At Your Service (Silhouette Desire) (16 page)

“You should know better than to think that I would
let
something like this happen.” The hurt she’d ignored at his earlier, blaming words came back to her. Echoes of her mother and Charles, accusing her of causing them trouble rang in her mind. She’d thought he knew her better. And in her guilty knowledge that his ignorance was due to her duplicity, she struck out. “How could you even think that I would allow anything to hurt your business, to hurt you, if I could possibly prevent it? I would never do that. Never.”

Dropping her arm, she stood still, breathing heavily. She was surrounded by the silence of shock, in Sarah, in the drunken woman, in Tyler.

And in that silence, another sound crept on mice feet into her awareness. The sound of trickling water, rising from the floor beneath her feet, barely audible under the rollicking music of the Clancy Brothers. She looked down.

Poopsie stood spread-eagled over the toe of her right shoe, looking guiltily up at her as pee streamed over leather. The dog let out an apologetic whine.

“Grace.”

She held up her hands.

“Not now.” Deep breaths. “Anita can cover my tables. I’m going for a walk. To cool down.”

Grabbing a handful of beverage napkins off the bar and some ice wrapped in a towel, she stepped slowly out of the puddle of dog pee, turned, and stalked out.

Outside, the cool night air was a soothing hand on her skin, gently stroking the heat away. She exhaled slowly, breathing out her anger and frustration with herself, and held the lumpy, cold towel to her temple. It was ridiculous to let herself get this worked up. All this trouble over a dog. At the thought of Poopsie she sighed and dropped her glance to her shoe.

She walked away from the lights of the doorway and over to the curb, where she sat in the even darker shade of a tree whose night-shadowed leaves blocked the light of the street-lamps. Dipping a napkin into a puddle left in the gutter by the recent rain, she began carefully blotting her shoe, patting automatically as her mind wandered and ached, overwhelmed with tiredness and guilt.

I should have noticed what was going on. Tyler was right. Even if I didn’t know how it was happening, I should have noticed before now that that woman needed to go home. Not to mention my stellar lack of observation in regard to the canine invasion that had apparently been going on right in front of me. And I would have, too, if I weren’t spending so much of my time mooning over Tyler and worrying about my own problems. I wasn’t doing my job, because I was too wrapped up with myself.

Which wasn’t fair to Tyler, the one person who’d done nothing but help her. It wasn’t fair to his family, either, every one of whom was putting in time at the restaurant on top of their own jobs.

She braced her elbows on her knees and stared into the street.

Maybe it would be better if she left. Better for everyone.

Matters would, of course, become extremely hectic at the restaurant without her, but wasn’t that simply going to be even more true the longer she stayed? The more important she became to Tyler, and the more responsibility she took on at the pub, the bigger the gaping hole left behind once she was gone. And that she would be gone, soon, was not a question but a certainty. Her business,
her
business, needed her. She refused to watch everything her grandmother had worked for be frittered away by her mother and Charles on parties and clothes and easy living. She refused to let fear of them make her as irresponsible as they were. That, she would not allow.

She pushed herself to her feet and wiped the grit off her palms.

It was time to tell the truth.

She’d been dreading this moment for so long that the decision to confess was like finally getting stuck in the arm with a hypodermic needle. The pain was so much less overwhelming than the anxiety leading up to it that it actually felt like sweet relief. It was time to stop being such a scaredy-cat. She would tell Tyler. He would forgive her or he would not. Either way, she would leave. She could send one of her staff over to replace her, wages to be paid by the Haley Group, because she knew she owed him a debt and she would repay it. And maybe someday, when she had more of a grip on her life, she could come back. To see how things were going without her. To say hi.

Yanking the heavy front door open, she stepped inside the pub and headed straight for the bar. This was too important, and she didn’t trust herself to wait.

She was pulled up short by a clutching hand on her sleeve and turned to find Anita desperately blinking back tears.

“Sweetie, what is it?”

“I—I—I need—” the girl gulped and dragged her sleeve across her wet eyes “—and…and there’s a man…who won’t—” she snuffled “—and the dog is still…” She wailed, “Oh, Grace, please help me!”

Grace glanced at the bar and spotted Tyler holding off a siege of his own. He had two pitchers and six pints filling under the taps, three shakers on the bar rail, awaiting shaking and dripping condensation from their contents, and two blenders running for frozen margaritas. She caught his eye, and had no problem reading his lips.

