Secrets and Seductions (20 page)

Mac’s warm laughter wrenched Leah from oblivion, and she scrambled from beneath the soapy bubbles, only to slip precariously.

“Whoa. You want to break your neck?” Bubbles covered her neck to knee but in no way lessened Mac’s heated appraisal. “Nice dress you have on.”

“Glad you like it.” She laughed with him. Then a bubble floated toward the ceiling, followed by another and another, until they popped.

“I thought you were at work,” she said.

“Work? What’s that? This is far more appealing,” he answered, removing his shoes.

Leah’s eyes widened, and a tingling heat stained her cheeks. And still another bubble popped.

“Seems like this dress wants to come off.”

She laughed at that. “Is that a fantasy of yours?”

He wrenched at his tie, then the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one in slow motion and revealing the smattering of dark chest hair.

Leah’s mouth suddenly dried.

“Could be.” He offered her a sexy grin, those darn dimples of his deepening. “Fantasy does sound kinda kinky.” He pointed toward one of the bubbles. It too burst, and then slowly another and another, and her dress of lavender-fragranced bubbles gave way to silky smooth skin.

His eyes darkened to the richest of chocolate, reminding her of Hershey Kisses. Her husband was hot for her. Leah knew it was lust, not love, but right now, she would accept that, take what she could.

Beneath designer trousers, his arousal strained for release. He definitely wanted her. A lot.

Leah bit her lip. “I thought you had another appointment with the Japanese delegation.”

He winked at her. “Cancelled when I saw your car in the basement car park.” Then, in slow motion, he stepped back and stripped. Shirt. Belt. Trousers. All landed in a pile on the floor. His boxers were not the baggy kind but hugged every part of him.

Excitement amplified behind Leah’s ribs. She couldn’t help but look, lowering her gaze slowly and then letting it slide up again even slower, taking in all of his magnificence.

“Can I join you?”

“You think I’d refuse?” she countered with a teasing smile.

“Hell, I hope not.”

She sank back into the bath as Mac removed his boxers. Dear Lord, he took her breath away.

He slid his large frame into the opposite end of the tub. “Have I ever told you how cute you look in bubbles?” He flicked a rainbow-hued bubble toward her. It floated skyward, hit the ceiling, then burst.

This was pure fantasy. Their marriage was a fantasy, a bubble she knew would burst one day, but right now, this particular fairy tale was all she wanted. She reached for the sponge. “How about I wash you?”

“Only if you promise to do it all over.”

She promised, and kept it, losing count of Mac’s kisses as they moved from the bath to the bed, until the acerbic jangle of her mobile playing the long-gone tune of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” burst their fantasy.

The melody drew a snort of laughter from Mac as she scrambled naked from the bed to answer it.

“Mrs. Grainger, it’s Molly from the kindergarten.”

Leah sank back down on the bed. “Oh no.”

“What is it?”

She waved Mac away. “It’s past one, Mrs Grainger,” the kindy teacher admonished. “Charlee’s been waiting for you to pick her up. She’s very upset.”

“I’ll be right there.”

After snapping the phone off, she raced for the bathroom and grabbed clothes off the tiled floor, not giving Mac another thought.

“Leah?” He was right behind her. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot, damn it. I forgot to pick up Charlee.”

“What the…”

Struggling into her jeans and T-shirt, Leah stilled. “Don’t you dare say a word, Mac Grainger.”

“I wasn’t, I was just going offer to help.” He snatched up his own clothes. “We’ll go in my car.”

Tears streamed down Leah’s cheeks, blinding her. She didn’t stop to brush them, shoving her way past him as she headed to the door.

“Leah. Wait.”

She didn’t listen.

Through the apartment door, she headed for the bank of elevators.

A breathless Mac came up behind her. “It’s not your fault. We both forgot.”

“But I’m her mother.”

“I know. Now, let’s go. You’re in no state to drive.”

Within a minute, they’d reached the basement. The grille on the basement garage had barely opened when Mac gunned the engine and they scooted into the burgeoning downtown traffic.

Leah sank back on the seat, unable to ignore the real leather smell. There was nothing cheap or vinyl in Mac’s life, but then everything about his world spelt luxury, money, power.

