Authors: Patricia Paris
"We can't!" She repeated.
He raised his head and stared at
her, eyes smoking, and stormy with desire.
"Please," she pleaded
again more softly, turning her head away from him. "We have to stop."
Gage eased his hold and his hands
fell slowly away. Abby couldn't look at him. She never should have let this
happen. She had promised herself it wouldn't. It didn't matter that desire
still pounded through her blood. It didn't matter that she wanted him more than
she'd ever wanted any man in her life.
How could she make love to him when
she knew how it would turn out? She didn't think she could bear to look in his
eyes and see the disappointment when she failed to please him. She was
still
galaxies out of his league, would always be, and she knew better than to
welcome that kind of pain again.
~~~
Gage pushed his hands through his
hair, wanting to groan his frustration. Abby sat on the couch, gathering her
notes and putting them into her briefcase. Why had she put such an abrupt stop
to things? He didn't think he'd misread her interest. Should he let it go for
now or confront her so he could try to understand what the hell just happened?
Picking his drink up off the desk, he
joined her on the couch. "Abby." He waited for her to look at him.
She stopped what she was doing and stared down at her hands. He set his drink
on the table and reached for her fingers, rubbing them between his own.
"I'm sorry," she said,
not looking at him. "I'm sorry I let that happen."
Gage closed his eyes a moment,
trying to think. He didn't like seeing her upset, but he wanted something with
her, and he wasn't willing to take a step backward.
"I'm not. I'm attracted to
you. I've been attracted to you since the first time I saw you."
She gave a half smile. "You
mean when I came into your uncle's taffy shop?"
Gage squeezed her fingers.
"What did I know then? I was just a dumb kid."
"I think you've got us
confused. I was the dumb kid, remember?"
He lifted her chin. "Don't
pull back from me. I know you wanted me a few minutes ago. I could feel it. And
I'm not going to lie. I want more than a business relationship with you.
Much more."
"We can't, Gage."
"We can't isn't a reason. And
certainly not one I'm willing to accept." He brought her hand to his lips
and kissed it. "If you're going to reject me, you'll have to do better
than that."
Her chest rose and fell on a deep
sigh. "You're a client. If we had a relationship and Norwell found out,
I'd lose my job."
He kissed her thumb. "If he
threatens to fire you, I'll threaten to go to another firm."
She gave him an impatient look.
"What if we had an affair and something went wrong? We'd still have to
work together."
"We're both
professionals." He kissed her index finger. "We'd manage."
"What if I screwed up on the
account?"
"Then
I'd
fire
you."
Her mouth formed a perfect
"O" and he grinned.
"Would you really?" she
asked.
"Of course I would. Business
is business."
"Well, if you fired me, then
Norwell might fire me, and I'd be out of a job."
"I'd tell Norwell to rehire
you, and if he didn't I'd break my contract. Your boss made it clear he'd do
almost anything to keep my business. So you don't have to worry about your
job."
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm
not sure I like that last bit. And whether you believe it or not, I'm the one
with the most to lose here. There are too many things that could go wrong if we
were to have a personal relationship."
"Like?"
He arched a brow.
"Like a lot of things."
She threw her free arm up. "We could have a lover's quarrel. I might get
tired of you. You might get tired of me, not be able to stand the sight of me.
You'd criticize my cooking. I'd criticize you for leaving your dirty socks on
the bathroom floor. You might think I'm frigid." She looked away. "Or
s-something."
She tucked her hair behind her ears
and began to fiddle with the hem of her skirt. "It, it just wouldn't be a
good idea."
Gage rested their joined hands on
his knees. He hadn't missed the flash of pain in her eyes an instant earlier.
He swallowed, wondering if he was reading too much into it or if the suspicion
beginning to form in his head was correct.
"I know about your
ex-husband's affairs," he said gently. She started to push up from the
couch, but he kept hold of her hand and urged her back down.
"I'm not surprised," she
snapped. "You know about everything, don't you? You've got in-depth
reports on our lives. You want to know something about
somebody,
you just send one of your agents out to invade their privacy." She jerked
her hand free. "Did you discover all the torrid details of my love life,
Gage?" She shot up, glaring at him.
"You didn't have one." He
came to his feet as well.
She closed her eyes as if he'd stung
her and then picked up her briefcase to leave. Gage caught her shoulders from
behind and pulled her back against his chest. She tried to jerk away, but he
wrapped his arms around her.
"You didn't have one because
your husband didn't love you. He probably isn't capable of love. And it's
obvious he had no taste." She stiffened in his embrace. "If he
had," he said with honest emotion, "he would have recognized what an
amazing woman he'd married and done everything in his power to show her how
special she was."
Abby's shoulders slumped and he
felt her go limp. He turned her around and cradled her in his arms. "The
bastard didn't deserve you." He rubbed his hands up and down her back.
"And I've got a feeling he did a lot more than betray your trust. You're a
beautiful, passionate woman, Abby, and I'm not going to let your ex-husband get
in the way of us having a satisfying relationship."
She sighed against his chest.
"Dick and I are divorced, remember? He has nothing to do with what happens
between you and me."
Gage eased her back. "Doesn't
he?"
She shook her head. "No. And I
don't want to talk about him." She drew a deep breath. "Or you and
me. I can't deny I'm attracted to you. But we're not going to have a personal
relationship. I don't want one."
He knew her well enough by now to
recognize the stubborn bent to her chin. As soon as she walked out of here,
she'd start erecting walls. Walls meant to keep him out.
Gage suspected her husband's
affairs weren't the most damaging thing he'd subjected her to. Based on her
reactions, he suspected the guy probably made her think his infidelity had been
her fault, that if she'd been more of a woman, he wouldn't have looked
elsewhere. Men like Carpenter were always looking to blame someone else for
their own deficiencies.
