The Millionaire's Pregnant Wife
Sandra Field
Multimillionaire Luke Griffin's playboy reputation is as large as his fortune and Kelsey's determined to hate him, even though she accepts the temporary job he's offering.But then Luke accidentally reads Kelsey's secret wish list, which includes a vacation and a steamy affair. Her simple dreams give Luke the chance to indulge his wildest one–he'll take her on a trip to his private resort in the Bahamas and bed her. However, he doesn't realize Kelsey's a virgin….
The Millionaire’s Pregnant Wife
Sandra Field
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
COMING NEXT MONTH
CHAPTER ONE
IF HE HAD to deal with inheriting a mansion he’d hated on sight, he’d rather do it alone.
If he had to go through all the boxes in one room of that mansion, searching for clues to a mother about whom—to put it mildly—he felt ambivalent, he’d much rather do it alone. But it would take forever, and Luke Griffin didn’t have forever. He had a financial empire to maintain.
He needed help.
Not his usual way of operating. He’d been doing things on his own since he was too little to remember.
He thumbed through the Yellow Pages again until he found the company that had looked like a helpful lead. Organize Your Home. With a name like that, surely someone should be able to help him go through the boxes? The other choice was to haul them to the dump.
They were his only chance to find out anything about his past. Luke punched the numbers and waited for the ring.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice. A rich contralto voice, with an undertone of huskiness that managed to turn two ordinary syllables into something very close to an invitation. He said briskly, “Is this Organize Your Home?”
“You have the right number,” the woman said. “But the business is no longer in operation…sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded jubilant, like sunlight through the amber depths of brandy. “My name’s Luke Griffin,” he said. “I’m staying temporarily at Griffin’s Keep, and I have at least three days’ work for you.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Griffin—as I said, I’ve disbanded the company. Last week.”
He said implacably, “What do you usually charge per hour?”
“That’s not—”
“Just answer the question. And perhaps you could tell me your name?”
Her voice warmed with temper. “Kelsey North. Forty dollars an hour. It’s not on.”
“I’ll pay two hundred and fifty an hour. Multiply that by three days—I’m sure you can do the math.”
There was a taut silence. Then she said crisply, “What sort of work?”
“My grandmother—Sylvia Griffin—left me some papers that are of personal interest. Unfortunately they’re scattered throughout her financial records. Boxes and boxes of them, and each one has to be gone through page by page. I’m a busy man and I have to get back to Manhattan. I can’t take the time to do this on my own.”
“I see,” Kelsey North said. “Give me your number. I’ll call you back later this evening.”
He rhymed off the numbers on the phone. “I look forward to hearing from you,” he said smoothly. “Goodbye, Ms North.”
The woman at the other end banged the receiver down with a force that was not remotely professional. If she was one of his employees, she’d be taking a course on customer relations, Luke thought, idly wondering why she’d closed her business. Although with a voice like that she was wasted organizing other people’s closets.
If, when she called back, she said no, he was in deep trouble.
He’d up the rate to five hundred an hour. That’d get her, he thought cynically, and went to see if he could rustle up a cup of coffee in the archaic kitchen of Griffin’s Keep.
KELSEY GLARED AT the receiver as if Luke Griffin was standing on top of it. The nerve of the man. The arrogance. As if she was supposed to levitate six feet in the air the moment he said jump.
Organize Your Home no longer existed. Finished. Kaput. She was free, free, free!
She did an impromptu twirl around the living room, then sat down again at the table where she’d been working on her list when the phone had rung. It was a list, in bright red marker, of all the things she wanted to do now that her life was her own.
Go to art school. Travel. Paint a masterpiece. Paint her toenails purple. Have torrid sex.
Her brow knitted. She crossed out torrid. Any kind of sex would do, wouldn’t it? Still frowning, she erased Have sex and substituted Have an affair. It sounded more romantic. Classier. Especially if she had it with someone tall, dark and handsome, who’d treat her like a piece of breakable china and give her roses and breakfast in bed.
None of her dates in the last few years had been tall, dark and handsome; there wasn’t much choice in Hadley, the village where she lived. Kelsey heaved a sigh, then added Holiday to her list.
But until she sold the house, how could she afford a holiday? Nearly all her savings had gone to the art school in Manhattan as the deposit with her application.
Two hundred and fifty dollars an hour for three days. Six thousand dollars.
Yes, she could do the math.
He was bribing her, she thought with a spurt of rage. The famous—or rather, infamous—Luke Griffin thought she could be bought.
Well, she could. Couldn’t she?
Why did everything always have to come down to money?
If she had six thousand dollars she could pay for her first two semesters and have a bit left for a trip. Somewhere south, where it was warm.
It wasn’t as though Luke Griffin couldn’t afford it. He could. He’d graduated from millions to billions several years ago, or so Alice at the post office said.
Organizing a dead woman’s papers wasn’t anywhere on her list.
So what? She’d go to Griffin’s Keep, work her butt off for three days, take the money and run. And in the meantime she’d check the internet for inexpensive package tours to a tropical island with palm trees, white sand and drinks with little colored umbrellas in them. Quickly, before she could change her mind, Kelsey picked up the phone and dialed the number for Griffin’s Keep.
Luke brushed a layer of dust off the receiver and held it to his ear. “Luke Griffin.”
“This is Kelsey North. What time do you want me to start?”
Her brandy-smooth voice was overlaid with irritation. “Tomorrow morning at eight-thirty,” he said. “I can’t find anything but mouse droppings in the pantry, so if you need caffeine to get yourself moving in the morning, you’d better bring your own.” He smiled into the phone. “Wear old clothes, the place hasn’t been cleaned in months. I look forward to meeting you, Ms North.” Gently he put the phone down.
One more woman who could be bought, he thought, and wondered if her appearance would in any way measure up to the beauty of her voice.
KELSEY DRESSED WITH care the next morning. Then she picked up a can of Colombian blend and a carton of coffee cream, and left the house. Her car started like a dream, and the ten-minute drive to Griffin’s Keep gave her time to think.
Since Sylvia Griffin’s death a few days ago, gossip had run rife in Hadley. Sylvia’s grandson, whose name was Luke, hadn’t gotten a cent in her will; he’d inherited the whole packet; he was bringing his stretch limo to her funeral; he was in Hong Kong and would arrive by helicopter; he was worth one billion dollars, ten billion, a hundred billion…
There was consensus on only one subject: women fell like flies at his approach, and his mistresses were legendary for their beauty, wealth and elegance.
In the end, he hadn’t bothered attending his grandmother’s funeral at all, Kelsey mused, driving down a side road where last week’s snow still lingered in the ditches. He’d arrived late yesterday, the day after the funeral. As far as she knew, he’d never taken the time to visit Sylvia while she was alive, and certainly not in her last brief illness. Too busy amassing his fortune and bedding every beauty in sight, she thought unkindly, and pulled into the driveway of Griffin’s Keep.
Her heart beating a little faster than usual, Kelsey rang the doorbell. The brass around it was pitted and tarnished.
Through the narrow windows on either side of the door she heard the thud of footsteps on the stairs, then the door was yanked open. Her jaw dropped.
Luke Griffin was wearing jeans with the button undone, and a thin white T-shirt that molded every muscle in his chest. There was an awful lot of muscle, she thought, swallowing, and forced her gaze upward. A long way up. Tall. Yep, he was tall, all right. His hair, ruffled and untidy, was dark as night; dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and jawline.
