She raised her chin a little higher. “Yes.”
He picked up his fork, dipped it into the sweet pumpkin filling and brought a creamy mound to his mouth. That's when he looked at her...while he filled his mouth with the pie and slowly drew the fork out empty. He locked gazes with her, as if they were the only two people in the room...the way he had back in the Hays Street house.
Steffie hadn't seen him look at anyone else with quite the same intensity.
He took his own sweet time chewing that pie, rolling it around in his mouth, savoring it in a lazy, lingering way before he swallowed. “Monday,” he said. “I want you there Monday.”
Laura indulged in a long, slow sip of her coffee, even though she hadn't put cream or sugar in it, as she always did. Warm color had climbed into her cheeks, and when she spoke, her voice sounded throaty and breathless. “I can't possibly make it before Friday.”
“I'm on a tight schedule. Tuesday's the latest we can start.”
“I'm sorry, but I have an appointment to keep midweek.”
His fingers tightened around the handle of the china coffee cup, and Steffie winced, remembering what had happened to the stern of her brandy snifter last night. Cort's gaze darkened, but his voice came out softer, gentler, than it had been. “Youâ²ll have to postpone your appointment.”
A stubborn, willful light leaped in Laura's eyes.
Steffie found herself holding her breath. The appointment, as everyone at the table knew, had to do with her conceiving Fletcher's baby.
Fletcher seemed to be holding his breath, too. As Laura's
gaze took on a stormy look and the adversarial tension mounted, Fletcher piped up, “Uh, Cort. That starting date. Is it set in stone? You know...a deal breaker?”
“âFraid so.”
Sweat gathered on Fletcher's forehead. “Um, Laura...” He turned to her and cleared his throat. She shifted her gaze away from Cort and trained it on Fletcher. “We can postpone the appointment,” he murmured in a near whisper. “A month, just a month. I mean, what would it hurt?”
They exchanged a long, private, meaningful gaze. Fletcher looked as if he was silently pleading.
With a slight tightening of her lower lip, Laura swung her attention back to Cort. Her chin again tilted in that regal way of hers. “Okay,” she whispered. “Tuesday.”
Cort didn't smile, or reach to shake their hands, or say anything at all. He just stared at Laura.
She set her napkin beside her plate and left the table.
Steffie released the breath she'd been holding and rose to dear the dishes away. Tamika and B.J. helped. Hoss and Rory ushered Fletcher into the other room to watch football, and Cort walked off toward the bedrooms.
Steffie set the dishes aside and followed him. She had to talk to him about her concern that maybe Tamika was right. Maybe he shouldn't stay at home while Laura decorated his house. If the tension she had felt between them was anything to judge by, someone could end up hurt.
He hadn't closed his bedroom door all the way, and Steffie poked her head in. He stood near the window with his back to her, talking on his cell phone. “That's right,” he was saying. “Move everything out of the house. The furniture, the carpets, the artwork. Everything. Put it all in storage. I want the house bare.”
Steffie listened in surprise.
“Oh, but leave my bed. Yes, just the bed.” After a slight pause, he added in a somewhat grudging tone, “And a bed in the guest room. The one directly across the hall from mine.”
5
C
ORT REALIZED WITH an oddly remote portion of his brain that some form of insanity must have come over him.
He'd left Steffie's house Friday, flown home and rearranged his scheduleâpostponing important meetings, delegating crucial tasks, freeing up his time. He then supervised the move of his home furnishings, which took a ten-man crew the entire weekend. He'd left a few functional pieces in the kitchen, his bedroom and the guest bedroom, along with his favorite Oriental carpets and antique pieces scattered throughout various roomsâmore than he'd originally planned to leave. Otherwise, he'd stripped the mansion bare.
And all the while, he thought about her. He wondered if she'd really come, or if she'd change her mind. He wondered how she felt about their deal; about staying with him; about their heated words on Thanksgiving morning. He wondered if her anger would stop her from ever opening herself to him again.
As he tossed restlessly in bed on Monday night, a new concern hit him. What if his interference with her clinic appointment had backfired? What if she'd decided to forgo the artificial insemination and sleep with Fletcher?
Sharp, hot talons of anxiety clutched him. He spent the night pacing, sweating and visualizing torturous scenarios.
She and Fletcher had returned to Memphis on Friday afternoon,
according to Steffie. They'd said they had a lot to arrange before Laura left for Atlanta. They needed to utilize all of the short time they had. Did that include their nights?
Why the hell did it matter so much to him, anyway? His world wouldn't end if she was, at this very moment, sharing another man's bed. Holding him in her arms. Taking him into her body. Cort's breath wedged like a stone at the base of his throat. His life wouldn't change if she conceived another man's child...and spent her life tied to that man in a profoundly elemental way....
