Close to Heart (3 page)

She awkwardly pushed herself up from the couch and made her way down the hall to the small office she’d heard Justin’s voice bellowing from. Even with his back to the doorway, she could hear the frustration in his sigh of resignation.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with her? She’s a movie star. I don’t have time to cater to—” There was a long pause. “I can’t take her back to my place. She’s married, and that’s where I draw the line. Yeah? Well, thanks a lot.” He spun around in his chair to throw the cell phone onto the desk as he ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, burying his head in his palms. He didn’t see her in the doorway.

“If you don’t mind me waiting a little longer, I’ll call my dad to come pick me up.” Her voice was quiet, but it broke through the stillness like shattering glass. Justin’s chair creaked as he sat up, obviously surprised to see her standing in the doorway. “I appreciate how much you’ve helped me already. I don’t mean to be a burden.”

Justin rubbed a hand over his tired eyes, letting his fingers run over the scruff covering his jaw. “So, you heard we have a bit of a predicament?”

She moved toward the seat across from his desk and sat down carefully, cupping one hand around the side of her stomach, nodding. “Like I said, I’ll have my father come get me. It’s just still a little early to call.” She glanced at the clock on his desk. Was it really only three in the morning? “He should have me out of your hair before lunch. But I can’t take the puppies,” she added.

As much as she’d like to, there just wasn’t room at her parents’ condo. She wasn’t even sure they were going to be able to make room for her and the baby in spite of her mother’s insistence. She didn’t even want to think about how her parents would react to news of her divorce. They were going to be devastated. Elijah was the son her father had never had, and he’d always charmed both of them. The same way he charmed everyone else, she thought bitterly. They might take her side, but she still worried that they might think she was to blame.

Justin pressed his lips together and nodded slowly, drawing her attention back to him. He rubbed his finger over the bottom of his chin. She could read the questions in his eyes—why would she call her father and why couldn’t she take care of the puppies? She owed him some sort of explanation after the way he’d taken her in without hesitation. For crying out loud, he’d offered her a job and a place to stay.

Before he knew who you were.

“I was on my way to my parents’ house when I got surprised by this storm.”

He didn’t look convinced, as if he knew she was holding back information. It was in his best interest to let her call her father and leave, but something in her eyes seemed to make him think twice. “You don’t want to stay and help with the pups?” he asked. “At least until your car gets fixed?”

“I can always come back for the car later.” She avoided his first question, finding it hard not to be drawn into the depths of those blue eyes, and forced herself to look away from him.

“Alyssa?” He said her name quietly, cajolingly. Her heart skipped several beats and her gaze jumped up to meet his at the way he drawled her name and chuckled quietly. His lips curved into a smile, but she could see a different emotion in his blue eyes. They were penetrating, empathetic, almost convincing her to tell him everything she’d gone through over the past day and a half. Almost.

“You’re so full of it.”

“I’m not lying,” she argued, trying to calm her racing heart.

“I didn’t say you were.” His blue eyes were intense, seeing far more than she wanted him to. “That’s at least four hours of travel, more like five with the snow. Besides, we’re both adults. I think I can trust you to keep your hands to yourself, right?” Justin winked at her and gave her a playful grin, that dimple creasing his cheek again.

This man had her stomach flipping and twirling, like a Cirque du Soleil performer. It was a feeling she hadn’t had since . . . well, she didn’t remember ever reacting this way to a man, not even with Elijah, and they’d dated since her senior year of college, when she first started acting. How could a stranger cause this sort of reaction in her body with nothing more than a smile? Alyssa felt a small measure of guilt travel down her spine. A married woman shouldn’t feel this way just because a handsome man smiled at her.
What about your husband?

Ex-
husband, she corrected herself again.
And it never seemed to stop Elijah from straying.

It was time she admitted that her marriage had been over for a long time; Alyssa just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Neither of them was in love with the other. She wasn’t sure they ever had been. It hurt her to find out he’d been sleeping around, especially when Lillian claimed she wasn’t the only woman, but Elijah had always loved the
idea
of their marriage, the fame it gave him, far more than the reality of it. She’d only wished she’d seen it sooner.

The baby kicked, bumping against her hand. Elijah was still the father of her child. She needed to try to make this work, to forgive him, for the baby. She and Elijah had been happy together once. Maybe they could settle for that, for their child’s sake, if she could just find a way to forgive him.

