Sleeping With the Enemy (24 page)

“Just in time,” he said as though it were perfectly normal for him to be standing in her living room, looking weary and rumpled in charcoal slacks and a black Blaze golf shirt. “Your tea is ready.”

She stood and gaped at him as he reached behind her and
pushed the door—
her door
—closed. “What—?
How—?’ Bridgett glanced around her apartment. “How did you get in here?”

Jay dragged his fingers through his already mussed hair. The lines fanning out from his eyes were a little deeper this morning. “Simple. Gwen let me in.”

“Gwen?”

“Mmm,” he said. “I’m on the hook for providing an exotic locale for her fortieth, but that shouldn’t be too hard.” Jay smiled and his dimple nearly did
her in before panic gripped Bridgett yet again. “Charlie?” Surely his sister hadn’t suffered another emergency.

“She’s going to be just fine, thanks to you.”

Bridgett released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. His smile never wavered, and those eyes of his were hypnotizing her. She shook herself. It was just exhaustion from a four-hour layover in Chicago. Damn it, how was she
going to get over him if he kept showing up when her defenses were down?

“You shouldn’t be here,” she snapped. “You wasted a trip.” She stomped into the kitchen and snatched the screaming kettle off the stove, wanting to scream herself. After reading his letter, Bridgett had barely been able to get on that plane last night, and now she was going to be forced to kick him out of her home. She
wasn’t sure she could do that. Her hand shook as she poured, splashing hot water on her finger. “Ouch!”

Jay was beside her instantly, taking the kettle from her hand and turning on the cold water before he placed her finger under the stream. Moving behind her, he took a half step forward so that her body was cocooned in the warmth of his. The familiar scent that was uniquely Jay teased her
nostrils, making Bridgett’s breath catch in her chest. She desperately wanted to lean into him and make him forget that he hated her. Maybe she could survive a loveless relationship after all.

His lips found the sweet spot beneath her ear. “I’m sorry.”

Bridgett let her shoulders relax but nothing more as she
turned off the water. Jay’s embrace didn’t waver, though, and she was left with
her back pressed to his chest.

“I’m sorry for what Delaney did to you. To us,” he whispered. “I swear she’ll be paying for it by spending the rest of her life in prison.”

She slumped back against him and his arms wrapped around her more fully as he nuzzled her neck. “I won’t be sending her any fan mail,” she said.

Bridgett felt his chest rumble before his lips pushed beneath her blouse
to trail along her collarbone. “Not unless it’s laced with something noxious.”

They stood like that for several long moments, each one soaking up the familiar feel of the other’s body, and Bridgett thought that maybe—
just maybe
—everything would be okay. Until Jay ruined it.

His breath fanned her ear. “I meant what I said in the letter.”

Of course he had. Only Bridgett could no longer
give him the children he’d written to her about. She tugged his hands away and stepped out of his embrace. Slowly, she turned to face the man she loved so much. Who, it turned out, returned her love. At least until she told him the truth. He’d run back to his beautiful vineyard then. Her gaze locked with his and she watched as the hope there faded into wariness.

Bridgett sucked in a steadying
breath. “I can’t give you what you want.”

Confusion replaced wariness. “And what is it that you think I want?” Jay gripped her elbows, pulling her in closer. “Besides you.”

Getting the words out was harder than she thought. It was a secret she’d never shared with another soul. Bridgett blew out a breath. “I can’t—I can’t give you children.”

The room was silent for a long moment as
both their breathing stilled. “And why is that?” he asked eventually.

“I know you think I—I got rid of our baby, but believe me, I would never throw away a part of you.” The tears she’d been shedding for days began to flow again, and Bridgett couldn’t seem to make them stop.

Jay placed two fingers beneath her chin so his eyes met hers. “I was fed a bunch of misinformation, Bridgett. I
know now that most of it was wrong. Tell me what happened.”

The profound calm with which he spoke to her spurred her to continue.

“I was afraid to tell anyone I was pregnant, so I didn’t go to the doctor right away. I don’t know if they would have been able to tell that early anyway, but I always wondered . . .” She thought of Charlie blaming herself earlier and Bridgett cringed. It was
so easy to make the fault her own. “The pregnancy was ectopic. By the time I realized it, it was too late. The rupture caused scarring on my uterus. I’ll never be able to carry a baby to term.”

