Roses had the softest leaves. The only thing softer had been Sarah’s skin when he touched her. He wanted to touch her again. To stop this conversation in a physical way. His mouth on hers. The two of them locked together, close as only a man and a woman could be while the lights of the city flashed by beyond the windows.
“I’m not on vacation,” he said, vaguely.
“Don’t be obtuse.” She moved her hand from his leg.
Control, Harris. He reminded himself. The problem here was simple. Sarah needed to know where he stood. And then she could decide if she wanted to spend time with him. A few weeks could be a hell of a memory, he thought. “It’s hard not to be. Why are we having this conversation?”
She said nothing.
“Are you trying to justify coming to my hotel with me tonight? Because I can think of a better way to convince you than words.”
Again silence.
“We’re two adults contemplating an affair,” he said.
“I’m not trying to justify it.”
“Then what?” he asked, realizing he was willing to play her game to have one night with her.
Sarah had spent a long time alone. She dated when she had the time but it took a lot for a guy to make her want to leave the safety of her routine. Harris made her want to do that and it scared her because she knew a few weeks would be all they would share.
She was honest enough with herself to admit she sometimes used her family responsibilities as a barrier between her and the men who asked her out. At other times she used her obligations as a test. So far no man had ever measured up to her expectations. Honestly, she’d been okay with her situation until Harris had shattered the illusions of what she thought she’d wanted and made her realize that she’d forgotten her dream.
This conversation, his pointed questions, told a story. Was she trying to come up with a reason to go back to his hotel with him?
Sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t looking for a man who didn’t exist. That mythical Mr. Right, who’d be a lover, a partner and a friend. It seemed easy in books and movies and funny on television but the cold reality was—she was too much an optimist to say it—she knew the truth. There might not be a Mr. Right.
“I…I’m not too sure I know what I want from you, Harris.” That much was true. She’d never felt so chaotic. This was crazy, he was a man. That was all. And despite her recent Magic 8-ball affirmation, she knew that it took more than cosmic luck for a man and woman to fall in love.
“Why make it difficult?” he asked.
He leaned toward her. Damn, he smelled so good. Clean, spicy—masculine. She shifted a little on the seat, trying to get closer to him without seeming to.
“Honestly, that’s not what I’m doing. I expect more than an affair from the men I’ve involved in my life.” Sarah had learned the hard way that unless you asked for what you wanted in life, you were often disappointed. Too bad she’d always been afraid to ask for what she really wanted.
He brushed his forefinger down the side her face stopping at the base of her neck. She wanted his mouth in just the same spot. Her skin tightened and her pulse quickened.
“An affair is all I have to give.”
She shifted in her seat, pressing her legs together. She wished he’d stop touching her. No, that wasn’t true. She wished he’d never stop touching her. But she didn’t believe in lust at first sight. Ha, her inner conscience jeered. “I think it’s clear we’re on opposite sides here.”
He dropped his hand. “Of course we are. That’s probably why the yearning for you is sharp.”
“You yearn for me?” she asked, surprised. It was the first time she felt like she’d glimpsed the real man under the facade of sophisticated charm.
“In ways you’ll never know,” he said, his gaze meeting hers. His eyes and hair reminded her of the Norse gods in the Viking legends she loved. But those men were tough, had had to be tough to survive and she longed to know what had shaped Harris. What events in his life had tempered the steel inside him and shaped him into who he was today?
She clenched her hands together to keep from touching him again. There were hidden depths to Harris Davidson. She knew it.
He had the potential to be more than a vacation affair. It was there in his eyes when he watched her. In his words when he said impossible things about yearning and made her believe that he could be her Mr. Right. In his actions when he’d lit a fire inside her and put her needs in front of his.
“Oh, heck. I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“Honey, I figure my chances of seeing you after tonight are slim. There’s no use in hedging.”
“Why can’t you commit to longer than your trip? Is it the distance?” she asked.
“I could lie to you and say it is.”