She ignored the voice that taunted her for her naiveté. She had to stop thinking about her past, the what-ifs and should-haves. She knew she couldn’t overlook his affairs, and he wouldn’t ever stop. Her future lay ahead, with her and her child. Everything else was fantasy that existed only in the pages of romantic comedy scripts. This was real life. Men weren’t knights in armor. Happily ever afters were reserved for the big screen in two hours of edited scenes.

“Had to think about it that long?” Justin was still staring at her, as if he was trying to wait her out with that sexy gaze of his. It almost worked.

“I was just . . . thinking.”

“Okay,” he finally said, rising from the desk. “I won’t push you to tell me what’s going on, but if you want someone you can talk to,
honestly
, without judgment, we’ve got a long, sleepless night ahead of us taking care of these puppies. As much as I’d like to offer you a bed, I need those hands of yours again.”

What was
that
supposed to mean?

He moved to the front of the desk and held out his hand, waiting for her to take it. She looked at his long fingers, more refined than she’d expected for a man his size, but calloused from hard work. Justin was completely unlike the polished men she’d spent the past six years schmoozing in Hollywood, the antithesis of her normal life.

“The mom should be coming around, and I don’t want her to be worried about her pups,” he explained, reaching toward her.

She took his hand, letting him help her up from the chair, eyeing him speculatively. She might not know him well, but he had that look in his eyes that said he wasn’t giving up this easily. He wanted answers, so she’d better figure out something to tell him soon.

A
S SOON AS
Alyssa took his hand, Justin felt that electric jolt of desire shoot straight through him again.

It’s completely normal
, he tried to reason with himself.
Who wouldn’t be attracted to this woman?

She wasn’t just gorgeous, she was sheer perfection—from her long layers of honey-kissed hair to her perfect, barely there makeup and all the way to her long, lithe legs that seemed to go on forever.

But she was still another man’s wife, the mother of another man’s child, which made her off-limits. He might not have a lot, but he did have his honor. He was trying not to think about how she’d already hidden the truth of her identity from him, and he couldn’t help but feel as if she was still hiding something else. She was from a different world, nothing like his own, where life was a game. Toying with people came as naturally as breathing, and there were no consequences for people like her or her husband. In spite of the warnings sounding in his brain like a fire alarm, he couldn’t quite reconcile the Alyssa Cole he’d seen so far with the woman he was trying to convince himself she was. Everything in him wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

As Justin pulled her to her feet, her protruding belly bumped against his abs, knocking her off balance. She reached out to steady herself, her hands landing on his forearms. Desire flooded his body at her touch, racing through his veins, and he cursed himself. He usually had more self-control than this, and if the discomfort of his jeans was any indication, right now, he had none.

“I’ve got you,” he assured her. His voice came out a husky rasp, and he cleared his throat.

“Pregnancy balance, I guess.” Her voice was breathless.

Justin felt a soft pressure against his stomach, where her belly moved against him, pressing lightly, and he jumped backward, releasing her. “What the hell?”

She laughed at his reaction and pressed a hand against her side. “It’s just the baby moving. You’ve never felt one?”

“Not the two-legged kind.”

He felt like an idiot. He’d palpated pregnant animals, felt four-legged babies move under his fingers, delivered hundreds of baby animals, but he’d never been around a pregnant woman as far along as she was before. Her laughter was infectious, making him smile, in spite of his embarrassment. It was sweet and smooth, like honeyed whiskey, and he found he craved hearing it again.

“Here.” She reached for his hand and pressed it against the side of her stomach.

Justin stared down at her, suddenly realizing how close she was, how good she smelled, how deep of an emerald her eyes were. Her breath was warm against the cotton material of his shirt. One small dip of his head and he could steal a kiss from those perfect lips. She was oblivious to his reaction to her as she slid his hand over her stomach until she found a spot where he could feel the baby bump against his palm better. His fingers, caught in her hand, moved over the curve of her waist in a caress far more intimate than either of them had anticipated. Her sweet scent, like flowers and sunshine and country fairs, swept around him, making him pulse with longing for something he couldn’t have. Something he’d never even realized he wanted until now.

Justin fought the urge to wrap his other arm around her back and pull her against him, kissing her senseless. She continued to stare at his shoulder, unaware of the thoughts he was having about her. She brushed her hair back from her eyes, and he caught a glimpse of her wedding ring winking in the overhead light.

