Taking Care of Business (24 page)

'Not by pictures of your kids.'

'It occurs to me we have a lot to talk about. So settle in there, Kate. Let me get the food on the table.'

He took his luscious, faded-denim-covered ass and sauntered from the table. Bare-footed, he padded into the kitchen and she watched, sipping the wine as he brought food back to her. His hair was freshly washed and without the usual product to keep it in place. A lock of it fell across his forehead. His T-shirt was thin and hugged against his body nicely. Just the barest sliver of tanned, taut belly showed when he leaned to put the salad near her.

This part wasn't hard to get used to. Having a handsome, successful man bring her dinner certainly wasn't a punishment. All the other stuff though began to crop up at the edges of her fantasy. Damn that reality.

'I'd planned to eat out back but it's still too hot. Maybe later we can go for a swim.' He sat and nodded in her direction. 'Dig in.'

'I didn't bring my suit and your neighbours wouldn't appreciate skinny-dipping I'm sure.' She dished up some salad and forked some prawns and chicken on to her plate.

'Speak for yourself. I think I'd receive several thank-you cards from my neighbours if they caught sight of you naked and wet. Lots of divorced dads and teenaged boys around here.' He grinned and tucked in.

A nearly comfortable silence hung between them for a few minutes as they ate.

'So did you get everything handled regarding Carlina?'

'Yes. After taking a peek into her hard drive, we found all sorts of things. She's been planning this departure for at least five months. We even know where she's gone to work.

I had a long talk with their HR person today about what the confidentiality clause means. I don't think they're very happy about it, but that's not my problem. Leah and I will work to get the rest of the forms signed and dealt with next week.'

'Good. The sessions went well this afternoon. Roger and Bob are douchebags but your team, other than those two, are strong.'

'OK, enough work. Let's talk about us.'

'Let's do the dishes first.'

He snorted but didn't argue as she helped him put away the leftovers and clean up the dirty dishes.

'Now, into the living room with you. You've stalled quite enough.' He gave her a gentle shove towards the living room and she grabbed her wine.

Once they'd settled in, he turned to her on the comfortable, overstuffed couch and gave her an assessing look. 'Let's just be blunt, all right? I said I was done playing games and I'm going to have to trust you are too. I want you. I want us to be together. I enjoy your company. I respect and admire you and I want to fuck you all the time we can manage it.'

Part of her thrilled to hear it. The rest of her, though, was another story. 'I have concerns.'

'And they are?'

'They're legion. But the big one is professional. We work together, Dix. Your dumb secretary already tried to fuck me over. I work hard to keep walls between my private life and work. She called my boss. That's a problem.'

'I'm sorry about that. But come on, Kate. That's a one-time thing. She's nuts and that had nothing to do with work, that was her being vindictive and crazy.'

She frowned a moment. 'Bullshit it had nothing to do with work! I let you get me off in a parking garage. She caught me with my hand down your underwear. If we'd kept it private it wouldn't have been an issue at all.'

'She didn't see anything. She got the jist of what happened but she didn't see anything. I was blocking her view. But OK, we already decided to keep our frolics in private from now on. The whole thing wasn't about you, it was about Carlina and her obsession. We'll handle it from now on. Next?' He waved her concerns away like smoke.

'I worry people will believe I got the job with Allied because of my relationship with you.'

He laughed. 'Kate, you got the job because your best friend is the HR director.'

'That, Charles, is networking. You know as well as I do that that sort of connection is acceptable. No one will think less of me for that. But if they think I got it because we're having sex, suddenly I'm undermined.'

'We don't work with each other. Not for the same employer and after you leave tomorrow you'll pretty much be done with Allied unless we have further need for your specialised services. In which case, we still won't be working for the same employer. I know it's harder for women in this field. I have daughters, I'm sensitive to how it is. But you're making up reasons to keep me away.'

'Hey, oh look! Condescending asshole is back! How very nice of you to understand how it is. I'll put a gold star on your picture.'

Dix narrowed his eyes at her. 'So why don't you share with me then? Tell me what the fuck crawled up your ass to make you such a paranoid bitch?'

As he'd suspected, the dig goaded her enough to finally tell him what the hell happened.

'Back when I was an undergrad, here at Penn State by the way, I interned with an elected official. It doesn't matter which one.'

She waved away the question before he could ask. 'His aide and I had a thing. A mutual thing. He wasn't married, I wasn't married. He was only ten years older. We were discovered in a compromising situation after an event. Not having sex but enough to make it clear we were intimate. I was frozen out. They couldn't fire me, not when they weren't sure if I'd file some sort of sexual harassment charges. Which I'd never do, for God's sake, I told them it was consensual and never on-site. But that didn't matter. It was an election year and, while he was a stud for fucking the hot young intern, I was just the hot young intern. And apparently a liability because of my vagina.

'Soon enough the story got back to my faculty advisor.

The funds for my position for the fall suddenly dried up. They didn't need me at the office any more.' She took several gulps of her wine and he retrieved the bottle and topped it up for her. She nodded her thanks. 'Anyway, now the aide in question works in Washington, making half a million a year last I heard. Meanwhile, I was advised, quite off the record you know, that it might be wise if I took the spot I'd been offered at the UW law school. My references had dried up but when they heard about UW they all couldn't wait to tell them how great I was.'

'Christ, Kate. That's a bundle of fucked up.'

'Yes, yes it was. And so my parents, who by the way are still friends with the elected official in question, were spoken to. Disappointed, they came to me and urged me to get out of town. To start over and to keep my legs closed.'

Well, he could see how that would make her extremely wary about relationships with co-workers but the situation was not the same.

