Kitabı oku: «Her Secret Affair»

“We kissed and now you’re avoiding me. I want to know why,”

Brodie said. “It wasn’t because you didn’t enjoy it. That much I do know.”

Chey glared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you liked it as much as I did. So what’s your problem?”

“I never get involved with clients.”

“Then I’ll have to cancel your contract.”

She immediately launched to her feet. “You can’t do that!”

He rose smoothly and brought his hands to his hips. “The contract that cannot be broken has never been devised.”

“I’ll sue you!”

“Before or after we make love?” he returned smoothly.

Chey folded her arms. “I don’t sleep around.”

“I don’t want you to sleep around,” Brodie retorted. “I want you to sleep with me.”

Dear Reader,

International bestselling author Diana Palmer needs no introduction. Widely known for her sensual and emotional storytelling, and with more than forty million copies of her books in print, she is one of the genre’s most treasured authors. And this month, Special Edition is proud to bring you the exciting conclusion to her SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE series. The Last Mercenary is the thrilling tale of a mercenary hero risking it all for love. Between the covers is the passion and adventure you’ve come to expect from Diana Palmer!

Speaking of passion and adventure, don’t miss To Catch a Thief by Sherryl Woods in which trouble—in the form of attorney Rafe O’Donnell—follows Gina Petrillo home for her high school reunion and sparks fly…. Things are hotter than the Hatfields and McCoys in Laurie Paige’s When I Dream of You—when heat turns to passion between two families that have been feuding for three generations!

Is a heroine’s love strong enough to heal a hero scarred inside and out? Find out in Another Man’s Children by Christine Flynn. And when an interior designer pretends to be a millionaire’s lover, will Her Secret Affair lead to a public proposal? Don’t miss An Abundance of Babies by Marie Ferrarella—in which double the babies and double the love could be just what an estranged couple needs to bring them back together.

This is the last month to enter our Silhouette Makes You a Star contest, so be sure to look inside for details. And as always, enjoy these fantastic stories celebrating life, love and family.

Best,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Her Secret Affair
Arlene James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ARLENE JAMES

grew up in Oklahoma and has lived all over the South. In 1976 she married “the most romantic man in the world.” The author enjoys traveling with her husband, but writing has always been her chief pastime. Arlene is also the author of the Inspirational titles Proud Spirit, A Wish for Always, Partners for Life and No Stranger To Love.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

Chey peered up through the car windshield at the double doors standing a good ten feet tall beneath the wide overhang of the balcony above, then down at the letter in her hand. She was of two minds. One part of her would have liked to wad up the imperious summons and toss it into the face of the arrogant man who had sent it. The other had waited years to get her hands on the crumbling, century-old mansion known as Fair Havens. Since she salivated at the prospect, she knew that part of her would win. Restoring Fair Havens would be a definite coup for her career and a very lucrative one, not that she particularly needed the funds.

Chez Chey, the elegant little French Quarter antique shop from which she operated her interior design business, was as well known and respected as were her abilities as an architect specializing in renovation and restoration. Five years of hard work had made that so. Only last week her expertise had earned her the spot of honor at a tea sponsored by the influential Heritage Society, which wielded great power in historic New Orleans. It was there that Chey had met Brodie Todd’s grandmother. As a result, the wealthy and much-ballyhooed owner of BMT Travel had summoned her here to his dilapidated mansion.

Chey felt a fresh stab of indignation at his high-handedness. Todd was well known for his eccentricity. The newspapers had speculated heavily about his return to the area, wondering in print if he would also move BMT’s corporate offices from Dallas to New Orleans. Then again, it was said that he all but ran his business from his bedroom—when he wasn’t playing in some jet-set hot spot. He certainly had no respect for anyone else’s schedule. His brief letter had stated flatly when and where he would receive her and had neither left room for negotiation nor made provision for her convenience. It irked her that she felt compelled to respond as dictated. On the other hand, the Fair Havens mansion was the stuff of dreams for her.

Constructed before the Civil War of dark red brick with once-white pilasters and balconies, the house featured deep porches, double doors and windows, and broad, impressive front steps built of brick arranged in an elegant half-circle. Staring around her dreamily, Chey couldn’t help noting that all of the exterior woodwork would need scraping, sealing and painting, and that much of the brickwork would require repointing. Furthermore, the brick had crumbled in places and would require replacing.

Overall, however, she was impressed with the building’s apparent soundness. It sat level and square upon its foundation, and all of its five chimneys stood straight and whole. If it looked a bit woebegone and tired, it was no wonder. Old Mr. Houser, the previous owner, had neglected the stately dear shamefully. Chey hoped that could be rectified with little more than good grooming, and Brodie Todd seemed of the same mind if the activity around her was any indication.

