Do-Over (14 page)

This afternoon, while list-compiling, she’d also come up with a substantial number of reasons why she preferred not to drag Mark into her job-change campaign. They ranged from the concrete: As a man half a step from partnership, he might feel compelled to share her plans with the other partners, and until she had a new position lined up, it was none of their business. Then, there were the more nebulous reasons: She loved Mark, but this love was so tangled in both her problems and the steps that she needed to take to fix herself, she simply didn’t know where to begin.

“Would you mind having me around?” he asked. “I mean, after work?”

She smiled and snuggled closer. “Checking up on the local crazy lady, huh?”

He resettled her so that their eyes met. “You hung on longer than anyone else I know would have, faced with all that work.”

“My fault…my craziness. I should have asked for help weeks ago.”

He smiled. “Yeah, well I told myself I wasn’t going to mention that.”

“I always knew you were a smart guy.”

“Smart enough not to mess with a volcano goddess.”

Smiling, she curled closer. Sometimes it felt as though she’d known him forever. She thought back to law school, to the competition, the beginnings of desire, to the last time she’d seen him…before he’d reappeared in her life. A recollection niggled at her.

“Okay, this is a bizarre question, but the night after we finished the bar exam…” She trailed off.

He nudged her. “Yeah?”

“I don’t have a totally clear memory of that night. I mean, I partied through three bars with my study group before I saw you and I was just wondering if—”

“If you might have thrown up on my shoes?”

Cara cringed. “Oh…my…God.”

Volcano goddess had just taken on a whole new meaning.

Cara’s Rule for Success 13:

Self-sacrifice is the fuel of progress…

so prepare to burn.

I
T WAS A CLOSE CALL
, deciding which held the greater misery factor—staying in a job Cara could no longer stomach or finding a new one. By the time she returned to work at S.U., where everyone was watching her as though snakes were about to sprout from her ears, she had been trotted past more hiring partners in more law firms than she cared to count. At least the prospective employers seemed to view her as a hot commodity. Her six years of grinding might not have been a total waste.

After the first few job interviews, Cara had learned to go with her instincts. If a firm’s associates were almost too friendly and had glassy and dazed eyes, that meant their lives were absolute agony, and they were looking for a fresh body to drag down with them. If the firm had a marble bust of anyone, anywhere on firm property, she had left. And if their billable hour requirements were mathematically impossible to fulfill while conducting an honest-to-God life, she’d left even more quickly.

As the week whirled by, Cara had also been forced
to create excuses not to spend time with Mark. Since she was a horrible liar, she knew that he’d immediately sense she was up to something. Better that he thought she was making up for lost days with her family and with Bri—which was also true—but to a much lesser extent than she’d claimed.

Wednesday, as she began the final countdown to get the deal from hell packaged and ready to be taken to Merchant’s New York offices for signing, Mark dropped in. And as happened every time he appeared in front of her, Cara’s heart drummed faster. Love was proving to be a lazy girl’s cardiovascular workout. This time, nervousness added to the pace, too.

“Nic just told me you won’t be going to the loan closing on Friday,” he said. “Was she right?”

She’d been waiting for this confrontation since she’d canceled her flight on Monday. “You guys can handle it perfectly. I’d just be wasting the firm’s money.”

“But you deserve to be there.”

On a deal this size, the loan closing—including a stay in a posh hotel and a celebration afterward—was the carrot the partners dangled to make associates work hard enough to be invited. Except that Cara had a second interview coming up on Friday morning with a twelve-person, general-practice firm in downtown Royal Oak. The vibes had been good, the setting—an old Queen Anne-style home converted into offices—inspiring and the people, wonderful.

“I’m not up for it,” she said to Mark. Her response wasn’t precisely a lie.

“What’s not to like?” Mark came around to her side of the desk, settled his hands on her shoulders, bent low and murmured in a voice that could seduce a vestal
virgin, “You…me…a four-star hotel with a five-star bed…”

That was the part she wasn’t up for. It was tough enough to keep her employment plans to herself. One caress, one deep, thrilling touch and she’d confess all.

“Don’t make this so hard,” she said.

He brushed the hair away from the side of her neck. She shivered at his touch. Eyes closed, body humming a hot tune, Cara tilted her head to give him better access.

“Why not? Fair’s fair,” he teased. And then he kissed her “I’ll do anything” spot.

“Cheater,” she said through a broad smile.

“Checking her pulse?” asked a female and none-to-friendly voice.

Gail Eberhardt stood in the doorway.

