Jared sat on the edge of the bed watching Kim as she slept. He had slipped out of bed half an hour earlier to make coffee and bring in the morning newspaper. Conflicting thoughts and feelings ran rampant through him. On the one hand he wanted to be with her, to share everything with her. Even the possibility of building a life together had entered his thoughts. She was unlike any woman he had ever known. Just looking at her sent a shiver through his body, telling him of the magnitude of the impact their lovemaking had on him. It had never seemed so important on every level of existence as it had with Kim.
But on the other hand, he felt as if the walls were closing in on him, trapping him in something he wasn’t ready for. He wanted to stay as much as he instinctively wanted to run. Nothing had ever put him into a state of inner turmoil the way this had. And he had been totally unprepared for it.
His pulse raced a little faster and his heartbeat pounded a little harder as he took in the beautiful woman sleeping in his bed. He reached out and lightly stroked her hair, brushing errant strands from the side of her face. Her long, dark lashes rested against her upper cheek. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her breasts corresponding with her slow, even breathing. His gaze traced the enticing curve of her hip and her long, shapely legs. She stirred, then stretched her arms and legs.
Kim slowly opened her eyes. The first sight that greeted her was Jared’s face. She smiled. “Good morning.” A soft warmth spread through her body as she recalled the intensity of their lovemaking and the heat of the passion between them. “Have you been awake for long?”
“No…just long enough to make some coffee.” He wanted to touch her, to feel the silky smoothness of her skin and experience the sensual oneness of the physical contact with her. He started to reach out, but withdrew his hand. He didn’t know why. A sudden jolt of panic gripped him and refused to let go. He stood and walked to the other side of the bed.
“I brought your clothes up from the living room.”
A hint of a frown creased her forehead. “Thank you.” A million warning bells went off inside her head. There was something different about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. Was his attitude a little cooler? His manner a bit more formal? He hadn’t kissed her, not even the gesture of touching her cheek as he had numerous times over the past month. A little chill darted across her skin. She pulled the sheet up to cover her even though she knew the chill was emotional rather than physical.
She had wondered the night before if she would regret her decision to make love with Jared. Had that decision already come back to haunt her, or were her fears preying on her insecurities? She reached for the clothes he had placed on the foot of the bed. Was it his way of telling her he wanted her to leave even though it had been previously agreed that they would work on the charity project that day? Had he been struck with regrets?
A shudder of apprehension attached itself to her fears. She was no good at the morning after game of vying for the upper hand to control what was happening. She would relieve him of the decision by making the first move and taking the matter out of his hands.
“I’m going to go home so I can take a shower and put on some clean clothes. Then I’ll be back and we can start on the charity fund-raiser as we discussed…if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure, that’s fine. We can have breakfast when you get back.” He heard the coolness in his voice and the distance it projected but didn’t seem able to prevent it. He turned away, guilt surging through his consciousness over his inability to make eye contact with her. He wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her—to tell her that he thought he might be falling in love with her. He had allowed the reality to crystallize in his mind, but it didn’t resolve anything. All it did was frighten him more than he already was, if that was possible.
Kim pulled on her clothes, then ran her fingers through her mussed hair. The sick churning in the pit of her stomach said something was very wrong. Was it her imagination? Her doubts and fears? Or was it real? Her emotions were running wild, and she needed to get them under control. What minutes earlier had been a time of blissful contentment had turned into confusion and doubts. She hurried toward the front door.
“I should be back in a couple of hours.” She didn’t look back to see the expression on his face, nor did she wait to hear what he might say. It was all she could do to maintain a steady walking pace rather than making a dash for her car. The churning in her stomach tried to push the sick feeling up her throat. In an almost involuntary action, she glanced at the house as she opened her car door. Jared stood on the porch, an odd expression on his face that she couldn’t read.
