Читать книгу Her Secret Affair - Arlene James, Arlene James - Страница 9

She didn’t even glance away from the computer when her assistant Georges came into the office from the shop. “What is it now?”

“You have an important visitor,” he announced with a flourish, “and I took the liberty of bringing her back.”

Chey looked up with a practiced smile in place. Her mother moved gingerly through the doorway, the strap of her scuffed patent-leather purse clutched tightly in one gloved hand. Sighing inwardly at the sight of the small, warped, straw hat perched atop her mother’s usual coil of smoke-gray hair, Chey pushed back from the desk and got up to kiss the other woman’s cheek. It wasn’t the fact that her mother’s hat was decades out of fashion and that the sprig of honeysuckle which had been pinned to it was wilted and browning that pained Chey, but that she had purchased for the woman any number of stylish new hats which were never worn. As far as Louise Simmons was concerned, nice things were an unconscionable waste. It was as if she simply could not stop being the selfless mother who dared not dream of anything beyond the basics for her children and never of anything for herself. Chey wondered if her mother ever even thought of herself as anything other than just that, a mother. And while Chey was deeply grateful for, even in awe of, that kind of dedication, she had never wanted it for herself, precisely because it seemed so very limiting.

Louise allowed Chey to steer her to the lyre-backed chair in front of the French Provincial desk and sat down, drawing off her gloves. She laid them atop the little pie-crust table at her elbow and said chattily, “I once gave five dollars for a table just like that at a second-hand store. Do you remember that table, Mary?”

Chey pressed her pink, professionally manicured nails to one smooth, golden-blond temple and tamped down her impatience. “I do, but that old pie-crust table is not why you’re here, Mama. What’s going on?”

Louise went straight to the point. “Kay and Sylvester are wondering if you’re going to attend their little fais-dodo for Melanie’s graduation. I told her of course you would, but she said you said something about not being sure of your plans, but it’s only April, and that’s plenty of time to arrange your calendar, so I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Still, I thought I’d ask and have a little visit with you at the same time. We don’t see you often enough, you know.”

Chey sat down during this cheery speech and busied herself straightening the already neat desktop as a familiar sense of guilt stole over her. She would, of course, attend the graduation party. She wanted to. And yet, these family celebrations often left her unhappy and resentful.

“The term little fais-do-do is a contradiction in terms, Mama,” she said smoothly, “especially in this family.”

With nine siblings, all married and all with families of their own, Chey sometimes felt like the lone member of a large tribe who just didn’t get it. They were all content to carry on in the time-honored traditions of their clan, marrying young and birthing babies with the same casual joy with which they might play the accordion or fiddle for an impromptu dance in the backyard. Only Chey had resisted the mold. Only Chey had other plans, dreams. Only Chey had remained determinedly single and childless, reserving her dedication for her career. Only Chey did not fit in.

“Kay says that the kids stay out all night long and get into trouble when left to themselves,” Louise went on, ignoring Chey’s comment. “She wants to keep Melanie well occupied with family that night. I thought she was over-doing it a bit, but Frank says she has the right of it, and—”

“Frank would know,” Chey said for her.

“Since his five have turned out so well,” Louise finished with satisfaction.

If by “well” one meant that they’d all gotten through high school before they’d started having babies, Chey mused silently. Only she and a few of her nieces and nephews had gone on to college.

“By the way,” Louise said, changing the subject. “Fay went for her ultrasound yesterday, and the doctor says it’s almost surely a girl. Isn’t that perfect? Now they’ll have one of each.”

“Any hope they’ll stop at one of each?” Chey asked acerbically.

Louise rolled her eyes in apparent exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, Mary Chey, most people like babies!”

“I like babies,” Chey said. “I just think the Simmons clan has enough. I mean, am I the only one who thinks that life is about more than making babies?”

Louise answered that with a deep sigh. “It’s about more than making money, too, you know.”

Chey rolled her eyes and spread her arms. “This isn’t about money, Mother. It’s about accomplishment and quality of life. It’s about doing something meaningful and being someone admirable.”

