Relief swamped her, dismayed her. She shouldn’t care so much that Gloria Stuart was Aunt Bea with a secretarial degree, instead of a Valkyrie. It shouldn’t matter.

But it did.


“KAT, I NEED YOUR HELP.”

Anxiety deepened the blue of her eyes. “What’s the matter?”

Andrew turned his head carefully, wincing at the white-hot pain the simple movement sent shooting up his neck. “It’s my neck. I turned wrong a minute ago and it feels the same as it did the other day, only worse.”

Asking for help didn’t come easy to Andrew. He’d learned early on to make his own decisions, his own opportunities. But with Kat it felt different. It felt right.

“Sure. Let me see if I can help. Why don’t we go over there?” She indicated the alcove with velveteen drapes obscuring the recessed area. Her glance swept the dancing couples, the conversation clusters scattered throughout the room. “Otherwise we’re likely to cause a stir if I give you a rubdown here.”

Andrew also scanned the crowd, easing his entire body around without turning his neck. “Our fathers are competing to see who can outnetwork the other one, and our guests are flattered at having the heads of the best two law firms in the city vying for their attention. Probably no one would even notice, but let’s go over there just to be safe.”

Right! As if sharing a small, darkened space with Kat, her magical fingers touching him, constituted safe.

He slipped into the curtained recess behind Kat, his body tightening as he anticipated her small hands moving over him. The sound of their shallow breathing filled the tiny nook. Her womanly scent wove around him, enveloped him.

Andrew pulled the curtain behind them while Kat unfolded a metal chair leaning against the wall. “Here. Have a seat.” The breathless tremor in her voice indicated she shared his awareness of the tension flowing between them.

Andrew plopped into the chair. Probably the only damn thing wrong with his neck was the stress of not giving in to the craving for his wife that grew every day.

Kat moved to stand behind him and tripped, grasping at the lectern crammed next to them to catch herself.

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to steady her with a hand at her waist.

“I’m fine.” She wedged between the back of the chair and the wall. His head fit neatly in the valley of her silk-covered breasts. Exquisite torture.

“Do you have enough room?” He rasped.

“It’s sort of tight, but I can still use my hands.” Her touch burned through his clothing. She began to work on his muscle.

“Mmm, can you move a little to the right?” Her fingers were truly magic. He groaned his relief. “Yeah, that’s better.”

“I don’t know how much I can take care of here.”

“Whatever you can do. Right now it’s so stiff it hurts, but it’s already feeling better. If you can just relieve it a little now.”

Something niggled at Andrew, hovered on the periphery of his consciousness, but with his senses so befuddled by Kat, he brushed it away.

“Oh, that’s it. That feels good.”

“It’s not too hard? I don’t want to go too deep.” She eased off the muscle a little.

“No, you could even go a little harder.”

The problem was she was too darned short. Slipping off her shoes, she sought a foothold on the metal folding chair.

“If I could just get on top of you a little more.”

She grunted slightly as she hoisted herself up. She could really work those muscles in his neck now.

“That feels better to me. What about you?”

Her fingers pressed deeper into the muscle, her palm kneaded. “Mmm, that’s much better. I don’t think you’ll have to touch it when we get home. It’s not even stiff anymore.”

“Andrew? Kat?” Bitsy’s disembodied voice called from the other side of the curtain.

Kat’s hands stilled.

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure, uh, exactly what you two are up to in there, but I thought you needed to know you’re on the PA system.”

“The PA system?” Kat echoed.

Jumping up, Andrew bent over the lectern, a microphone attached to it. A red light glowed on the underside, indicating the PA system was indeed turned on. It must have happened when Kat stumbled against it. He felt along the flexible stem of the microphone dangling over the front of the lectern and pressed the button. The red light clicked off.

Dead silence reigned. No music. No muted conversation. No clink of silverware and glasses. Nothing.

“Wireless remote microphone.”

Snatches of remembered conversation floated between them…let me get on top…can I go deeper…it’s not stiff anymore.

“This is bad. This is not good.” Kat croaked, still atop her chair, wedged between the wall and the lectern.

Andrew rubbed his brow. “It could’ve been worse. We could’ve said something incriminating about our agreement. God knows what we could’ve said about our parents.”

He mentally replayed the last few minutes of conversation.

“Instead, three hundred people think they just heard us…”

“Yes. I know what they think.”

