Chapter 10
Lucas jogged on the hard-packed sand close to the surf line, side-stepping every now and then to avoid the incoming tide. Ten days had passed since he’d ended up in Emmaline’s bed, and much about his life had changed—except his relationship with her.
The damn woman had managed to return things to butler-as-usual.
He glanced at the ocean, squinting as the morning sun blazed on the dappled surface of the bay. The air tasted like brine and summer, and he breathed in a deep lungsful of it. The past months of the merger had kept him inside much too often, and now that they’d successfully completed the transition, he intended to spend more time doing things he enjoyed, like appreciating his Malibu digs and reacquainting himself with the notion of leisure.
Today, his first morning run in what seemed like forever, was supposed to be a happy beginning.
But no amount of endless ocean and golden sand could free him from his circling thoughts of Emmaline.
In his arms, she’d been both wildly responsive and sweetly awe-struck, as if surprised by what he could rouse in her. For his part, one look at that magnificent body of hers without the cover of clothing and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue. It was the kind of beauty that you made sacrifices to—leaving it offerings of hand-picked flowers, milky beach glass and polished beach stones, pots of golden clover honey.
A man could become a monk to that kind of lush nudity, if it didn’t inspire the very opposite of celibacy. He thought Emmaline’s body was why they’d named three of the seven deadly sins greed, lust, and gluttony.
But he’d managed to bring her to peak with some measure of aplomb, knowing Emmaline’s experience with the opposite sex had done nothing to make her comfortable in her own showy skin. Instead she’d learned to practice distance and detachment, something she’d reverted to the day after he’d had her.
Her wariness had snapped right back into place.
Consequently, Lucas hated every man who’d ever looked at her, resented how each lascivious glance had caused her to add layers of bricks to her walls. And at the thought of someone else’s hands on her, caressing her, kissing her, Lucas wanted to…
Hmm. Wasn’t wrath another of the deadly sins?
And how about obsession? Because he couldn’t get her, and his desire for her, out of his head. To strip it down to the basics, he wanted to go all Mr. Curry on Emmaline and demand she belong to him and him alone, that she let down her guard and allow him to experience all the warmth and sweetness she held so tightly and only released in precise squares of feta-dotted flat bread and the clouds of cream she whipped for shortcake.
Deep in his thoughts, he nearly tripped over a tumble of glistening, amber-colored kelp, as big as a dog. At the last minute he leaped, clearing the mass, but it gave him a new idea.
Maybe he’d get himself a puppy. With his workload cut by a quarter, his sister about to be married, he could use a canine companion. His free time could be concentrated on training a dog instead of knocking his head against the fortified gates of a certain stubborn woman.
After ten long years of eighty-hour work weeks, didn’t he deserve something that came easy?
As if the universe meant to answer, a tennis ball came rolling toward him on the sand. Lucas looked up, expecting to see an exuberant Lab or a speed-demon mutt. Although this beach wasn’t designated for dogs, nobody would complain this early in the morning.
Instead, he saw Wells Archer running down the steps of the beach house Lucas knew was his, a tennis racket dangling from one hand.
“Hi,” the boy said, swooping in to pick up the neon ball.
“Practicing your game?” Lucas asked.
Wells held the racket horizontal and tried bouncing the ball off its face, only to lose control of it again.
Lucas watched him try a second time. “Choke up,” he told the kid. “Hold higher on the racket handle and stiffen your wrist.”
His coaching was rewarded with a six-year-old’s grin as Wells met with some success. “Cool.”
“Aren’t you going to say thank you?” Charlie asked, trotting down the steps. She smiled at Lucas. “Hi, there.”
“Good morning.” The butler wore a sleeveless, navy cotton dress that ended above the knees to reveal slender, tanned legs. Her sleek hair was pulled away from her elegant face in a low ponytail.
She eyed him with a professional air. “You look like you could use some water or a mug of strong coffee.”