“It’s about you, dear,” Louise Simmons said softly. “You’ve accomplished a great deal professionally, and I’m very proud of you. But don’t you see that not everyone is fixated on their profession?”

“I’m not fixated, Mother,” Chey retorted defensively.

“You have no life apart from this business. You don’t even date,” Louise pointed out. “How will you ever meet a man if you don’t even date?”

An image of Brodie Todd flashed across her mind’s eye. She banished it immediately, snapping, “I don’t care about meeting men.”

“But don’t you grow tired of being alone, dear?” her mother asked, going on when Chey merely shrugged. “I know you don’t want children, and that’s fine. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, and goodness knows I’ve no reason to complain with thirty-one, almost thirty-two, grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, but I do worry about you being alone.”

“Mom, I have just as much family as you do,” Chey pointed out.

“But you don’t have anyone of your own,” Louise said gently.

“You should talk. Daddy’s been gone for twenty years, and in all that time, you’ve never even looked at another man.”

“When you’ve had the best—” Louise began a familiar litany.

“I know that you loved him,” Chey interrupted, “and it just proves my point. That kind of love is very rare.”

“All your brothers and sisters are happily married,” Louise pointed out, “and here you are, thirty years old without even a steady boyfriend. A woman as pretty and bright as you ought to have a husband.”

“Mother, please, not now,” Chey pleaded impatiently.

Georges appeared just then, a sheet of paper in his hand. “Sugar, would you look at this invoice? I can’t make heads or tails of it, I swear.”

Louise subsided immediately, grasped the handle of her purse with both hands and looked down. “You have work to do,” she said softly, rising to her feet. “What shall I tell Kay and Sylvester, dear?”

Chey managed a smile. “Tell them I’ll be there, of course.”

Louise beamed. “Of course you will.” She reached across the desk and cupped Chey’s cheek in one worn hand. “Come for dinner soon, will you?”

Chey nodded, warmed despite her irritation. “Soon, Mama.” She placed her hand over her mother’s and hugged it briefly between her own palm and her cheek. She stood and smiled her mother through the door, then braced her hands flat against the desktop and bowed her head. “Thank you, Georges.”

He wadded the piece of paper in his beefy fist, not at all to her surprise. The invoice had never been written that Georges Phillips could not decipher. It was part of what made him so valuable to her.

Solidly middle-aged and decidedly rotund, he was an odd combination of flamboyance and distinguished style. At the moment he wore a vanilla white suit and matching silk ascot with a flame-red shirt on his stocky, yet graceful body. His thinning, dark blond hair was combed back ruthlessly, allowing the silver of his temples and winged brows to challenge his blunt nose and plump mouth for dominance of his round face. His physical appearance and droll manner of speaking always put Chey in mind of a slightly slimmer, fitter Alfred Hitchcock, albeit one given to sometimes absurd sartorial splendors. Unfortunately, he was as astute with people as with billing invoices.

“Don’t thank me,” he told her snippily. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it to spare that old dear’s feelings. She’s concerned about you.”

“Well, she has no reason to be,” Chey protested. “Why can’t she understand that I’m perfectly happy just as I am?”

“Perhaps because your lifestyle is completely foreign to her,” he suggested, “and just possibly because you aren’t as happy as you want everyone to think.”

“I am so!” Chey refuted hotly.

“Sugar, this is Georges you’re talking to. I know you better than you know yourself—and so does your mother, I suspect.”

“You wish,” Chey retorted sourly. “Just because you’ve been married countless times doesn’t mean that everyone has to trip down the aisle after you.”

“Four,” he corrected primly. “You have more fingers than that on each dainty hand, and don’t change the subject. Honestly, Chey, if you weren’t married to this business, you’d have a personal life like your mama wants. You’d have a man, a husband.”

“Maybe I should just marry you,” she retorted. “That would be good for business and get my family off my back, too.”

He made a face. “Not my style, darling. It’d be like marrying my sister.”