“Sorry, I should have shut the door,” Mark whispered before stepping back. “Do you need something?” he asked Gail.

“Just came to chat,” said the least chatty woman on Earth. She pinned Cara with a flat stare. “A friend of a friend tells me that you interviewed at McGill, Stevens last week.”

That had been the firm with the associates clinging to the wreckage of their careers.

“Your friend was mistaken,” Cara replied with just enough emphasis on
friend
to let Gail know that she found the concept of her having one, quite suspect.

Gail shrugged. “Whatever…but I’d be looking.”

“Gail, was that a threat?” Mark asked.

Cara noted how very talented he was at sounding amused when he was actually ticked-off. She wished she could learn that trick.

“M-more of an observation,” Gail stammered.

“Great,” Mark said in the same pleasant voice. “Now here’s an observation for you…. You don’t stand a chance in hell of making your minimum billable hours on Merchant Financial’s tab this month—or any other—until you lighten up. Got it?”

Gail stalked off, and Mark closed Cara’s door. His eyes were dark and a little disturbing.

“Are you interviewing?” he asked.

“No.” Cara worked to keep her gaze direct, her expression neutral and her heart from slamming. She was screwed, as usual, by her redhead’s blush.

Mark didn’t pursue the question, and Cara knew that was because he’d decided he had his answer.

“You know you can trust me,” he said instead.

Letting her gaze drop to the surface of her desk, she nodded. Trust wasn’t at the heart of the issue; pain management was.

“Come to New York,” he asked again. “We need this.”

“I can’t.”

“I see.” He walked to the window and looked out. “Then lunch. You must be able to handle lunch with me.”

Cara toyed with her crystal paperweight. It was so clear, so cool under her heated palm. “I had planned to sneak into my condo at lunch and do a walkthrough before I commit my income for the next thirty years.”

“Your mortgage came though?”

She nodded again. “Finally…on Monday. I still have to schedule the closing. Everything’s been so up in the air.”

He turned to face her, and she knew immediately that she’d said too much.

“Like what?” he asked.

“So, do you want to come to the condo with me?” she blurted. It was dangerous, being alone with him, but she could think of no other change of topic to distract him.

“Sure.” Mark’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. She was hurting him, she knew, but she also hurt.

“Good,” she said, then opened the file folder in front of her. Mark took the hint and left.

M
ARK WATCHED
C
ARA
pocket the unit keys she’d cajoled from the condo sales agent. She closed the door behind her. Excitement like he hadn’t seen in days lit her blue eyes. The sight should have pleased him, but it didn’t.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Sure.”

He let her take him by the hand and lead him through her home-to-be. The fact that he could actually feel her warm fingers pressing into his was a good thing. It meant she hadn’t managed to disappear altogether, because she sure as hell was trying to.

Until about ten days ago, it had been less arrogance and more truth to say that he’d never had much of a problem keeping a woman’s attention. Now, even on those rare moments when Cara was with him, she wasn’t. And he was well-experienced with this kind of act. His dad had been pulling it since he was a little kid.

“Over here to the right is the kitchen area.”

She sounded like a damn tour guide. All she needed was a bad polyester dress and a little sign on a stick that read, Adams Tours: The Incredible Escaping Woman.

“As you can see, the kitchen is galley-style. The stove and fridge will be along that back wall. And once I tell them whether I want black or gold granite, these cabinets will actually have a countertop over them.”

“Counters are good,” he said in a half-assed display of courtesy.

She stopped and let go of his hand, leaving him feeling empty, anchorless in the middle of the enormous room.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

He curbed his frustration the best he could. “No. Really, you’re not. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

About what it would take to get you to connect with me again.

“It’s nothing,” he said aloud. “Come on, show me the rest of the place.”

They walked to the front of the unit and looked out the broad bank of windows at the balcony. “I want to have a container garden—as lush as one in New Orleans,” she said. “Or as close as I can come here in the frozen north. I just need to watch the sun for a few weeks to see if I can pull it off.”

The central air-conditioning hadn’t been switched on, and without any of the windows or patio doors open, it was getting damn hot. Or maybe he was just growing angrier.

He flipped up the lock on a sliding glass door and opened it. Noise from Main Street, five floors below, rose to them.

Mark tried out a piece of small talk. “So you’ve got Bri’s store right across the way.”

Cara smiled. “Pretty cool, isn’t it? I like knowing I’ll have her so close by.”

His jaw began to ache with the effort of holding back his words, telling her how he could take an out-and-out rejection, but not this acting as though they were nothing but acquaintances.

