Husband Material (A Summer for Scandal)

by Brenda Jackson

  She wished she’d handled things differently. She should have called Matthew and let him know what happened. She knew deep down that there was nothing, work or otherwise, that would have kept him from hopping on the next plane to Barcelona to be with her.

  He would have held her while she cried, kissed her tears away and told her everything would be okay, that as soon as she was ready they would make another baby. He would have meant every word.

  And when she’d been able to travel he would have taken her home and cared for her, pampered her and shown her that no matter how many hours he spent away from her, she was the most important thing in his life.

  He had told her that many times but she hadn’t wanted to hear it even though she, of all people, knew his family history and knew that taking care of her was important to him. But what she had done was turn her back on him and without telling him the full story, she had filed for a divorce. She hung her head, ashamed of her decision. He probably hated her for doing that, and their relationship could be beyond repair at this point.

  She lifted her face to stare at her reflection again. Yesterday, she’d wanted to seduce her ex-husband in the name of revenge, but today she knew she needed him in her life. She loved him and wouldn’t be happy until they were together again.

  Somehow she needed to make him fall in love with her all over again. But first she had to tell him the truth. She had to tell him about the baby.

  * * *

  Matthew held his breath when the bathroom door opened and the moment Carmen appeared in the doorway his heart began pounding deep in his chest. The sunlight pouring in through the windows seemed to make her skin glow.

  Silently he lay there and studied the way her short silk bathrobe clung to her curves. He had every reason to believe she was naked underneath it. There was a damp sheen to her brown skin and her hair was tied back away from her face, emphasizing her eyes and mouth. As he continued to watch her, that mouth he enjoyed kissing so much slowly curved into a sexy smile.

  There were no regretful vibes emitting from her and he let out a relieved breath as they stared at each other. They’d done that a lot lately, staring at each other without saying anything. But what he saw in her gaze now nearly melted his heart. She loved him. He was certain of that. He might not ever hear her say the words to him again but he could see it—it was there on her face, in her eyes and all around those delectable lips.

  He intended to do whatever had to be done to remind her of what they’d once had. More than anything, he wanted her to accept that there was nothing the two of them couldn’t work out together. That was the one thing he was certain about. Two people couldn’t love each other as deeply as they did and still stay apart. In his book, things just didn’t work out that way.

  He watched as she slowly moved across the room toward him and he sat up to catch her when she all but dived into his arms. And then she was kissing him with a hunger and need that he quickly reciprocated. He fought for control, his body burning with a need that was driving him off the deep end. He wanted to do nothing more than bury himself inside her body.

  Moments later, she ended the kiss and leaned back. Her robe had risen up her thighs and the belt around her waist was loose, giving him a glimpse of a tantalizing portion of her breasts and the dark shadow at the juncture of her legs. The scent of her was drawing him in, making him remember how he’d felt being inside of her.

  Unable to resist, he reached out and slid his hands beneath the silk of her bathrobe and began stroking her breasts, letting his fingertips tease the hardened nipples. When he began moving lower, she whispered, “Matthew, let’s talk.”

  He agreed with her. They should talk. He wanted to start off by telling her how he felt, but the moment he opened his mouth to do so, he realized he wasn’t ready after all. He didn’t want to revisit the past just yet. Instead, he wanted to stay right here, right now. “I’m not ready to hash out the bad times, Carmen. Right now I just want to forget about what drove us apart and only concentrate on this, what has brought us together.”

  He held her gaze, knowing as well as she did that there was no way they could totally forget. If this was about nothing but sex, then that was one thing, but deep down he knew it wasn’t. The love between them was still there, which meant there were problems they needed to address. Had his long hours been the only thing that had driven her away from him? He was certain she knew he hadn’t been unfaithful to her.

  She nodded, and he drew in another deep breath. Eventually they would talk, and he meant really talk. Because now that he had his wife back in his arms, his heart and his bed, he intended to keep her there.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Carmen had agreed to postpone their conversation at Matthew’s request, and they had spent an amazing week together, enjoying each other. They were both fearful that an in-depth discussion of the state of their affairs would put them back at square one. And they weren’t ready to go back there yet.

  Instead they’d opted to spend time together, living in the present and not venturing to the past. At the polo matches, everyone was speculating as to what exactly was going on between them. And the Wagging Tongue wasn’t helping matters. More than one snapshot of them together had appeared in the tabloid, and she and Matthew didn’t have to work hard to figure out the identity of the person passing the photos to the paper. Ardella Rowe was the prime suspect. They had seen her at dinner the same night they’d run into Sheikh Adham, and she had tried pestering them with questions, which they’d refused to answer.

  At one polo match, she and Matthew had stuck to “no comment” when a mic was shoved in their faces by a reporter wanting to know whether or not they’d gotten back together. The fact of the matter was, they couldn’t exactly answer that question themselves.