“Then what?”
He glanced out the window, then ran his fingers through his thick hair. She remembered the texture of it under her hands. Her palms tingled and she wanted to touch him again.
“Tell me about your family.”
“Why?”
“Just go with me here, okay?”
She didn’t like talking about her parents because she still missed them. She still remembered the night they’d died and the night her life had changed so drastically. “My parents owned the restaurant until their death twelve years ago. That’s when I took over raising the twins and the running the business.”
“How’d your folks die?”
“Drunk driver. The twins and I were in the back seat of the car.”
He patted her shoulder. She knew he meant the gesture as comfort and appreciated it. She still missed her parents. Especially now when the restaurant was facing an uncertain future and it was all that remained of her link to the past.
The house her parents had owned was too big and too expensive for her to maintain so she’d had to sell it and move the twins to the small bungalow she could afford.
“I shouldn’t have pried,” he said.
“Why did you?”
“To make my point. Your parents loved each other, didn’t they?”
“Of course. They wouldn’t have married if they hadn’t.”
“You saw the good side of love. There is another side. A darker side and that’s what my folks had.”
“What’s the darker side of love?” she asked. She thought maybe it was hate but that didn’t seem right. No one married out of hate.
“Obsession.”
“Who was obsessed?”
“My dad.”
She didn’t have words to say anything else. But she understood the point he’d made. His view of relationships made him leery. “I’m not asking you to sign an affidavit that says you’ll marry me. I only want to know that you aren’t using me.”
He cupped her jaw in his hands as the limo coasted to a stop in front of her house. “I don’t think I could use you.”
She leaned up and kissed him gently backing away before passion could take control. “Want to come in for coffee?”
He pulled her closer and kissed her again. She had no control over the embrace and was swept away by the intensity of it. Ray opened the door and a cool breeze snaked through the car.
Harris let go of her and slid out of the car. He offered his hand to her and when she stood next to him outside the car, she felt like she was losing something precious.
“I’ll call you.”
He climbed back into the car without waiting for a response and she had the feeling she’d never hear from him again. Sarah made an important decision as the limousine drove away. Harris Davidson was a man who came along only once in a lifetime and she was willing to fight for him.
Four
H
arris leaned back in the seat as they pulled away from Sarah’s house. This business deal with the consortium was a straightforward takeover bid. And he struggled to keep it that way. He should be able to keep his attention there and if he was smart, he would get out of Orlando without seeing Sarah again.
Harris’s first instinct was to return to the hotel room and keep to himself. Whenever that impulse struck he fought it. He didn’t want to end up like his dad, spending fifteen years in an apartment somewhere and never leaving it.
He moved to the front of the limousine and lowered the partition. “You know any place to stop and get a drink?”
“Sure,” Ray said.
“Women troubles?” Ray asked after a few minutes had passed.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Harris said. And he believed it. He had a solid plan. Avoid Sarah until he left town. He could do that easily.
“Sarah looks a little feisty,” Ray said.
“Ray, have you ever heard of employer-employee etiquette?”
“Nah, why am I breaching it?”
Harris raised one eyebrow at him. “Yes. And I don’t appreciate it.”
“Sorry, Mr. Davidson. I’m not a real formal guy.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“So, what about Sarah?” Ray asked.
Harris realized Ray wasn’t going to stay in his role of driver. Harris started to put the partition up then stopped. Maybe this one time he could use an outside opinion. God, knew he didn’t think around Sarah. Just turned into one big hormone.
“She has a way of shaking a man’s concentration.”
“The best ones do,” Ray said.
“You married?” Harris asked.
“Nah…my line of work wasn’t conducive to it.”
Harris watched the driver. There was something in his voice that hinted at a feeling Harris understood too well. Something he refused to acknowledge in himself except deep in the night when no one was around to witness it. Something he’d tried to run from. Something he knew was loneliness.
“I’ve never had the inclination. There’s something damned foolish about promising someone you’ll spend your life together. Not even business deals last that long.”
