Weekend Agreement (18 page)

Behind him the office door clicked. Charlotte had let herself in. Turning to see her, he had to squeeze his fists to push away the arousal that engulfed him. Dressed in a black pencil skirt and a soft ruffled blouse, she had the same soft, innocent elegance he’d seen on Saturday night.

That’s exactly what she wants you to think.

Her eyes glowered as she marched forward. “You son of a bitch.” She shoved him, hard. “You sent me the deed to my aunt’s farm.”

“You sound surprised. That was the purpose, wasn’t it? You give me the weekend, I give you the land.”

“As payment for services rendered.”

The hurt that flashed in her eyes made him feel better. Good. Let her have a taste of the bitterness he tasted every time he swallowed. “Are you disappointed? Personally, I think you did rather well. Granted, the land wasn’t exactly what you were after, but I think it makes an excellent consolation prize, don’t you?”

“What do you mean, consolation prize?”

Her eyes looked exceptionally green. So much so, he could almost buy her perplexity. Damn but he hated the hold she still had on him.

With measured movements, he walked to his desk and sat down. “Come now, you didn’t expect me to fall for that ‘I want only you,’ line, did you? After all, you aren’t the first woman to play that card.” Just the first to do so believably.

“I wasn’t giving you a line,” she said.

Daniel had to hand it to her: she continued to maintain that look of feigned innocence in the face of imminent exposure. “I meant every word I said.”

“I’m sure you did,” he said with a smile. From the way she shrank slightly, he knew the expression didn’t reach his eyes. Under the circumstances, he was lucky to have any facial expression at all. He thought of that file of news clippings—the complete guide to the life and times of Daniel Moretti—and all the hurt and fury from Sunday morning returned in full force. “And it was a wonderfully romantic evening.” He drew out the word
romantic
on purpose. “Worth every penny.”

Charlotte flinched. Damn. Hurting her was supposed to make him feel better. She was supposed to suffer. He didn’t want to feel like a heel when those green eyes grew misty.

“What happened to you?” she asked. “This isn’t the man I spent the weekend with.”

“Sure it is, Professor. Ask any of the women I dated. They’ll tell you I’m a cold, distant bastard.”

She shook her head. “Then they’d be wrong. Because that’s not the man I met in Nantucket. That man was sweet and gentle and afraid of being hurt.”

And he got his heart run over by a two-ton truck in return. Daniel forced his attention to the papers in front of him, as though doing so would force the memories from his mind. “You got your farm back, Professor. What more do you want from me?”

“I want to know why you’re backing away. Why you’re pretending Saturday night didn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, Saturday night meant a great deal,” he said. “More than you can imagine. You were absolutely amazing, by the way. Though I have one word of advice.”

It was time to deliver the final blow. To cast Charlotte Doherty out of his mind once and for all. “Next time you play with the big boys, do a better job of hiding your research file.”

“Research file?”

She shrank back in her chair. The shock, Daniel surmised, was genuine. She had no idea she’d been found out. “I will say you are a very diligent researcher. Must be all that grad school work. I’m going to guess you weren’t expecting us to consummate our arrangement in your bedroom. Otherwise you wouldn’t have left it on the dresser where everyone could see it.”

“I can explain.”

Sure she could. Those were the lamest three words ever invented, their sole purpose to introduce a lie. He wondered what hers would be.

“The file was Judy’s idea. She thought I should know more about you.”

“To get a better handle on how to reel me in.”

“No, so I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.”

He laughed. “Me, take advantage of you? That’s rich. Are you forgetting that you’re the one who came to me looking to make a deal for your land?”

“Which you promptly tied into a weekend jaunt.”

“Which you so quickly agreed to because your brother left you no choice.” Did she even have a brother, he wondered? Then there was the negotiating on the university steps. He
knew
she was up to something that afternoon.

“You have a reputation for going through women like water. Judy wanted to protect me from becoming the next notch on your belt.”

“Protect you or help you figure out a way into my bed? You played your role to perfection, by the way. That was the
pièce de résistance
.” Thinking how easily he fell for everything made him sick to his stomach. “For a second, I almost believed you were sincere.”

“I was sincere.”

“Nice try, but the proof is in the research file, Professor, wouldn’t you say?”

“What I say,” Charlotte said, rising, “is screw you. I was nothing but honest with you. I bared my soul to you, told you things I never told another soul. How dare you suggest my motivations were anything but pure.”

She was definitely convincing. Even now, knowing everything he did, a part of him still almost believed her.

“You should know better than to play the same angle twice,” he said.

Her hand shot up. He braced himself for the contact. Indignant slaps came with the performance.

Instead, she surprised him by brushing the back of her hand along his cheek. His jaw, so tightly clenched his teeth hurt, trembled beneath her touch.

“Tell me you don’t feel anything,” she dared. “Tell me you don’t feel the connection.”

He felt it all right. Felt it more strongly than he’d ever felt anything in his life. Too bad the emotions were an illusion. “Sorry,” he whispered through gritted teeth, “but I don’t have anything else for sale.” Though it killed him, he moved away from her touch. “By the way, if that particular tactic didn’t work with Valerie, it sure as hell won’t work now.”

“Daniel…”

He shook her off. “Even the best players know when to fold, Professor. I suggest you take your consolation prize and leave before I change my mind. Unlike the game shows, there won’t be a Door Number Three.”

He felt the moment the fight seeped out of her. Her shoulders dropped and the light disappeared from her eyes. No longer were they emeralds, but dull green stones. “All right,” she said. “I’ll leave.”

Finally, she’d gotten the message.

