Sweet Home Carolina (35 page)

People noticed him, which worked to his advantage.

Amy watched as he enthusiastically pumped someone’s hand,
grabbed him by the shoulder as if he were his best friend in the world, and
produced a business card in one coordinated movement. She didn’t doubt he’d
judged the other man’s samples, his status on the playing field, and the cash
in his bank account at the same time.

This was one tiny corner of the huge world Zack operated in.
She’d only accompanied Evan here upon occasion, arranging private dinners with
selected executives, acting as his secretary when necessary.

She turned to Luigi, who leaned against a post, arms
crossed, surveying the chaos with professional serenity. “Do you need to go
with him?” she asked cautiously, knowing he preferred to guard Zack’s back.

The driver snorted. “He’s in his element here. You’re the
one who needs looking after. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll find someone to
do it for you.”

Amy had to laugh at his way of phrasing it. “Fine. I need
the table moved front and center. Snap your fingers, O Magic Genie.”

She could learn to enjoy having someone else do the grunt
work.

* * *

Returning from a page calling her downstairs to the
reception lobby, Emily found Amy unwrapping the crystal glassware and whispered
frantically, “The
Smithsonian
is here
for their appointment with Zack.”

The
Smithsonian
?
Amy had hysterical images of the Victorian “Castle” of the institute trundling
through the crowded aisles, its massive stones shoving booths aside and
crushing the furnishings to splinters.

She’d been watching way too many cartoons with the kids.

“I can’t reach him on his cell,” Emily continued, glancing
over her shoulder as if expecting monsters to leap from the crowd. “I left them
at the reception desk. What do I do?”

Panic. Lie down and cry. Hide under the nearest bench. Why
the devil hadn’t Zack told her the Smithsonian was coming?

Because she’d have had a panic attack just thinking about
it.

Gulping, Amy sat back on her heels and tried to think. “His
cell wasn’t working in the basement lunchroom.” She glanced back at Luigi,
who’d already lowered the carton he was carrying. “Would you go look for him
there? And, Emily, keep trying to reach him.”

She couldn’t leave important people cooling their heels in
this madhouse. An interview with the Smithsonian could bring in orders faster
than the mill could produce them. She couldn’t possibly give them the
historical detail and production information that were second nature to Zack.
She’d have to fake it until he got here.

“Escort them up here,” she told Emily with resignation.

With Luigi hunting for Zack, and Emily off to the lobby, Amy
checked the mirror in her compact to be certain she hadn’t set her hair on end
or smudged dirt on her face. She freshened her lipstick, applied mascara, and
practiced the smile she’d learned for Evan’s guests.

Left alone, she shook in her shoes and prayed she’d see Zack
confidently sauntering through the crowd before the reporters arrived. She was
an
executive,
she tried to remind
herself. A Very Important Person. She was not a housewife. She was a corporate
officer with the lives of scores of families at her mercy.

How did people live with this responsibility every day?

* * *

“They’re here, already? How unusually timely of them.”
Cheerfully, Zack shouldered the champagne crate his employee had lugged. “We’ll
need ice for this. There’s a bucket in the truck, if you would be so good as to
get it.” As the worker hurried away, Zack glanced up to see Luigi shouldering
his way through the crowd in his direction. “I am found,” he called.

“Are you trying to lose the woman?” Luigi grumbled, taking
the crate on his shoulder. “She looked like she’d pass out last I saw of her.”

“These are intelligent scholars interested in the history of
textiles and wishing to examine the valuable discovery we have made. Amy will
handle them just fine,” Zack said confidently, forging his way through the
crowd.

“She’s nervous,” Luigi argued. “You’re making a mistake if
you think you can drag her around like you did the others, ignoring them and
leaving them to their own devices.”

For a moment, Zack worried. He had left Gabrielle to her own
devices once, and look what had happened. Perhaps Luigi was right. Perhaps he should
be more careful with Amy.

But he did not have time for alarm. Seeing the video camera
ahead, he squared his shoulders and strode confidently through the crowd. He
would rescue Amy and send her back to the hotel to relax.