So was he handsome? His eyes, deepset, were of a startling blue under brows as dark as his hair; his lashes were like dabs of soot. Add a decided nose, jutting cheekbones and a strongly carved mouth that made her feel weak just to look at it, and she was left with a face infused with character, none of it gentle. Forceful, decisive, ruthless: the words tumbled through her brain. Handsome, she thought faintly, had been left way behind.
“Luke Griffin,” he said, running long, lean fingers through his disordered hair and stifling a yawn. “Sorry, I only just woke up. Jet-lagged the wrong way—this feels like three in the morning.”
“You told me to arrive at eight-thirty,” she said edgily.
“Yeah.” His smile shot through her like a sunburst. “Just goes to show what lousy decisions I make when I cross the dateline. Come on in, and I’ll show you what I want done.” His eyes fell to the package she was carrying. “Don’t tell me that’s coffee? Real coffee?”
“Colombian.”
“You’re a jewel among women,” he said fervently, and pulled her into the house, shutting the door behind her.
Because his fingers were gripping her elbow, she was entirely too close to that tautly muscled chest. He smelled warm and indescribably male: a man who’d just climbed out of bed.
Bed, Kelsey thought faintly. Torrid sex.
“Is something wrong?” he said.
“No! Of course not.” Maybe he slept naked.
He gave her another of those brain-sizzling smiles. “I know you’re here to sort papers. But if you could produce a decent mug of coffee in that horror of a kitchen, I’d be everlastingly grateful.”
Charm. Hadn’t gossip—indirectly—warned her he could charm the birds out of the trees? Or, to be more accurate, charm a woman who’d been determined to dislike him? “I’ll try,” she said.
“I’ll go have a shower. I promise I’ll be fully awake when I come downstairs, Ms North.”
“Kelsey. I prefer to be called Kelsey.”
“Luke, then.” He nodded to his left. “The boxes are in the third room down the hall.”
“Okay.”
Okay? Was that all she could come up with? Her mouth dry, she watched him take the stairs—a curving sweep of mahogany—two by two. His bare feet left tracks in the thick dust.
The kitchen. Coffee. Focus, Kelsey.
How would she last three days without jumping him? She, who’d never jumped a man in her life.
Blindly she marched down the hall until she located the kitchen, with its outmoded appliances and stale-smelling grease over counters and floor. For a moment Kelsey forgot about Luke Griffin, stabbed with pity that someone who’d been a very rich woman could have lived in such squalor.
If Luke had taken the time to visit he could have hired a housekeeper, Kelsey thought, finding a battered percolator in a cupboard and scrubbing it in the filthy sink. How could he have ignored his grandmother so woefully while she was alive, yet be so intent on going through her papers now that she was dead?
It was unforgivable.
Holding tight to her anger, Kelsey put the coffee on, then located the room with the boxes.
Piles of boxes, shutting out the light from the narrow window, leaning drunkenly against the wallpaper. It would take hours and hours to go through them. Was Luke Griffin out of his mind?
Biting her lip, Kelsey headed back to the kitchen and washed two mugs.
LUKE FASTENED HIS jeans and pulled a dark blue sweater over his head. Socks. He needed socks. He rummaged through his suitcase, wishing he could adjust to eastern time and feel even minimally awake.
Kelsey North didn’t in any way match her sexy voice.
Homely as a board fence.
Seizing a pair of black socks, he sat down on the bed to pull them on. Her tweed suit, too large and in a depressing shade of mud-brown, had a boxy jacket and a loose-cut long skirt; her shirt was man-tailored, no-nonsense white cotton, buttoned high to her throat, and she was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Her shoes were clunky brown lace-ups.
It was a mystery to him why a woman like her—a young woman, with a very sexy voice—would choose to make the worst of herself. Those awful glasses. That suit. She must have searched high and low to find something so ill-fitting. So hideous.
Even her lipstick was an unflattering shade of pale pink.
He dragged a comb through his hair. While her hair wasn’t a bad color, sort of a reddish-brown, how could a man appreciate it when it was skewered to her scalp? Her ankles weren’t bad, though.
He’d noticed every detail, he thought wryly. But hadn’t he been hoping, subconsciously, that the rest of her would interest him as much as her voice? That she might relieve the tedium of three days stuck in a place he didn’t want to be?
Not a hope.
Luke pulled on a pair of shoes, ran downstairs, then followed his nose to the kitchen. “Coffee,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Kelsey blinked. “You’d better taste it first.”
“I don’t need to. Name the date.”
She said, with complete truth, “Marriage isn’t on my list, Mr. Griffin.”
“List? Ah, of course. Organize Your Home—you’d have to be a maker of lists. Are they arranged alphabetically?” He poured himself a mug of coffee, added a liberal dollop of cream and raised it to his lips. “You can file this under H for heaven.”
“I’d file you under C for charm,” she said, more tartly than she’d intended.
“Why do I think that’s not a compliment?”
“Because it isn’t. Charm’s not to be trusted.” She poured her own coffee. “I’ve opened a couple of the boxes. What exactly are you hoping to find?”
Taking his time, Luke looked her up and down, from the sagging hem of her skirt to the pencil stuck in her hair. “B for business…I get the message.”
“At two hundred and fifty dollars an hour, that might be advisable.”
“Your tongue doesn’t match your outfit,” he said. “You’re clearly intelligent—so why do you dress like that?”
She flushed, and for the first time he noticed the delicate rise of her cheekbones under the thick rims of her glasses. She said tightly, “The way I dress is nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t require all the women in my life to be beautiful, or even pretty,” he said thoughtfully. “But I do require character—the confidence, the flair to dress like a beautiful woman.”
“All the women?” Kelsey repeated ironically. “I’m sure they mob you.”
“Money’s a powerful aphrodisiac.”
“Money is why I’m here,” she said crisply. “Would you please tell me what we’re looking for in all those boxes?”
Luke wished he knew the answer to that question. It was a very obvious question, and one he should have anticipated. He took another big gulp of coffee, feeling it course down his throat. “My mother was Sylvia Griffin’s daughter,” he said curtly. “We’re looking for anything at all relating to Rosemary Griffin. You’re to put any papers bearing her name aside without reading them.”
Kelsey’s flush deepened. “There’s no need to be insulting.”
“I’m just stating the parameters of the job.”
She should quit. Right now. But for six thousand dollars, surely she could swallow an insult or two? “Very well,” she said, with rather overdone politeness. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get started.”
As Luke watched her march out of the kitchen, he couldn’t even tell if her hips were swinging under that extraordinarily unsexy skirt. Her ankles, however, were indeed very shapely.
With an impatient sigh he drained his mug, then refilled it. He should have thought this whole venture through. By calling Kelsey in to help, he’d invited a virtual stranger to look for papers relating to his mother. How was she going to earmark them without at least partially reading them?
He was known worldwide for his strong sense of privacy; it drove the media crazy. Yet he’d just directed a lippy woman to go through files whose contents could be highly personal.
Well done, Luke. Grimacing, he poured cream in his coffee and left the kitchen. Kelsey was already set up on a table by the window, the first box open, papers neatly piled on the table. Luke brought another table in from the parlor, and followed suit. For the space of three hours, they worked in silence.
Kelsey was the first to stop. She stood up, stretching the tension from her neck. Tension which had more to do with sitting ten feet from Luke Griffin all morning than her futile search. His focus had been formidable, his face grim, nothing in his demeanor encouraging conversation.
“I haven’t found anything,” she said. “What about you?”
“Inventories of furniture, stock certificates and a grocery list.”
She looked over at the pile of boxes. “It’s a huge job.”
Luke wasn’t enjoying searching through the details of Sylvia Griffin’s life. Standing up, he said brusquely, “I’ll double your pay.”
