The Bachelor Takes a Bride (Those Engaging Garretts!) (13 page)

And why was she making comparisons between Brian and Marco? She’d been head over heels in love with her fiancé and planning to spend the rest of her life with him. She was twisted up in lust for Marco and planning only to spend the rest of the night with him.

“What are you thinking about?” Marco asked.

“What?”

“You suddenly got this really faraway look in your eyes,” he told her.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t anything important.”

“You were thinking about your fiancé, weren’t you?”

She dropped her gaze to her plate, swirled a piece of bread through the syrup. “Not on purpose.”

“Well, I guess it’s better now than an hour ago.”

She winced at the slight edge in his voice. “Actually, I was just thinking how nice this was—having you cook for me, because Brian never did.”

“It’s only French toast,” he pointed out.

“He never even made me regular toast,” she admitted.

“You almost had chicken
piccata
,” he reminded her.

She smiled. “I got something better...and
then
I got French toast.”

“Something better, huh?”

“Well, not having experienced your chicken
piccata
, I don’t really know for sure,” she teased. “But I have no complaints.”

He cleared their plates off the table and dumped them into the sink. “Let’s go back upstairs and see if I can make sure you have no complaints again.”

“Let’s,” she agreed.

* * *

Jordyn was in the kitchen, savoring her first cup of coffee of the day, when her sister wandered in.

Tristyn halted in midstride on her way to the coffeemaker, her glance shifting from Jordyn to the bathroom overhead, where the shower was clearly running.

“I was just wondering...” Tristyn began.

Jordyn lifted her cup to her lips, certain she knew where the conversation was going.

“...if
you’re
here in the kitchen, and
I’m
here in the kitchen,
who
could be in the shower?”

“That is a good question,” she agreed.

“Would it be safe to assume it’s the owner of the SUV parked in our driveway?”

“I would think so.”

“And since I’ve seen that same vehicle frequently parked behind Valentino’s restaurant, I’m led to the inevitable conclusion that Marco Palermo spent the night in your bed.”

“Wow, Sherlock Holmes had nothing on you,” Jordyn said.

“So—” Tristyn took a bowl of strawberries out of the fridge and popped one in her mouth “—how was he?”

Jordyn was helpless to prevent the smile that curved her lips. “Spectacular.”

Her sister grinned. “Well, then—good for you.”

She shook her head. “Not good—spectacular.”

“Hmm.” Tristyn nibbled on another berry. “I wonder if that’s a result of your extended period of abstinence or the skill of your partner.”

“I’d have to vote for the partner,” she admitted. “Because it wasn’t just spectacular the first time but also the second...and the third.”

“No need to sound so smug,” her sister admonished.

“Sure there is.”

“No guilt or regrets?” Tristyn asked gently.

She shook her head. “I’m just afraid that Marco might think it meant more than it did.”

“So why don’t you tell him what it did mean?” he suggested from the doorway.

“I need to...um...get ready to...um...” Tristyn gave up trying to complete the sentence and escaped with her mug of coffee.

“Hey,” Jordyn said, forcing a smile as Marco stepped into the kitchen.

“Hey.” He reached into the cupboard over the coffeemaker and located a mug, then found the Italian roast he wanted, popped it into the machine. When the coffee had finished brewing, he carried his cup to the table and sat down across from her.

They were sitting in the same seats they’d occupied the night before, when they’d shared the French toast that he’d made, but he seemed so far away from her now.

“So what did it mean?” he asked again.

“Do we really need to do this?”

“I think we do.” His tone was unyielding.

She wrapped her hands around her mug. “Last night was...more than I imagined it could be.”

“And this morning?” he prompted.

She wondered how it was that even after everything they’d shared and done, such a simple question could make her cheeks flush. “This morning, too,” she acknowledged.

He studied her, as if he could see everything she was thinking and feeling but didn’t know how to put into words—or maybe didn’t want to. After a long moment, he nodded. “Then I’d say that’s a pretty good start.”

* * *

Jordyn didn’t expect to see him later that day.

She had to work until closing, and since Marco’s days started early now that renovations on the new restaurant were under way, she figured he’d want to get to sleep early. But she’d just announced last call to the few remaining customers when he walked into O’Reilly’s.