  One paper she had seen claimed they were having a summer fling with no chance of reconciliation while another had announced they’d remarried at a church on Martha’s Vineyard. A third had even reported the real Carmen Akins was in Rome with Bruno and the woman Matthew was spending time with in the Hamptons was only a look-alike, a woman he’d taken up with who closely resembled his ex-wife. She could only shake her head at the absurdity of that.

  Carmen stood at the huge window in the library, looking out upon the calm waters of the Atlantic.

  This past week had been the best she’d known. And it hadn’t bothered her in the least the few times Matthew had gone into Manhattan on business, even when one of those meetings had extended well into the late afternoon.

  Now she could truly say that although she’d blamed him for the breakup of their marriage, a good portion of the blame could be placed at her feet. She of all people knew how demanding things could be for a director at times, dealing with temperamental actors, overanxious investors and too-cautious production companies. On top of that, there were a number of other issues that could crop up at a moment’s notice. And because she’d known all of that, was aware of the stress, she could have been a lot more understanding and a lot less demanding of his time.

  The sad thing about it was that she’d always been an independent person and had never yearned for attention from anyone, yet during that time she’d needed Matthew’s. Or she’d thought she did. And when she’d lost the baby, she couldn’t stand the thought of a future in which Matthew was never there for her, not even when she needed him most.

  She selected a book of poetry and was sitting down in one of the recliners when she heard Matthew’s footsteps on the hardwood floor. She glanced up the moment he walked into the room, surprised. He had taken a ferry to Manhattan that morning and she hadn’t expected him back until much later.

  The moment their eyes met, a sensation erupted in the pit of her stomach. And then the craving began.

  She placed the book aside as he walked toward her with that slow, sexy saunter. She knew exactly what he had on his mind. Because it was on hers, too. But she also knew it was time for them to talk. They couldn’t put it off any longer.


  Carmen rose from her seat. “I think it’s time for us to talk now, Matthew. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  * * *

  Matthew had a feeling he knew what Carmen wanted to talk about but he wasn’t ready to hear it. The last thing he wanted to discuss was that she was beginning to feel as if there were nothing but sex between them. Given that they’d made love multiple times during the day for seven straight days, he could certainly see why she thought that.

  But what she’d failed to take into consideration was that every time he was inside her body, his heart was almost ready to burst in his chest. And each and every morning he woke up with her in his arms made him realize just how much he loved her. What she didn’t know was that making love to her was his way of showing her with his body what he hadn’t yet been able to say out loud.

  He knew things couldn’t continue this way between them. Time was running out and they would have to talk sometime, would have to rehash the past and decide what they would do about their future. But not now, not when he wanted her so much he could hardly breathe. “Matthew, I—”

  He reached out and pulled her into his arms, and within seconds surrender replaced her surprise. This is what he wanted. What he needed. He deepened their kiss, intending to overtake her with passion, to overwhelm her senses.

  He closed his arms tightly around her and lifted her just enough to fit snug against his crotch, needing to feel her warmth pressed against him. The feel tormented him and he pulled his mouth away, turning her around so her back fit solidly against his chest.

  “Hold on to the table, baby,” he whispered.

  Carmen felt the warmth of his breath on her ear and knew Matthew was trying to take her mind off her need to talk. And for now, she would let him. Her insides began to quiver and she pressed against him. Emotions she couldn’t hold at bay consumed her entire being.

  “I want you so much I ache,” he added in a deep husky voice that had her body shivering. She loved him and wanted more between them than this. But she would settle for this for now. She didn’t want to think about what would happen when she told him about losing their baby. Would he understand the reason she hadn’t told him?

  He slid his fingers into the elastic of her shorts and pulled them down her legs, leaving her bare. The cool air hit her backside and when he began using his hands to caress her, molding her flesh to his will, she couldn’t help but moan even more.

  She heard the sound of his zipper and then he tilted her hips up to him. She closed her eyes to the feel of the warm hardness of his erection touching her while his fingers massaged between her legs.

  She tightened her grip on the table as he placed the head of his shaft at her womanly folds. The feel of him entering her from behind sent her mind spinning and when he pushed deep, she cried out as sensations tore through her. In this position she felt a part of him, enclosed in his embrace, in the comfort and protection of his body.

  He began moving and her body vibrated with every stroke inside her. She closed her eyes, relishing the feel of something so intimate and right between them. He ground his hips against her, going deeper and deeper—she wondered if they would be able to separate their bodies when the time came to do so.

  When he slid his hands underneath her top and began fondling her bare breasts, she threw her head back. She loved the feel of his hands on her breasts, the tips of his fingers tormenting her nipples.

  The way he was mating with her, the hot warmth of his breath on her neck as he whispered all the things he planned to do to her before the night was over—all of that stirred heat and stroked her desire to a feverish pitch she could barely contain any longer.

  She let go, sensations ripping through her. She began quivering in an orgasm from head to toe. Those same sensations overpowered him and he tilted her up toward him even more and drove deeper inside of her. He groaned her name as she felt his hot release. She felt it. She felt him. And before she could stop herself, she cried out, “I love you, Matthew.”