And control.

Everything she didn’t have. The no-sex clause had been her way to protect her heart, retain a semblance of control. Yet she’d given in just like that, and now, because of sex, she’d forgotten the most important person in her life.

True to his word, Mac had them at the kindergarten within fifteen minutes. She hadn’t even reached the security gate before she heard her daughter’s cries of delight.

They, however, weren’t the words she was expecting.

“Daddy, Daddy. I knew you would come.” Charlee turned to a blonde-haired woman Leah knew as Molly. “See, I told you he would come. This is my daddy. He’s big.”

Daddy? Lordy, what was she going to do now?

Molly suddenly seemed brighter than Leah remembered, smiling up at Mac, and he, darn it, played charm personified.

“Nice to meet you, Molly.”

Molly blushed to the roots of her bottle-blonde hair. For a few minutes Mac and Molly chatted, but Leah didn’t feel so well.

The shock. It had to be that.

Her head felt woozy, sounds going in and out, crashing across her brain. She tried to shut it out and hold on to something…anything. She parted her mouth and ran her tongue over lips that seemed as if she’d never drunk in her entire life, while a sweaty sheen coated her forehead and another trail trickled between her breasts.

“Leah?” Mac took her elbow, and Leah’s eyes opened, reading deep concern in his expression.

“I’m…” She tried to wave him away. Then nothing. She could hear voices—Charlee’s crying, and Mac soothing her. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her gaze connected with Mac’s worry-darkened eyes staring back at her. She struggled to get up.

“Stay where you are. You’re not going anywhere.” Mac’s hand rested firmly on her shoulder. He meant business. “You fainted.”

“Rubbish. I don’t faint.”

“You did.”

“Let me up.” Leah twisted sideways, seeking out Charlee. Pale-faced, her daughter stood with Molly’s comforting arms around her. She turned back to Mac, whispering, “Charlee. She’s frightened. She doesn’t need to see me flaked out. She’s only recently lost her father.”

But it was as if Mac hadn’t heard her. He smiled a big broad smile that reached right up to his eyes. Heck, even they were shining bright, and his dimples only added to the joy that lit his face. “She called me Daddy.”

Chapter Twelve

Daddy!

Charlee had called him Daddy.

Mac digested the emotional tug that that one word elicited. He’d never thought of being a parent before, had actively ensured none of his girlfriends got too comfortable.

Daddy.

Funny how that one word seemed to change things. Change him.

“Daddy, can we get an ice cream. Please?” Dark eyes stared up at him. Curtis’s eyes. Family. He bent and picked Charlee up, and her small arms curled around his neck. Mac swallowed back the sudden lump in his throat.

It felt good, this daddy thing. Wonderful, even. But it also scared the hell out of him.

Her little brow furrowed as Charlee glanced over her shoulder at Leah, who, though still ashen-faced, distressed that she had forgotten to pick up her daughter, seemed to have recovered from her fainting.

“Mummy has never been late before.”

“Mummy’s got a lot on her mind at the moment,” he said, trying to pacify his niece’s worries. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”

“Yay. Ice cream! I bet Mummy’s mind will be all better,” Charlee offered with childish clarity.

Mac found himself nodding toward Leah, watching her. “I reckon so too.”

They spent the afternoon along the waterfront, Charlee having a swim, and together they made a sandcastle.

It was simple fun, and Mac knew that anyone passing them would have thought they were a normal family enjoying themselves.

Only he knew different.

In bed, he and Leah were a union of heaven and pleasurable bliss. But there lay his dilemma, something that had snuck up on him, surprised him.

There had to be more than that in a marriage. In his marriage… The one he’d never wanted.

Now what?

Back at the apartment as the sun began to set, Mac determined they should eat dessert before dinner, which brought peals of laughter from Charlee. After dinner, he left Leah to deal with showering and bedtime stories.

Left alone, he viewed the car headlights in the distance as they crossed the bridge to Auckland’s northern shores—workers going home to their families.

And his family? Who exactly was his family? Charlee? Leah? But for how long?

He didn’t have to see Leah to know she had walked back to the lounge. His skin sparked as if a live current arrowed across its entire surface.

“Thank you for taking me to pick up Charlee.”