“Georges! Do you have a sister?” she teased, knowing perfectly well that he was one of three brothers.

“Don’t be cute. And if you want your family off your back, then find a man and fall in love!”

“You should know better than anyone that it’s not that easy,” she insisted.

“At least I try,” Georges said huffily, putting his round chin into the air.

“And you’ll keep on trying,” Chey said drolly.

“We’re not talking about me,” he said, pursing his cherry-red mouth.

“No, we’re talking about your boss,” Chey pointed out dryly, “the person who signs your paycheck.”

“The person who would be lost without me,” Georges added confidently.

He was right, darn him. She’d be lost without him as her assistant and friend, but he was wrong about the other. She had no intention of ever marrying. It would be unfair. Her career was much too important to her and left no room for the depth of dedication necessary for marriage and especially parenthood. Her family and friends didn’t understand that, however.

Chey sighed and slumped back in her chair. The position gave her a new perspective on the picture on her screen, and she immediately leaned forward again to tweak the placement of a certain element in the room design. For days now she had done little else but work on the Fair Havens project, and this was the final preliminary design.

“What do you think of this layout for the master suite?” she asked Georges, who walked around to lean over and study the computer screen.

“From a decorator’s perspective,” he finally said, “I love the claw-foot tub. From a man’s perspective, give me a real shower stall.”

“But the whole room is effectively a shower stall,” she explained. “It uses special waterproofing so curtains and stalls aren’t necessary.”

“He’s still standing in a bathtub to take a shower,” Georges pointed out. “I wouldn’t like it. Okay, so the shower stall is not a period piece, but we can make it look period.”

Chey sighed and reached for the mouse. “You’re right. Let’s try this.” She deleted the claw-foot tub and quickly inserted a partially sunken, built-in tub-and-shower combination of faux marble.

“Oh, that’s good,” Georges commented. “The faux marble keeps it lightweight for a second-story installation, and this particular design eliminates the need for curtains and doors. And it has the right look.”

A chime sounded, alerting them that someone had opened the front door. “I’ll go,” Georges said, turning away from the desk.

Chey nodded absently, muttering, “Thanks. I want to get this faxed over to Fair Havens.”

She manipulated the computer mouse and clicked. The expensive, photo-quality printer spooled up and began to spit out a black-and-white, computer-generated sketch. The ink wasn’t even dry before Chey spun her chair and loaded the first sketch into the fax machine. She had added Brodie Todd’s fax number to her computerized telephone book days earlier, and she called it up now. The fax machine was dialing even as the printer was spitting out the second sketch. Unfortunately, before the printer finished disgorging sketches, the fax machine reported that no connection could be negotiated with the dial-up number.

Drat. She would just have to take the drawings over herself then. After quickly making copies, she stuffed them into a folder, grabbed her briefcase and swept from the room. Georges was showing a unique brass-and-wrought-iron chandelier to an off-the-street customer, probably a tourist.

“I have to go to Fair Havens,” she announced, moving swiftly to the door. “Won’t be long. I’m just going to drop off the preliminary designs.”

Georges nodded and focused again on the customer. Chey walked out onto the banquette, or sidewalk, and turned left, then left again into the narrow, tunnel-like passage that led to her courtyard and tiny garage. It was only a few hundred square feet walled off from the rest of the old city block, but it was her own personal haven away from the world. She often sat here in the evenings, nursing a glass of wine, the scent of honeysuckle so thick that the sounds of the old city seemed to float on it. But she hadn’t done so lately and, she admitted, probably would not anytime soon. She tended to immerse herself in every project, and the bigger the project, the deeper that immersion. With Fair Havens, she couldn’t even see sky.