The house sat back a good fifty yards from the street and was screened from general view by an overgrown tangle of greenery, but a small army of gardeners were at work taming the jungle that had been allowed to grow rampant. Already the yard was shaping up nicely, and she could see workers in the distance replacing a section of fencing that had been removed for some reason. She wondered if Brodie Todd was building a pool and hoped intensely that he wasn’t slapping some garishly modern cement job into the backyard of this graceful old antebellum mansion.

She left the car parked to one side of the wide brick drive that arced in front of the house, gazing sadly at a magnificent marble birdbath which had been toppled onto its side in the grassy center of the looping drive. Measuring at least three feet across, the bowl would require several able bodies to lift it back into place. Chey sincerely hoped that Brodie Todd meant to do just that, and promised herself that she would mention it to him at the first opportunity. Leaving everything but her keys behind in the car, she climbed the steps and crossed the front porch.

For this meeting she had chosen from her spring wardrobe a pale pink designer suit trimmed in light gray with a narrow, knee-length skirt and a brief, tailored, asymmetrical jacket. Pale gray stockings and smoke-gray shoes with high, fashionably wide heels completed the ensemble. With her long blond hair coiled into a tight roll against the back of her head and her makeup sparingly but expertly applied, she presented a sleek, neat business persona.

A small brass bell suspended from a wrought-iron arm hung by the door, and Chey gave the clapper a vigorous shake. The resulting peal echoed loudly all over the estate, causing the gardeners to pause at their labors and raise their heads and Chey to grab the bell with both hands in order to quell it. The door emitted a rusty crack and squeaked open. A small, pale woman greeted Chey.

“Miss Simmons? I’m Kate, the housekeeper. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you.”

Perhaps five feet tall and thin to the point of emaciation, Kate wore her medium-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She seemed both bursting with energy and dangerously frail. Turning, she said, “The family is in the garden room at the back of the house.” Indicating with a glance over one shoulder that Chey should follow, she set off briskly, bouncing up onto her toes with every step, arms swinging at her sides. No wonder she was so thin, Chey mused, the woman could burn more energy just walking than Chey could at a mad dash. She led Chey down the broad central hall, past the elegant, curving staircase and all the way across the big house in mere seconds, only to abandon her after brusquely announcing, “She’s here.”

Chey had the impression of glass and greenery and cobblestoned floor in the heartbeat before a husky, cultured female voice made her head turn to one side. “Hello, again. It’s Chey, isn’t it? Or would you prefer Miss Simmons?”

Chey smiled at the long, patrician face of the woman who approached her, her long, sleek body dressed in lightweight, pale green bouclé knit with a bright scarf looped loosely about a long, swanlike neck. “Mrs. Todd. Nice to see you again, and Chey is perfect.”

“Then you must call me Viola.” Long, slender, slightly gnarled fingers curled around Chey’s hand. “Let me introduce you to my grandson and great-grandson.” She whirled away, and her chin-length, ruthlessly bobbed silver and white hair whirled with her. “They’re over here, on the other side of this jungle, wrestling with a weight bench, whatever that is.”

Chey followed, thankful for the sedate pace as she wound her way through a virtual forest in pots and wooden boxes. She heard a clang and muttering, followed by a screeching little voice that insisted, “Wet me, Daddy! Wet me!”

Just ahead of her, Viola came to a stop and said urgently, “Seth, don’t!”

At the same instant, a deeper, gruffer voice barked, “Son, no! You’ll—” a wail interrupted, followed by more clanks and a gusty sigh, “—smash your finger,” the man finished resignedly. “Here, let me look at it.”

The wails were already subsiding as Chey stepped up beside Viola Todd. The man was on his bare knees, his dark head bent over the small body in his likewise bare arms, a shambles of pipe and padded board beside them.

“It’s not bleeding,” he said, examining the tiny finger. “The nail looks okay. Just a pinch on the end.” He lifted the little fist and lavishly kissed the uplifted finger. “Some strawberry jam ought to fix it. Let Grandmama see to it.” He gave the affectionate title a French pronunciation. Grahn-ma-ma stooped and opened her arms. Chey was shocked at the bright red head that hurtled into those outstretched arms.

“Gramuma, I poke my fingder in the jam jar?”

“If you please,” Viola assented, grunting as she lifted the child off his feet.

“Pwease,” he intoned solemnly, squeezing his grandmother’s face between two chubby palms, the injured finger sticking out.

