“I finally remembered who she is, Dillon,” Marge said, early the following Thursday afternoon. She held a copy of the Darien News in her hands. The marriage licenses section was circled in red. “I remembered why the name Alexander was so familiar to me. Hayley’s husband Hank was one of the NCN reporters killed while covering Desert Storm, wasn’t he? He was one of your reporters.”
Dillon shut the door connecting his private office to the newsroom. In the silence that fell, he could hear his heart thudding heavily in his chest. “Have you said anything about this to anyone?” he demanded.
Marge blinked. “I told Chuck—”
“Besides your husband,” Dillon qualified irritably.
“No.” Marge glared at him.
He glared back. “Well don’t. Okay?”
Marge’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “Hayley doesn’t know, does she?” Marge guessed. “You never told her you were the one responsible for her husband’s death.”
Dillon sat forward. His mood was suddenly as grim as his low voice. “I had no way of knowing the army barracks would be hit when I sent Hank on that assignment. It was a routine jaunt. Safer than almost anything over there.”
“I’m sorry, Dillon. I didn’t mean to imply you were responsible. But I know how you felt after Hank Alexander’s death. I remember the letters you wrote—”
“I meant to tell her. I tried.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because when I first went to see her, she didn’t want to hear it. So I let it go.” He’d felt all the worse because Hayley had told him how much Hank had respected him as a boss.
“But things are different now, Dillon.”
“Are they? Hayley still wants to get on with her life.”
“She should know.”
“When the time is right,” Dillon qualified.
“And when will that be?”
“I expect I’ll know when it happens.”
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
“No.” Dillon swallowed. “I wish Hank hadn’t been killed and Hayley left a widow. But she was. And I’m dealing with it as best I can.” Although he still didn’t know what he wanted from her in the long run. Forgiveness? Maybe. A love affair? Definitely. Beyond that, he just didn’t know.
For the next few seconds, both he and his sister were extraordinarily quiet. She covered his hand with her own. “I’m not blaming you, Dillon,” she said gently. “And I don’t think Hayley would, either, once all the facts were out. I do think Hayley should be told the truth before you marry her. For heaven’s sake, Dillon, she has a right to know!”
“No.” Dillon turned away from his sister. The situation had already snowballed into something unpleasant. He didn’t want to risk a new avalanche of damage. He didn’t want to risk losing her, not as his housekeeper, not as his potential lover.
“Why not?” Marge insisted.
“Because it’s over, that’s why not.” He paced back and forth. “Because talking about it would upset her.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Marge warned.
“It’s mine to make,” Dillon volleyed back stubbornly.
Marge studied him, her disappointment obvious. “I can’t talk you out of it?”
“The only thing you’ll be talked out of if you keep this up,” Dillon retorted, “is your invitation to my wedding on Saturday.”
Marge reached blindly for a chair and sank into it weakly. “You’re doing it that soon?”
Dillon shrugged. He’d been debating all week whether or not to tell his sister that this marriage was going to be a purely business arrangement between himself and Hayley. Now, seeing how distraught she was over the little she knew, he was glad he hadn’t. “Neither of us sees any reason to wait.” What he did with his life was his business, he assured himself sternly.
Marge let out a slow, unsteady breath. “Under the circumstances, I don’t think you should be marrying her at all, and certainly not yet.”
“That’s funny.” Dillon propped his feet on his desk. He regarded his sister with unchecked pique. “I don’t recall asking your advice.”
“I know.” Marge smiled at him with sisterly concern. As usual when they disagreed about the mess she felt he was making with his life, she refused to back off. “It’s free, anyway. At the very least, do it right,” Marge urged with a smile. “Have a proper engagement and honeymoon, a big wedding with all your family and friends.”
Dillon shook his head, nixing that idea at once. “We don’t want to wait.”
“I thought Hayley was practical.”
“She is.” Dillon smiled back at Marge, as determined not to tell her everything as she was to try and discover it. “That’s why she doesn’t want to wait.”
“Three weeks ago you told me your relationship was strictly platonic. You told everyone at the barbecue last Saturday the same thing.”
Dillon shrugged again. “People have the right to change their minds.”
