Not For Sale (12 page)

“I have a place on the beach. In the Hamptons. The caretaker keeps it open for me year-round.”

“What’s it like? Your house?”

He shrugged. The truth was, he loved the house the way he loved the Ferrari.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just, you know, a beach house. Lots of glass. A deck. A pool. And the sea.”

Caroline sighed. “That’s it?”

His heart fell just a little.

“That’s it.” He cleared his throat. “You know, it’s probably not a great idea. Going out there, I mean. It’s still early in the season and the weather’s kind of cool. Plus, it’s midweek. Lots of the clubs will be closed, and—”

“You don’t go there for the clubs, do you?”

“Well, no. But there won’t be much to do.”

“Can you see the stars? You can’t see them in the city.”

Lucas thought of the big telescope in the great room. He’d bought it even before he’d bought furniture.

“Yeah. You can.”

“And crickets. Can you hear them at night?”

Her tone was wistful. He looked at her and cleared his throat again.

“After sundown, it’s a cricket symphony.”

She turned her face to him. “I grew up in the country.”

He felt a twinge of guilt because he already knew that.

“And I love the city. The energy, the endless wonderful places to explore. But there are some things about the country I’ll always miss. The quiet.” She smiled. “The stars. And the sound of crickets.” She gave a little laugh. “Sounds silly, I suppose, but—”

To hell with traffic.

Lucas checked the mirrors, shot across a lane of traffic
to the blare of angry horns and pulled to the curb. He undid his seat belt, undid Caroline’s, gathered her in his arms and kissed her.

They were almost at his beach house when Caroline gasped and said, “Oh my gosh. Oliver!”

Lucas nodded. Oliver, indeed. The cat had food, water and the attitude of a lion. He suspected Oliver could take care of himself for a day, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he called Mrs. Kennelly on his cell, apologized for the intrusion and asked if she could stop by to deal with Oliver.

“I know I told you to take the week off and this is lot to ask…”

“I’ll do better than that, sir,” his housekeeper said. “I’ll stay with him.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do—”

“I’m happy to do it. Oliver’s such a fine, sweet-natured cat!”

Sweet-natured? Lucas said that was good to hear.

“Okay,” he said, when he ended the call. “Mrs. Kennelly will stay with Oliver.”

“Thank you.”

Lucas reached for Caroline’s hand. And felt a tightness in his chest. The house was down the next lane. Would she like it?

“We’re here,” he said.

Caroline sat up straight. Ahead, she saw massive stone walls and impressive iron gates. Lucas pressed a button, the gates swung open and she caught her breath.

She wasn’t naive. She’d lived in New York long enough to know that property in the Hamptons was expensive but the sight of Lucas’s so-called beach house took her breath away.

Glass, he’d said. And a deck, and a pool. What he hadn’t
mentioned was that there were what looked like acres of glass, or that the deck seemed to hang over a beach that stretched over the dunes to the sea, or that a waterfall tumbled into the pool, or that the pool was the kind that seemed to have no boundaries around it.

“It’s called an infinity pool,” Lucas said as he took her on a slow walk around the place.

“It’s wonderful. All of it. Wonderful,” Caroline said, beaming up at him.

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, as if it didn’t matter, because it mattered too much, “it’s nice.”

“Nice?” She laughed, let go of his hand and danced out in front of him. “It’s incredible!”

What was incredible, he thought, was the color in Caroline’s face, the glow in her eyes. Watching her brought back the excitement he’d felt helping design the house, explaining what he wanted to the architect and builders.

When they stepped through the front door, she gave a soft, breathless “oooh” of delight.

High ceilings. Skylights. White walls. Italian tile floors in some rooms, bamboo in others.

“It’s like a dream,” she said softly. “It’s perfect!”

“Perfect,” Lucas said, and he drew her into his arms.

“What’s the rest of it like?”

He smiled. “I’ll show you.” Slowly, he eased the hoodie from her shoulders. “I’ll show you all of it. But now—” He swung her into his arms. “Let me show you the master bedroom,” he said softly.

