With her overnight bag in her hand, Cat slowly opened the door, and immediately her eyes connected with Rory’s, who was standing across the room next to a lit fireplace.
Silence stretched out for a moment as their gazes held. She closed the door behind her as she tried collecting herself to act surprised to see him, but at the moment the only thought that filled her mind was that he was there … alone with her. But still, she knew she had to become the actress she and Lisa had cooked up.
“So,” she tried to say calmly. “What are you doing here?” His eyes on her seemed hot and focused. Or was she just imagining things?
“I should ask you the same thing, Cat.”
His words barely registered, but the sound of his voice did. It was low, sexy, a total turn-on. And then there was that wonderful-looking mouth of his that could do so many naughty and wicked things to her. “Lisa,” she said softly.
He stared at her. “What about Lisa?”
Her lashes flickered as she held Rory’s gaze and hoped he’d buy what she was about to say, since she was not a very good liar. “She thought you and Peyton were canceling the fishing trip this weekend, and when I told her that I needed to get away and asked if I could use this place, she said it would be okay.”
Rory leaned back against the mantel. “Peyton backed out. I decided to come ahead alone. Evidently Lisa didn’t know that.”
“I guess not,” she said faintly, barely following their conversation. Her concentration was on Rory’s body. The tightness of his muscles looked good in the pair of close-fitting, sexy jeans he was wearing, which emphasized every physical line in his body, his every bulge. As usual, her pulse quickened in appreciation whenever she saw him in a pair of jeans. He looked so compelling, so handsome, and the magnetism radiating from him was so intense, she was losing her train of thought. It was only when she noticed his mouth move that she realized he’d said something.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked.
He nodded. “You said the reason you asked Lisa about coming here was because you needed to get away. Why?”
Cat knew that now would be the perfect moment to level with him and tell him the truth. And although she believed that honesty was the best policy, this was one of those rare times she would have to make an exception to that rule. She had hurt Rory that night. She’d said things that she had later regretted. And now she was filled with uncertainty over whether the seduction she planned to orchestrate would work. Lisa and Mel were convinced that Rory still wanted her. But did he still love her?
“Cat?”
Hearing him call her name made her inhale a deep breath. She didn’t want to play games with him. She make a quick decision to come right out and tell him just what was bothering her and what a complete fool she’d been, and that she now wanted all those things he had wanted, all those things he had offered her a year ago: love, commitment, marriage, babies …
Dropping her bag by the door, she walked to the middle of the room to start speaking from her heart. “The reason I needed to get away, Rory, is because I’ve been torn and miserable since we broke up and—”
“I’ve been torn and miserable since we broke up, too,” he said, interrupting her words.
Hope flared within Cat. “You have?”
“Yes.” Rory discovered that holding a conversation with her wasn’t easy, especially since his gaze seemed glued to the soft material of her blouse and the short, short skirt that showed long gorgeous bare legs and hugged her curvy hips in all the right places. But then he doubted there were any wrong places anywhere on Cat.
And it didn’t take much to see that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Whether she had on panties was a mystery in itself. But it would stand to reason that if she had planned to seduce him, Cat would have dispensed with the small stuff. Her favorite way of getting it on was quick and hard, especially when she was in an extremely sexually hungry state.
And he could tell from the way she was looking at him, the way her gaze was traveling over him slowly, taking in every piece of his clothing and the body underneath, that she was intensely stimulated. If Peyton’s claim was true and she hadn’t been with anyone else since their breakup, then she was probably in one hell of an erotic dilemma. Cat was one hell of a highly charged sexual being. There were times he could make her come just from kissing her, and the look she had in her eyes was making his skin heat up. But he knew he had to slow things up a bit, to initiate his own plan and give her something to think about, to mull over … to set right.
He moved, crossing the room to come stand before her. “You were right, Cat, and although it took me awhile, I finally realized that everything you said that night was true. Marriage isn’t for everyone, and it wasn’t fair for me to push you into doing something you weren’t ready for. And from the way things have been going in my life, it seems that I really wasn’t ready for such a move either. I had only thought I wanted to marry you.”