Marge’s jaw set. “It’s not like you to be so hasty, Dillon.”
For the first time in his life, Dillon resented Marge because she knew him so well. “Look, if it’s going to cause a problem between us,” he interjected, “I’ll ask another couple to stand up for us on Saturday.”
“No. Don’t do that,” Marge amended hastily.
“I don’t want you hassling Hayley,” he warned.
Marge met his dark look equably. “Afraid she might change her mind?” she taunted.
Dillon thought about the humiliation Hayley had suffered, because he’d made light of their living arrangements with the neighbors. “She won’t change her mind,” he said confidently. “And neither will I.” They both knew they were doing what was right. They didn’t need approval. Not even Marge’s.
* * *
“YOU DON’T SEEM very nervous for someone who’s about to be married,” Marge observed.
That’s because it’s not a real marriage, Hayley thought as she smoothed her short, ivory silk dress over her hips. She gripped the nosegay of pale pink rosebuds and baby’s breath in her hand and quipped lightly, “I guess I’m so calm because I’ve been this route before.”
“Yes, but Dillon hasn’t, and he’s not nervous, either.”
“I think I can remember when to say ‘I do’ without having a nervous breakdown,” Dillon said dryly, then pinched Marge’s cheek with brotherly affection. He looked at her husband, Chuck. “Got the ring?”
Chuck patted his vest pocket. His face showed a moment’s panic. Then he smiled with relief. “Yep.” He thumped his silk-lined pocket emphatically. “It’s right here, Dillon.”
“There’s more to marriage than just getting through the ceremony, Dillon,” Marge retorted sternly.
Dillon winked audaciously, his sexy smile and the twinkle in his eyes leaving no doubt as to the libidinous nature of his thoughts. “I’m aware of that, too, Sis. And believe it or not, I think I’ll know what Hayley wants me to do when the time comes.”
Marge and Hayley both blushed at Dillon’s bluntness.
Hayley gave him a dire look. They had agreed about this. No sex. She expected him to stick to his promise.
“I’m just worried the two of you are rushing into this,” Marge told Hayley with familiar concern as they climbed the courthouse steps. Marge shifted Christine to her other hip. “But if you two are really so in love you can’t wait another day, as Dillon said…”
Hayley had to fight to retain an inscrutable expression. Boy, he had really poured it on thick when he’d asked his sister and brother-in-law to witness their marriage.
“I mean,” Marge continued, looking hard at both Dillon and Hayley, “if you’re sure this is the right thing…”
Hayley looked at Dillon. He looked back at her. She thought of Christine’s future and the money the sale of the house would bring her. She thought of the favor she’d be doing him in turning his house into a desirable home and the way this marriage was bound to stop the gossip in the neighborhood once and for all. She thought about living her dream, for one entire year, and knew it was what she wanted. “We’re sure,” she said softly, in unison with Dillon.
They smiled at each other, their minds made up.
Hayley and Dillon continued toward the judge’s chambers.
“So in love…” Hayley murmured to Dillon under her breath. “Ha!”
Dillon gave her a sidelong glance. “Maybe you’re right,” he whispered back. “Maybe we should show them.”
The next thing Hayley knew she’d been bent backward from the waist. Dillon threaded one hand through her hair. His lips grazed hers…=+tenderly at first, then with building passion. Hayley was inundated with so many sensations at once. The clean masculine scent of him, the minty taste of his mouth. And his lips, so sure and sensual, as they made a long, provocatively thorough tour of hers. Touching. Tasting. Teasing. My word, the man knew how to kiss. Knew how to exact a disturbing, thrilling, incredibly sensual response from her, the kind she had read about, dreamed about, but until now had never felt or even really expected to feel. And it was then, when Hayley realized what he’d done, that he slowly drew the disturbing caress to a halt.
Hayley stared up at him as he carefully guided her upright. Not sure she could stand unassisted, she clutched on to his arm, her fingers curving around his powerful biceps. Her heart slammed against her ribs, her breath came erratically and she stared up at him, flushing fiercely. “I can’t believe you did that,” she whispered, stunned.
