Seducing the Old Flame (28 page)

“Which is why I think we should take things a little slower this
time, make sure we build our relationship on more than just sex.”

His hand dug into her low back, keeping her close.
 
He looked thoughtful.
 
“Maybe you’re right.
 
If that’s what you want, we’ll take things
slow.”

“Thank you.”
 
She pressed
another kiss to his cheek.

He turned his head to where their lips hovered millimeters
apart.
 
“Just how slow are we taking
things, Tabby?”

His warm breath caressed her lips, made her long for his mouth
to warm her as well.

“Not
that
slow, kiss
me.”

Jason kissed her, slow and sensual, hot and heavy, laden with
everything good and wonderful in life.

And he loved her.
 
Really
loved her.

Just like she loved him.

Had she ever felt this good?
 
This happy?

Then she remembered the business plan she’d brought home to
study over and fought to keep the fear from flowing from her body to his.

Would Jason still want her in his life if she vetoed funding the
Savannah Blue project?

Chapter Fourteen

She-cat sleeping in her lap,
Tabitha curled on her sofa and read over the business plan once again.
 
Please let me have missed something really
positive, really profitable, really good.

But she hadn’t.

Savannah Blue could be a great
investment.
 
Could be being the key
words.
 
The project was risky at
best.
 
The pay out would be big, or the
losses tremendous.

She couldn’t start anything
with Jason.
 
Not right now.
 
Probably not ever.

But regardless not right now.

There was no way she could opt
to support a project as risky as the Savannah Blue Shopping Complex if she had
a personal gain in the project.

Any relationship with Jason
would definitely be construed as personal.
 
Accurately so.

But she couldn’t argue that the
Savannah Blue project was a surefire financial coo for her firm.
 
It could be, but could bes weren’t what put
Stewart and Steinman at the top.

Yet, how could she give a
thumbs down to a project that she knew meant so much to Jason?
 
If he discovered that she played a role in
the project falling apart, how would he feel?

For that matter how would he
feel if he ever discovered that she gave the project a go-ahead when she didn’t
fully believe in it?

Jason wasn’t the kind of man to
take a handout.
 
No, he preferred to earn
everything himself, even if it meant taking the hard road.

Either way she was going to come
out a loser on the Savannah Blue project.

What were the odds that Ben and Harold would both support the
project, thus taking the decision out of her hands?

What she expected to happen was for Ben to give the go ahead and
for Harold to decide the project wasn’t in the company’s best financial
interest.
 
Which meant they’d look to her
for input.

Not good.

Maybe she could just call in sick…for the next month.

Actually, she had been feeling rather queasy.
 
She’d blamed it on eating too much Chinese,
because ever since Jenny had shown up, take-out in hand, she’d craved the
stuff.
 
Found herself eating Chinese two,
sometimes three, meals a day.

Yeah, she had blamed it on that, but now she wasn’t sure.

She was late.

Not that her missing menstrual cycle meant anything.
 
It didn’t.
 
Couldn’t.

Jason had used a condom every time.

Well, there had been those few blissful moments of flesh against
flesh, but she didn’t have to be a doctor to know that she couldn’t get
pregnant from just having a man inside her, not without him having spilt
sperm.
 
Jason had bagged up long before
that.

Of course, there had been the kitchen counter sex when she’d
thought he’d foregone the condom, but he hadn’t.

So what if she’d felt as if he hadn’t worn one?
 
He had, she’d seen it and he’d removed
it.
 
She’d seen him remove it.
 
But could it have been some cosmic sign?
 
Some second sense telling her that there
wasn’t as much of a barrier between them as she’d thought?

Okay, she shouldn’t jump the gun on making conclusions about
such things.
 
She wasn’t pregnant.

Just wishful thinking on her part.

Wishful thinking
?

Did she want to be pregnant?
 
Wouldn’t that just complicate her relationship with Jason all the more?

What would he if she were pregnant with his baby?
 
Would he be happy?
 
They’d just begun to forge a relationship
together, had gone to eat, Chinese of course, every night together for the past
week. Sometimes after visiting his father, sometimes just after he showed up at
her condo freshly showered and starved, and they’d go out because they knew
better than to be alone.

They’d not had sex.
 
Amazingly, they’d stuck to taking things slow.
 
Not that she didn’t want him.
 
Or vice versa.
 
The burning heat was always there,
threatening to send them up in ashes.

Tonight, when he’d brought her home, she’d almost taken his hand
and invited him inside.
 
She’d wanted to
spend the night with him, loving him, letting him love her.

A baby.
 
She slid her hand
beneath She-cat to palm her flat belly.
 
Was Jason’s baby inside her?

Brr-ring.
 
Tabitha reached
over and picked up the cordless phone.
 
“Hello.”

“Tell me I didn’t dream tonight,” Jason’s voice whirred in her
ear.

Speak of the devil.
 
She
smiled.

“You dreamed tonight,” she teased, stroking She-cat’s fur.