“I used to think like you do.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A broad.”
Harris chuckled. “Woman troubles?”
“
Madon’,
you don’t know the half of it. You going to call Sarah.”
“I’m going to do what I should have done in the beginning.”
“What’s that?”
“Concentrate on business and forget about her.”
“She didn’t strike me as one of them shrews. Did she try to lecture you?”
“No.”
“Ditzy?”
He thought about the Magic 8 ball she’d been playing with. Aside from that she seemed intelligent. Hell, he knew she was smart. Had seen it in her quick wit.
“If anything she’s too smart.”
Ray sighed and then pulled the limo to a stop on the shoulder. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then putting his arm along the back of the seat turned to him. “God knows I’m not an expert on relationships, but I’ll tell you one thing, man. There’s nothing like getting old and realizing you let the right one slip away.”
Ray’s words made a certain kind of sense, but all Harris could see was the Davidson family legacy in relationships.
Obsession.
It was a fatal weakness in the Davidson men. Harris had channeled that part of himself into making money. And he was damned good at it. He couldn’t afford to have a woman like Sarah in his life.
The cell phone rang and Ray answered it.
He grunted a few times. Then said, “
Merda,
I’m trying.”
Sounded like a fight was brewing. Harris moved to the rear of the car to give Ray some privacy. The driver made a lot of sense. He’d been protecting himself from relationships since he’d turned six. That was the year his father had a bout of depression. Harris had had to take care of the old man.
Sarah called to him. Called to the man he’d always wanted to be. Maybe he should give her one more chance. He was aching for her sweet warmth, though he knew he shouldn’t reach out and take her. Yet he reached for his cell phone and called information. Three minutes later he had her number.
The phone rang four times before she picked up. “Hello.”
Her voice was low and husky. Breathless as if she’d run to answer the call. He shouldn’t have disturbed her. Nothing could come of this and he’d almost decided that he wasn’t going to pursue her. A cold shower and solitary release would appease his body and if his soul hungered for something more from her…too bad.
“Is anyone there?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s Harris.”
“Oh, I didn’t expect to hear from you again.” He heard her moving around in the background. The soft sounds of her footfalls on hardwood floors.
Ask her to dinner one more time, let her decline and then hang up. “I hadn’t planned on calling.”
“Why did you?”
“Dinner. I wanted to ask you to dinner.” Yeah he was smooth and suave. Every woman’s freaking dream come true.
“Dinner?” she asked. The rustle of cloth against cloth was muted in the background. What was she doing? His mind supplied an image of her changing.
He groaned silently, trying to ignore his imagination and concentrate on her words. She was going to be the death of him.
“It would have to be after the restaurant closes.”
“I’ll order something from room service.”
“Why are you doing this, Harris?”
“I’m just asking you to dinner, Sarah. Millions of people share the meal every day.”
“I’m just like a million others?”
No, she wasn’t. And that was precisely why it was so important to him to that she say yes. He didn’t say anything. Wouldn’t give her the words he sensed she needed to say yes.
“I’m not sure about you.”
“Have dinner with me?”
“Dinner won’t change anything,” she said quietly.
“I never thought it would.”
“What did you think then?”
“That you’d be my downfall.”
“Harris.”
“I’ll send Ray for you when the restaurant closes.”
“Okay.”
He hung up before she could say anything else. He knew he had one shot at making this evening one to remember. There could never be more than one night for them because she awakened in him all those feelings that his father had described to him. All those feelings that made his career pale in comparison. All those feelings that he’d vowed to never experience.
Sarah was not having a good day. She’d been to the high school twice today. First for Burt who had been called to the office for fighting. Then for Isabella, her sister, who had ripped her skirt and needed a new one. The main oven in the kitchen wouldn’t get hotter than 250 degrees and she’d just received a rather ominous letter from her landlord informing her that the strip mall had been sold and that she’d be contacted by the new owners shortly about a new lease agreement.