“Neither can I! Dillon, you scoundrel you,” Marge chided her brother. “Hiding the way you feel about her all this time! Well, after seeing the way the two of you kissed just now, I’m convinced!”
Unfortunately Hayley was convinced, too. Convinced she had made a terrible mistake. Convinced he was an incorrigibly sexy rogue, one she instinctively felt she would have a heck of a time handling. In a few short moments, Dillon had imbued her with more passion and excitement than she’d felt in a lifetime. How was she going to get through this? How was she going to stay married to him an entire year, live under the same roof with him and not…
Think about something else, she schooled herself firmly as she clutched her bouquet in damp fingers. But her stern lecture was of no use. His kiss was all she could think about during the entire wedding ceremony. She was so rattled, it was all she could manage to say “I do” in the proper places.
Not that she was supposed to really commit herself to Dillon under the circumstances. Still, it would have been nice, she thought, to believe for a little bit that their marriage could be a real one. Heaven knew a small, unrealistic part of her wanted a workable marriage.
Maybe it was because she was lonely and had been since Hank’s death, she thought as Dillon slipped the ring on her finger, then she slipped the ring on his. And maybe, she thought nervously, it was something more.[cf1]
“I pronounce you man and wife,” the judge said happily.
Oh, no, Hayley thought.
“Dillon, you may kiss your bride.”
To Hayley’s utter astonishment, Dillon did it again. Oh, he didn’t bend her backward from the waist this time, merely took her in his arms and fastened his mouth tenderly over hers, but the end result was all the same. She went perilously weak in the knees, and before she knew it she was kissing him back, just as sweetly. When he finally released her long seconds later, her emotions were completely awhirl. They remained that way as Marge handed her daughter back to her and the five of them exited the judge’s chambers together.
He promised me we wouldn’t make love,[cf1] Hayley thought. He said this was to be a business arrangement only.[cf1] But his kisses hadn’t felt like any business arrangement. Oh, he’d meant business, all right, but not the kind they had agreed upon. Dillon meant the bedroom kind.
“Surprise!”
“What the—” Dillon said as they emerged from the courthouse. The whole neighborhood was on the steps, rice in hand.
“Marge told us about your eloping and we just had to come and wish you well.” Carol beamed.
“We also know the two of you weren’t even planning a weekend away,” Hal continued.
“As I explained to Marge,” Dillon said with a calm Hayley couldn’t begin to feel, “we really just wanted to be alone together.”
Oh, no we don’t, Hayley thought. I don’t want to be alone with you for a second. Never mind anywhere near a bedroom.
“And then there’s Christine,” Dillon continued affably. “And the new house—”
“Yes!” Hayley said. “We just have so much to do. Maybe later,” she promised the group assembled on the steps, “we’ll take a real honeymoon.”
“But surely you and Dillon will accept our gift to you?” Nellie asked.
“Gift?” Dillon and Hayley echoed.
Dillon’s sister Marge pointed to a gleaming white stretch limousine at the curb. “Since you wouldn’t let us give you a real reception, it’s the least we could do. Everyone deserves a wedding supper to remember, with superb food, champagne and cake.” She looked at her brother as if it were some kind of test. “And the two of you deserve to have it away from your home and all that renovating mess. You deserve to have a truly elegant meal.”
“But Christine—” Hayley protested, feeling even more distressed.
“I’ll take care of her,” Marge said. She held out her arms and Christine went happily to Marge. “Chuck and I both will. In the meantime, you and Dillon both enjoy yourselves.”
Dillon looked at Marge. Marge looked back at Dillon. They seemed to be having a silent battle of wills no one else was privy to. He doesn’t like having his life arranged for him, Hayley thought. That was good because neither did she.
But to her horror, he merely sighed and said, “I guess you’re right. Hayley and I do owe it to ourselves to take this time alone.”
Ignoring the astonished look on Hayley’s face and still holding tight to her hand, he zoomed down the steps. The next thing Hayley knew, she was being propelled into the waiting car, amidst a shower of rice and shouted good wishes.
Seconds later they pulled away from the curb and were off. Unable to believe he had not gotten them out of this, Hayley stormed, “I want to go home.”