He watched as Kim slid in behind the steering wheel and drove down the long driveway. It seemed like she had been in a great hurry to leave his house, as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. Had it been his fault? Had he subconsciously pushed her away? More than anything, he had wanted to take her in his arms and make love to her all over again. But instead he had handed her clothes to her and made no effort to allay any concerns she might have had. He did nothing to reassure her that she was far more to him than just another bedmate, that he cared about her very much—perhaps too much. He had behaved like a grade A jerk. It was the type of behavior Terry would have exhibited.
He reluctantly went inside the house and closed the door. Suddenly he felt very much alone. And more than that, for the first time in his life, he truly knew what it was like to be lonely.
Lurch padded across the floor, let out a loud bark, then headed toward the kitchen. Jared followed the dog to the utility room where he filled the food dish and replenished the water bowl. Jared watched the dog for a couple of minutes as it attacked the food. “Lurch…I think I just made the biggest mistake of my life. I’ll know for sure in a couple of hours when Kim returns.” A wave of panic swept over him. “If she returns.”
He tried to busy himself in his office. He pulled together the information he had about the charity and what his clients said they wanted. He tried to keep his attention focused, but his mind kept wandering. Every few minutes his thoughts turned to Kim, to the way she felt in his arms, to the total and complete joy that assailed his senses the moment they joined together as one when they made love. He knew in the very depths of his soul that no one would ever touch his heart the way she had.
But none of that stopped the dark cloud from settling over him. The uncomfortable feeling that had made itself known when he first met her, the sensation that his life was about to take a dramatic detour from the course he had intended, had been resurrected and expanded to new dimensions. He had to grapple with the fear that churned inside him, the confusion he couldn’t shake off and the anxiety that touched every corner of his conscious reality. Regardless of how much he wanted to be with Kim, the prospect of making a commitment to her was too terrifying for him. Everything he had experienced in life and witnessed growing up in his father’s house told him that a commitment in a personal relationship could never work.
Stevens men could never commit for life. How could Jared think he could? He was his father’s son.
Jared glanced at the clock again. Only five minutes had passed since he last checked the time. Kim had left his house almost four hours earlier, saying she would be back in a couple of hours. Had she changed her mind and decided not to return until her agreed upon regular work schedule on Monday? Had he driven a wedge between them to replace the fence they had torn down over the past month—the fence that had separated the Stevenses and Donaldsons for three generations of a family feud?
He nervously paced up and down the office, then went to his bedroom. He stared at the rumpled bed where they had made love so passionately that every detail had become burned into his memory forever—every touch, every taste, every sensation. Would that memory have to last him a lifetime? He had never been so confused and uncertain about anything in his entire life. Perhaps he could have convinced himself that she was only a passing desire if they had not made love. But now it was too late for that.
Lurch’s barking brought him out of his thoughts. Then he heard her speaking to the dog. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders but was still poised to drop on him again. She had returned, but that didn’t tell him what the future held. He rushed to the office to greet her.
“You’ve been gone for nearly four hours. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back.” He had meant the statement as one of concern, but realized when he saw her eyes narrow and her jaw tighten that it had come out as an accusation. Suddenly he couldn’t do anything right where she was concerned. Once again he found himself treading on unknown territory, and the lack of any seeming control fed into the insecurity he had never experienced before meeting Kim Donaldson.
Kim straightened from where she had kneeled to greet the dog. She had hoped the rest of the day wouldn’t be awkward, but it was apparently a wish that would not be fulfilled. “I needed to do some work before tomorrow’s open house. I didn’t want to leave it until the last minute and take a chance on not getting it done in time. It’s important for me to be able to sell my father’s house as quickly as possible so I can pay off the rest of his debts and settle his estate.”
Her words grabbed his attention. “If you sell the house right away, where will you stay for the rest of the summer while finishing your work contract here?” He could offer her temporary housing in one of his guest rooms and then maybe…he stopped his wandering thoughts. What was he thinking? Wandering…his thoughts weren’t wandering, they were galloping full force toward a situation that could only be described as the first step in making a commitment.
