Don’t Call Me Sweetheart (20 page)

“Whitney!” The thunderous shouting echoed through the quiet
house.

Whitney slipped into the darkened dining room and waited
anxiously, hoping that he would tire of chasing her. Slumping into a nearby
chair she tried to convince herself that he wouldn’t hurt her.

“No. The scars he’ll leave won’t show.”

The dining room door smashed open against the wall, rattling
the china on the buffet. “Whitney! Damn it, woman, don’t make me tear this
house apart to find you!”

Why hadn’t she told him? Why? Why? Why?

She heard him fumbling for the switch and suddenly the room
was bathed in blazing light. She knew she was lost as she watched him push his
way through the tables to her. He yanked her out of her chair so fast it
skidded across the floor and into another.

“Whitney Lane…Lane McLaughlin. How quaint! How simple! So
simple that you’ve probably laughed your ass off thinking about all the poor
dumb fools who haven’t put the two together. Fools like me, right?”

In his anger Christian grasped her arms and shook her. Whitney’s
teeth rattled in her head and she held her hands out reflexively against his
heaving chest to steady herself. She had never seen him like this, not even
that night in New York. The burning condemnation in his piercing eyes sparked
Whitney’s anger.

“There wouldn’t be a problem if you had kept your hands off
my computer! What was on it was personal and any decent person would have left
well enough alone! Or do the rules of decency not apply to you?”

The narrowing of his dark eyes told Whitney that she was
approaching the danger zone again. Instead of backing down she narrowed hers too.

“This is my house and everythin
g
within these walls
is my concern, including the personal belongings of my wife. If you didn’t want
it read, you shouldn’t have left it on the screen in plain sight. Or perhaps
that was your plan all along. Have you been gathering material for your next
novel? Tell me, darling. Do you need more research like we had last night?”

“No!” Whitney screamed, her composure buckling. She knew if
he touched her with anything but anger she would never be able to stop the
overwhelming emotions that would conquer her. “It’s not like that, Christian!”

“No? Well, I think it is,” he answered menacingly as he
whispered into her ear. “I think I’m a just a great, big experiment to you, a
source of endless, raw, up close and personal, male reactions that you can plug
into your little stories and peddle to those unsuspecting creatures who buy
your drivel.”

He doesn’t mean it, Whitney girl. He’s just angry over
being deceived.

Yes he does,
she sobbed to herself. He thought her
writing was a vile, horrid affliction on society.

He doesn’t. You’ve just cut him too deeply. He has his
pride, you know.

Before she could reply, Christian caught her chin between
the strong fingers of one hand, turning her face to his. Black eyes speared
hers as he murmured softly, the subtle tone belying the rage he felt at her
latest betrayal.

“If you needed a willing partner you only need to ask,
sweet. I’ve never denied that I find you irresistible. I’ve craved your
luscious body since the moment I laid eyes on you, all shy and demure in that
restaurant. What a joke! You’re a Jezebel, a wanton little vixen, aren’t you? Don’t
bother denying it, I know you schemed to get where you are, so now you’re going
to get what you came for. I just don’t understand why you went to all the
trouble of marrying me.”

You would if you knew the whole truth.

“Christian, I…” Whitney didn’t get the chance to finish her
protest. Her lips were claimed in a fiercely savage kiss that set her blood on
fire. It wasn’t punishment, it was paradise. Kisses were rained over her lips,
her eyes, her cheeks. Christian seared her neck with burning caresses and was
careful not to forget the delicate, sensitive areas around her ears. Whitney
moaned with desire, her knees trembling, her heart racing with the need for
more.

“You like that don’t you, vixen?” Christian teased as he ran
the tip of his tongue up the side of her neck and let it dip into the shell of
her ear. “You want more, don’t you? Yes, I thought so.”

Whitney arched into him despite herself. She didn’t want
this but she was powerless to stop it. Christian’s hands were everywhere,
stroking her back, kneading her breasts beneath the heavy confines of her
cumbersome shirts, sliding down past the elastic waistband of her sweats,
touching all her private places. She pressed tighter against him, crying out
his name shamelessly.

“Tell me what you want, sweet thing.” His voice was
dispassionate, cold, but Whitney didn’t care. She knew that he was doing this
to hurt her, to humiliate her as he felt he had been. She was past caring. She
wanted him so badly she could no longer think clearly.