Help her! Please!

“Okay,” she said, turning a bright grin on the hyperventilating Anita. “Deep breaths. Let’s get this all straightened out. I’ll take care of the dog and the man who won’t…whatever. You just go get what you need.”

Teary thanks, a small, grateful smile, and Grace was back in the thick of things. “I need to talk to you,” she told Tyler in the middle of one trip to the bar for more cocktails.

“I know. Me, too. Later?”

She nodded and threw herself back into the fray.

Restaurants being restaurants, and all the same no matter where they are, needing a moment to talk to the boss was as much a guarantee of high-volume business as ordering something to eat during the first five minutes of quiet after ten hours on the floor. The customers kept streaming in the front door, and although Grace was happy to hear the symphony of profit playing on the cash register bell, her own plans swirled right down the drain with the excess beer spillage under the taps.

By 2:00 a.m., she was exhausted, cranky and craving sleep with a need bordering on psychosis. She’d sent Anita home more than an hour earlier, with instructions to make some decaffeinated tea, perhaps with a slug of whiskey in it, watch some terrible late-night television and go to sleep. She’d also promised that the girl would never have to go through another night like this one.

Stripping off her apron and depositing it on a small table, she trudged up to the bar to turn in her checks and cash.

“Paperwork for Anita and me checks out, Tyler.”

“Great. Thanks,” he replied, bent over his own drawer and stack of charge slips. After a second, the flatness of Grace’s voice registered with his tired brain and he glanced over his shoulder.

She’d slid herself onto a bar stool and rested her cheek on one hand, and promptly fallen asleep. Crossing to her, Tyler could see the bruise on her temple, and her fragilely bluish eyelids fluttering restlessly. He knew her well enough to be certain that she was telling herself to open her eyes, that she was still awake. He cursed her mentally for working herself to this point of exhaustion, until the obvious corollary occurred to him.

You jerk, he thought with rising embarrassment, she’s only doing it for you. And you let her drain herself dry right in front of you. Some boyfriend—some boss—you make.

He stretched out a hand and brushed it gently over her hair. Strands had escaped from all over the elegant twist she’d made of her heavy blond hair. The loose waves skimming her cheek would tickle if she were awake.

Softly, he pushed the hair out of her face and brought his hand back to trace the slight arch of her brow. His Grace. He’d seen her at every hour of day and night, and in a mad variety of situations. Seen her face animated with every emotion, and every moment was printed indelibly on his memories.

Brows lowered, eyes narrowed to mere slits, jaw clenching rhythmically with enormous anger and yet supreme self-control.

Eyes narrowed again, this time because she was laughing, and her free expression of joy shone in her face in a wide grin that flushed her cheeks and crinkled her usually invisible laugh lines.

The special looks, reserved for Tyler alone, that melted like liquid wax over his skin, bringing the heat instantly to the surface, mirroring Grace’s flush as she saw each time how immediately he responded to her eyes.

Her free hand rested on the bar. Tyler placed it gently in his own. He could feel where the warmth of her hand had left its heat in the smooth varnish of the wood bar.

“Grace.”

“Mumph.”

“Grace.”

“Awake.”

“You’re asleep.” He pressed a twenty-dollar bill into her lax palm. “Go home. You still have the spare key. There’s a cab out front. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Hmm. ’Kay,” she mumbled, and then slowly pried her eyes open. “What’s that?”

“Bedtime, baby.”

He walked her to the door, wrapping her in her jacket and then watching as she shuffled her way to the waiting taxi. The cab pulled away from the curb and he locked the door behind her.

The click of the lock fell muffled into the dying silence of the room. A soft rattle from the back heralded the dumping of a fresh tray in the ice machine. The everyday noises of the building continued. The hum of the spinning brushes for glass-washing behind the bar. The near-subliminal rumbling of the high-tech, smoke-eating ventilation system. Even the jukebox still floated Billie Holiday at low volume throughout the room. Only, to Tyler, it all seemed as flat as three-day-old 7Up.

I’m in love with her.

In the quiet bar, with all of the life fled from the room, just because she was gone, it was achingly clear.

I am in love with Grace.