Kelsey’s chin jerked up. “You will not.”
“When I make an offer like that, most people say Thank you very much, Mr. Griffin.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I’ll damn well pay you what I want.”
“Fine. I’ll donate the excess to a home for stray dogs. Or to a fund for elderly women who live alone and whose grandsons don’t even bother to visit them.”
He stepped closer, noticing with part of his brain how she stood her ground, even though panic was flaring in her eyes. “Until I got the message in Hong Kong three days ago that she’d died, I didn’t even know I had a grandmother,” he said, clipping off every word. “So don’t lay guilt trips on me, Kelsey North—I won’t wear ’em.”
“You didn’t know?” she repeated stupidly.
“Right.”
For reasons she couldn’t have articulated, Kelsey believed him instantly. “So that’s why you never visited her…and you got the message too late to attend her funeral.”
“On the day she was buried I was in the wilds of Cambodia.”
“Why didn’t your mother tell you about her?”
He winced; unerringly, Kelsey had asked the question that had been tormenting him for the last few days. He said evasively, “I can only assume my mother left this house before I was born. Don’t tell me gossip hasn’t been rampant in the village since Sylvia died—I’m sure you can fill in the details.”
Kelsey said quietly, “All I’ve ever heard is that your mother left home when she was seventeen.”
“Was she pregnant?” he flashed, the words out before he could censor them.
“People speculated that she was. But it was only speculation.”
“Let’s break for lunch,” he grated. “Be back here in an hour.”
His eyes were ice-blue, his mouth a tight line. Kelsey didn’t dare ask if his mother was still alive; he looked like he’d take her head off if she as much as opened her mouth. She brushed past him, her brain whirling. Earlier, she’d cast him as the villain, but she’d been wrong. He’d been totally ignorant of his grandmother’s existence.
Wouldn’t Alice at the post office love to hear that juicy little morsel?
Too bad. She wasn’t going to hear it from Kelsey.
Tomorrow she’d bring sandwiches, Kelsey decided, and work through lunch. And tonight she’d take a couple of boxes home with her and go through them there. The sooner this job was done the better. Luke Griffin didn’t just spell H for handsome or S for sex. He spelled D for danger.
CHAPTER TWO
THE FOLLOWING DAY, as dusk fell, Luke and Kelsey carried a couple of boxes out to her car. Luke drew a deep breath of the chill, damp air. January at its worst, he thought, crunching through a patch of unmelted snow, catching a glimpse of a pale moon through wind-torn clouds. Carefully balancing the box on the rear bumper, he opened the trunk, waited for Kelsey to dump her box in, then added his own. He slammed the trunk shut and opened her car door.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, and climbed in.
As she banged snow from her shoes, her skirt inadvertently rode up her legs. Admirable legs, he thought with sudden sharp interest, watching as she hastily hitched the thick tweed back in place. Her wrist, under the cuff of her jacket, was slender, the skin smooth. And it wasn’t the first time he’d seen a flush mount her cheekbones, which were also admirable.
He toyed with the very strong temptation to yank the glasses off her nose. Keeping his hands firmly at his sides, he said, “See you tomorrow.”
She mumbled something under her breath, thrust the key in the lock, clashed the gears and drove away. It was time he headed back to the city if he was having sexual fantasies about the frumpy Ms North, Luke thought caustically
Maybe he should ship the boxes to his penthouse and go through them at his leisure. If he was in Manhattan he could be having dinner at Cisco’s, with someone like Clarisse or Lindsay.
Neither of them had a temper. Unlike Kelsey. No, Clarisse and Lindsay wouldn’t risk ruffling his billion-dollar feathers.
He walked slowly up the front steps. A headache was banding his forehead. So far, Kelsey had found Rosemary Griffin’s birth certificate, and he’d found the bill from the exclusive clinic where his mother had been born. And that was it.
He’d learned one other thing. Kelsey might top America’s Worst-Dressed List, but she sure knew how to work. Thorough, uncomplaining and dedicated: if he’d been writing a reference for her, he’d have used all three words.
He could have added unforthcoming. The only fact he knew about her was that she’d lived all her life in Hadley. He’d found that out by asking.
He himself was in no mood for idle conversation. Why, then, did it irritate the hell out of him that she’d discouraged anything resembling personal chitchat?
Luke walked slowly up the front steps and forced himself to go through one more box. The wind was moaning in the gutters and rattling a loose shingle; suddenly he couldn’t stand being alone for one more minute in his grandmother’s house, a house as withholding of its secrets as its dead owner.
He ran upstairs, changed into a clean sweater and jeans, and picked up his car keys.
THREE-QUARTERS OF an hour later, Luke got out of his car, carrying a thick brown paper bag. Kelsey’s little house was set in a grove of old lilac bushes and tall yews; lights blazed in nearly every room. He climbed her front steps and rang the bell.
Janis Joplin was emoting at the top of her lungs. Luke rang the bell again, then turned the handle and found the door unlocked. The song came to an end as he pushed on the door and walked in. The hinges squealed like an animal in pain.
A woman came running down the stairs. When she saw him, she stopped dead on the fourth step down. Her hair was a tumbled mass of chestnut curls, framing eyes of a rich, velvety brown. She was slender-waisted, slim-hipped, with legs that seemed to go on forever.
Her low-necked orange shirt clung to her breasts; her jeans were skintight. Her toenails, he noticed blankly, were painted purple.
Her mouth…He gaped at it. Her lips, too, were orange, a glossy lipstick smoothed over their soft, voluptuous curves.
Lust coursed through his veins. He said awkwardly, “Oh…I was looking for Kelsey North. But I must have got the wrong address. Sorry to have bothered you…”
“Very funny,” the woman said, in a husky contralto voice.
“Kelsey?”
“Who did you think it was?”
“I—er, you’ve changed your clothes,” he said. With a distant part of his brain he wondered what had happened to the Luke Griffin who’d dated famous beauties from Manhattan to Milan, and who was unfailingly suave.
Descending the last of the stairs and putting her hands on her hips, she said coldly, “I don’t want any more boxes, and if you’ve lost your way I can direct you wherever you want to go.”
She smelled delicious. The other Kelsey, the brown tweed Kelsey, smelled of worthy soap. Swallowing hard, Luke said, “Have you eaten dinner?”
“No. I’ve been going through the boxes I brought home.”
“Good.” He indicated the bag in his hands. “I brought it with me. From the bistro ten miles down the road.” The bistro on the rich side of the peninsula, he thought, the same side as Griffin’s Keep. Hadley, seven miles away, might as well be on another planet.
“You brought dinner with you? To eat here?”
“Yes.” He gave her a winning smile. “I couldn’t stand one more evening alone in that house.”
Kelsey said carefully, “Am I missing something? I may only be from Hadley, but I thought it was customary to ask a woman if she wanted to have dinner with you.”
“If I’d phoned, would you have said yes?”
“No, of course I wouldn’t.”
Why of course? “I don’t like rejection,” Luke said, and smiled again. “So I just arrived.”
“I bet you haven’t been rejected in years.”
With an edge that surprised him, he replied, “Not since I earned my first million.”
“Poor little rich guy.”
“That’s me. What were you going to have for supper?”
“Scrambled eggs.”
“I can offer borscht, capons stuffed with wild rice, and blackberry mousse. Along with a reasonable Merlot.”
Her mouth was watering. For the food, she thought hastily. Not for the man who was leaning so casually on her newel post, his dark blue sweater deepening the blue of his eyes. Eyes that were laughing at her, full of the charm she’d professed to despise.
