Читать книгу The Tycoon's Fiancée Deal - Katherine Garbera - Страница 11

Three

Derek thought she’d have some sort of easy answer. Her modeling career hadn’t been conducive to children, but she came from a big family as he did. It might be a bit old-fashioned but he had assumed she would end up wanting kids after she married. But her hesitance told him there was something more to it. He’d struck a nerve that he hadn’t meant to and he should have just let it go.

But this was Bianca, and there was that look of sadness in her eyes that he didn’t glimpse very often. He put his hand on her shoulder, felt that spark of awareness and shoved it down. She needed a friend not a guy who was turned on by her. That damned perfume of hers wasn’t helping. It was subtle and floral and when the wind blew, he couldn’t help inhaling a little more deeply.

“Bia?” he asked. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer me.”

She just glanced over at him with those big brown eyes of hers and he was lost. He realized this was exactly how he’d let himself get friend-zoned by her. She had very emotive eyes and he had always been suckered into wanting to comfort her, to be there for. To slay dragons for her. But Jose was dead so if he was the dragon there wasn’t anyone to slay.

Besides she’d had the fairy tale: first-love marriage with Jose. That wasn’t the problem.

“Hey, forget I asked. I was just making small talk,” Derek said even though that was the farthest thing from the truth.

He heard his old man’s voice in his head: start out as you mean to go on. Well, lying didn’t seem like a really good place to start. But he’d asked her to be his pretend fiancée, not his real one. So maybe that meant they both were entitled to their secrets.

“It’s okay. It’s just that once I got married my life changed... I mean my priorities changed and then I got pregnant and once I held Beni in my arms, everything just sort of...” She paused, glancing over at him and arching one eyebrow. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Why would I?”

“Well, when I had my son it was like a veil was lifted from my life and I realized how shallow I had been. When I considered that little face I wanted to be more. To be better. To give him the world—not material things—but experiences. It changed me.”

He could see that. She pretty much glowed whenever she talked about her son. And Derek had seen her in town with the little boy and she seemed to be in her element when she was with him. He couldn’t reconcile it but she almost seemed prettier when she talked about her son.

He remembered something his brother Hunter had said once...that women in love were more beautiful. And he finally saw that. He saw it on Bianca’s face when she talked about her son. He had to be very sure that he was careful when she moved in with him. She might be his secret crush from adolescence but she was a woman now, a mother, and he couldn’t afford to explore a “crush” unless she was looking for the same thing.

He took a deep breath, put his hands on the wooden railing and looked out over the lake. He’d grown up on the Rockin’ C but he’d spent a lot of time with his dad on the golf course and hanging out at the club after school.

And as he looked at the moonlight reflecting on the water he thought about how much his town had changed. There was now a NASA training facility on the Bar T. Bianca was a famous supermodel, his brother a former NFL wide receiver. It was crazy.

“I don’t think anything has lifted a veil from my life,” Derek said out loud. He was still the same inside as he’d always been: determined to do whatever he had to in order to keep on track with his medical career. He’d left the ranch at fifteen and Cole’s Hill to go to college, finished undergrad in three years and then gone on to medical school. There had been no stopping him.

“Maybe that’s why this setback with being named cardiology chief has been such a shock. I just have always been focused on becoming a surgeon and then on making sure I was the best.”

“You are the best,” Bianca said. “You’re lucky, Derek. You’ve always known exactly what your purpose is. Some of us stumble around until we find it.”

“You? You never seemed to be stumbling.”

She threw her head back and laughed, and he listened to the sound of it, smiling. She had a great laugh.

“That’s just because I only let people see what I want them to.”

“Like the Wizard of Oz?” he asked. They’d both been in the play in middle school. He’d been the Tin Man and she’d been Dorothy.

“Just like that. ‘Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain’ should be the motto for my life.”

“But not now, right? You have Beni,” Derek said.

She shrugged. “I’m still faking it sometimes. I mean, he has given me purpose, but being a mom is tough. Every day as I reflect on what has gone on, I wonder if I’ve screwed him up...that’s why I want to think this engagement over. I don’t want to say yes and then realize that this decision is the one that ruined him.”

Derek nodded. He was pretty confident in his personal life and in the operating theater but there were times when something went wrong and he had to keep going over the surgery to see what had happened. Had he missed something? Had the error been his? How could he keep it from happening again? He’d never thought that Bianca would be like that.

She seemed confident and able to conquer anything. Seeing that she wasn’t perfect made him want her even more. It made her real. Not the image of the girl he’d had a crush on, but the real woman.

