For Eric's Sake (21 page)

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the photographer, all pretense of friendliness disappearing as his brows furrowed at the interruption. "How did you get in here?"

"Walked in," said Shaw. "Brandy, get dressed."

"See here," bristled the photographer, "what right do you have to come in here disrupting a professional session?"

"It doesn't look like anything professional to me!" thundered Shaw. "Brandy, do as I say."

"Listen, buddy, this happens to be my studio, and as I see it, you're trespassing!"

Shaw took several steps into the studio. His angry glance at Brandy made her scurry for the protection of her clothes and the bathroom. She could hear his powerful voice even with the door slammed shut behind her. "One minute later and it would have been you who would have been trespassing, buster," he practically shouted. "That's my wife, and I have no doubt as to your intentions, even if she did."

"Your wife?"

"That's right—as in married—as in you'll be sorry if she so much as tells me you touched her. Did you?"

Brandy imagined Shaw hauling the little man up by the throat of his shirt, as she heard his next reply garbled. She struggled into her jeans and shirt, and stuffed her other clothes into her suitcase.

Whatever Shaw was doing, she knew he meant business, and she wondered half fearfully what sort of punishment would be in store for her when she got home. She knew he would treat her more like a small child than like his wife. She wasn't looking forward to the next moments alone with him. It was bad enough that he had found her here and was harassing that poor photographer. She would probably never get her composite done at this rate.

"Brandy!" He pounded on the door. "Aren't you ready yet?"

"Yes," she half whispered, and she opened the door, clutching her suitcase, which was jammed closed with a shirt-sleeve hanging out.

His hand grasped Brandy's like a vise as he hauled her across the room. She tried to apologize to the photographer for Shaw's behavior, but she was so shocked by the whirlwind of circumstances that all she could do was follow Shaw open-mouthed as he hauled her out the door.

He pushed Brandy into her car and tossed the suitcase into the back. "Now stay in this car until you get to the apartment—and don't try anything funny because I'll be driving right behind you. We're going to have this out once and for all."

Brandy nodded, still unable to utter a word in the face of his anger.

She was apprehensive during the drive home and amazed that she wasn't colliding with anything—her mind was on everything but driving.

He was tight-lipped and forceful as he hauled her through the lobby and into the elevator, as if she would dare try to go anywhere else, whether he was holding her or not.

He unlocked the apartment door and put on his kindest face for the babysitter, paid her generously for her time, and ushered her to her apartment in the building, his eyes warning Brandy before he left that she had better be on the sofa when he returned.

She had nowhere to go. If she were going to leave Shaw, she had to do it openly. No one would get away with fooling Shaw Janus about anything. She hadn't with this marriage. When he came back, she would tell him she wanted an annulment and she would not ask for any support or alimony from him. She would just have to give Eric to Louis and May. They, at least, could provide some semblance of a home for him.

When Shaw came back he continued to glare at her, and took his time pouring a drink before he came to stand in front of her. "Well?"

"Well what?" she snapped back, feeling very tired, very alone, very sad.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he challenged.

She glared up at him, all the way to his taunting eyes. "I'm ready for that annulment."

He raised his brows, and she imagined that his color paled slightly. "Then you've changed your mind?" he asked.

"About what?"

"About what you told me the other night… about what you've told me all along about wanting to make a home for Eric… about needing a husband… about loving me."

Tears pricked behind her eyes, and she shook her head. "No. I meant every bit of that."

"Then why the annulment?" He finished off his drink and poured another.

"Because I'm destroying you. You don't want me. You never did."

"Don't tell me what I want or don't want!" he flared. "I never said I didn't want you, lady."

Brandy sniffed. "Yes, that was obvious, but what I meant was love. Love is important to me, but it means nothing to you. And it can't really be love if it's hurting those involved."

He sat down on the sectional sofa adjacent, but not near, to her. "That's true. I never wanted love. I didn't believe in it. I'd never known what it was."

She shrugged, tears dripping down her cheeks. "I know. I realize I can't expect you to magically feel the way I do. You either care or you don't."

He slid a little closer—close enough to take her chin in his hand and turn her face to him. "I care." His voice was husky. "I care a lot."

She shook her head, unable to believe him.