“I’ll worry about that when the house sells. I could always commute from my apartment in San Francisco, even though it would be almost an hour drive each way. There are people who drive that kind of a commute to and from work every day.”
A quick jab of disgust hit her. Her contracted work arrangement—he certainly wasn’t going to let her forget about it. She took a calming breath, then walked to the desk in the reception area and picked up the file folder Jared had left there. Last night had been a horrible mistake, but she couldn’t undo what had happened. All she could do was move forward in a strictly businesslike manner and try to avoid any unpleasant situations for the balance of her required summer work schedule.
And somehow she had to bury her feelings and deny what she had reluctantly admitted to herself was her love for Jared Stevens—a love that obviously would never be returned.
“What do you plan to do tomorrow while the real estate agent is holding the open house?”
“I plan to go to my apartment in San Francisco, water my plants and pack a larger suitcase with more clothes than what I brought with me. I’ve been living out of that suitcase for quite a while now, washing the same clothes over and over again. I’d like to wear something different for a change.”
“Oh.” He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I held breakfast for you. I assumed you’d come back so we could eat together.”
“I’ve already eaten.” She looked at Jared in time to see a hint of disappointment flicker across his face.
“Where do you want to start on the charity project?” She didn’t want to prolong any personal conversation. She was there strictly for business. “Do you have any ideas you want implemented? Do you want me to communicate directly with your client?”
“My client dumped the entire thing in my lap before he and his wife left for Europe. He said to let him know when everything was finalized, that he didn’t really want to be bothered with any step-by-step progress reports. Everything he provided me, with regard to instructions, information, likes and dislikes, is in that file folder. So…do you have any thoughts?”
Thoughts? Yes, she had one immediate thought. Maybe this charity fund-raiser was the perfect solution to her dilemma. It would allow her to fulfill her contracted work arrangement with Jared while functioning autonomously without constant communication and the need to go to Jared for a list of menial little chores.
She pulled together her best business manner. “Well, the first thing we need to do is set a date and location for the function. We can’t make any other arrangements such as hiring the caterers or an orchestra or booking any entertainment until we can tell them when and where. We can’t have invitations printed and sent out until we have the when and where finalized.”
“Sounds good to me. I thought maybe the ballroom of one of the large downtown San Francisco hotels.”
She cocked her head in surprise. “A hotel ballroom? How large an affair did you anticipate? I had assumed it would be something you would do here.”
“No…I think it would be better if we held it at a hotel. It would be closer to people’s homes in town. Those who might imbibe a bit too much champagne would be able to take a cab home or stay at the hotel overnight. And it would be a location that would be able to accommodate hundreds of people, a room large enough for eating and also dancing.”
“That sounds reasonable. So, I guess my first order of business is to book the hotel facility. Did your client have any specific date in mind?”
“He suggested late September or the first of October. Since this is now the first of July, that gives us most of three months to get it together.”
“No…it gives me only two months until the first of September when my contracted work schedule is completed. After that, the last-minute details will be yours.” Her words came out harsh, much harsher than she intended them to be. She attempted to recover and get on with the business that needed to be done today.
“Does your client have any type of a theme he wants to use?”
“A theme.” Jared stared at her for a moment as he wrinkled his brow in concentration. “I hadn’t really thought of that, and he never mentioned it. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Not at the moment, but I’ll see what I can come up with. Do you want me to start work on this now or wait until Monday morning? Do you have an invitation list? I’ll need to know how many people we’re talking about.”
“The names for the invitation list should be available in a few days. Part of it is coming from my client’s office and the other part is coming from the charity organization. There will be duplicate names between the two lists that will need to be eliminated and everything put into one master list. That will give you the maximum number to work with. I don’t know what percentage of those invited usually attend this type of an affair. After all, the bottom line is the amount of checks that come in rather than the number of people who attend the fund-raiser in person.”