Caroline looped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat.

“That’s an excellent idea,” she said, and thought,
if this is a dream, may it never end.

They did all the things he’d imagined doing here but had somehow never done.

They made love. Went skinny-dipping in the heated pool after he assured Caroline there were no neighbors; his property extended for more than five acres around and behind the house. He found an old shirt for her to wear; he put on shorts and they poked around in the kitchen cupboards and the freezer to find stuff for lunch.

At sunset, they strolled along the beach, just at the surfline, the cool Atlantic nipping at their toes. Drove into town, to a quiet little café for a candlelit dinner. When they returned to the house, the sky was deepest black and the stars blazed fiercely overhead.

“The stars,” Caroline said in a hushed voice.

They watched the heavens from the deck, her leaning back against Lucas, his arms hard around her.

Lucas could feel her heart beating. He could hear the soft whisper of her breath.

Something inside him seemed to rise and take flight.

He was happy.

“Caroline,” he whispered.

He turned her in his arms. She looked up at him, her face pale and lovely in the light of a full moon.

“Caroline,” he said again, and because he knew there was more to say and that he was afraid to say it, he bent his head and kissed her.

Then he undressed her.

Eased her out of her clothing with the moon and the stars looking on. Stripped her bare and shuddered when she reached to him and began undressing him, too.

When they were naked, he led her inside, to his bedroom, to an enormous bed on a platform under a huge skylight that let in the burning light of the sky.

Lucas worshipped her mouth. Her breasts. Her dusty-rose
nipples. He kissed her belly, her thighs, moved between them and stroked her hot, ready flesh with the tips of his fingers.

“Watch me as I make love to you,” he said thickly, and Caroline wanted to tell him she would watch him forever, that she adored him, that she loved him, loved him, loved him.

And then he was deep inside her and the world went away.

They drove into town the next day, to a little shop on Jobs Lane so simple on the outside that Caroline knew, instinctively, she could never afford anything it sold, but she needed a change of clothes.

Lucas wanted to buy her everything he saw. She said an emphatic “no,” selected a bra, panties, a cotton sweater and a pair of cropped pants.

“I’ll pay you back,” she whispered after the clerk had gone in back to wrap them.

He laughed, twiddled an imaginary mustache, bent her back over his arm, gave her a dramatic kiss and said yes, she surely would.

She laughed, too. She knew he was joking, that he would never let her give him the hundreds of dollars the handful of items had cost and it was a sudden jolt of reality, a reminder that there was very little money left in her bank account, that she had to find a job, and quickly.

And she had to find a place to live.

The realization made her unusually quiet on the trip back to the beach house. How had she let herself become so dependent on this man? She thought of her mother and shuddered.

“Querida?
Shall I put on the heat?”

“No,” she said quickly, forcing a smile as she turned toward him. “I’m fine. Just—maybe too much sun this afternoon, hmm? What do you think?”

“I think,” he said solemnly, reaching for her hand and
lifting it to his lips, “I think that there is only one way to deal with a chill.”

How could she not laugh? She did, and Lucas looked at her and grinned. He loved that laugh of hers. It was sexy, earthy, and yet, somehow, innocent.

“You do, huh?”

“Sim, ”
he said, and proved it to her as soon as they reached the house.

They stayed at the beach for two days.

Lucas would have stayed for the rest of the week but his P.A. called on his cell phone, filled with apologies, to tell him that the owner and CEO of a French bank he’d been looking at for months had phoned and asked for a meeting.

“I wouldn’t have bothered you, Mr. Vieira, but—”

Lucas assured her she’d been right to call. Still, when he told Caroline it was time to return to the city, he couldn’t help feeling that something irreplaceable was coming to an end.

She seemed to sense the same thing. She stepped into his arms and cuddled against him while he stroked her hair.

“Ah,” she said with a sad little smile, “what’s that old saying? All good things must come to an end.”

She spoke the words lightly but Lucas felt a chill.

