obvious reluctance, he released her. “And I have to go.” He waited for her to rise and come around the desk. When she did, he fell in behind her. It was only a few steps to the door.
She felt him acutely at her back. She wanted him. She’d tried to deny it, but the wanting did not go away. So she was yielding to it, finally, her capitulation at last complete—so much so that she almost stopped in midstep and turned to him and …
No.
Not here. And not now.
She had come to the point where she realized what was bound to happen, where she even accepted it. But not today, not in her office. And most important, not until she’d talked to Danny and told him goodbye.
Still, she simply couldn’t resist turning back to Fletcher as she opened the door to the outer room. “I am glad,” she conceded. “That you kept after me. That it’s worked out so well.”
He took a long time to answer—sizzling, delicious seconds during which heat shimmered in their shared glance. “I’m pleased, too. Very much so,” he said at last, and they both knew he referred to more than KinderWay.
She leaned back against the open door and allowed it to happen—for one more sweet, seductive moment before he left her, to get lost in his beautiful, dangerous eyes.
Then, with a slow sigh, she turned back toward the outer room. And blinked in guilty horror at what she saw.
Danny.
He was sitting on the sofa against the wall opposite Rae-Anne’s desk with a heart-shaped box of candy in his lap.
“You have a visitor,” said RaeAnne.
Danny took the box of candy in his beefy hand and stood. “Hey. Got home early.” His soft, dark eyes took it all in: Cleo standing stunned in the doorway and the tall, commanding, beautifully dressed man behind her. “Thought I’d drop by and see how things are goin’.”
Chapter Six
Danny understood in an instant what Cleo had refused to accept for nearly a month. He kept it calm and low-key, shaking Fletcher’s hand when Cleo introduced them, even smiling that sweet, open smile of his. The two men exchanged a few quick words of greeting and then Fletcher took his leave.
Danny followed her into her office, but he didn’t sit down. The minute she shut the door, he set the box of candy on the credenza and said, “I think we really gotta talk.”
“Of course. Danny, I—”
He put up a hand. “Not here, okay?” She swallowed and nodded. “I’ll be over tonight. Eight o’clock.”
What could she say? Nothing. Except, “I’ll be there, Danny.”
“All right, then.” He left without another word.
She took the box of candy out to RaeAnne and told her to share it with the staff. Cleo didn’t eat a single piece herself. She couldn’t.
Her doorbell rang at eight exactly. Danny looked so somber when she let him in.
She offered, “Are you hungry? I could …” She didn’t know how to finish. His expression broke her heart. It was infinitely gentle and much too wise.
“I didn’t come here to eat and I think you know that.”
So she led him to the living room. He took the easy chair and she perched on the edge of the couch.
He got right down to it. “Since that night I came for dinner and saw that little blue box—the one you wouldn’t open—I been getting the picture, getting the feeling there was someone else. I kind of figured it might be the guy who sent you that box, might be Fletcher Bravo—and it is, isn’t it? I knew it today, when you two came out of your office….” He seemed to run out of words. In the silence he just looked at her, waiting for her to answer him.
She felt about two inches tall. “Danny, I swear to you, I never went behind your back. Not with anyone. I would never do something like that.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” He gave her the kindest, most tender little smile and she wanted to cry then, just bawl her eyes out. But she held the tears back. After all, she wasn’t the injured party here. “You’re not that kind of woman,” he said. “And I know that you loved me—or at least, you thought that you did.”
“Danny, no. I did love …” She cut herself off. She couldn’t go on, not with the way he was looking at her, both knowing and disbelieving at once.
He shook his head. “I always knew that you wanted to love me, that I’m the kind of guy you think will be good for you, the kind of guy you’re gonna feel safe with. The kind of guy who’s nothing like the high rollers and big shots who messed your mom over so many times. And you know what? That was enough for me, to be the one you could count on, to be the guy you could trust, until … well, until now. Until I saw you today with a guy you’re crazy for.”
She longed to argue, to stand up and say, No, Danny. I’m not crazy for Fletcher. Not in the least.
Too bad she couldn’t get her mouth around such an enormous lie.
Danny said, “You been pulling away from me for weeks. You been tired every time I touch you. You know that you have.”
“I know. I’m so sorry….” She felt like a total creep, too awful to look him straight in the eye. She dropped her gaze.
He got up from his chair and came to stand over her. “Hey.”
She tipped her head back and made herself meet those kind eyes and realized that it wouldn’t be right, wouldn’t be fair, to keep saying how sorry she was. Sorry just didn’t cut it. She swallowed and sat up a little bit straighter and said with real regret, “I’ll miss you, Danny.”
“And I’ll miss you. But Cleo, the way you looked at that guy …”
She swallowed. Hard. “Yeah. I know.”
He pointed at her wrist. “He give you that watch?”
“Yes. Today.”
“And you took it.”
“Yes, Danny. I did.”
“I think you’re in love with him. Are you?”
“Oh, Danny …”
“You know what? Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know.”
And that was it. There was nothing more to say except, “I’d better get your things….”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Yeah. Okay.”
So she got up and went to collect his spare razor and toothbrush from the bathroom, his blue windbreaker from the hall closet. “I think this is all of it.” She handed everything over.
“Thanks.”