Much too easily for her peace of mind, Kelsey capitulated. “I can’t very well tell you to come in, because you already did. The dining room’s through there. I’ll get a couple of placemats from the kitchen.”
He walked down the narrow hall into a small room containing a scarred oak table, four chairs and an old-fashioned sideboard; beyond it was a living room in a barely controlled state of chaos. Cardboard packing boxes, piles of books, clothing and sportsgear… Men’s clothes, he thought. Hockey and soccer gear. What was going on?
Looked like she’d just booted her husband out, and his stuff was following him out the door at the first opportunity.
He studied the scuff marks on a pair of skates, his brain in high gear, his curiosity intense. Kelsey wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he always paid attention to that particular detail. Married women had never been on the cards for him. Too complicated. Particularly when there were so many single ones all too ready to play.
Then Kelsey marched into the dining room and put two placemats and a dish of butter on the table. “Cutlery’s in the drawer,” she said. “I’ll get the wine glasses.”
He put the bag of food down on the table. Knives, forks and spoons were jumbled together in the drawer. All sterling silver, he noticed, and all badly in need of polishing. As she came back in with the glasses and a corkscrew, he said lightly, “Do you spend so much time organizing other people’s stuff that you don’t get around to your own?”
“I’ve had other things on my mind. I’ll get some serving spoons.”
As she moved past him, the overhead light caught her hair, streaking it copper and bronze. Her hips moved delectably in the tight denim. He heard himself say, with a bluntness that dismayed him, “Why the brown tweed suit? Which should, in my opinion, be tossed in the nearest garbage can.”
“Open the bag, Luke. Let’s eat.”
As she sat down across from him, he said blandly, “I see your train of thought—from one bag to another.”
A smile twitched her lips. Those eminently kissable lips. “The suit belonged to my mother,” she said rapidly, watching as he put a bowl in front of her and removed the plastic lid. “She was a very pretty woman with the clothes sense of a rhinoceros. Mmm…the soup smells luscious.”
“Have some sour cream on it. Do you always wear that suit to work?”
“Only for unattached men with a reputation.”
“So there’s been gossip in the village about me as well as my mother?”
She took a sip of borscht and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Not unfounded, in your case.”
“I like women. So what?”
“In the plural.”
“One at a time,” he said, rather more sharply than he’d intended.
“Serial fidelity?”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
As she shrugged, shadows lingered in the little hollows under her collarbones. He wanted to press his lips into those hollows, find out if her skin was as silky smooth as it looked, smell her hair, trace the slim line of her throat to that other hollow at its base.
Dammit, Luke thought, he needed to bed someone like Clarisse or Lindsay. Hot, slick sex, with no entangling emotions. Too bad he’d cooled both those particular relationships in the last year. Out of—he had to be honest—boredom.
He could always find someone else.
“Serial fidelity must be very convenient,” Kelsey said. “For you.”
Luke dragged himself back to reality. “The women I date always know the score, because I spell it out for them. If they don’t like the rules, they don’t have to play the game.”
“How sophisticated,” Kelsey said in a brittle voice. “Why don’t we change the subject? I’d hate for a discussion of your sexual standards—such as they are—to ruin this delicious soup.”
There were pink patches high on her cheekbones; her skin swept in creamy curves to the corners of her mouth. But he wasn’t going to think about her mouth. “So what are you wearing to work tomorrow, Kelsey? Now that I’ve found you out.”
Her thick dark lashes hiding her eyes, she said calmly, “Jeans, I guess. What were you doing in Hong Kong last week?”
Agreeably, he began to talk about his latest real estate deals along the Pacific Rim. He didn’t elaborate on the side trip to Cambodia.
As Kelsey got up to remove the soup dishes and bring some plates from the kitchen, Luke pushed back his chair and wandered over to examine the painting on the far wall. A quite astonishing painting, he realized, his interest quickening as he tried to read the signature. It was an abstract, seething with subdued energy, color escaping from an overwhelmingly dark background in small explosions of delight.
Hearing her come back in the room, he said, “Who painted this?”
“I did,” she said reluctantly.
“You did?”
She raised her brows. “The dinner’s getting cold.”
“Recently?” he rapped.
“Six months ago.”
More and more he was inclined to believe in an ousted husband. “Do you have more?”
She had a roomful of them upstairs. “A few. Oh, look, asparagus. I adore it. And the wild rice looks scrumptious.”
Clarisse had the appetite of a sparrow, while Lindsay was allergic to just about everything. It was fun, Luke thought in faint surprise, to share a meal with someone who appreciated it. Smoothly, he began describing his latest visit to the Guggenheim.
As Kelsey swallowed the last mouthful of mousse, she sat back and said spontaneously, “That was a wonderful meal—the bistro only opened last summer, and I’ve never eaten there. Thank you, Luke.”
She was looking right at him, her eyes the glossy brown of melted chocolate. The warmth in them hitched at his breath.
“You’re welcome,” he said. She wasn’t his type. She was from the backwoods, all excited about a takeout meal. Get real, Luke. He added casually, “Can I see more of the paintings?”
She said grudgingly, “There are three others in the living room. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Picking his way past a mesh bag of soccer balls and a heap of well-worn cleats, he checked out the other paintings, and felt again the stirring of excitement that genuine creativity called up in him. Each of the three gave that same sense of something desperately striving to burst its bonds. Untutored paintings, yes, but full of raw talent.
Forgetting to watch where he was going, he knocked over a pile of textbooks. A signature leaped out at him, written in an untidy masculine scrawl: Dwayne North.
Kelsey’s husband. The reason she painted pictures frantic for release.
Not stopping to think, Luke marched into the kitchen. “What’s with the husband?”
“Husband?” she said blankly. “Whose husband?”
“Yours. The owner of the soccer gear.”
She gave an incredulous laugh. “I do not have, nor have I ever had, a husband. Ditto for fiancé or live-in lover.” And there, she thought, is the story of my life.
His eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Then the guy who owns the cleats and the chemistry texts can’t be your son.”
“Gee, you’re good at math—must be handy for keeping track of all your women.”
Luke wasn’t used to being laughed at. He said abruptly, “You should be doing something with your art—what are you waiting for? I can’t believe you spend your time cleaning out closets for rich people when you’re so obviously loaded with talent.”
Her chin snapped up at his tone. “I don’t see why my paintings are remotely your business.”
“When I see work like yours hung where only you can see it, I get a little irked.”
“If this is irked, I’d hate to see angry. Coffee’s made. You can drink it now or take it with you.”
“What’s the story, Kelsey? Who owns the cleats and the chemistry books?”
Luke had just treated her to one of the best meals in her life, and she had no reason not to tell him. Other than pure cussedness. “My eldest brother, Dwayne. First year med school. Age twenty-one.”
“What’s wrong with me? I didn’t even think of a brother.”
“Like I said, the eldest. Glen’s twenty, he’s studying computer technology; the hockey gear’s his. Kirk’s eighteen, he started forestry school a week ago. He took his lacrosse gear with him.” She gave Luke a level look. “I brought them up. I’m an expert in teenage psychology and hamburgers with the works. I didn’t have the time to flit off to art school every morning once they were on the school bus—I was too busy keeping a roof over our heads.”
“They all lived here with you?” Luke said, feeling his way.
“They sure did. I’d just started cleaning out Kirk’s room the day you called. Five unmatched socks under the bed, a wedge of mummified pizza and six copies of Playboy. I did my best to civilize all three of them, but it was uphill work. And now they’re gone.” The crazy thing was that she missed them, even though she’d been counting the days until she was free.
“Your parents?”