Viola laughed and carried him away, saying only, “Brodie, get up and speak to this woman.” Over her shoulder, the red-headed imp stared at Chey curiously and waggled his fingers in a hello wave. She smiled in reply before turning her attention back to the man now rising slowly to his feet.

Something about him made her step back in shocked awareness. Perhaps it was his height, for he stood easily six inches taller than she. Or perhaps it was all that bare, bronze skin, as he wore only jogging shorts, a loose muscle shirt and running shoes without socks. Then again, it might have been the contrast between his pale blue eyes and the coarse, ink-black hair mowed flat across the top of his head and precisely groomed into the neat, meticulous mustache and goatee which framed his sculpted mouth and squarish chin. Or perhaps it was the face itself, which, while all sharp angles and flat planes, was unabashedly handsome. Or it might have been the frankly curious, blatantly appreciative manner in which that pale blue gaze leisurely traveled over her and came to rest, finally, on her face.

Chey was aware suddenly of the thudding heaviness of her heartbeat, and in the next instant a pair of pictures flashed before her mind’s eye: Brodie Todd handsomely turned out in tux and black tie, and Brodie Todd stretched out in bed, drowsing sleepily, his unshaven beard a bluish shadow on his jaw. She blinked, and found herself staring into a pale blue mirror of her own thoughts. She backed up another step, once again taking in the whole of his face. A lazy smile slowly lifted one corner of his mouth, a knowing, challenging, promising smile that made her heart plummet straight to her toes. It terrified her, that smile, triggered a primal instinct for survival, so that her only thought was to turn tail and run, fast and far, the project and everything else be damned. Then he reached for her, and even that thought dissolved.

He clapped one palm onto her shoulder and grasped her fingers with the other as if he meant to shake her hand even if he had to hold her in place to do it. Lightning shot down her arm and sizzled in her chest. She barely suppressed a gasp. He just stood there, staring at her until she looked away in self-defense.

“Brodie Todd,” he said coaxingly, his voice pitched low and intimate. “You must be the designer, Chey Simmons.”

She lifted a brow, willing her speedy heartbeat to normalcy, and corrected him tartly, “Architect, refurbisher and interior designer.”

“All right.” He chuckled and went on softly, “Interesting name, Chey.”

They stood in silence for several seconds after that. His hands felt heavy and hot. Finally, she forced herself to look at him. The first words out of her mouth were a complete surprise to her. “It’s Mary Chey, actually.”

His smile dazzled. “Mary Chey. I like that. It’s nice to meet you, Mary Chey. You’ve been very highly recommended, your talent much praised. No one bothered to say that you are also quite beautiful.”

Panic surged up in her, and she looked away again. Much belatedly she managed to murmur, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, sliding his hand down her arm from her shoulder. “Let’s have some coffee.” Her feet felt welded to the floor, but he turned her and literally propelled her toward a small, round, glass table off to one side. Viola was there, sitting on the edge of her chair and holding a jam pot for the child, who sat, legs splayed, facing her, his finger in jam all the way to the last knuckle. He pulled it out, curling it at the end, and plunged it into his mouth.

Brodie sat her next to his grandmother, across from the boy, pushing Chey down quite firmly into the slatted iron chair. “How do you take yours?” he asked.

She blinked up at him.

“Coffee,” he said. “How do you take yours.”

“Uh, black.”

He grinned, fully aware of her confusion, and moved to the cart standing next to the glass wall, where he poured coffee from a silver pot into a china cup. Chey followed his every move with her eyes, even as she began to feel more herself. She didn’t register the view beyond until Viola asked, “Do you like our pool?”

Chey abruptly, guiltily, switched her gaze, first to Viola’s face, then to the vista beyond the glass wall. It was magnificent. The pool had been built to mammoth proportions and was flanked with no less than four Grecian fountains. Gazebos with louvered sides had been built at both ends and surrounded with plants. A chin-high, black wrought-iron fence with impressive scroll work had been erected around the entire area. Chey was relieved to see no slide, not even a diving board, nor could she imagine the typical plastic or aluminum lawn chair in this very classical setting. Apparently neither could the designer, for many stone tables and benches had been grouped among the greenery and beneath the trees. To one side, nearest the house and outside the pool gate in a cool, shady spot, stood an elaborate playground surrounded by several inches of dark pine mulch; a little boy’s paradise. “It’s wonderful,” she said succinctly.

“The gazebos serve as bathhouse and bar,” Brodie told her. Bringing her cup and saucer to the table, he dropped a thick linen napkin in her lap. “Have a pineapple tart,” he said, placing that plate before her as well. It wasn’t a question or even a suggestion, and she bristled slightly at the tone of command, but when she lifted her gaze to his, she found his lips twitching against a smile, and her indignation immediately wilted. “They’re one of Marcel’s specialties,” Brodie went on, “and you know how temperamental chefs can be. You’ll offend him deeply if you don’t eat.”

