Читать книгу The Daddy Deal - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

AT FIRST, she was speechless. He’d uttered the words casually, in the offhand way he might have expressed a dislike for broccoli, and she wasn’t at all sure how she should respond. Stalling, she brought her glass to her lips and drank, studying him over the rim, looking for a cue.

To her surprise, his green eyes were alight with an irreverent sparkle. It was infectious, and in spite of herself she felt a smile tickling at her lips. As she began to grin, she felt something odd happening inside her. It was as if a logjam of oppression burst loose with an almost audible pop, and she was washed by a sudden, delicious sensation of freedom.

“Now that you mention it,” she said, still grinning, “I can’t stand Clarke, either.”

“Oh?” He raised one brow.

Nodding, she took another sip, wondering whether this last glass might have pushed her judgment over the edge. Perhaps instead of being forthright and bold, she was merely being drunk. But did it really make any difference? She felt freer than she had in months. She felt good.

“Absolutely cannot stand him. So that makes two of us. Good thing we didn’t marry him, isn’t it?”

“Very.” The creases at the corner of his eyes grew more pronounced. “I for one am deeply relieved.”

“Me, too.” She stared into her champagne, then sipped again thoughtfully. “The bottom line,” she confided, “is that Mr. Clarke Westover is an assous pomp.”

But that hadn’t come out quite right. “A passous...” She frowned and gave up. “A jerk.”

She punctuated her pronouncement by swigging an emphatic mouthful of bubbles, but just as she did so, she glimpsed the smile quirking Taylor’s lips. Immediately, a dangerous spasm of answering laughter tightened her chest. She swallowed quickly and lowered her glass, trying not to spill the champagne as she began to giggle. But the table was small, and her aim was faulty. She knocked her glass against the edge of his, and the stern rocked dangerously. It finally righted itself, but not before spraying a fine mist of liquid across the outer edge of her hand and onto the tabletop.

“Hey,” he said, leaning over to dab the moisture from her knuckles with the handkerchief he bad once again magically produced. “Careful. We’re never going to get our money’s worth out of this champagne if you keep flinging it around like that.”

Our money’s worth. She noticed how instinctively thoughtful he was, how even his pronouns were chosen to minimize her self-consciousness. His touch was very deft, almost impersonal—it held no hint of sleazy opportunism. Over his ministering hand, they smiled at each other in a companionable harmony.

She knew she should feel like a fool. And yet somehow she wasn’t at all embarrassed. He had a gift for making people comfortable, she realized, though perhaps it was merely a lucky by-product of his own sublime self-confidence.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly, shoving her glass to one side. “A friend of mine once had a great word for this. Spiff—” she struggled to get her lips around the syllables correctly “—spifSicated.” She smiled. “I’m afraid I’m getting spifflicated.”

“No, you’re not.” He picked up her hand and swabbed champagne efficiently from the underside. “In fact, in some counties they use that as a legal test. If you can actually pronounce ‘spifflicated’, you’re not.”

“Still,” she said, eying the last two inches of golden bubbles in her glass and shuddering. “That’s it for me.”

She knew, even as she said it, that he might interpret her words as the excuse he needed to get up and say goodbye. His chivalrous mission was accomplished—he had rescued her from Clarke’s petty cruelties. He had loaned her a quarter, paid the astronomical auction bill and wiped her fingers. He had even salvaged her pride—letting everyone in the room see that, though Clarke had abandoned her, she was not entirely friendless. Best of all, he had made her laugh.

It was more unselfish generosity than she had ever received from anyone, much less from a total stranger. She had no right to expect more. Or even to wish for it. She had to let him leave now, if he wanted to.

But he made no move to stand. Instead, he poured himself another glass of champagne and leaned back, stretching his shoulders against the iron rim of the chair, getting comfortable. Her hopes shot up like a kite in a gusting wind, and she suddenly realized how much, how very much, she had hoped he would stay.

“You were with someone earlier,” she began hesitantly, strangely reluctant to broach the subject, but knowing she had to. There was no point in letting herself dream if that slinky brunette was going to return from the ladies’ room any minute and reclaim her white knight. “Is she still here?”