Her voice flattened. “They both died in a train wreck when I was eighteen. No other relatives. So it fell to me to bring up my brothers.” Which was also the story of her life.
“So this was your parents’ house?”
“At the time, it seemed best to keep things as normal as possible.” With a flick of temper she added, “So now you know why my paintings are hanging on my own four walls.”
“You sacrificed ten years of your life for the sake of your brothers?” he said inimically.
“It wasn’t a sacrifice! Well, not really. Besides, what choice did I have?”
“Plenty, I’d have thought—you could have left.”
“My brothers and I had just lost both our parents,” Kelsey said tersely. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d abandoned them. And if you don’t understand that, I don’t know where the heck you’re coming from.”
Ferociously Luke tried to batten down the emotions roiling in his chest: bafflement, fury and pain. His mother hadn’t hung in as Kelsey had. The first eight years of his life had been a study in broken promises.
He said sharply, “How is it the three boys are all off at college and you’re still home?”
“Give me time—Kirk just left last week,” she retorted. “As you can see, step one is to clean up the house. Then I’ll put it on the market.”
Luke looked around, taking in the battered table, the faded paint, the general air of a house worn down by use and a lack of money. Hadley was a rundown fishing village; she wouldn’t get much for the property. “Then what?”
She glowered at him. “You’ll be happy to know I’m planning to go to art school on the proceeds—together with what you’re paying me.”
“So that’s why you changed your mind about working for me?”
“Pride and Practicality. Jane Austen, the modern version.”
“My offer to double your pay still stands,” Luke said.
“I don’t take charity.”
“Call it support for the arts,” he said with a grin.
“You know what bugs me about you? You make me angry enough to spit nickels and then you make me laugh.”
You know what scares me about you? he thought. I’m as far from bored as I can be.
He kept this observation to himself. Okay, so Kesley had been dealt a tough hand, and she hadn’t folded. Unlike his mother. But she still wasn’t his type. Far from it. Too unsophisticated. Too many emotions too close to the surface.
Too real.
So why was he sitting here watching the play of light over her cheekbones, the little dimple at the corner of her mouth when she smiled, the sweet curve of her breasts under her tight shirt? Watching and lusting after her, fire streaking straight to his loins in a way he deplored.
He said at random, “Did you find anything in the boxes you brought home?”
“Oh—I forgot! Yes, I did. An envelope of photographs. What did I do with them?”
His heart lurched in his chest. He didn’t have a single photograph of his mother.
Kelsey was rummaging through a pile of papers by the telephone and unearthed a faded brown envelope, which she held out to him. The flap was unglued. She said, following the direction of his eyes, “It was open. I had to look inside to see if it was anything important.”
He hated the fact that she’d seen the photos first. As if he couldn’t help himself, he pulled one out. A pretty little girl was standing under an apple tree that was in full bloom; she was laughing, clutching a book to her chest. It was, unquestionably, his mother.
Kelsey had busied herself pouring the coffee. But something in the quality of the silence caused her to lift her eyes. Luke was standing like a man stunned, his gaze riveted to the picture in his hands. She felt a surge of compassion so strong it took her aback. Hastily she pushed the cream toward him, watching him shove the photo back in the envelope as though it had bitten him. He said flatly, “I should go.”
“What about your coffee?”
“I’ll skip the coffee—I’ll go back and sort through a couple more boxes.”
“Luke,” she said with careful restraint, “I wish you’d tell me why this search is so important to you—why you’re paying me all this money for dribs and drabs of information about your mother.”
His knuckles tightened on the envelope. “You don’t need to know why! Just give me anything relating to her and keep your mouth shut in the village.”
Hot color stained Kelsey’s cheeks. “I don’t indulge in local gossip.”
He should apologize. He didn’t. Instead he dropped the envelope on the table and closed the distance between them in two quick strides. Taking her in his arms, he plundered her mouth, his teeth grazing her lip.
And was lost in the red haze, the furious ache of hunger.
CHAPTER THREE
FOR THE SPACE of two full seconds Kelsey was frozen in Luke’s embrace. His arms were tight as steel bands. Through her palms, pressed to his chest, she felt the heat of his body, his muscles’ taut strength. She couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to.
She didn’t want to. The hard pounding of his heart beneath her fingertips excited her beyond measure. She’d never been kissed like this in her life, with such searching intensity, such a depth of need and desire. She looped her fingers around his neck, feeling with a shock of pleasure the silken thickness of his hair. When his tongue brushed her lower lip, she opened to him, yearning for him to taste her, to invade her.
His hands moved lower, grasping her hips, thrusting her against another hardness; like flame, desire surged through her veins. Knees weak, she clung to him. Her tongue danced with his, their mouths welded in a kiss that she wanted to last forever.
Then he thrust her away so roughly that she stumbled, bumping her hip against the table. He said harshly, “Forget I did that—it won’t happen again. I’ll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow.”
The image of her shocked face imprinted on his brain, Luke strode down the hall as though all the demons in hell were after him. What had possessed him to kiss her like that? Like a man starved for nourishment. Like an addict needing his fix.
He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone. Never had.
He unlatched the door and stepped outside into the chill star-spangled night. That was what he needed, he thought savagely, a sense of perspective. The stars were good at providing that.
He’d just broken two of his cardinal rules: never get involved with an employee, and never make the first move without explaining the way the game worked. Not that kissing Kelsey North could in any way be called a game. From the moment his lips had found hers he’d been engulfed by her. Absorbed in her. Desperate for her.
Thank God he’d found the strength to walk away from her. And away from her was where he intended to stay.
His car was parked under the trees. He fumbled for his keys in his pocket, then whipped around as he heard steps behind him on the gravel driveway.
Kelsey said jaggedly, “You forgot the photographs.”
Her hair was in a wild tumble around her face, her eyes huge dark pools. Through the thin fabric of her shirt he could see the little bumps of her nipples. Goddammit, he wasn’t going to kiss her again. He took the envelope from her with the tips of his fingers. “Thanks.”
She stepped back, hugging her arms to her chest. “I’m not one of your super-sophisticated Manhattan women, Luke. Don’t toy with me like that—kissing me as though I’m the only woman in the world and then dropping me as though I disgust you.”
“Disgust?” His laugh had no amusement in it. “If I hadn’t dropped you, we’d be making love on the kitchen floor right now.”
She took another step back. “Am I supposed to believe that?”
“You know I wanted you.”
Shivering, she said in a low voice, “I’ve never met anyone like you. I don’t know what to believe.”
He was suddenly pierced with guilt; wasn’t she telling him she was way out of her depth? “Go inside—you’re cold. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With a tiny sound of distress, she whirled and ran for the house. The door slammed shut behind her.
Luke got into his car and drove back to Griffin’s Keep, grimly concentrating on the road. He was going to put her right out of his mind. His lifestyle didn’t begin to accommodate women like Kelsey North. Never had and never would.
The mansion’s dark bulk loomed against the stars, secretive and unwelcoming. Could he blame his mother for running away? Would the contents of the boxes bring him any closer to understanding her?
He went inside, and in the room where he and Kelsey had been working he spread the photos over the table. They were all images of Rosemary as a young girl; she looked happy and carefree. He couldn’t ever remember her looking happy like that.
Briefly he buried his head in his hands, his nostrils assaulted with the long-ago smells of the apartment block where they’d lived. Rotting garbage, urine, cigarette butts, the lazy drift of dope.
He’d never have to go back to a place like that. The money he’d made since then guaranteed it. He was safe. As that little boy in a slum apartment block hadn’t ever been safe.
