Ignoring the question in his voice, she swiped her face then snatched up the packaging tape and concentrated on stretching a long, sticky strip across the box’s flaps. “I thought you were working late. You said it would take you half the night to go through the information I compiled on each of KCL’s brands’ executives, and you wanted to be familiar with each employee’s history before the cocktail party tomorrow night.”
He’d told—no, ordered—her to eat dinner without him and not to wait up. After the way he’d hurt her feelings and angered her with his nasty remark this morning, she’d been happy to have time alone. She hadn’t even been able to escape him at lunch because he’d insisted she join him, Mitch and Julie, the newly hired director of shared services, for lunch at a South Beach Thai restaurant.
Her plan to regain what she and Rand had once had was on shaky ground because she couldn’t get past his anger and distrust. She’d lost hope this morning after their ugly confrontation, and she needed to regroup and rethink her plan.
Maybe…maybe this new bitter version of Rand wasn’t a man she could love.
Her fingers tightened on the tape dispenser and the serrated edge dug into her flesh. Exhaling, she made a conscious effort to relax her grip before she drew blood.
She could hear the sound of Rand’s footsteps cross the hardwood floor. He stopped just behind her right shoulder. His scent and warmth reached out to her, and she had to fight the urge to turn and lay her head against his chest. Tonight had been hard, like saying goodbye to her mother all over again. But she’d known it would be. That’s why she’d avoided this task so long.
“Why are you packing? You can’t leave. You signed a contract.”
“I’m packing up my mother’s things. It’s something I should have done a long time ago.”
She chanced a peek at him from under her lashes. His green and gold eyes searched her face, then scanned the room, taking in the portable toilet, wheelchair and walker and the bedroom suite from Tara’s old apartment.
When her mother could no longer climb the stairs, Tara had done her best to make her comfortable in this makeshift bedroom. Her mom had gone downhill fast in her last six months. She’d barely left this room except to be wheeled to doctors’ appointments. She’d spent most of her time in Tara’s wicker rocking chair in front of the bay window overlooking the back garden.
“She was handicapped?”
“She was dying. Lung cancer. Too many years of smoking.”
His impenetrable mask softened a little. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. But it’s time to move on. She wouldn’t want me to keep this stuff when it could benefit someone else. It would have been cheaper to rent the medical equipment instead of buying it, but renting seemed like…” Her throat closed, burned. She stopped, swallowed, inhaled and then tried again. “Renting seemed like admitting it would only be a matter of time before I had to turn it back in. I wasn’t ready…to give up.”
He studied her long and hard, then glanced at the door and rocked on the balls of his feet as if he wanted to leave. Instead he sank back on his heels, shoved his hands in his pockets and inhaled deeply. “You never mentioned her illness when we were together.”
“She hadn’t been diagnosed then. That came…after…us.” One moment Tara had been wallowing in heartache and woe-is-me, and the next her world had turned upside down.
Rand had been working overseas when she’d received the news, and with the ugly way he’d ended things, calling him hadn’t been an option.
Forget it. There is no us. We have no future. I won’t marry you or father your children. It was sex, Tara. Nothing more.
She’d had no one to turn to except the doctors, whose faces and prognoses had been grim. Panic had set in. She’d been so afraid of losing her mother and of the misery, surgeries and chemo her mother had ahead of her. The day after Tara had found out, she’d broken down in her office at KCL. Everett had whisked her to Kincaid Manor, where she’d poured out her fears.
And then Tara had failed her mother by refusing the one lifeline they’d been offered. Shame scalded her cheeks and weighted her shoulders.
She pushed back the pain and checked her watch. After ten. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Have you eaten? I could fix something.”
“I ate. Did you?” He indicated the boxes stacked in the corner with a nod. “Looks like you’ve been at this for a while.”
“I…no, I haven’t eaten. I…couldn’t.”
“You have to eat, Tara.”
Her stomach seconded his opinion by growling loudly.
“I’ll grab something later. I’m almost finished.”
She lifted another empty box from the floor to the mattress.
Rand laid his warm palm over the back of her hand, stilling her movements. “Take a break.”
Her pulse did a quickstep, but despite her body’s involuntary reaction, the idea of being intimate with him after what he’d said earlier today about sharing her with Mitch repelled her. As she suspected he’d intended his comment to.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I, um…don’t need you tonight. So you can…go to bed. Good night.”
His gaze held hers for a long moment. “Despite six months working in a ship’s galley, I’m not a whiz in the kitchen. But I won’t poison you. I’ll scramble some eggs and make toast.”
Why was he being nice after being so hateful this morning? She couldn’t understand him. She bent her head and flicked a fingernail on the box flap. “You don’t have to cook for me.”
