Caught Between an Oops and a Hard Body (Caught Between series Book 2) (17 page)

She said
divorced
like it was a dirty word and Stephanie winced. Oh, if she only knew the truth…

“No, Ma’am.” He picked up the cookie and took a bite.

“Still married?”

“Not that either.”

“A man your age should think about settling down.” Her brows lowered into a frown. “Why aren’t you married yet? Is there something wrong with you?”

The grin on Stone's face widened. “No, Mrs. G. I guess I haven’t found the right woman yet.”

“Sometimes the perfect match is right under your nose.” Dora sent a non-too-subtle sideways glance toward Stephanie. Then she brushed her hands over her apron and pushed to her feet. “Will you look at the time? I promised the bride that I’d join her for tea so we could discuss some ideas I had for the zombie wedding theme. I better get ready to go.”

As she scurried from the room, Stone laughed and snagged another cookie before he stood up, grabbed the plate, and took it to the far end of the kitchen. “Your mom doesn’t believe in being subtle, does she?”

“Now that Mandy is engaged, I’m next on her hit list.” She tilted her head. “You realize, of course, that she has you at the top of the list.”

He retraced his steps to the table, leaned down, and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Maybe I should show her the engagement ring you threw back in my face.”

“Don’t you dare.” She gave him a sideways glance. “By the way, your mom mentioned a contract yesterday and I haven’t heard anything since. Has she said anything to you?”

He straightened and studied the cookie. “No, nothing. Do you want me to ask her about it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. Working on the
Eternally Yours
show would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.” She inhaled the scent of him and sighed. “I wish I could tuck you into my bra and keep you there so I could smell you all of the time instead of all the other stuff that makes me sick.”

His gaze dropped to her chest. “I’d accommodate you if I could, believe me, sweetheart.”

And then he took all of that delicious scent with him and headed out of the house.

Her mom walked back into the room, bringing with her the sickening scent of hairspray, looked around, and blinked. “Where’s your nice young man?”

“He’s not my man, Mom.” Stephanie pushed to her feet, brushed her hands across the butt of her jeans, and tried to breathe through her mouth. She had a funny feeling it would be easy to keep Stone at her side. She was beginning to realize that he was one of those guys who took his responsibilities seriously.

But she didn’t want to be just another responsibility. She wanted to be…

What did she want to be? She gave a shrug of her shoulders. “He had things to do.”

Dora faced her square, her expression serious. “Honey, I can tell he likes you.
A lot
. If you’re smart you’ll snaffle him up. I mean, for goodness sakes, girl, he’s a
lawyer
. If you’re waiting for something better than that, you’ll go to your grave unmarried and unhappy.”

Something in Stephanie snapped and she remembered Stone's words. She gazed back at her mom and bit back a grin. “Stone is a divorce lawyer, Mom.”

Dora paled and backed up a step. “Excuse me?”

She kept her expression neutral. “That’s right. A
divorce
lawyer. One of
those
. So now you know why I could never marry him.”

Dora set her hands on her hips and glared at her oldest daughter. “You mean all this time I’ve been schmoozing up to him, baking him cookies, treating him as though he were already part of the family. For nothing?”

She bit her cheek to keep from outright laughter. “It’s really low of him to have tried to fool you like that.”

“Really low…unless…” Dora tapped her index finger against her chin. “But a lawyer is such a good catch. Maybe you could convince him to change his specialty.”

She gritted her teeth, but kept her cool. “I’m in the business of getting couples married, while Stone is in the busy of tearing married couples apart. We’d make a horrible match. We’d disagree on all wedding related issues and eventually end up in divorce court and go our separate ways.”

“Divorce?” Dora began to fan herself again. “No, no, you’re right. Once a divorce lawyer, always a divorce lawyer. If he so much as looks at you with that naughty gleam in his eyes again, I’ll sic your father after him.”

The click of the front door alerted them to another’s presence and as Stone walked back into the kitchen, Dora’s shoulders and back stiffened.

“Sorry to interrupt. I forgot my cell,” Stone said, and as he passed Dora, he gave her the once over. “You look really nice, Mrs. G.”