His arms were around her before she finished her explanation. She shed more quiet tears while Jay hugged her fiercely. His lips brushed the top of her head as he spoke. “You shouldn’t have had to go
through that alone. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there with you. Jesus, Bridgett, I’m sorry that you’ve had to live with this alone for all these years.”

Jay kissed her then. It was a tender kiss—one filled with remorse. “I love you, Bridgett,” he said when his lips finally left hers. “I fell in love with you that first day when I found you stuck in the mud. My appointment wasn’t with Vincenzo
DiSantis. It was at another vineyard. But I brazened my way in there because I didn’t want to have to say good-bye to you yet.”

She gasped in surprise as a tenuous happiness began to build inside her.

He remained somber, his unwavering eyes practically boring a hole in her. “Now you listen to me, because this is finally the truth. I don’t care if your uterus is scarred or if you’re missing
a limb or you have some wasting disease. I love you just the way you are. I always have. And I want to spend my life with you, for however long that is. You fill me up and make me whole, Bridgett, and I’ve spent the last thirteen years trying to feel whole again.” He kissed her again soundly and Bridgett’s body began to grow warm. “I lied yesterday when I said this was a business deal. I was
just
fooling myself. I don’t want to live without you. Please, tell me you feel the same.” The last part came out as a whisper and Bridgett’s tenuous happiness exploded into the real thing.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, managing nothing more than a nod before his lips found hers again. Before she knew it, they were a tangle of naked limbs in her bed. The autumn sun streamed in the
window as they slowly and reverently made love to each other. Afterward, they lay intertwined—whole, as Jay put it—and Bridgett couldn’t hold back the question that nagged at her.

“Why do you think she did it?” she asked as her fingers traced a pattern on Jay’s chest.

He sighed wearily. “I wish I knew. Blake and I were never unkind to Delaney. I think some people are just inherently mean.
I don’t think I wanted to see it in her.” Jay squeezed his arm around her. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

Bridgett rolled onto his chest and placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t apologize for wanting to believe the best about someone. It’s a very noble trait to have.” She nuzzled his chin.

But Jay remained still beneath her. “Except I didn’t believe the best in you.”

She peered
into his blue eyes, which were damp with apology. “I never understood why you thought I would abort our child,” she admitted.

Jay reached over to the nightstand and pulled out a worn letter from his wallet. Bridgett sat up against the pillows when he handed it to her. Her hands began to shake and her body grew cold as she read the words.

“I didn’t write this.”

He kissed her shoulder
and then her cheek before letting his lips hover next to her own. “I know that. Now.”

Bridgett couldn’t help the sadness that seeped into her body. “We lost all those years because of one messed-up woman.”

Jay rolled on top of her. “In business it’s called cutting your losses and making up for lost revenue. That’s what we’re going to do.” The look he gave her was nothing short of toe
curling. Bridgett gave him a wily smile of her own as the heat of his gaze melted away the sadness.

He was leaning down to kiss her when a loud pounding sounded at the door.

“Yoohoo! Bridge, it’s me, Gwen.”

Bridgett groaned. “Oh my God, she really knows no boundaries.”

Jay nibbled at her lower lip. “Ignore her. I have her key, remember?”

“Clearly, you don’t know my sister that
well. She’ll stand out there all day until we let her in. She’s taking the divorce pity a little too far if you ask me.”

He reached back over to the table, this time to grab his cell phone. Jay punched in a text and then tossed the phone back on the table.

“What are you doing?”

Jay grinned slyly. “Wait for it.”

“Italy!” Gwen screeched from outside the door. “That’s a perfect birthday
spot! See you two later. Much later.” And then she was gone.

“Now, where were we?” he asked before his lips found her breast.

“We were about to kiss and make up. Again.”

“Oh yes, I remember now. We’ve got thirteen years to make up for, Bridgett,” Jay promised as he slid into her. “I hope you’re ready for some serious long-term negotiations, counselor.”

