Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (22 page)

"Jen?"

"Yeah, I see." She sighed and then laughed. "Maybe you're right. Besides, when he sees how lovable Aaron is, he won't be able to stay mad."

Veronica hadn't thought of that, but she had a sneaking suspicion that her sister was right and an equally disturbing thought that her subconscious had already grasped that truth when she'd latched so firmly onto the idea.

"Just don't bring him by tonight. Aaron's teething and you know how cranky he gets around strangers when he's in pain or tired."

And teething, her son was both. He slept little during that time, always ran a mild fever and by the way he gummed anything within reach, suffered a lot of discomfort. In fact, the teething symptoms could last up to two solid days.

"Okay. I'll invite him over for dinner on Monday night."

"Sounds good. Do you want me to make myself scarce that night? I can go to the library."

Veronica thought about it. "That would probably be best. I think Marcus would appreciate privacy for his first meeting with Aaron."

He would also probably appreciate advance warning, but he couldn't have everything.

"Okay. Anyway, are you going to stop on the way home and get some teething ointment for Aaron?"

"Sure. Are we out?"

"That's why I called."

She could hear the smile in Jenny's voice.

"Oh." She smiled herself. "Will do, then." She took a peek at the clock. It was already close to nine. "I'll be home in about forty-five minutes."

"Don't rush. We aren't out of the teething ointment, but we're low."

"Thanks, hon. You're really a blessing to me, you know that?"

"Right. I'm sure taking care of a sick teenager is just how you wanted to spend what should have been your college years. That doesn't make me any kind of blessing that I can see. "Jenny tried to laugh, but to Veronica's discerning, sisterly ear it came out strangled.

The words and the sentiment they represented shocked her, so much so that she clutched the phone in stunned silence for a full five seconds before breaking into impassioned speech.

"Don't ever say that again! I mean it. When we lost Mom and Dad, you were all I had left. Taking care of you, being there for you when you were sick… that was an honor and I won't let you think otherwise. Youare a blessing to me. You've helped me so much with Aaron. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Oh, Veronica."

When Marcus came back into the bedroom, Ronnie was just hanging up the phone. "I have to leave."

No way. "You said you had something important to tell me."

Her expression turned pained. "I do." She waved her hand in a vague gesture. "It's just that I realized it would be a lot easier if you came to my house and I told you there."

He stared at her in silence, waiting for her to elaborate.

"I mean sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words," she said, adding another layer of obscurity to the problem at hand.

"Apicture ?" he asked, feeling helpless in the face of her meandering thoughts.

What kind of picture could she have at her house that would make telling him about her activities as a corporate spy easier?

"Well, not really a picture, but a visual aid. You understand what I mean, don't you?" she asked, pleating the sheet with her fingers. "Remember, in school when the trigonometry teacher would drone on about those really confusing theorems and they didn't make any sense until he started drawing on the chalkboard?"

"I found trig theory pretty straightforward," he admitted, before he realized that he had let himself be pulled into the bizarre discussion rather than press for resolution to their real problem, her confession.

Her face fell and she bunched the pleated fabric of the sheet in her fists, "Oh. Well,pretend yon didn't understand. Now, do you see what I mean?"

"No."

Her fisted hands moved restlessly against the mattress, causing the sheet to pull dangerously low and expose the upper curves of her small but delectable andvery sensitive breasts. Primitive man's resolution to domestic harmony was looking better and better.

She met his gaze, completely oblivious to the precarious state of her covering. "Look. It's like one of Alex's matrices. You know those little box things he does to keep track of information for a client?"

"I don't need you to explain Alex's information-gathering methods to me. He's my partner." The reminder shouldn't have been necessary, but then this whole conversation seemed bizarre.

Rosy tints slashed across her cheekbones. "Right. Well, the point I'm trying to make is that those little boxes help him to put the relevant information into perspective."

His ever-practical, always logical former office automaton was babbling like an airhead. The knowledge shook him.

"What you're saving is that whatever it is you need to tell me will be easier to tell if you have a visual aid available at your apartment?"

The concept boggled. Did she plan to show him proof of her perfidy toward Kline Technology? If so, he was clueless as to what it could be.

She was nodding vigorously in response to his question. "Yes, that's just what I mean."

He bit back a sigh. "Honey, you don't need any visual aids to tell me what needs to be said. If you've got trouble at work, just tell me what it is and I'll help you fix it."

She stared at him, her face pulling into a frowning mask, her eyes filling with confusion. "I don't have trouble at work. This hasn't got anything to do with Kline Technology. Where did you get that idea? I love my job. At least most days."

The silence stretched and he realized she was expecting an answer to her question.

"I don't know. I just assumed it had something to do with work," he said lamely.

She pursed her lips and then her eyes widened in apparent understanding. "Oh. Because I brought it up at work to begin with?"

