Dean smiled back. It was so...nonsensical. At the same time, he felt the moral ground beneath him shift.
Meanwhile, Kelly leaned over the little table. "He needs a steady influence, a solid foundation. Someone he can count on."
"With me," Dean repeated, and laughed. But the ground beneath shifted some more.
"Granted, it would help if you moved," Kelly went on. "Into a normal house, you know."
"Excuse me?"
Kelly rolled her eyes. "Something under ten thousand square feet. Picket fence. Shaggy dog." She sighed. "Although I have to admit it's nice having someone else cook and clean."
Dean blinked at her. "You imagine me living in suburbia?"
"Why not?"
Dean just looked at her. Everything she was saying was absurd, and she had to know it. He was supposed to move to some tract house and play the doting father? To Robby? At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where she put herself in this picture. "No," he said, too loudly.
"No?" Kelly shook her head. "All right, forget the part about the normal house. It isn't important. What's important is that Robby can rely on you."
Dean's eyebrows jumped. "Exactly."
She smiled. "Then we agree."
"No." They agreed on nothing, and never would. The woman was — from another galaxy. Dean leaned forward. "The idea is that Robby has to learn to rely on himself. He can't depend on me — or on anybody else, for that matter."
Kelly's eyes widened. "He's nine years old!"
Dean leaned back. "So?"
"So?" Kelly's lips parted.
Dean crossed his arms. "There's no better place to learn self-reliance than boarding school. I started when I was six."
"Six," Kelly said softly.
"Right." Dean lifted his chin. He'd been sent off to boarding school at age six, right after Kirk had divorced his second wife, the one Dean had let himself grow fond of. Sending him away had been one of his father's few good decisions. Now Dean's jaw tensed. "Going to boarding school taught me self-reliance. Discipline. Self-control. The rewards of applied persistence." And it had kept him from growing fond of any future frivolous stepmothers.
"Oh," Kelly said. There was a lost look on her face.
Dean's eyes narrowed. "What?"
She gave a slow nod. "I think that's what you learned at boarding school."
"Right. That is — " He stopped short. "Oh no. Robby isn't so different from me. He can learn the same lessons from school that I did."
"Discipline, self-control, and the rewards of applied persistence."
"That's right."
Kelly shook her head. "I think you really believe what you're saying."
Dean's jaw clamped shut. She was acting condescending. Of him!
She looked up, an odd smile on her lips. "Tell me, Dean, when did you have a chance to be a little boy?"
His brows came down slowly. "Excuse me?"
"When did you ever get to let somebody else be in charge, take a break?"
Dean's frown turned into a glare. What was she talking about? Why on earth would he ever want somebody else to be in charge?
Kelly kept her odd smile. "When did you learn to let go?"
Let go? Dean scowled. But he couldn't deny that her words conjured up an image of Kelly herself, naked and moaning beneath him. He wrapped one hand around his too-hot coffee mug. "Let go?" he queried icily. "I wasn't aware one needed to learn to do that."
"Neither was I." Kelly looked down to dunk her tea bag. "Until now."
CHAPTER NINE
As she gazed out the car window on the drive home, Kelly supposed she could have handled that better. It wasn't diplomatic to tell a man that his entire life philosophy was lacking. It put rather a damper on an evening. But darn it, she didn't want Dean to think he could impose his terrible life philosophy on Robby! Discipline, self-control, and the rewards of applied persistence.
It was the philosophy of a man who'd had to make do as a child — a man who couldn't even see what he was missing: any real happiness.
Kelly looked out at the streetlights dotting the darkness and felt an ache in her chest. Sent away at age six! It was obvious Dean had never known a moment's emotional security. Nobody had ever taught him it was okay or safe to care.
Kelly snorted softly to herself. What Dean needed was someone to impose a new philosophy on him.
In the darkness, Kelly went very still. Oh, no. No, no, no. She hadn't just thought that. She hadn't. Yet she drew in a sharp breath.
"Something wrong?" Dean spoke for the first time since they'd left the parking garage in Boston.