As the aisle opened to allow Luigi to stride through with
his heavy crate, Zack paused, stunned by the impact of their booths. He’d
chosen a corner where they could be seen from two aisles. On this side was the
living room tableau with the settle cushioned in blue silk jacquard. A hastily
improvised quilt of their various red, cream, and navy printed designs hung
casually over the back and arm, setting the colonial mood for his historic
fabrics and tying together all the other colors in the tableau.

She’d created cream-and-gold trimmed swags for the navy
velvet and framed the enlarged prints of other designs as if they were
mullioned windows. The chaise longue was upholstered in the cream brocade and
piled high in more pillows from their collection. A delicate-legged oak
sideboard with a runner of cream silk decorated in their floral design added
that touch of luxury he’d insisted upon.

She was brilliant and priceless.

Not seeing Amy or his guests in this space, he hurried
around the corner to the dining room tableau, and again he paused for the sheer
pleasure of it.

With her rich brown curls trimmed into neat layers that
framed her oval face, Amy was a model of professional style. She chatted animatedly
with a scholarly gentleman holding one of their brochures. Her eyes sparkled
with interest, and her rosy cheeks nearly matched the lovely rose suit she’d
chosen to wear. It was a matronly suit that deserved a Jackie Kennedy little
pillbox hat and gloves in his opinion, but somehow, Amy made it look as if
she’d just stepped out of a Saks display.

The writer was drinking in her every word. Smiling with
pride and fighting a decided twinge of jealousy toward the man holding Amy’s
attention, Zack shoved a hand into his pocket and strolled up as if he had
nothing else in the world to do.

The booth was packed with men examining the product.

“Zack, I’m glad you’re here,” Amy said without a trace of
hysteria. “I’ve been telling Mr. Minella how you discovered the lost designs
and a little bit about the history of the mill. He’s familiar with Ezekial
Jekel’s family history in New England.”

Zack shook the journalist’s hand, then nodded as he leaned
close to whisper in Amy’s ear. “I was going to send you back to the hotel to
rest, but how can I do without you, when you create such magic as this? Who are
all these people?”

Flustered but smiling radiantly, Amy stepped aside and
gestured toward several corporate types examining their samples. “They’re from
local furniture manufacturers,” she murmured. “I know them, so I thought I’d
take them out for a quick bite before the reception. Luigi will bring you to
join us when you’re done here.”

Before Zack could open his mouth to protest, his beautiful
executive Amy took the arm of one of the suits and led the retinue toward the
exit, leaving him alone with the reporter and photographers and a crate of
champagne.

And he had worried about her…
why
?

* * *

“Look at the orders,” Amy whispered as if fearful of waking
jealous gods. It was the end of the High Point show week, and she flipped
through sheaves of invoices they’d carried back to their hotel room.

It had been a long and exhausting week. Only having Amy to
himself every night had kept Zack going. He’d once enjoyed feasting and
partying at these industry gatherings, but he would much rather take Amy home
and slip into something comfortable now, and not just their bed, although he
enjoyed that as well. If nothing else convinced him that he and Amy belonged
together, this week with her had done it. Waking up to her tossed curls,
working closely in a high-pressure environment all day, listening to her
intelligent insights over dinners filled with guests, making love to her in the
moonlight…had shown him what he’d been missing for years. They’d scarcely had
more than a few hours at night alone together, but she had been in this
thoughts every minute of the day.

And still he couldn’t get enough of her.

But he also missed the children. He missed his ugly desk in
his even uglier office and the work they represented. He missed the people with
whom they worked. And the challenge of the cottage.

He’d always liked watching his hard work create something
new and strong, but real work was even more satisfying than filling his
company’s coffers. The sales Amy held in her hand would keep an entire town fed
for another year.

“It was you who knew everyone and steered them our way. You didn’t
need me,” he said proudly.

He wasn’t complaining. Saint-Etienne Fabrications needed
him. They wouldn’t exist without his expertise. But with Amy in charge at the
mill, he wouldn’t have to feel guilty when he ran off to Paris to look after
business. Amy could handle the mill with one hand tied behind her back. If only
she would wake up and realize it.

