When You Were Mine (Adams Sisters) (15 page)

“Ah, everything smells delicious.”  Ryan dramatically inhaled their breakfast’s aroma and glanced back over to her.  “Heavenly, don’t you think?”

“Heavenly,” Joey echoed as she continued to clutch the sheet around her body and leaned into the bedroom’s door frame.

With his smile still too wide to fit his face, Ryan produced a money clip seemingly from thin air and tipped their waiter.

Joey just watched and waited until they were alone.

“Care to join me?” he asked, once the suite’s door closed.

She crossed the room with her own smile widening.  “Sooo.  Have you thought about Viagra?”

“No,” he lied forcefully.  “Because there is nothing wrong.”  He straightened his shoulders.  “It’s true that I’ve been under a great deal of stress--but that is all.  You know,  I was at full salute last night.”

Her brows dipped dubiously.  “Me thinks thou protest too much.”  She inched closer to him.  “How long has this dry spell been exactly?”

“I’m through talking about this.”  He lifted a silver lid off their breakfast to reveal his requested fluffy buttermilk pancakes.”

Joey closed in until there was barely an inch separating them.  Enjoying a power she’d never experience before, she slowly walked her fingers up his arm.  “Sooo...last night,  was that the first time you were at, ah, full salute in say, two months?  Three months?”

Though his thick terry-cloth robe covered his arms, Ryan’s body still reacted to her touch as though they were still cuddled together before the fireplace.

“Four months?” she continued to guess.

What harm will it be to tell her the truth, Ryan asked himself.  Maybe if he were honest, she would break him off a little somethin’-somethin’.

“Six months?” she asked, amusement seeped into her voice.  “Surely no longer than that?”

“Actually, Ms. Adams.”  He turned toward her, attempting to mask his embarrassment.  “It’s not important how
long
I’ve had my little problem but only that it seems to go away every time you’re around.”  His hungry eyes feasted on her ethereal beauty. 

Despite the fact he hadn’t made love to her last night, she still wore that sexy, mussed-up look that begged him to sweep her into his arms and carry her back off to bed—Rhett Butler style.

As Joey stared up into Ryan’s gorgeous eyes, her body’s alarm system went haywire.  Her knees weakened, every limb tingled and her breasts hardened like marbles.

“What about you?” he asked suddenly.

“Me?” she croaked, and then licked her dry lips.  “What about me?”

“Do I affect you in any way?”

She swallowed thickly, but the frog in her throat refused to budge.  “N-no.”

Ryan’s eyebrows knitted together.  “That’s funny because last night--”

“I had too much to drink.”

“You only had one glass--”

“I have a low tolerance.”

“You didn’t even finish--”

“Look, Mr. Donovan,” she stressed, as her smiled turned plastic.  “I admit last night I was feeling a little vulnerable and you were saying all the right things.”  Joey drew a deep breath.  “But the fact of the matter is that I’m still in love with Larry--I mean, Laurence.  He’s the one I want...not you.”

Doubt telegraphed across his handsome features.  “Now who doth protest too much?”

For a few seconds Joey couldn’t volley a smart comeback.  Instead, she swirled on her heel and marched back to the bedroom--completely forgetting that her butt was still exposed.

While standing at full salute, Ryan had never seen a more glorious moon than the one that was storming away from him now.

Chapter 17

              Laurence feared he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.  Why else was he seeing Joey’s face everywhere he and Carlina traveled?  Sometimes she was a face in a crowd or a woman racing by a store’s window front.  And honest to goodness, one time she was a pair eyes peering at them through some shrubbery at the hotel.

              With his wedding looming, he wondered if these wild imaginings weren’t his mind’s way of telling him something.  Or perhaps he was just simply suffering from cold feet.

              Laurence took another sip of his morning coffee and flipped open the last Hollywood tabloid paper that Carlina requested to be specially delivered to her door.  And just as they had hoped there was a picture of them on the front page with the caption:
Carlina Takes a Groom?