He tried to shrug off her thanks.

“And for the afternoon at the beach. It was fun.”

He smiled at that. “Yeah it was, wasn’t it? We should do it more often.”

“You don’t have time,” she said, and Mac couldn’t help but notice the wash of sadness in her eyes.

Did she want him around? Was that it? “Heck, I’ll make time.”

“That’s not what I meant, Mac. She called you Daddy. She can’t do that.”

Mac’s gut churned. Damn it. And things had been going so well. “Why not?”
Yeah, why not?

Leah stood so close to him his body ignited into overdrive, and his breath hissed. He wanted to hold her, kiss her and make love to her again.

“Because you and I are only temporary,” she finally answered.

Hell! He’d forgotten that. He was in too deep, and somehow this wasn’t a business deal any more.

Seemed to him, though, that despite the nights they spent together, Leah was hell-bent on reviving their business deal and keeping him at arm’s length.

She’d recovered from her faint and the color in her cheeks had returned once she’d realized that Charlee was okay, though he couldn’t say the same for him. Having her pass out on him kinda hit him hard. Made him start thinking things through.

Leah nodded toward the ethereal lightshow blanketing the cityscape. “Every time I see the city lights, it brings back lots of memories.”

“Good ones?”

“For the most part. Seeing the city’s lights was something I looked forward to every year when we came back.”

“Back from where?”

“Oh…everywhere. My parents were modern-day hippies, gypsies of sorts, and we moved around a lot.”

“Sounds idyllic.”

“In some ways it was—the freedom of the open road, new beginnings, though being a child, I didn’t see the hardships like the lack of income, the way some people would look at us as if we were…dirt. We didn’t belong anywhere.”

“Is that why you love the farm?”

“The farm is steady, and steady is better than not knowing where you’ll be next week or month or tomorrow. In the winter months, when there was no fruit picking, we would come back to Auckland. It was then that my mother would weave stories about those lights.”

Mac snorted. Mothers! “Lucky you.”

“Back then, the lights became fairy lights, and in my mind thousands of fairies turned them on at nighttime just for me. I wanted to believe it so much. I would dream of how my life would be.”

“And then you grew up,” he said, hating the sudden bitterness clouding his tone.

Leah tilted her head slightly, looking at him as if she were trying to figure him out. “What’s got into you?”

He wanted to say it was her, but he knew it wasn’t just that. It was talking about mothers, and sharing his past with Leah meant relinquishing control. He wasn’t sure he was up to such exposure.

Breaking eye contact, he headed straight for the brandy, poured one and downed it in one long, unyielding gulp. The alcohol burned into his belly. “Some of us didn’t live the fairy tale.”

“Really? That’s not what Curtis said.”

“Now why am I not surprised?” He refilled his glass, this time offering her one.

For a few minutes, she sipped her drink, her shell pink lips perched on the edge of the cut crystal holding him captive. Mac did his best to cauterize the ache hurtling through his body. Then she spoke, her voice so quiet he strained to hear, and instantly wished he’d been deaf.

“Curtis said his childhood was…fun.” She hesitated as if it pained her to speak of her dead husband, and her eyes glistened with tears about to fall. Mac cursed silently.

“My brother was the long-awaited second child. While I was the…disappointment.” Voicing it made it real but no less painful, even after all these years. “I was the one who broke the sainted Grainger mold, who dared to want something different, while your beloved husband played his cards right. Curtis did what was expected of a Grainger son.”

“You mean Grainger Imports?”

“Grandfather built it up after…well, after he lost something of great value. After the second world war, he got into a bit of debt and thought he could win it back.”

Leah’s face bleached white. “Your grandfather was a gambler?”

Her shock surprised him. “Are you about to faint on me again?”

She shook her head.

“Leah?”

“I’m all right.” She brushed him away, uncertainty washing across her haunted face. “All that gambling really didn’t do the Graingers any good. Tell me more about your childhood.” He sank onto one of the sofas, Leah sitting on a padded stool opposite him. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs, chin cupped in her hands. “Tell me. Please.”

He stole a look at her. How could he refuse her pleading? “I was so different, I used to wonder if I were adopted.”

“You’ve the same eyes as Curtis. The same as Charlee’s.”