“Are you butlers trained in mindreading? I could use both.”
“Come on then,” she said, gesturing him toward the house. “We have a few minutes before I have to run Wells to tennis camp.”
They left the boy at the bottom of the stairs, practicing his new skill.
Following her direction, Lucas sank to an outdoor couch on their terrace and she came back with a glass of water and a steaming coffee. He two-fisted them, grateful for both liquids.
Charlie watched him down about half the water, then swallow a big gulp of the dark brew. “How’s Emmaline?” she asked, when he set both on the table in front of him. “She’s been keeping herself scarce.”
“Oh?” He made sure his expression gave nothing away. “I’ve been wrapped up in my merger, so I haven’t been home much.”
“How’s that going?” Charlie asked, her gaze shifting to check on Wells, then returning to his face.
“Done as of two days ago,” he said, picking up the water to drain the last half. “I’m a much freer man now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He hesitated, then decided to go for it. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. But I don’t think there’s anything you can do, say, or pay that will cause Emmaline to give you her lasagna recipe.”
He grinned. “Why do you suppose that’s my heartfelt desire?”
It was her turn to smile. “I don’t know how to get her to give you that either.”
Shit. Was he so transparent? “I was thinking of adopting a dog,” he grumbled. “I only wanted to know if she’s allergic.”
The lie didn’t result in even the weakest of guilty pinches, because he saw immediately that Charlie wasn’t buying it.
“I’ve been pumped for information about Emmaline since we became close at the academy,” she said kindly.
“I’m sorry.” And he was. “I didn’t mean to ask you to talk behind her back.”
“I understand your curiosity,” Charlie said. “Emmaline’s our mystery girl.”
“What does that mean?”
The woman shrugged. “It means I actually don’t know much about her before she showed up at the academy.”
“She was traveling around Europe for five years. A nanny, an au pair, a teacher of English.”
“Just so,” Charlie inclined her head.
Meaning, he surmised, that Charlie didn’t know what had set Emmaline to traipsing around another continent for half a decade.
“She’s a free spirit,” Lucas said, by way of a test.
Charlie snorted. “And I’m Atilla the Hun.” Then she narrowed her eyes, staring at him with a new soberness. “I will tell you one thing about Emmaline. She’s deeply lonely.”
Of course she was. Being both protected and isolated behind those walls she’d built. Perhaps that explained some of her attraction for him, Lucas decided. Finally, he’d found someone who seemed more solitary than he himself.
Charlie glanced down at her watch and raised her voice. “Wells! Time to go!”
As the boy clattered up the steps, his father strolled onto the terrace, his own mug of coffee in hand.
“Good morning.” He smiled at Charlie and reached out to shake Lucas’s hand. Then he caught his son to him for a brief hug. “Have a great day, pal.”
“Will do,” Wells said, then turned to his caregiver. “Get the lead out, lady.”
“Hey.” Ethan frowned. “We don’t talk to Charlie like that. It’s not respectful.”
“Sorry.” His son looked chagrined. “I heard it on a cartoon.”
Ethan’s gaze met his butler’s over the boy’s head. “My apologies on his behalf. Shall we eat all the ice cream before Wells comes back home?”
Without missing a beat, his butler responded, “And the rest of that bag of spicy tortilla chips he likes.”
“Yum.” Ethan rubbed his flat belly. “Best breakfast ever.”
Butler and boy exited through the house, the child extorting promises from Charlie that she and his father wouldn’t eat all of his favorite treats. For a second time, Lucas noted a fleeting resemblance between the pair. Maybe it was the set of their heads on their necks or the way they walked.
With a fond smile on his face, Ethan Archer watched them go, but Lucas noticed that at the last minute his gaze dropped to his butler’s long, fine legs. Then he glanced over at Lucas, cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, and looked away as if embarrassed.
“I should go.” Lucas stood.
“No, no.” Ethan ran his free hand over his hair. “I could use a distraction. We’ll have to top off our coffees.”
