly.

  "Yes. She was married. Neither of us meant for it to happen. No one knew, because of her husband. I didn't want to hurt anyone. One day it ended. I never thought much about it again, until today. Dani is her daughter. My daughter."

  Katherine stood. Maybe if she moved, the pain wouldn't be so bad. Maybe then she could breathe. But the white-hot pokers pricked her everywhere and the spacious study offered nowhere to hide.

  "Obviously I didn't know," he said, as if unaware that anything was wrong. "Alex suggested a DNA test so we can all be sure. It's a good idea. She seems like a great girl. She looks like Marsha mostly, but I see a little of me in her. With the campaign, we'll have to be discreet, of course."

  Mark kept talking, but Katherine couldn't hear him. He had a child. A child of his own. A child he'd met.

  "I invited her to dinner," Mark said. "I want you to meet her. We don't have to tell the kids who she is right away. But eventually we will."

  She turned to him. Her face felt frozen. She wasn't sure she could speak. "She's coming here?"

  "Tonight." He stood and crossed to her, then took her hands in his. "I know you'll like her. Didn't you say you wanted another daughter?"

  He couldn't mean that. He couldn't not know what he was doing to her. And yet he kept talking as if he thought everything was fine. As if she wasn't devastated that some other woman had been able to give him something she, Katherine, never could.

  ***

  Alex arrived early for dinner at his parents' house. He'd thought about calling his mother, but had then decided it would be better to speak with her in person. His father might think she would take the news of Dani Buchanan in stride; Alex wasn't so sure.

  Before he could head up the stairs, Fiona stepped out of his mother's study.

  "Hello, Alex."

  He remembered a Discovery Channel special on spiders. Fiona reminded him of a black widow, just biding her time until she could eat her mate.

  "I didn't know you'd be here," he said.

  "Meaning you wouldn't have come home if you'd known?" Her green eyes widened with emotion. "Do you hate me so much?"

  "I don't hate you at all." Hate would mean having strong emotions about her. He didn't. He could look at her and acknowledge her physical beauty, yet feel nothing. In a perfect world, she would have disappeared from his life after the divorce. Unfortunately, he had a feeling she was never going away.

  "The ice queen cometh."

  Alex turned and saw his brother Ian rolling toward
them. Alex grinned and stepped toward him. He bent slightly so he and Ian could perform their complicated ritualistic greeting. Alex did most of the hand slapping and turning. It was easier for him. Ian's CP limited his mobility. But what his younger brother lacked in physical prowess he more than made up for in brains and creativity.

  "She's always hanging around," Ian told Alex. "I think she has a thing for me."

  Fiona shuddered visibly. She looked over Ian's thin, twisted body as he sat in his wheelchair.

  "That's disgusting," she snapped.

  Ian raised his eyebrows. "But after last night… What do you think, Alex? You're the expert on what turns Fiona on."

  Alex stared at his ex-wife. "Not as much as you'd think."

  Fiona seemed torn between fury and pleading. "Alex, you can't let him talk to me like that."

  "Why not? Ian has a great sense of humor."

  "Something you wouldn't understand, babe," Ian said. "Humor is not your thing." He turned and rolled out of the room. "Love ya," he called over his shoulder.

  Fiona drew in a breath. "I've never understood that boy."

  "You've never tried." It had taken Alex a long time to figure out how Fiona felt about Ian, but he'd finally understood that she couldn't stand to look at the kid. It was as if the variation on normal had disgusted her. That truth was only one thing on a long list of reasons he'd walked away from her and their marriage.

  "Alex, I don't want to fight."

  He crossed to the wet bar and opened a cabinet. After pouring himself some scotch, he faced her. "I'm not fighting."

  "You know what I mean." She glided close to him and put her hand on his chest. "I miss you so much. There has to be something I can say or do to help you forgive me. It was only one mistake. Can you really be so cold and unforgiving?"

  "I'm the bastard king," he said, then took a sip. "Literally. Well, the bastard part anyway."

  She drew in a breath, as if determined to ignore his baiting of her. "Alex, I'm being serious. I'm your wife."

  "You were my wife."

  "I want to be again."

  He looked her up and down. On the surface, she was everything a man could want-beautiful, intelligent, an excellent dinner companion. She could talk to anyone, anywhere. Nearly all his friends had wondered how he had let her get away.

  "Not happening," he told her flatly.

  "But I love you. Doesn't that mean anything?"

  He thought about that night nearly two years ago. When he'd come home unexpectedly. "No," he said. "It doesn't mean a damn thing."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dani stood on the porch of a large, impressive house in Bellevue and told herself that the world wouldn't end when she rang the doorbell. It might feel as if it would, but that wasn't real. Besides, just standing out here, lurking, would upset the neighbors. What if they called and told Mark's wife about a potential thief hovering? Katherine Canfield would open the front door and find her there. It was not how Dani wanted them to meet.

  "I'm babbling in my head," Dani muttered to herself. "This is bad. Seriously bad. I think I need therapy. Or at least a frontal lobe transplant."

  She forced herself to push the bell. As the soft ringing sound echoed inside the house, she felt her heart speed up until it was in danger of bursting into warp eight and zipping off to the nearby non-earth galaxy.

  The door opened. Dani tried to brace herself, but there wasn't enough time. Then all the air flowed out of her lungs when she recognized the man standing there.

  "Thank God," she said before she could stop herself. "It's just you."

