One Week in Your Arms (13 page)

“Shit.” He shoved to his feet. He carried the crushed can over to the wet bar and dumped it in a trash bin. Then he withdrew another can of beer from the small refrigerator. “Let me ask you something. Did you remember all that stuff about me on the day you married Ben?”

His snide question frustrated her. “What is it about Ben? Leave Ben out of this.”

“Oh, I forgot. Can't say anything about Saint Ben.” He smirked as he leaned against the bar and popped open the can.

She stiffened. “Let me tell you something, you have no right to say anything about Ben. Or me. That's not fair,” she added for good measure. “I never heard from you again. Not once. Not until last week.”

“Hey, babe, you got married.” He turned up the can and took a long drink.

“When we left Royal Oaks, I didn't think we'd ever see each other again. I thought that was it. Was I wrong about that?”

He set the can of beer aside. After a moment of silence, he admitted, “No. You weren't wrong. That was the plan.”

“All right.” Vindication strengthened her voice. “So, if you had had second thoughts about me, you could have called me. I didn't get married until late September, and you had my telephone number.”

“No, I didn't.” He wiped his wet lips. “I deleted your number the day I left Royal Oaks.”

She quickly folded her arms over her chest. Nothing could have prepared her for that remark, or the way it ripped through the barricade protecting her most secret and cherished dreams. She had always had this little fantasy about him.

That somewhere in the world, he stood outside a palace. On an elegant terrace with fountains and floating netting between columns. He was wearing an elegant black tux and sipping on a glass of wine. While the setting sun blazed deep purples and pinks across a vineyard, he thought of her. Longed to see her. Wanted to call her but feared that it was too late.

Now she realized how sad and pathetic that daydream was. How pitiful she had been all this time. She lifted her chin. She was furious with herself and him.

“I always delete phone numbers.” He turned to the bar and absently wiped the condensation off the cold beer can with his fingers. “It's just what I do. Nothing personal.”

“Deleting a phone number is just symbolic,” she said. “You delete people. That's what you're really doing. You deleted me from your life that day.”
Sonofabitch
.

He nodded. “Yeah. More or less.”

She stormed over to where he stood. “You bastard,” she spat, and his eyes widened as if he were shocked by her outrage. “You make all these spiteful remarks about Ben like you're entitled or something. Well, you aren't entitled to say a damn thing about Ben, or me either.

“All you are is a rich asshole with an ego problem,” she ranted. “You're not the guy I thought you were, and I am so glad you weren't home that day I came to your house. Thank you, God, for small favors.”

She clamped her lips together the moment she realized she'd made a slip. She reined in her fury and pushed away from the wet bar. Maybe he hadn't been paying attention.

“What day?” he asked. Damn. He had been paying attention.

She ignored his question. She masked her anxiety with indignation. “I'm going to get my things packed and go to the airport. I can probably catch a flight back to LAX this evening.” She didn't take a breath between words. It was time to run.

He caught her wrist and stepped in front of her. “Marla. What day?” His deep voice had a grim tone. “You said you came to my house. When did you come to my house?”

Careful
. They stood close. She inhaled the scent of aftershave and cold beer as his fingers flexed around her wrist. His thick black T-shirt bore a Ralph Lauren logo. A monogrammed polo player. The sport of the elite. Her gaze shifted to the silent television.

A pitcher crouched on the pitcher's mound. He adjusted his cap and stared ahead at the batter and the catcher. His gaze never wavered as he prepared himself, and he rose from the crouch. Calm. Focused. Professional.

She inhaled. The pitcher sent a fastball toward the plate. Ninety-six miles an hour flashed on the screen. The umpire called it a strike. The third out. The pitcher walked off the mound smiling.

“It was at the end of the summer,” she said lightly, all calm and focused just like the pitcher. She had to win this game.

“What summer?” Carson asked, frowning.

