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“If Taylor’s ill, she needs to drink lots of liquids.”
He’d blinked. Why tell him what his mistress needed to do?
“Water’s good, but orange juice is better. Or ginger tea.”
“That wonderful chicken soup at the Carnegie Deli,” another woman said. “And does she have an inhalator? There’s that all-night drugstore a few block away…”
Amazing, he’d thought. Everyone assumed that he and Taylor were living together.
They weren’t.
“I prefer that you keep your apartment,” he’d told her bluntly, at the start of their relationship.
“That’s good,” she’d said with a little smile, “because I intended to.”
Had she told people something else? Had she deliberately made the relationship seem more than it was?
He’d thought back a few weeks to his birthday. He had no idea how she’d known it was his birthday; he’d never mentioned it. Why would he? And yet, when he’d arrived at her apartment to take her to dinner, she’d told him she wanted to stay in.
“I’m going to cook tonight,” she’d said with a little smile. “For your birthday.”
He made a habit of avoiding these things, a homemade dinner, a quiet evening, but he couldn’t see a way to turn her down without seeming rude so he’d accepted her invitation.
To his amazement, he’d enjoyed the evening.
“Pasta Carbonara,” she’d said, as she served the meal. “I remember you ordering it at Luigi’s and saying how much you liked it.” Her cheeks had pinkened. “I just hope my version is half as good.”
It was better than good; it was perfect. So was everything else.
The candles. The bottle of his favorite Cabernet. The flowers.
And Taylor.
Taylor, watching him across the table, her green eyes soft with pleasure. Taylor, blushing again when he said the food was delicious. Taylor, bringing out a cake complete with candles. And a familiar blue box. He’d given boxes like that to more women than he could count, but being on the receiving end had been a first.
“I hope you like them,” she’d said as he opened the box on a pair of gold cuff links, exactly the kind he’d have chosen for himself.
“Very much,” he’d replied, and wondered what she’d say if he told her this was the first birthday cake, the first birthday gift anyone had ever given him in all his life.
He’d blown out the candles. Taken a bite of the cake. Put on the cuff links and felt something he couldn’t define…
“Dante?” Taylor had said, her smooth brow furrowing, “what’s the matter? If you don’t like the cuff links—”
He’d silenced her in midsentence by gathering her in his arms, taking her mouth with his, carrying her to her bed and making love to her.
Sex with her was always incredible. That night…that night, it surpassed anything he’d ever known with her, with any woman. She was tender; she was passionate. She was wild and sweet and, as he threw back his head and emptied himself into her, she cried out his name and wept.
When it was over, she lay beneath him, trembling. Then she’d brought his mouth to hers for a long kiss.
“Don’t leave me tonight,” she’d whispered. “Dante. Please stay.”
He’d never spent the entire night with her. With any woman. But he’d been tempted. Tempted to keep his arms around her warm body. To close her eyes with soft kisses. To fall asleep with her head on his shoulder and wake with her curled against him.
He hadn’t, of course.
Spending the night in a woman’s bed had shades of meaning beyond what he needed or expected from a relationship.
Two weeks after that, he’d attended this charity ball without her, listened to people urge him to feed his mistress chicken soup…
