Married by Mistake Page 11

  “Be here at twelve.”

  “Did I ever tell you I prefer new-age guys?” she said. “The kind of guys who ask a woman what she’d like to do?”

  “You might suggest something I don’t want to do, and then I’d have to refuse,” he said. “Just be here at twelve.”

  Adam hung up before she could argue. If she said too much more, he’d have second thoughts himself. When he’d suggested last night that they date, he’d planned to take her out for dinner Saturday. The housekeeper had the day off, and they had to eat. He’d had no plans of lunching with Casey until Sam had said his piece about keeping this marriage going. Then a crazy impulse had made him pick up the phone.

  Doesn’t matter, he told himself. Whether he was just dating her for fun or they were going to make this marriage real, it made sense to start right away.

  * * *

  THEY SAT CLOSE to the riverbank in a secluded area of Ashburn Coppack Park that afforded a spectacular view of the downtown skyline.

  “I can’t believe you thought of this,” Casey said. She grinned, then noticed his hesitation before he smiled back.

  “I may be practical, but I’m not totally lacking imagination,” he said.

  She crossed one leg over the other. The movement drew Adam’s gaze, as she knew it would, to the shortness of the light green linen skirt she’d chosen for just that reason, and which she’d teamed with an off-the-shoulder white cotton top. She’d spent half an hour trying on and discarding different outfits, and wanted to be sure he appreciated her final choice. “This is the perfect place for a picnic.”

  “Perfect,” he agreed, his gaze still on her legs.

  Casey couldn’t quite believe how wholeheartedly Adam had thrown himself into this dating thing. Barely twelve hours after she’d consented to the idea, he’d conjured up a picnic—at least, his secretary had—and driven them to the park, insisting Casey should leave her car at his office.

  Adam threw a piece of bread to a passing duck, then helped himself to more potato salad out of one of the deli containers. He could get used to this.

  The food was delicious, the chilled bottle of white wine relaxing, and as for the company...

  If there was one thing he would take from this month with Casey, Adam reflected, it was renewed pleasure in the simple things in life. Like picnics, sunsets and conversation. Over lunch, he and Casey had talked about everything and nothing, from the new family drama series about to debut on Channel Eight, to a plotting problem she was having in her book. They’d even digressed to a game that involved naming as many towns as they could think of on the Mississippi. He won. At least, he thought he had.

  He looked at the potato salad on his plate and realized he wasn’t the least bit hungry. He’d already had dessert, a slice of key lime pie. Going back for a second helping of potato salad was, as Casey would say in her quack psychoanalytic way, substitution.

  He slid a sideways glance at her, lying on the blanket, eyes closed, face raised to the sun. Her hands were clasped behind her head, a pose that lifted her breasts against the thin cotton of her blouse and shortened that skirt even farther. Strands of silky hair fell over her arms and grazed the blanket. A smile hovered on her mouth.

  As if sensing his scrutiny, Casey moistened her lips with her tongue. Adam swung his gaze back to the potato salad. Yep, right now, he was substituting potato salad for a taste of his wife’s lips.

  Think about how you might convince Casey to stick around, Sam had said.

  The most obvious way to do that, Adam had decided, was to take their relationship to the next level. Sex. And, dammit, he hadn’t been able to think about anything else since. Not that the idea hadn’t occurred to him before Sam started dispensing his advice so freely. But back then, Adam had been able to slap it away as totally inappropriate. Now, it was as if Sam had given him permission to think about having Casey in his bed, about all the things he’d like to do to her there.

  Not that he’d even decided he wanted her to stick around. He should probably discuss Sam’s suggestion with her.

  Trouble was, talking was the last thing on his mind now. The memory of the sweetness of her mouth was driving him crazy.

  “Adam?” Casey propped herself up on her elbows, and the movement lifted her breasts even more. There was a languidness in her voice that he found infinitely seductive. “It’s sweltering. Can you please pass the water bottle?”