More because he was curious than because he needed additional caffeine, Lucas followed the other man into the kitchen. “Is something the matter?”
“What?” Seeming to swim out of a fog, Ethan shook his head. “It’s nothing.” Grabbing up the coffee carafe, he turned to Lucas, ready to pour.
“I’m fine,” he said, putting up his free hand. “Trying to decrease my intake, now that my work days aren’t so long.”
“Tell Emmaline,” Ethan suggested. “She’ll have some magical way to cut back on the caffeine without limiting the number of cups you drink. You’ll never taste the difference.”
Lucas nodded, then became aware that the other man was studying him over the rim of his mug.
“How is our Emmaline?” Ethan eventually asked. “She hasn’t been around much lately.”
“You’re accustomed to seeing a lot of her.”
“The three butlers, they’re close. Like sisters.”
He nodded. It was the one of the few personal facts he knew about her besides she’d lost her mother and grandmother.
“I heard you say something about a dog,” Ethan ventured next.
Lucas shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“I’m considering one for Wells. My late wife was afraid of them—she’d been bitten as a child.”
Lucas noticed a photograph sitting on a nearby bookshelf, a blonde woman with hair cut as short as a boy’s and a piquant smile that radiated good cheer. “That’s her?”
“Yes. Michelle.” The other man stared at the photo as if wishing he could step inside the frame. “Ma belle. The love of my life.”
“Do you feel lucky to have had one?” Lucas heard himself ask, then instantly regretted the words. “Excuse me, I—”
“Don’t apologize,” Ethan said.
“I don’t know what got into me.” Lucas shook his head.
“Maybe it’s all the romance that’s in the air,” Ethan replied, setting aside his mug. “Sara and Joaquin’s engagement. And then I believe I heard your sister’s getting married soon?”
“Yes.” Lucas frowned, thinking of Stella and her upcoming wedding. He’d been so wrapped up in the final details of the merger, he hadn’t spoken to her about it recently. How was she doing as her big day approached? Though she’d fallen early and hard for Aaron, Lucas had worried about the exact depth of that feeling. Frankly, he couldn’t see her gazing on her fiancé’s photo like Ethan had looked at his Michelle.
Shit. Did Lucas really want her to experience that intensity of emotion? All at once it felt fraught with danger, and as a man who’d spent a decade being both brother and parent to Stella, it made him queasy to think of offering her up to what could ultimately end in tremendous pain.
“Would you take it all back,” he said, glancing at the blonde in the photograph and then at Ethan, “knowing…” Appalled at what he’d almost asked, Lucas back-peddled fast. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“Would I take back falling in love with my wife knowing she would die so young of cancer, leaving me alone with our adopted son?”
Lucas winced. “Put like that—”
“If you could take it back, then it isn’t really love,” Ethan said easily.
Though Lucas had started the conversation thinking of Stella, now Emmaline took center stage in his mind. He rubbed the middle of his forehead. Had he really considered, even for an instant, to assuage his desire to make her his by a trip to the animal shelter? How ridiculous of him. It would never have worked.
As Ethan said, there was no taking it back.
“I’m a fool,” he muttered.
Ethan smiled now, a light of empathetic understanding in his eyes. “That’s another thing about true love.”
Emmaline answered the door, an eager smile already stretching her lips.
“Come in, come in,” she said to Sara and Joaquin, stepping aside. “I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.”
One of Sara’s golden brows rose over a bright blue eye. She glanced at her fiancé. “That’s quite a greeting.”
“I’ve been starved for company,” Emmaline said, trying to tone down her effusiveness a notch. “It will be fun to have you for the afternoon, Sara.”
Joaquin waved the hanger he carried, the garment on it shrouded in opaque plastic. “Where should I put this?”
“Hand it to me.” Emmaline headed toward the laundry room where the sewing machine was set up. After hooking it on a metal rod, she returned to the kitchen where she found the couple wrapped in each other’s arms.