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the second book in Tracy Solheim’s Second Chances series

ALL THEY EVER WANTED

Coming from Berkley Sensation in January
2016!

When he was ten years old, Miles McAlister meticulously and very thoughtfully planned out the remainder of his life. Sitting in the tree house his father had built for him and his four siblings, Miles had put pen to paper and scratched out his future as he saw it: Eagle Scout, All-state track star, high school valedictorian, Duke University, Rhodes Scholar, law school, politics, and,
most importantly, President of the United States. Twenty-three years later, he’d revised that list a time or two to include a few things a fifth grader might not have envisioned—like losing his virginity at the national high school debate conference or delaying law school while he backpacked through Europe with his girlfriend. But overall, he was well on his way to executing his carefully mapped-out
existence nearly verbatim.

Until life had thrown him a curveball. More than one, actually.

His two brothers and two sisters—as well as the majority of the people in his hometown of Chances Inlet, North Carolina—had dubbed him ‘The Ambitious McAlister’ with good reason, however. Nothing was going to interfere with
the goals he’d set all those years ago. And that was how he found himself
on the expansive wrap-around porch of his mother’s popular bed-and-breakfast stoically enduring the June heat. With its railings draped in red, white, and blue bunting, a dewy pitcher of lemonade on the wicker side table, and his brother’s golden retriever snoring at his feet, the Tide Me Over Inn afforded Miles the perfect backdrop for wrestling back control of what he perceived to be his destiny.

The inn had been his mother’s pride and joy for four years now. She and Miles’s father had painstakingly restored the 1894 Victorian to all its original splendor, turning it into one of the premiere B and Bs on the Atlantic coast. Situated among lush gardens and centuries-old trees, the sprawling twenty-room home was also walking distance to the ocean and the historical town of Chances Inlet.
The B and B’s picturesque location, along with a bevy of championship golf courses in the area, guaranteed that the Tide Me Over Inn’s ten guest rooms were booked nearly year-round. Today being no exception. A crowd milled about on the verandah scrutinizing Miles’s every move.

The late-day breeze blowing inland off the ocean felt refreshing amidst the wilting humidity so typical of the coast.
Miles resisted the urge to tug at his shirt collar as the wind gently lifted the skirt of the woman seated in front of him. Rather than fix her hemline, though, she shifted her long legs suggestively, affording him an unobstructed view of a nicely toned thigh, her skin shimmering with perspiration. The smile she gave him lacked even a trace of innocence, however; instead it was outright daring.
But then, she wasn’t the one with the television cameras trained on her.

“Just a few more questions, Miles. They’ll be painless. I promise.” Tanya Sheppard, a blue-eyed, bleached blonde former beauty queen who masqueraded as the political reporter from one of Raleigh’s affiliate stations, was clearly enjoying her position of dominance in their interview. Miles was sure it was payback for ignoring
the hotel keycard she’d slipped into his tuxedo pocket during last year’s Governor’s Ball.

Pushing out a breath, he forced himself to relax against the old-fashioned glider he sat in. The guests always raved that the damn things were so comfortable, but to Miles the chair felt like he was contorting his six-foot-one, muscular body into the shape of a paper clip. His dress shirt stuck to his
back where it was pressed up against the metal chair. He ignored the discomfort, though, bracing himself for whatever questions Tanya decided to throw at him next. They both knew she had been lobbing softballs for the past fifteen minutes.

His campaign for a vacated U. S. congressional seat certainly wasn’t sexy enough to warrant the seven-minute segment on the affiliate’s weekly political
show. Especially since he was running unopposed in a district located in the county where he’d grown up and where his family was still very much a presence. Tanya was here for a bigger sound bite. She wanted revenge with all the trimmings. And that meant discussing the sins of Miles’s deceased father.

“How can you expect voters to trust you?” Tanya went right for the testicles. “You’ve repeatedly
stated that you weren’t aware of your father’s efforts to defraud the bank that financed the two-million-dollar loan for this very inn where we are sitting. Even if you didn’t know firsthand of your father’s thievery, why shouldn’t voters assume that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak?”