Instead, her expression revealed fear…and maybe, sadness?
Both tugged at his weakening heart.

“I didn’t do anything but talk.” She shrugged.

She was wearing the lovely rose silk knit shell and floral
gauze skirt he’d bought for her this past week, and she looked exquisitely
lovely. Looking at her, he was a well-satisfied man. If only he could persuade
her that she would fit into his life in Paris or London just as easily as here.

But she grew mutinous and backed off every time he came near
such a suggestion. He wouldn’t give up his career. And it seemed she would not
give up her home.

He had only to think of his parents to know how badly that
worked.

“You have a way of talking that makes a man want to listen,”
he murmured, sliding his hand into her hair. He loved the silkiness of it. He
loved more the knowledge that he had a right to touch her, and that she no
longer turned away from his caresses.

Her eyes smiled when they met his. “You are so full of it, Saint
Stevie,” she said with laughter, easing the insult by meeting his kiss with the
same hunger he felt.

It was amazingly terrifying how they fell into the
familiarity of touching each other, kissing and holding hands as if they were
mere adolescents. Zack slid his hands beneath Amy’s silk shell and unfastened
her bra, knowing as he did so that she would relax that stiff spine of hers and
welcome his hands on her breasts with a sigh of appreciation and fervent kisses.

“After these past nights, I do not think I can bear to go
back to sleeping alone.” He drew off the shell and flung it with her bra onto
the hotel dresser. “Perhaps we ought to buy that yacht you crave and sail
around the world together.”

She laughed into his mouth while her nimble fingers
unfastened his shirt buttons. “A yacht big enough for a nanny and two children
and a few schoolteachers?”

“If need be.” He pushed down her gauzy skirt and let it fall
to the floor with his shirt, lifting her to taste her breasts before carrying
her to the bed and falling down beside her.

He wanted to ask her to marry him, but an industry meeting
was neither the time nor the place. He wanted Paris and a diamond ring and
sweet music to give her the special memory she deserved. He had it all planned
out in his mind, once they had the market behind them. Once he was certain she
would say yes. Which meant conquering her fears. He prayed that wouldn’t take
too long.

“This has been a lovely escape from reality,” she murmured
as they snuggled closer, naked chests touching and arousing. She nipped a
corner of his mouth and ran her hands over his shoulders.

He didn’t want this to be an escape. He wanted this to be
the reality. He would work to make it so. “It has been all my pleasure, my
love.”

They kissed slowly, savoring what could be their last night
together for a while. The scents of sandalwood and jasmine mingled with sweat
and the metallic aroma of the rain that had slowed the final day of the market.
Humidity curled their hair and moisturized their skin while they rolled amid
the wrinkled sheets.

Amy moaned her ecstasy at Zack’s expertise, and cried out in
pleasure when his deep, hard thrusts brought them both to exquisite release.

He was a demanding lover, but one who took care of her in
ways Amy had never experienced. She’d learned to eagerly anticipate their
nights together, to share his joy or her frustration and release them in this
joining of their bodies. She’d never known she could be seduced by a kiss on
the back of her knees or reduced to molten jelly by a nibble at her nape or the
caress of his toe on the bottom of her bare foot. She exhilarated in vibrant
sensations that she’d thought lost long ago.

And when he’d worn out both of them, and they lay in each
other’s arms, mingling the perspiration on their skin, she could feel his heart
beating with hers, feel his pleasure the same way she felt his breathing. And
understood that they were sharing their days and their lives with this physical
joining.

How would she survive when he returned home?

“This was such a huge mistake.” She sighed and snuggled
closer, sliding her knee between Zack’s thighs.

“Mmmm.” He nuzzled her ear. “You are right. We should have
ordered wine first. How can you ever forgive me?”

She wanted to giggle, but the future arrived tomorrow, and
it oppressed the joy she’d learned at his hands. “I can see why you love this
life, the wining, the dining, the lack of any duties other than being yourself.
No dishes to wash, no beds to make. No responsibility except to get up in the
morning and smile. It’s an amazing life.”