He forced her chin to stay still, and waited until she was looking at him. "But it's new to me," he continued, "I'm just beginning to feel alive. And I know it would kill me if you left us, Brandy."

"Us?"

"Eric and me. Marcus told me what you had in mind."

"Oh!"

"Don't get mad at him. He made me realize what you mean to me. Just the thought of you leaving has been tearing me up these last few days, but I've been so busy I kept telling myself I could put off talking to you. But when I came in tonight and found that strange woman here, and she said you'd packed a suitcase, I nearly went crazy. Marcus didn't know where you'd gone, but he remembered you mentioning that guy's name and I took a chance you'd be with him."

"You don't want me to go?" Her eyes were shimmering with tears.

"Oh, baby." He pulled her into his arms. "I need you. I want you. I think I must love you. I only know I've never known I could feel as violent as I did this evening when I realized how close I'd come to losing you. And that photographer—" She could feel his body trembling. "When I think that he almost stole your sweet innocence, and when it's been here for me, offered as a gift of love all this time. I was too cynical to think I could survive with one woman."

"I can understand if you can't."

He laughed. "That's a switch, coming after your accusations that I've been spending my nights with Lorraine. I haven't, you know."

"But she said—"

"Don't believe a word of what she says. She's spoiled and it won't be the first time she's lied to get her way."

"But she said she would break you financially if I didn't leave you to her!"

He laughed at that, too. "So what? Would you mind very much if we had to live in a more modest place? If it takes me a little longer to make it to the top?"

She shook her head, still wondering if she were dreaming it all. She was still feeling dizzy and sleepy. Orange juice alone had never made her feel this way.

"Good," he said, "because whatever happens, wherever we live, whatever we do, it'll be together. I know now how miserable it would be to live without you after these past weeks of living with you." He sighed. "I can't begin to tell you the number of nights I wished I could stay here with you instead of going back to that blasted restaurant."

"But you love it."

"I love you more." He squeezed her. "But I'm afraid the restaurant is still going to be taking up a lot of my time until I can get it operating. Can you take me that way for awhile?"

"What way?"

"On a part-time basis."

"Oh, Shaw." She hugged him, her sobs in earnest now. "I'll take you anyway I can get you. I love you, I told you that."

"I know," he smiled, "and it's been preying on my mind ever since. Do you know how much a coward that made me feel?"

"I don't understand."

"To know that you had the courage to tell me how you felt about me. But I was too busy trying to be the big macho male to think my emotions could get the better of me. Oh, baby, don't cry. You know I can't stand it when you do. It makes me feel so helpless."

She hugged him. "I can't stop crying. All I want is to be with you."

"You will be, my love, for all time. Now stop crying before
I
start."

Brandy laughed through her tears and then caught her breath to discover that he was actually crying, too! Somehow that made him seem her equal, not an arrogant lord who would always get the better of her, but someone just as vulnerable as she. It only made her love him more.

She put her hands up to his cheeks, cradling his face between her hands. He had just admitted he was as human and just as frightened of her love as she. She had never realized how much power, the power of love, she held in her hands.

Gently she kissed him, the tenderness between them quickly mounting to passion. Brandy sighed against his lips. This was the moment she had waited for. She belonged to Shaw, and had from the first moment she had seen him and decided she wanted him for a husband. She had sensed even then the melting heat of his kisses, but nothing had prepared her for the weakness of her body as it pressed closer to his, meeting his passion with a sultry sexiness that she had not known herself capable of.

His lips trailed down her cheek to her neck as he murmured against her skin, "I want to make love to you, wife."

His words sent little flames of excitement through her.

"Will you share my bed with me?"

In answer Brandy stood up, tugging him after her to the bedroom. He could be so tender and caring. She had known it in her heart long before tonight. Perhaps he hadn't even realized his own tenderness and consideration before this moment. He was not demanding she share his bed as he had done in the past. He was humbling himself by asking her.

"Show me, Shaw." She wrapped her arms around his neck as they reached the bedroom. "Teach me how to love you."

He chuckled against her ear where his lips were nibbling on her earlobe. "You already know how to do that, my love. In fact, I think I should be taking lessons from you."

She wound her fingers into his hair, unable to get close enough to him. "Well, we could begin tonight—"

He kicked the door shut. "Exactly what I had in mind," he whispered.