“Tara.” He waited until she looked at him. His jaw shifted as if he were grinding his teeth. “You won’t be any good to me tomorrow if you don’t fuel up tonight.”
She snapped her shoulders back. So much for believing his compassion was altruistic. “I’ll manage.”
“Is that how you lost the weight? By starving yourself? Get your butt in the kitchen,” he ordered, then yanked the box from her hand.
She held her ground. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t want you to be a liability.”
“You don’t want me period.” She grimaced and bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to let that slip. So much for holding onto her pride.
He caught her chin with his fingers before she could duck again. “I don’t want to want you. That’s a whole different story. Now get in there and sit down. I’ll help you pack after you eat. Two of us will knock it out faster than one.”
Emotion squeezed her chest and stung her eyes at this unexpected glimpse of the man she’d fallen for five years ago. Rand had always claimed to be hard-hearted and self-serving, but she’d seen past the facade to the man he’d tried so hard to hide. He might be a ruthless businessman, but no matter how many times he denied it, Rand Kincaid cared about others.
She studied his face. His lips were so close, his eyes so intense. He’d been a gentle and unselfish lover who’d coaxed her past her shyness and taught her about pleasure, about her own body. A less generous man wouldn’t have bothered. She wanted to cradle his stubble-shadowed jaw and hurl herself in his arms.
Tonight proved the man she remembered, the one she’d loved, was still in there. Somewhere. All she had to do was draw him out.
Her waning hopes rebounded. All wasn’t lost. And to borrow another of Tara’s famous last words, tomorrow was another day.
And this time she wasn’t giving up without a fight.
Five
“C ould you hold me? Just for a minute?”
Tara’s quiet question turned the dining room colder than a ship’s freezer. Rand’s muscles froze and his brain screamed, No. Hell no. Don’t fall for her tricks.But over the past hour of packing her mother’s belongings she’d confused the hell out of him. Had she really been fighting to hide her tears and quivering bottom lip from him, or had she been giving the performance of a lifetime, letting him see just enough bogus pain to suck him in? Because her quiet, solitary grief had been so convincing she’d almost choked him up.
If she was really hurting and not acting, then a simple hug wasn’t too much to ask. From anyone other than him.
But he owed her. She’d busted her butt at the office, doing more work in three days than most assistants could accomplish in three weeks. She hadn’t complained once about the staggering workload involved in getting him up-to-date on the company, the twelve-hour days or the lack of breaks. She’d simply had snacks and drinks sent up from the cafeteria.
He flexed his fingers, knowing what he needed to do, what he ought to do, and dreading it. He opened his arms. Tara fell against him. The soft thud of her body hit him like a freight train. He reluctantly encircled her with his arms. Reminding himself this could be an act to lure him into her trap, he tried hard to stay detached, tried to ignore her scent, her softness, her heat.
But indifference was nearly impossible when he could feel her breaths hitching, could feel the tension in her rigid body as she fought to maintain control. Or faked it.
Warmth seeped through his shirt. Tears. The dampness spread across his chest and her body trembled against his.
He didn’t do crying women.
This was exactly the kind of emotionally charged situation he avoided with his lovers. Normally he’d have been long gone by now. Watching Tara hug a sweater or a book or some other trinket to her chest and then carefully sort each item into boxes had brought back memories he’d rather not revisit. Memories of the Kincaid staff packing away his mother’s possessions after her death.
Rand had wanted to keep his mother’s favorite scarf, the one that smelled like her. His father had ripped it from Rand’s hands with a terse, “What are you, a pansy-boy? Go to your room.”
All Rand had wanted was a tangible memory of his mother. Hell, he’d been fourteen and drowning in the guilt of not being able to keep her from driving. Rand had known his mother was drunk and angry with his father about another woman. He’d known because she’d always ranted to Rand when his father screwed around.
Confidant wasn’t a good role for a kid, and Rand blamed his selfish, immoral ass of a father for putting him in that unenviable position. But Rand hadn’t argued. He’d been terrified his father would find out his role in not preventing his mother’s death and kick him out.
By the time Rand had been allowed out of his room every trace of his mother had been removed from the house. Not even Nadia had been allowed to keep any of their mother’s things.
He stuffed down the memories and sat on the mattress of the mechanical hospital-style bed, pulling Tara between his thighs. Every effort had been made to turn this room into a comfortable bedroom, but not even Tara’s old headboard bolted to the wall could make this anything less than it was. An invalid’s room.
He recognized the furniture from his affair with Tara, and memories flooded him. Memories of hot sex and of the playful bondage games involving that headboard. Memories that made him granite hard.