  He did as she asked, then stifled a groan as she tipped her head back and, eyes shut, drank greedily, so that a trickle of water escaped the side of her mouth to run down her chin and throat. He touched a finger there to stem the flow, and found her pulse beating.

  Casey’s eyes opened and he saw heat in their depths, which the water had done nothing to cool. Without looking away, she put the bottle down beside her. Adam slipped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her up toward him, so their mouths were an inch apart.

  He didn’t rush into the kiss. He’d been here before and he knew how right it felt. Now that he had her so close, he wanted to savor every second. Her eyes fluttered shut again as his lips drifted against hers.

  But the instant their mouths met he could think of nothing but how much he wanted her, and his intended gentleness evaporated. Casey’s lips parted to welcome his tongue. She moaned as he deepened the kiss, and she struggled to pull herself upright so she could press herself closer to him.

  The hunger in Adam had its epicenter in one obvious place. He moved a hand to cup a full, rounded breast. He felt the tensing of her body, and his mouth absorbed her sigh.

  Her arms wound around his neck, and Adam slipped his other hand beneath her shirt to caress her back. He wanted nothing more than to tear every stitch of clothing off her and make love to her. Now.

  Then some small corner of his mind remembered they were in a public place.

  Home. If he could somehow convince his mouth to move away from hers, he would tell her to get in the car, so they could go home right away and continue this in private. Her protest when he finally managed to pull away almost destroyed the last shreds of his restraint.

  “Let’s go home,” he croaked.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WORDLESSLY, THEY THREW the take-out containers, plates and food scraps into the picnic basket. The blanket was bundled in as well, then they were racing for the Aston Martin.

  Adam kissed Casey again as they fumbled to do up their seat belts, a searing kiss intended to remind them both why were they were in such a hurry—not that he’d forgotten.

  He hit the road for home, driving as fast as he dared.

  Casey turned up the fan on her side. “If we go home now, we’ll go to bed, right?”

  Bed, floor, kitchen table... Adam realized with a shock he didn’t mind where they did it. “Yep,” he said. Had he ever wanted someone this badly?

  “Which would mean we’d be sleeping together on our first date.” She squirmed in her seat.

  “Nope.”

  “No?”

  “No sleeping,” he said. “Definitely no sleeping.”

  She sucked in a breath. “The thing is,” she said, “I don’t do that on a first date.”

  Adam slowed for a red light ahead. He turned to her, saw her anxiously gnawing her lip. “You don’t have a first-date routine,” he reminded her.

  “If I did, this wouldn’t be in it,” she insisted.

  The light turned green and Adam accelerated the car, but without the same urgency.

  “Would you normally do that on a first date?” she asked.

  “We’re married,” he said. “I see you every day. Hell, I’ve probably seen more of you than I did the last six women I dated combined.”

  Casey stared out the window. “Joe is the only man I’ve slept with.”

  Yeah, and didn’t Adam want to punch the guy.

  “You’re scared,” he said.

  “I need some time to get used to the idea.”

  “How much time?”

  “How mu
ch time will you give me?”

  He waited until he’d passed an old lady whose Toyota was weaving down the center of the road before he answered. “It’s not about what I’ll give you. It’s about when you think you can decide what you want.”

  “Why don’t you come over to my place for dinner tonight?”

  Suddenly everything looked brighter again. “Second date,” he said. “Great idea.”

  * * *

  CASEY STARED UNSEEING at her computer keyboard, unable to connect with the words on the screen in front of her, the chapter she’d aimed to finish today.

  The heat of that kiss in the park had seared through her, destroying her focus.

  In her seven years with Joe, Casey had never known the overwhelming desire Adam had ignited in her today. She’d spent three weeks with him, and was ready to make love. To Casey that had to mean she was in danger of losing her heart to him.

  Which wouldn’t be a problem, if he lost his to her in return.

  She tried to evaluate the odds of that happening. Adam wasn’t a lose-his-heart kind of guy. But she knew she hadn’t imagined the deeper connection between them. Maybe if they got closer, if they made love, they could move ahead emotionally.