As important as everything else in his life was, his family, his business, it all paled in comparison with this overwhelming need he felt: to love her, take care of her, and know that she would always be there to look him straight in the eye and love him back.

Fifteen minutes later—paperwork be damned—he shoved his spare key into the lock to his home and snapped it open. Kicking off his shoes as he went, he arrowed straight to his bedroom.

The flood of warmth at the sight of Grace curled up in his bed stopped him at the door. With one arm flung across all of the pillows and the other hand snuggled carefully beneath her cheek, she laid claim to the space as if she belonged there.

Tyler knew she did.

Sliding next to her into bed, he gathered her carefully in his arms and whispered nonsense at her until she awoke. Reluctantly, her eyes opened, looking dazedly around her until her gaze tangled with his and a slow smile broke over her face like dawn.

“Hey.” Her word was barely audible as she kissed him sleepily.

“I love you, Grace.” Her smile stretched even wider as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, presumably in joy. He knew this was a bit of a shock to her, but he wasn’t done yet.

“I love you, Grace,” he repeated, and then put his lips up to her ear. “And I want you to be my partner in the pub.”

S
he was having the most amazing dream.

Wrapped in warmth, the soft murmur of her lover’s voice whispering in her ear, she reveled in the security that enveloped her, the love that surrounded her. Love. He slid his lips along her cheekbone, raining kisses on her face, and she knew she loved him. She tilted her head back as his mouth wandered to her throat and…

…spoke of contracts?

Visions of clouds and soft sunlight vanished into a rolling screen of legal documents, all bearing Tyler’s name and her own, surrounding Grace’s dream haven.

She opened her eyes.

Tyler leaned above her, a satisfied grin on his face. Clearly he was waiting for a response from her. Unfortunately, she had no idea what was going on.

“Did you say something?” Maybe she could buy time.

A slight frown shifted his face. “Didn’t you hear me?”

She bit her lip and tried not to look guilty as she shook her head no. She hadn’t heard him, or at least she hoped she hadn’t. But she was very afraid that he’d said something dangerous.

“You spoke to me,” he said, slightly accusing.

“I’ve been known to have entire conversations with people while still sleeping,” she whispered, and leaned up to kiss him. Maybe distraction would work better. “Sorry. I’m awake now.” She snaked her arms around his neck and pulled his face back to hers. Sinking deep into the kiss, she gave herself over to the soul-destroying feeling of his mouth on hers. Her hands fisted in his hair as desire crackled like brushfire through her body.

Tyler’s open mouth scraped against hers fiercely as his own hands raced up her sides to close with devastating familiarity over her breasts. He fit her so well. Every touch of his body on hers was as natural as if they’d been making love for years, and yet each moment was an aching burst of new amazement that he could make her feel like this. Treasured and gentle, fierce and demanding.

A moment later he pulled his mouth from hers. He manacled her wrists in his hands and pulled them away from his body to trap her beneath him on the bed.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we have to stop.” He groaned the words out between harsh breaths.

“I don’t see why,” she answered, wrapping a leg around his waist and clamping him to her. She arched her pelvis to press herself hard against him. Uncontrollably, a short moan broke in the back of her throat.

“Grace, I love you.” He slid his hands up her arms until he cradled her face, and his eyes shone above her in the dim light. “I love you.”

Joy exploded like sun in her heart. She blinked sudden tears from her eyes and her hands trembled as she laid her hands against his. Love drowned out the voice in her head telling her,
No, no, this is too soon. He can’t say this yet. He doesn’t know.

“Please tell me you’re crying from happiness,” he said, his voice low and unsteady.

“Yes, oh, yes.” The tears fell. Her throat ached. “It’s just that sometimes you can be so much in love with someone that it makes your heart hurt.”

She kissed him, blindly, over and over again, repeating the words, loving him so desperately in this moment that all of her lies and fears didn’t matter. Her mouth sought his, begging reassurance, claiming forgiveness for all the hurt she would yet cause him. She read the confusion in his body as he tried to pull away from her.

“Grace? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer, determined to love him so much in this one moment that he would never forget it, no matter what happened.

“Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips, then let it drift softly to the corner of his mouth. Teased the crease there until his mouth opened and turned in search of her fingers, which she pulled away to run across the ridge of his brow and then drift down over his eyelids, closing them softly. She trailed her hands gently down the entire length of his face, each sensitive pad of her fingertips registering the slightest change in the curves and valleys of his face, until she was running her hands down his neck and over his shoulders, still feather-light.

