My One And Only (14 page)

"Then tell me now, and I'll go back to Califor
ni
a.
"

Abby worried her lower lip with her teeth. "I'm not sure."

"I have to have it all," he told her. "It's the only way."

She watched as her sister made her way around the buffet table, delicately sampling each of the
various dishes. She seemed to find strength in that. When she looked at Ethan again, her eyes showed determination and a subtle will that made him ache to kiss her. "Can I ask one thing in return?"

"The moon," he replied.

She shook her head, and the wind lifted one of her curls and da
nced with it. "Nothing that com
plicated." She placed both hands flat on his chest. "Promise you'll never try so hard to protect me from the truth that you refuse to give it to me."

He frowned. "Have other people done that to you, Abby?"

A host of conflicting emotions moved across the planes of her face. Her fingers curled into his shirtfront, and she laid her cheek against his chest. "I don't know yet," she said so softly he had to bend his head to hear her. "But I have a feeling I'm about to find out."

eight

A
bby closed her eyes. "I had no idea it was that bad."

Ethan gathered the stack of reports he'd been showing her for the last half hour. He and Abby sat on the couch in her living room. From the kitchen, they heard LuAnne and Rachel laughing as they worked on the baking project. The house had the delightful scent of chocolate and cinnamon.

"It'll take a miracle," he concurred.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "But can you do it?"

At the hope in her gaze, he felt his stomach knot. "Maybe. I'm not sure."

The sound of clanging baking sheets in the kitchen momentarily drew her attention. Then she
said, "When you were looking at the reports, did you come up with any idea how Harrison got into this mess?"

She was going to extract the answer from him. He should have expected it. He knew her well enough to realize that she would have examined these reports dozens of times, probing for anything that might provide a way out of the mess Harrison had created. Abby might not be a financial expert, but she was not a fool either. She was bound to have seen the inconsistencies.

If Ethan had spotted the truth from his rather cursory examination of the numbers, then Abby surely would have seen it too. For reasons he didn't begin to understand, he didn't want to tell her what he suspected—what was gradually being confirmed by the investigation in his office. He didn't want to be the one to shatter the illusions she held about Harrison Montgomery.

"Did you?" she asked again.

"It appears," he said, "that either someone is embezzling Harrison's company into ruin, or else he's gotten himself blackmailed."

Abby let out a long breath and rested her head in her hands. "I knew it."

He rubbed one hand up her spine. "And you wanted me to confirm it for you?"

"No, no, it wasn't like that." At his skeptical look, she nodded. "Really, it wasn't. When I came to see you the first time, I had no idea. It wasn't
until after—while you were in Prague. Things started to get really bad. Several of Harrison's business associates called, looking for answers. And the family—" She shrugged. "They started getting hysterical when funds began to get tight. People were calling me, asking questions. I didn't know what to say. That's when I really started to go over the reports."

"But you weren't sure?"

"No. I'm not an expert, and there was every chance I was reading something wrong." She rubbed her eyes with her thumbs and forefingers. "I really wanted to be wrong."

Ethan kneaded a knot in her shoulder. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

"Me too." She drew a fortifying breath. "But you still don't know exactly what's happening, do you?"

"Some of my top people are on this. At best, you've got an embezzler on your hands. If we find the culprit, then we might be able to repair some of the damage."

"And at worst?"

"At worst, Harrison has been bleeding the profits himself. Maybe he got over his head somewhere."

"Or it could be blackmail?"

"It could be," he concurred.

"And then what?"

"There are stockholders involved," he said slowly.

"I know."

"Other people's money."

"I know."

He hesitated. She still seemed to be waiting for an answer. Ethan forged ahead. "He might be in violation of federal trade laws."

She shuddered. "Oh, God."

"Which means he could go to jail."

Abby shivered. "I don't understand this," she said, and he heard the hurt in her voice. "How could he have let this happen?"