Joaquin had his mouth to Sara’s ear, and from the blush on her cheeks, whatever he was whispering made her friend either embarrassed, amorous, or both.
In order not to disturb them, Emmaline swallowed her sentimental sigh. Their obvious devotion brightened the already sunny afternoon. They’d been so distrustful of romantic partnerships until they found themselves in one. Sure, they carried baggage, but the two had learned to help the other bear their burdens.
“She’s staring at us,” Sara said to Joaquin, without taking her eyes from him. “I feel like we’re in the zoo.”
“I suppose we better give her a good show then,” he answered with a grin. With a dramatic flourish, he bent Sara over his arm and laid a movie star sort of kiss on her.
Emmaline applauded.
They came up for air laughing, and Sara shooed her man toward the door. “You go now. We’re having girl time, during which I’ll hint at all your manly virtues—”
“Actually, she’s promised to give real measurements,” Emmaline put in.
Sara shot her a scorching look. “—and Emmaline will spill all about…what will you spill about? It better be juicy if I’m going to speak in inches.”
“I’ll tell you about my date with Roland Finch,” she said, and waited for their reactions.
Both Sara and Joaquin turned to stare at her, and she smiled at them innocently. They were so easy.
“You had a date?” Joaquin asked. “You never date. I’ve tried to fix you up numerous times, and you always turn me down. Which, by the way, has cost me. I’ve got men trying to slip me cash to get your cell number.”
“Oh, you,” Emmaline said.
“It’s true.” Then Joaquin looked at his fiancée. “You have fun, baby. Mix Emmaline some of your famous mojitos and get all the gritty details to share with me later.”
“You’re a terrible gossip,” Emmaline said, trying on a repressive frown.
“It’s the Hollywood in me,” he replied, which reminded her he’d grown up in the TV business. “But the only one with whom I’ll whisper about your secrets is the beautiful lady who shares my bed.”
He yanked Sara toward him for another hard kiss.
She finally managed to get the man out the door.
Emmaline sighed again as her friend turned around. “You’re perfect together.”
“You’ll find your perfect.” Sara strolled back into the kitchen. “Is it Roland Finch?”
Shaking her head, Emmaline went to the refrigerator and pulled out a wrapped platter of tea sandwiches she’d prepared. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat. And drink. Mojitos sound all right to you?”
“We should alter your dress before I get anything alcoholic in me. You don’t want to go to Las Vegas with your hem uneven.”
Joaquin and Sara had planned a quick getaway, and her butler friend had found the ideal dress that needed just a few alterations—ones the boutique’s seamstress couldn’t promise to have done in time. It didn’t take long for Emmaline to adjust the bustline so it wouldn’t gap and to hand stitch a few of the beads that had begun to loosen.
Modeling the ice-blue dress, Sara looked at herself in the mirror while Emmaline circled her, needle in hand, ready to take on any wayward piece of minuscule crystal. “I’ll probably be dropping beads like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs all over the city that never sleeps.” She brightened. “But then Joaquin will be able to find me if I get lost.”
“Looking like you do in that dress,” Emmaline said, “I don’t think he’ll let you out of his sight.” The color made Sara’s eyes stand out like sapphires, and the style hugged her slender figure like a glove.
A secret smile curved her friend’s lips.
“What are you thinking?” Emmaline demanded. “I know that face. It means you’re keeping something from me.”
“Well…” But before Sara could get out another word, sound came from the direction of the front door.
“Emmaline?” Stella’s voice. “I’m here with Valerie.”
“Go see to them,” Sara said, waving her away. “I’ll get changed and start mixing those mojitos.”
As it turned out, another plastic-wrapped dress had been brought to the house that day. “I didn’t want to leave my gown at the wedding salon any longer,” Stella explained. “I’ve been having nightmares about overnight fires.”
“And she can’t store it in her apartment.” Valerie carried a huge hatbox that held the hairpiece and veil. “Because her roommate has a cat.”
