The Sweetest Deal (7 page)

“He was married.”

That jolted him. “Oh.” Married?

“I didn’t know.” Pain coated her words.

Bastard. Max wished he had the jerk in front of him right now, so he could set him straight with a right hook and a left.

“His wife was pregnant.” More pain.

“I’m sorry.” Grayson had said she wanted a child. It must have torn her up to learn the guy she loved had a wife and a baby on the way. No wonder she didn’t trust the male species. He didn’t blame her. The guy had stolen her trust, her self-esteem and her dreams for a family. Neutering was too kind for the jerk.

“I didn’t know,” she said again. “He traveled, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be gone four or five days, even weekends. He had an apartment in the city. We even talked about getting married. Then one day, I found an address tucked in his briefcase and for some insane reason I still can’t explain, I went there. It was a suburb about five miles away.”

“C.C., you don’t have to finish.”
Please don’t finish
. He couldn’t stand the pain in her voice.

“The woman who opened the door was blond and beautiful, and six months pregnant.” Max reached for her hand but she stepped away. “The baby must be two by now.”

Her expression filled with such longing he wanted to blurt out,
It’s going to be okay. You’ll see. I’m going to give you a baby to love
.

“That’s why this deal is so important, Max. I have to prove to my father that I’m over the past. That one error in judgment, no matter how major, isn’t going to ruin me. I have to prove it to myself, too.” She moved toward him. “Please? Can we make this happen together?”

He looked into those damnable eyes and saw the pain she’d been through. He could take that pain away.

“We’ll make it happen,” he vowed. He was talking about them, what they were together, what they could be.

She sniffed. “Now tell me about her.”

Her? “Candy?”

She offered a weak smile. “Your ex. My father’s future wife.”

“There’s not much to tell. It was a bad match. We were too much alike. Lasted less than a year. Then it was over.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Do you think she loves my father?”

If she’d asked him two days ago, he would have said no, but after talking with Candy, he thought that, in her own way, she did love Grayson. “I believe she does.”

“Did you love her?”

That shocked him. “Not really.”

“Have you ever loved anyone, Max?”

He knew if he told her the truth, it would only open up a flood of new questions, ones he’d rather not re-visit. Still, when he opened his mouth the truth fell out, “I loved my son. He died when he was two months old.”

“You had a son?”

Now he’d really shocked her, or maybe the better word was horrified. “Don’t sound so stunned. Even assholes like me can have a child.”

“I’m not stunned,” she said, a little too quickly. “I just never imagined you with a child. You seem like you’d be more interested in other pursuits.”

She meant women. “When you lose someone you love, you stop caring.”

She met his gaze and held it. “And the boy’s mother? Where is she?”

“When Anthony died, so did the marriage.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She reached out and stroked his hair, a gentle caress meant to soothe and ease the pain. It did exactly that. It also started a slow burn in his gut. He wanted her. Desperately.

And that scared the hell out of him.

“Well, my boy, how are the plans coming along?” Grayson Crowell eyed Max over his bourbon. They’d agreed to meet at a quiet spot a few blocks from Grayson’s office to discuss Max’s progress.

“Very well. We should have more drawings available by Thursday.”

Grayson waved a hand and muttered, “Bah! I don’t mean those plans. I’m talking about the other plans.”

“Sir?” Max toyed with the change in his pocket.

“Don’t play dense with me, Max,” Grayson warned. “It’s not good business and it might make a man wonder at your allegiance.”

Max cleared his throat. “If you’re referring to my relationship with your daughter, then I’d say it’s moving along nicely.”

“Ah.” Grayson sipped his drink. “What does that mean exactly? Moving along nicely?”

Did he really expect a play by play? Did he want Max to tell him he’d lifted his daughter’s sweatshirt the other night? Tasted her skin? Undressed her after the banquet, black garters and silk stockings, too, and it killed him not to touch her? Did Grayson really want to know Max grew aroused whenever his daughter was within one hundred feet? “It means we’re talking and spending time together.”

“Yes?”

“We’re getting to know one another.”

Grayson sighed. “How much longer is the acquaintance process going to take?”

He wanted to know how much longer before Max bedded his daughter. “I made a deal with you, Grayson, but I did not agree to provide a play by play, nor do I intend to.”

A faint smile slid across the older man’s face. “Point taken.”

Grayson had been testing him. Why? He still pondered the question later that night when Rhyder called.

“Well? Are we getting any closer to consummating the deal?”

Leave it to Rhyder to get right to the point. “Everything’s going as planned.”

“Meaning?”