Ethan didn't answer. Abby seemed to make a decision then. She wiped her hands on the legs of her jeans and said quietly, "I can't change it."

"Not today," he agreed. And silently added, And probably not ever.

She appeared to process what he said for several seconds before she stood and extended a hand to him. "Then we might as well get back to work. If we don't help Rachel with the baking, we won't be able to taste."

Ethan took her hand, but made no move to rise from the sofa. "For what it's worth, Abby," he said quietly, "I may not like the man, but I didn't want to see you get hurt."

"I know." She folded her hand in his. "But there's no evidence yet, and you said yourself you could be wrong."

"I could be." He hoped she wasn't holding too tightly to the idea.

"Then I'll believe it when I see it."

And ignore it in the meantime, evidently. She'd probably hate him for it when he had to show her the truth, he mused. The thought made him want to strangle Harrison. Would the man ever lose the power he had to destroy people? The thought that he might not annoyed him. Abby seemed to have made a conscious decision to put the grim afternoon behind her. She was actively tugging on his hand. "Come on. We've got more than a thousand cookies to make before Monday."

E
than didn't say another word about Harrison, MDS, or their conversation on the yacht that morning. Apparently he'd shifted his focus from Abby to the intricate and detailed process of baking. She wished she had his willpower. Her mind spun a mad dance from topic to topic, leaving her feeling distracted and dizzy.

As if he sensed Abby's need to retreat, Ethan maintained a lively conversation with LuAnne and Rachel. He asked Rachel enough questions to write his own cookbook. Rachel interacted with him in an easy banter, while Ethan seemed content to hand her ingredients and let her have command.

By noon they had twenty different batches of
cookie dough waiting to be shaped and baked. Ethan suggested dinner. Abby dropped into a chair with a weary groan and shook her head. "There's stuff in the refrigerator. There's no way I'm going out. I think I have enough flour in my hair to look like I survived a grain-elevator explosion."

Ethan was watching her closely. Too closely. So closely, she could feel her heart racing. When they'd returned from Carlton's party, he'd donned a pair of glasses to go over the reports with her. He still wore them. Though they should have made him look slightly bookish, they seemed to accentuate the carved lines of his face and the intensity of his silver eyes.

LuAnne reached for her purse. "I'm not for cooking, even if it's just the microwave. Why don't I go pick us up something?" She glanced at Rachel. "Chinese okay?"

"Bobby Chan's is pretty good," Rachel conceded. The popular take-out place specialized in lighter cuisine.

LuAnne nodded. "I could go for that." She gave Rachel a gentle shove toward the door. "You can come with me and help me carry it."

Rachel threw a glance at Ethan. "Oh, but—"

LuAnne gave her a not-so-subtle shove. "You need to get some daylight, girlfriend. You're coming with me."

Rachel's gaze passed from Ethan to Abby and
back again. She untied her apron without further comment. "All right. Would you guys watch the timers while we're gone?"

"Gladly," Ethan said.

The kitchen door swung shut behind them. Abby looked at Ethan with a slight shake of her head. "I can always count on LuAnne to be so subtle."

"I don't have much patience for subtlety."

"I hadn't noticed," she quipped. The front door clicked shut.

With a slight smile, he spun a chair around so he could straddle it. He propped his muscular forearms on the back and gave her a beatific smile. "I think that's the first compliment you've paid me."

"Don't let it go to your head," she grumbled.

With a slight chuckle, he took off his glasses and placed them on the table. "I've been wanting to know what you've been thinking since this morning," he said.

Abby shook her head as awareness crowded in and told her that the next few seconds would be potentiall
y life-changing. With his face cl
ose to hers, and the clean scent of his soap mingling with the smells of baking cookies, he looked as tempting as the fruit of a forbidden tree. Over and over, his challenge from that morning kept running through her mind. When they were the only ones standing, would she still be on his side? There was
something inexpressibly sad about that remark, as if he'd spent too many days alone and fought too many battles by himself. He couldn't have known how irrevocably that realization would bind her to him. He couldn't possibly be aware that nothing could wrap itself tighter around her heart than the sure knowledge that he'd been too long without someone to trust.