“You think I don’t?” Dillon glanced at the pane of glass separating them from their driver. “But if we do that, the neighbors will know something’s amiss. There will be even more talk.” He sat back comfortably and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “And they’ll be hugely offended because we didn’t accept their very generous gift.”
“Dillon—”
“One dinner, to celebrate our marriage,” he announced pragmatically, his expression inscrutable. “What could it hurt?”
Plenty, Hayley thought, if the evening took even one mildly romantic turn. She’d already had two kisses from him in the space of thirty minutes. Was he planning a third?
Provoked he wasn’t more upset with the turn of events, she accused, “You knew about this—”
“No. I’m as surprised as you. I, however, seem better able to take it in stride.”
You’re not still quaking inside from unexpected kisses! she thought. Unable to discuss that, however, Hayley said only, “You don’t have a baby to worry about—”
“Don’t try and con me, Hayley. Your nerves aren’t about Christine. Marge has already watched Christine for you twice. Christine adores her. There’s no one better with kids and you know it.”
Her heart pounding, Hayley sat back in the limousine. This was all so unexpected. It didn’t help that she was still reeling from the kisses.
She should have expected him to do something as crazy to convince everyone, his sister especially. But she hadn’t. And even if she had, there was no way she could have been prepared for the warm evocative feel of his lips on hers, or the tingle of fire that had started in her lips, arrowed through her like lightning and gone straight to her toes. He kissed like he had a gift for it. And she didn’t want to think about what else he might have a gift for.
“I was planning to finish retiling the kitchen this evening,” Hayley asserted stubbornly.
Dillon glanced at her. Half his mouth slanted up in a knowing grin. “Sure that’s all that’s bothering you?” he taunted lightly. He narrowed his eyes and smiled. “Sure you’re not afraid to be alone with me now that we’re man and wife?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Hayley fumed. “That ceremony didn’t change anything. We’re still exactly the same.” Or were they? Her conscience prodded her mercilessly. Had his kisses and her unexpectedly ardent response changed everything? From the way she looked at him, to the way he looked at her. To the sensual turn this honeymoon dinner of theirs might take.
“If nothing’s changed, what do you have to be so nervous about?” Dillon asked softly, his eyes holding hers.
She glared at him with scorn and suspicion.
“Besides,” he sighed, “as long as we’ve been given the gift of an evening out, we might as well enjoy it.” Dillon lifted a bottle of champagne from a bucket and popped the cork. “I intend to, anyway.”
Her mouth unaccountably dry, Hayley watched him pour her a glass. Their fingers brushed as he handed it to her. She jumped and a little of the bubbly wine fizzed over the top and dribbled down her leg.
Dillon dabbed at her leg with the corner of a napkin, his action precise, methodical and, for Hayley, still unbearably exciting.
“Hayley, relax. I’m not going to jump your bones or anything.” He winked and teased, “Not unless you want me to, that is.”
Hayley took her glass and propelled herself as unobtrusively as possible into the seat opposite him. “Very funny.”
He grinned like a cat who’d just lapped up a saucer of cream. “I thought so.” He sat back in his seat. He let his gaze drift lazily over her as he sipped his champagne.
Hayley had thought it would be better, sitting away from him, instead of right next to him. But it was worse. Now she could see everything about him, from the rumpled layers of his chocolate brown hair to his straight nose and sensual mouth. The dark blue suit he wore made his eyes look navy, too. His jacket hung open, revealing the trim, taut lines of his middle beneath his shirt. She knew for a fact just how solid his chest was. She’d felt it pressed up against her during the brief, heady, but thoroughly convincing kiss that had followed their wedding ceremony. She knew why he’d kissed her like that, of course. To further fool Marge and Chuck. Still, it unnerved her. Maybe because she could still taste the unique flavor of his lips on hers. A compelling male flavor even several gulps of champagne couldn’t wash away.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Hayley suddenly snapped at him. She hoped it wasn’t too far. It would be dark soon.
“I’ll ask.”
He repeated her question to the driver through the intercom, then grinned.
“Well?” Hayley demanded, wishing she were as able to take this in stride as he was.
“He said it’s a secret. We’ll find out when we get there.”