Kelly cleared her throat. "Um, no. Nothing's wrong." And it wasn't! She hadn't just thought about trying to impose a new philosophy on Dean. Doing something like that — Well, for one thing, it wasn't her place. And for another, the man wasn't the least bit open to such a thing. He was quite satisfied with himself just the way he was.
Of course, he didn't even know who he was.
Kelly choked.
"Swallow the wrong way?" Dean looked over. Their eyes met briefly. Briefly, because Kelly jerked her gaze away.
Good Lord. Dean knew who he was. She was the one confused. She kept thinking she saw 'her' Dean under there.
Oh, but you have.
Kelly clenched her teeth. She hadn't. She hadn't! But the little voice inside chattered otherwise. She had seen moments, instants in time. There'd been moments of...connection.
No! Kelly scowled and shook her head to get rid of the tightness in her chest. All right, maybe there'd been moments. So what? They were only moments. Did she imagine she could string them together to recreate the gentle, caring man she'd known for two days in Las Vegas?
That would be delusional. Part of her whole self-destructive bit. Dean was the man she saw before her: stiff, cold, and formal. Annoyingly superior. Bossy.
Not exactly a soul mate.
Definitely not — and never would be — the man she'd met in Las Vegas. He was not — and never would be — the man she'd married.
Kelly's last thought echoed in her mind. She was just realizing its import when the iron gates of Dean's estate appeared in the car's headlights. She sat staring dumbly forward as Dean pushed a remote control button in the car and the gates swung open.
So she'd completed her investigation. This Dean was not the man she'd married. After only a little more than a week she'd figured it out. Decided.
Dean drove through the gates and up the winding drive toward the house.
Kelly felt heavy inside. The trial period was over. Her vows carried no weight. She could go home. She should go home. Immediately.
At a fork in the drive, Dean bore right. Five garage doors appeared before them. One began scrolling open. Dean moved the car into its slot, shifted into park, and turned off the motor.
Kelly bit her lower lip. She ought to tell Dean it was over. Now. Then leave in the morning.
Dean opened his car door with an expensively hushed click. Without looking at Kelly, he got out of the car. She sat there, depressed beyond words as he rounded the hood of the car — her exquisitely mannered, soon-to-be-ex-husband. He bent and opened her door with another classy hush.
Kelly pasted on a polite smile and turned to face him. He looked back, devilishly handsome, and utterly chill. His lips were beautifully formed, and perfectly straight, with not a smile or expression of any kind playing upon them. His eyes were the crystal blue of an angel, but they expressed not one ounce of human emotion. Oh, he was the most remote human being she had ever seen. Utterly alone.
Kelly's polite smile faltered.
Dean's expression, impassive as it was, seemed to freeze. "What?" he demanded. "You've been upset for the past five miles. For God's sake, what is it?"
Kelly couldn't possibly get her smile back in place. Yes, he was remote and chill, no doubt about it. Not 'her's' at all. But she'd suddenly remembered Troy's bet with Robby. Troy thought Dean wouldn't be able to keep her for two whole weeks. And he'd be
right! The thought made Kelly's chest squeeze.
"Kelly," Dean's voice was warning.
She could barely breathe. God, she was going to do it, become the next person in the chain, the chain of people who had left Dean, making him the way he was, this way that could not be changed.
Don't fool yourself! An alarmed voice squawked in her head. He'll be no worse off once you've gone. Dean had grown too set in his ways, his defenses too established, for her brief appearance in his life to cause a ripple. She'd be like a speck of dust that had gotten into his eye. She'd be like a bug that had been squashed beneath his shoe. Insignificant. Unimportant.
All the same...
"I'm staying," she heard herself say.
Dean's brows snapped down.
Kelly felt the oddest sensation, like weights being lifted from her shoulders. Part of her stood back and wondered what the heck she thought she was doing. This was absurd, futile, and possibly self-destructive.
But another part of Kelly felt lighter than air. She stepped out of the car. "I'm not going to give up on you, Dean, even if you are the most set-in-his-ways, unlikely-to-change man I have ever met."