Reaching for a handful of velvet drapery, he checked with Kat. “Ready?”


“I STILL SAY YOUR MOTHER falling down in a faint was overkill!” Kat kicked off her high-heeled pumps at the kitchen door and flexed her toes in relief.

“Claudia offered smelling salts and condolences.” Andrew shrugged out of his jacket.

“I personally thought that was uncalled-for.” Kat rummaged through the freezer until she snagged a virgin carton of Chunky Monkey. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate this evening?”

Andrew loosened the knot of his silk tie, his long fingers coaxing the folds of the pliant material. Kat quelled a wolf whistle and silently encouraged him to continue disrobing. Her hormones were on a feeding frenzy.

“Definitely a ten for sheer entertainment value. I don’t think any of our guests were bored. God knows what they’ll expect at the Christmas party.”

Christmas. Five months. By that time she should be pregnant and he should be a full partner. “When can you expect your partnership?” She rooted around for a walnut.

“I’ve got a meeting scheduled next week to discuss it. Your eating habits really are deplorable.”

Kat grinned at his insult. A week ago she would have been affronted. Tonight she was merely encouraged. Somewhere beneath his vanilla preference beat the heart of a Chunky Monkey man.

She savored her bite before responding. “Dairy and fruit. Two of the four food groups.”

“Kat, there are six food groups.”

“Only four are essentials. Dairy-preferably ice cream. Fruit-preferably in ice cream. Protein-peanut M &M’s. And chocolate.”

Andrew leaned across the tile-topped island, his warm breath belying his cool exterior. “Darling, I hate to break it to you, but chocolate does not qualify as a food group.”

Even the faint sarcasm tinging his “darling” couldn’t quell her shiver of delight at his endearment. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

The click of doggie toenails on the tile floor heralded Toto’s arrival. Ignoring Kat, he pranced over to Andrew. Kat cast a baleful eye on the pair. “So, I guess I’m chopped liver now, eh, Toto?” Actually, she couldn’t much blame the little traitor. She’d had some powerful urges to fall at Andrew’s feet more than once in the past week.

Toto whimpered at the back door. Andrew opened the door for Toto and turned to face her, lines of tension etched across his forehead.

Kat scooped a bite of ice cream. “It’s good to be home.”

His cool regard searched her face. “Is that how you feel? Like this is home?” Kat thought she detected a hint of longing in his smooth voice.

“Yes.” She hadn’t realized it until that moment, and the truth surprised her. “It does feel like home here.”

She had no idea whether her admission appalled or delighted him. If it delighted, he excelled at hiding it.

“You don’t miss your condominium?”

“Not really. It’s nice to mess around in the potting shed. And Toto and I both enjoy Anton’s and Mrs. Fitzwillie’s company.”

A flash of loneliness in the depths of his gray eyes transformed him from a successful, confident man to a small boy no one had made time for. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets and turned to contemplate the night through the glass door.

“Good, I’m glad.”

Kat didn’t stop to consider the ramifications of her actions. Instead she responded to his bleak expression. She tossed the carton of ice cream onto the island. Nothing seemed as essential as her husband at that moment. Closing the distance between them, she wrapped her arms around him, hugging the solid wall of his back, inhaling his scent. She felt the loneliness cloaking him as surely as she felt his tight muscles beneath her cheek, echoing her own soul-deep loneliness. God knows the price of honesty, but she couldn’t run any longer from whatever simmered between them.

“And you. Toto and I have grown accustomed to you. We enjoy your company. Late suppers at twilight. Back rubs in the dark.”

His heartbeat thundered against her cheek; his harsh breathing, loud in the silence, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. Slowly he turned to face her, her arms still wrapped around him, bringing them into intimate contact.

Kat tilted back her head to search the gray morass of his eyes, but he’d effectively shuttered whatever he felt. His hand drifted along her jaw to tangle in her hair, leaving her trembling in the wake of his caress. He lowered his head until the hard line of his mouth hovered above hers.

“And what happens when you leave, Kat? Because you will. We both know it.” The warm intoxication of his breath tickled against her skin as the harsh stubble of his beard scraped, mirroring the dichotomy within her. She felt like shouting for joy and crying from melancholy, all at the same time. Dammit to hell, she’d made the deal to leave, but she wasn’t so sure of that path now.