The ice inside the pitcher of lemonade popped, startling the dog at his feet. Brushing
a reassuring hand over its silky head, Miles drew in his own calming breath before launching into the speech he’d been rehearsing in front of the mirror since the mess with his father had been made public the week before.

“
Thievery
is a bit misleading, Tanya.” He held up a hand when she began to speak, shushing her before looking directly into the camera lens. “McAlister Construction and Engineering
is a privately owned company. If my father moved funds from one account to another, he was misappropriating his
own
money. I don’t know what dictionary you use, Tanya, but that’s not thievery in my book.”

Tanya bristled, uncrossing her thighs and sitting up a little straighter. “There’s no
if
about it, Miles. The bank examiner had an airtight case against your father.”

And the stress from
staying one step ahead of the bank examiner most likely brought on the heart attack that killed Dad.
Miles had to work to unclench his hands and appear relaxed. Donald McAlister had been a larger-than-life role model—a dedicated family man who was also a semi-pro athlete, an engineer, a small business owner, and a fixture in the community. Apparently, he’d been so devoted to his wife that he’d
bought and refurbished the inn for her while playing fast and loose with the books. Miles had no doubt his father would have made good on the loan if the economy hadn’t taken a nosedive right when the balloon payment was due. The enormous weight of the financial burden, along with his attempts to conceal it from his wife and children, certainly put Donald McAlister into an early grave.

The
emptiness Miles felt in his chest was still raw. All those years ago when he had carefully crafted his life’s roadmap, Miles had never taken into account achieving the goals without his father by his side. It was yet another indication of the short-sightedness of a ten-year-old.

“The fact of the matter is this, Tanya: My father isn’t campaigning for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
I am.
He died tragically before any of this could get resolved. But I do know this . . .” Miles looked into the camera lens again. “Whatever my father did, it was out of love for his family. Times have been tough financially for many of us these past several years. Washington has forgotten about small business and the middle class who are living paycheck to paycheck. When I take my seat in Congress,
I plan to be the voice for those people. The same people who would do whatever it takes to ensure their family is provided for and that their dreams can become reality. Just as my father did for his own family.”

Tanya covered up an indelicate snort before it could be picked up by the microphone. “And the governor? He obviously wasn’t too comfortable with having the stigma that now surrounds
you tainting his own reelection bid. Isn’t it
true that rather than keep you as his chief counsel, he put you on leave without pay?”

It was a chore for Miles to appear unfazed by Tanya’s goading question despite the anger that was fueling up inside of him, but he miraculously kept his composure. “Governor Rossi’s statement was pretty clear on the matter, Tanya.
I
requested the leave of absence.
Not the other way around. The leave is so that I can deal with a family emergency here in Chances Inlet. The issue involving my father had nothing to do with it.”

At least not in the way she was implying.

She made a show of rustling her notes on her lap. “Of course. Your mother.” Tanya brilliantly modulated her voice to sound softer, more serene. Too bad the viewers couldn’t see the hard
lines still bracketing her mouth. “How is she doing?”

Patricia McAlister had been struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle through town ten days earlier. She’d fractured her hip and sustained a concussion along with other minor injuries. But the larger trauma was to her psyche after the secret of Donald McAlister’s creative accounting had been revealed on national television.

“She’s wonderful.” Miles chose to categorize his statement not as a lie, exactly, but more as maintaining his mother’s privacy. It was partially the truth, anyway. Her hip would fully heal. “But it’s the summer tourist season, the busiest time of the year in Chances Inlet, and until she’s back on her feet, she’ll need help running the inn. Since my campaign headquarters is located here in town,
it made sense to my family that I be the one to help her out.”

Again, a partial truth. His younger brother Ryan was a professional baseball player whose contract barely allowed for him to visit their injured mother, much less take three months off during the season. Their youngest sibling, Elle, had two months left in her Peace Corps service. The oldest of the five McAlister children, Kate,
was also spending the summer in Chances Inlet. But she and her husband, Alton, were both physicians who operated the beach town’s seasonal urgent care clinic. The clinic’s hours left them little time to
help nurse his mother, much less help with the day-to-day operations of the inn. And then there was Gavin.