              Laurence turned the picture this way and that, a little annoyed that photographer had snapped his bad side.  It wasn’t the first time his name had appeared in the tabloids—a few celebrity patients praised his work here and there--but this was the first time his picture was splashed across a major publication.

              He liked it.  No, he
loved
it.

              He’d landed the perfect trophy wife.  And soon, being married to Hollywood’s “it” girl was going to rake him in some serious Benjamins at the office.

              Sighing, he smiled in contentment.  Yet, seconds later, Joey reemerged from the back of his mind.  In hindsight, maybe he should have kept her as his mistress.  He closed the paper.

             
Maybe it’s not too late.

#

              Sitting outside on the Presidential suite’s terrace, Ryan swallowed the last of his morning coffee while stealing coveted glances at his “guest
.
”
She sat demurely across from him doing a lousy job at pretending he wasn’t there.

              The hotel had cleaned her jeans and underwear, but had been unsuccessful in removing the questionable stains in her t-shirt.  As a solution, Ryan volunteered one his shirts.  He claimed there was nothing sexier to a man than to have a woman wearing his clothes.

              “I’ve been thinking,” he said out of the blue.

              Joey glanced up, but eyed him suspiciously.  “Should I call someone?  The media perhaps?”

              “Very funny.”  He leaned back in his chair and studied her.  “I think I’m going to help you win your Larry back.”

              “Laurence.”

              “Whatever.”  He waved off the correction.  “It’s clear to me that planning isn’t one of your strongest attributes so I’m going to help you,” he announced triumphantly and then waited as if he expected her to shower him with gratitude.

              “Why would you want to help me?”

              “Why not?” He shrugged.  “I’d like to think that we’ve become pretty good friends in the last week, wouldn’t you say?”

              “No.”

              His face collapsed in calculated disappointment.  “You wound me.”

              “And you insult my intelligence.”  She crossed her arms.  “I say that makes us about even.”

              “Even?  Haven’t I proven myself trustworthy by now?  I’ve rescued you from a man’s restroom window, whisked you away from VIP, punched your fiancé out for humiliating you--”

              “You punched Laurence?”

              “No need to thank me.  Where was I?  Oh.  I rescued you from the streets of Milan, fed you, let you have a hot shower, had one serious bout of foreplay and provided shelter.  I say, what’s
one
more favor?”

              Joey shifted in her chair.  “Well, when you put it like that.”

              “Is there any other way to put it?”

              Drawing a deep breath, she thought it over.  “What’s your plan?”

              “We play his game.”

              “What game?” she asked, crossing her arms.  “Larry--Laurence isn’t into head games.”

              Ryan’s head rocked back with laughter.  “You’re kidding me, right?  Everyone plays head games.  It’s part of the chase.”

              She straightened in her chair.  “
I
don’t play head games.”

              Ryan pinned her with a look.

              “Much,” she added.

              “And last night?”

              “I told you, I had too much to drink,” she declared, her neck heated with embarrassment.

              “Right.  Right.  I remember now.”  He rolled his eyes and retrieved a new cigar.

              “How can you stand those things?”  She shook her head in disgust.

              “These little babies--” He chuckled as he gazed lovingly at the thick cigars “--are better than sex.”

              “Spoken like a man who hasn’t had sex in what--eight months?”  She winked.

              “It certainly hasn’t been for lack of trying,” he conceded.  “In fact, I’m willing to bet that after I help you win poor Larry--”

              “Laurence.”

              “Whatever.  My bet is, when he’s groveling at your feet, wanting you to take him back, you won’t want him.”

              Joey laughed and folded her arms against the late morning chill.  “Okay.  I’ll bite.  Why wouldn’t I want him back?”

              “Because you’ll want me,” he answered with a straight face.

              “Come again?”

              “What part did you miss?”

              “The part where you banged your head--on something hard.”

              “It’s a harmless bet.”  He shrugged.  “If I lose, you get your darling
Laurence
back, and if I win, I get you.”