"That and the fact that some things you said when I was visiting your cubicle yesterday got me thinking." There, that should help her open up, make her realize he wasn't as in the dark as she assumed he was.

"What I want to tell you has absolutely nothing to do with my job, Kline Technology or the state of the business world in general."

His mouth gaped and he felt like a fish that had been landed in some kid's net after spending the whole season avoiding the lures of more practiced fishermen.

What in the hell did she need to tell him, then? "You're making me crazy, honey. Do you know that?"

She chewed on her bottom lip. "I don't mean to."

He closed his eyes and counted to ten, then opened them. "I believe you."

"Listen, Marcus, this would be a lot easier for me if you'd just come to my apartment for dinner. I swear it will all be clearer then."

One fact stopped him from pushing for more information regardless of the lack of "visual aids" currently at hand. Her confession had nothing to do with work. If shewas Kline's corporate spy, she wasn't ready to admit that yet to Marcus.

And maybe, just maybe, she wasn't the spy after all.

Regardless, his poor baby looked stressed to the max and her pretty gray eyes were full of pleading. The woman needed the relaxation therapy of sex. She did not need him to grill her into some disjointed confession he probably wouldn't understand in her current mood anyway.

He felt himself smiling. A man did what a man had to do for the woman in his life.

She took his smile as agreement and returned it. "So, you'll come to dinner, then?"

"Yes." He let his gaze wander down her body, feeling a definite reaction in his lower extremities to her now almost completely bared breasts. The sheet had born the brunt of her nerves. "Would tomorrow night work for you?"

No matter what it was she wanted to tell him, he didn't want to wait forever to hear it.

"Urn, actually, I'm going to be tied up pretty much all weekend. How about Monday?"

He frowned. "What have you got going this weekend?"

It would be ridiculous to even consider that she might have a date after the way she'd given herself to him, but that didn't allay the sharp spurt of jealousy that pierced him.

She shrugged and one pouting nipple played peekaboo with his libido. "Domestic stuff."

That didn't sound like a hot date, but jack had been right. She did take her role as a single parent seriously. Hell, if he'd had a younger sister that had gone through what Jenny had, he would too.

"I've got a dinner meeting with Kline on Monday." He was supposed to give his client a status report on his investigation when Kline got back from his business trip. "I could come over afterward, but it might be late."

Disappointment and relief both swirled in Ronnie's for once completely revealing eyes. "Oh, late wouldn't be good. What about Tuesday night?"

"I'll come straight over after work."

"Um… could we make it six-thirty? I want a chance to put stuff together."

He assumed she meant dinner. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

His interest in their current conversation dwindled in proportion to the amount of skin revealed by Ronnie's nervous movements with the sheet.

"You said you had to go?" he asked.

She nodded again, this time more slowly, hut made no move to leave the bed Her gaze roamed over his bare chest and then lower, her expression slightly dazed.

He slipped off the knit boxers that had begun to tent over his growing erection. "Do you have time for a shower before you leave?"

She swallowed and then licked her lips, her focus entirely on his male sex. He loved the effect his naked body had on her. "Sh-shower?"

"I thought you might want to go home smelling like something other than me."

Her head flew up and she seemed to notice all at once where his gaze had strayed.

She made a small sound of distress in her throat while tugging the sheet back up, but her expression had turned smoky with desire. "Yes."

That was one of the things that fascinated him about her—the contradiction between her shyness and her passion.

'We could take one together. It would save time."

"How?" She cocked her head to one side and considered him. "You don't have to shower before I leave." His practical Ronnie had returned with a vengeance.

He grinned. "But I do need to touch you. If we shower together, I can take care of that and get you clean all in one fell swoop. What do you say?"

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"It wouldn't be the first time," he cajoled.

Erotic memories of showers shared eighteen months before arced between them as he waited for her answer, uncertainty adding zing to his already reactivated libido. The thing he loved best about the physical relationship between them was how she always managed to surprise him. Something she adored one minute made her shy the next, and then she'd shock him with an earthy sensuality that literally sent him to the moon and back.

What would it be this time? Would she refuse to take a shower with him, would she agree or would she expect him to convince her of thewisdom of his plan?

Anything was possible with his Ronnie.

Letting the sheet drop, she stood from the bed.

"I'm always a fan of efficiency," she finally said, her voice husky and sweet, her cheeks bright pink with shy embarrassment even as she so clearly offered herself to him.

He swept her up into his arms and carried her into the bathroom.

Chapter Thirteen

As Marcus lowered her to her feet in the small shower stall, Veronica could not focus on anything but the overwhelming experience of sharing such a small space with him. They'd showered together before, many times. However, the shower in his Portland condo was oversized and had a molded seat in one corner of the enclosure. While decadent and sexy, it had lacked the tight fit that forced physical connection with such devastating effectiveness.