Maybe someday Gage would get an
opportunity to pay the senator's son back for doing such a job on Abby. He
didn't like thinking about the humiliation the guy must have made her feel. And
he didn't like thinking about all the obstacles he'd have to overcome to win
her trust because of it. He would, though, because Abby was wrong. They would
have a personal relationship. And when they did, she
would
want it.
Keeping one arm around her waist,
he turned her toward the door. "Come on. I'll take you home."
~~~
Abby refused to consider the
possibility of an affair. In fact, after Gage dropped her off the night before,
she'd been doing everything she could not to think of him at all.
Tuesday she buried herself in
paperwork and made random calls to clients she hadn't spoken to in weeks, just
to check in. She rescheduled her dinner with Rachael until the following night
and stayed late and wrote a business plan for how she'd accomplish her goals.
She didn't leave the office until after nine o'clock, took a cab home and went
to bed without dinner.
Wednesday she was out of the office
on calls most of the day. She cancelled dinner with Rachael again because she
knew her friend would want to talk about what was happening in their lives, and
Abby had nothing she wanted to talk about. She pleaded a headache and said
they'd just skip it this week. She went home, took some aspirin, and worked at
the kitchen table until midnight when fatigue ensured she'd have no trouble
falling asleep.
By Friday the gruesome week she'd
put in had caught up to her. Exhausted, stressed by insistent and encroaching
thoughts of Gage, and disgusted she hadn't been able to control her feelings
the way she'd wanted, she gave in to frustration and broke one of her
resolutions. When Harold Billings told her she was looking
hot—
she
murdered him.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
S
aturday dawned sunny,
contrasting with Abby's somewhat doleful mood. Rachael called around ten to see
if Abby wanted to catch an afternoon matinee.
When the phone rang, she'd half
expected it to be Gage. He'd told her he'd be returning on Friday, and after
the things he'd said Monday night, she was a little surprised he hadn't called
yesterday.
Maybe with a week to think things
over he'd realized she'd been right, and any personal involvement between them
would be a mistake. Refusing to credit her melancholy to disappointment, she
agreed to meet Rachael at the theatre.
"I would have liked it better
if Caroline hadn't died," Rachael said, as they walked down
"She had to die. It was a true
story,
Rach
. They're not going to change facts just
so they can give you a happy ending."
"Well, I would have ended it
when Caroline and Peter got married. Not with him standing over her
grave."
"If it makes you feel better,
he died less than a year later. So they've been reunited in death for about
twenty years now. Maybe someone will do a sequel, and you can get your happy
ending. They can call it something like
Stuck with Each Other for
Eternity."
Rachael threw her a scowl.
Abby stepped around a questionable
blob on the sidewalk. "Anyway, how do you know they wouldn't have gotten
sick of each other and ended up getting divorced if they'd lived?"
"You know, you've turned into
a real pisser lately,
Ab
. You wouldn't be so negative
if you had a man in your life."
"Oh please!" Abby threw
up her hands. "This from a woman who starts lacing her running shoes
whenever anyone begins to show any genuine interest?"
"That's not true. I've got
plenty of men in my life. I simply adore men. The world would be so boring
without them, they're just so lovable."
Abby arched her brows. "Yeah,
you just don't want to be
in love
with one of them."
"When I find the right
one," Rachael insisted. "But at least I haven't built a fortress
around myself so no man can get within a hundred feet of me."
"I wish," Abby said
absentmindedly. "Maybe then I wouldn't be in this ridiculous mess."
Rachael quirked
an interested brow.
"What mess?"
"Nothing," Abby said
shortly, realizing her mistake and kicking herself over it. She picked up her
pace. "Did you notice the new planters they put along the street?
Nice, huh?"
"What mess?"
Abby rolled her eyes. Damn her big
fat mouth. Once Rachael got her teeth around something a hydraulic toothpick
couldn't get it free.
"Come on,
Ab
,
this is Rachael, girlfriend. What mess are we talking about?"
Abby came to an abrupt stop and put
her hands on her hips.
"Gage Faraday!"
She
said with a week's worth of frustration. "That mess! A major, stupid, I'd
prefer not to talk about it, mess! Satisfied?"
Rachael stared at Abby for several
fully punctuated seconds before her lips curved into a very smug, very amused,
smile.
"I-
knew
-it."
She laughed.
"I knew this mood of yours had something to do with that man."
Abby started walking again.
"Okay, so now that I've verified what you already knew, let's drop
it."
Rachael's laughter followed her.
"Oh no you don't!"
She caught up to Abby.
"After all, what are best friends for if not to share all the juicy little
details of their love lives?"
Abby insisted she and Gage did not
have a love life. That was right before Rachael sat Abby down in the
restaurant, badgered, begged, applied guilt, and finally dragged the entire
story of the last two weeks out of her.
~~~
Gage spotted a parking spot only a
block from Abby's street and squeezed into the impossibly tight space, a skill
he'd honed during his days of parallel parking in South Philly.
He was looking forward to seeing
her. She'd monopolized a fair portion of his thoughts all week. A dozen times
he'd started to call, just to hear her voice. Fortunately logic had prevailed,
preventing him from making a strategic mistake.
The minute she had shot off those
reasons why they shouldn't get involved, he realized he was dealing with more
than simple resistance. You didn't just lump being frigid with dirty socks on
the bathroom floor. It was too damned oblique. And he was convinced the only
reason she'd bring it up was if someone had convinced her she was.
He shook his head. No one who
responded to him the way Abby had could be frigid. And once he gained her
trust, he was going to take great pleasure in proving it to her.
Grabbing the folder he'd brought
off the passenger seat, he got out of the car and locked the doors. He grinned
as he jogged the short distance to her townhouse.
Just a bit overanxious,
are we?