“We’re on schedule,” Max hedged. Why was everyone so damned concerned with his sex life? They needed to leave him and C.C. alone so things could develop naturally.

“Good.” A sigh. “So, how many times have you had sex with the woman?”

“What?”

“How many times—”

“I heard you the first time and that’s none of your business.”

Pause.

“Rhyder, you are not going to take this situation and extrapolate answers based on frequency, position and the juxtaposition of the damn moon.”

“It’s been noted the lunar cycle has much to do with—”

“Shut up, Rhyder. Just shut up.”

“Oh God, Max. Please don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

“No, of course not.” He was going to give C.C. a baby.

“This woman—”

“C.C.”

Another sigh. “This
C.C.,
you aren’t going to get involved with her, are you?”

Max was not going to answer that question. “I’m going to have to get
involved
if I’m going to carry out my end of the deal, now aren’t I?”

“You know what I mean. You’re just supposed to have sex with the woman and get her pregnant. That’s all.”

“I’m well aware of my duties.”

“Then just do it and be done.”

“I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

“That’s not my goal, either, but a certain amount of collateral damage in negotiations is expected. Besides, it was her father’s idea, not yours.”

Max pictured C.C.’s small, fragile face. He’d like to plant a fist in the guy who put that pain there. Max meant what he said; he did not want to see her hurt.

“I’m sensing hesitation,” Rhyder said. “If you go back on your deal with Grayson, we may as well move to Dubuque and design sawhorses.”

“I’m not backing out of anything,” Max said, annoyed that everyone was so worried about the deal and not the woman at the center of it.

“Good. Keep it that way.”

It was time to change the subject and Max knew exactly how to derail Rhyder’s interrogations. “By the way, Candy said to say hello.”

Rhyder’s voice tightened. “Don’t mention that woman’s name. I already have a headache, I don’t need a pain in the ass, too.”

“Problems?”

“You have no idea. Some red-haired Cyndi Lauper wannabe showed up today trying to negotiate a botanical garden for Cecilia Revito. Said she was a niece.”

“Was she?”

“Hell if I know. I wouldn’t negotiate a compost pile with her. Now if it were her cousin, who by the way wrote
Astrophysics: Then and Now
, that would be a different story.”

“Sounds like just your kind of girl, Rhyder. A real sex kitten.”

“Sex starts in the brain. If I could find her, I know we’d connect, like two atoms.”

Why were women so obsessed with Rhyder? The man was about as romantic as a Bunsen burner and yet, women fought over him. Literally. “You mean you’d give up the chemist?”

“She’s gone. No mental challenge. I’m going on a quest to find Roberta Revito.”

“Who?”

“The Cyndi Lauper wannabe’s cousin—the one who wrote the astrophysics book and then just disappeared. She’s probably living in seclusion working on a new theory to save the universe.”

“Wow. Sounds thrilling. I can just picture your kids now, walking around with beakers and calipers.”

“Don’t worry about me. You just make my life easier and have sex with the woman so we can take our dream nationwide.”

***

C.C. flicked on the light and rolled her suitcase into the bedroom. After weeks away, she looked forward to satin sheets again. She flung the bag of cookies on the bed and kicked off her sneakers. A lavender-scented bubble bath and a glass of wine were the perfect way to relax.

She needed her head about her in the morning when Max showed up. The thought of him turned her insides gooey, like a warm chocolate cookie. Since the night they’d swapped secrets, she’d thought of him differently. Who wouldn’t reconsider a man who’d lost his baby? Maybe he was more than a handsome playboy with a smooth tongue and a portfolio of canned responses.

The pain searing his face as he talked about his son belonged to a man who knew how to care. She almost told him how she’d mourned the loss of her chance to have a baby, and how for the past two years, she’d not even been able to consider the idea of a child. Something told her he would understand her pain, but a confession like that would make her even more vulnerable with a man who already threw her off balance.

What had made her tell him about David? She’d become quite good at ignoring the twinges of pain and humiliation that crept to the surface when she thought of the man who’d betrayed her. Max hadn’t even pried. He’d asked in the gentlest of voices and she’d spilled the truth.

They’d avoided one another the past three days and when her father suggested they return to Chicago to finish up, hadn’t Max been a bit too eager to oblige? Hadn’t she as well? C.C. grabbed the bag of cookies and peered inside. She’d only eaten three on the trip here—a record. Maybe because she’d been too preoccupied wondering why Max hadn’t booked the same flight. She bit into a hunk of chocolate and did the only thing she knew to do in a situation of indecision such as this.