Cat’s heart suddenly dropped down into her knees, and she had to hold herself up to stop from falling. “You only thought you wanted to marry me?”
“Yes. I saw what Mel, Colin, and Lisa and Peyton had, and assumed that I wanted it for myself. For us.”
“But you realized later that you didn’t?” she asked, the words forming a tight knot in her chest. A huge disappointment in her heart.
“Yes. And I agree with everything you said. Why mess up a good thing with a commitment? You and I were doing okay having an affair, and I should have left well enough alone. But no, I didn’t do that. I had this vision of us getting married, having babies, and living happily ever after. But there’s more to life than falling in love, isn’t there? And you made me see that.”
“I did?” she asked, not knowing what else to say.
“Yes,” he said, reaching out and taking her hands in his, stroking a palm with his thumb, sending pleasure radiating through her body. “I wanted to talk to you last week at Colin and Mel’s party, but couldn’t. The timing wasn’t right. But it looks like fate brought us together this weekend, and I want you to know how I feel, how I’ve been feeling. I want us to get back together, Cat, pick up where we left off a year ago.”
She took a deep breath and pulled her hands away from his and placed them in the pockets of her skirt. Things definitely weren’t going the way she had planned. He was using all the words she had spoken a year ago in anger, in fear of entrusting her life to a committed relationship, to end things between them.
“By picking up where we left off, you mean you want us to engage in another affair? One that has no promise of ever leading elsewhere?” she asked quietly.
He nodded, watching her closely. “Yes. That sort of relationship seems to work between us the best. We won’t date others like before, but then we won’t bring up certain words, like ‘love’ and ‘marriage,’ ever again. That way neither of us will feel pressured about anything. It will be just like you wanted. No strings attached and no expectations.”
He had hated lying to her, but those had been the words she had thrown in his face that night, the words that had caused him twelve months of heartache. And it would be up to her to set things right between them, and he hoped to God that she did so before the weekend was over. He didn’t want either of them to leave Sunday until they knew for sure that their future was dead set with each other and that it included love and marriage.
No strings attached and no expectations. A part of Cat had heard Rory’s words and wanted to cry out that she might have wanted things that way then, but now she wanted love and marriage. A part of her felt angry, frustrated, caught in a trap of her own making. His offer of a loveless relationship was something she would have been glad to agree to last year, but now …
Suddenly remembering something, she tilted her head and gave him a pointed look. “What about your new girlfriend?”
“My new girlfriend?”
“Yes, her name was Shari or something.”
“We broke up last month.”
She stared at him. Confused. Lisa must not have known that. “You broke up with your girlfriend a month ago?”
“Yes.” Moments later he asked, “Are you seeing anyone?”
A part of her wanted to tell him that although he had sought out someone else after their breakup, she had not. But then she had to remember she was the one who’d decided that she no longer wanted him as part of her life. “No, I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Then is there any reason we can’t resume what we once had?”
For the moment Cat kept her expression noncommittal, thinking that yes, there was a reason. She loved him, and she now wanted those things he had wanted back then. But it seemed he had moved on. It would be hard to maintain the type of relationship he wanted, knowing what her feelings were. But then, she had gotten herself into this mess; it was up to her to get herself out of it.
She could either tell him that she’d been wrong and wanted more than what he was offering, or she could go along with him for now and formulate another plan to make him fall head over heels in love with her again, make him crave commitment and marriage.
Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she lowered her lashes and then slowly raised them provocatively, until she met his gaze and said, “It depends on what kind of weekend you want.”
They held each other’s eyes, and then he leaned over close and spoke in a low, sexy tone. His lips were just inches from hers. “How about an unforgettable one?”
“I think—” She made her decision and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her body was beginning to tingle, her nerve endings were sizzling, and her senses were reeling. “—that it will work.”
She then pulled his mouth to hers and began kissing him deeply.