Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dennis raised his glass to Audrey. She looked particularly beautiful tonight. “A toast.”

She picked up her glass, filled rather full with straw-colored Italian Fiano. “To what?”

“To Mrs. Quant’s excellent risotto?”

She laughed. “To the risotto.”

She sipped delicately and Dennis locked his gaze with hers and then tipped his own glass for another taste of the excellent wine. He was as nervous as a teenager, but he knew what he wanted. He wanted her. And she seemed so much more relaxed around him now. Maybe he really did have a chance.

Hope. He’d forgotten what that felt like.

He lifted his wineglass to hide his smile.

“Let’s finish our wine in the living room.” He stood up and was surprised to find he was a bit tipsy. How much wine had he swallowed? Enough to make the floor tilt under his wobbly feet. He lifted the bottle, expecting it to be heavy. It nearly flew off the table in his strong grasp. There was barely a mouthful left swishing in the bottom.

He knew he hadn’t refilled her glass even once through the meal. This meant that in his nervous state, he’d downed almost a full bottle of wine, and he almost never touched the stuff. Oh, damn, he was a helpless fool. He giggled, a foreign noise that sounded like it came from outside of his body, from some nervous little kid hiding behind the curtains.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hmm? Ah, nothing.” Just that he was once again completely disarmed in her presence. Carrying his glass and the bottle, he led the way to the couch. “Sit there.” He pointed at the couch.

She sat and placed her nearly full glass on the side table. She seemed so cool and composed, watching him with her ankles gracefully crossed. He walked, a bit unsteady, and upended the bottle over her glass until the last drop dribbled out.

“All gone.” He hid another chuckle behind a cough. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been inebriated. Not that he was out of control. No, not that. But the coffee table did rush up at him a bit when he set the wine bottle down.

He sat on the couch, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath. Her shorts had crept up a little when she sat, exposing a good stretch of soft, feminine thigh. The only things separating his leg from her bare skin were a few inches of air and a pair of gabardine pants. His fingers twitched with the need to caress her. He slid his left arm along the back of the couch, above her shoulders, and looked at her to see if she would react.

She did not. He might as well have been sitting across the room. She might not be fleeing, but she wasn’t exactly capitulating, either.

Served him right. She was certainly not the kind of woman who would go into raptures over a half-sloshed man. What a joke. Ah well, he’d already decided to wait until Susie returned before trying to make a real move on Audrey. Yet he trembled now with the urgent need to get closer to her. He wanted to touch her silky hair, know the softness of her throat under his fingertips, hear her voice telling him all her secrets.

Be patient, he instructed himself, but his arm curled closer to her shoulders. He inclined his head towards her. Her shoulders were mere inches from his fingertips. Everything about her was close, so close that he could catch the faint, clean scent of her shampoo. He wanted to be closer still. He wanted to know everything about her and to have her know everything about him.

He stared at her pink lips and wondered what it would take to get her to kiss him, to talk freely to him, or even to use that pink-rimmed mouth in ways he dared not envision at the moment. If he tried to kiss her, would she recoil? They hardly knew each other, after all. They’d spent a few evenings together talking about his son, their careers. But she knew nothing of his past, nothing of what was in his heart. He told no one these things. He banned himself from even thinking about them.

The distance between them was his fault. But it was one problem he could rectify.

To hell with patience.

“I met my wife in college,” Dennis started, and his words were hardly slurred at all. Audrey said nothing, just looked at him with her placid blue gaze. “She said she knew from the first moment that we would get married. I wasn’t so sure, though. If you had known me then–well, I was a bit rough around the edges. And she was so elegant. She knew everything. I mean, everything. I never dreamed she would want a guy like me. But she took me in hand and molded me into the man I am today.”

He paused. It had been years since he’d spoken about these things, years since he’d allowed himself to remember. He used to think that hearing Katherine’s name might make him shatter. But he felt only a distant echo of the old grief that had once threatened to destroy him. He pressed on.

“She died in an accident when Cole was two months old.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Audrey looked at him with concerned eyes. “I never knew that. I mean, I knew she’d passed on, but I assumed it was more recent. Poor Cole.”

“He never knew her. And the accident, it was—” My fault. “We used to go climbing together. We were pushing it, going only two months after Cole arrived, but we both thought it would be okay.” I’d pressured her, but she wanted to go, too. She did. She did. But I should have stopped her. “And she wasn’t up to it. She lost her rope, got stuck on a rim, hanging by her fingers, and I couldn’t get to her in time.” My fault. She’d screamed the whole way down as she fell. My fault.

