Surprise Package (4 page)

      
Finally, Gilly shoved a manuscript across her desk and stood up, pacing across the crowded cubicle. “I don't know what to do about telling Jeff. I've tried to confess several times, but then I get to thinking about Scarsdale and Afghan hounds and—”

      
“Afghan hounds?” Charis put down her celery and gave her friend an odd look.

      
Gilly waved a hand dismissively and kept pacing behind her desk. “Jeff's mom raises them. Everything about his background is so...so perfect, and everything about mine isn't.”

      
Charis walked over and took Gilly by both arms. “You won a full scholarship to Oberlin and graduated summa cum laude, kiddo. You're smart and good; and, frankly, I'd kill you for your body—if they could do full body transplants. Look, it's no crime to come from a poor family; and it's sure as hell no crime to work for a romance publisher either—unless this guy's a real snob; and if he is, who wants him?”

      
“I do!” Gilly's face reddened as Charis chuckled gleefully. “Oh, I didn't mean to imply that he's a snob. We don't go on fancy dates, and he wears old jeans and sneakers. He's never tried to impress me. In fact, I practically had to pry every bit of information about his family out of him.”

      
“So, you're got the hots for the guy, but you're still not sure about him.”

      
“That makes me sound awful.”

      
“That makes you sound human, Gilly. And still insecure as ever. You've got to get over your past and enjoy the present.” Charis' big brown eyes were filled with sympathy. “Look, sweetie, there is absolutely no reason this Jeff shouldn't love the real you. You have to believe in yourself.”

      
Gilly sighed. “I'm trying, Char, honest.”

      
Charis pressed a card key into Gilly's hand. “We're leaving Friday morning and won't be back for three weeks. The penthouse is yours. Live it up, sweetie!”

      
“You're a living doll, you know that?” Gilly replied, hugging her friend.

      
“Yeah, but by the time I eat all that wonderful French food, I won't be Barbie-sized, that's for sure!
Ciao
,” she said, tossing the remains of the celery stick in the trash as she headed for the door.
Maybe this guy will ground you in reality. Then again, it's hard to keep your feet on the ground when you're walking on cloud nine.

* * * *

      
Gilly straightened the magazines on the Ligne Roset coffee table, then fanned them out again. Her nerves were utterly frayed, she thought, gazing around the Lawrences' lush Park Avenue apartment. Some digs. The picture window directly facing her had a smashing view of the Manhattan skyline, glittering like jewels in the night. The living room was thirty feet long, an unheard of expanse for most New Yorkers. On one wall, a huge stone fireplace soared all the way to the ten-foot ceiling, gas logs giving off cheery warmth. A long sofa of butter-soft terracotta-colored suede stretched sinuously against the opposite wall, flanked by two club chairs in deep moss green. A painting that was either an original Picasso or a darn good copy hung over the sofa.

      
Gilly's feet sank into the thick pale gold carpet as she made her way soundlessly to the kitchen off one end of the living room. The terra-cotta-tile floor was polished to a rich luster. Her heels clicked over it as she checked the tray of canapés and crystal bowl filled with crushed ice and boiled shrimp. A bottle of Stags Leap Chardonnay was nestled in its sterling ice bucket. There was another bottle chilling in the Sub-Zero...for afterward.

      
If only there's a before.
Gilly hadn't been this nervous since her scholarship interview with the committee at Oberlin. She walked down the hall to the big bedroom where a king-sized water bed sat enthroned on a raised platform, its fluffy moss-green comforter inviting the viewer to sink into the softness. How would it feel to make love on a water bed? She hoped she'd find out soon.

      
The floor-to-ceiling mirrors in Charis' dressing room reflected Gilly's slender figure. She appraised herself critically, smoothing an errant curl that kept slipping out of the French twist. Her sole extravagance on her modest salary had always been clothes. Although she shopped the sales at Bloomie's, the prices on Oscar and Anne, not to mention Gucci, were still steep. But worth it. She was glad she'd splurged on the Versace caftan. It looked casual and chic—and had the added benefit of being very simple to slip out of.