  Alex raised his eyebrows. "Just me? So I wasn't intimidating enough at our last meeting? None of the threats worked?"

  Oops. "No, no. Of course not. You were terrifying. I won't sleep for weeks. Dragons. I'm going to have nightmares about them. Seriously. It's just compared with meeting your mother… no offense, but you're a snap."

  He didn't even crack a smile. Was it that the man didn't have a sense of humor or was it her specifically that he didn't find funny? She thought about pointing out this was actually pretty good material, but decided not to. There was a better than even chance she would be barfing from nerves shortly. Why push her luck now?

  He stared at her for several seconds. She smiled tightly. "It's the whole visitor, front door thing. You're supposed to invite me in."

  "I don't want to."

  "You'll warm up to me."

  "I doubt it."

  "I'm a very nice person."

  He looked unconvinced but still he took a step back and allowed her to ease past him into the foyer.

  The interior of the house was large, but homey. It was the kind of place designed to make someone feel at ease-too bad it wasn't having that effect on her at the moment.

  She turned to Alex, but before she could speak a teenage boy rolled into the room. He was pale and thin, with dark hair and eyes. His right hand worked a control on his motorized wheelchair while his left hand lay bent and curled in his lap.

  "Are you the stripper I ordered?" he asked as he eyed her. "I've been waiting over an hour. I was expecting better service from your company."

  Dani tilted her head slightly as she tried to figure out how to handle the outrageous question. Finally she settled on the truth.

  "I'm not exactly stripper material," she said with a grin. "I'm too short. I always picture them really tall and with those big headpieces like the Las Vegas showgirls wear."

  "They couldn't drive in one of those feather things," he told her.

  "They could if they had a sunroof and kept it open."

  "Don't encourage him," Alex muttered. "Dani Buchanan, Ian Canfield. My brother. He can be obnoxious."

  "An ugly accusation and totally untrue."

  "Nice to meet you." Dani said and held out her hand to Ian.

  He moved his wheelchair close and shook her hand. "You could be stripper material if you wanted," he said.

  "What a lovely thing to say. It's a compliment I’ll treasure always. My mother would be so proud."

  Ian laughed. "Okay, I like you. That doesn't happen often. You should treasure the moment."

  Dani laughed. "I will. You'll be prominently mentioned in my diary tonight."

  He sighed. "It's a problem I have all the time. Chicks dig me. It's the supersized battery. They go crazy for power."

  With that, he spun his chair and wheeled away.

  When he was gone, she turned to Alex. "See. People like me."

  "He's young and he doesn't know who you are."

  "Meaning he won't like me when he finds out I'm inherently evil?"

  Alex stared at her. His dark eyes gave nothing away. "Ian doesn't usually warm up to people."

  "He's a perceptive young man. I like him, too."

  "You think I'm going to be swayed by some pity banter with my crippled brother?"

  Her brief good mood faded and she suddenly wished she were big and muscular so she could hit him and do some damage.

  "Don't insult me and don't you dare insult him." She moved closer and poked him in the chest. "I'll accept that I'm a complication no one expected. You can be protective of your family all you want, you can even think the worst of me. But don't you dare take what was a charming moment in an otherwise insane day and make it something disgusting."

  "Are you going to take me on?" he asked, obviously unimpressed by her temper.

  "In a heartbeat."

  "Think you'll win?"

  "Absolutely."

  One corner of his mouth twitched slightly. "We'll see."

  Great. She was furious and he found the situation, or possibly her, amusing. Good-looking or not, she was thinking she could seriously grow to hate this man.

  He motioned for her to walk into the large living room. As she passed him, she waved her purse in front of him. "I brought a small bag so there won't be that awkward moment of you asking to search it before I leave. This will make it so much harder for me to steal the family silver, though."


  "It wouldn't have been awkward."

  "You really are a lawyer."

  "What does that mean?" he asked.

  "You're not afraid to say what you think, you don't worry about insulting me and you're determined to see me as nothing more significant than lint. That takes a lot of training."

  "Or the right motivation."

  The room was done in earth tones. The comfortable furnishings had an air of grace. The paintings looked original, the carpets thick enough to sleep on, yet there were a few toys scattered around. This was not a room for show. People lived here and she liked that.

  Dani turned to take it all in, then noticed a woman in a white coat perched on the edge of a sofa. She rose and walked over to them.

  "Whenever you're ready," the woman said.

  Ready for what?

  Oh, right. "DNA test?" Dani asked. "You're not wasting any time."

  "Do you want me to?" Alex asked.

  Instead of answering, Dani turned to the woman. "Swab away."

  She opened her mouth and the lab tech stroked the inside of her cheek with a cotton swab. Seconds later she was done and on her way. Dani stared after her.

  "Let me guess. You're paying extra for a speedy result?"

  "It seemed the smart thing to do."

  She felt exhausted by the roller coaster of emotion she'd been through that day. There was enough stress in the situation without fighting with Alex, too.

  "I want to know the truth," she told him. "Nothing more. If Mark Canfield isn't my father, then I'll disappear and we can all pretend this didn't happen."

  Alex didn't look convinced. "You could have stayed away in the first place."

  "I want to know my father. Even you must be human enough to understand that."

  "I've already told you, I find your timing a little too convenient."

  "I just got the information recently. All I want is to figure out where I belong."

  He didn't actually say "not here," but the words echoed in the quiet room.

  Despite them, Alex motioned for her to sit on the sofa. "Do you want something to drink?"