Hayley closed her eyes and groaned. “Not much for adventure, are you?” he bantered.
“Not this kind,” she confessed, wondering why she’d ever thought marriage to Dillon could be simple. Clearly it was starting out to be anything but.
Dillon laughed again. He loosened his tie as the limousine headed onto the freeway. “Relax, Hayley. Knowing my sister and some of her friends, this evening is going to be very special indeed.”
* * *
SPECIAL WASN’T THE word for it, Hayley thought several hours later as the limousine pulled up in front of a lakeside cottage at the end of a long graveled drive. “This doesn’t look like any restaurant I’ve ever seen,” Hayley muttered suspiciously.
Dillon frowned in consternation and swiftly retied his tie. “Wait here. I’ll go check it out.”
“Hold it. I have strict instructions you two lovebirds are to enter the building together,” the chauffeur said.
Dillon was about to protest.
Not wanting to punish the driver, who was clearly just following the directions, Hayley put a hand to Dillon’s arm before he could spout off. “Dillon, please,” she said. “We’ve come this far.” She took a deep, bracing breath. “We may as well go all the way. Besides, for all we know the whole neighborhood could be in there, waiting to jump out at us again and yell ‘Surprise.’” At least she hoped that was the case.
Dillon stared at her. “You don’t think—”
“What else could it be?” Hayley shrugged. “We didn’t have a reception. You know how your sister carried on about that.”
“There’s no way you could fit a wedding party in that cottage.”
“Then it can’t be that bad.” Hayley put on a stiff upper lip. “It’s probably just a few people, or maybe some caterers to wait on us while we eat. Let’s just go in and get it over with, okay?” Dillon didn’t budge. “Okay?” she asked again, raising her brow in hopeful, prodding fashion.
“Ah, hell, as you said, we’ve come this far,” Dillon muttered. Before she knew what was about to happen, he’d swung her up and into his arms. “Might as well go all the way.”
“That’s the spirit,” the chauffeur said, applauding as Dillon strode up the walk toward the brightly burning lights.
Up the steps. Across the front porch of the gingerbread cottage. He paused at the door.
“It’s open,” the chauffeur called behind him.
“So it is,” Dillon murmured. He pushed it open.
Inside, a fire was burning brightly in the hearth. A table for two was set with linen, silver, fine china and crystal. Another bouquet that matched the one she had carried served as the centerpiece. A note was propped up on one of the plates. It was addressed to “Dillon and Hayley.”
Her heart sinking, Hayley watched Dillon open it. It seemed there was to be no crowded reception after all. “What does it say?” she asked.
“Hold your horses. I’m getting to that. ‘Dear Dillon and Hayley,’” he read. “‘Every newlywed couple deserves at least one night alone. The night, along with the superb wedding supper and all the privacy you could ever want, is yours. Enjoy. Love, Marge and the whole neighborhood.’”
“That does it.” Hayley spun on her heel. “I am not spending a whole night out here alone.”
“I agree.” Dillon let the note flutter to the floor and beat her to the door. “This time my sister has gone too damn far with her meddling in my life. Who does she think she is?” He yanked open the door.
The limousine was gone.
Dillon stared at the empty gravel drive with astonishment. “Where the devil is that chauffeur?”
Hayley bent to pick up the note Dillon had dropped. Written on the back was a P.S. Her heart sinking, she read it to him. “‘The chauffeur will be back to get you in the morning. Around ten.’”
* * *
“IT IS NOT MY FAULT there is no telephone here!” Dillon shouted.
“And I suppose it’s not your fault there’s only one bedroom, either,” Hayley supposed. This was definitely more of an adventure than she’d bargained for.
“It was not my idea to get us stuck out here.”
“And you think it was mine?” Hayley asked as she paced back and forth. She had agreed to marry him, not spend the night with him. They didn’t even have her baby to distract them. If only they were home now. If only she could get back to working on her=mshe meant his=mdream home. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” All she had wanted was the chance to temporarily live a serene suburban life. Was that so terrible that she deserved this?
“Me, neither.” Dillon stared around him morosely, looking just as suddenly miserable and sexually on edge as she felt. He turned to her grimly. “The Jets are playing tonight.”