“The summer we met.” Again she spoke like she'd just casually commented on the weather or something. She turned toward the bar and reached for the can of beer he had opened. Beer was not one of her favorites. She didn't like the taste, but she needed to wet her dry throat.

She took a drink as he crowded her at the bar. The side of her shoulder was pressed against his chest. “
When
that summer?” He was not going to let it go. Unfortunately.

Taking another drink of the beer, she winced and put the can down. “August,” she admitted. She remembered the date. August twentieth. But there was no need for unnecessary details.

“I got approved for a four-day weekend at the hospital, which is Friday through Monday. I thought it would be fun to see you again.” She kept her voice steady, despite her accelerated heart rate. Tachycardia. She was beginning to feel sweaty.

“It sorta came together quickly. I called Mrs. Deaton,” she referred to the housekeeper at Royal Oaks. “She gave me your home address. I stopped by the airport and there was a seat available on a nonstop flight to LAX. When I got to Los Angeles, I got a cab at the airport to take me to your house. But you weren't home,” she concluded with a shrug. “And that's all there is to tell.” All she was going to tell.

She frowned at the beer can. What she wouldn't give for a gallon of iced water. She felt she was burning from the inside out. She wet her parched lips.

“Marla, I don't understand. You came all the way to LA to see me and I wasn't home when you got there. Then what?”

“Then I left,” she said as if that was what anyone would do. “I took the cab back to the airport. But there was no flight available that day, so I rented a car and drove home. I had a great drive through the southwest. I'd never seen that part of the country before. The desert is amazing.”

Her statement hung in the quiet air. She stared at her feet that were tucked in her yellow sneakers. They would look cute with red laces.

“I wasn't home so you left. You drove back to Tennessee. I'm trying to make sense of that.” He spoke in a bewildered voice.

“It was a long time ago when I was young and fearless,” she said, in an effort to dismiss the entire conversation. “I need to get packed. And, listen, I'm sorry I lost my temper. I didn't mean what I said about you.”

“You meant most of it.”

She shrugged. “Some of it.”

“Marla, why didn't you wait that day?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Wait where? On the side of the road? Carson, I wasn't allowed past the gates at your house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about an eight-foot wall. A ten-foot medieval iron gate and a guard. I'm talking about standing there listening to this guard tell me no one gets through the gates unless they are on your list of approved visitors. I knew my name wasn't on that list.”

“For God's sake, I have to take security precautions to protect my home, my business, my staff, even myself. I don't have any choice.” He shook his head. “But one phone call would have taken care of everything.”

She glanced at the television again, avoiding eye contact with Carson. The pitcher was back on the mound.
Calm and focused
. “When I saw the wall and gates, everything changed. Suddenly, I wasn't sure anymore.”

He frowned and his tone grew sharp. “You weren't sure about what?”

“About you and who you really were. And I wasn't sure about me and what I should do. Instead of feeling right, it just felt all wrong,” she admitted and that was the truth. “So, I went home and a few weeks later, I decided to marry Ben.”

Carson looked as if she had stuck a shotgun to his chest and pulled the trigger. His blue eyes narrowed and she was certain he was about to make another blistering remark about her and Ben. But he held himself in check.

He strode over to the bar, took another cold beer out of the small fridge, and plopped down on the sofa. “You should get packed,” he remarked without looking at her. He tapped the TV remote control and the sound of the cheering baseball fans filled the room.

She didn't look back as she left the room. She rushed to the other side of the penthouse and into the guest room. With her breath coming in gasps, she slid open the glass door leading to the lanai.

Outside, the humid air greeted her. It would be raining soon, but that hadn't stopped a group of kids from playing volleyball. Peals of laughter and shouting came from the group. Happy sounds.

A tear dripped down her cheek as she gripped the railing to still her shaking hands. She had been so careful for so long, but she was beginning to unravel. In the distance, a flash of lightning danced across the dark clouds hovering over the ocean.