THAT NIGHT LUKE went through four more boxes, rewarded by finding some of Rosemary’s school reports. Doesn’t like to sit still and Stirs up trouble were repeated themes. It was nearly three in the morning when he trailed upstairs, every limb weighted with exhaustion. But when he fell into bed it wasn’t Rosemary who kept him wide-eyed and awake, staring up into the darkness. It was Kelsey.
He loathed how desperate he’d felt, how driven. He liked sex as much as the next man. But he also liked being in control.
Tomorrow—today, rather—he wouldn’t lay as much as a finger on her. If she had any sense, she’d wear the brown tweed suit to work.
Trouble was, now he knew what was hidden underneath it. And he could remember all too clearly how she’d opened to his kiss, digging her nails into his nape, her hips pressed to his erection.
Hell, he’d never get to sleep at this rate. With a superhuman effort, Luke forced himself to focus on the trend in oil prices, and eventually he did fall asleep. To dream a long-familiar dream of the shadowy woman who had been his mother. She was holding out a pretty red candy and promising it could be his. As he reached for it, already tasting its sweetness, she snatched it back at the very last minute…
Later, much later, he gradually sank into another dream. One of Kelsey lying naked in a field of summer flowers, opening her arms to him, voluptuous and beautiful.
EVEN THOUGH SHE was tempted to do so, Kelsey didn’t wear the brown tweed suit the next morning. But the jeans she chose were loose-fitting, and her sweater enveloped her from throat to hip in bright green wool.
If Luke Griffin made the slightest move toward her, she’d belt him first and then she’d quit.
In January’s weak sunlight, Griffin’s Keep looked ridiculously like the haunted house of a thousand books and movies. She marched up the front steps and found the door firmly locked.
Yesterday Luke had unlocked it before she’d arrived. Not in the mood for subtlety, she leaned hard on the bell. Once, twice, three times. With absolutely no effect. His car, a sleek Mercedes, was parked by the garage, so she knew he was here.
Had he changed his mind overnight and fired her? If so, would he bother to let her know? He was the great Luke Griffin, accountable to no one.
She banged on the panels of the door, hurting her fist. Her jaw set mutinously, she then walked around the house until she came to the room where they worked. Standing on tiptoes, she peered inside. Empty. So was the kitchen. By now it was a quarter to nine.
Kelsey had slept very badly, her dreams full of enough torrid sex for ten women. The man she’d cavorted with in purple satin sheets that exactly matched her toenails had been Luke, an unabashedly and gloriously naked Luke.
No wonder she felt out of sorts this morning. She stormed back to her car and laid on the horn. Although for all she knew, he slept at the back of the house. She then went through the whole bell-ringing routine again. No Luke, apologetic or otherwise.
Fine. She’d go home and scour Kirk’s room from one end to the other.
However, as she thrust the key in the ignition, the sun went behind a cloud and the ugly turrets and pinnacles of Griffin’s Keep were shrouded in shadow. It wasn’t just a depressing house, she thought, it was downright foreboding.
Maybe Luke had slipped on the stairs and hurt himself? Maybe he was ill? Should she go for help?
Unease nibbling at her composure, Kelsey got out of the car and circled the house one more time. Against the south wall a stout Virginia creeper clung to the worn shingles, climbing all the way to the brick chimney. Partway up, it skirted a window that was open several inches.
She’d been a daredevil climber as a kid, outdoing the boys because she had no fear of heights. She shucked off her jacket, glad she’d worn her hiking boots, and started to climb.
It was a cinch. She placed each foot with care, wrapping her fingers around the stout branches, the exercise warming her, the little adventure lifting her spirits. Her life had been too dull for too long. She should add adventure to the list. Near the top, with a capital A.
The window slid open on its hasp. Kelsey levered herself over the sill, landing with a small thud on the floor.
She was in a bedroom. Luke’s bedroom.
He was fast asleep on the double bed, his face buried in the pillows, the sheets twisted around his waist. He was also naked, the light falling over the long curves of his spine.
Her dream had collided with reality. Except the sheets were white, not purple.
Kelsey crept closer across the worn floorboards. His torso was rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing; his hair lay dark on the pillow. He had, she thought unwillingly, a most impressive set of muscles.
Clearly he wasn’t sick. She should go straight downstairs and get to work. Then her heart leaped into her throat as he stirred, muttering something under his breath. She froze to the spot, watching in dismay as he turned over. He rubbed his eyes, their vivid blue focusing on her. As she opened her mouth, with no idea what she was going to say, he said, in a voice still blurred with sleep, “I was dreaming about you—come here.”
She gave a startled yelp as he seized her wrist and tugged her toward him. Losing her balance, she fell on top of him, her hands splayed on the sheet, her breasts crushed to his bare chest. He looped one thigh over hers, pinning her down, and buried his hands in her hair, pulling her head down to his. She had time to think, I’m in bed with a man who’s tall, dark and handsome. Then his lips were locked to hers, moving slick and hot until she dissolved into a pool of longing. She moaned his name in helpless surrender, assaulted by the heat of his body, the shock of bone and muscle and sinew.
With strong fingers he dragged her sweater up to her waist; a shudder rippled along her spine as his palms stroked her back, warm and very sure of themselves. “Your skin,” he muttered. “I knew it would feel like silk.” Then he was fumbling with the clasp on her bra, freeing her breasts.
As his fingers, those clever fingers, found her nipple, teasing it to the hardness of stone, she closed her eyes, drowning in pleasure and a raging hunger she couldn’t possibly have denied. She leaned forward, finding his mouth with hers, greedy to taste, frantic to give.
So she was generous, Luke thought in a rush of gratitude. Hadn’t he known she would be? Hadn’t he known how perfectly her breast would fit his palm? How the scent of her hair would envelop him?
He had to have her. He’d been a fool last night to think he could walk away from her without a backward look.
Rearing up, carrying her with him, he covered her with his body. His kiss deepened until he could scarcely breathe, his heart hammering in his ears. Or was it her heart? Swiftly he hauled her sweater further up, baring her exquisite breasts, all ivory curves and pink tips in the pale light. As he flicked her nipples with his tongue, desperate to taste her, she arched to meet him, her eyes wide-held, shining dark with desire. Her hips moved beneath him, nearly driving him out of his mind. He thrust once, twice, against the denim of her jeans, and heard the tiny cry as her breath caught in her throat.
He had to have her, Luke thought again, striving to breathe past the tightness in his chest. But not here. Not in this joyless house, in a bed not his own, where he’d been visited by nightmares.
He said jaggedly, “Kelsey, we’ve got to stop. God knows I want you. But this isn’t the time or the place.”
Had he ever done anything so against every instinct in his body? So contrary to his own impulsions?
Kelsey was clutching him by the shoulders, her nails digging in his flesh. His voice seemed to come from such a long way away that she had to struggle to take the words in. Stop, he’d said. We’ve got to stop…
Her body, so lissom, so wanton, was a stranger to her. And it was he who’d brought that about. His skillful mouth, his roaming hands, had changed her into a woman she scarcely knew.
She pushed hard against his chest, shaking her hair back, yanking at her sweater to hide her nakedness. Swiftly Luke brought a hand up to still hers. “Wait,” he said huskily, “let me look at you.”
“I—”
“You’re so lovely… Stroking you is like stroking a pearl, smooth and exquisitely shaped.”
Poetry was the last thing she would have expected from Luke Griffin. Dumbstruck, Kelsey watched his eyes wander from her shoulders to her peaked breasts, then lower to the gentle narrowing of her waist and the dip of her navel. The expression on his face brought sudden tears to her eyes. Had anyone ever looked at her like that? As though she was the most beautiful creature in the world?