With that, he presented her a fork. She snatched it from his hand, and he walked around her chair and dropped into the one next to her, mouth quirking with that smile he still strove to suppress. He knew how he affected her, blast him, and she didn’t doubt that he was somehow doing it on purpose. Leaning back, he prepared to enjoy his coffee at leisure while watching her steadily over the rim of his cup.

In pure defensiveness, Chey broke the crust of the tart with her fork, anything to distract her from Brodie Todd’s sultry perusal. Still warm, the tart exuded a piquant, sharp-sweet aroma that made her mouth water. She cut off a bite and shoved her fork beneath it, lifting it toward her mouth even as she blurted, quite without meaning to, “You’re not eating.”

He chuckled and sipped from his cup before saying with mock severity, “I’m being disciplined.”

Chey closed her lips around the flaky confection at that moment, and the full flavor of the cooked pineapple burst within her mouth. She widened her eyes, savoring the incredible taste as she chewed and swallowed. “Oh, my,” she said.

“Which is why Brodie’s already had four of those this morning,” his grandmother revealed with a chortle.

Chey lifted an eyebrow at his version of “disciplined,” but she could understand why he’d stuffed himself. The thing was pure heaven. She began to eat with genuine gusto.

Brodie sipped from his cup again and admitted unrepentantly, “I could eat the whole plate of them. And I will, too, unless some kind soul does it for me.”

“In that case,” Chey said, swallowing another delicious bite, “I just may have another.”

He laughed at that, sliding down in his chair and putting back his head so the sound could roll up from his throat. “I love a woman with healthy appetites!”

“If she eats like you,” Viola said, placing the jam pot between her great-grandson’s legs, “she’ll have to work out like you.” She grimaced and confided to Chey, “All that sweating and grunting. I don’t understand why a person doesn’t just eat less.”

“Grandmama is the queen of self-denial,” Brodie said affectionately. “She won’t even taste one of Marcel’s tarts.”

“Of course not,” Viola sniffed. “I won’t try crack cocaine, either, or tobacco or any number of harmful things.”

“Her list of harmful things, however, does not include mint juleps,” Brodie divulged, and Chey laughed around a bite of tart.

Viola feigned shock. “The mint julep is the most efficacious concoction ever invented by man.”

Brodie smirked. “The mint julep is nothing more or less than crushed ice, a sprig of mint, some sugar and a glass full of hard liquor.”

Chey wiped her mouth with her napkin and reached for her coffee, while Viola lifted her chin and primly announced that a little hard liquor never hurt anyone. Brodie winked at Chey and said, “Lest you think that Grandmama overindulges, I should tell you that she strictly confines her alcohol consumption to two mint juleps a day, one at lunch and one as a night cap.”

“That’s right,” Viola confirmed, “and I’m as healthy at eighty as you are at thirty-six.”

Chey’s jaw dropped along with her coffee cup, which she barely managed to direct back to its saucer. “You’re eighty?”

“Eighty-two, to be exact,” Brodie answered for his grandmother, who preened blatantly—until a blob of strawberry jam hit her smack in the chest. All eyes turned to the child, who looked as surprised as everyone else. Having buried his hand in the jam pot up to the thumb joint, he obviously hadn’t foreseen the difficulties of trying to clean it by shaking.

“Seth!” Viola exclaimed, while Brodie just groaned and put his head in his hands. Wide-eyed, Seth stuck his entire hand in his mouth, while Viola wet a napkin in her water glass and dabbed at the stain on her dress.

“You’ll have to forgive my son,” Brodie said with a sigh, lifting his head and looking at Chey. “He’s only three.” While speaking, he reached over and removed the jam pot from his son’s lap. “I suppose he really needs a nanny.”

“What he needs is a mother,” Viola retorted.

Brodie sent her a direct look and said carefully, “He has a mother.”

“Humph.” Abandoning the stain, Viola rewet the napkin and reached for the boy, who yelped, scooted out of the chair and ran in a wide loop around his father, right to Chey, reaching for her with both hands. It apparently never even occurred to the little imp that he might not be welcome, and she reacted completely without forethought, as she had done any number of times with her numerous nieces and nephews. Grabbing up her own napkin, she caught that small sticky hand before it caught her. As he was already climbing over the arm of the chair, she quickly guided his feet away from her skirt and, for lack of any better option, settled him in her lap. He laid his head back against her chest, looked up at her and exclaimed loudly, “You pwetty like Mommy!”