He asked for a cup of coffee—decaf—and sipped it while her customers finished their drinks and headed out.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked when they were finally alone.

“I wanted to see you.”

She lifted a brow. “Think you’re going to get lucky again tonight?”

“I was thinking of letting
you
get lucky.”

She laughed, because she realized that she was lucky. She didn’t know what the future would hold—she didn’t want to look too far ahead. But right now, being with Marco, she felt very lucky.

She lifted her arms to link her hands behind his head. “You’re too kind.”

“I try,” he said, and covered her lips with his own.

She melted into the kiss, her body already stirring with the memory of all the wonderful things he could do to it—and had done. Numerous times.

The stirring—the wanting—worried her. She’d been alone for a long time, and numb for most of that time. But now, with Marco, she was feeling things she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel again. And wanting things she knew it was dangerous to want.

But the knowledge didn’t stop the wanting, so she pushed her fears aside and focused on the pleasure he was giving her in the here and now.

Chapter Thirteen

E
ight days later, Jordyn had no choice but to admit that she was fighting a losing battle against Marco’s endless patience and relentless charm on one side and her own growing feelings for him on the other. But she was still reluctant to put a label on those feelings, still unwilling to admit the depth of her attachment to him.

They didn’t see each other every day. She was still working four nights a week at O’Reilly’s and he was occupied at his family’s restaurants—both the original Valentino’s and the new location, only a few blocks from her house. Despite their busy and often opposing schedules, they somehow found time to be together.

But it was never enough—and the more time Jordyn spent with him, the more she wanted to be with him. And as much as she’d resented Scott’s sudden appearance on the doorstep of O’Reilly’s, she’d recently begun to appreciate that his assumption of some of her duties meant that she was able to take more time off—even the occasional Saturday night.

On this particular one, Tristyn was away for the weekend at the race in Michigan and Jordyn was cooking for Marco.

Gryffindor was chowing down on his dinner. She suspected it was a throwback from his years on the street that he never took his time with his food. When he heard his kibble being poured into his bowl, he came running. And he devoured every last crumb as if, after seven years of regular breakfasts and dinners, he still couldn’t be sure where and when he might find his next meal. Of course, he still knew how to fend for himself if necessary—as he’d proven the night of the disappearing chicken
piccata
.

Marco kept one eye on the cat—who seemed to be keeping his one eye on him, even while annihilating his food.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked Jordyn.

“Sure—you can open the wine while I go preheat the grill.”

He ignored the bottle on the counter and followed her through the French doors out onto the back deck. “Are you trying to emasculate me?”

She opened the lid of the barbecue, turned on the gas and fired up the grill. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a man’s job to barbecue.”

“Is it?” she asked, not even trying to hide the amusement in her tone.

“It is,” he confirmed solemnly. “Going all the way back to caveman days and the discovery of fire.”

“So a woman who doesn’t have a man in her life should be deprived of food cooked on a grill?” she challenged.

“Well, I guess it would be okay for a woman to barbecue if there wasn’t a man around to do it for her.”

She shook her head. “And for that sexist remark, you get to set the table, too.”

Because she looked so fiercely sexy pointing her tongs at him, he went inside to comply with her directions.

He opened the wine and left it to breathe, then got out the dishes for their meal.

“Where are the place mats?” he called out to her.

“Top drawer of the hutch.”

He reached for the knob.

“Bottom,” she called out. “Place mats are in the bottom drawer.”

But the top drawer was already open and his gaze was snagged by the glossy folder with the name
Jay Addison
elaborately scrawled on the front.

Intrigued, he pulled it out and opened the cover. He didn’t know a lot about art—in fact, he could barely tell a pastel from a watercolor—but it was apparent even to him that whoever had created the pictures was incredibly talented.

“Ten minutes,” Jordyn told him.

He set the folder aside and found the place mats, then finished setting the table. He was pouring the wine into two goblets when Jordyn came in with the platter of ribs in one hand and a bowl of potatoes in the other. Gryff followed closely on her heels, and if he’d had a tail, Marco was sure it would have been twitching from side to side in hopeful anticipation.

“You already had Seafood Medley,” she reminded the cat when he wound between her feet, nearly tripping her up.

Gryff’s one eye looked up at her pleadingly.