It was he who then pulled her sweater down. Smiling at her, he patted her on the bottom. “Up,” he said. “We’re going to finish those boxes today if it’s the last thing we do.”
How could he switch so quickly from assaulting her with pleasure to everyday practicalities? This isn’t the time or the place… Did that mean he still wanted to make love to her? His words, those lyrical words that had melted her heart, they must have meant something…mustn’t they?
She still had her hiking boots on, she noticed distantly.
“Kelsey, are you okay?”
He was untangling himself from the sheets. He was, as she’d suspected, stark naked. Her eyes skittered away from him. “Fine,” she said in a choked voice.
“Coffee,” he said authoritatively. “An order from the boss.”
Kelsey stood up, her eyes flicking over the unmade bed, the tattered wallpaper. Anywhere but at him, in this dingy, too-small bedroom, where a man’s body had drowned her in desire. With a strangled gasp she fled the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Briefly she leaned against the panels, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. Her exit had been about as undignified as her entrance. Neither had been even remotely sophisticated.
She was beginning to hate that word.
Behind the panels she heard the floorboards creak as Luke moved around the room, and she took to the stairs as fast as she could. He’d better be fully dressed when he came downstairs, or she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
She could have eaten him alive, devoured him without a thought for the consequences.
For once, Kelsey was glad to be in the archaic kitchen, where she now had a small area clean enough that making coffee had become a comfortable routine. As the scent of Colombian blend teased her nostrils, she hooked her bra, patted her cheeks with cold water, and tried very hard to think.
Torrid sex. She now knew exactly what it felt like.
Wonderful. Overwhelming. Powerful. Frustrating. Oh, she could go on forever.
But was it what she wanted?
Freedom to be herself, to be on her own, was what she wanted. If torrid sex translated itself into an affair with Luke Griffin—even a short-lived affair—wouldn’t she lose something she’d craved for years?
Or would she berate herself for cowardice instead? Sex, so she’d read, was supposed to free the creative impulse, feed the artistic muse. Somehow she didn’t think what had happened upstairs in that gloomy bedroom had had much to do with her muse.
With a wry twist of her mouth, Kelsey decided caffeine was necessary for tackling such philosophical issues. But at least she’d distanced herself from that woman in the bedroom who would, in an instant, have begged for more, more, more…
She was seated at the table in the room down the hall, busily working, when Luke wandered in ten minutes later. “Great coffee,” he said absently, and sat down at the adjoining table.
Just as if he hadn’t kissed her senseless only minutes ago, she thought furiously, flicking through a pile of bank statements and subduing several shrewish replies.
“Did I forget to lock the door last night?” he added. “Is that how you got in?”
“I climbed the Virginia creeper up to your room.”
He gave a choked laugh. “A cat burglar—where did you learn to do that?”
“In the ivy on the old oak tree behind our house.”
“I must remember to keep the silver locked up when you’re around.”
“You do that.”
“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
He was openly laughing at her, teeth gleaming, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Her own teeth gritted, she fought against his charm. “I’m glad I amuse you.”
“You do more than amuse me—that’s the problem,” he said. “But why did you bother climbing the creeper? Why didn’t you just go home?”
“I thought you might have broken your neck on the back stairs.”
“You were worried about me?” he said, taken aback.
She was scowling at him. “Yes.”
“Oh,” Luke said. He wasn’t used to anyone worrying about him; he wasn’t at all sure he liked the sensation. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “And now we’d better get to work. We’ll quit at noon for lunch.”
If she was smart, Kelsey thought, she’d quit right now. She took another sheaf of papers out of the box and bent to her task.
She had a delightful profile, Luke decided, her nose straight, her chin with a decided firmness. She was certainly no push-over. Unfortunately, she was no sophisticate either.
He had to have her. That hadn’t changed. Even though he’d doused himself in a tepid shower and done his best to conjure up images of Clarisse and Lindsay.
His best hadn’t been good enough. They’d dropped off his radar. Kelsey was the one he wanted. And Kelsey wanted him. She was twenty-eight years old, he thought, old enough to know that affairs, by definition, didn’t last. Besides, after bringing up three boys, she must be all too ready to break out.
Remembering how she’d clambered up the creeper filled him with amusement at her skill, and sheer terror because she could have fallen.
First things first. Once the weight of these damned boxes was off his shoulders, he’d be able to concentrate.
By noon, he’d found school reports where Rosemary had been getting into far more serious trouble than talking in class, and Kelsey had turned up a newspaper report about Rosemary’s second appearance in juvenile court, this time for drinking and driving. Training his face to immobility, he put them to one side. At four-thirty, while Kelsey was in the kitchen brewing another pot of coffee, he came across three letters.
The first was from Rosemary to Sylvia, demanding money and making it clear Rosemary had been banished in disgrace from Griffin’s Keep in her third month of pregnancy, with less than a hundred dollars to her name. Sylvia’s reply, dated several weeks later, was cold and to the point: she would pay for admission to an addictions clinic, but nothing else. The third letter was Rosemary’s furious refusal, laced with invective. From the dates on the letters, he’d been about six.
Addictions clinic. With all his strength Luke fought back images merciless in their clarity. But amidst this turmoil one thing was obvious: at Griffin’s Keep the recipe had already been in place. A miserly, heartless mother. A rebellious young girl, full of spirit and hungry for life. An unplanned pregnancy, and exile.
And he, a little boy, caught between two generations.
He buried his face in his hands. How he hated being ambushed by the past like this! He’d overcome the past, or so he’d thought. Wasn’t his bank account proof enough?
“Luke! Are you all right?”
Cursing, he raised his head. “Yeah…tired, that’s all.”
His slumped shoulders, the defeated bend of his neck, had frightened Kelsey. If only he’d share with her what this all meant, she thought painfully. “I brought you a chocolate doughnut,” she said, trying to steel her heart against the tension in his jaw and his hooded eyes.
Secrets. She’d never liked them.
She sat down, took a bite of her own doughnut, and went back to work. Four hours later they’d emptied the last box, which yielded three more reports from juvenile court. Luke dumped them on his pile and ran his fingers through his hair. “Thank God that’s over.”
He looked exhausted, Kelsey thought, yet tense as a coiled spring. She said impulsively, “Luke, let’s get out of here. I hate this house.”
“You and me both.”
“Come to my place. I’ll cook supper—although it won’t be a gourmet meal like last night. Fish and chips. Glen always says I make the best fish and chips the length of the shore.”
Why am I doing this? she thought in horror. After what happened this morning, I’m inviting Luke into my home? Where there are four beds? That’s not just crazy, it’s suicidal.
Or is it freedom?
How was she supposed to know the difference?
CHAPTER FOUR
TRYING TO WORK the tension out of his shoulders, Luke said, “Dinner at your place? I’ll be right behind you, Kelsey, once I’ve taken a bottle of wine from the cellar. Sylvia Griffin owes me—I might bring two bottles. I tell you, if I never see Griffin’s Keep again, it won’t be a day too soon.”
“I’m with you on that,” Kelsey said with a grin, and hurried out to her car.
When Luke arrived, ten minutes after her, she had the curtains drawn against the snow flurries that were whipping past the window, candles were lit on the kitchen shelves, and a semicircle of candles flickered on the dining room table. She had laid the table for two: herself and a man who qualified in spades as tall, dark and handsome.