  Casey looked at her watch. Four o’clock. She’d promised to visit Eloise this afternoon. She would make it quick, then come home to prepare for an evening with Adam—when they would pick up where they’d left off at lunchtime. Her stomach fluttered.

  * * *

  AN UNFAMILIAR CAR was parked outside Eloise’s front door when Casey arrived.

  Eloise welcomed her inside. “Sam Magill is visiting,” she said in a low, vexed voice. “He’s just gone to the bathroom.” She led Casey into a spacious living room, sunlit through a double set of French doors and dominated by a huge fireplace, above which hung an enormous gilded mirror. “He came to see if I need any help dead-heading my roses—though what he thinks I employ a gardener for, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “That man thinks I’m incapable of looking after myself. It’s insulting.”

  Casey felt a surge of sympathy for the lovelorn lawyer. And a rush of resentment for the emotional independence that Eloise and Adam were so determined, each in their own way, to cling to.

  “Most men as good-looking as Sam are too selfish to worry about other people,” she told Eloise. “I’ll bet he has a whole bunch of women after him.”

  Casey had noticed Eloise’s friends eyeing him at lunch last weekend. Sam was tall, in good shape, with rugged features. And he was single, in an age group where men were in increasingly short supply.

  Eloise stopped short. “Is Sam good-looking?” she asked, astounded.

  “I’m told I am,” Sam said from behind them.

  Eloise gave a little scream. “Sam Magill, what are you doing, sneaking up like that? You should know better than...”

  She trailed off as she looked at Sam—really looked at him—as if for the first time. She blinked, then blinked again. Color stole up her neck and over her face, and her hand fluttered at her chest.

  It was obvious Sam didn’t know how to react to the scrutiny of the woman he’d admired so long. He stood there in the middle of the living room, saying nothing, with all the eloquence of a sack of potatoes. Casey longed to give him a nudge, to tell him to jump in and ask Eloise on a date.

  “Well.” Her mother-in-law regained her senses and spoke briskly. “I daresay you’re passably handsome. But that’s neither here nor there.” She turned toward the door in an unmistakable signal that the lawyer should leave. “I surely do appreciate your dropping in, Sam, but I’m fine and so are my roses.”

  He looked so downcast, Eloise gave him a reprieve. “Just one moment while I fetch you a jar of my pear preserves. I still do them myself every year.”

  That she hurried out of the room was interesting in itself, Casey reflected. Eloise considered hurrying unladylike.

  Casey decided she didn’t have time to pull any punches. “You’re going about it the wrong way,” she told Sam. “Eloise thinks you’re interfering.”

  “I only want to help,” he protested, once he got over his initial shock at her direct approach. “She’s on her own and must need the occasional piece of advice. But every time I open my mouth...”

  “You mess up because you’re trying too hard,” Casey said.

  He moved over to the mantelpiece, stared down at the empty grate. “I just want to do something for her. To earn her...respect.”

  They both knew he wanted a whole lot more than respect. Casey recognized the problem. Sam figured Eloise had to need him before she would fall for him.

  “What Eloise needs is company, someone to share the ups and downs with,” she said. “Then maybe, eventually, someone to love.”

  Sam looked doubtful.

  “It’s worth a try,” Casey said awkwardly.

  He harrumphed in a way that might have meant he would give it some thought, or that he didn’t want to talk about it. His eyes met Casey’s in the mirror above the fireplace. “While we’re on the subject of who likes whom,” he said, “you and Adam appear to be getting along.”

  She nodded.

  “If you want to do something for him—” Sam turned to face her “—stay married to him.”

  Her heart raced. “Why do you say that?”

  “If you two stay together, Adam won’t need to challenge his father’s will.”

  Casey licked her suddenly dry lips. “I don’t think Adam wants to stay married to me.” But that didn’t stop her pulse from jumping, her breath going shallow. She heard the click of Eloise’s heels out in the foyer and exhaled slowly.