“No,” he said, meeting her gaze directly, without a trace of self-consciousness. “She wasn’t my date. I met her only a couple of hours ago. In fact, I don’t really know most of the people here. I don’t live in Florida. I’m from Massachusetts, from a little town in the Berkshires.”

Not from Tampa, then—not even a Floridian. She couldn’t have been more surprised. He had certainly looked right at home with this crowd. She supposed that being very, very rich was like belonging to an exclusive fraternity—no matter where you traveled, you could always look up the local chapter and be assured of fitting right in.

Still, she knew the tickets to this fund-raiser had been exorbitant. Surely there were places back home in the Berkshires with more legitimate claim on his charity. “So why are you here?” She waved her hand toward the stage. Then she worried—had that sounded rude? She seemed to have dropped her tact down the bottom of that last champagne bottle. “I mean, this is just a little local theater. Why would you come here... ?”

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and took another slow swallow of champagne. He held her gaze so long she began to wish she hadn’t asked. Perhaps he thought she was overstepping the bounds of their extremely short acquaintance. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t even know, that she felt strangely as if she’d known him a long, long time. She couldn’t even really understand it herself.

Finally he smiled. “If I said I came here to see you, you probably wouldn’t believe it; would you?”

She grinned and shook her head. “I think that line only works after three bottles.”

“I was afraid of that.” He spread his hands, palms up, surrendering the notion. “Actually, I’m in Tampa because—” he paused “—because I have family here.”

“Not a wife, though?” She could hardly believe her audacity. But it seemed, in her champagne logic, to be better dealt with now than later.

He shook his head. “Not a wife.”

“Or a girlfriend?”

He shook his head again, and a reluctant smile crooked his mouth appealingly. “Not even female.”

“Good.” She relaxed as if she had settled a question of major philosophical importance. “Then you don’t have to leave.”

“No. I’m free to indulge my own pleasure tonight.” He picked up his glass and swirled the liquid in it, as if admiring the way the bubbles burst golden under the electric starlight. “And it would please me very much to spend the evening with you.” He glanced up. “Assuming, of course, that you’re equally free.”

She waved her hand toward the exit through which Clarke had so recently slipped. “Well, as you can see, I have no date—”

“And no one waiting at home, wondering where you are?”

She shook her head. “The only male at my house is two years old, and he’d better not be wondering anything. He’d better be sound asleep.” She raised her chin slightly. “Justin is my son.”

This, too, seemed like something she needed to make clear from the outset. A lot of men remembered they had urgent appointments elsewhere the minute they learned she had a child. She watched Taylor’s handsome face carefully, looking for the familiar signs of shock, disappointment or disapproval. A son, but no husband...

His expression was hard to read. He didn’t look threatened, and he certainly didn’t exhibit any moral indignation. But he did look intensely interested, thoughtful, somehow, as if he were trying to assemble a picture that wouldn’t quite come together for him. That was all right, she decided. A little mystery did more to enhance a woman’s appeal than a boatload of diamonds. And she did want to appeal to him. She wanted it with a raw intensity that was growing stronger by the minute.

“Tell me,” he said finally, his green eyes quizzical, “when you said you were glad you hadn’t married Westover, was that just an academic observation? Or had you really considered it?”

“Considered it?” She shook her head again, as if she could hardly believe the truth herself. “I was his fiancée for almost two years.” Looking down at her now-unadorned left hand, she sighed. “Of course, I was out of the country for one of those years, so it’s only half as stupid as it sounds.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, really. I’ve asked myself that a hundred times.” She gazed toward the door, where she had last seen Clarke. “I guess it’s because, though you’d never know it from tonight’s performance, he can charm the petals off a rose when he wants to. And because I was lonely—”

She stopped, something in his expression suddenly warning her that she was answering the wrong question. She flushed. “Oh...you mean why was I out of the country for a year?”

He nodded. “You have to admit it’s...different. Your average, hot-blooded American woman, upon becoming engaged, doesn’t just grab her passport and emigrate.”