Hayley rolled her eyes, incensed he could actually be thinking about sports at a time like this! “Oh, please. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
Dillon shrugged. “Think what you like, but the evening would be a heck of a lot more bearable if we had a TV.”
Hayley couldn’t disagree with that. As it was, they had virtually nothing to distract them from each other. Nothing to keep them from thinking about those two very sensual kisses he had given her, or the passionate way she had responded. They didn’t even have a telephone book to read.
But they did have their common sense. And both were far too wise to let anything potentially uncomfortable happen between them now that they were both on the brink of having everything they wanted. Hayley, her dream of living in the suburbs with her baby. Dillon, a housekeeper to whip his place into shape, and a house he would eventually be able to sell for an enormous profit.
Aware the air was scented with mouth-watering aromas and that she hadn’t eaten for hours, Hayley glanced at the sideboard. “I wonder what we’re having for dinner,” she murmured. Eating would at least keep them busy for a little while.
Dillon perked up at the thought of a diversion. “There’s one way to find out.” He strode to the refrigerator and flung it open.
Looking over his shoulder, Hayley saw it had been well stocked with every delicacy imaginable. The wine rack on the counter was full of a collection of domestic and imported wine and champagne.
Dillon pulled out a salad. Jerking loose the knot of his tie with one hand, he carried it to the table. “Let’s get this over with,” he growled.
“Get what over with?” Hayley asked, her mouth dry and her heart pounding.
“What do you think? Dinner!” he replied.
Acting as trapped and unhappy as Hayley felt, Dillon yanked the tie from around his neck. He crumpled it up in one hand and tossed it onto the sofa. “I’m going to go ahead and eat now.” He unplugged a silver chafing dish of simmering boeuf bourguignonne and brought it to the table. “And I’d suggest you do the same.” His lips compressed grimly. He met her eyes frankly. “Unless I miss my guess or you change your attitude, this is going to be one long night.”
“You’re blaming me for this mess?” Hayley asked, astonished.
“I think you could be a little more cooperative, yes.”
“Cooperative, how?” she ground out.
“Pleasant.”
“I am being pleasant,” Hayley defended herself hotly. “As pleasant as I know how.”
The mischievous glimmer in his eyes said she wasn’t. “But not nearly as pleasant and acquiescent as you were when I kissed you at the courthouse.”
Hayley folded her arms at her waist. “I don’t want to talk about that!” she stormed.
“Yeah,” Dillon uttered a lazy sigh, “I didn’t figure you would.”
“What does that mean?”
Dillon shrugged his broad shoulders. “Just that you don’t seem to want to deal with things as they are.”
“And how are they?”
He leaned toward her earnestly, his entire attention focused on her. “You responded to my kisses, Hayley.” He gave her a very knowing, very male grin. “Hell, by the second time, you were even kissing me back.”
“I was caught off guard—”
“Yeah.” He grinned, all scoundrel again. “And you liked it, too, didn’t you?”
Her cheeks burning with the heat of her embarrassment, Hayley kept her eyes firmly on his and pushed the words through her teeth. “I am not going to discuss this with you.”
He leveled a very direct, very probing gaze back at her. “Why not?” he taunted in a velvety soft voice.
“Because—” Hayley drew a deep breath, more determined than ever to win back control of the situation and her heart. “It’s not going to happen again, Dillon.” She would not be loved and left by a roving newsman, anxious to be back on the international beat.
“You’re sure about that?” Dillon pinned her down in the same soft, self-confident voice.
She met his eyes, and although she was quaking inside, somehow managed to overcome her fear and her desire and give a short, stiff nod. “Very sure,” she said.
For a second, a flicker of hurt was reflected in his dark blue eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, making Hayley wonder if she’d really seen it there at all. Or had she just wanted to see it?
“Fine, have it your way,” Dillon said. He sat down at the table and spread his napkin across his lap.
Feeling even more panicked at the prospect of the whole night looming before them, she demanded, “Well? Aren’t you going to do something to get us out of here?” He was a newsman with years of experience. He was resourceful. He ought to have picked up some tricks along the way.
“Like what?” His mood curiously remote, almost offended, he reached for her plate and ladled tender strips of beef onto it.