“We’ll come back on the weekend,” he said. “I promise.”

But they didn’t come back on the weekend. He should have known they wouldn’t.

He should have known that she’d gotten it right.

All good things always did come to an end.

T
HERE
came a time when a person could no longer evade reality.

It had happened to Lucas as a boy, the day his mother abandoned him.

Now, it was happening again. Returning to the city was like taking an icy plunge into the real world. No more starry nights, no more crickets, no more lingering over a bottle of wine before dinner on the deck overlooking the sea.

They drove to New York early the next morning. By noon, life had returned to what Lucas had, for many years, thought of as normal.

He was in his office, dressed in banker’s gray Armani, meeting with his staff and planning the strategy of the next three days, which was how long the French banker would be in the city.

Someone had done a quick PowerPoint presentation. Someone else had run pages and pages of numbers. His team was sharp, intelligent, hand-picked.

But he found it difficult to concentrate.

His thoughts kept circling back to the days and nights in the Hamptons and to the perfect little world he and Caroline had created.

Leaving her this morning had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

“I’ll call you when I can,” he’d said, as he held her in his arms.

She’d fussed with his tie, smoothed back his dark hair and smiled up at him.

“I’ll miss you,” she’d said softly.

“No,” he’d said with a quick smile, “you won’t. You have all those boxes from your office to go through.”

“I’ll miss you,” Caroline had said again, and Lucas’s smile had faded. He would miss her, too. Terribly. How could a woman have won his—have won his interest so completely in only a handful of days?

“I’ll get rid of the Frenchman in no time.”

“You can’t do that, Lucas. I don’t want you to do that. I’m not going to keep you from your responsibilities.”

You’re my responsibility,
he thought…and the realization that he wanted her to be his responsibility had stunned him.

“What?” Caroline had said, reading something in his eyes.

“Nothing.”
Everything.
But he wasn’t ready to think about what that meant. Not yet. Instead, he’d raised her face to his and kissed her. “We’ll go somewhere special for dinner. How’s that sound?”

“Anyplace would be special with you,” she’d replied, and his heart felt as if it might take wing.

Now, with the hours passing, he knew he wouldn’t get rid of the French banker all that quickly. He probably wouldn’t even make it home for dinner, let alone in time to take Caroline somewhere special.

The Frenchman was eager to conclude a deal he’d been sitting on for months and Lucas was, too. The quicker, the better.

Then he could get back to more important things.

To Caroline.

He phoned her a few times during the day. The phone rang
and rang and then, with Mrs. Kennelly gone again, went to voice mail.

“Hi,” he said whenever it did, “it’s me.”

He said that he missed her. That he was sorry but he wouldn’t be home in time for dinner. He said he’d only just realized he had never taken her cell number and would she call him when she had the chance and give it to him.

She didn’t call.

And he began to worry.

Foolish, he knew. She was capable of taking care of herself and she was not new to the city, but he worried anyway. Had she gone back to her apartment? Was she there even now, in that run-down building, that dangerous street with a dangerous burglar on the loose? He couldn’t think of a reason she would be, but he knew how stubbornly independent she was.

So he worried, and it was a new experience. Worrying about someone. About a woman. Thinking about her, all the time.

It made him edgy.

He felt as if he were at some kind of turning point. Caroline dominated his thoughts. He had—he had feelings for her that transcended even what he felt for her in bed.

In midafternoon, after an endless lunch with the Frenchman, Lucas went back to his office, checked his cell phone for messages on the way, his desk phone for voice mail when he got there. He ran his hand through his hair, told himself to stop being an idiot.

And went out of his office, to his P.A.’s desk.

“Has a Ms. Hamilton phoned?”

“No, sir,” she said politely, but he saw the curiosity in her eyes. Her phone rang while he was standing there. “Lucas Vieira’s office,” she said, listened, looked at Lucas who was already reaching for the receiver. She muted the call and shook her head. “It’s a Realtor for you, sir.”

A Realtor? Lucas nodded, went into his office and took the call. He’d damned near forgotten asking the guy to find an apartment for Caroline.