“Well, I was already committed to going overseas before Clarke asked me to marry him,” she explained rather heatedly, as if he had accused her of possessing a tepid nature. Of being passionless. “People were counting on me. I’m a nurse, and I was part of a volunteer medical team our hospital sponsored. The country we were sent to was being torn apart by civil war.”

She leaned forward, squeezing her hands together, trying to make him feel the urgency of her obligation. It wasn’t fair for him to judge her. She wasn’t a cold woman, though Clarke had used that argument against her frequently. She wasn’t. “People were dying.”

“Well, then, of course you had to go,” he said, running his fingers lightly over her whitened knuckles, his smile reassuring. “And if Clarke Westover had been half a man, he would have packed up his fax machine and gone with you.”

She tried to smile back, but foolish tears were pooling along her bottom lids, and she had to look away, afraid that he would see them. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt like crying. Perhaps the memories of that desperate, blood-soaked year were too close. Or perhaps it was because no one had looked at her like that in a long time, with sympathy and understanding and... amazingly, there was admiration, too.... No, not in a very long time.

Or maybe it was just the champagne. Get a grip, she told herself. If you turn into one of those dismal, weepy drunks, this white knight of yours will disappear faster than you can say spifflicated.

“What’s wrong?” Taylor’s hand settled over hers, cupping her tense fingers in his cool, soothing palm. “Is it about Clarke?”

“No. No, I’m glad he’s gone.” Without looking at him, she shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to try to explain. She had forgotten how drinking lowered her defenses—or perhaps she had just forgotten how completely she had begun to rely on those defenses to get her through.

“Then what is it?” His voice was low and warm. She could just barely hear it over the sound of violins as the conductor waved the orchestra into a plaintive version of “For All We Know”. “Tell me.”

Again she shook her head, appalled at how tempting it was to think about giving in, breaking down, handing her too-heavy heart to this man who seemed so strong, so thoroughly capable of taking care of it. She felt him stroking the back of her hand, his fingers sensitive and sure, and she had to bite her lips together, for fear the words would come tumbling out—private, mortifying little words that could only shame her. Words like lonely. Empty. Frightened.

“Nothing,” she said tightly. “It’s nothing.”

For a moment he was silent. And then she sensed him rising.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

She finally looked up slowly, from the lean, ridged pads of his palm up to where the golden-tanned skin of his wrist disappeared into the snowy cuff of his dress shirt. “Where?”

“We’re going to dance,” he said, curving his fingers to beckon her toward him. “I think they’re playing our song.”

At first, she didn’t move. She looked up the long creases of the black tuxedo sleeve, up to where he towered over her. And she realized, with a sudden shivering heat at the base of her spine, that she found Taylor so attractive it terrified her. She hadn’t thought about men that way in a long, long time. Not even Clarke—although she had certainly tried to. When Clarke had kissed her, she’d found it difficult to keep her mind off other things, like the laundry or how she was going to pay the electricity bill next month. Ironic, wasn’t it? Her fiancé’s kisses had left her completely unmoved, yet the thought of dancing with this stranger made her knees go hopelessly warm and mushy.

She couldn’t stop studying him, though she wondered if she was taking too long to answer. She suspected that, in her muzzy mental state, time had begun to lose its firm contours like an overused rubber band.

What was it about him that melted her from the inside out? Oh, he was gorgeous. No question about that, even though she supposed that, strictly speaking, his nose was too strong, rinsing too arrogantly from high between his brows. But the strong lines of those dark brows were so perfectly aligned with his dramatic cheekbones and sculpted jaw that the effect was both beautiful and noble, as if he were an illustration in some elegant magazine.

But she had known plenty of handsome men. Perhaps, she thought, her gaze drifting down, it was that strange sense of familiarity in his green-flecked eyes. That haunting sense of déjà vu...

“You know,” Taylor said mildly, glancing pointedly at his still-outstretched hand, “I’m beginning to look like a fool.”