Jordyn just chuckled and shook her head.

“I found this in the hutch,” Marco said, holding up the folder. “What is it?”

She set the food on the table and reached over to snatch it out of his hand. “Nothing.”

Except that it was obvious to both of them that it wasn’t “nothing,” and he couldn’t help but notice the color that flooded her cheeks. He didn’t protest when she shoved the folder back into the drawer and closed it firmly, but he didn’t forget about it, either.

When dinner was finished, they worked together, clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, and the whole time one question hovered on his tongue. When the cleanup was done and she’d emptied the last of the wine into their glasses, he finally just asked, “Is it his?”

She looked at him blankly. “What?”

“The folder of drawings,” he clarified.

“His—who?” she asked.

“Your fiancé’s,” he said. He didn’t care if it was. He didn’t even care if she wanted to frame them and hang them on the wall—in fact, he’d feel better if she did. That the pictures were kept hidden away in a drawer suggested that they were too personal to be shared.

“The folder labeled ‘Jay Addison’?”

He shrugged. “I figured it was a pseudonym.”

“It is a pseudonym,” she admitted. “But no—the drawings aren’t his.”

“They’re yours,” he finally realized. “‘Jay’ because it’s the first letter of your name and ‘Addison’ because...?”

She sighed, mentally cursing herself for leaving the folder in the drawer where it could easily be found.

“Addison is my mother’s maiden name,” she admitted.

“I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I’m not.”

Once upon a time, it had been her dream, but a few college art courses had persuaded her to change direction. She’d loved to draw and paint and create, but there were so many of her own pictures and ideas in her head, she hadn’t wanted to study or emulate anyone else’s style—an apparently fatal flaw if she wanted an education in art.

“Jordyn, your drawings are amazing.”

He sounded sincere, but considering that he was seeing her naked on a regular basis, what else was he going to say?

“Why aren’t you doing something with your talent?” he asked her now.

She shrugged. “It’s not a talent—it’s a hobby.”

“There was a contest flyer in the folder.”

“Yeah. Tristyn picked it up from somewhere.”

“Who’s A. K. Channing?”

“A bestselling science-fiction novelist who’s looking for an illustrator for a new series.”

“Are you going to submit an entry?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

Because she was uncertain and insecure, afraid to put herself out there and risk having someone else confirm what her college art teacher had decided—that she was a wannabe artist with a modicum of talent and even less desire to focus that talent into something real.

But all she said to him was, “There will probably be hundreds of entries.”

“Possibly,” he agreed.

“So the odds of my entry being selected—”

“It’s not a lottery,” he reminded her. “It’s not about odds but ability. Maybe A. K. Channing is looking for a particular style and maybe it’s not yours, but you won’t know if you don’t take a chance.”

He was right, of course, but she remained paralyzed by her former teacher’s harsh assessment of her work.

“You should do it,” Marco said.

She set her glass of wine aside and reached for him. “Do you really want to talk about my childhood dreams?” she asked, working her way down the front of his shirt, slipping the buttons free from the placket. “Or do you want to live out my adult fantasies?”

He lifted her off her feet and into his arms. “Why don’t we go upstairs and find out?”

* * *

She made him forget about the folder—at least for a while.

With Jordyn in his arms, he simply couldn’t think of anything else, want anything else. She might have been teasing about her fantasies, but she really was his dream come true. She was everything he’d ever hoped for and wanted, and when he was with her, there was nowhere in the world that he would rather be.

She was snuggled against him now, her naked body sprawled over his, her heart beating in rhythm with his own. She’d lit the candles again, and their flames flickered and danced.

He stroked a hand down her hair, watched her lips curve in a slow, contented smile.

“You really are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

She propped herself up on an elbow. “It’s the candlelight,” she told him. “Every woman looks beautiful in candlelight.”

He trailed a hand down her side until it rested on the curve of her hip. “There was hardly any light the first time I saw you—just a quick flash of lightning—and still my heart stopped for three beats.”

“
That
you’re making up.”

“I’m not,” he promised. “It happened exactly like that, exactly that fast.”

Her brows lifted. “What happened?”

“I fell in love with you.”