“Christian…I need…I want…”

“Tell me what you want!” His fingers were teasing her
unmercifully and Whitney sobbed against his shoulder where she stood, mortified
that she could so quickly be reduced to begging.

“Christian…oh, God.!”

“Tell me!” he commanded harshly, increasing the tempo of his
hand. “Beg me to end this for you!”

“God, Christian. Yes. I need you, please! Please!”

Abruptly Christian released her, leaving Whitney sagging
against the wall, bewildered and still caught in the throes of her incomplete
arousal. She turned confused questioning eyes his direction and was struck by
the hatred she saw there.

“I thought about really screwing you but you would have
enjoyed it too much. You certainly enjoyed doing it to me. No, this is better. Now
we both know that even the great Lane McLaughlin can be reduced to begging for
what she wants.”

“What? What did Lane McLaughlin ever do to you?” Whitney
gasped.

“Nothing I suppose, unless you count forcing me to
prostitute every scrape of dignity I possessed in order to fulfill a dream. In
order for me to keep my home I had to sell my soul to an industry that
perpetuates the idea, your idea, that romance is all wine and roses.” Christian
stepped away from her, forcing himself to look past the wounded green eyes of
the only woman he would ever love. The woman he could never really love now.

“You, Whitney Lane McLaughlin…don’t have a clue what real
love is all about.”

Without another word he turned and disappeared. Whitney made
her way woodenly to her room and collapsed on the bed too numb by the
experience she had just endured to care that she was still fully clothed.

Right. Christian was right about her and now he hated her. He
hated her. She had lied to him and this was her punishment. Funny. He thought
by breaking her spirit he could humble her but it hadn’t worked. Breaking her
heart had.

Somewhere around two a.m. she got up and sat before her
beloved desk to write for the last time. No story this time though. Instead she
wrote a letter. Christian found it the next day where the keys to his truck had
hung.

Christian had read the letter so many times during the past
three days that the edges were worn and crumpled. No matter how many times he
read it though, he could find nothing to make him think Whitney would ever
return. He had scared her away forever. How could he have been such a fool? But
then, how could she have lied to him like she had?

“Had she really?”

He wasn’t sure where the irritating little voice was coming
from but he had begun hearing it at the oddest times ever since Whitney had
left. He wished it would just shut up. The things it told him made him look too
closely at himself and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw.

An angry pounding at the front door drew his attention
momentarily from the log he was adding to the fireplace. He knew without
looking who it was. In fact, he had been expecting Stephan soon and was glad he
had been given time to try to think of a reasonable excuse for his behavior. Even
now listening to his friend’s footsteps bounding up the stairs and stomping
down the hallway he still wasn’t able to formulate anything that sounded
remotely plausible. He had treated Whitney like the jerk she had accused him of
being. He didn’t deserve her love. He didn’t deserve her.

“Christian Dade! You blasted son of a—” Stephan burst
through the door and his fist connected immediately with an uppercut to
Christian’s nose, “bitch!”

“What in the world possessed you to treat someone like
Whitney the way you did? Are you blind, man? She’s an angel, she’s perfect! What
were you thinking blackmailing her into marrying you?”

Staring up at Stephan from where he had landed on the floor,
Christian was wondering the same thing but he wasn’t going to let anyone else
beat him up more than he had himself. Whitney had lied circles around him and
let him make a fool of himself while he ranted and raved about Lane McLaughlin.
He couldn’t let go of his anger no matter how hard he tried. And lord knew he
had tried. Every waking moment since he had realized she had actually left him.
It wasn’t easy.

“She was no angel, friend or didn’t she tell you the whole
truth?” Christian sprang to his feet and caught Stephan off guard, pushing him
into the wall. “Did she tell you she and Lane McLaughlin were one and the same?
Ahh. I see that little tidbit was conveniently overlooked while the two of you
were planning your life together!”

“What do you know about this Lane McLaughlin? Who the hell
is she?” Stephan demanded, grabbing the front of Christian’s shirt, poised to
deliver another crack to his face.

Christian easily broke his hold and took a step back and a
deep breath. “She’s a lying, manipulative shrew ready to use anyone for her own
personal gain and she and Whitney are one and the same!”

“What are you talking about for heaven’s sake?”

“Whitney is actually a romance writer, a very successful one
I might add and she hired me to sell her blasted books, then after I made her
mad she bought my place out from under me.”

“If you disliked her so much, why’d you marry her?” Stephan
demanded refusing to believe that Whitney was capable of anything he had heard
so far.