      
The security intercom buzzed, interrupting her critique. Breathlessly, she pressed the button, and the doorman announced that Jeff had arrived. “Send him up,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Get a grip, girl. You're carrying on like one of Gwendolyn Gleeson's simpy heroines!”

* * * *

      
Jeff rode up in the soundless elevator, admiring its dark walnut paneling and gleaming brass fixtures. Some class act. They must pay editors a lot better at the big houses than he'd imagined. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if a woman as successful as Gilly would want to marry a struggling assistant district attorney, then quashed the thought with horror. Good grief, he'd met the woman barely a month ago! No reason to be thinking of anything as permanent as marriage. Just saying the word aloud normally made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. But then, he'd never met a woman quite like Gilly Newsom. She was funny and bright, wholesomely small town, even if her family was wealthy and she had a high-powered job in publishing.

      
The elevator stopped on the seventy-fifth floor, and the door opened silently. He walked across the marble foyer to apartment 7501 and rang the bell. Gilly opened the door the moment he buzzed, indicating that she'd been waiting on the other side. As he handed her the bouquet of white roses he'd bought from a vendor on the way over, his gaze traveled appreciatively over her body.

      
She was wearing something soft and flowing made of sheer silk in a dramatic tiger-stripe print. The neckline was cut in a low vee, revealing a sweet amount of pale flesh. The gossamer fabric faintly outlined tips of her breasts as she stepped back, inviting him inside. She buried her nose in the bouquet and inhaled. It was all he could do not to inhale her!

      
“How did you know white roses were my absolute favorites?”

      
He grinned. “I could claim ESP, but all I really had to do was watch you every time we passed a florist's shop.”

      
“That's much sweeter than ESP,” she said, noting the way his crisp white shirt stretched across those broad, muscular shoulders and contrasted with his naturally dark coloring. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and the collar open. He wore age-softened jeans that looked as if they'd been spray-painted on. Her throat suddenly felt dry. No wonder. All the moisture in her body had moved south!

      
“Come in and make yourself at home—after you open the wine, that is,” she said, taking his battered leather bomber jacket and hanging it in the entry closet.

      
He surveyed the huge living room. The soft sounds of Mozart's
Andante
surrounded them, floating through the vast space. “Wow. Even my old man would be impressed by that view, not to mention the painting. Hard to believe your super would give you grief about having a dog in a place this expensive.”

      
“I'm glad you approve,” she replied nervously.

      
“Not nearly as much as I do of you,” he said, taking her into his arms. When she slid her arms up around his neck, the silk folds of her caftan rustled softly, and his nostrils were filled with the essence of vanilla. “Mmm, you smell good enough to eat,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

      
Gilly chuckled. “Silly, you're smelling the flowers.” The bouquet was draped over his shoulder, still clutched in her hand.

      
“That's what they say to take time to do, isn't it?” He continued his leisurely path of kisses and soft nips, running his mouth across the silky skin on her collarbone, then traveling up to the pulse racing at the base of her throat, sliding from there to her delicate jaw.

      
Her fingers combed through his hair, but she almost dropped the roses in her other hand when his mouth finally claimed hers. What began as a soft exploration suddenly turned to voracious hunger for both of them. Mouths open, tongues dueling, they pressed their bodies together, hips rotating and gliding in promise of things to come.

      
Jeff slid one hand from her small waist over her ribs to cup a breast, working the nipple with his fingertips until it stood out pebble hard. She moaned when he finally broke the kiss, but he continued to hold her pressed tightly against his lower body. “I'm going too fast, I know, but I've wanted to do this ever since you sat across from me in the coffee shop eating that damned cheeseburger.”

      
“I wanted it, too...but a woman has to be careful,” she murmured, stroking his jaw with her fingers. “You must've shaved really close tonight.”

      
“There are places I don't want to give you whisker burn,” he said wickedly. Then, stepping back, he lifted her arm and the roses over his shoulder. “I think you'd better get these into water before they wilt.”