“So what do you think of the place?” she asked.

He couldn’t do this anymore. He’d never been rough with a woman—
never
—but he wanted to grab Cara, to shake her.

To shock her.

He hitched his thumb toward a closed door.

“I haven’t seen it all. Will that be your bedroom?”

She nodded.

“Show it to me.”

Color began to blossom on her arched cheekbones. “It’s just another room, big and empty like this one.”

“I’d like to see it.”

She didn’t answer. He knew that he was unsettling her, and he was pleased. Whatever she felt at this moment wasn’t even a fraction of the frustration he’d been experiencing for the past week.

“Afraid?” he asked, knowing that Cara Adams was incapable of turning down a challenge.

“No. Of course not.” She marched to the closed door and flung it open. “See?”

He walked into the room, and as he expected, she followed.

He swung around to face her. “Take off your panties.”

Her mouth worked in a silent, shocked oval before she squeaked,
“What?”

He smiled as he gained some measure of relief. At least now he had an honest reaction from her.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Mark could hear the sounds of the construction workers on the floors beneath them: radios, the distinctive hissing, gunshot of a pneumatic nailer, the occasional shouted comments from one worker to another.

“I’ve never been more serious. You’ve got a real case of nerves going today, don’t you?” He was taking criminal advantage of her weakness, but it was only fair. He’d told her that she was his one vulnerability, and then she’d pulled away from him.

“My panties? Juvenile, Morgan,” she said in a “been there, done that” tone that he knew was pure B.S. She reached up under her black skirt and wriggled a little. Bracing her hand on the wall, she slipped a bit of light blue fabric down one leg, over her sandal, then freed it from her other foot.

She dangled the underwear between her fingers. “Happy now?”

He was hard, that much was for sure. He took the panties and tucked them in his hip pocket.

“I’m getting there.”

Mark backed her against the wall and kissed her, because if he didn’t, he’d lose control altogether. Cara didn’t fight him. Her mouth against his gentled him. God, she smelled so good—like spicy flowers—and she tasted like sass and cinnamon.

She was wearing a scoop-necked top made of a stretchy white fabric. Mark hooked his finger into the neckline and pulled it down far enough to settle his lips on the tender skin just below her collarbone. Her fingers wove through his hair, holding him to her skin.

She sighed, a sexy little sound of pleasure. “This feels so good.”

Mark’s initial jolt of satisfaction faded when he focused on her words. Not an “I’ve missed
you,
” or “
You
feel so good,” but an impersonal
“this.”
He worked his way back up to her mouth. With his tongue, his teeth, he tried to sway her to give what she was withholding. The stakes were high, but he knew he could be a persuasive man.

Soon, her hands slipped beneath the belt at his waist, pulled his shirt loose from his trousers, and started working the buttons down the front.

Somewhere below, one of the workers laughed as though he’d heard the best joke ever. Cara froze. Eyes enormous, she asked, “What are we doing?”

“It’s okay,” he said before kissing her again. “Just a minute more.”

He slid a hand to her bottom, stroking her through the fabric of her skirt. Knowing that just beneath that material awaited soft, warm skin ready for the taking, blew his mind. Hers, too, apparently. Her nails dug into his back, right through his shirt. Yes, he was a persuasive man, and he had something to prove.

“Still want to stop?” he asked, drawing her skirt slowly upward.

“The jury’s out,” she gasped.

“Let’s keep ’em there for a while.”

He tantalized, tempted, came close to giving her what she wanted, but held back. She rocked against him. “Just do it.”

“Do what?” he teased.

“Touch me.”

He sent his hand around to her front, low on her belly. “Open your legs for me,” he said.

She complied. They were both breathing hard, the humid air closing in on them. He gathered the fabric with his fingertips, pushing it upward.

He didn’t need to look. He knew this and all parts of Cara’s body as well as he knew his own. Except her heart. It seemed he knew nothing of her heart.

“Look at me,” he said.

She did. He brushed his fingertips against damp curls and smiled at the shuddering breath she drew.

As he stroked deeper with one finger, into a hot, clinging wetness that rocked his world, he watched her reactions.

He had her now. She was his—every heartbeat, every sharp breath. She couldn’t turn him from her life now.

“More,” she gasped.

He kissed her, his tongue sweeping in and tangling with hers. She fumbled with his belt, opened his trousers and reached in to hold him, turning his method of persuasion back on him.

Eyes closed, he tipped his head toward the cavernous ceiling. “I shouldn’t have started this.”