She'd sat in that same dark place for too many nights. She'd wondered too many times how God could have left her alone. She could no more turn her back on Ethan than she could rip her own heart out.

In the end, she knew, she was probably going to get burned by this. The day she'd seen him in San Francisco, she'd set them on an unalterable path. If he hadn't known it too, he wouldn't have given her that speech about trust and choosing sides. She could ignore it for a little while, but sooner or later she'd fall prey.

That alone should have scared her. Abby had spent a lot of time
trying not to get hurt. Her par
ents' death, she'd decided ages ago, had been a big enough emotional hit for one lifetime. But sometime between last night and this morning, another, even more depressing reality had overcome her. She'd spent so much time protecting her life and her heart that she'd never really felt the intoxicating rush of adrenaline that came with risk. She'd managed to avoid disappointment and
pain, but in doing so, she'd also managed to deprive herself of the keen knife-edge of pleasure that bordered on being too much to bear.

This newfound awareness had awakened a sharp craving, unlike any she'd ever experienced. The craving was strong enough to drown out the loud voice in her head that insisted she should know better. It beat into submission the feeling that Ethan Maddux was out of her league. It made her blood flow a little faster and her heart beat a little quicker. And it had all but demolished her usually reliable voice of reason.

Belatedly, she realized he was still awaiting an answer. "You're going to kiss me," she said, "aren't you?"

Ethan reached for her hand. "I'm seriously considering it."

"I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea," she told him. "All day I've been trying to figure out why."

"Come to any conclusions?"

"No, but I can't shake the feeling."

He smoothed his thumb over her knuckles. "Me either."

That made her smile. "Different feeling."

"You think so?"

"Definitely." Her head dropped back slightly. "You're making my ears ring," she said.

He lifted his other hand and cupped her face. "You might have to trust me on this."

"Why should I?"

"Because I keep having visions of what it'll be like when I have you next to me in bed. And I can't shake the feeling that the reality is going to beat the hell out of the fantasy."

The shiver that raced through her was more like a shudder. It started at the base of her spine and spread to her scalp and toes. "Ethan—"

"And you'll say my name," he said softly, dipping his head slightly. "Just like that."

He released her fingers so he could cradle her face in both of his hands. "Aren't you dying to know what it's going to feel like?"

She shut her eyes. "Ethan…
"

He trailed his fingers along the curve of her jaw and slid them into her hair. "I've been wanting to touch your hair since that day in my office."

"It's out of control." She thought her voice was remarkably calm, considering that the blood was ringing in her ears.

"It's incredible." He twined a curl around his index finger. "Unique. Like you."

"Why are you doing this?" She curled her fingers around his hand.

"To get that breathless reaction out of you," he confessed. "I'm starting to get addicted to the way you say my name when you're a little off balance."

"Ethan—"

"Like that." He leaned closer to her.

"I don't think we should—"

He didn't let her finish. "Ah, Abby," he said softly. "Stop fighting me."

Her hands curled tense
ly onto his forearms. "Please…
"

''Please, yes," he said, and put his hands on her shoulders to ease her toward him. "Or please, no?"

She met his gaze squarely, her hazel eyes clear and undaunted. Her lips parted. Ethan slid one hand onto her nape to cradle the back of her head. "Just say yes, Abby," he urged.

She could feel the incredible heat of his fingers against her flesh
. "I…
"

"Just say yes," he prompted again.

There was something a little vulnerable about him, something that touched her and crumbled what was left of her resistance. So she wished for luck, resigned herself to the consequences of the fall, and took the plunge. She placed both hands on his shoulders and leaned forward in her chair. "Are you ever going to kiss me? I've been waiting forev—"

He didn't let her finish. With a slight growl, he covered her mouth with his and guided her arms around his neck.