  Sam had heard Eloise, too, and he added in a rush, “He didn’t sound opposed to it.”

  “You...you suggested this to Adam?”

  Sam nodded.

  “When was that?” Please, let it be after lunch today.

  “This morning, right after we met with Anna May.”

  Eloise arrived with a large jar of pears, which Sam accepted with effusive thanks. He clutched it to his chest as if it were the key to Fort Knox. Eloise escorted him to the front door, giving Casey precious seconds to pull herself together.

  Giving her time to face the cold, hard truth.

  When Adam had started his seduction today, it had been with Sam’s suggestion in mind.

  She closed her eyes, sick to her stomach. Whatever that kiss had been about, it hadn’t been as simple as him wanting her.

  It never was.

  * * *

  ADAM LEFT THE OFFICE at five o’clock for the first time in years. Combined with his extended lunch hour, that made it the shortest working day he could remember.

  Not short enough.

  All afternoon he’d been able to think of nothing except Casey. He’d never been so preoccupied by a woman that his chief accountant had had to ask him a question three times.

  It was worryingly reminiscent of his father and Eloise. But Adam figured he’d take the edge off his distraction as soon as he went to bed with Casey.

  She wasn’t home when he got there, and the place felt empty. He called Eloise, who told him Casey had just left. That meant another ten minutes. He busied himself setting the table for dinner, pouring wine, serving the meal the housekeeper had left.

  When Casey finally arrived, he wanted to haul her into his arms and get started right then.

  But this was supposed to be a date, and she’d made it clear she didn’t want to be rushed. So instead, he kissed her briefly and said, “Dinner’s ready.”

  At first, when she didn’t say much through the meal, he figured it was because she was as distracted as he was. But gradually he noticed little details—the dip at the corners of her mouth, the shadow in her eyes.

  Adam got a sinking feeling.

  He didn’t want to get into one of those emotional discussions. For what felt like the umpteenth time recently, he did something he didn’t want to do. He ignored the warning bell in his head. “Is something wrong?” he aske
d.

  She dropped her gaze, apparently intensely interested in her baked fish and scalloped potatoes. “I’ve been thinking about what we said this afternoon, and I don’t think we should...you know.”

  “If you’re worried this will affect our annulment, Sam found out the nonconsummation thing is mainly used in church annulments. Our case is based on the fact we didn’t know it was a real marriage.”

  “Adam,” she said, “Sam told me he talked to you about us staying married for real.”

  He put down his knife and fork. “I was going to talk to you about that.”

  “Before we made love, or after?”

  “After I’d figured out whether I thought it was a good idea,” he said. “It had nothing to do with you and me going to bed.”

  When she glared at him, he said, “Okay, maybe it did...speed things up a bit. But you know I wanted you before that. I wanted you the day I met you, though maybe I didn’t acknowledge it then. I want you now.”

  Casey didn’t know what to believe. What had he said to her the day they’d met? That people should know what they want and go after it. He could at least pretend he cares. She pulled herself up short. She’d said she didn’t want to be loved just for what she could do for a man—the implied corollary being that she wanted to be loved for herself. But wasn’t it equally true that if Adam wanted to ask something of her, he should do it honestly, without pretending it involved love?

  “What did you decide...about Sam’s suggestion?”

  Adam shifted in his chair. “It has its pros and cons.”

  “Would you like to share those with me?”

  “No,” he said. “I’d like to go to bed with you.”

  He hadn’t said make love.

  “Very much,” he added. When she didn’t respond, he said, “More than I’ve ever wanted to before.” He sounded surprised, yet about as excited as if he was discussing the scheduling of this week’s TV movies. Maybe even less excited. Then he added, “I know you want the same thing.”

  “On...” Casey’s voice came out raspy, so she cleared her throat and tried again, striving for the same detachment. “On one level, that’s true.” She saw the flare of triumph in his eyes. “But wanting it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”