Hayley slid reluctantly into the chair opposite him, unwilling to admit how hungry she was, or how romantic a setting the small, cozy lakeside cottage was. If this hadn’t been a cruel twist of fate, if her marriage had been a real one instead of a convenient business arrangement, she would have enjoyed being stranded here with him and considered it idyllically romantic. But it wasn’t a real marriage, and this wasn’t a real honeymoon, she reminded herself sternly.
“We could hike to the nearest phone,” she finally said.
Dillon frowned and broke open a soft, fragrant roll. “It’s at least ten miles to the nearest gas station. There’s no guarantee it’d be open when we got there.”
“So? We could at least try, Dillon.”
“Hayley, it’s one night.” He regarded her with a mixture of exasperation and aggravation. “We’ll live.”
Would they? They had no clothes, nothing to distract them from each other or from what this night was supposed to be. There was one bed visible in the bedroom beyond. It was a double. One bath. He was still thinking about their kisses and her response. He’d made no secret of the fact he would like their relationship to go even further.
Her mouth dry as dust, Hayley picked up her fork. While she picked desultorily at the beef on her plate, Dillon dug into his with gusto. He glanced up at her. Without warning, his face gentled sympathetically. “How about some wine?”
Hayley hesitated. Wine would relax her. It would also lessen her inhibitions, thereby making her more susceptible to any advances he might choose to make.
“Suit yourself,” he said brusquely when she hesitated, looking offended again. “But I’m having some.”
“Thank you, I’ll pass,” Hayley said. Whatever happened tonight, she wasn’t going to blame it on the wine. She had the feeling she needed all her senses working at optimum efficiency tonight, if she were to keep him at arm’s length.
He finished his meal in record time and leaned back in his chair. He tipped his head to one side and regarded her. “Are you always such a stick-in-the-mud?” Dillon asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Haven’t you ever been stranded anywhere before?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Hayley said stiffly. She didn’t know why she’d ever thought he was a gentleman. Clearly he was anything but civilized.
“When?” he asked with a grin.
“When I was a child.”
“Yeah?” Challenge lit his eyes. He seemed to be daring her not to bore him. “What happened?”
Memories assaulted Hayley. None of them good. “Okay, once I was at the skating rink. My parents were supposed to come pick me and a friend up at four o’clock. They didn’t show.” Her glance collided with Dillon’s. Unable to bear the mixture of curiosity and sympathy in his dark blue gaze, she was the first to look away. “We tried calling my home, but there was no answer, so we called my friend’s folks. And they came to pick us up. It was only later—” the color left her face “=mthat I found out about the car accident that had claimed their lives.”
She pushed her chair away from the table; her chair scraped noisily across the floor. Her face pale, she rushed to the window, where she stood staring out at the darkness of the night and the moonlight shimmering off the surface of the lake.
Dimly aware he’d never felt more stupid or helpless in his life, Dillon bolted after her. Then once he was at her side, he hung back. The stiff set of her shoulders let him know she didn’t want to be touched. And after the way he’d been treating her, he knew he could hardly blame her.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He didn’t even know why he had. Except that his attraction to her, and hers to him, had been building. She had looked so pretty in her short, ivory silk wedding dress and still did. It was a romantic kind of day, his wedding day, and probably the only wedding he would ever have. And even if it hadn’t been a real one in the strictest sense of the word, he’d still wanted the day to be special. He’d wanted to prove to Marge and Chuck they had no reason to worry, he knew exactly what he was doing. Only now he wasn’t sure about that. He hadn’t figured on quite so much passion. Hadn’t figured on her melting against him, when he’d kissed her, like butter on a hot stove, the moment he took her in his arms. Hadn’t figured he would still ache to hold her in his arms again.
Damn it all, he wanted to kiss her. Not just once, but again and again and again. And yet he knew if he did, chances were this time it wouldn’t end quite so simply. “Hayley, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Not just about your folks.” He paused. “I’ve been giving you a hard time tonight because I’m so aggravated with Marge for getting us into this mess—”
“I know how you feel about that,” Hayley interjected, with a single heartfelt glance.