  She couldn’t believe she’d said it, and part of her hoped that he hadn’t heard it. Slowly, he turned her around and gave her the most tender, gentle kiss she’d ever had from him. But he didn’t say anything. Not a word.

  * * *

  Matthew glanced around the bedroom as he leaned against the closed door. The last thing he had expected was for Carmen to admit to loving him, and as soon as he could escape her presence, he had. He should have told her that he loved her, too, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to do so. Not that he didn’t, but because he loved her so much. Had he confessed it at that moment he probably would have lost it—to know that she still loved him after all this time was more than he could handle. He needed to pull himself together before facing her. Before pouring his heart out to her and letting her know just how miserable his life had been without her in it.

  He’d enjoyed being here with her for the past week and was looking forward to the rest of the summer. And he was doing a pretty good job balancing the work and spending time with her. They’d spent a lot of hours on the beach and had gone to several polo matches. And of course the media was in a frenzy trying to figure out what was going on between them.

  Even with all the gossip floating around, things between them were almost like they’d been in the beginning. But not quite. He knew his time was running out. Given what she’d just said to him, they had to talk. And they had to talk today. He would take her for a walk on the beach, and they would finally hash it all out.

  He opened a drawer and searched around for his sunglasses, smiling when he found the case buried at the bottom. He was about to close the drawer when he noticed a DVD case labeled, “For my Husband.” And it was dated the day he was supposed to meet her in Spain.

  Curious about the video, he took it out the drawer. After inserting the DVD into the player, he sat on the edge of the bed.

  He smiled when Carmen appeared on the screen in what looked like a spoof of his very first job as a director, which was for a game show called Guess My Secret. She was talking to the camera, to him, daring him to discover her secret. The only clues she gave were a plate and a small clock. Soon she added a number of other clues into the mix—a pair of knitting needles and a jar of cocoa butter.

  He was still scratching his head and laughing at her when she added more hints. Breath was sucked from his lungs when she placed two additional items on the table—a baby bottle and a bib. With a shaking hand, he reached over to turn up the volume while she smiled into the camera.

  “Very good, Matthew. Since you’re a smart man, I’m sure you now know my secret. We are having a baby! That’s why I wanted to make our time here in Barcelona so special.”

  “Oh my God!” he groaned. Carmen had been pregnant? Then what happened?

  * * *

  “Hey, Matthew, I was beginning to think you got lost up here. What’s going—”

  Carmen entered the room and stopped talking in mid-sentence when she saw herself on the screen. Her gaze immediately sought out Matthew, and the pain she saw on his face tore at her heart.

  “Is that true, Carmen? Had you planned to tell me that night in Barcelona that you were pregnant?”

  She swallowed as she nodded. “Yes. I…I wanted to tell you in a fun way so…” Her words trailed off.

  He nodded slowly and then asked the question she had been dreading. “What happened, Carmen?”

  She lowered her head as she relived that night. The stomach pains that kept getting worse. Her not being able to reach him on his cell when she’d awakened that night, bleeding. Everything became a blur after that. Except the part about waking up and being told by a doctor that she’d lost the baby. “Carmen?”

  She lifted her head and met his gaze as her eyes filled with tears. And then she began speaking, recounting every single detail of that night. As she talked, she watched his expression. The shattered look on his face and the pain that clouded his eyes nearly broke her heart, and she felt his agony. A part of h
er was relieved to tell him the truth and no longer have the burden of keeping a secret on her shoulders.

  “And you never told me,” he said in a broken tone. “You never told me.”

  She pulled in a deep breath as tears threatened to spill down her face. “I couldn’t. I wanted that baby so much. Losing it, and then not having you there with me to share my pain, made me bitter, unreasonable. I tried contacting you first and when I didn’t get you, all I could think about was that I needed you and you were at work, away from me. In my emotional state, I blamed you.”

  He bent his head and when he raised his eyes to her again, the pain in them had deepened. “And I blame myself, as well,” he said in a hoarse tone. “I blame myself because I should have been there with you. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for not being there.”

  She saw the sheen of tears in his eyes and quickly crossed the room to him. As they clung to each other, tears she had held back since that night flowed down her face. She had cried then but it hadn’t been like this. Her shoulders jerked with sobs she hadn’t been able to let go of until now, until she was with him.

  “I’m so sorry, Carmen. Now I understand. I had let you down by letting you go through that alone. I know I won’t ever be able to forgive myself for that.”

  She leaned away from him, wiping her eyes. “You can, Matthew, and you must. It took me a while to see it wasn’t your fault, nor was it mine. The same thing would have happened if you’d been there. And being here with you this past week made me realize I can’t be angry at you for something you didn’t know about, something that was not in your control. I had tried telling you several times over the past week, but you kept wanting us to wait. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

  She wiped more tears from her eyes. “The woman who owned the villa called her doctor and made arrangements for him to take care of me there, figuring that I would want to keep it from the media. With her help, I was able to avoid the circus that could have taken place. The doctor said I can try again,” she said, leaning up against him, holding tight. “But I so wanted that one,” she whispered brokenly, burying her face in his chest.