Five Golden Rings (Facets of Passion) (11 page)

January 6
Epiphany

The first day back in the real world was always an adjustment.

Not only were the landscape, people and climate completely different from lazy, golden Cozumel, but even Philadelphia wasn’t as she’d left it. The city had been denuded of the holiday decorations that had made it so festive and everyone had settled into getting through the dark, cold days of January.

She didn’t settle back into her old skin as easily as she’d thought. She’d worn her favorite power suit—not to impress Miguel, if she decided to see him—but to rev her up for what turned out to be a seriously packed schedule, indeed. It would be a crazy day. Still, she found herself sitting with her hands wrapped around her coffee mug, staring out at the grey snowfall turning the skyline and river into insubstantial clouds.

With a sigh of impatience for her mooning, she made herself open her email. When she stumbled over the password, she gave herself a mental shake.
Sharpen up
,
Tilda
.

She got it on the second try and began sorting through the high-priority folder. Bless Julie for organizing the daunting number of messages. It would have been lowering to ask Julie for her own damn password.

Speak of the devil, Julie popped her head in just then. “Remember you have the Pfizer meeting at nine. I tried to talk them out of that one, but with the product meltdown over New Year’s...”

“No, that’s all right. I’m happy that’s the only major crisis.”

“And 2,003 minor ones.” Julie rubbed her temple. “I don’t know how you do it, really.”

“Practice.”

“Yeah, well, I’m done practicing for a while. I’m just relieved you’re back.”

Tilda slid her reading glasses down her nose and considered her usually perky assistant. “Did you take any time off at all?”

“Some.” Julie shrugged it off and set a folder on Tilda’s desk. “You’ll note that
I
do not have a Caribbean tan.”

Remembering some of the ways she’d earned that tan, she heated, then quickly cut off that train of thought.

“You should go. Maybe in spring.”

Julie looked at her like she was nuts, politely. “We’re hosting the industry conference and then we have the spring inventory.”

“Surely we can find a free week or two for you to go.” Tilda said it drily as she flipped through the notes on the Pfizer problems.

“I can wait.”

Tilda glanced at her over the rims of her glasses. “Forever?”

“Until I’m where you are.” Julie went for an impish smile, but it had the quality of a grimace. “Then I’ll back off and relax some. I put the rest of your schedule in your calendar. Department heads at noon—I’ve arranged to bring lunch in. Garry wants to walk you through the updates on the new vendors from four to five. Then a pitch at six-thirty. I made it late, trying to discourage the guy, but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Tilda suppressed her smile by clicking on the schedule. Miguel d’Oro, General Counsel, Oro, Inc.

“But I can call him and cancel. I told him it was likely you simply would not have the time for him. I don’t even see how they’d interface with us, but he seems certain you’ll be interested. I should have said no, but he was...” Julie realized she was babbling and trailed off.

“Charming?”

She blushed. “Yeah, I guess. Unprofessional of me. I’ll call him and cancel.”

Julie headed smartly for the door. It could be that easy. Save her what would likely be an uncomfortable conversation.

“No.” She stopped her assistant just before the door closed. “Let’s see how the day goes.”

Julie looked dubious. “You sure?”

“Yes. Enough to leave it open. Sometimes new directions come from unexpected places.”

After that, the day just ramped up in intensity. She tried to at least read or listen to all of her messages, in between the meetings, including all of the unscheduled ones. So many people just saved their issues for her return, but then seemed to think they needed to be addressed that very first day.

The pace kept her from thinking about Miguel and what he might say until it was six o’clock and she realized she’d never made a decision. She was just kind of going along with it, wasn’t she? Good test of her new year’s resolution, to stick to what
she
wanted, first and foremost.

And she really wanted to see Miguel again.

Bad idea or not.

When he walked into her office exactly thirty minutes later, Julie discreetly closing the door behind him and waving goodbye for the night, Tilda’s heart accelerated. He looked good, handsome and even more exotic in the snowy city. Radiant, like the Mexican sun followed him. With a half-uptilted smile, he tucked back the jacket of his sharp lawyer’s suit, slid his hands into his pockets and turned a circle, taking in the corner office and her spectacular view.

“‘Sales’ must be good,” he finally commented.

She couldn’t help smiling. “That
is
what Campbell Medical Equipment does.”

He nodded, once, acknowledging the point. “I’m sure you’d be hell on the opposing lawyer in a deposition. They’d never get anything out of you that you didn’t want to tell them.”

“I didn’t deliberately mislead you.”

“You were riding in coach.”

“So were you, for that matter.”

“Last-minute flight—first was entirely booked.”

“The ex was prickly about me being able to afford more. You know how men can be.”

“I do, yes.” He rolled back and forth from toe to heel.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you.” Not exactly true. “Well, not after a while.”

“That’s good to know.” He didn’t say more.

She deliberately glanced at her computer clock. “Look, it’s great to see you, Miguel, and I’m glad you stopped in, but it’s been a long day.”

He studied the toes of his shoes, hands deep in his pockets. “In truth, I’m surprised you took the appointment. I thought you’d turn me away.”

“I almost did.”

Nodding agreeably, he met her gaze, dark eyes burning intently. “It would be easier that way, wouldn’t it?”

Her mouth went a little dry. “Yes. Yes, it would.”

The tension hummed between them. She glanced at her clock again.

“Do you know what day it is?” he asked her.

“January 6.”

“It’s Epiphany.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had one.” He walked over to her window and looked out at the city, his back to her. She remembered how he’d looked shirtless, tanned muscles rippling as he drove her wild with the strap. “It would have been easier to keep you in the role I picked out for you. No strings. A clear arrangement. It was also easier for me to lose the battle for the island than sacrifice my pride and pay what it took.”

