Her Secret Thrill (13 page)

She handed him his pills and poured some water out of the carafe. “Here.”

He took them without argument—likely to put her off her guard. Well, she had been born and raised a Holcomb. She knew the game almost as well as he did. She moved quickly toward the door before he could resume negotiations.

She paused in the doorway. “I'll be back in a couple hours, after you've rested.” For his four o'clock round of pills, she thought, but wisely didn't say so out loud. “There is one other thing—”

He'd taken a seat by the warmth of the immense fireplace and had picked up a sheaf of papers. He paused in the act of putting on his spectacles, and looked at her. Likely he was expecting her to admonish him for working, but she knew what battles to pick. It was enough that he was in his room, sitting and not badgering the house staff to bring his golf cart around for a little trek about the grounds. An activity she'd only barely managed to thwart this morning.

“I will need to be out of town next weekend. Just overnight. I'll be leaving early Friday and will be back here no later than Saturday afternoon.” She'd calculated the time frame to reduce the risk to him as much as possible. Plus, she'd already scheduled a family dinner for Friday, which guaranteed he'd go to bed early just to escape the endless nattering.

“Where are you headed?”

“New Orleans.” She crossed her fingers behind her back that he didn't interrogate her further. She could
stand up to her father with no problem, but she couldn't lie to him.

“Business?”

“Of sorts.”

He merely nodded and went back to his papers, probably as relieved as she that this little interaction was over.

She closed the door and leaned back against it with a deep sigh. She'd realized soon after coming home that there was no way she could simply send a note to Jake explaining everything. She'd gotten in way over her head with him, had broken the rules they'd so carefully set. And now, with the situation with her father…well, there was simply no other choice but to end it with him. But this was something that had to be done in person. As much for herself, as for Jake.

At least, that was her reasoning and she was sticking to it. So what if at night, when she finally fell into bed, exhausted from tangling with her father all day in addition to taking the constant checkup calls from her various siblings, she dreamed of seeing him in New Orleans for entirely different reasons than saying goodbye?

Which was why she'd purposely set up her trip so that she'd have limited time with him. Her plan was to send a note and meet him Friday evening, end it, then cry herself to sleep, or maybe call Liza and pour her heart out, then get the hell out of there as early as possible on Saturday.

She pushed away from the door and headed toward the kitchen. Right now, she had other things to worry about. She had to give the cook an alternative menu to the one she knew her father had ordered. Steak and potatoes with sour cream. The man was a walking
death wish. And she'd thought working for Maxwell & Graham was exhausting. She should be thankful, though. Her mind constantly occupied with keeping her father out of trouble, she only thought of Jake every other minute instead of every single minute.

She was going to New Orleans. She shouldn't be looking forward to it—it was going to be painful in the extreme. But her heart didn't want to hear that. Her heart was all a-flutter about the fact that she'd get to see him again.

Even if it was for the last time.

J
AKE COULDN'T REMEMBER
ever being so nervous. He paced the foyer of the French Quarter guest house where he'd reserved a room. He'd wanted something different, and this beautifully restored house at the residential end of Bourbon Street was perfect. Quiet and yet very close to all the excitement the Quarter had to offer. He could sit on his balcony and smell the spicy foods and hear the music that seemed to spill from every corner, literally feeling the vibrancy that seemed to rise like steam from the street below. All he needed to make it perfect was for Natalie to come walking through that door.

She'd never contacted him to say she wasn't coming. Had he not called her office, he'd never have known things had changed for her. So he'd left a note at the hotel where he would have been staying, telling her to meet him here as soon as she got into town. And now he waited. And hoped. And it was pure hell.

If she didn't show, he'd simply have to accept it was over and walk away. Yet deep down he didn't think she was the kind of person to simply disappear without a word.

Which left him with another dilemma. What if she did show up, but made no mention of what had caused her to leave her job? There was no reason to think she would, as it was part of their agreement not to talk about things like that. But could he pretend he didn't know? No. If she didn't say something, he would. That was the other decision he'd made. If she walked through that door, he was going to lay it all on the line and tell her he wanted more.

Which was why his palms were sweating and he felt like he might lose his breakfast at any second.

And then she was there, standing nervously just inside the huge plank door. “Hi.”

He immediately noticed the difference in her. She wasn't in her usual business attire. She wore black flats, pleated black slacks and a short-sleeved peach sweater. Polished but not “lawyerly.” Her hair was the same, but her eyes weren't. They were…sad.

He went to her immediately, but stopped just short of taking her into his arms, when she took a tiny but telling step back.

“What's wrong?” he asked, trying not to let his own anxiety show.