She opened the garage door and let herself into the driver’s seat of the car. Moments later she eased the car through the passage and paused level with the banquette until a break in traffic allowed her to pull out onto the narrow street. A quarter-hour later, she turned the small coupe onto the Fair Havens drive, marveling at the newly restored view from the street. Gone were the scrubby undergrowth and wild vines that had hidden a six-foot-tall, black wrought-iron fence, not to mention the house, from the view of passersby. The grounds were immaculately groomed, and the massive birdbath in the circle in front of the house had been restored to a balanced, upright position. A stone bench and three marble garden angels of different sizes and styles had been added. Even with the exterior of the house still in a sorry state, the effect was simply stunning.

Suddenly, she was uncertain that her designs were up to the challenge. Perhaps she should return to the office and take another look at what she’d done, think it all through a little better. Yet, even as she considered the notion, she knew that her designs were not the root of her sudden reluctance to march up those steps and ring that loud brass bell. Her heart was racing for another, entirely different reason. Brodie Todd.

He unnerved her, intrigued her, disturbed her in ways she just hadn’t expected. It was humbling to be so intensely physically aware of someone. She’d been telling herself for days now that the man could not be as wildly attractive as she remembered, and even if he were, the man was not for her. He was a client, and she never got involved with clients. It was unprofessional. Besides, the man had divorced his comatose wife! And he was a father.

Closing her eyes, she told herself sternly that it wasn’t Todd as much as the job. She hadn’t had a challenge like this in far too long, but it was a challenge to which she could, would, rise. She put the car in Park, shut off the engine and got out, grabbing her briefcase from the passenger seat. She couldn’t deny an alarming quiver in the pit of her belly as she climbed those steps, however, and when the door opened, her self-lies died abruptly and ignominiously.

Her mouth dried up at the very sight of him, standing there in crisply pleated, pale linen slacks and a loose, deep blue silk shirt that made his darkly lashed eyes glow like sapphires. The top three buttons of the collarless shirt were undone and the long sleeves were rolled up, exposing a small portion of smooth, bronze chest and strongly corded forearms. His smile flashed warmly.

“Hello.”

She found it difficult to be pleasant simply because she so desperately wanted to be. “Your fax is not receiving,” she said, embarrassed that her voice sounded breathless rather than brisk.

“Yes, I know,” he said simply. “Sorry about that.”

She lifted one knee slightly and attempted to balance her briefcase against it while extracting the file folder. “I’ll just drop off these sketches.”

She held up the file, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he stepped aside and drew the door wide. “Come in.”

She thought wildly of tossing the file inside and running. Instead, she stepped decorously over the threshold, letting him know that she didn’t intend to stay. “I’ll just leave them. You can look them over at your leisure and let me know what you think.”

He didn’t reply directly to that, just closed the door and instructed, “This way,” before turning and walking down the hall.

She wanted to throw something at his back, but she took a deep, calming breath and followed reluctantly. He took her all the way through to the garden room again, where everything had been rearranged. The fully assembled exercise equipment now occupied one end of the room, with the small forest of plants forming a privacy barrier of sorts. The table and chairs had been placed as close to the glass wall as possible, and a pair of small dry-sink bases had been brought down from the attic and arranged in such a manner that they did not block any portion of the view even while standing handy for service. One now held a pitcher full of iced tea and several slender tumblers. A marble plant stand held an old-fashioned oscillating fan, and a pair of oil lamps hung from two crooked lamp stands that flanked the table. Chey could almost see the room by the soft glow of lamplight, the table laid with china and silver and white linen. A table laid for two. She shook away the vision, commenting, “Someone’s been busy.”

“Do you approve?” he asked, lifting both arms wide.

“Very much,” she answered, placing her briefcase atop the table.

“I won’t mind if you make changes.”

The way he said it told her a great deal, and she looked at him in a new light. “You did this.”

He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Grandmama really only has a care for the gardens.” He pushed a hand through his hair, admitting sheepishly, “And I’m getting a little impatient with the house.”

“Well, maybe these will help,” she said, placing the folder flat on the table.

He immediately turned away. “Care for some tea?”

“Oh, no. I have to get back to the shop.”

“I’d rather just go over them now, together. It’ll save time in the long run.”