“I didn’t know she was the writer yet and it seemed the only
way I could get the inn back. I didn’t have the money to buy it and she seemed
receptive to the idea.”

“She wouldn’t have been receptive to that idea, you idiot! She
and I were going to be married, why would she need to marry you when she could
have what she wanted without going through such drastic measures? Unless. My
God, she must not have…”

“What? What! You’d better spit it out quick, Stephan, before
I beat it out of you!”

“She didn’t tell you there was a problem with the sale, did
she?” At the negative shake of Christian’s head Stephan slumped into the
nearest chair and pushed his hands through his sandy hair, his face suddenly
looking haggard and drawn.

“Sit down, Christian. I have a lot to tell you.”

Suspiciously, Christian complied, sure that somehow he
wouldn’t like what he was about to hear.

“When Whitney came out here last spring she was just a shell
of the woman she is today.”

“I know,” Christian muttered under his breath.

“Of course you would,” Stephan growled, “and if my bloody
hand didn’t already hurt like hell, I’d take your head off again.”

“What for this time?” Christian questioned, not relishing
the idea of once more trading blows.

“She told me that you met in New York. It didn’t take a
genius to figure out you had hurt her very badly. That’s what has kept her from
committing herself to me all this time.”

“Oh,” was all Christian could answer, for once all out of
quick retorts.

“Well, thanks to you, she decided that she needed to change
her attitude about herself and Mountain Meadow Inn seemed the perfect place to
do just that. She told me she was quite welloff but not that she was this Lane
McLaughlin you mentioned. Once she bought your place, the change in her was
immediate. She became more sure of herself, more confident. She lived to take
care of that place, loving every minute, every detail that needed taking care
off. Most of all she loved meeting all the new people who would come through
those doors, giving her chances every day to practice the people skills she
said she had always lacked due to her upbringing. I didn’t question her about
her past and why she was so reserved when it came to men but I did make it
quite clear that I was interested in more than just a casual relationship with
her. On several occasions, she talked about wanting to be able to feel the same
way and that if I could just wait for her to work through some personal
problems she knew that we would be able to share a wonderful lifetime together.”

“Sounds like you two were Ozzie and Harriet all over again.”
Christian’s pride was taking a beating at discovering that Whitney hadn’t been
lying about her desire to marry Stephan. She really hadn’t wanted him.

“We could have been if you had stayed out of the picture,”
Stephan snapped. “Right before I left town my secretary found that the documents
for the sale of the inn had not been signed correctly. Whitney had signed Lane
McLaughlin’s name rather than her own. When I questioned her about it she
admitted that Lane McLaughlin was her former employer and since she had signed
her name so often she must have done it again out of habit on your document as
well. Did you know that she made the decision to purchase the inn before she
even knew who the seller was? She nearly backed out when she heard your name. And
she would have returned it to you as soon as we married. I had planned to make
sure she wouldn’t need it anymore once we were together.”

Christian’s mind was racing as these new details were
brought to light. The first night of his return, Whitney had thought she had
the upper hand but she must have seen Stephan the next day before he had left
town and found that she didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to ownership
of the inn. Once he found out about the mix-up she knew she would have had to
rely on his generosity and honor to allow her to rectify the situation before
the deadline, or she would have to forfeit her position. It all made sense now.
That was why she had accepted his proposal. She hadn’t wanted to give in to him.
So much for Stephan’s theory that she was ready to give it up. Marrying him had
insured her half ownership, just as it had him. But he hadn’t needed to go to
such lengths. And she had known that, damn her! No wonder she had wanted to
hold onto her precious virtue so she could have an annulment. She’d been
willing to take her chances in court too. What other explanation could there
be?

Maybe she loves you too.

“Oh, just stay the hell out of this,” Christian muttered.

“Did you say something? Stephan asked, unwilling to let
Christian continue spouting lies about Whitney.

A vague shake of Christian’s dark head was all the answer he
received.

“I can only assume,” Stephan continued, unaware that
Christian wasn’t really listening anymore, “that she saw your proposal as her
only chance to hang on to a share of the house, considering the background you
two shared. I need to know if there was anything else that happened in New York
that I should know about.”

“Only the fact that she allowed Tess to hire me to make her
books sell like hotcakes so she’d have enough money to buy my home away from
me. I guess my commentary about Lane McLaughlin the night we tried to go out
didn’t sit well since I was actually slamming her and she didn’t bother to
point it out. She took the woman scorned thing a bit far though…”

“How can you sit there and make jokes, Christian, when what
you’ve actually done is totally destroy three people’s lives with your
highhanded behavior.”