His brother had single-handedly carried his father’s secret for the two years since
Donald’s death, mollifying the bank examiner with the charm that had everyone in Chances Inlet eating out of the palm of Gavin’s hand. The middle of the McAlister children, Gavin was a natural peacemaker. He’d devised a plan to pay off the debt and preserve their late father’s name with no one in the community—or the family—being the wiser. Miles had to concede that it was a pretty damn good plan
given the situation. Too bad Gavin had failed to grasp that people always stab you in the back. Always. The past eight years working in politics had taught Miles that.

What peeved Miles the most was that his brother had never thought to confide in him. Born sixteen months apart, they’d grown up in the small town practically in each other’s pocket, playing on the same teams, sharing the same
bedroom, the same circle of friends. Yet, when push came to shove, Gavin hadn’t trusted his older brother to help shoulder the burden their father left behind. To help guard the family name and its legacy. He’d made some lame excuse that he’d kept Miles in the dark to protect his political future, but it felt to Miles as though his brother—and the rest of the McAlisters, for that matter—believed
he was so blinded by ambition that he couldn’t pull his own weight during a family crisis. And that stung. A lot. So, while his mother had still been in the hospital, he’d taken control of the situation and appointed himself in charge of operating the inn until she was fully recovered. He’d been living at the B and B nearly two weeks now.

“While I’m in town,” Miles continued, “I’ll have ample
time to meet with constituents and take their pulse about which issues are most important to them.”

Considering the circumstances that brought him back to Chances Inlet, the situation really had worked to his benefit—even if it meant he had to live alongside the mousey, secretive woman his mother was obviously sheltering within the walls of the B and B. Lori—if that was even
her name—worked
as the inn’s maid and cook. While Miles couldn’t find fault with her efforts, she was hiding something; he was sure of it. Especially if the smoking hot body she was concealing under her baggy clothes and her shield of artificially dark hair was any indication.

Shifting slightly in the glider, Miles tried to block out the image of a very wet, very naked Lori all soaped up in one of the inn’s
luxurious two-person showers. Her body was built for a magazine centerfold, full and curvy in all the right places and very definitely X-rated. It was no wonder she kept it under wraps with castoffs from the Goodwill store. He bit back a groan before his microphone could pick it up. Embarrassment, lust, and anger swirled in his gut.

The awkwardness was due to the fact that he’d lingered a
moment—okay, maybe two—longer than he should have while he surreptitiously admired the view that day. He’d been checking the air filters in his mother’s B and B. It was a job his father always took care of when he was alive and Miles worried was now being overlooked. That day, Miles had unwittingly walked in upon a strange woman showering in a supposedly unoccupied room. Not that anyone would blame
him for remaining. He was a red-blooded guy and the shower show was one that would have brought a dead man back to life.

The anger was fueled by the lust that burned through him then and every freaking time he’d laid his eyes on Lori in the four months since. Miles hated the way his body lit up around a woman who was a mystery—a stranger who was very clearly hiding out under his mother’s roof.
He had no business being turned on by a woman like that. And yet, she mesmerized him with the things he wanted to do with her. She was a distraction he couldn’t afford right now. Miles hadn’t felt such an intense attraction to a woman since—

“Miles?” Tanya was eyeing him curiously.

He blinked to refocus.
Damn, damn, damn.
Once again Lori had totally derailed his concentration. And she
wasn’t even within his sight line. In fact, she was probably hiding upstairs just as she did every time someone from the media visited the inn.

Glancing past the television camera Miles’s eyes landed on the anxious face of Bernice Reed. The elderly woman had managed McAlister C&E for decades and now worked as the office manager of his campaign headquarters. As usual, she was outfitted like
a neon sign, today dressed head to toe in bright pink with an oversized necklace to match. She was staring at him through rhinestone-studded glasses, wide-eyed with her hand to her chest and, knowing her, a “bless his heart” on her tongue. Beside her was Cassidy Burroughs, the teenager who operated the Patty Wagon, his mother’s seasonal ice cream truck. Cassidy was holding her cell phone aloft, shooting
video of the scene while wearing an expression on her face that clearly said “What the heck?”