“And I’m aggravated with myself, too.” Dillon continued his confession flatly. He watched her eyes widen in surprise, then finished more gently, “I know if I’d told Marge the whole truth about us in the first place we wouldn’t be here now. She would have found a tactful way to stop the neighbors.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Hayley said with a deadpan look. “I have a feeling Marge wants us together. I think she’s been matchmaking from the start. Not that it’ll do her any good,” Hayley amended hastily. “And as for my parents and what happened to them.” She tilted her head away from his. “It’s okay, Dillon. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with that and=mand I have.”
She didn’t look like she’d come to terms with anything, Dillon thought. Never mind those years she had spent growing into adulthood without her folks. Still aching to hold her, he had no choice but to respect her need for space. He moved back slightly, and for want of anything better to do with them, shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. “How old were you when you lost your parents?” he asked.
“Nine.” Hayley paced away from him across the room.
“What happened to you after that?”
Hayley shrugged. “I lived with a lot of different relatives. My father came from a large family. Unlike him and my mother, his brothers and sisters all had lots of children.”
Dillon knew there was much she wasn’t saying. “Did your relatives take good care of you?”
“They tried, but my whole family lived in the city, in apartments. There wasn’t much room. Even though they loved me, I never stayed anywhere for very long, and I always tried to be as helpful as I could be while I was there.”
No wonder Hayley was so fiercely independent, so determined to make a separate, stable life for herself and her daughter. In her place he would’ve been, too. “Which is how you came to know construction,” Dillon surmised.
“And a dozen other useful and not-so-useful things.” Hayley smiled. “How did we get onto this subject, anyway?” she asked huskily.
“How else? My insensitivity.”
“We really don’t know very much about each other, do we, Dillon?”
Dillon had thought he’d known everything that was important about her. That she was pretty, practical and hot-tempered. Not to mention endlessly resourceful and independent to a fault. Tonight, for the first time, he saw there was more, much more, beneath her surface unflappability. “That could change,” Dillon said hopefully.
Hayley stepped back, her expression neutral. “You know what? I think—” She hesitated, her eyes lifting briefly to his, then swiftly evading, ending the intimacy they’d shared as abruptly as it had begun. “I think I’d like to go to bed, if you don’t mind,” she finished.
Dillon knew she was running. He couldn’t help but feel disappointed, rejected, even. But he also knew he had no right to insist she stay up with him. Generally, the less he knew about the women he took to bed, or even thought about taking to bed, the better. It made it easier to break off with them when the time came. And because of the nature of his job, the time always came to move on. Still, he wanted to know Hayley.
He suddenly frowned. “Though what we’re going to do about clothes—” He left the thought hanging and sighed, as he considered sleeping in his suit. Or worse, sleeping without the suit. Ten to one, after the way he’d kissed her earlier today, Hayley wouldn’t appreciate him running around in his underwear.
“They left us food. Maybe they left us robes in the bedroom.”
Knowing his sister’s highly romantic streak, Dillon shuddered to think what might have been left. Seconds later, as Hayley came out of the bedroom, he found out. Looped over one arm was a silk bathrobe and matching pajama pants. “I think these belong to you.”
The clothing sailed through the air. He caught the garments with one hand. “That satisfies half my curiosity.” He wiggled his eyebrows; deep down, he really wanted to see Hayley’s outfit. “What are you wearing?”
“Never you mind about that, Dillon Gallagher,” she chided.
“Sexy, huh?” He grinned.
Hayley’s blush confirmed his guess that his sister had probably shopped for Hayley at Victoria’s Secret.
“You’ll never know,” she taunted. With a saucy toss of her head, she sashayed purposefully back into the bedroom. The door shut behind her with a soft thud.
Dillon grinned and put his feet up. He wasn’t sure why=min light of the fact he’d just been rejected romantically=mbut he was feeling cheerful again. Content. Almost upbeat. Relieved, too.
Maybe because Hayley was right not to take any chances he’d end up in her bed tonight. After all, there was no sense in rushing things unnecessarily. They had a whole year together. A year in which they would be man and wife. The chance for them to be together would come soon enough. And when it did…
Dillon pictured it and grinned again.