She called Roxie. The second she told her about Max and his baby, Roxie announced she was heading over with two pints of raspberry sorbet, which according to her, was the only way to hear a sob story. Besides, Roxie had her own story to tell C.C.—in person—and it had to do with Rhyder Remmington.

***

“You told the man, what?”

Roxie perched on C.C.’s couch with her pint of sorbet and a spoon.

“I know, I know. I have no idea what came over me. One minute I was perfectly composed and the next, wham, I spilled my heart.” C.C. shook her head and dug into her container.

“And he told you about his dead son? Wow, that’s heavy.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got a thing for him, don’t you?”

C.C. half choked on her sorbet. “Why would you say that? We’re business acquaintances. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” A knowing smile spread across Roxie’s heart-shaped face. “And I’m Elizabeth Taylor.”

“We aren’t involved.” But as crazy and totally illogical as it was, sometimes she wished they were.

“So—” Roxie lifted her spoon in the air and pointed, “—no touching, accidental or otherwise, no brushes against the other person’s body? No covert glances, direct or side-sweeping? No dreams? No lips touching lips? None of that?”

“Well—”

“Aha!” She waved her spoon in a gallant sweep. “I knew it!”

C.C. shrugged. “Sometimes I see sides of him that are nothing like what I thought he was. He’s kind when he doesn’t have to be. And considerate. And he’s got a wicked sense of humor. He makes me laugh, even at myself. I think I could really care about him, which scares me to death.”

Roxie’s eyes grew wide as though she were watching a love story unfold on Lifetime. “Do you think he feels the same about you?”

“I have no idea.” He’d been so gentle when she’d told him about David. Almost as if he truly cared.

Roxie licked her lips. “The guy sounds like a hunk of premium-grade male. I say go for it.”

“You would. It’s not that simple. I’m scared.”

“That’s because you put your heart, soul and every other waking part of your being into it. Can’t you just be casual? See where it leads?”

“As in casual, no-strings sex?”

“Oh, yeah, I like the sound of that.”

Thoughts of Max and sex gave C.C. a brain freeze. “I like to think the man I’m taking my clothes off for might be around in the morning; maybe I’d actually know how to spell his last name.”

“But you can’t hand him a questionnaire and a pen asking him to sign a ‘will stick around’ clause.”

“I’m scared, Roxie. Look how off base I was the last time I let somebody get close to me.”

“David was a class A asshole. They’re not all like that. Honest. But I’ll tell you one thing, your guy’s friend ranks up there with the David assholes of this world.”

“Rhyder?”

“Yeah, Mr. R&R, that’s him. Jerk.” She plopped a hunk of sorbet in her mouth and chewed.

“You’ve never met a man you didn’t like and there’s certainly never been a man who didn’t like you.”

“First time for everything.”

“What’s he like?”

Roxie threw her a disgusted look. “Picture Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four in suspenders wearing his IQ on his cuff links.”

“You’ve never been put off by extremely intelligent men. What’s different about this one?”

“There’s intelligent smart and then there’s intelligent stupid. This one’s intelligent stupid, which means he doesn’t know when to shut up and thinks he’s the most brilliant creature walking.” She ruffled her spiky hair and clenched her spoon. “And he’s obsessed with Roberta Revito.”

“Roberta? You’re kidding, right?”

The spikes shifted right then left. “I had to hear about
Astrophysics: Then and Now
and how anyone with such a
brilliant
mind could own the world. Of course, he practically begged—” she stopped “—no, that man would never beg. Let’s say he hinted several times, very strongly, that he’d love for me to introduce him to Roberta.”

C.C. set her sorbet on the coffee table and leaned forward. “Did you tell him about Roberta?”

“I said she was my cousin and we didn’t get along.”

“Well, the getting along part is true at least.”

Roxie talked about Roberta about as much as C.C. talked about David, which was fine, except for one problem—
Roxie was Roberta.

“I had to pull on my earring so I wouldn’t jump up and tell him the truth. Especially when I told him I cut hair for a living and he got all quiet like clerks do when you go in the grocery store and ask where the tampons are. You know, like it’s totally unacceptable.”

“I’m sorry I asked you to go there. I shouldn’t have put you in that position, it’s just that men have never been an obstacle for you.”

“Yeah, well, men I can handle, jerks are another story.” Her green eyes narrowed beneath two lines of black mascara. “I’m not done with him yet though.”

“Roxie? What are you planning to do?”

A smile split her pixie face. “Nothing other than teach him what his mama should have a long time ago.”

“Which is?”

“Never judge a girl by the color of her mascara.”