“Vieira here,” he said briskly.

The Realtor’s voice bubbled with good news. He’d found the perfect place. On Park Avenue. A building with a doorman, of course. Concierge service. Within an easy walk of Lucas’s penthouse on Fifth. Three big rooms. A fireplace. A terrace. The keys were with the doorman, if Lucas wanted to take a look.

Lucas swiveled his chair around, massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

“Yes,” he said, “it sounds fine. But—”

But what?

But, he didn’t want to think about Caroline living apart from him. Didn’t want to imagine waking in the morning without her in his arms, or going to sleep at night without her head on his shoulder.

He told the Realtor he’d get back to him.

Told himself that he needed to think.

Caroline couldn’t stay with him indefinitely. Of course, she couldn’t. He didn’t do that. He never had. He’d never had a woman living with him before. Not that a handful of days qualified as someone living with him but it was a serious change in the pattern he’d always maintained.

His mistresses always had their own places; he’d paid the rent for more than a few of them. And he’d never given any thought to doing things another way.

Live with a woman under his roof? Be with her 24/7? Wake up with her. Go to sleep with her. Start the entire thing over again the following morning?

The idea had always seemed impossible.

Now, it seemed—it seemed not just possible but, but interesting. Even enticing.

He reached for the phone, tried his penthouse again.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
And then, Caroline, sounding breathless, said, “Hello?”

“Querida. ”
Lucas expelled a sigh of relief. “I was worried about you.”

Caroline smiled. It was lovely to hear those words from her lover. It made her feel cherished.

“Why would you worry? I’m fine.”

“I know. I was just being—just overly cautious, I guess.” He wanted to ask if she’d gone to her apartment but decided against it. He had no right to check up on her. “Did you have a good day?”

Caroline looked at the little gaily wrapped package in her hand. It was from Barnes and Noble. Inside the wrapping was a book about the stars and the planets. They’d used Lucas’s telescope one night at his beach house and argued over which group of stars was the constellation Cassiopeia and which wasn’t.

The argument had ended in the way all arguments should, she thought now, loving the memory of Lucas sweeping her off her feet and into his arms.

“There’s only one way to settle this,” he’d said with a mock growl, and she’d squealed in equally fake indignation as he took her to his bed.

The book was to be a surprise.

She wanted badly to give him something, a gift from her that would have meaning, but the gorgeous Steuben glass sculptures, the Winslow Homer prints of ships and the sea that she’d spent the afternoon looking at were thousands of times beyond her means.

The book would be just right.

It wasn’t an expensive gift, especially not for a man like him, but she’d learned enough about Lucas to know that what
she’d paid for it wouldn’t matter. He’d love the book because he loved looking at the stars.

And maybe he’d love it even more because it was from her.

Not that she was foolish enough to think he’d fallen in love with her but he did care for her, she was certain of that.

He’d even stopped looking at her as he had every once in a while at the beginning, an expression on his face that she couldn’t read but that had frightened her just the same. It was as if he didn’t approve of her, as if he were judging her, and whenever it had happened, she’d come close to asking him what he was thinking. But then that look would vanish, and why would she ask questions that might bring it back?

“Sweetheart? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Caroline said, “I’m here.”

“I know I said I’d be home for dinner, but—”

“That’s all right,” she said, even though it wasn’t. She missed him terribly. “I understand.”

“Good.” Not good. He’d wanted her to tell him she was devastated by the news.

“I’m liable to be very late, so if you get tired, don’t wait up for me.
Sim?”

“Sim,”
Caroline said softly.

But when he came home just before midnight, she was waiting in the living room, Oliver in her lap, and the minute he stepped from the elevator she put the cat aside and ran straight into Lucas’s arms.

“I missed you,” she said, and as he held her to his heart, he knew he wasn’t going to sign the lease on that apartment for her.

He wasn’t ready to let her go.

And in the very back of his mind, he began to wonder if he ever would be.