This isn’t right.

He shouldn’t be having thoughts like this about her. She was married. Almost ready to deliver another man’s child. He wasn’t going to let anything make him desperate enough to become
that
guy. Justin immediately released her.

“We should get the puppies to their mother so they can nurse.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, ignoring the way they still burned from touching her, and hurried past her, through the doorway, leading the way back down the hall into the back room to where the Lab was now awake and waiting for them. “She needs a name.”

“She does?”

Alyssa’s voice sounded grieved and he stopped in the hallway, looking back over his shoulder at her. Justin hadn’t meant to make her sad and she hadn’t done anything wrong, but he needed to keep his distance, for his own sanity as well as maintaining his honor. He sighed, forcing himself to ignore his inclination to apologize to her, to explain himself, knowing it would only make the situation worse. But that didn’t make it any easier to face that hopelessness he saw in her eyes. Instead, he pushed open the door to the back of the office where the kennel was situated.

“I need to write something on the chart. Besides, I don’t want to keep calling her ‘the mom.’ ”

Justin ran his hand over the dog’s side as she tried to stand. “Easy, girl. Just relax.” He reached out to steady the dog.

“Lucky.”

“What?” he asked, turning to look at her again.

“Call her Lucky.” She moved closer and bent down as best she could, running her hand over the dog’s smooth, inky head. “She was lucky the accident happened right in front of your office and that you’re such a good guy to look for her until you found her.”

“Or that you were going as slow as you were.” He forced himself to look away from her and the sadness that he’d caused to fill her eyes, looking back at the dog. “Okay, Lucky it is.”

Justin put his palm against the bedding, checking the temperature, and the dog licked his hand. “All right, Lucky, let’s introduce you to your babies.”

He made his way to the sleeping puppies, sliding the heating pad and bedding into a shallow tub to move them together. As soon as he got close to Lucky, her tail began slapping against the blankets with as much excitement as her exhausted body could muster. He moved each pup, one by one, closer to her, allowing her time to sniff each one and help her bond with her offspring. When he slid the runt in front of her, Justin watched her nose it before looking up at him, her eyes questioning.

He’d seen it plenty of times before. Animals seemed to have an instinct about which babies had issues that might affect them later. He’d been worried about this one. This puppy’s breathing wasn’t as good as it should be, and he wasn’t taking as much at the feedings as the others were. He didn’t want Alyssa to be upset if this one didn’t make it, and from the looks of it, there was a good chance it wouldn’t.

“What’s wrong? Why isn’t she licking that one the way she did the others?” She was still beside Lucky’s head, watching her every move intently.

“He’s weak. There’s probably something wrong with him. Animals tend to let the weak fend for themselves.”

“But he’ll die.” Her voice was tentative.

How did he make someone understand that this was just nature’s way of culling the weak and sick from the gene pool? It might seem harsh to her, but it was usually for the best.

“If there’s something wrong with him that I can’t see yet, there’s a good chance he will anyway.” He looked down at the puppy as Lucky nosed it, barely licking it. “But she knows. She’s just letting instinct guide her, and from what I’ve seen in all my years doing this, instinct is rarely wrong.”

Alyssa stood up and looked down at him, still on the balls of his feet beside the dog. Her eyes snapped with emerald fire and determination. “You can’t let him die.”

Justin sighed and moved the puppy where it could nurse from its mother more easily, shrugging his shoulders. “Alyssa, look, it’s just nature’s way—”

“Well, it’s not
my
way.”

He stood up in the small space, surprised by the stubbornness in her voice but just as impressed by the conviction in her eyes. Justin felt his professional philosophies slip in the face of her adamant refusal to let nature take its course with this puppy. The kindest thing to do would be to euthanize the pup if it wasn’t going to make it, but so far Justin hadn’t been able to find a thing wrong with it other than low birth weight and depressed breathing.

“Do you have any idea how much work hand-raising a puppy is? Because that’s what’s going to happen with this one.” He let his eyes fall to her stomach, wondering how far along she actually was. “You need your sleep.”

“I don’t care how much work it is.” Tears filled Alyssa’s eyes and her voice was choked.

Damn it.

Causing the sadness he’d heard in her voice earlier was bad enough. There was no way he was going to make a pregnant woman cry.

She swiped at a tear that seeped from the corner of her eye. “I’ll find some way to pay you.”