The night dragged by, second by excruciating second.
Â
LAURA AWOKE with a start, her sleep disrupted by the snoring of the man next to her. She lifted her head from the pillow, startled to find herself somewhere other than her own bed.
The plane, she realized. She'd fallen asleep on the plane. Relaxing again in the narrow seat, she turned away from the stout, dozing passenger beside her and gazed through the window at the cottony clouds below. The short nap had been the most restful sleep she'd had all weekend. She'd spent her time preparing her business for her absence, amassing the materials she would need for the job and rationalizing her decision to accept Cort's offer.
No matter how profound her reservations, no matter how much he had hurt her in the past, she simply hadn't been able to walk away from the financial advantages his investment would mean for Fletcher and her. The benefits would, in turn, translate into added security for their future child. She also hadn't been able to dismiss the exposure her work would get if she decorated Cort's house in Atlanta. The practical side of her demanded she take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The not-so-practical side of her had kept her awake every night agonizing over Cort.
You're afraid to be alone with me,
he'd said. God help her, it was true. He had the power to affect her in ways no one else could.
In the fifteen years they'd been apart, no one else had hurt her as deeply. No one else had succeeded in inciting her passion to a feverish pitch. No one had riled her into a rage. She'd shouted at him! Told him she hated him. Hit him, for heaven's sake. The fact that she'd attacked him with a pillow made the assault no less shocking.
She'd behaved in the same despicable way her parents treated each other. She'd never understood or approved of their relationship, but now she'd gleaned an uncomfortable insight. For even when she'd been yelling at Cort, her anger hot and fierce, she'd felt more vibrantly alive than during her finest moments with any other man.
A frightening realization. And that was why Cort scared herâhe'd turned her into someone else. Someone with wild, volatile passions that secretly thrilled her. Someone she didn't know how to control.
You've tried to bury her,
Cort had charged, speaking of the passionate girl she had once been. She supposed that was true. She had worked hard to make herself wiser and less vulnerable. Had she also buried a part of herself that clamored to be free?
You
have unresolved issues to face before you take on the challenge of motherhood.
Did she? Were those “unresolved issues” the reason Cort wielded so much power over her? The reason she hadn't given her heart to any other man? She'd been telling herself that she didn't need a lover or a husband, but...did she?
The questions shook her. They were too important to leave unanswered. So important, she suddenly realized, that she couldn't go through with her parenting plan until
she'd answered them. She had to be settled and secure within herself before she brought a baby into the world. No child of hers would be subjected to the turmoil caused by an emotionally needy parent.
Until Cort had come back into her life, she'd felt strong, stable and secure. And alone. Wasn't that why she wanted a baby so badlyâto fill the empty place in her heart, in her arms, in her life? She couldn't deny that she'd been lonely.
Had she also been sexually repressed?
Laura stared out of the airplane window and ground the knuckles of her fist against her chin. The way she'd been obsessing over Cort certainly led her to believe so. Sexual repressionâor simple obsession, for that matterâwere warning signs she couldn't ignore. She needed to understand this volatile part of herself before she conceived a baby. She had to diffuse the tension that gripped her whenever Cort was near, and to learn the meaning of the power he held over her. To proceed with her parenting plan without understanding these things would be unfair to Fletcher, her future baby and herself.
If necessary, she would postpone her appointment at the clinic yet again. She was hoping, though, that she could find answers to her questions and put to rest her doubts during this trip to Atlanta.
You realize what you're contemplating, don't you?
she asked herself.
Sex. With Cort!
He would be the logical partner to help her explore her repressed sexuality. Her “inner woman” took on a life of its own whenever he was around. She obviously had to draw that passionate inner woman to the surface where she could face her. Understand her. Find a comfortable way to live with her.
She had no doubt at all that her inner woman would lead her to Cort's bed. The idea both terrified and titillated her.
It also presented a problem, she suddenly realized. Perhaps an insurmountable problem. In preparing for motherhood, she'd cleansed her body of all contraceptives. As her chart clearly indicated, she was approaching her most fertile time of the month.
She couldn't risk getting pregnant by the wrong man! Nothing would be worse than that!
By the time the plane landed, Laura was feeling torn, apprehensive, ruthlessly repressed and dangerously obsessed with thoughts of making love to Cort.
Not a good mind-set for the first day on the job.
Â
AFTER A HELLACIOUS NIGHT of imagining the worst about Fletcher and Laura's nocturnal activities, Cort rose early on Tuesday feeling tense, impatient and unwilling to wait for Laura to arrive at his house, as they'd planned.
