Dateline Matrimony (Hot off the Press! 3)

“Yeah.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his clothes. “I knew.”

With a sigh of her own, she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

He was a rat. Selfish, greedy and overindulged. Maybe his parents should have had more kids—just so he could have learned to share.

Riley was sitting in front of his computer again, and the monitor was as empty as it had been before. There was silence in his home, but if he listened very closely he could almost hear the sounds of laughter coming from the adjoining apartment. Teresa was probably having a great time over there with her kids. She’d probably forgotten all about him.

He was a jerk.

He had finally found a woman he couldn’t put out of his mind when he wasn’t with her. A woman he wanted so badly he couldn’t even remember his own iron-clad rules when he thought of her. A woman whose love-making had taken him higher, deeper, further than he’d ever been before—and he thought he’d experienced it all.

He’d been wrong.

Damn it, he’d fallen in love for the first time in his life, and he couldn’t have chosen anybody more wrong for him.

Love. The word made him break out in a sweat. It wasn’t really love he felt for Teresa, of course. Not the always-and-forever type of love, anyway. It was more like lust—with a whole lot of liking thrown in. Teresa was…special.

And he was a selfish, greedy rat.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her after they’d made love. All he’d wanted was to make love to her again until neither of them had enough strength left to move a limb. And then he’d wanted to sleep with her in his arms, wake up and start all over again.

But she had had to get ready to welcome her kids home from school. And then to feed them and bathe them and help them with their homework and whatever else a mom did, leaving very little time for herself—or for him.

Which was exactly why he’d always made it a practice not to get involved with women with children, he reminded himself irritably. He never had gotten very good at that sharing thing.

Maybe he should have accepted her invitation to join them for dinner. But even as that thought crossed his mind, he knew it would have been a mistake. It would be prolonging the inevitable and adding the children to the list of people who were probably going to be disappointed when this attraction faded—as he was sure it would. They all did, eventually.

Maybe he should have bought those fancy candy things for the kids.

Muttering a curse, he shoved himself away from the computer. This was ridiculous. Riley O’Neal didn’t sit around moping over a woman. And he sure as hell didn’t want to spend a Friday evening watching television with her and her kids. There were parties going on out there, people who knew how to have a good time without expecting the festivities to last forever.

He was tired of sitting here alone in his rooms, worrying about his uncle, brooding about Teresa, telling himself what a louse he was. His uncle was old enough to take care of himself, Teresa had her children to occupy her time, and his character flaws were probably too deeply ingrained to change at this point.

He was going out to have a good time—and to remind himself of why he liked being footloose and free to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Except, of course, for the one thing he wanted most—which was to be alone with Teresa again.

It was almost noon Saturday when Teresa heard a knock on her front door.

“I’ll get it,” Maggie said, starting to rise from the table where she and her brother were having lunch.

Teresa closed the washer she’d just finished loading. “I’ll get it,” she said. “You finish your lunch.”

She mentally appraised her appearance as she approached the front door. Ponytail, little makeup, unbuttoned denim shirt over a white T-shirt and khakis. She most assuredly looked like a soccer mom today—and perhaps that was for the best. She’d seen Riley’s face yesterday when she’d reminded him of her obligations to her children. She thought she had made it clear that they would always come first to her. She was all they had.

She needn’t have worried about her appearance, she decided a moment later. Riley looked as though he’d just climbed out of bed. His hair was rumpled; his eyes were heavy-lidded. He hadn’t shaved, and his shirt and jeans looked like he might have slept in them. He’d shoved his bare feet into a pair of sneakers but hadn’t bothered to tie them.

“Um, just get up?” she asked, trying to read his somewhat glazed expression.

“Why is your phone off the hook?”

“It’s not—is it?”

“According to the operator it is.”

She grimaced. “Maggie,” she called. “Did you leave the phone off the hook when you were talking to Samantha this morning?”

“Oops,” Maggie yelped from the other room. “I’ll go check.”