With a sudden push of her palms, she rolled Tyler off her and over onto his back as she propped herself up on one arm and gazed at him. He kept his eyes open this time and she skimmed his features again, traced a finger lightly over his ear, outlined his jaw, dragged her hand softly down his cheek. When he started to speak, she hushed him again and sat up beside him.

“Shh.” She started painting the muscles of his shoulders and arms with the sensitized pads of her fingertips, moving slowly, barely touching him, drifting over and over every square inch of his arms.

“I’m memorizing you,” she said, and barely registered the huskiness of her own voice. His body twitched at her words and then she felt him deliberately relax beside her.

She made her way down his chest next, still using only her fingers on his skin. Though when she leaned over him and the tips of her hair brushed against his skin and Tyler’s back arced reflexively, she allowed herself a little smile.

His stomach quivered beneath her hands, his hips rocking slightly and his breathing growing harsh as she neared his sex.

And passed it, moving the air a millimeter from his skin, but not touching him where every fiber of his being craved her hands, her mouth.

Tyler felt as though she was tearing the soul from his body, inch by inch.

When she skimmed a fingertip over the sensitive skin at the top of his thigh, where his leg met his hip, Tyler’s harsh gasp startled her into glancing up at his face.

The tendons in his neck stood out sharply, visible proof of the control he was exerting over himself to simply lie still while she touched him.

Long, shallow indentations ran down his thighs, sharply defining the muscles there and fascinating her for several minutes, until she found the silklike skin at the back of his knees and lingered there for a while. The ridge of his calf muscles was next, and the straightness of his shins, trailing down into ankles that were surprisingly ticklish.

And with each stroke of her fingers over his skin, she took him into herself, memorized his every texture, every hard angle and gentle slope of his body, and knew she would never forget any of this. With each stroke of her fingers, she could feel his hands tracing the same paths over her skin, as she knew he wanted to.

The ghosts of his fingers curling around the roundness of her arms, stroking down her breasts, across her stomach, tracing the length of her legs, and finally nearing the core of her hunger for him. As she stroked her way back up his legs to the center of his wanting for her.

One of her legs draped across his thighs, the other curled beneath her, she leaned over him. At last. Still her fingertips barely touched him as she moved her hand up the silky, strong length of him. There was moisture, which pleased her and she painted it in slick circles over the tip.

“I’ll never forget this,” she murmured, and her warm breath on his sex nearly undid him.

Then her mouth closed over him, and he was undone. Lost in the heat of her, in the dazzling sensation of feeling each touch of her hands on his body, every inch of her memorization, burst into flaming awareness. A tracery of light mapped out over his body and burning now, as her mouth set him on fire.

Tyler’s control snapped. With a savage yank, he dragged Grace up his body, locked his mouth on hers and thrust deeply into her.

And as his body rose into hers, she clung to him. Wrapped herself around him and held on as her soul raced to meet his in a crash of light and love and shuddering bursts of pleasure that pounded through her.

Grace drifted slowly back to herself. Tyler’s weight was a sensuous heaviness pressing her into the bed. Then he rolled onto his back with a groan, pulling her with him to lay sprawled across his body. His eyes were still closed as he spoke.

“I should have told you I loved you ages ago.”

His eyes blinked open and he looked up at her, an exhausted smile barely lifting the corners of his mouth. He pushed sweat-damp hair behind her ears and she arched her neck into the touch of his hands. She was still without words.

“It was just so clear. After you left the bar tonight. That I’m only completely happy when you’re with me. So I knew.”

But was love supposed to be like this? Grace wondered, as her heart broke wide open. To be so perfect in its beauty that it caused pain? She rested her head on Tyler’s chest and traced the words of her happiness on his bare skin with her fingertip.

I love you.

“Me, too.” He crushed her to him. “God, Grace. Me, too. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His breath moved her hair. “Not to mention my business. I was prepared to fail, completely and totally. And I was prepared to succeed beyond my wildest dreams and go crazy trying to solve all the problems brought by that success.”

He lifted her head off his chest and focused on her.