She stepped back inside and pulled her phone from her pocket. She tapped on a short video of Sophie and her best friend, Anna Grace, playing in the park. They were running from the swings to the slides, giggling and squealing. Marla gently touched the screen.

She opened the closet door and withdrew her suitcase.

C
arson stared at the television screen. The drone of the ballgame faded as his memory took him to another time and place. A time when he was young, barely twenty years old, and he had been in love so deep, it hurt.

It was a summer evening on his grandfather's ranch in Texas and there was nothing in nature more beautiful than the sunset over Broken Bow Canyon. The dying sun painted the ridges a deep red and the boulders a dark gold. The sky was lit with purple, violet, pink, navy, and a hint of yellow.

On horseback, he and Angela had ridden to the canyon overlook. He dismounted first. Then he went to her horse and she slid off the animal into his arms. Angela was a dark-eyed Italian beauty with cascading black hair and a body meant for pleasure. She was hypnotic and for three months, he had been captivated by the new tennis instructor at the country club.

“I love you,” she said between heated kisses. “I love you so much.”

He loved her, too. More than anything else in the world. Barely a man, he had already decided he wanted to spend his life with her. In the midst of a beautiful sunset and slow lovemaking, he had said, “Marry me.”

The memory of that moment faded, replaced by a completely different scene. A hotel room filled with surveillance equipment and cops. Two local detectives. Two detectives from Chicago. An FBI agent and the assistant district attorney, Jim Heller, who was a friend of Carson's father.

Heller had escorted him into the room. He had no idea why he was there. But he had known something was wrong when his father had hugged him and told him to go with Heller.

The cops were all sitting back, watching the monitor screens that showed a live feed from hidden cameras planted in a hotel room down the hall from where they were.

He had been startled to see Angela on the screen. She was sitting in a chair by the window, wearing a dark dress and tapping her fingers impatiently on the chair arm. The heavy window curtains were drawn, blocking out the sun and darkening the room.

A man in jeans and a leather jacket sat on the bed. He appeared to be working a crossword puzzle. A third man stood in the shadows.

Heller opened a folding chair. “Have a seat,” he told Carson. “Her real name is Tessa Lombard. Not Angela Rossi. She's not from Italy either. She's from Chicago. The guy sitting on the bed is her husband. The two of them are in the extortion business.”

Carson sat in the chair, staring at the monitors. He was certain none of this was real. Heller handed him a stack of photographs. “Tessa has gone by several different names. Occupations. Hair color. She's actually twenty-seven and most of her targets have been married professional men. Simple blackmail plots with small payoffs. Fifty thousand. Hundred thousand. Then she and her husband disappear and lay low awhile.

“Then they met Charlie O. He's a coyote, meaning he smuggles illegal aliens across the border and he's looking to expand into guns and drugs. They've become partners, but to cut a deal with the Colombian mafia, they need a lot of cash. That's where you come in. They've asked Gerald for five million in exchange for your life.”

The photos had fallen from Carson's hand. One of the detectives, a tall black man, said, “We're on.” All the officers went into alert mode. They were on radios and phones talking to other units, preparing for the sting and the arrest. Carson wanted to tell them that Angela could not be part of this. Not willingly.

Then he saw his father on the screen. He walked into the hotel room, carrying a briefcase. The men in the room with Angela ordered his father to spread his arms and legs for a search.

“Heller.” Carson rose out of the chair. “Do something.”

Heller pushed him back down in the chair. “It's okay. Gerald wanted you to be here. He wanted you to see this. He's been a part of it all along. Ever since I found out she had targeted you. We've had our surveillance teams in place for six weeks.”

“Jesus,” Carson whispered as he watched the scene unfold. His father had only brought half the money. Angry words were exchanged and threats made.

Angela had stepped up to his father and tapped her finger on his chest. “Listen, you get the rest of the money. You got five days. If you don't have it in five days, you'll never see your son again. I'll tell him I'm not happy here. I'll tell him I want the two of us to go away together and you know he won't refuse. You know he is in love and he'll do whatever I ask. Whatever I want. You'll never find his body.”