Blushing, Brooke rose quickly. Too quickly. Her blood swooped to her feet, leaving her head empty and dizzy. She swayed toward him, and he caught her in one strong arm.

“That’s better,” he said, his lips close to her ear. Putting his arm around her shoulder, he tucked her up against him and led her to the stage, where dozens of couples were already jammed together. There didn’t seem to be a free inch, but somehow Taylor found a niche near the edge of the proscenium arch, where a statue of Neptune, backlit with an eerie violet glow, stared at them through blind white eyes.

Taylor slid his arm around her waist, pulling her in to face him, and for several minutes they shifted slowly to the music, each holding away from the other a bit stiffly, as if neither wanted to be the first to make a move toward a deeper intimacy. But the poignant song was wrapping itself around them, and before she knew it her hand was nestled between his fingers and his heart, and her head had dropped against the cool black lapel of his tuxedo.

The song ended, but they didn’t move, waiting until the violinists’ bows began the dip and thrust of another love song. As the wistful strains of “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago filled the air, Taylor’s hand tightened on the small of her back, massaging softly, nudging her into motion.

After that, Brooke didn’t even try to fight the slow fusion that brought their bodies ever closer together—her cheek rubbing against his shoulder, her breast brushing his chest, and their thighs braiding rhythmically, together, then apart. Shutting her eyes, she breathed deeply, learning the crisp, lime-fresh scent of him that rose subtly under her nostrils, stirred by her touch—a scent that was both reassuringly wholesome and surprisingly sexual.

He was far more intoxicating than champagne, Brooke thought dreamily, and she felt something flickering to life inside her, like a small, buried flame suddenly brought into the air. She turned her focus inward, visualizing the Name—once a pale and helplessly guttering flutter—as it grew into a steady, red-hot tongue of fire. It was almost painful to feel so alive, so awake to her emotions, and yet she wanted more. She inhaled jaggedly as the fire crept along her veins, into her lungs, stealing her breath, as well.

She wasn’t sure how long they danced. As suited the occasion, the orchestra was playing only movie themes, and the conductor, apparently aware that the late hour imparted a haze of sensuality to the room, offered one love song after another. Harps rippled; saxophones moaned; violins wept and sang. It was, Brooke thought as Taylor’s chin drifted across her temple, almost too beautiful to bear.

Gradually, though, the dance floor began to clear, the other couples slipping away like sand emptying through an hourglass. Brooke shut her eyes again, turning her head into Taylor’s jacket and tightening her arm on his shoulder, as if she could close the two of them inside a magic circle and make the evening last forever. She didn’t want to go home, back to reality, back to all the problems that were waiting for her. She didn’t think she could face being alone tonight.

With a sigh, she tucked their clasped hands under her cheek, letting her lips graze the back of his knuckles. His fingers tightened in response, and she felt oddly secure, here with his heart beating against her cheek. Strange, she mused. She’d been alone for years, but now, after spending less than an hour in this man’s arms, she felt as if she had completely lost the knack.

He kissed the top of her head softly, and the flame inside her spread like a blossoming bud of heat. No, she didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

“I think the orchestra is winding down,” Taylor said, lifting his head and scanning the nearly empty stage. “It’s getting late.”

Without taking her cheek from his chest, she made a small, dismayed sound. But she didn’t speak, afraid that her intense disappointment might sound fretful, as childish as Justin when he fussed about being sent to bed.

“You probably don’t have a car here—do you want a taxi?” He feathered her hair back from her face and ducked his head lower, as if he were trying to get a glimpse of her expression. “Or would you like me to take you home?”

“Oh,” she said, relief bringing a wide smile to her face as she lifted it toward him. “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

He smiled, then, too, as if amused by her breathless eagerness, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. What did it really matter if he could see how happy she was? What harm if he guessed how his embrace had made her feel?

Besides, even if she had wanted to, she wasn’t sure she could have hidden her emotions. From the minute he’d put his arms around her, she had felt as if she’d been plugged into some vibrant life source.Illogically—especially considering that her problems were still unsolved,and Clarke, to whom she had looked for help, was long gone—she felt great. Better than great. She felt deliciously young and alive. Hot-blooded. And rapturously female.