His fingers rested lightly on her shoulder. He didn’t remember shifting his hand there. But he moved the very tips of his fingers, soft and slow, to get the feel of her little shoulder under her shirt. Gently, gently, he warned himself. Don’t scare her off. She looked at him with compassionate interest and seemed oblivious to his hand on her body.

“It’s been a long road for us. For Cole and me. I came from a big family, so I knew enough about babies to muddle along. But I wanted more than that for Cole. He deserves better.” Better than a father who’d let his mother die.

Her lips parted, and her pink mouth enticed him. He lifted his right hand, and with the pad of his thumb, caressed her lower lip. Her flesh was soft and pliable under his touch. Gently, he told himself again. But his breathing was ragged and he was in danger of losing his train of thought. He ignored the buzz in his ears and pressed on.

“I thought when Katherine died, that was it for me. I thought all my attention should be on Cole, on making sure everything is perfect for him. I had to be both mother and father to him. I had to try to give him everything she would have given him. It’s what she would have wanted. I owe it to her. Not just because she was my wife, but because I didn’t–I couldn’t save her. She died right before my eyes, but I couldn’t save her.”

He’d never said those words out loud to a soul. He’d thought it would kill him to ever speak of his culpability, but instead, he felt only a profound sadness and a deep relief.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Audrey said. Her lip moved under his thumb. He lay his palm against her cheek, his fingertips light atop her smooth hair. His thumb continued to trace the line of her lower lip. It wasn’t his fault. Another layer of the shell around his heart fell away.

“You’ve had such a big impact on me.” Dennis tore his gaze from her lips and stared into her blue eyes. “You’ve got me rethinking my whole life. Thinking about things that haven’t crossed my mind in years. I’m completely unprepared for this.”

“Oh, Dennis,” she said on a sigh. Her eyelids drifted half-closed, but she didn’t look away. He didn’t know if it was desire that he saw in the blue depths. He should wait, he knew he should, but he was too far gone to care. He wanted to taste her, feel her soft lips against his, capture her breath as he kissed her with all the pent-up passion bubbling to his surface.

But he must go slowly and remain in control, so that she wasn’t frightened. He leaned forward and pushed his fingers into her hair. Her eyes drifted shut, and he thought he saw her swallow weakly.

His lips brushed hers lightly. Though her mouth remained still and receptive, he felt her shoulder tremble under his left hand. He pulled away for a fraction of an instant to look at her lovely face. But he wanted more, another taste. He moved in closer to kiss her again. Her lips softened and parted as she yielded to his kiss. It was almost enough to destroy the last weak hold he had on his self-control. Gently, gently, he thought again, but she lifted one small hand to touch his jaw.

Her touch shattered his will to be cautious. He tightened his arms around her, crushing her curves against him, crushing those tender lips. He was mad. Frantic. His skin burned where her hands fluttered. He would take her. He would make her his, right there on the couch. Nothing could stop him. She would be his. At last, she would be his.

A crash from the hall startled him. He jerked away from Audrey’s mouth, gasping, but didn’t release his grip on her.

Cole stood in the hall, his favorite metal dump truck sprawled at his feet. He looked back and forth between them with a confused, sleep-drugged expression.

“Cole!” Dennis shouted. He knew he was shouting. He heard the volume singe his own ears. But all the wine and kissing had stripped him of self-control. “Get to bed!”

“But I’m thirsty.”

And then, Cole started to cry. Not the pitiful sniffles that he sometimes employed when he was trying to get his way, but real, belly-clenching, face-contorting sobs.

Dennis felt like a punctured balloon. His arms fell away from Audrey and she scooted to the arm of the couch like a cornered animal.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, son. Audrey. I’m so sorry.”

Dennis rose. His feet swayed under him and he stumbled into the table. He’d forgotten what the wine had done to him.

Cole ran back to his room. Dennis heard the distinctive sound of his bedroom door slamming shut and the muffled crying behind it.

Dennis fought for balance on his unsteady feet. He was a mess. The night was a disaster. His little boy was in tears from catching dad nuzzling the nanny. Said nanny had her face half-buried in her hands, but not so buried that he couldn’t see the horror in her blue eyes.

Nice work. And he’d probably have a hangover tomorrow, too.

What kind of man was he?

“You’d better go,” Dennis said. “I have to take care of my son now.”

“Of course.” She looked up at him with those wide, wild rabbit eyes again, then scurried for the front door.

But at least she didn’t slam it. It was a small thing to be grateful for, but it was all he had.