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“I don’t want to compare my experience to yours, but I did feel orphaned, in many ways,” she admitted.
He nodded once. “You’re not alone, Deidre. You’re not alone.”
She watched his dark head, spellbound, as he leaned down to kiss the upper curve of her right breast. He opened his mouth over the turgid crest. Pleasure and warmth inundated her. His tongue laved her nipple, and the sad memories scattered to the periphery of her consciousness. Only the present existed...and Nick.
She sighed his name and surrendered to the magic of his touch.
* * *
After they’d made love again, Nick drifted off to sleep, his head resting on her chest, his arms surrounding her. Deidre lay there for a while, drowsy and transfixed by the sensation of his warm, even breath on her breast.
After a while, she very carefully extricated herself from his arms, taking pains not to awaken him. She grabbed her robe and quietly left the bedroom. The forms for the Vivicor acquisition lay exactly where Nick had tossed them on the coffee table.
She bit at the top of the pen, hesitant for only a moment, before she placed the tip to the paper and signed her name.
* * *
Deidre awoke the next morning slowly, swimming in a sea of drowsy, sensual lassitude.
She smiled, her eyes still closed, when she recalled last night in vivid detail. She’d returned to bed after signing the forms and drifted off to sleep with Nick’s scent in her nose. In the middle of the night, she’d been awakened by his touch. They’d lost themselves in one another again. Nick made love like he was reputed to do business. He was astonishingly patient at times, demanding and relentless at others, so brilliantly talented at his task that it made her toes curl beneath the sheets to remember.
She quickly turned over, both nervous and eager to see the man she’d grown so close to during the night in the light of dawn. Her heart seemed to drop an inch in her chest cavity when she realized she was alone in bed.
“Nick?” she called.
Something about the flat, answering silence told her she was utterly alone in the cottage. Where had he gone? She scooted to the opposite side of the bed when she saw a note propped against the lamp. She quickly scanned the
note written in a narrow, slanting hand.
You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t have the heart to wake you.
I noticed you signed the papers. You didn’t have to do that, but thanks. I need to fly up to Detroit for a meeting, but I’ll be back late this afternoon. Will you have dinner with me at The Embers tonight? Seven o’clock? I’ll pick you up at six forty-five.
Nick
P.S. I should feel guilty about keeping you up last night when I know how much you need your rest, but I’ll admit I’m having a hell of a hard time regretting it.
Deidre smiled. She sprang out of bed, suddenly feeling as energetic and cheerful as a sixteen-year-old girl on the morning of her first date.
The first thing she did when she walked into the living room was turn on the lights on the Christmas tree. The second thing was turn on some holiday music. Not even her doubts about the wisdom of sleeping with Nick—of exposing her soul to him—could dampen her mood.
She took a hot shower; dressed in jeans, a fitted T-shirt and a flannel shirt; and called Colleen at the Family Center.
“I have a clothing emergency,” Deidre said.
“Clothing emergency?”
“Yes. I need something to wear to dinner tonight at The Embers,” she said, referring to the upscale restaurant in the Starling Hotel.
“Are you talking about a date?” Colleen demanded.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Deidre mumbled. Colleen had insinuated she should consider Nick as more than her adversary. Deidre was a little embarrassed to admit to her sister just how drastically she’d altered her viewpoint of Nick. Maybe Colleen would be concerned that she’d taken things too far.
They arranged to meet at Colleen’s house during her lunch hour. She said goodbye to her sister and was hanging up her phone when she heard a knock on the front door.
Her heart lurched with excitement. Had Nick decided not to go to Detroit? The knock came again. It wasn’t Nick’s bold knock, Deidre realized, but a crisp, feminine one.
“Mom,” she mouthed soundlessly when she saw Brigit Kavanaugh standing on the porch.