'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to condescend. But you have to see there are no corollaries between what you and I have and what happened to you before. We're equals working for two different employers living in two different cities. We won't see each other in a professional capacity after tomorrow very often, if at all again. I'm just another lawyer living in Harrisburg. If it makes you more comfortable we can just say we didn't start dating until after tomorrow.'

'I don't know what to think. Or feel. Or want.'

'Bullshit, Kate. You know what to want. You want what you want.' He shrugged. 'That's not the complicated part. Wanting is easy.'

'What is it you want?' She threw her hands up.

'You. You and me. Is that so awful? Do you not want that too? Tell me honestly.' Shit, he hadn't even imagined she wouldn't want a relationship too. He knew she did.

She looked at him, not speaking, for some time and finally nodded. 'I do. I do but, Dix, I gotta tell you, there are big things between us.'

'Well, we just said we could deal with the work issues, right?'

She sighed. 'If we take it really slow and very carefully. I think we can. I'm uncomfortable with it, but not so much I don't want to try.'

'Then what?'

'The thing with your wife.'

He sighed. 'What thing, beauty? I'm divorced. I have been for seven years. You're the first woman I've wanted a relationship with in all that time. That should tell you something, shouldn't it?'

'You're still her husband without the fucking. Her picture is on your wall.'

Her jealousy made him want to smile but, seeing the look in her eyes, he decided against it. 'I haven't been in love with Eve for at least nine years. Probably ten. But my daughters live here half of the time, I can't excise their mother from their lives.'

'I have no place to feel one way or the other about it.'

His amusement dried up. 'You're starting to piss me off. I thought you said you were done playing games. Of course you do, and clearly you have an opinion on the issue. My kids come first. I won't apologise for that. I've always been clear about it.'

'Shut the fuck up. This isn't about your kids. You just let yourself think that. I respect that your kids come first. They should come first. Ugh, never mind! This is a mistake. Call me a cab. We had this very nice thing, don't spoil it by ending it on a fight.' She began to stand and he grabbed the waist of her skirt and pulled her back to the couch.

'You're not going anywhere. God, why can't you just talk to me about it then? What is your issue? Be specific. I'm a big boy, I can take it.'

'Fine. The last time we spoke on the phone before I came out here, remember that?' She paused as he nodded. 'We're hot and heavy, I've got a vibrator in my cunt, you're telling me unbelievably filthy things as you're jerking off and then your cell phone rings. It's your ex's number but, OK, your daughters are there so you answer it. And what happened? Were your girls in need of you? No. You ended our call and why? To go over there because she can't open a jar. Since you want me to be honest and all, I have to tell you how fucking pathetic that is. On both your parts.'

Ouch.

'She's not like you, Kate. She's always been coddled. Am I supposed to just abandon her because we're divorced?'

She blinked quickly. 'You're the . . . that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Oh my God! See, this is why we can't be together. Abandon her? If she was going through chemo and you needed to be supportive, I'd stand behind that. If her car was out of commission and she needed help getting your daughters around until it got fixed, I can be OK with that. I can't,
will not
accept a nearly forty-year-old woman who can't open a jar and who calls her ex-husband over to open it. That's patently absurd and you cooperating with such ridiculous delusions is worse. It's wretched, Dix. She needs to grow the fuck up. You're not her father, or her husband.'

'Where is all this coming from? Why didn't you say any of this before?' Confused anger slid through him. And also the feeling she was right. Which made him defensive.

'Because before you were the guy who flew out to fuck me for a few days. Now you want that to change. You want a relationship. You want my opinion, and guess what? I'm not helpless. If you ask for it, I'm going to give it to you. Welcome to having a woman in your life who's an adult. Scary, huh?'

He pushed up from the couch and began to pace. 'Smart ass. She's not a threat to you.'

She actually rolled her eyes at that. 'Of course she isn't. Not in the way you imagine it, no.'

'Then why flip out because her picture is on my wall? You're here with me now, not her. It's you I want in my bed, at my side. You I imagine lounging by the pool as I grill. I've even thought of how I'd introduce you to my kids. I can't get you out of my head. I want you there.'

'You're a romantic, which is pretty damned hot, I'll admit.'

She stood, moving to him, standing so close that each time she took a breath her breasts touched him just slightly. 'But you're wilfully blind. That is not hot.'

'What are we fighting about?'

'Dix, darling, we're fighting because you're not letting go.

And because of that, I need to.' She moved past him and went for her bag.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to call a cab. I'm going back to the hotel and you're going to continue to be on call for a woman you supposedly left seven years ago.' She pulled out her phone and he grabbed her wrist. 'I care about you. More than I should. But not so much I can't see you have a lot of thinking to do.'

'This is stupid. Stop psychoanalysing me, damn you. I want you. I need you. I don't want my ex-wife. This isn't some episode of a network drama.'

She turned slowly, one eyebrow rising. 'Are you saying I'm dramatic?'

'I'm saying there isn't an issue here. You're using it to keep me away.'

'Now who's psychoanalysing? Hmm? I readily admit I want you. It wasn't easy for me to get to that point but here I am. I'm willing to do the work to have a relationship with you. But I'm not interested in your ex-wife. I don't date married men. That's what's keeping you away. Not anything more than that. But it's a big deal. Your security blanket.'

Discomfort nettled. What the hell did she know? She'd never been married. Didn't have kids or know the responsibility of trying to raise them between two households. She had no right to be so glib about his life.

'You don't have any right to be so flip about my kids.'

She started to speak but shook her head instead. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

'You're not just going to walk away from this thing we have.' He pulled her to his body and watched her pupils swallow the colour of her eyes. Not in fear, but in reaction to him, an echo of the ache he felt for her.