Dean's brows relaxed. "Wha — ?"
"He's in there somewhere, the man I married." Kelly winced. "All right, he's buried pretty deep, but that doesn't mean we can't try to dig him out. We have to try, in fact. We have to...get the real you out of there."
Dean's eyes widened.
Kelly closed the car door behind her. She had no idea what this thing was they were supposed to do, but she felt like she was floating three feet above the ground. There was a shimmering, wondrous excitement inside her. Something, something had to happen.
With a laugh in her throat, she stepped forward. In surprise, or maybe to set her away, Dean put his hands on her waist. The heat of his fingers through the silk of her pantsuit was all the instigation Kelly needed.
Her hands went up to his face, her feet arched to tiptoe, and her lips touched his.
Dean's hands flinched on her waist. He uttered a small sound.
Kelly uttered a sound of her own, a moan of sheer pleasure. Lord, he felt good, even better than she remembered. The slight scratchiness of his jaw was an erotic counterpoint to the civilized scent of his aftershave. No less provocative was the solid strength of him against her torso, and his taste — Her tongue grazed the closed seam between Dean's lips. He tasted like all of God's forbidden fruit wrapped into one. Her hands slid into his hair.
Dean didn't participate. But neither did he resist. He simply stood there, taut, and moaned again.
The sound, mingled with his continued immobility, brought Kelly back to earth. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. She was kissing him. She halted, stunned, then drew her lips away. Inhaling deeply, she took a step back.
She saw immediately she hadn't stopped a moment too soon. Dean looked as though he'd been pushed to some inner limit. His eyes were wide and his lips swollen. As Kelly watched, his expression of bemusement faded. Hard determination took its place. "Don't," he said, low, "ever do that again."
Kelly felt a quick spike of fear. He was right. She shouldn't have kissed him. He wasn't 'her' Dean. But such thoughts were washed away by pure satisfaction. She'd obviously made an impression. "Oh, good," she said, and tapped his cheek. "You're worried."
She was delighted to see his eyes blaze. Then, before she could do anything more, something that might worry herself, she turned and, as dignified as possible, wobbled out of the garage.
###
It was really not a good idea to be drinking. Nevertheless, Dean nursed a brandy as he looked out his bedroom window in the hours following his opera date. Behind him, the brown and gold silk counterpane on his bed lay untouched. He turned the glass in his hand.
They'd kissed. Rather, Kelly had kissed him. He had...resisted.
More or less.
Dean lowered his glass. More rather than less. But was he relieved? Was he proud of himself?
Not exactly.
What was the point of resistance, he was starting to wonder? What did he gain by turning away all that sex appeal? He could have kissed her back. He could have pulled her close and given her everything she'd been asking for. By now they could have been on the other side of the house, naked in her bed. And he'd have been satisfied. Finally.
Dean rubbed his thumb on the rim of his glass. On the other hand, perhaps he wasn't giving himself enough credit. He'd kept his cool down there in the garage. He'd remembered the long-range consequences. If he took Kelly to bed, if she could give him the satisfaction he'd experienced in his dreams, all hell could break loose. There'd be nothing he wouldn't do for her, no idiocy at which he'd stop.
He'd become a damned fool.
Dean took another swallow of brandy and narrowed his eyes at the reflection of his bedroom in the window glass, the somber wainscoting and dimmed lights. He didn't want to be a fool. So it had been smart to resist her. Oh, yes, he'd steered clear of the exact situation he'd been trying to avoid since Kelly had first burst into his downtown office. The situation where he handed her all the power.
The only part of her scheme he didn't get was this bit about 'releasing' him. What did that mean?
Dean swished the liquid in his glass. She spoke as if the man Dean had been while acting under hypnotic suggestion not only existed, but awaited liberation. As if Dean were keeping him under lock and key.
Dean stilled his glass. Even if a part of him was under lock and key — which it wasn't — what difference could that possibly make to her? Why should she care if Dean were 'free' or not? In fact, wouldn't it be more to her advantage if he were utterly caged?