              She laughed again but her stomach fluttered with nervous butterflies.  Judging by the intensity of his dark gaze, Joey concluded Ryan was serious.  The crazy part--she was actually thinking about taking him up on his offer.

             
After all, what do I have to lose?

              “And you think you can actually help me win Laurence back?”

              “Absolutely.”

              “How?”

              “Do we have a deal?”             

His cockiness worried her, but logic contradicted his claim.  There was no way she would ever
want
him.  Well, last night she wanted him¾but she would never want him the way she wanted Larry—Laurence.  That much she was certain.  “All right.  You have yourself a deal.”

#

              The Adams minus Sheldon and Marlin had no problem discovering where to start looking for their emotionally charged sibling.  Thanks to a front-page splash on a cheesy tabloid newspaper.

              Carlina Takes a Groom.

              “He’s engaged to an actress?” Frankie flared up.  “Does Joey know this?”

              “She knows,” Michael confirmed, shaking her head at the picture.  “That really is his bad side.”

              “How come you know more about this than we do?” Peyton accused.  “The last I heard, he dumped her on Valentine’s Day.  Joey said nothing about him marrying someone--oh.”

              “What?” Frankie stomped her foot.  “You know something, too.”

              “Well,” Peyton lowered her voice as they paid for the paper and walked away from airport newsstand.  “Joey said that she found a receipt for a ring.  An expensive ring.  Goes to say that if he didn’t present it to her, then--”

              “He gave it the world’s most overexposed actress,” Frankie concluded.  “Poor Joey.”

              “If she knows he’s engaged why did she fly--the voice message.” Peyton snapped her finger.  “He said that he was confused and that he still loved her.”

              “Oh, he’s good,” Michael marveled.  “I can’t wait until he goes home.”

              “Okay.  Now you’re just not making any sense,” Frankie said as they rejoined Flex at their gate.

              “Well.”  A sinister smile slithered across Michaels’s raspberry-tinted lips.  “I, sort of, helped Joey with a little revenge last week at the
good
doctor’s residence.”

              “You didn’t!” The small family clan chimed.

              “I did,” Michael assured them triumphantly.  “Joey was at home sobbing her eyes out and overdosing on ice cream when she called me.  So--” she shrugged  “--I helped her.”

              “And what happened?” Peyton braced herself for the worst.

              “We were arrested.”

              “What?” They all thundered.

              The group gasped and stared open-mouthed at her.

              “It was all worth it, if you ask me.  You don’t mess with an Adams!”

              “You need psychiatric help,” Flex said, shaking his head.  “I’ve always said that.”

              “Whatever.”  Michael waved him off.  “She asked for help and I helped her.  And here we are again--helping her.”

              He nodded and then slipped into a brief reverie.  “You know, I think I’ve changed my mind about this.”

              “What?” The girls turned toward him.

              Flex chuckled under his breath and slipped his carry-on bag over his shoulder.  “If I go through with this then I’m just part of the madness.  Dad is right.  Joseph is a grown woman more than capable of handling her own problems.”

              Michael face blazed with incredulity.  “So you’re just going to stand back and let her mess up her life?”

              “The point is--it’s
her life.
”  He stepped toward Michael and probed her heated gaze.  “You know I’ll do anything for you girls.  Anything
legal.
  If Joey wanted our help, she knows how to ask for it.  And that goes for you, too.  If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”  With that, he strolled away from the gate.

              His sisters watched his departure with open mouths.

              “Can you
believe
him?” Michael hissed incredulously.  When Frankie and Peyton didn’t answer, her neck swiveled in their direction.  “Well?”

              “Actually, I think he has a point,” Peyton croaked, and then shifted on her feet.

              “It is
Joey’s
life,” Frankie acquiesced.  “She should be free to make her own mistakes.”

              “What?” Michael stared at them as though she’d never seen them before.

              “C’mon, Mike,” Peyton pleaded.  “The girl is thirty-five going on eighteen the way we baby her--and she’s not even the baby.  Look how much damage we did with Francis last year.”