It sounded like an order. Biting back an outright refusal, she pulled out a chair. “In that case, iced tea would be fine.”

He got busy pouring the tea then carried the drinks to the table and took the chair closest to her. After sipping from his glass, he sat forward and pulled the folder around to flip open its cover. The sketch of his grandmother’s suite was on top of the stack of renderings. He looked at the floor plan carefully, tracing the traffic pattern with his fingertip, then switched to the artistic conception.

“Oh, she’ll like this. Didn’t I see this sofa in the attic?”

Chey swallowed the mellow tea in her mouth and said, “Absolutely.” She leaned forward, intending to elucidate, but he laid aside that sheet and picked up the next, which was a rendering of the nursery. Brodie laughed aloud and leaned back in his chair. “This is wonderful!”

A delicious warmth spread through Chey. “I’m glad you approve.”

“Very much,” he said, setting aside that one and picking up the next, which was his own. He tilted his head, studying the sketch. Chey found that she was holding her breath, and she literally flinched when he picked up the next sheet with his free hand, that of his office suite. “This is almost perfect,” he finally said.

She felt an irrational stab of disappointment and immediately scolded herself. Almost perfect was practically unheard of in her business, especially at this stage. “What’s the problem?” she asked anxiously.

He waved a hand. “Nothing important. It completely has to do with the office. I have my own system, and the office arrangement has to facilitate that. We’ll fix it. Otherwise, I like what you’ve done. Very much.” She smiled, and he smiled back. Then, instead of picking up the next drawing, he leaned toward her suddenly and asked, “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving, and it is almost lunch time.”

She immediately began to disengage. “Oh, I—”

“Grandmama has taken Seth on an excursion,” he interrupted, “and I find I’m not crazy about eating alone anymore.” He reached for her hand and folded his own around it, his gaze holding hers. “Have lunch with me? Marcel will be thrilled. He constantly complains that he doesn’t have enough to do.”

She knew without doubt that she shouldn’t, though she’d had lunch with clients before, of course. Yet, this was different. Staying would definitely be foolish, so she smiled, shook her head and intended to say, No, thank you. What came out was simply, “Thank you.”

“Excellent!” He was up and moving before she could correct herself. He disappeared into the house, and returned again moments later. “I hope you like seafood salad in pita bread with yam chips. Marcel is a genius with yams.” He sat down and leaned close once more. “Marcel is a genius with food, period. Now let’s have a look at the rest of these.” She smiled wanly and watched in silence, puzzled by her own acquiescence, as he went over the renderings of the downstairs rooms.

He made a few suggestions about the game room, saying that he’d found among the articles in the attic a sideboard which would make a marvelous wet bar and a classic old billiards table for which he’d ordered new slate. She took out a pencil and lightly sketched in the changes, barely noticing how closely together their heads were bent until he took the pencil out of her hand. Looking up, she sat back and watched as he made a few changes himself, her heart suddenly pounding with awareness.

“Will that work, do you think?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against hers.

She barely glanced at the paper. “Appears workable to me.”

He looked up, something dark and intense shadowing his blue, blue eyes. Just then, a tall man dressed all in white wheeled a cart into the room. Having already met his wife, small, pale Kate, Chey was somehow unprepared for big, black Marcel with his round, shaved head and hands the size of small hams.

“Ah, company at last!” he exclaimed, flashing her a smile.

“I promised Marcel that he would get to cook for a great many people,” Brodie explained indulgently, “and he’s growing impatient.” The big man chuckled as he prepared the table with the previously imagined china, silver and white linen. All that was missing, Chey mused wryly to herself, was the lamplight, and thank God for that!

Marcel took his leave the moment the food was on the table. Brodie hadn’t exaggerated the big man’s talent, and it only took one bite to know it. The flavors of diced shrimp, crab, clams, celery, brown rice, pecans, onion, bell pepper and mayonnaise flavored with chili powder and other spices mingled on her tongue. When she followed it with a cinnamony sweet yam chip, the effect was exquisite.

