Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (20 page)

He put his head down next to hers and closed his eyes. He didn’t, of course, manage to fall asleep, though.

* * * * *

THE MORNING AFTER. A real one, this time.

Elizabeth tried to wrap her mind around this fact because, in all truth, she felt
way
more woozy today than she’d felt after their first totally conscious kiss or even after that margarita hangover.

And her back was sore. And her joints were stiff. And though this sofa was comfortable as sofas go, it was not the kind of furniture choice two people should sleep on long term. She rubbed her neck and tried not to wake up Rob.

One dark eye fluttered open despite her efforts.

“Morning, Birthday Girl,” he said, a slow grin rising on his tantalizing lips. Oh, how she remembered those lips.

“Morning,” she said back. “Is it a good one?” She literally held her breath waiting for his reply.

He didn’t answer in words. He leaned over her, brushed away the quilt he must have flung over them some time in the night, and then the handsome rascal licked and nipped and kissed her worries away for what felt like an hour, although it was probably only five minutes.

“Mmm, good answer,” she said.

He winced. “You know, my right hip and elbow are killing me.”

She pointed in the direction of the hallway, hoping he’d understand.

“Ah,” he said. “You have a bedroom? How convenient.” He pulled her upright and rubbed some of the worst kinks out of her neck and shoulders. “Please say you’re going to lead me there, Lizzy.”

She laughed. “Call me Elizabeth.”

“Why?”

“Why not? You prefer to be called Rob.”

He nodded. “True. But Roberto marks me as someone ethnic when I’m really pretty American. There’s not that kind of distinction between your two names.”

She tugged him toward her bedroom, praying she’d remembered to clean it up yesterday. “But the names have different vibrations. Th-They send off different signals. You know how Madonna sort of changed her name to Esther for a while? At the time, she said she wanted to attach herself to the energy of a different name. That’s kind of how I feel. Lizzy is that frizzy-haired chubby girl from high school. Elizabeth is still frizzy-haired, but a grown up. Marginally less awkward.”

He lifted her onto her neatly made (Thank God!) double bed and leisurely ran his hands over her waist and hips. No way could he, in the bright light of morning, think those hips of hers were attractive.

“I never thought you were chubby,” he said, looking sincere, but she couldn’t entirely believe him. “In fact—” He lightly pinched the skin around her belly and frowned. “I think you’re probably too thin now. I think you’re going to need some chocolate today. Several servings. Just to break even.”

“To break even?”

“Because of all the calories you’re going to burn this morning.” He grinned big. “As I recall, we have a Take Two to do.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right.” She raised her eyebrows at him and waited to see what he’d do next.

“You bet that’s right. Oh.” He got up and wandered out of the room—totally, gloriously naked!—returning a moment later with his wallet. He flicked one condom on her nightstand and scowled. “We may actually have to leave your bedroom today, much as I don’t want to. I only had two of these in my wallet and we used the first one last night.”

She decided to let him sweat it out. He could find out about her unopened box of Trojans later, when it suited her to be forthcoming with information. “Guess we’ll just have to make this one last a while,” she said, giving him her most demure smile, batting her eyelashes for extra effect.

His jaw dropped a little and his eyes narrowed. “You’re kind of a devilish one, aren’t you? This ‘Elizabeth’ that you are now. You like to play at being so sweet, but really I’m starting to see a trend. When you get comfortable with someone, that whole Miss Innocent act starts to melt away, doesn’t it? You’re able to speak your mind way too clearly. In fact, I’m starting to think that you—”

“Rob?”

He smirked. “If you’re trying to shut me up, sweetheart, let me tell you someth—”

“I-I have this fantasy.”

He stopped smirking and shut up.

She hadn’t intended to do this. Not this soon. Heck, probably not ever, but she’d leaped into it without thinking. (See what kind of trouble a big mouth got you into?) And now it was either follow through or have him call her bluff.

She sighed, got out of bed and pulled open her bottom dresser drawer. There she drew out three long silk scarves. Roberto Gabinarri…to be all hers. Bound and gagged, finally. Now
that
was a birthday present.

“I’ve had this, um, fantasy about you for a long, long time.” There, she’d finally admitted it and, yet, Rob didn’t look repulsed. He looked downright intrigued.