He rose at six the next morning, showered, dressed, dropped a light kiss on Caroline’s hair as she slept and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

He’d told his staff to be prepared to work through the weekend. They understood. The deal was important. What they couldn’t possibly know was that Lucas wanted to conclude it so he could clear his agenda for the next couple of weeks. He hadn’t been to his Caribbean island since he’d bought it. He wanted to go there with Caroline. She’d love it. The privacy, the sea.

“Good morning.”

He turned and saw her in the doorway, yawning, her hair in her eyes, barefoot, wearing one of his T-shirts and he thought,
No way in the world am I going to work today.

He told her that as he poured coffee for them both and sat down beside her at the white stone counter. She shook her head.

“Of course you are,” she said.

“Hey,” he said, flashing her a supposedly indignant smile, “I’m the boss, remember?”

“Exactly. You’re the boss. People depend on you.” She fluttered her lashes and leaned toward him. “I should have known I’d be too ravishing a sight for you to deal with at this hour of the day.”

She laughed but he didn’t. She
was
ravishing, uncombed hair, no makeup, the tiniest fold in her cheek from sleeping with her head on his shoulder.

I love you,
he thought, and the realization swept through him with the unbridled force of a tidal wave.

“Caroline,” he said, “Caroline…”

No. This wasn’t the moment. He’d wait until tonight, when he wasn’t about to rush out the door. He’d take her someplace romantic and quiet. Candles, music, the whole sentimental
thing he’d always thought foolish, and he’d put his heart in her hands.

It was a terrifying prospect but—but she cared for him. He could tell. Hell, she loved him. She had to love him…

“Lucas?” She put her hand over his. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I, uh, I just—I just—You know, you never gave me your cell number.”

She held out her hand. He was baffled for a moment. Then he dug his cell from his pocket and gave it to her. She punched in numbers, made the entry and handed it back.

“Just don’t worry if you can’t reach me,” she said. “I’m going job-hunting. And apartment hunting. Well, I won’t try to do both today, but—”

“You don’t need to do either.”

Her heart skipped a beat. What did that mean? What was he thinking? About her? About their situation? Anything was possible, she thought, anything.

Even a miracle.

“You have a place to live,” he said gruffly. “And if you need money…”

He took our his wallet, pulled out a sheaf of bills.

So much for miracles.

“Do not,” Caroline said with sudden coldness, “do not do that.”

“But if you need money—”

“I know how to earn it.”

He looked at her. The uptilted chin. The defiant set to her mouth. The determined glint in her hazel eyes.

And for one awful instant, he thought,
How?

He hated himself for it.

He had been wrong about her from Day One. She’d never taken money for sex. He’d finally come to believe it. She was incredible in bed but that was only because there was
something special between them. She was innately passionate; he’d just been the man lucky enough to find that passion in her and set it free.

Why should such an ugly thought even cross his mind now?

“I almost forgot,” he said, trying to lighten the moment. “The Queen of the Greasy Spoon.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t change that look on her face. Then, finally, she nodded.

“That’s me,” she said, but he could still hear the tension in her voice. He wanted to tell her she wouldn’t need a job or a place to live, not after tonight when he told her he wanted her to stay with him. To be with him. To be—to be—

His head was swimming. There was too much going on. The French deal. And now this.

Tonight. There’d be time to talk tonight. To figure things out. For now, he murmured her name and took her in his arms. After a minute, the tension went out of her; she leaned into him, sighed and put her arms around his neck.

“Sweetheart.
Querida,
I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” she said softly.

She walked him to the elevator. He tilted her face to his and kissed her. But as the elevator took him away from her, Caroline wrapped her arms around herself to ward off a sudden chill.

I am not my mother,
she thought fiercely. And Lucas was not like any of the men who’d used her mother so badly.

But the ugly image—Lucas, pulling that money from his pocket—lingered. And, without warning, she thought again of the way he’d looked at her every once in a while, at the start of their relationship.

She almost pressed the elevator button and went after him. But she wasn’t dressed. Besides, she was being foolish.