“It has a tendency to pee on new things.”
“I had a boyfriend like that once,” Valerie said. “You know what, Stella? I think you should move in with me. I have an extra bedroom in my Santa Monica place.”
“I’m moving in with Aaron right after the wedding,” Stella said.
“Oh, that’s right.” Valerie nodded, then cocked her head at the sound of a blender’s whir in the distance. “Do I detect cocktails?”
After stowing the gown and hatbox in one of the guest rooms, Emmaline, Stella, and Valerie trooped down the stairs and into the kitchen. Introductions were made and frosty glasses were dispensed. Emmaline gathered more food onto a tray, and they took everything to the back deck, where they stretched out on lounge chairs and contemplated the surf.
The lazy afternoon wore on in the best possible way. More food, more mojitos. “Where’s my brother?” Stella asked, idly.
“Oh, here and there, I suppose,” Emmaline said, not wanting thoughts of her boss to intrude on her alcohol-tinged pleasure. “He’s not been around much.”
“I thought he was going to spend more time away from the office now that the merger’s complete.”
Emmaline shrugged. The truth was, while she’d been grateful for his absence, the solitude had begun to wear on her. It left her too much time to contemplate High Power Couple and gorp recipes, and why Lucas hadn’t even tried to get her into bed once more.
Not that she would be his partner in that, anyway.
“I’m never having sex again,” she vowed, then realized she’d spoken the words out loud. With a slight slur.
But the half-inebriated company didn’t seem the least surprised by the sudden sentiment.
“It sure would simplify things,” Valerie said, sighing. She wore dark glasses with a cat’s-eye tilt at the corners. “I’m one of those people who do dumb things like marry a man because he gives a good orgasm.”
“Well, you shouldn’t marry a man who gives a bad orgasm,” Sara said.
“What’s an orgasm?” Stella asked.
They all half-sat up to stare at the younger woman.
“Kidding, kidding,” she said.
They returned to position and sipped at their mojitos.
After a few more relaxing minutes, Valerie drew down her sunglasses to look at the group over their frames. “I think we should move to an island.”
Emmaline swept a sloppy hand in the direction of the bay. “Catalina is just over there. Abrigo Island too. Take your pick.” Hmm. Maybe someone at those resort destinations needs a butler.
“I mean an island without men,” Valerie clarified.
Sara cleared her throat. “I have a fiancé who looks like a movie star and who treats me like he needs my presence in order to breathe. I don’t think I’m going anywhere he can’t go too.”
“That’s all true.” Emmaline nodded. “About the movie star looks and the can’t-live-without-her attitude. If I was a mean person I’d find it insufferable.” But instead, she envied it, even more because if she ever found a man who needed her to breathe, the woman he loved would be Emmaline Rossi…who didn’t actually exist.
“Hear me out,” Valerie said, settling back on her chaise. “At our island without men, mojitos come out of the faucets, and sandwiches and cookies like these ones that Emmaline provided are available all day long.”
“Okay, but let’s have some men live there,” Emmaline said, getting into the spirit of the thing. Valerie was beginning to grow on her. “We don’t have to actually see them, however. They’re just there to mix the drinks and make the food.”
“Anthony Bourdain,” Sara said. “And we do actually get to see him.”
Apparently she’d forgotten about Joaquin for the moment.
Stella sat up to reach for another sandwich, making Emmaline glad. She looked as if she’d lost another pound or two.
“Is Anthony Bourdain the famous chef whose ex had a ‘Cheater’ banner flown overhead when he was getting his star on the Walk of Fame?”
“No,” Valerie said. “Bourdain is the silver-haired one that makes us all realize we have latent daddy issues.”
With a giggle, they all considered this while Sara went into the kitchen to blend another round of drinks.
On Sara’s return, Valerie held up her empty glass to be filled. “I definitely think we should move to the island. Sara, you can visit. But Emmaline, Stella, and I practically have our bags packed.”