“R-Really?”

She grinned. It was so great to hear him stumble on a word for a change. When a gabby Gabinarri was reduced to stuttering, emotion must be dancing around in there somewhere. Now, if she could just get him to stop chattering altogether for a while, maybe he’d finally be able to hear her heart speaking to him over the incessant talking.

“What, um, do you want to do?” He blinked at her and got into bed again, his expression utterly eager.

She slid in next to him and held out the first scarf, touching it to his mouth. “I want you to listen—not talk.” She dangled the other two. “And I want you to stay in one place when you’re doing it.”

For a long moment he paused, his eyes scanning her face with the most incredulous look. Then, at last, he laughed out loud. “Why, you little minx,” he said, reaching for the scarves and twining one thoughtfully around his wrist.

But, for the next hour, those were the last words he said.

* * * * *

OVER THE FOLLOWING week, Elizabeth tried hard not to think about
only
Rob.

Instead, her mind chose to contemplate the highly exciting things Rob could do, with or without scarves. The way Rob’s obscenely sexy body felt against hers, whether they were on her bed or on her sofa. The various adventures they had with sundae toppings in the privacy of her apartment. (She’d come to have a special fondness for whipped cream.) The witty conversations with Rob that made her head spin, either at the shop or at his mother’s house or just at some random location in town. And how being in Rob’s very presence could make her forget to breathe.

Stuff like that.

At Gabinarri family dinners, she had to remind herself to clean her plate and talk about only topics of conversation suitable for young ears. Although, admittedly, Rob’s mother looked at her as if she were the new family savior, and the woman would’ve probably forgiven her just about any infraction. Alessandra Gabinarri had bridal bouquets in her bright brown eyes whenever she glanced in Elizabeth’s direction.

With Nick, Jacques and even Gretchen, she was cryptic in her explanations of her whereabouts, and she knew she was being discussed behind her back. Gretchen and Jacques, especially, would stop talking abruptly almost whenever Elizabeth walked into a room.

They were her best friends so, naturally, they wouldn’t be blinded to the obvious. They plied her with sweets whenever she saw them, but she knew what they were doing. She could almost hear them saying:

“Mon Dieu.
Rob’s going to break her heart.”

“I know, but will that girl listen?”

“She’s the dearest
chéri
but, face it, she’s not in his league. Nowhere close.”

“Few are. Maybe I’ll make her some crème-orange truffle parfaits and she’ll forget about him.”

“Good plan. I’ll whip up a few pastries, too. What do you think? Blackberry tarts or caramel-apple turnovers?”

Elizabeth would’ve gained ten pounds from all their love and concern if she weren’t burning off hundreds of calories every night. And, no, she couldn’t credit her
X-treme Abs and Thighs
DVD. It was collecting dust by the TV.

On the morning of the fourteenth, she and Jacques were at the bakery he worked at when he wasn’t moonlighting at Tutti-Frutti. Both nervously awaited Camden’s arrival. Time at last for the photos, and Jacques, a man who typically possessed a storehouse of excess energy, paced and fidgeted in uncharacteristic agitation.

“Ready?” she asked him, her own anxiety taking a different form than her friend’s. What was Rob doing right now? When could she see him alone?

“But of course,” Jacques said, his eyes darting restlessly between his pastries and the door. “I’ve got it all laid out. Just look at these plump, delectable—”

Her cell phone rang.

She and Jacques glanced at each other before she answered it. Camden.

“W-What’s going on?” she said. “Where are you?”

There was a torrent of “Sorry, sorry darlings” and an almost convincing “I’ll really, really make it up to you.” Elizabeth felt her temper rise.

“Camden,
where
are you?”

He moaned on the other end of the line. “Annabelle and I missed our flight out of Banff. We—we were kind of—um—busy in the private lounge and didn’t hear the last boarding call. There’s not another Midwestern-bound flight until late tomorrow, and by the time I get out there it’ll be too late to do everything we need to get done. Please, please forgive me. I’ve got another break later in the month, can I still come out then?”