“This isn’t about the money, Alyssa.” Did she really think that was all he cared about?

Her eyes darkened before she took a step back, bumping up against the wall of the kennel, and he could practically see her building a barrier around herself, trying to put as much space between them as the small kennel allowed. He took a step closer, closing the distance between them. “You have to understand—” he began.

She moved away from him. The hesitation he saw in her eyes hurt. Even after all he’d done tonight—rescuing her and the dog, giving them a roof, offering her a job—she didn’t trust him, and for some reason, he really wanted her to. He felt as if he’d just killed any chance of gaining her trust.

She bit the corner of her lower lip, looking at him through her tear-soaked lashes. “Please, tell me you’ll help save him. I’ll stay as long as it takes for him to get stronger, at least long enough for me to take him with me when I leave.”

Taking care of the puppy would be a round-the-clock commitment for the next few weeks at least. She had no idea what she was getting herself into, but instead of giving her any of those warnings, he found himself keeping his mouth shut, knowing it meant spending days—and nights—together. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was willing to put himself through that kind of temptation.

“S
HE TOOK
WHICH
BMW?” Elijah’s voice didn’t betray nearly as much fury as he felt inside right now.

The M4 cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars of
his
hard-earned money. While he was bent over backward, catering to the eccentricities of overpaid actors, she got to reap the rewards—but taking his new car was too much. Of course, he wouldn’t be where he was today if it hadn’t been for Alyssa. Her career had supported them financially, lending her name to his credibility, until he’d become a premier agent. She knew he’d always wanted a traditional marriage, and that her place, as his wife, was at home. But once producers stopped paying the top dollar he demanded, it had become easier to persuade her to retire from acting.

He let out a breath slowly. The problem was that Alyssa had become boring, monotonous, and their marriage was stale. She still looked like the same beautiful woman who’d turned every man’s head—all the voluptuous allure of a Victoria’s Secret model with the talent worthy of the Oscar that still sat in his office—but she’d lost her spark after she retired, even though she’d agreed with him it was what was best for them.

Alyssa’s lack of passion was part of the reason he’d strayed, the reason he’d been forced to seek excitement in the arms of other women. He couldn’t help that they flocked to him like bees to honey. It had always been this way. When he’d proposed to Alyssa, declaring himself off the market, he’d broken several hearts. It hadn’t been long after their vows before he’d realized that the grass wasn’t any greener in the matrimony pasture. The first time he jumped the fence, she’d been filming on location in London and he’d met a potential new client—a shy, young actress from Kansas. It’d been so easy that it became his weekly routine—send his wife for a spa treatment or shopping, and have his rendezvous with some up-and-coming actress looking for an agent without interruption or suspicion. Then there had been Lillian.

He’d never meant to start sleeping with his wife’s best friend. But Alyssa had come down with the flu and insisted he call her friend to fill in at the ribbon cutting when he opened his new agency four years ago. They’d had too much to drink at the party afterward, and in the limo on the way home, when she slid her hand over his thigh, he wasn’t about to forgo that tempting morsel. He’d felt a little guilty about it, but Lillian had persuaded him that it would be their secret. It continued that way for years.

Then she went and ruined it all.

Lillian had been trying to convince him to divorce Alyssa for over a year now. When Alyssa showed up after lunch, demanding answers, he knew Lillian had gone too far. He didn’t have time for either one of their games. He had enough demands at the office without worrying about the two of them. So, when Alyssa threatened him with divorce, he’d called her bluff. He’d never expected her to actually leave.

“The insurance company alerted me of the accident early this morning. Sir, what would you have me tell them?” The voice of his new assistant broke into his thoughts.

“Nothing. Let them fix it, and find out where the car is now.” If she was willing to risk his fury and take his car, there might be some spark left in Alyssa after all. Elijah felt a stir of excitement coil in his gut. “Let’s find my wife and see what she’s planning on doing.”

Elijah reached for the photograph he kept on his desk from their most recent trip to Miami, right before Alyssa found out she was pregnant. It was a candid snapshot of her staring up at him adoringly while he looked directly at the camera. She was enchanting, in a submissive sort of way. Maybe telling her to leave had been too hasty.

After all, he’d won her over in much more difficult situations than this. He could certainly convince her to come back. Persuading people was his job.

And, even if she did, it didn’t have to stop him from having some fun on the side.