“Coconut cream cake for dessert,” Brodie announced before taking a huge bite of his own pita.

Chey rolled her eyes and shook her head, but her traitorous gaze strayed to the second tier of the serving cart where an old-fashioned shortcake had been piled high with custard, whipped cream and toasted coconut.

“I’d get fat if I lived in this house,” she blurted.

His blue gaze swept over her. “I don’t think so. You seem to have a naturally svelte figure. I’d lay odds you don’t even work out.”

“I’d have to if I ate like this all the time,” she retorted, tacitly admitting that he was correct and purposefully ignoring what felt very much like a compliment.

“Some workouts are hugely satisfying,” he said softly, then looked away before she could determine what exactly he meant by that. He went on, admitting, “I love good food. It’s one of the great luxuries of life, don’t you think?”

With her mouth full of the most scrumptious seafood salad she’d ever eaten, she could do nothing more than nod her head in agreement. He smiled at her, a slow, lazy, speculative smile that set her insides to quaking. Determinedly, she fixed her mind on work, specifically this very room. What a lovely place it was with its view of the gardens and pool. The potted plants seemed to bring the outside indoors. She looked up, thinking that two or three ceiling fans would be welcome additions. She imagined strings of twinkling lights, tables scattered among the plants for an informal dinner party. How charming it would be.

“You know,” she said absently, “since you expect to entertain a good deal, we may want to rethink how you’re using this room.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked, leaning on one elbow. She told him and could see the approval building in his eyes. “Okay, sounds good, but you didn’t say where the workout equipment would go.”

She thought about it, winnowing through her ideas aloud. “We could use the old smoking room, turn it into a regular gym, but it’s right in the middle of the formal rooms downstairs, and I don’t like the feel of that.”

“No one will use the equipment other than me, anyway,” he commented.

“Then we should dedicate a space for it in your suite,” she said, reaching for the folder that had been pushed to one side. She flipped open the cover and removed the drawing she wanted, then shoved aside her plate and plucked the pencil from behind her ear. Swiftly, she began sketching again. Brodie shifted his chair closer and watched, munching his pita idly. “If we removed this wall,” she muttered, marking it out, “and opened the dressing room this way, we could put in an exercise room. We could make the bathroom a little smaller if needed.”

“Uh-uh,” he said. “I like that bathroom. I love that bathroom.”

“Okay, leave the bathroom,” she said, putting back what she’d been removing. She tilted her head, studying the drawing again, and tapped an area of it with two fingers. “I wonder which of these rooms is the largest. I plugged the data into the computer, of course, but I didn’t put the figures on the print out, and naturally I can’t remember now.”

Brodie popped the last of his pita into his mouth and pushed back his chair. “If you’ve had enough to eat, why don’t we just go look? I have a measuring tape around here somewhere.”

“Good idea.”

He got up and pulled her chair out for her as she followed suit. Marcel appeared as they were moving away from the table. “You can remove the lunch plates,” Brodie said genially, “but leave the dessert. We’ll be back for it.”

“That seafood salad was luscious,” Chey told the chef, and he beamed.

“Now you’ve done it,” Brodie told her, pulling her arm through his.

“What?”

“He’ll meet you at the door with a plate of food the next time you arrive,” Brodie warned, only half joking. “Marcel lives to cook. Feeding people wonderful food is his primary mission in life. I sometimes worry that if I don’t get some empty bellies in here for him to fill he’ll leave and go back to restaurant work.”

“No wonder you’re impatient to get the house into shape,” she said.

“The satisfaction of my stomach depends upon it,” he quipped dryly.

She shook her head, laughing, and only later, as he escorted her upstairs, did she reflect that this man’s charm was lethal. They went into his office, where he searched out a small, flimsy measuring tape that did not exceed ten feet in length. Just to complicate matters, the silly thing would retract without warning, snapping right out of her fingers, which meant they often had to start all over again. It took several tries to get two measurements in the outer chamber, and by the time they managed it, Chey was holding on to the end of that tape measure for dear life, reluctant to let go for any reason, so when it retracted again and it seemed she couldn’t stop it, she stupidly followed it—right into Brodie Todd.