She sighed. Ten days ago she wouldn’t have understood this type of mindless passion. The kind of desire that obliterated all other responsibilities and left her feeling vulnerable to its tempest. Ten days was a lifetime ago.

“Okay, we’ll reschedule,” she heard her voice say with surprising calm. “But remember the deadline is August first.” Camden blessed her and hung up.

“Merde.”
Jacques sliced a picture-perfect éclair in half and stuffed one part in his mouth. He waved the other at her dispiritedly. She took it.

Yet, despite her disappointment, she could think of only one thing, and it ran like tickertape through her brain:
I get to spend more time with Rob this weekend! More, more, more!

Yep. She’d made up for twenty-eight years of sexual restraint by turning into a nymphomaniac over the course of ten days. Nice.

“Let’s go to Tutti-Frutti and console ourselves with ice cream and a couple of caramel-pecan rolls,” she suggested.

Jacques complied immediately.

On the street outside the sweets shop, Jacques ran into an acquaintance and chatted with him for a minute. Elizabeth knew she could go inside if she wanted to but, instead, she decided to mill around, enjoy the summer sunshine, smell the roses. She peeked in the shop’s window, though, which was empty except for two elderly couples and a middle-aged lady, all of whom had already been served. Then she noticed Rob and Gretchen.

They were standing behind the counter, close to each other. Leaning in.
Very
close to each other, she clarified. A lump, belonging to an emotion she didn’t like, lodged itself in her throat.

Gretchen—tall, blond, beautiful Gretchen—put her hand on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He laughed and looked at her as though her blue eyes made starlight dim by comparison.

Then Rob motioned her close again with a come-hither gesture that Elizabeth thought he used only with
her
. He whispered a response back in Gretchen’s ear. She, in turn, clasped her hand over her mouth, as if to hold in the hilarity, and her cheeks flushed. Even across the shop and through the fingerprint-smudged window Elizabeth could tell flirting when she saw it.

She heard a gasp behind her.

She looked over her shoulder to see Jacques, the color draining from his face, staring at the giddy couple inside Tutti-Frutti. He gave her a horrified look.

Oh, what a perfect little fool she’d been. She’d been trying so hard to ignore the obvious—that a man like Rob Gabinarri wasn’t for her—but she went ahead and fell in love with him anyway. Idiot.

Consciously, unconsciously, the guy attracted attention from other women. He couldn’t help it. No matter what he whispered to her in the middle of the night, when he thought she wasn’t watching him during the day, he could freely give in to those natural flirtatious impulses of his. And, eventually, when the novelty of being with her wore off, wouldn’t he choose someone beautiful and confident like Gretchen over someone plain and fretful like her?

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Of course he would.

There was no way she could face them now. Not any of them.

Not Rob, whose opportunity to cheat would always be plentiful, whether or not he ever planned to act on it.

Not Gretchen, whose betrayal was surely unintentional. Elizabeth doubted her friend even realized she was next in line for Rob’s attention. But Elizabeth knew no one escaped his magnetism unscathed, so it still hurt to see her with him.

Not even Jacques, whose empathy had him turning several shades of sickly pale.

She race-walked down the block and back to her car. She got in, drove as far as the park, found a shady spot and killed the ignition. Then she sobbed nonstop for forty minutes.

* * * * *

ELIZABETH WAS ACTING weird as hell tonight. Rob figured she must still be pissed at Camden for canceling the photo shoot at the last minute. But Jacques, who Rob had thought was warming up to him again after the Fourth of July, was back to being very, very chilly, which made no sense at all. Those moody Frenchmen.

Nick was off in his own world most of the time, no doubt dreaming of some gay hockey-playing fantasy lover who could down a shot of ouzo without clutching his stomach and grimacing at the potency.

Only Gretchen was being her normal self. When he’d asked her for details about Elizabeth’s experience as a cookbook writer this morning, she’d told him sidesplitting stories of some of Elizabeth’s earliest recipe attempts. Customers with delicate sensibilities were in the shop, so they had to keep their voices down…her tales involved proclaiming several very descriptive swear words, which Gretchen claimed Elizabeth hadn’t used since. But Rob laughed and laughed just imagining his sweet woman letting loose with a range of profanities a Green Beret might find offensive.