He needed to see her again, and soon. No sense wasting the hour it would take for her to rent a car and drive across town. A call to the airlines provided him with her flight number, and he sped all the way to the airport.
Would she be there, or had she changed her mind?
He parked near the curb, paid a security guard a healthy sum to keep an eye on his open-topped car and strode into the terminal, his eyes peeled as he searched the crowd. With a crazy kick of his heart, he spotted her in baggage claim. Relief slowed him to a standstill. He needed a moment to relax the uncomfortable tautness in his muscles and jaw. To regain the nonchalance he'd somehow lost. To drink in the sight of her.
She stood waiting for her luggage to appear on the moving carousel, her coat draped over her arm. She wore a taupe sweater dress that dung to a few choice curves, yet draped with subdued elegance over others. The hemline reached below her knees. Her high heels accentuated the
shapeliness of her long, slender calves, making him hunger to see more of her legs. It had been too damn long since he'd seen them...or felt them wrapped around him.
A familiar longing tightened his loins. She always seemed to have that effect on him.
She turned her head to smile at a child standing beside her, and Cort noticed that her honey-blond hair glistened in a soft, loose twistâthe kind that might tumble down in a silken rush at the removal of a single hairpin. Small gold studs glinted at her ears, drawing his gaze to the clean, elegant lines of her jaw and throat. He'd kissed her there at least a thousand times.
She laughed at something the child said, her face radiant with gentle amusement. Cort had never seen her looking more beautiful. He'd never felt such a strong possessiveness; a need to let the world know that she belonged to him.
Belonged to him. Except she didn't.
She leaned to reach for a large leather suitcase moving toward her on the conveyor belt. He crossed the short distance, stepped in behind her, hooked his hand into the handle of the suitcase and swung it from the carousel.
“Oh,” she cried, her wide brown eyes watching the suitcase. “Excuse me, sir, but that'sâ” Her protest died when her gaze reached his face. “Cort,” she breathed.
She looked flustered at the sight of him. Or maybe just surprised. The subtle rise of color in her cheeks, the parting of her lips, the lingering sweep of her gaze across his faceânone of it necessarily meant that she felt the same pull of emotion that he did at seeing her again.
The last time they'd been alone, she'd said she hated him.
“I. . .I didn't expect you to be here.” She managed a small smile and nervously raked a wayward tendril of her hair
back with her fingers. “I thought we'd agreed that I'd rent a car.”
“I didn't see any sense in that when I have a few you can choose from.”
She hesitated, as if searching for a reason to argue. An excuse not to go with him.
It took every ounce of his willpower not to pull her into his arms and kiss some sense into herâor out of her. He hadn't lost his mind entirely, though. He was fully aware that one wrong move could send her running back to Fletcher.
Anxiety cut through his chest. Had they set their parenting plan into action? Could she, even now, be carrying Fletcher's baby? Cort shoved the bothersome questions to the back of his mind. She was with
him
now, in
his
world, and at the moment, nothing else mattered but keeping her here. “Is this all of your luggage?”
“The rest is there.” She gestured toward another large suitcase, a boxed crate and an overnight bag. “I've brought a few catalogs to show you. And software. Fabric, paint and carpet samples.”
“Good.” He
had
to touch her, or some internal organ of his would burst with the pressure of resisting. So he gestured to a skycap to handle the crate and luggage, settled a hand at her waist, near the small of her back, and steered her through the crowd.
He reluctantly let go of her as she presented her baggage-claim tickets to a guard at the door, who checked the numbers and waved them through. Silently they trekked along a busy sidewalk, into the fresh, balmy Georgia breeze.
She lifted her face to the bright morning sun. “The weather's so beautiful. Feels more like May than late November.”
“Let's hope it lasts. In Atlanta, you never know. Next week might be in the eighties, or we could have snow.”
“That's true. We never knew what kind of weather to expect for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”
He'd almost forgotten that she'd grown up in an Atlanta suburb. Casually he caught hold of her arm and guided her toward his car. “Why did you leave Georgia?” he asked her, curious.
“Grad school. I guess the thing that appealed the most to me about attending an out-of-state university was all the mileage between my parents and me.”
He didn't doubt that. He remembered how upset she'd always been by her parents' occasional visitsâusually prompted by their decision to divorce, which never bore fruit At least, not while he'd known her. “Do your parents still live here?”
“No. In Florida. My mother hates the heat and mosquitoes, so my father bought a condo near the Everglades.” A sardonic sparkle lit her eyes. “She gets back at him by spending too much money and flirting with the neighbors.”
Nothing much had changed on the home front. “How did Fletcher wind up in Memphis?”
“He stopped by to visit me during one spring break and liked the place so much, he decided to live there.”