“I’m moving in with Aaron right after the wedding,” Stella said again.
“Oh, that’s right.” Valerie toasted her glass in the younger woman’s direction. “I don’t know why I have a hard time keeping that thought in my head.”
A while later, Sara spoke up. “How does one say drunk without having it sound quite so…crude? I need to call Joaquin and explain why I’m going to jump him the instant I see him.”
“Drunk sounds quite refined with your English accent,” Emmaline said, closing one eye and looking at the sky through her goblet.
Sara frowned. “I don’t have an accent.”
They all scoffed.
When she started to sputter in protest, Stella interrupted her. “Angeschickert,” she said. “I learned it from a German exchange student.”
“It sounds like a sneeze,” Sara said, dismissing the word. “But there’s always boiled like an owl.”
“Lit like a Christmas tree.”
“Piss-eyed,” Valerie offered.
“Not classy,” Sara judged.
“And ‘boiled like an owl’ is upmarket?”
“Good point.” Sara crossed her legs at the ankle. “Stewed?”
“Well-lubricated.”
“Thrashed.”
“All tacky,” Sara declared.
“How about cucumbered?” a new voice said.
“Mr. Curry.” Emmaline jackknifed to a sitting position. Her head spun, and she blinked rapidly to uncross her eyes. “You’re home.”
“I am.” He strolled onto the terrace, in ancient jeans and a T-shirt that she’d ironed just yesterday, its blue the exact shade of his eyes and devastating against a new tan. He reached down to pluck a sandwich from the tray.
Emmaline rose to her feet, hoping in this position all the alcohol would drain from her head. “I can get you something else. A real meal? A drink? Your favorite beer?”
“I’m good, Emmaline,” he said. “Take it easy.”
But she couldn’t because the mojitos had wrought upon her the same effect that had come over Sara. She was—well, to put it crudely—suddenly horny. Very horny. Just looking at Lucas had her blood slowing to a sluggish crawl in her veins even as her heart started speeding in a clackety, train-on-the-track rhythm. She watched him chew and swallow, the muscles in the strong column of his neck moving, and her skin prickled everywhere.
“I think I’ve been sunburned,” she said to no one in particular.
“You were lying in the shade,” Lucas pointed out, peering at her closely. “Though you do look a little flushed.”
“She looks beautiful,” Valerie said, in the musing tone of the tanked-up. “The truth is, I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. I was going to hate her for it, and I really tried, but it’s like trying to hate something painted by a Grand Master. Or a McDonald’s hamburger.”
Stella burst out laughing.
“What?” Valerie asked. “Everybody loves McDonald’s hamburgers.”
“Yes,” Stella said. “The flat buns, the gray round of meat, those little bits of what I think is supposed to be onion.”
“Okay, so she doesn’t look like something on the menu at McDonald’s, but she’s making my mouth water, and I don’t play for that team. Emmaline makes me think I might want to—though just with her.”
Lucas was laughing, crinkling the corners of his eyes in that oh-so-attractive way. “What do you think about that, Emmaline?” He cupped her chin and drew a thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re not just turning heads, you’re turning someone’s life in an entirely new direction.”
But she couldn’t speak, because she felt his touch everywhere, flaring across the skin of her arms and torso and legs like contrails in the sky.
Suddenly, the humor left Lucas’s face. He could see what she wanted, she thought, panicking. He could see how much she wanted him.
His voice lowered. “Emmaline.”
It was the snake’s voice, offering an apple. She swayed toward him, knowing she shouldn’t, knowing it was imperative that she keep barriers between them so she’d stay out of his bed.
“Tell me something.” Valerie was talking again, though it sounded as if from far away. “Tell me one thing to make me dislike you, Emmaline.”
She swallowed to lubricate her dry mouth and said the thing she supposed would be certain to turn Lucas away from her. “I cheated on the man I was engaged to marry.”