She looked beyond him, her gaze skirting the sitting room situated just behind him. “Is there someplace we can go?”

“We can talk in here,” he said, nodding toward the sitting room. “Or I have a balcony off my room, if you'd prefer more privacy.”

He could see that she actually had to think about it, which made his heart sink even further. Something was terribly wrong.

“Your balcony would be fine,” she said finally. “I—we need to talk.”

“I can see that.” His tone was sharper than he'd intended, but she seemed too distracted to really notice. He motioned to the wide staircase opposite the foyer. “All the way up, second door to the left.”

He followed behind her, his heart hammering in his throat. He'd finally found a woman he could get serious about, and she was going to walk. He wasn't an idiot, he knew damn well what she was going to tell him. It probably had to do with her taking leave from her job, although why that should change things, he had no idea. Whatever had caused her to make this big change, whether it was her family or because she'd had a sudden change of heart about her career or something had happened at the office or—

He froze on the steps. Or she'd met somebody else and had stopped working because she was going to relocate somewhere else. With
him.
He tried to tell himself it was an absurd conclusion to leap to, and yet that was the one stipulation they'd made. If either of them met someone else, it would be over, no questions asked.

Dammit! Why hadn't he ever thought about that?

He knew why. He'd been so wrapped up in her, it had never occurred to him that she might not feel the same. He hadn't dated anyone since he met her, not even casually. From the moment he'd met her, other women had simply ceased to exist for him.

She paused and looked over her shoulder questioningly. Realizing he was just standing there, he motioned her to keep going and continued climbing the wide, carpeted stairs behind her. Well, he only had himself to
blame for the pain she was about to inflict on his heart, he told himself.

Apparently he was an idiot, after all.

He stepped in front of her and opened the door, then moved aside so she could go in first.

Damn, but she smelled good. His body leapt to attention as she brushed by him. His heart leapt right along with it. It was all he could do not to reach out and pull her into his arms.

“This is gorgeous.”

He didn't even look at the room. He knew she was right; he'd chosen it specifically with her in mind. All the furnishings in the room were period pieces, each dated, many with a detailed history that was available from the hosts upon request. The fireplace worked; the marble mantel was topped by a huge framed mirror that reflected the bed on the opposite side of the room.

The bed was the real masterpiece, though. A hand-carved four-poster, according to their hosts, with a carved headboard and footboard, as well. It sat so high off the ground, there were footstools provided to climb into it. It was topped with a thick, down duvet and ringed with a canopy of white muslin to keep the heat of the afternoon out if they wanted to open the balcony doors. He'd thought it would appeal to her. Looking at her now, he knew it did.

Temper rose along with the pain. How could she leave him for someone else? It was stupid to feel so possessive over her, and yet he did. He wasn't the sort. Or he hadn't been before. But maybe that was only because he'd never met the woman who was supposed to be his. She belonged to him, dammit. And what was more, he belonged to her.

She turned back to him. “This is really lovely.” He didn't miss the fact that she'd carefully avoided looking at the bed. “Is the balcony through here?”

“Yes.” It came out as more rasp than word, as his throat had closed over. It was on the tip of his tongue to just go to her and beg her to give him a chance. But he wouldn't do that to her. They'd had an agreement, and even if it killed him—which it damn well felt like it would—he'd not make it any harder on her.

He cleared the lump from this throat. “Right through here—” He pulled back the heavy draperies and opened the doors, which, like all the other doors, rose the full height of the fifteen-foot ceilings. The balcony was a lacy pattern of wrought iron, covered from end to end with pots spilling over with bougainvillea and impatiens. But he noticed none of the lush decadence that had captivated him before. “Can I get you some coffee?”

She shook her head.

“Oatmeal?” It just popped out, but once he'd said it, he was glad he had.

It caught her off guard. And made her smile. “No. Thank you,” she said, some of the familiar dryness back in her voice.

He'd missed that, their easy banter. Dammit, he
knew
her. There was no reason to dance about this. He sat down across from her. “What's wrong, Natalie? I can see bad news written all over your face.” Better just to get this over with, he decided. It would be easier for them both. “You've met someone else, haven't you.”

She looked so honestly shocked, it shocked him, as well. And then his heart took off and there was no quashing the hope that filled him.

“I—no. What made you think that?”

“You haven't let me touch you since you walked in. You said we ‘needed to talk.' Never a good sign. We had one rule and that was if we met someone else, it was over, no questions asked.” He shrugged. It was that or get up and dance around the balcony and shout down to the street below. “So I assumed since you looked all serious and sad that…”

She touched him then, covering his hand with hers. He immediately flipped his over and wove his fingers through hers.