The hand that she’d lifted to brush her hair away from her face trembled, the curve of her lips faltered. “Marco—”

“I know—I shouldn’t have said it,” he acknowledged, but he’d been holding the truth of his feelings inside for so long already, and they refused to be denied any longer. “I should have realized you’re not ready to hear it.”

The panic in her eyes confirmed that was true. “I can’t—”

“I’m not asking for you to say it back,” he assured her. “I’m just asking you to let me acknowledge my own feelings.”

“You don’t even really know me,” she protested.

“Seven weeks ago, that might have been true. But even then, I knew that I would love you.”

“You couldn’t possibly know such a thing.”

“I did,” he insisted. “My grandmother always said that when I met the woman I was destined to be with, the realization would hit me like lightning.”

“And you think—because you first saw me during an electrical storm—the lightning was some kind of sign?” she asked incredulously.

“When you say it like that, it does sound kind of far-fetched. And maybe the lightning was just a coincidence, but my feelings for you are real.”

“The attraction is real,” she acknowledged. “I’m not convinced there’s anything more than that.”

“How can you say that after what we just shared?”

“One orgasm is hardly a foundation for forever.”

He lifted a brow; she blushed.

“Okay—several orgasms,” she allowed.

“You’re deliberately demeaning what’s between us because you’re afraid to acknowledge that it’s more than a physical thing.”

“I’m not demeaning it,” she said. “I’m just not turning it into something that it’s not, and you need to accept that I don’t want the same things you do.”

“I think you do. You’re just afraid to let yourself reach for them—afraid you’ll get close only to have them slip through your fingers again.”

“I like my life the way it is,” she insisted.

He nuzzled her throat, felt her shiver. “Right now, I have no complaints, either.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Marco.”

“Which you wouldn’t worry about if you didn’t care about me,” he pointed out, tracing the curves of her torso.

“Of course I care about you.” Her breath hitched when his palms skimmed over her breasts. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t.”

“Then I can be satisfied with that for now.”

* * *

She let him convince her, because as much as she didn’t think she would ever fall in love with him, she didn’t want to let him go, either. She knew she was being selfish, and probably unfair, but she had no desire to change the status quo.

Because no one had ever touched her the way he touched her. No one had ever made her feel the way he made her feel. Except that couldn’t be right. She must have experienced this same excited anticipation with Brian, but he’d been gone for more than three years now and she didn’t remember. There had been a time when she’d wanted only to stop hurting, and then she’d felt guilty to realize that her memories had begun to fade along with the pain.

She didn’t want to think about him now; she didn’t want her memories to interfere with what she had with Marco. But then she realized there was no danger of that at all—she couldn’t remember Brian; her mind and her senses were filled with Marco. Only Marco.

The realization terrified her.

She hadn’t expected to feel so much so soon, for him to be so important to her. She enjoyed being with him, whether they were on opposite sides of the bar at O’Reilly’s or snuggling on the sofa in her living room. She missed him when they weren’t together and found herself looking forward to when she would see him again. And she knew that if she wasn’t careful, she could fall in love with him, and that was too risky. She didn’t want either of them to get hurt.

* * *

“Fun, Food & Fireworks” was the theme of Charisma’s Fourth of July celebration, and the whole town got into the spirit. Buildings were decked out in red, white and blue bunting and the Stars and Stripes flew proudly on every corner.

The first major event of the day was the Independence Parade, which included high school marching bands and majorettes, equestrian riders and tumbling troupes. There were also pipes-and-drums bands, church groups, Cub Scouts, local sports teams, motorcycle clubs and service veterans.

The parade started at the college and finished at Arbor Park, where there was face painting and balloon animals for the kids, market stalls and homemade crafts for the shoppers, and food vendors offering everything from ice cream and popcorn to barbecue sandwiches with baked beans and fried okra.

For as long as Jordyn could remember, her parents and sisters had gathered together with all the aunts, uncles and cousins for a potluck meal in the park. Over the years, the number and composition of the family had changed. Many of the cousins that she’d played with when they were all kids were busy with kids of their own now.

The summer that she and Brian were engaged, he’d been here with her. She’d loved having him by her side, watching her cousins with their spouses and their children and counting the months and weeks until the wedding when she and Brian wouldn’t just be engaged but actually married. Except that had never happened, and before the next summer, she was alone again.