So why not smile? If she was dwelling in a fool’s paradise, then at least she would make the most of every minute. She’d been cautious every day of her life for the past ten years—and she’d have to be equally circumspect every day for the next ten.

Starting tomorrow.

She straightened, tugging lightly, eagerly, on his hand. “Yes,” she said again, swiveling as she spoke. “Let’s go home.” After the warm cocoon of his arms, the cool air seemed to go straight to her head, and she felt the room tip slightly.

He chuckled, a low rumble that was more vibration than noise, and, pulling her safely back against his chest, kissed the tip of her nose. “Slowly,” he said, steering her gently toward the stairs. “There’s no need to rush.”

But there was. There was. Couldn’t he feel it, too? He kept his hands on her shoulders to steady her, and she tried to walk calmly, but a sense of urgency had suddenly overtaken her, like Cinderella as the clock began to strike midnight. If they didn’t hurry, something could go wrong. The magic could run out. He could change his mind—or, even worse, she could change hers.

A crowd of late leavers clustered around the valet stand, and Brooke could hardly contain a sound of frustration. But Taylor’s hands were still on her shoulders, pressing her back against the wall of his hard-muscled torso, and she leaned against him gratefully, glad that he was so strong, glad that he stood between her and the pushing, chattering crowd. She shut her eyes again, and she let herself imagine what it would be like to have such an ally in life, a partner whose strength and loyalty would be a seawall against the crashing waves of misfortune.

Time blipped erratically, and suddenly the car was there in front of them. It was a sleek steel gray model that she couldn’t put a name to, though she could have made a pretty good guess at the price, which probably was approximately what she was asking for her bungalow. The irony of that struck her as rather funny, and she patted the hood of the car with a smile before letting Taylor guide her into the front seat.

Her cinnamon brown silk skirt made a sound like a sigh as it slid across the leather. Brooke sighed, too, as the air-conditioning blew sweet, cool air onto her cheeks, and when Taylor got in, she smiled at him. He smiled back, but his expression seemed strangely questioning.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly realizing what he needed. “Sorry. I live at 909 Parker Lane.” She peered through the window, trying to get her bearings. She knew downtown Tampa as well as she knew her own reflection in the mirror, but tonight things looked strangely unfamiliar. “Do you know where it is, by any chance?” She knew she sounded dubious, but where exactly were they? She didn’t recognize that huge building. “I can navigate, I suppose, as long as you don’t drive too fast—”

“You rest,” he said, touching her face. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but it sounded somehow as if the smile was tucked inside his voice. He sounded sexy, affectionate... and kind. “I’m sure I can find it.”

“That’s good,” she murmured, shutting her eyes against the bright blur of streetlights as they swept down the nearly deserted boulevard. “I’m a little tired. Look for roses. I have a lot of roses in the front....”

He put his arm across the back of the seat and, closing his palm over her shoulder, nudged her gently.

“Rest,” he said again, and she felt no urge to protest as he eased her toward him. She let herself drift downward slowly, her head seeming to seek the crook of his arm as if it were her own special spot, her assigned place in the universe. She put her hand on his thigh, registering the lean, solid strength of it somewhere in the back of her mind before she closed her eyes again and kept drifting, but this time father and farther, until she was so far away—

“Taylor,” she said suddenly, though she didn’t open her eyes, “we’ve never met before, have we?”

His voice was right next to her ear. Strange, when she’d thought she had floated so very far away. “No,” he said huskily, “we’ve never met before.”

“Are you sure? You feel so... familiar.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did she heard a smile in his voice. “I have a rather nutty friend who would say that means our auras are in harmony. Maybe he’s right.”

She smiled, too, still without opening her eyes. “That’s silly.”

He stroked her arm gently. “I always used to think so.”

“Very silly.” She shook her head—or at least she thought she did. Her voice sounded thick, half-asleep. “Still, you’re not really a stranger, Taylor. I know you’re not a stranger.”