“It's not someone else. But it's still—” She looked down at their joined hands, then out over the mass of blooms crowding the balcony's edge. “I still have to end this.”

He tugged her hand until she turned back to him. “I think I need to tell you something first. Then you can decide what's best.”

She looked almost afraid, as if her will to get through this was shaky already and this was pushing her to the limits. He shouldn't have rejoiced at that, but it meant her heart wasn't really in this goodbye. Well, if he had his way, no one's heart was going to ache today.

“I called your office,” he blurted.

Her eyebrows shot up. “You did? Why?”

There were a hundred ways he could have answered that question, but he chose the simplest, and perhaps the most direct. “I missed you.”

She blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again.

He rubbed his fingers over the pulse in her wrist. “Things were happening…in my life. I had some changes to make. I…wanted to talk about them with you.”

She simply stared at him. “Why?”

This wasn't so easy to explain. If she honestly didn't have the same growing feelings for him as he did for her, then this might push her away. But what in the hell did he have to lose?

“I have a confession. I know we made rules, but, well, I don't want to play by them anymore. In fact, I haven't been playing by them for some time now.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

He looked right into those eyes that had haunted him every night since the last time they parted. “I know this is supposed to be a secret thing, where real life doesn't intrude. But you have been intruding in my real life. For weeks.”

Her mouth dropped open and, surprisingly, a faint pink stain bloomed high on her cheeks. “But that's not true. I didn't even know anything about you until just last—” She broke off when his own eyebrows lifted.

So. He grinned and began to relax. He wasn't the only one who'd been drawing outside the lines. “What did you find out just last week?”

She swallowed. “I—well…”

He simply sat and waited.

“I was doing some research for one of the partners, and it happened to involve a business in Wyoming. A ranching business.”

“The Double L?” He was really surprised now.

“No. But…well, I knew your family was in ranching, too, so I kind of, sort of—”

She broke off and swallowed, then sat up straighter, and he knew she was about to put it all out there. It was one of the many things he enjoyed about her. When push came to shove, she didn't dodge. She handled things directly.

“I did some research on you. Your family, anyway. Just business stuff. I was…curious. I wanted to know more about you.”

“And what did you learn?”

She frowned. “Not a hell of a lot.” When he grinned, she gave him a look. It only made his grin widen. “Okay. You want to know what I learned? I learned your family is pretty much on par with mine wealth-wise, and they've been in this country almost since the dawn of time—but from there on, we're about as opposite as night and day. You have two brothers—one older, one younger—and one sister, all of whom work for the company, which is still run by your mom and dad. Your mom's brother and two of your dad's brothers and some of their children also work for them. Even the spouses have joined the happy harmony of Lannister Cattle Company.

“As a rule, the Lannisters steer clear of politics and any other spotlight-inducing endeavor, preferring to make their mark inside the industry, out of the public eye. Weddings and birth announcements are about the only things that make the papers outside the business section. You are one of the most philanthropic families I've ever come across, and possibly the only ones who work as hard to keep their charitable contributions out of the public eye as most companies do to keep theirs
in
the public eye.

“You went to college close to home—I'm guessing so you could continue working for your parents—and graduated in the top ten of your class with a double degree, one in business administration, the other in agricultural something-or-other.” She leaned back and blew out a breath. “There's more, but you get the gist.”

“Pretty formidable.”

She shrugged. “I'm a corporate lawyer underling with an eye on a partnership. Research is my life.”

He leaned forward. “So, why did you walk away from it?”

“Not because I wanted to.” She took a moment, then finally met his eyes again. “It's a family matter.”

It stung that she didn't tell him. But then, what did he expect? It was just an example of how little they re ally new each other. But they could change that fact.

“It's your family, isn't it,” he said quietly.

She instantly became wary. “What do you know about my family?”

He looked directly at her. “Your family has been around since dirt and probably invented it. You have two older sisters and one older brother. He and your two brothers-in-law work for Holcomb Industries, your sisters work equally hard to keep the family name in the society columns to the best of their abilities, which are as formidable as yours are in research. Your mom passed away when you were a kid, your dad never remarried. You got an academic scholarship and put yourself through college and law school even though your family probably could have put most of your graduating class through college.

“You graduated early and in the top twenty in your class. Then, unlike your siblings, you moved away from the family manse to the big city, otherwise known as New York. You passed the bar on the first try and landed a job with Maxwell & Graham. You're the family black sheep because you don't work for Daddy, but his health has been in question of late, although your family has done an equally formidable job of keeping that information out of the press. I'm guessing none of them can
function without you and probably drive you crazy.” He leaned back and sighed. “And you're right. Our families are as different as night and day.”