She bumped against his chest and, startled, looked up, the tape measure and their hands trapped between them. For an instant, he seemed as shocked as she was, but then he let go of the measuring tape case, and it hit the floor between her feet with a clunk, leaving her with the end of the tape still clamped between her fingertips and her wide gaze trapped by his own rapidly darkening one. He moved his hand, dropping it slightly and opening it to slide his palm across her ribs, just beneath her breast. The other hand he clamped around the nape of her neck. She couldn’t seem to look away or move.

He bent his head, then brought her mouth to his with the gentle pressure of his hand at the back of her head. Sensation swamped her, radiating from his hands and mouth into her skin, muscles and bones, suffusing her with a trembling warmth that sent her good sense begging and pooled heavily in her breasts and belly. At first the kiss was light, tender, easy, just a simple meeting of lips. Then, entirely of their own accord, her eyelids fluttered shut, and everything changed.

He wrapped his arms around her, tilted his head, and opened her mouth with his, sliding his tongue inside. She heard a hiss and was dimly aware that it must have been the tape sliding into the case, which meant, of course, that she had let go of the end, which would explain how her hands came to be sliding up his chest and around his neck. He made a sound of acute pleasure and tightened his arms, plastering her body to his as his tongue delved deeper.

She forgot why this was a bad idea. She forgot everything but the desire for more. She wanted to be closer, to feel more, to do more. She needed more from his mouth, more from the hard, sculpted planes of his body, more from the hands now kneading her flesh with mounting urgency as she moved against him. As if he knew exactly what she needed most, he dropped a hand to her bottom, cupping and lifting her against him even as he wedged a knee between hers, shoving her skirt indecently high. She melted from the inside out, undulating instinctively against him.

Suddenly they were two wild things, grabbing and grinding, trying to devour each other. She was so lost that she didn’t even hear the little voice that shattered it. All she knew was that one moment she wanted to tear his skin open and crawl beneath it, and the next instant he was shoving her away. She blinked up into his face, astonished to be doing so and then more astonished by all that had just happened. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed, thankfully, because Seth hurtled past her and threw himself at Brodie.

“Daddy, I saw pishes!” He held out his arms. “Gweat big pishes!”

Brodie finally looked away from her and smiled down at his son. “That’s great!” Chey became aware of another person entering the room then, and heat bloomed in her cheeks. She turned away, folding her arms, and pretended to be studying the far wall. “Did you go to the aquarium?” she heard Brodie ask.

Viola answered him. “No. We were walking along the street and…”

Chey barely listened to the story, something about a truck delivering fish to a local restaurant and a broken crate, ice going everywhere. Chey became aware, belatedly, that everyone was laughing, but she couldn’t manage more than a smile as the full realization of what she’d done finally settled over her.

Kiss seemed too small a word for what they’d shared. A mere kiss didn’t make your insides tremble and clench long after the fact. It didn’t make you curl your hands into fists just to keep from reaching out for more. Even her throat was trembling so badly that she could barely swallow. Suddenly she had to get out of there.

“I think I have everything I need for now,” she announced abruptly, turning and heading toward the door. “I’ll show myself out.” He said something to Viola, then Chey heard him coming after her and picked up the pace.

He caught her at the top of the stairs, hauled her around easily, his big, exquisite hands with those long, tapered fingers and wide palms encircling her upper arms. His blue gaze plumbed hers. “Chey, we haven’t even had dessert.”

She managed to look away. “None for me, thank you. I really have to go.”

“When will you be back?”

“Soon.”

“Very soon, I hope.” His voice was rough, husky. “As soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible,” she agreed, which wouldn’t be soon at all. He slid his hands up and down her arms, and then he finally let her go.

She was in the car before she remembered that she’d left her designs and briefcase in the garden room. She didn’t go back for them. She didn’t dare.