Eyes on the road.
He guided the Jag around another curve, yacht lights glinting on the water far below.
She angled her head to the side. “What are you thinking about?”
Nuh-uh. Not answering that one. “What are you thinking about?”
“Um, hello?” She laughed dryly. “Exactly what you intended for me to think about. The night we went to see La Bohème.”
How neatly she’d turned the tables on him.
He liked that about her, the way she took control, too, which reminded him of how she’d seduced him in his favorite chair once they’d gotten home from La Bohème. “That was a, uh, memorable evening.”
“Not everything about our marriage was bad,” she conceded.
“Italian opera will always hold a special place in my heart.”
Except he’d thrown out that damn chair when she left, then found he had to pitch most of the rest of his furniture as well, including the dining-room table, which also held too many sensual memories of her making her way panther-style toward him with a strawberry in her mouth. The only place they’d never made love was in that tomato-red room since she’d said it was meant for guests, which somehow made it off-limits for sex.
She inched her wrap back up and around her shoulders, the night having dipped to fifty degrees. “I thought Don Giovanni was your favorite opera.”
“The story of a hero landing in hell for his sins?” Appropriate. “A longtime favorite. Although I’m surprised you remember that I liked it.”
“You remembered that I prefer cream cheese pastries and chocolate mint tea for breakfast.”
He’d made a mental note of many things she liked back then, working his ass off to keep her happy as he felt their marriage giving way like a sandy cliff. “We were together for four years. I intended to be with you for the rest of my life.”
“And you think I didn’t?” Pain coated her words, as dark as the clouds shifting over the stars. “I wanted to build a family with you.”
Another of her dreams he’d crushed. The ways he’d failed this woman just kept piling on, compacting his frustration until he was ready to explode.
Not trusting himself to drive, he pulled off the road and into a deserted rest area. He set the emergency brake and wished the anger inside him was as easy to halt. Anger at himself. “I gave you a puppy, damn it.”
“I wanted a baby.”
“Okay...” He angled toward her, half hoping she would slap his face, anything but stare at him with tears in her eyes. “Let’s make a baby.”
She flattened her hands to his chest, hard, stopping just shy of that slap he’d hoped for. Although a telltale flex of her jaw relayed her rising temper. “Don’t you dare mock me or my dreams. That’s not fair.”
“I’m very serious about being with you.”
“So you stay away from me all day?” she shouted, her fingers twisting in the lapels of his tuxedo. “You stay away for three whole years?”
Her question stopped him cold. “That bothered you?”
“For three years you ignored my attempts to contact you.” She shoved free and leaned against the door, arms crossed under her breasts, which offered too beautiful a view. “Did you or did you not manipulate me on purpose today?”
He chose his words carefully, determined to get through the tough stuff so they could make love without the past hovering over them. “I figured we both needed space after last night if there was any chance of us enjoying our evening together.”
“That makes sense,” she conceded.
“I’m a logical man.” He rested a hand on the back of her seat, his fingers dangling a whisper away from her hair. He was so damn close to having her, he could already taste her.
“You may think you’re logical, but I don’t understand half of what you do, Conrad. I do know that if you’d really loved me, truly wanted to stay married, you would have been honest. Whatever game you’re playing now, it has nothing to do with love.” Words tumbled from her faster and faster as if overflowing from a bottle. “You just don’t want to lose. I’m another prize, a contest, a challenge. The way you’ve played me today and for three years? It’s a game to you.”
“I can assure you,” he said softly, his fingers finally—thank God—finally skimming along her silky hair. “I consider the stakes to be very high. I am not in the mood to play.”
“Then what are you doing? Because this back and forth, this torment, has nothing to do with peace.”
“I have to agree.” He traced her ear, down to the curve of her neck.
Her eyes slid closed and the air all but crackled. “Are you doing this to make me stay?”
“I told you what I want. A chance for us to say goodbye.” He thumbed the throbbing pulse along her neck, his body going hard at the thought of her heart beating faster for him. “Leaving was your choice, not mine, but after three years I get that you mean business.”
Her lashes fluttered open, her blue eyes pinning him. “And you really accept my decision.”
“You were yelling at me about thirty seconds ago.” He outlined her lips, her breath hot against his palm.
“Are you accusing me of being a shrew?” She nipped his finger.
He forgot to breathe. “I would never say that.”
“Why not? I’ve called you a bastard and worse.”
“I am a bastard, and I am far worse.” He took her face in both hands, willing her to hear him, damn it, to finally understand how much she’d meant to him. “But I’m also a man who would have been there for you every day of your life.”
She searched his eyes, her mouth so close to his their breaths tangled together. Something in her expression stopped him.
“Every day, Conrad? Unless it’s one of the times you can’t be reached or when you call but your number is blocked.”
Damn it. He pulled away, slumping back in his seat. “I have work and holdings around the world.”
“You’re a broken record,” she said, her voice weary and mad all at once. “But who am I to judge? You’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”
A chill iced the heat right out of the air. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Do you know what finally pushed me over the edge?” Her eyes filled with tears that should have been impossible to hold back. “What made me walk out?”
“It took me a couple of days to return your calls, and you’d had enough.” He’d fired the secretary that hadn’t put her calls through. He’d honestly been working at being more accessible to Jayne.
“Seven days, Conrad. Seven.” She jabbed a finger at him, her voice going tight and the first tear sliding down her cheek. “I called you because I needed you. I’d gotten a suspicious report back on a mammogram, and the doctor wanted to do a biopsy right away.”
Her words sucker punched everything out of him, leaving him numb. Then scared as hell.
He shot upright and started to grab her shoulders, only to hold back at the last second, afraid to touch her and upset her even more. “God, Jayne, are you all right? If I had known...”
“But you didn’t.” She pushed his hands away slowly, deliberately. “And don’t worry, I’m fine. The lump was benign, but it sure would have been nice to have you hold my hand that week. So don’t tell me you would have been there for me every day of my life. It’s simply not true.”
The sense of how badly he’d let Jayne down slammed over him. He closed his eyes, head back on his seat as he fought down the urge to leap out of the car and shout, punch a wall, anything to ease the crushing weight of how he’d let her down.
One deep breath at a time, he regained his composure enough to turn his head and look at her again. “What happened to the puppy?”
“Huh?” She scrubbed the backs of her hands across her wet cheeks.
“What did you do with Mimi after you left?” Mimi, named for the heroine in La Bohème.
“Oh, I kept Mimi, of course. She’s with...a dog sitter.”
Of course she’d kept the dog. Jayne wasn’t the kind of person to throw away the good things in her life. He was.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, stared out the window at the churning night sea below and wished those murky waters held some answers. Jayne’s ocean-fresh scent gave him only a second’s warning before she took his face in her hands and kissed him.
* * *
Desperate to forget the past, Jayne sealed her lips to Conrad’s. Right or wrong, she just needed to lose herself in the feel of his body against hers. The roar of the waves crashing against the shore echoed the elemental restlessness inside her.
With a low growl, he wrapped his strong, muscled arms around her. He took her mouth as thoroughly as she took his. The taste of coffee from dinner mingled with the flavor of him. And what a mix of the familiar and a first kiss wrapped up in one delicious moment. Goose bumps sprinkled along her arms, shimmering through her, as well.