“Don’t lay the blame for this on my shoulders, bud. That
little firebrand did her fair share of stirring the pot too, you know. At any
given moment she could have told me who she really was and saved herself and
me, a mountain of aggravation. But she chose not to do that, didn’t she? She
chose to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, all the while trying to manipulate
my home away from me. The way I see it, the least she deserved was to be forced
to accept my attentions for a while.”

“The way I see it, you captured a very special woman’s heart
and then did your best to twist the pureness right out of it.”

“What do you mean, captured her heart?” Christian scoffed,
not really wanting to hear Stephan’s answer.

“Any idiot, ’cept you it seems, could see that she was still
in love with you when she got here. But you were too stupid to admit it, weren’t
you? You had no idea what a precious treasure you’d been given.”

Yes he did but Christian’s head still wasn’t ready to
acknowledge what his heart was screaming, what it had been telling him since
his hot-headed angel had saved his soul from the darkness he had been living
in.

He loved her. He hadn’t realized how much until the morning
after the snowstorm when he couldn’t find her and had been wild with worry to
find she had left. She had taken his truck and managed to get through the
drifts in the driveway to where the snowplows had cleared the highway. Standing
in the freezing morning air, staring at her tracks, Christian knew he had lost
the one woman who could ever tame his roving heart. Loving her was the easy
part. How did he forgive her?

Because of the letter, that was how.

The letter. Was it true? Had everything just been one huge
coincidence? Was it possible that Whitney hadn’t set about to take revenge upon
him by buying his home away from him while he was down on his luck? He looked
down in his clenched fist and studied the ragged paper filled with the only
words that could ever hurt him. It was even more crumpled after his fight with
Stephan. Silently he handed it to his friend.

Stephan smoothed the worn piece of paper carefully, then
slowly read the contents, occasionally glancing over at his friend whose
shoulders now slumped with dejection brought about by the realization that he
had been wrong all along. And now it was too damn late.

Christian,

By the time you find this I plan to be as far away from
you as possible. I can’t stay with a man who treats me the way you do. I never
intended to stay anyway.

I wanted Stephan to draw up an annulment as soon as he
returned so that I could leave you. I think he’ll understand my reasons for
marrying you and can explain them, but he’ll never be able to forgive me for
surrendering to your touch when I had the chance not to. I’ve lost him too, it
seems.

When he comes to see you on his return he’s to have
divorce papers ready for you to sign. I think we can both agree that this would
be for the best. I can’t keep you from your family’s home, no matter how much
it has come to mean to me during the past year, so I’m returning it to you and
relinquishing the proceeds of the sale back to you. Consider it a gift to
ensure the continuation of something very near and dear to my heart.

One last thing. You shouldn’t judge Lane McLaughlin too
harshly. Everyone needs a little romance in their lives, even if it is just the
stuff that dreams are made of. If it weren’t for the storytellers, our dreams
would surely die.

Whitney

“That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?” Stephan asked
coldly, handing the paper back to Christian. “Unlike some, I followed Whitney’s
wishes to the letter and have the divorce papers drawn and ready for your
signature. Believe me, I’ve never enjoyed preparing documents more in my life.”

Christian flinched. He deserved that and more for all the
injustices he had heaped on Whitney. She hadn’t deserved any of the accusations
he had thrown at her. She had simply fallen love with his home and had
possessed the means to procure it. Reaching out his hand he took the envelope
being offered and stared at it for several moments before opening it. There, in
bold black and white, were his name and Whitney’s—Mr. Christian Warrington Dade
and Mrs. Whitney Alison Dade. Reason for divorce; incompatibility. The paper
seemed to burn his hands almost as much as the tears burned the back of his
eyelids. He couldn’t lose her. He wanted her too much, loved her too much. Divorce
was out of the question.

Turning to the fireplace Christian deliberately threw the
papers into the flames, watching them curl up and disintegrate. He wouldn’t let
the same thing happen to his marriage.

“What are you doing?” Stephan cried, diving for the papers
and snatching them from the flames. They were past saving and he reluctantly
let them drop, glaring at Christian and waiting for an explanation.

“I won’t divorce her.” It was a simple statement,
matter-of-fact and to the point. Christian thought it said it all. Stephan didn’t.