“Yes, but you don’t want to incur a large amount of unnecessary expenses that will take away from the net amount going to the charity. If you arrange food for five hundred people and only two hundred people show up, you’ll still have to pay for five hundred people.”
“You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Do you have a San Francisco phone book?”
Jared pointed to the desk. “There’s one in the bottom drawer.”
“I should begin by getting price information from the hotels and I’ll most likely need to wait until Monday for the right people to be at work. In fact, by using a hotel ballroom the deal would include catering and bar setup rather than needing to handle that separately. Of course, it will still require coordination with the banquet manager as far as food, drink, table decorations, flowers, valet parking and other things of that sort are concerned.”
Kim remained at the office for another three hours. She made a list of all the major hotels and their phone numbers, then she made a second list of everything she needed to discuss with the hotel to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
She purposely stayed busy, not looking up to see what Jared was doing or taking a break that would give them an opportunity to talk. She welcomed the busy work schedule the charity event would provide her. She welcomed having some place to focus her attention and energy so she didn’t have an opportunity to think about what had happened with Jared—to think about a future without the man she had grown to love in such a short time, but a true love nonetheless. A love she now knew would not be returned.
Jared watched her as she worked. He didn’t want to hover over her, but he didn’t want to be very far from her, either. He tried to occupy his time by doing little chores around the house, but his thoughts kept going to Kim and an idea that had started in the back of his mind.
As the afternoon progressed he formulated a plan. He would buy her father’s house, an anonymous cash transaction. That way he could insist on an immediate closing so he would have possession of the property. He would offer her the opportunity of staying in one of his guest rooms free so she could complete her summer work schedule. It would be a business arrangement, no different than her working off her father’s debt. There was no reason to assume it would necessarily be a prelude to a commitment.
Jared slowly shook his head and dismissed the plan. It was an incredibly stupid idea. Even in his desperate state of mind he recognized it as a blatant attempt to manipulate her. But he had to do something, and so far everything he had done from the moment she woke up that morning had been wrong.
He had handed Kim her clothes as if to say he thought it was time for her to go home. Then, when she returned, he had been caustic in the way he had asked where she had been, as if he were criticizing her or accusing her of something. A very uneasy feeling settled inside him. His life had been totally under control and running along without any major problems until he tried to collect a long overdue debt. Now all of a sudden he didn’t seem to be able to handle the simplest things without agonizing over them and then messing up anyway.
Kim Donaldson had muddled his mind, or perhaps mesmerized would be a better word. He had never had this happen before. Was this what it was like to be in love? If so, then it was too painful and he wasn’t so sure he wanted anything to do with it. He clenched his jaw as he searched inside himself for some composure and determination. Buying her father’s house, trying to manipulate her to get what he wanted was definitely a lousy idea.
The sounds of Kim putting the reception area in order in preparation for leaving interrupted his thoughts. He left his office to intercept her before she could get out the door. He wanted to try to smooth the feathers he had unintentionally ruffled.
“I want to thank you for working today even though it’s not one of your regular workdays. It’s a huge relief for me to know that the fund-raiser is in capable hands and will be properly taken care of.”
“Uh, thank you.”
He heard her hesitation and saw the uncertainty in her eyes. He didn’t know what else to say. Perhaps things would be better when Monday morning arrived.
They had made love and then he had done the last thing he wanted to do and the worst possible thing he could have done. Instead of drawing her closer, he had put a wall between them. And now he had to figure out how to tear down that wall and repair the damage he had done.
“I’ll see you Monday morning?”
“Sure.” Kim didn’t know what to make of Jared’s attitude. First he had practically told her to get out of his bed and go home. Then he had a very accusatory tone to his voice when he questioned why she had been gone so long. And now he seemed to be wanting to make it up to her, but hadn’t said anything about it.
She was very confused. Perhaps things would look better on Monday morning. She grabbed her purse and left his house.