Which just went to show you shouldn’t tempt fate, she thought, or you might get what you asked for. And discover that nothing was quite as simple as you’d expected. She passed Luke the corkscrew. The wine was delicious, full-bodied and fruity; letting it run down her throat, she decided in a rush of rebellion to enjoy herself. Sure, she was out of her depth. But so what? She’d managed to field everything that life had thrown at her so far. Why should Luke be any different?
Swathing herself in an oversize apron that made her feel minimally safer, she began mixing the batter for the fish.
Too restless to sit down, Luke prowled around the kitchen, letting its warmth and friendliness envelop him. There was a calendar from a charity organization on the wall over the phone. He said absently, “That’s a very fine orphanage.”
Kelsey glanced up. “How do you know? Have you been there?”
“Yeah,” he said, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “On my last trip to Hong Kong.”
“In between real estate deals, you just happened to drop into an orphanage in Cambodia?”
“I told you I was in Cambodia when Sylvia was buried—it’s why they couldn’t reach me in time.”
“Do you support the orphanage?” she asked, frowning at him.
Her big brown eyes precluded easy lies. “I paid to have it built,” he said. “The charity runs it.”
Her hands stilled. She said shrewdly, “How many other orphanages have you built, Luke?”
“A few. Here and there.”
She waved a wooden spoon at him. “How many?”
“Twenty-four. And don’t try and make me into some kind of saint.”
“There’s already a St Luke,” she said dryly, “the position’s taken. You’re not a saint; you’re a rich man who cares…and puts the caring into action and cold hard cash.”
“Drink your wine,” Luke said, then changed the subject. “Can I peel some potatoes?”
She passed him a knife, her eyes velvety warm with approval; she’d donated to that charity for years, her heart wrung by children who by circumstance and violence had been robbed of parents. “The bag’s in the end cupboard.”
Her apron was shapeless, her sleeves were rolled up and there was a dab of batter on her chin. He wanted to kiss her, Luke thought. Another of those devastating kisses into which he sank and lost himself.
Hastily he located the bag of potatoes in the cupboard and began peeling one. The homely task was oddly relaxing; the ghosts who had been haunting him ever since he’d arrived at Griffin’s Keep were gradually receding.
Domesticated, he thought. Undemanding. Not his usual scene.
Kelsey’s wrists were slender, blue-veined. If he lowered his head, laid his lips to that little hollow in her ivory skin, he’d be able to feel her pulse, the very voice of her blood.
Even the words he was using were changing, he thought in exasperation. When had he ever felt the urge to spout poetry to any of his female companions?
The short answer was never.
Was he going to take Kelsey to bed tonight, in her own home, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of the three boys she’d raised?
He’d be back in Manhattan tomorrow. Would he then forget about her?
With vicious swipes Luke began slicing the potatoes. Ten minutes later, when they were sizzling in the hot fat, Kelsey said, “Ketchup and tartar sauce in the refrigerator—you could put them on the dining room table. Vinegar, salt and pepper on the counter.” Expertly, she flipped a fillet in the pan.
There were two colored photographs held to the refrigerator door by magnets. In one, three husky young men surrounded their sister, all four of them laughing into the camera. In the other, an older couple, also laughing, stood with their arms around each other on the porch of Kelsey’s house.
“My parents,” Kelsey said. “It’s silly, but I still miss them.” Her face softened. “They’d been married over twenty years when they died, and loved each other more with each passing day. In a way, it was a good thing they went together…”
Wincing away from all the implications of what she’d just said, unable to think of anything to add to it, Luke took out the sauces and left the kitchen. The living room was still in a state of chaos. Her three paintings drew him like a magnet; gazing at them, he was assailed by a sharp pang of conscience. Take Kelsey to bed and then abandon her without a second thought? He couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a manipulator, like Clarisse, or all on the surface like Lindsay; Kelsey was pure emotion and sensitivity. Each brushstroke proved it.
He had to have her; every cell in his body impelled him to that end. But at what cost? And on whose terms?
As he turned away, a piece of paper on top of a pile of newspapers caught his eye, partly because the writing was in bright red ink. It was headed THE FREEDOM LIST. Quickly his eyes skimmed the page. Go to art school. Travel. Paint a masterpiece. Have torrid sex.
He jolted to a stop. This last directive had been crossed out. Have an affair had been printed above it.
His pang of conscience vanished in a surge of relief. So Kelsey wanted an affair; perhaps she had left the list out so he’d read it. If the few kisses they’d exchanged were anything to go by, the sex would indeed be torrid.
Paint a masterpiece. His brain made a lightning-swift leap. His good friend Rico was a world-renowned artist.
“Dinner’s ready, Luke,” Kelsey called from the kitchen. “Come and get it.”
Come and get it… Oh, yes, he thought, and went back into the kitchen.
The fish was tender and flaky, the batter crisp and the French fries, drenched in vinegar and salt, delicious. Luke said soulfully, “Why haven’t any of the men in Hadley snapped you up? You’re gorgeous and you’ve got a body to die for—and your fish and chips are the nearest thing to heaven.”
“There was the small matter of three boys underfoot, and a dearth of eligible men.”
No wonder torrid sex had been written in red ink. Luke said, squeezing lemon juice over his fish, “I noticed your list in the living room—”
“My list?” she squeaked, blanching. “Where? I didn’t leave it out, did I? Luke, you didn’t read it!”
“You did, and I did.” He gave her his most charming smile. “It was difficult not to—the ink’s eye-catching. So I have a proposal for you. For both of us, actually. A joint venture.”
From ivory-pale, her cheeks had flushed as red as the ink. She said in a rush, “I meant to take it upstairs. But then I must have gotten distracted sorting Glen’s old hockey gear. You didn’t really read it?”
Do a sales pitch, Luke. Fast. “I own a resort on a little island in the Bahamas,” he said with another big smile. “My good friend Rico Albeniz is flying down there later this week to spend a few days—have you heard of him?” When she nodded, he went on, “I’ll call him tonight. You and I will fly down there tomorrow, and you can have a lesson or two with him.”
“With Rico Albeniz? He wouldn’t even look at me—he’s famous!”
“He’ll look at you. If I ask him to.”
“Money talks?” she said coldly, forking up some chips.
“He’s my friend,” Luke said, an edge to his voice.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “But—”
“I haven’t finished,” Luke said patiently. “While we’re there, you and I will share a bed. Have an affair. Don’t you see? Travel, torrid sex, and the chance to paint—you can cross three things off your list at once.”
“How very efficient,” she said, in an unreadable voice.
“It’s called time-management,” he added with a touch of smugness, and took another mouthful of fish.
“Spoken like a businessman.”
He leaned forward. “You want me, Kelsey, and I want you—as I swear I’ve never wanted a woman before. You’re as far from my usual kind of lover as you can be, and I should be running in the opposite direction. I don’t normally babble on about pearls or orphanages or my mother, and I don’t know why I’m doing it with you. But I do know one thing—I won’t rest until I have you in my bed.”
He seemed to have finished all he had to say. He dabbed his last mouthful of fish in tartar sauce. Kelsey was gaping at him, her fork partway to her mouth, her eyes dazed. “I can’t have an affair with—”
“Why can’t you?”
“To start with, I can’t go away tomorrow. Just like that. I have…responsibilities.” Her voice died to a whisper.
“No, you don’t. The last one left for forestry school a few days ago.”
Kelsey swallowed a French fry that tasted like cardboard. She needed a haircut, she thought crazily, she couldn’t go away. “I have to sell the house.”
“You’ll be in much better shape to do so after a holiday.”
“I don’t have any—”
“—money? I’m writing you a check this evening for the last three days. The flight’s free, because it’s on my private jet, and I own the resort—no room charge.”
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