He glanced over his shoulder, lips curved in a wry smile. She hoped he couldn’t read her prurient thoughts on her face.

“You got it back.” A kind of pure happiness and relief suffused her at his answering grin.

“I did, yes.” He came over and leaned his hands on her desk. “As I seem to be forever doomed to repeat, you were right. I paid off my rat bastard of an uncle and he signed the papers over to me.”

“I’m so glad.” He returned her smile and that bit of unspoiled paradise seemed to envelop them. For an eternal moment, they shared the harmony and perfection of that place, like champagne bubbles rising between them.

“We’ve lost all Miramoto business, of course, which is another sore blow to the family fortunes.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head slowly, holding her gaze. “Don’t be. You made me realize that I don’t always have to win. And that the greatest cost might be having to tell my Grandmother Sofia that we lost the heart of d’Oro. That I failed her.”

She thought of the boy he’d been, breaking his arm playing Tarzan and how his grandmother had stood up for him. “She would have understood, you know.”

“Yes, and that would have been the worst blow of all.” He stood again, tucking his hands back in his pockets, gaze roving over her. “You look good, Tilda. Gorgeous, of course, but...different than you were in Cozumel.”

“I am different. What did you say in your note? That your games aren’t things you do to a Fortune 500 CEO?”

“I used to think that way.” He said it softly.

“And now?”

“Mostly I’m surprised you went for it in the first place.”

“I needed a change.” Her mouth was dry again, so she rose to refill her mug with water from the dispenser.

“And now?” He threw her question back at her.

“Is this a deposition?”

He moved toward her, not quite boxing her into the corner, his animal energy nearly tangible. “Should it be? I think I could find ways to make you spill all your secrets.”

Her nipples, well-trained, clearly, immediately peaked. Something about him just went straight to her core and melted her.

“What I think is that I don’t have room for you in this world. In my real world.”

“You said you were thinking of making a change.”

“You told me people don’t change. Not fundamentally.”

He shrugged, dragging his hands out of his pocket to hold them up in a
mea culpa
gesture. “I was an ass. Shall I apologize again?”

“No.” She had to drag in a breath, because he’d stepped closer and slid his hot hands inside her jacket to settle on her hips.

“Maybe you could find a place for me in your life, Tilda. A small corner.”

She laughed, an emotional edge to it. Not sure who to be with him now. She’d wanted him to see her for herself. Now she was so nervous of what he’d see. Ironic.

“Somehow,” she said, “I can’t quite see you occupying only a small corner of anything. You have a way of taking over everything.”

He cocked his head, studying her face, his fingers stroking her waist. “Does that bother you? Roo never seemed to mind.”

“Roo had a lot less to lose.”

“Is that why you did it?” His hands rose, caressing her ribs through her silk blouse.

“At first, sure.”

“And then?”

“And then I liked it.”

His gaze darkened, the wolf glinting in his eyes. He cupped her breasts and she nearly moaned. Her mind swirled with the same sense of dislocation as this morning, as if part of her was still naked in the sun, playing with her lover.

“I liked it, too,” he murmured, brushing her cheek with a kiss. “I want more. Much more.”

She melted against him, lifting her chin so he could trail a line of kisses down her throat, while his thumbs brushed her taut nipples. Outside the windows, the city lights sparkled through the snowfall.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, moving his hands away from her breasts. He let her, his face clouding with disappointment. “Is that a no?”

“Do you live in Philadelphia? I don’t even know that much.”

“I have a place here in the city. I have to travel some, but I can arrange quite a bit so I can be here most of the time.”

“I can’t do like we did in Cozumel—the 24/7 games. I’ve given up a lot to build what I have. It takes a lot of time and attention.”

He turned his hands to lace his fingers with hers. “I understand that. I think we are much the same that way. Our jobs are important. We work hard. Which means that we, you and I both, need to blow off tension, too.” Slowly, as if testing her, he moved her wrists behind her back, eyes falling to her cleavage as it strained against the blouse buttons. Her blood surged, demanding another hit of this particular drug.

Of him.

She didn’t resist, and he held her wrists there in one hand, the other coming around to undo her top button.

“I don’t want to do the other thing either,” she blurted.

He raised an eyebrow at her and undid another button. “Which thing is that?” he asked mildly.

“The whole relationship negotiating thing. Boring dinner dates and fighting over which movie to see.”

“So—” he traced a finger along the upper curve of her breast and she knew he felt her shivering response, “—sex only?”

“No!” She said it too forcefully and he smiled, wryly amused, and freed her nipple to kiss it with exquisite gentleness. She squirmed in his grip, wildly titillated.

“What do you want?” He held her naked breast in his hand and searched her face, intensely listening. “Let me try to be that.”

How to answer that? “I want it all,” she confessed, in a trembling whisper.

Miguel didn’t laugh. Instead he considered it, unbuttoning the remainder of her blouse. “You and I are both clever and ambitious people. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have exactly what we want.”

“Nobody can have it all.”

“Perhaps not. But we can make a fine effort of trying. We’ll make it up as we go along.”

Okay. She could do that.

“What’s this?”

He lightly touched her belly-button piercing and she jumped, the sting still fresh.

“I got it done at the resort before I left. They call it a slave ring.”

His eyes glittered as he admired the ring of gold.

“An excellent choice.”

“I was thinking of you.”

“Music to my ears, Roo. I have not stopped thinking about you for a moment. Now—” he pressed her wrists into the small of her back, making her arch against him so he could kiss her, long and hot and deep, “—what next? Dinner? Sex? Or, I believe I owe you a bit of punishment.”

She bit him lightly on the lower lip.

“Let’s do it all.”

* * * * *

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