“That’s not what I asked you to tell me.”
 
He laughed.

 
“Yeah,
but I’ve never been one to take directions well.
 
I do much better marching to the beat of my
own drummer.”
 
Which was true although
she currently teased him.

“What’s this drummer’s beat telling you right
now?” he asked.

“Actually, he’s playing a sexy rhythm for two
that demands slow dancing and seductive kisses.”

“For two?
 
Sounds interesting.
 
You have a
partner in mind for this particular beat?”

“I do.”
 
She-cat raised her head in annoyance at Tabitha’s speech.

“Someone I know?”

“You do.”
 
She scratched beneath She-cat’s chin, trying to appease the cat’s
exasperation.

“Glad to hear that, because I don’t like the
idea of some other guy cutting in on my action.”

Ouch.
 
Tabitha winced.
 
“Jason, about—”

“Don’t say it,” he interrupted.
 
“It’s over and done with.
 
Crazy
as it sounds, I think I understand.”

“You do?”

“We were hurting each other, Tabby.
 
Not solving a thing with our fights.
 
You wanted out, yet couldn’t let go.
 
You did what you had to do.”

Well, that sorta summed it up.

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Yes, you did.
 
Because
without hurting me the fighting couldn’t end.”
 
He sighed and she could picture him running his hands through his dark
hair.
 
“I didn’t understand it at the
time.
 
Couldn’t have.
 
But I do now, Tabby.
 
Not that I agree with your methods, but I do
understand why you did what you did.”

“You forgive me?”

He paused only a moment.
 
“I forgave you long ago, Tabby.
 
Not that I realized it until you showed up on my doorway.
 
But if I hadn’t, I never would have let you
spent the weekend at my place.
 
No matter
how sexy and tempting you were.”

He’d forgiven her.

Things would work out.
 
Even on this Savannah Blue project, it would work out.

“I didn’t sleep with Jeremy.”

“It doesn’t matter, Tabby.”

“No, really, I didn’t have sex with him.
 
Not then, not ever.”

A long silence came over the phone.
 
“Yet you let me think you did.”

“Yes.”

Another long silence.

“I’m glad you didn’t sleep with him, Tabby.”

“Me, too.”
 
She was.
 
More than she could ever convey to him.
 
Emotion threatened to choke her and she took
a deep breath and changed the subject back to something lighter. “Now, tell me
about you finding me sexy and tempting when I showed up at your apartment.”

“Nope, I’d better not,” he said slowly.
 
“We’re playing by a new set of rules and I’d
determined we’re both going to win this game.”

Loving him, Tabitha bit her lower lip.
 
“You win.
 
I’ll just pretend like you told me my body drives you wild and just
looking at me cranks your starter switch.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“Jason?”

“Huh?”

“When did you know you still loved me?”

“When I saw you sitting with my dad, playing cards with those
old men, just being yourself for all you were worth.”

“Really?”

“I knew that nothing that happened in the past really
mattered.
 
Only the here and now.
 
Only you.”

“Good answer.”

“Is that purring I hear?”

“Yep.
 
She-cat liked your
answer, too.”

“Smart cat.
 
How about
you?”

“Me?
 
I already told you
that I thought your answer was brilliant.”

“I meant when did you know that you loved me?”

“When you opened your apartment door and I looked into your
eyes, you took my breath away,” she admitted.
 
“I didn’t admit right then that I loved you, but I did.
 
I do.”

“I can live with that answer.”

“Good, because I’m not going to feed that ego of yours anymore.”

“My ego?
 
Tabby, darling,
there’s not a woman alive as self-assured as you.”

If he only knew.

“Well, maybe one or two.”

“I doubt it.”

They talked long into the night, discussing the past, hoping for
a future, but not once did Tabitha mention Bill Banks or the Savannah Blue
Project.

Nor did she mention her sneaking suspicion of the precious gift Jason
may have unknowingly have given her.

“What’s wrong, Jason?” Tabitha asked two nights later, when they
sat in her living munching on dinner.
 
Chinese, of course.

She’d wondered at his arriving with take-out rather than their
going out, but she’d not made a big deal of it.
 
Maybe it was time for them to move forward.

But rather than trying to seduce his way into her bedroom, Jason
had been distracted all evening.

Jerking his gaze to her, Jason shrugged.
 
“Sorry about that.
 
Long day at work.”

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“Not really.”

She shot him a glance that said wrong answer.

“You’ll regret this,” he warned.

She set her box down on her coffee table, picked up the fat cat
beside her, and stared at Jason.
 
“No,
that’s where you are wrong.
 
I want to
know about you.
 
Everything about
you.
 
The good, the bad, and the not so
sexy even.
 
That’s part of this being in
love thing, you know.”

He eyed her curiously.
 
“You never wanted to hear about anything to do with Kelly Construction
when we were together before.”

Too true.
 
She’d been too
focused on Tabitha Sterling to want to do that.
 
Amazing the difference two years could make.