She swept her skirt out of the way, as though she couldn’t bear the thought of him touching her, and lifted her chin into the air. “It was cute when Dane called me Mrs. G. It was even cute the first few times you did too. But now that I know the truth about you—”

Stone halted, a frown creasing his forehead. “Excuse me?”

“A divorce lawyer. For shame.” Her mom swept past him, yanking the edge of her skirt aside as though she couldn’t bear for him to touch her, or as though he’d suddenly developed the cooties. “I suppose you’re against marriage too. You know Stephanie is a wedding planner. She’s devoted to her career, and she’s single because she never has time to date. And when she does, she has
horrible
taste in men.”

Success
. Finally, her mom would get off her back.

Stephanie wanted to pump her fist in the air, but as she lifted her gaze from her mom’s departing figure, and focused on Stone, she noticed the stunned expression on his face.

He turned to her, hurt lingering in his gaze. “What was that all about?”

She swallowed a bubble of guilt and reminded herself that he didn’t feel anything. He was a destroyer of relationships. What did it matter if Dora hated him? He wasn’t in her life for the long term.

Except that he was the father of her baby and she was only beginning to understand that he wasn’t one of those guys who would eventually fade out of their lives.

“I—uh—just told Mom that you were a divorce lawyer.” As the front door closed with a bang and understanding lit Stone’s gaze, the bubble of guilt grew larger. Now she felt awful. She closed her hands into fists and forced an apology between her stiff lips. “I’m sorry. I was tired of her poking me about marriage and you were the one who told me to do it. You said
just tell her I’m a divorce lawyer
.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I did, didn’t I.”

She shuffled her feet and clutched her hands together over her heart where it ached. “I’m sorry. I snapped, okay? I told her the one thing that I knew would get her off my back.”

The hurt vanished from his gaze and a smile lit his eyes. He closed the distance between them, splayed one hand across her abdomen, and peered deep into her eyes. “Never mind. She’s not the first marriage minded mama who’s been put off by my profession. And if it means the mother of my child is happier, then I can handle your mom disliking me. Hey, I’m already used to it from your dad.”

At the gentleness of his touch, Stephanie’s guilt doubled.

Because she suddenly realized that she liked this man.

A lot
.

Now, all she had to do was figure out a way to make up for her bad judgement and selfishness.

And as she raised her gaze to his handsome face, and remembered how they connected in bed, she followed her instincts and wound her arms around his neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Stone recognized the wicked glint in Stephanie’s eyes a split second before she slid her hand up his shirtfront and around to the back of his neck. Before she sidetracked him with sex—which unfortunately would be far too easy—he decided it was time to figure out what made the mother of his child so wary of marriage.

Because he wasn’t done with popping the question. For as long as it took, he’d keep finding new ways to convince her to marry him, until she finally said yes.

All for their child, of course. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he liked her so much. Hell, that he found himself obsessed with this woman who’d wormed her way into his heart and his future.

He caught her wrist, pulled her arm from around his neck, and pressed her hands against his chest. “Tell me your story.”

Confusion tumbled through her liquid gaze, and as she slid her hands free of his hold, he sensed her withdrawal. “My story?”

“Yeah. I want to know why you’re a wedding planner who’s soured against marriage.”

One delicate eyebrow quirked up, and an impish grin turned up the corners of her delectable mouth. “If I show you mine, will you show me yours?”

He couldn’t help himself, he laughed. “You’re naughty.”

Now she waggled both eyebrows at him, and as the heat of her palms pressing against his shirtfront filtered through the material to his chest, she made another attempt to slide her arms around his neck. “Maybe I need to be spanked.”

With another laugh, he dragged her arms from around his neck and stepped back to put some space between them. “We’ll get to your fantasies later. I promise.”

She inched one foot closer. “How much later? Because my mom will be back. That’s a one-hundred percent guarantee. And when she comes back—”

“When she comes back, she’ll find you sitting over there.” He pointed to the armchair near the front window. “And I’ll be a respectable distance away.”

Her bottom lip protruded and she swept a glance down his body. “I liked you better when you were bad. Respectable is so…boring.”