“But I never thought it could happen so easily, so smoothly. Because I didn’t know there was someone out there to be strong where I might be weak. To solve problems before I even imagined they existed. Someone I could rely on and trust to back me up, in everything. You’re an amazing woman, Grace, and I don’t think you know that. I don’t think you know how incredibly talented you are, but I’m going to keep telling you until you believe it.”

With his words, the light went out. Her body felt numb and cold and she wondered that Tyler couldn’t feel the chill radiating out from her skin, from her heart.

Because it was lies. All of it, lies. She did know her own talents. But Tyler did not. He didn’t know anything about her. About the life she was even now plotting to get back for herself. For the right reasons, of course, but the fact that he didn’t know any of it turned all of the shiny golden glow of his words into muddy dross.

Talented, was she? Well, with a degree from Stanford, an M.B.A. from Kellogg and a lifetime spent working in her family’s conglomerate of restaurants, she certainly ought to be. Of course, Tyler thought she was a diner waitress making good, probably with a high-school education. He could be proud of her, because he only knew enough about her to make her look good.

How much would he love her if he knew she’d been lying to him since the day she’d walked in the door of the pub? How proud would he be, if he knew that she’d run away from her own responsibilities and obligations, leaving hundreds of people employed by the Haley Group in danger of losing their jobs? She didn’t think he’d find her so amazing if he knew the truth.

And if her dream earlier was any indication, things were about to get worse.

“Tyler, listen, I’m not what you think—”

“Stop. You are.” His finger pressed lightly on her lips. “You’re smart and capable and beautiful and caring. And I want you to be my partner. You called it your restaurant earlier tonight, and I want that to be true even when you’re not on the floor.”

She started to protest, but he talked over her words.

“I know you won’t just let me give it to you. So we’ll set something up where you can buy into the business gradually, over time, until you’re a full partner. Meanwhile, everything will just keep going like it is now.”

“Stop! Just stop,” she interrupted, rolling off of him. Knowing that she could buy his business with the funds in her smallest money market account only made things worse. The sheets were twisted beneath them. She pulled at a cover in frustration until she could wrap it around herself and get out of bed. Being naked felt too vulnerable right now.

The blanket trailed behind her as she paced, tripping her when she turned to face the bed. Tyler was sitting up, leaning against the headboard. He looked calm, but clearly disappointed.

“Tyler, there’s so much you don’t know about me,” she began, and then stopped as the gross understatement threw her off stride. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around herself and shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other. If she had a free hand, she knew she’d be reflexively tugging on her hair at that moment.

“You’re right,” he said steadily. “But I know you’re afraid of something, or someone. Hell, I’d have started with a marriage proposal instead of a business one, if I didn’t think that would scare you off for good.” He grinned.

“Don’t joke,” she snapped, and saw instantly by the hurt in his eyes that he hadn’t been. She closed her eyes for a moment and stood silent. A night for many pains, apparently. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I let things get so out of control. I’m a mess, Tyler. And the last thing I want to do is to hurt you or disappoint you.”

“You won’t.”

“Don’t say that. You can’t know that.”

“You said the same thing to me earlier tonight. It was true then and it’s true now. I don’t know who you were, but I know who you are now, Grace. You would never hurt me.”

“I don’t want to. But I’m afraid I will.”

There were miles between her and Tyler, continents with unassailable mountain ranges and unbridgeable crevasses. In the middle of the room, she felt very alone. The gap between them seemed impossible to cross. If only he’d waited until she was free to tell him everything. Free to come to him as a woman in charge of her own life.

But now she couldn’t even remember why she’d decided to wait. She knew in an instant that she’d made a terrible mistake. Tyler would have been able to handle anything she could have thrown at him. But not now. Not when he’d just laid his heart bare in his trust for her. She couldn’t say anything right now without shattering that moment.

“Maybe I’d better go.”

She turned to collect her clothes, only to be caught by the naked roughness of his voice.

“Please. Stay.”

His words called to her. The moonlight spilled through the uncurtained window to skim a glow along the outline of his arm as he stretched a hand out to her.

“December thirty-first, remember? No questions asked until then. Just stay.”

It was wrong. With every breath she took in, she knew that it was wrong to stay with Tyler under such blatantly false pretenses. She knew that she risked everything, including his hatred when he found out the truth, if she continued to be with him now. She had so much to lose.