Chey smiled limply. Suddenly she wondered why the newspapers hadn’t mentioned Brodie Todd’s wife. The next instant she pushed the thought away as insignificant and said politely, “Thank you. Now if you’re going to sit in my lap, young man, you have to have that hand washed.”

He acted as if he didn’t hear her, but when Viola leaned forward and began cleaning his hand with the damp napkin, he sat still—as still as a three-year-old can sit, anyway. Brodie said, entirely too lightly, “You obviously have experience, Mary Chey. Do you have a child of your own perhaps?”

She lifted her gaze to his and said purposefully, “No. But I do have thirty-one nieces and nephews.”

His cup rattled in his saucer. “Thirty-one?”

“It’ll be thirty-two before long.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Nine.”

When he didn’t immediately reply to that, she looked up at him. His mouth was hanging open. “Ten kids?” He sat back in his chair with a plop. “Holy cow. This one runs me absolutely ragged.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m sure you can.” He sat forward again. “Don’t misunderstand me. I love this little terror.” He smoothed a hand over the top of the boy’s bright red head. “I wouldn’t trade what I have with him for anything in this world, but I just couldn’t do it ten times.”

“Not many people can,” she said. “The most any of my brothers and sisters have is five. That would be Frank, he’s the oldest, and Mary Kay. Bay and Thomas and their wives each have four. Johnny—he’s the baby—Mary May, Matt and Anthony have three apiece, and Mary Fay has one and is expecting one.”

Brodie was smiling. “Are all the women in your family named Mary?”

“Each and every one,” she confirmed, “including my mother, who is Mary Louise, and both of my grandmothers. I guess my mother’s something of a poet at heart because she rhymed us all. Mary May, Kay, Fay and Chey. I think she ran out of the standard options by the time she had me. Did I mention that my brother Bailey is called Bay?” she asked rhetorically. “And me, they call Mary. I guess Chey was just too much for everyone.”

For some reason he was grinning very broadly. “But you prefer Chey.”

“Well,” she admitted, “Mary is awfully common, especially in my family.”

“There is nothing at all common about you,” he told her blatantly.

“I should hope not,” she quipped, ignoring a shiver of delight.

He reached across the table then, and covered her hand with his, and suddenly the comfortable, chummy atmosphere evaporated. “I think it’s time I showed you the house,” he said silkily, “unless you were serious about that second tart.”

“Regretfully not,” she said, pulling free her hand and scooting back her chair. “Like your grandmother, I prefer to exercise a little more self-control.”

“Don’t be fooled by Grandmama,” he said, getting to his feet. “As if Seth doesn’t provide her with enough exercise, she works very hard out in the garden.”

“Gardening isn’t work,” Viola protested ardently. “It’s pure relaxation.”

“For you,” he said, bending down again to pluck the boy off Chey’s lap so she could rise. “It’s pure torture for me.”

Viola pointed toward the weight bench. “That would be torture for me.”

“To each his own,” Chey said brightly.

“An excellent theory,” Brodie commented, passing the boy to his grandmother. “I have a theory about self-control,” he went on, reaching out an arm to bring Chey to his side. “General restraint makes occasionally losing it quite enjoyable. Don’t you agree?” he asked in an intimate voice that stopped her heart and closed her throat.

Chey coughed and muttered, “I, um, prefer not to lose mine at all.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the indulgence you can’t resist yet,” he suggested softly.

She couldn’t have answered that if she’d wanted to, and he knew it. She saw it in his eyes. Abruptly, he dropped his arm and looked to his son. “Don’t wear out Grandmama. Understand?” The boy nodded, two fingers in his mouth. Brodie bent and took his son’s small face into his hands, turning it toward Chey. “Tell Miss Chey, ‘Good to meet you.’”

“Goo to mwee oo,” the boy said around his fingers.

Viola pulled his hand from his mouth and instructed him to try again. He managed it better this time.

“It was nice to meet you, too,” Chey said. She widened her gaze to include Viola. “It was especially nice to see you again, ma’am.”

“I know you’ll do well for us, dear,” Viola Todd said. Then she looked to her grandson and a silent communication passed between them.

He bent and kissed first the boy and then his grandmother on the cheek. Straightening once more, he moved toward Chey, lifting a hand to take her arm. Automatically, she shied from his touch. It was a foolish thing to do, foolish and telling, and it brought a flush of embarrassment to her cheeks. Brodie just smiled knowingly and clasped his hands behind him, the hunger in his pale blue eyes as blatant as any declaration. Well, Chey mused as she strode off in front of him, she now knew what it felt like to be a pineapple tart on that man’s plate.