She leaned in close to his father. “Your boy will be fed to the wolves.”

With his heart shattered, Carson had left the hotel, forever haunted by her callous words.

For ten years, he carried the scars of a lesson learned the hard way. He had never been gullible or stupid again when it came to a woman. Every time he met a woman, there had been a current of wariness beneath his surface. Always a question in the back of his mind.

Then he had met Marla. Maybe ten years was a long time to be guarded every time a woman kissed him.

No, he hadn't mentioned the California mansion with the gates and guard, the apartment in New York, the townhouse in London, or the villa near Rome. He hadn't said he thought nothing of picking up a thousand dollar tab at a five-star restaurant, or that he donated millions to charities around the world. He hadn't told her that his company was global and that it encompassed oil and transportation as well as architecture.

Granted, it was a shitty thing—the pretense of it. But it was the first time he'd felt anything real in years. It was the first time he'd allowed himself to love without vigilance and it had been amazing. She was amazing. But, deep inside, he had his doubts. It was just too good to be true.

That's what he told himself when he left Royal Oaks and when he was stopped at a gas station and deleted her number. He didn't look back.

She was right. He deleted more than the number. He deleted her. That was how Carson Blackwell protected himself, and he had felt his actions were justified the day he saw her wedding picture in the paper. It had been like seeing Angela in that hotel room. A hard punch in the gut. A bitter taste in the mouth. A deep pain in the chest.

But, now, things had changed.

She'd come to his house before she married. She had sought him out. She had not forgotten him. She wanted to see him again. Those words sang through his heart. If she had only stayed, everything would be different today.

He turned off the television, sat up, and braced his hands on his knees.

He had never worried about female companionship. Women made themselves available for whenever he wanted them. His money was like a magnet that had dozens of them clinging to it. Yet his fortune had caused the one woman he wanted to turn and run.
Talk about ironic.

As rain pecked on the skylights overhead, he pushed to his feet.

“It just felt all wrong,” she had said.

He had to fix this mess.

He walked into the living room. Marla stood by the glass wall, watching the rain whip against the palms and bougainvillea as she chatted on her phone. One large suitcase and a smaller bag on top of it were propped beside the sofa.

He stopped to admire her backside. She had great legs and hips that filled out her black shorts perfectly. He liked whatever she'd done to her hair.

The way the uneven layers curled around her neck and shoulders was flirty. And the cologne was new, too. Unlike the quiet scent she frequently wore, this one was a dark, rich exotic scent that whispered of pleasure at midnight. He wondered if he could convince her to wear it all the time.

“Y'all be careful on the road,” she was telling the person on the phone. Her Southern accent reminded him of Royal Oaks and his mother's family. “Okay. Listen, I'll call when I land at LAX.”

“No,” he said and she wheeled around, eyes wide with surprise. “You're not leaving.”

Her surprised look became a frown. Okay, there'd be a fight ahead. He'd allowed for that. In fact, he had realized she was extremely sexy when she was pissed off.

“I need to talk to you,” he said pointedly, being the rich asshole with the ego problem.

She stuck up her middle finger and he laughed. She spoke into the phone. “Tell Daddy that I've bought him a Hawaiian shirt, and I'm expecting him to wear it and not hide it under the bed.” She laughed. “Yeah. Okay. Love you. Bye.”

Her good humor vanished as she stuck the phone in her pocket. “There is no point in talking. There's nothing left to say.”

“I love your cologne, sweetheart.”

Her green eyes fired up. “Do you?”

“I do.” He grinned. “It smells so much better than that bland stuff you usually wear.”

“That's a matter of opinion.”

“Does my opinion matter?”

“I don't care whether you like the cologne or not.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I didn't buy it. A bottle of it was in the complimentary bag of stuff they gave me at the salon. I'm just hoping it fades before it stifles everyone on the plane.”