A strange sensation shimmered through Dean. He frowned past the bedroom's reflection and into the darkness outside. For a moment he almost imagined — But, no. That kiss had been no more than what he knew it to be. Bait. He knew her type. Even if he couldn't plumb her every motivation, he understood the basics. She was out for herself, and herself alone. Whatever her ploy, he wasn't falling for it.
There would be no more kissing.
She would discover he was not as far gone as she had thought.
With a firm nod, Dean set his brandy on the windowsill. Then he went to take a cold shower.
###
All Felicia wanted was to be alone that Saturday night. But after her Aunt Hilda and her Uncle Garrett had brought her home from the opera, she had to sit in the living room with them and her mother, drinking coffee and discussing the production they'd just seen. The conversation had been an endurance test, since this particular performance of La Bohème was one Felicia would have liked to blot from her mind.
"Do you have a headache, Felicia?" Her mother, fully dressed and perfectly coiffed, though she'd merely been at home watching TV, regarded her daughter through narrowed eyes.
Belatedly, Felicia realized she was rubbing her forehead. She lowered her hand immediately. "Maybe I do have a headache." The excuse would certainly earn her an interrogation regarding her health the next day, but at least it would get her out of the room.
"Oh, don't let us keep you up if you're not feeling well," Uncle Garrett boomed. If Felicia had actually had a headache, his voice would not have helped.
"Thank you, Uncle Garrett." Felicia rose from the Italian sofa.
"Take some chamomile tea with honey," Aunt Hilda suggested.
"Think a couple Tylenol would be more effective," Uncle Garrett muttered under his breath, then smiled innocently at Aunt Hilda.
Felicia thanked her aunt and uncle for their escort to the theater — the theater she wished to God she hadn't attended — bade her mother goodnight and, finally, was able to go up the main stairs of the family mansion to her bedroom.
She closed the white paneled door of her room after herself and then turned to lean against it with a deep, quivery sigh. The royal blue and pearl cream furnishings of her bedroom swam before her eyes.
Troy had been telling the truth. Imagine that. T
roy, that smug-smiling, smarm-dripping slug had been telling the honest-to-goodness truth.
Dean was married.
Felicia drew in and then released another quivery breath. Yes, Dean was married, and to whom? To a woman who looked like every man's sexual and emotional fantasy rolled into one. A real knockout; vibrant, warm, and inviting.
Everything Felicia was not.
With a sound that was part laugh and part groan, Felicia pushed away from the closed bedroom door. She hugged her arms as she paced the length of her bedroom, the thick carpet soft under her feet, the lacy curtains of her bed a subtle mockery.
Little girl. You're just a little girl.
Not a woman.
Felicia ground her teeth and went on pacing. Tears stood stupidly in her eyes. Dean had been her last, her only, chance. For years she'd thought of Dean as her way out. She could be married, own all the privileges and status of that condition — without having to deal with any of the disadvantages.
The primary disadvantage she'd wanted to avoid was a husband who cheated. Dean wouldn't have been one of those. He was completely honorable, completely unlike Felicia's father, who'd enjoyed one mistress after another the entire span of her parents' marriage.
The other disadvantage of marriage Dean would have saved her from, or so Felicia had thought, was having to satisfy a man in bed. She'd thought Dean was...like her. Driven by his work, sober and serious. Not distracted by the more basic elements of human nature.
Now that she'd met the man's oh-so-alluring wife, Felicia knew better.
Good God, what if they had married, only for her then to discover — ?
Her eyes widened at the mere thought. Coming to a stop by the large, mullioned window, Felicia crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back to the window. She didn't want the glass to show her a reflection of herself. She didn't want to see the deep deficiency so well hidden beneath a fashionable exterior.
She was frigid. She had to be. At twenty-eight years old, she'd never lain with a man. She didn't even want to lie with a man. She didn't want the physical or emotional vulnerability that would be involved.
Dean, she'd thought, would not have desired that from her. With Dean she could have been safe.
A laugh escaped her. Well! Not only was Dean married, but he was clearly not safe. That wife.