* * *

This night had taken a turn and she wasn’t sure she was that upset by it. She had been saying that she wanted something different to happen. That she was tired of the Wednesday night blind dates set up by her mom that coincided with her dad taking Beni and her brothers out to dinner at the Western Two Step. Her father had missed out on bonding with Beni after his birth as they had been living in Spain. So her father was determined to make up for lost time. And the Wednesday nights with the boys were a long-established tradition in their family. It was a sports bar of sorts that had a huge gaming area in the back; they served what her father called “man food.” Pretty much just burgers, steaks and fried everything. It was a tradition in their family for as long as Bianca could remember.

When she’d been in her teens every Wednesday she and her mom would have a spa night and go and get pedicures and manicures or facials or massages. And have a “girl’s night out.” Somehow her mom’s desire to see her with a new man had taken over girl’s night. Bianca knew that saying she was engaged to Derek would probably make her mom happier than just about anything else right now. The top of her bucket list was seeing her daughter happy again.

She’d said that to her.

And now she was standing next to the lake with the cicadas singing their song in the background and Derek was watching her with that too intent look of his. It was something she associated mostly with him when he was in surgeon mode. But tonight, he was concentrating on her.

She knew how important being named chief of the cardiology department was to him. He’d laid out his life plans when they were fifteen; at the time, he’d been getting ready to leave for college and she’d just gotten her first modeling job in Paris. They had been sort of thrown together as the two outsiders. The two who were leaving. And here they were again.

There was a bubble of excitement in her stomach, something that she hadn’t felt since Beni had started walking and talking. She shook her head and cursed under her breath.

“What? Are you okay?” Derek asked.

She nodded wryly at him. “I just hate it when my mom is right. I mean, it would be nice if she started screwing up sometime. But every time I rail against her interfering in my life, something happens to show me she’s onto something again.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

She realized she couldn’t tell him how she felt. He wanted a friend. Not a woman who was feeling all tingly and very aware of the shape of his mouth. He had a great-looking mouth. Why was she noticing it now? And now that she’d noticed it why couldn’t she stop wondering how it would feel pressed against hers?

“Nothing... I think I can make it safely home from here if you want to get back to your brothers,” she said. The sooner she got away from the temptation that Derek offered the better she’d be. Maybe it was just her reaction to being with a guy who—what? The nice man her mom had set her up with had been good-looking, too. So why was she attracted to Derek and not to him?

And shouldn’t that be a mark in the con column for going through with the pretend engagement?

But she knew she wasn’t going to say no. Not now. Not since she’d noticed his mouth and couldn’t get out of her mind if he was a good kisser or not.

It was shallow, but for once the weight that had been on her since Jose’s death seemed to be long gone. She didn’t feel like the hot mess she’d been. She felt almost...well, almost like her old self and there was nothing that would make her walk away from this.

She’d forgotten how fun it was to not know what was coming next. How much she enjoyed the first flush of attraction. And this was safe. Right? Derek wanted a fake fiancée. She could do that. Be close to him, have her little infatuation but protect her heart. She wasn’t going to fall for Derek Caruthers. The man was married to his job.

Everyone knew that.

There was no sense in pretending that he’d ever be interested in any woman for longer than a few months. It was precisely why he’d suggested a temporary pretend engagement.

“You have the funniest look on your face,” he said. “I’m not going to abandon you before I see you home. My dad would whup me if word got back to him.”

She smiled because she knew he meant for her to. “You can see me to the sidewalk outside the house. If you come to the door my mom is going to grill us both and we haven’t made a decision yet. You promised me time to think.”

As if thinking was going to do her any good now that lust had entered the picture. She closed her eyes, desperately tried to remember what fifteen-year-old Derek had looked like. Tall, gangly, still wearing braces and with a little bit of acne, but it didn’t matter because as soon as she opened her eyes she found herself staring at his mouth.

Adult Derek’s mouth was lush; his lips just looked kissable. She’d kissed her fair share of men and some of the kisses had been disappointing but his mouth...he looked like he wouldn’t disappoint.

“Bianca, I’m trying not to notice but you are staring at my mouth,” he said.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said.

“It’s making me stare at your mouth and that is putting some decidedly different thoughts into my head.”

“Like what?” she asked, throwing caution to the winds. Maybe he’d suck at kissing and she’d be able to walk away from him.

Or maybe not.