“You're not planning on flying commercial, are you?” He couldn't resist.

She didn't reply, but she was having thoughts of ripping off his head, he could see that in her expression. He grinned. “Go ahead and say it.”

She let out an indignant huff and reached for the pullout handle of her rolling suitcase. He clamped his hand over hers, relishing the feel of her warm flesh until she pulled her hand free.

“You know, there's a storm coming in,” he told her. “All the flights will be grounded this afternoon.”

She held his gaze for a moment, and the defiance in her eyes softened. “Carson, you wanted me to go. And that's actually a good idea. It's very sensible. I should go.”

“No, I wasn't being sensible. I was being an asshole. But now, well, everything has changed.” Hope had blossomed in his heart.

“Nothing has changed.”

He cupped her face with his hands, and he ran his thumbs over the curve of her cheeks. “You came to my house,” he said. “You came to me.”

Nothing else mattered.

She shook her head in protest. “That was a long time ago.”

“Maybe. But it means everything now.”

Her bottom lip trembled. “What could it possibly mean now?”

It meant he had not spent years pining for a woman who had always been in love with someone else. “It means if I had seen you that day, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. It means I don't intend to blow a second chance.”

All the color emptied from her face. She looked as if she'd just received a death sentence. Her lips moved like she wanted to say something, but no words came out. A couple of beats of awkward silence passed between them.

“I want you to stay.” He stroked her cheek with his knuckles.

“Do you?” she whispered, her voice filled with hope and uncertainty.

He wanted to take away the uncertainty.

“I want you to stay, but if only you want to stay. That's the one condition, Marla.”

He wanted her to stay because she wanted to be with him, and not because she felt forced to stay.

“No more pretending for Truman and Julia. No more deals,” he said. “The rest of the week is for us. Who knows? I might be the smart choice,” he added with what he hoped was a heart-melting grin. A guy has to try.

He waited. She gazed at him with such longing that he found it difficult not to reach for her. He kept waiting for her decision and waiting . . .

“Take your time,” he remarked, trying not to sound too annoyed, but every second she hesitated was pure torture. “Do I need to get down on my knees? Would you like me to beg?”

A sudden smile brought life back into her face. “Yes, I would.”

“For real?” There were times when he needed to keep his mouth shut.

“Just a minute.” She backed up and aimed her phone at him. “Okay. Now.”

His face folded into a frown. “You're not gonna take a picture of me on my knees.”

“I'm thinking I can blackmail you with it.”

“Marla.”

“You're not on your knees yet.” She grinned.

“You haven't said you were going to stay.”

“Well, you haven't begged yet.”

He looked at the floor. “Can we make a deal?”

“A deal? Oh, hell no.” She put her hand on her hip. “Do you know what it means when a Southern girl says that?”

“I'm gonna do it. Let me get over by the sofa.”

“What? By the sofa?” Her brows flew up. “Are you going to have to, like, hold on to the sofa?”

“Listen, Miss Fifty Pushups, not everybody trains policewomen.” He hadn't been to the gym in a couple of months. Obviously that was going to have to change if he wanted to keep up with her.

“Wait.” She pocketed her phone and spread her hands. “Don't get down on your knees. It's okay. I'm good with you begging on your feet.”

“I'm doing this. My manhood's in question now.” He lowered himself until his knees were nestled in the carpet. “See, I beg you to stay, my darling, in my humble abode and spend the week in my arms and rock my world.”

“Crazy.” She laughed. Then her smile became pensive. “Do you remember the old window air conditioner in the carriage house?” she asked. “How it rattled like a freight train? And that creaky antique bed? It's a wonder it held up.”

He remembered the rattling air conditioner and the creaking bed. He also remembered the moonlight spilling across her naked body as she rode him. He remembered her sweaty body, soft and smooth on the outside. Hot and slick on the inside. The recollection perked him and his dick up.