      
“Think you can wait?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

      
He looked down at the bulge in his jeans with a rueful laugh. “Believe me, I've been in no danger of wilting since I met you!”

      
Gilly could feel the heat stealing into her cheeks. “You can make me blush like a schoolgirl.” That fact did not induce her to take her eyes from his jeans, however.

      
“I find the trait endearing; but if you don't want me to ravish you right here on the entry floor, you'd better stop looking and blushing.”

      
“Right. I think we should at least take advantage of the carpet in front of the fireplace.” She turned in a cloud of gold and black silk and headed for the kitchen. “You can open the wine while I put these in water.”

      
She picked up a Baccarat vase from the library table and headed toward the kitchen with Jeff following, admiring the way her hips swayed, faintly outlined through the sheer fabric of the caftan.

      
“Where's the corkscrew?” he asked as she filled the cut-crystal vase with water.

      
“Er, over there,” she said vaguely, gesturing in the direction of a bank of drawers on the island in the center of the kitchen. She thought she remembered that Bill kept his wine paraphernalia somewhere in there. She prayed he did.
Stupid! Why didn't you search for the damned corkscrew when you brought the wine home?

      
When she turned her attention back to arranging the roses, he rummaged through a couple of the drawers and located the implement, then opened the bottle with practiced ease. She turned and watched as he completed the task. Of course, he'd know all about fine wines. She only hoped the man at the wine shop hadn't steered her wrong on the Chardonnay.

      
He inspected the vintage with raised eyebrows. “I'm impressed.” When she picked up the bowl of shrimp and the beluga canapés and carried them into the living room, he thought,
I'm also in way over my head.
This woman was used to the finer things, no doubt about it. He pushed the troubling thought out of his mind and followed her, placing the wine bucket on the low kidney-shaped table near the fire.

      
Gilly arranged the food while he poured the cold golden liquid into two of Charis' Waterford flutes. They settled down on a big pile of pillows she had artfully arranged directly in front of the crackling fire. Handing her a glass, he raised his to salute her. When she responded, the clear ring of crystal sang in the air, air now filled with intense anticipation. As they sipped, their eyes never broke contact.

      
Jeff leaned forward and skewered a fat shrimp from the bowl. He held it out for her to take a bite. When she did so, he popped the other half into his mouth. Suddenly, Gilly had difficulty remembering how to chew. He smiled at her, and she took his dare, picking up a canapé and offering him a bite. As he swallowed it, she watched the movement of his throat. Even the man's Adam's apple was sexy!

      
“I saw that once in a movie,” he said.

      
“
Tom Jones
?” She watched him fork another shrimp and offer it to her, only this time instead of waiting for her to finish, he bit into the other end. As they slowly chewed toward the center, he slid the fork out and tossed in onto the table. Their lips met in the middle, tasting of sweet shellfish and salty caviar. After a quick brush that left every nerve end in her body zinging, he took her wineglass and offered her a sip. She drank. Then, he turned the glass to the exact spot she'd sipped from and took a swallow, dark hooded eyes fixed on her lips.

      
“I guess some things are worth waiting for,” she finally managed to whisper.

      
“Yes,” he replied, placing the wineglass on the table and raising his fingertips to trace the bow of her lips. When her tongue darted out and caressed the pad of his index finger, he inhaled sharply. “I think we've waited long enough.”

      
“Oh, yes,” she breathed, but then her eyes grew round, her cheeks pink once more, as she pressed one hand to his chest, holding him off. “Do you have...that is...er—”

      
“I used to be a Boy Scout,” he said, withdrawing a condom from his shirt pocket and laying it on the table beside them, charmed by the way she ducked her head shyly. “Now...where were we? Ah, yes.” Jeff reached up and began unfastening the jeweled combs holding her hair, letting the long, pale copper strands fall heavily around her shoulders. He took one silky curl and raised it to his lips, rubbing it sensuously across his cheek. “You have lovely hair. Never cut it, please?”