“Had I been respectable in the first place, neither of us would be in this situation,” he reminded her.

“Fine.” She threw herself down on the armchair, her hands between her knees, her lower legs in a knock-kneed position. She looked so much like a sulking teenager, he wanted to laugh some more. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with why you don’t want to get married.”

“If you’re hoping to find something that changes my mind, you’re going to be disappointed.”

Biting back a smile, he sat on the armchair across from her. “I’ll take my chances.”

With another baleful look in his direction, she slumped against the back of the chair. “I’m adopted. Mandy and I both are.”

He stayed silent, giving her a chance to speak without interruption. But there was a well of hurt in her beautiful eyes, hurt that she’d covered well till now.

“Our mother—” Her gaze slid from his face to her fingernails and she started picking at a cuticle. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

He leaned back in the armchair and forced the tension from his shoulders. “I have nothing better to do.”

“Well I do,” she muttered. “There’s still a hundred tiny details to sort out before tomorrow night’s party and Liz’s wedding.”

Calmly, he said, “Start talking.”

Her bottom lip curled into a cute pout. “I’d rather talk about your family.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Yes, I would.” She gave him a baleful look. “Fine. My mother is Diana Goodwin-Vaughan-Abercrombie-Style-Vail-Peterson-Miller-Voss.” After a moment of silence, she said in the driest voice possible, “Need I go on?”

Stone blinked, confused and absolutely speechless.

She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her full breasts up so they almost overflowed the rounded edge of her sweater, distracting him momentarily from their conversation. But when she slouched down on the armchair like a discarded rag doll, desire morphed into pity.

She sighed. “Diana is Tom’s younger sister. She tried to take care of Mandy and me, but she was young, unmarried, and clueless about children. One day, she dropped us off for a visit with Tom and Dora, and she never came back. I suppose they eventually tracked her down, and since they couldn’t have children of their own, they adopted us and made us theirs.”

He stroked his chin and watched her. “That must have been rough.”

“Not really.” She stared back at him. “Tom and Dora made the transition easy. They both have so much love in their hearts, and Mandy and I were very young. It didn’t take long for us to forget that they weren’t our biological parents.”

“So what happened to sour you against marriage?”

“When I was thirteen, Diana reappeared.” Her gaze shifted to the wall behind him, a faraway look in her eyes. “I’m not sure how many times she’d been married and divorced by then, but this time she needed children to convince the man she wanted to marry that she was maternal.”

There was a heartbeat of silence before the distant light in her eyes grew hard and she met his gaze. “Thirteen is such an impressionable age. I was fascinated by her. She was beautiful and elegant, and full of light and life. I stayed with her that summer. Poor Dora was beside herself with worry. When Diana asked me to help her plan her wedding, I said yes.”

“That’s how you became a wedding planner?”

“Dora always tells people that I inherited my organizational skills from her, but since we don’t share the same blood, I’m afraid she’s delusional.” She released a heavy sigh. “I’d grown up watching the
Eternally Yours
show with Mom—I mean, Dora. Every day after school, we’d sit on the couch and ooh and ah over the gorgeous princess gowns.” She shrugged. “It turns out I was so good at planning Diana’s wedding, I got the joy of planning each one after that. And then, because she treated me like a best friend instead of her impressionable daughter, I got to listen to her cry every time one of her marriages crumbled.”

He had this vivid image of the young girl she must have been, trying so hard to be the grownup, while the woman who should have cared for her fell apart in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged and forced a smile, withdrawing her hand from his. “Well, enough of that already. In a nutshell, my experience with Diana taught me that I’m more in love with the wedding preparations than I am with the thought of being tied to one guy forever. Which of course pisses Dora off. Now I give the bride a day she can cherish forever, or at least till the honeymoon is over.”

As she pushed to her feet, he followed her up. “Not every marriage ends in divorce.”

“No, it doesn’t, but why take the chance of all that disappointment and heartbreak?” Her smile faded. “Tom, of course, always says there are a thousand-and-one men out there who are right for me, and I need to keep looking until I find
the one
.”