“Before I go, though, I want you to know something. I want you to know that I don’t regret a second of what we shared, and that I know it was real. I hope someday you figure out the same thing for yourself.”

With that she walked away, leaving him as she found him. Alone.

Coldness settling in the pit of his stomach, Daniel stared at the closed door. Charlotte Doherty was out of his life at last and for good. She certainly played her gambit to the end, didn’t she? Right down to the “perfectly plausible” explanation for that research file.

Except he knew better.

Heaving one last sigh, he refocused on the spreadsheets before him. The London deal was dangerously close to irreparable. Maybe he’d fly over to smooth things over with Nesmith himself. Much as he hated transcontinental flight, the change of scenery might do him some good. Maybe he’d stay on a few days, shoot over to the Mediterranean. Ava Kritharas recently divorced her latest husband; she’d be up for a few days of casual amusement.

And heaven knows, casual was exactly what he needed.

A soft rap sounded on the door. Daniel started, then called for the person to enter. “Change your mind?” he asked, purposely keeping his voice cool and head down.

“Sir?” his assistant, Doug, asked.

He cursed himself for the momentary slip of resolve. Of course she wouldn’t come back. He’d successfully cut her loose.

“This package arrived from Nantucket,” Doug continued. “Where would you like me to put it?”

The coldness in his stomach snaked upward through his chest as he watched his assistant maneuver the package through the doorframe. Great, just what he needed. A permanent reminder of his gullibility. He tore away the brown wrapper and stared at the portrait beneath.

“Nice-looking woman,” Doug remarked. He propped the painting against the desk. “Is she a relative?”

Daniel nodded. “She’s my great-great-aunt Esther.”

Chapter Thirteen

Home at last. Charlotte pushed open the farmhouse door only to promptly wrinkle her nose. Weeks of being locked tight in the hot summer air, not to mention years of Aunt Helen’s neglectful housekeeping, left the air musty, hot and sour.
You wanted a warm homecoming,
she thought, fanning her herself. The heat was more oppressive than in her office.

She walked through the rooms, letting her fingers brush the dust off the faded wallpaper, and recalled the first time she walked these rooms. Sixteen years old, stuck in the throes of lonely adolescence and seeking an identity for herself, she found a part of her past over weak lemonade. From that moment on, the farm became her mental touchstone, the one place where her mother and her memories lived on. And now, the touchstone was hers. Her past and memories were safe.

She sat at the kitchen table and waited for the sense of contentment and completion to overtake her. Instead, all she could think about was Daniel’s dark eyes and the pain he so proudly tried to hide.

Damn, but she could kick herself forever looking at that stupid file, let alone packing it. Maybe if she hadn’t, Daniel and she would be sitting in this farmhouse together.

Who was she kidding? It wasn’t the file that came between them. Even if Judy had never compiled her research, Daniel would have found something else to spark his suspicions.

Forcing herself to forget Daniel, at least for the moment, she looked around the kitchen. Time hadn’t been kind to the building. A lot of love and care would be needed to restore the house to its former glory, but restore it she would. As historically accurate as possible. In fact, the entryway was the perfect place for that console chest and her Boston rocker would look fabulous in the living room next to the fireplace. She would re-create the chintz wallpaper, then hang her collection of ancestor photographs along the stairway. She would create a proper homage to her mother’s legacy.

She would create her own Ferncliff Manor.

Charlotte started. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. She didn’t want a homage, she wanted a home. A place where she felt loved and cherished and wanted.

The way she’d felt in Daniel’s arms Saturday night.

She slumped forward, covering her eyes with her hand. Could it be she was no different from Daniel, hiding behind some mythical walls so she wouldn’t get hurt? Only instead of wearing a chip on her shoulder, her walls were the walls of this farmhouse.

She
was
chasing ghosts. By keeping this farmhouse erect, she kept part of her mother alive. But what part? The part that was happy or the part that existed in Charlotte’s fantasies? The part that wanted Charlotte in her life? As long the farmhouse existed, so did that fantasy.

She wasn’t preserving anything. She was searching. Searching for a place where she was loved and wanted. She always knew that.

This weekend changed all that. Thirty-six hours with Daniel had made her feel more wanted and loved than any of the time she would ever spend in this farmhouse. For the first time in her life she hadn’t wondered if she mattered. She had felt complete.

A tear splattered on the dusty table. All this time she’d chased the past and for what? No matter how much money she poured into this property, no matter how perfect the restoration, her mother wasn’t coming back.

It was time to say good-bye.

The deed was in her briefcase. With deliberate precision, she tore the paper in half, stuffed the scraps in an envelope and scrawled Daniel’s address across the front. No note, no signature. A clean, unsentimental break. The kind of good-bye Daniel would appreciate.

…

Esther mocked him incessantly. Propped against the wall in his office, the smile that seemed so warm in the antique shop now looked condescending, her face no longer friendly but judgmental. Her eyes followed him everywhere, even in sleep. Scornful green cat eyes burning holes in him until he gave up on slumber and spent the night staring at the black, starless sky. He’d even taken to the fine Ferncliff tradition of numbing himself with alcohol, and she still refused to leave him alone. Over and over, her reproach echoed in his brain.
You’re a fool. You’re a fool.

“Shut up!” he snapped at her. “No wonder you were being sold for the frame.”

Why couldn’t he shake off Charlotte and move on as he did with everyone else? Even now his body hardened thinking of the taste of her mouth. Kissing her was just about the headiest experience he’d ever had, worth more than a dozen sexual encounters. And those eyes, those incredible green eyes that made him feel like he was the most important—hell, the only—man in the world.