Sandra Field – The Millionaire's Pregnant Wife (страница 5)

“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.