* * *

Derek knew he was treading very close to the edge of someplace that there would be no turning back from. He might be able to make the whole platonic-friends-helping-each-other thing work if he was able to keep his mind off the curve of her hips and the way she nibbled her lower lip when she was mulling over something. But when she looked at his mouth, chewed her lower lip...it didn’t take a mind reader to figure out what she was contemplating.

And for the first time since his ill-fated affair with Marnie he was on the cusp of doing something that might derail his career goals. Because he was afraid one kiss wouldn’t be enough. He wasn’t ready to settle down until he’d been established as head of cardiology. He wanted to keep his focus on medicine. He needed someone like Bianca because she was respectable, well-liked and not the kind of woman Marnie would ever believe he’d coerced into being his fiancée. A smart man would remember that instead of reaching out and touching a strand of Bianca’s hair as it blew in the summer breeze—and possibly blow his chance of her going along with the fake engagement.

A smart man would be taking two steps away from her instead of one half step closer and letting his hand brush the side of her cheek. Her skin was soft, but really that wasn’t a surprise. She looked like she’d have prefect skin. The scent of her perfume once again drifted on the breeze and he couldn’t help himself when she tipped her head to the side and her eyes slowly drifted closed.

She wanted his kiss.

He wanted to kiss her.

He leaned in and felt the soft exhalation of her breath over his jaw just before he touched her lips with his. Just a quick brush. That was all he intended but her lips were soft and parted slightly under his and he found himself coming back and kissing her again. He angled his head slightly to the right and she shifted as well and the kiss deepened. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She tasted of Indian summer and promises.

He shifted his hand on her head, cupping the back of her neck as he took all that she offered in the kiss. She was like the sweetest addiction he’d ever encountered and he knew that walking away, just forgetting this, wasn’t going to happen. He wanted her.

He felt the stirring in his groin and his skin felt too tight for his body. He started to draw her closer to him but stopped. He didn’t want to rush any second of this. He wanted this embrace to last forever.

Because this was Bianca. The girl who’d always been too pretty, too smart and some would say too good for him. He didn’t want the kiss to end and her to come to her senses.

Maybe it was the moon or the night or the warm breeze making her forget that they were friends. That she’d friend-zoned him a long time ago but he knew he wasn’t going to want to let her go. Not tonight.

But he had to.

He pulled his head back, looking down at her. Her lips were parted, moist and slightly swollen from his kiss. Her eyes slowly blinked open.

“Derek...that was...”

He put his finger over her lips. He didn’t want to discuss it. “Just a kiss between friends. We’re doing each other a favor and tonight, seeing you here in the moonlight, I just couldn’t resist.”

She chewed her lower lip for a second and then nodded. “Do you think it was an aberration? That maybe it won’t happen again?”

Lying to himself was one thing, but lying to her was something else. “Honestly, I think we’d be kidding ourselves—or at least I’d be kidding myself—if I said I wasn’t going to be tempted to kiss you again.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. “I was sort of afraid that you didn’t feel the same.”

“That kiss was...”

“Magic,” she said. “Like you intimated earlier it was probably the pale moon and the balmy night that are making us a little crazy. We’re friends. We are doing each other a favor. Complicating things by kissing each other and thinking about each other in a non-friend way—”

“Non-friend way?” he interrupted. “I didn’t realize friends couldn’t kiss each other.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts in a defensive pose.

“I do. But I wanted you to know that your friendship comes first. I have to admit I’ve thought about kissing you since you came home this summer. I hadn’t realized how much you’d changed. You’re prettier than I remembered, which is saying a lot, since you were so beautiful when we were teenagers.”

“Thank you. That is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard. I should be getting home,” she said.

He took her hand in his and led her up off the footbridge to the sidewalk in front of her house. She didn’t say anything else and neither did he. He felt like there had been too much between them for this one night. He needed her.

For his career.

And he wanted her.

For himself.

And never had he been so conflicted about what he wanted.

“I guess this is good-night.”

“Good night,” he said. “I’ll see you and Benito in the morning?”

“Yes. Probably around eight unless that’s too early.”

Normally eight on a day off would be too early but this was Bianca. And he had a feeling he was going to spend a restless night remembering that kiss. And trying to figure out how he was going to keep from repeating it once she moved in with him. Unless he could sleep with her and then let her walk away. But since he’d promised to stay friends with her and her son, Derek thought it would be wiser to try to keep them from becoming lovers.

And his gut seemed to say that her answer would be yes. That they were going to be living together.

He needed a plan to keep himself together when that happened.

“That’s perfect,” he said.

He stood there until she entered her house and then headed back to the club.