Honor Bound(44)

"You see, Miss Aislinn, I can control my lust. Don't flatter yourself into thinking that I want you any more than you want me. You're just excess baggage that has to come along with my son because I don't have mammary glands. But I'm willing to pay the price of living with you in order to make a home for Tony." He ran his hand through his hair and took several more restorative breaths. "Now I'm going to ask you one last time. Do you come along or not?"

Before she could collect herself enough to form an answer, the doorbell rang.





* * *





Chapter 8



"Who is that?"

"I don't know," Aislinn said.

"Were you expecting somebody?"

"No."

Always polite and adhering to the rules of etiquette, she asked him to excuse her. In light of what had just transpired, her courtesy was rather ludicrous. She left the kitchen and went to answer the front door bell, but she was distracted. Her mind had stayed in the other room with Greywolf. What was she going to do?

She swung the front door open and for several seconds didn't move. She just stood there wondering what else would happen to make this day one of the most disastrous of her life.

"Aren't you going to invite us in?" Eleanor Andrews asked her daughter.

"I … I'm sorry," Aislinn stuttered. She moved aside and her parents stepped into the living room.

"Is something wrong?" her father asked.

"No—I, uh, just wasn't expecting you." As usual, they intimidated her. Her parents could always make her feel like a child on the verge of being reprimanded. It wasn't something she liked to admit, but it happened every time she saw them. Today was no exception.

"We just left the club," Eleanor said, propping her tennis racquet against the wall, "and thought that as long as we had to come this way, we'd stop by."

Not very likely, Aislinn thought. If her parents had stopped by, there was a reason behind the impromptu visit. They didn't keep her in suspense long. "You remember Ted Utley," her father said for openers. "You met him at a symphony ball several years ago."

"He was married then," her mother supplied.

As Eleanor expounded upon Mr. Utley's unfortunate divorce and fortunate real-estate investments, Aislinn tried to view her parents objectively. They were both tanned and handsome and fit. They personified the American dream come true. They lived what most people would consider the good life. Yet Aislinn wondered if either of them had ever experienced any passion for living.

Oh, they smiled for the camera on Christmas mornings. Her mother cried daintily at funerals. Her father got emotionally involved when he discussed the national debt. But she had never once heard them either laughing lustily together or shouting in anger. She'd seen them kiss, formally, and pat each other affectionately, but she'd never intercepted a smoldering glance between them. They had produced her, yet she thought them to be the two most sterile people she had ever met.

"So we want you to come to dinner next Tuesday night," her mother was saying. "We'll eat on the patio, but wear something nice. And make arrangements with a sitter for … the … the child."

"The child's name is Tony," Aislinn said. "And I won't need to make arrangements with a sitter because I won't be coming to your dinner party."

"Why not?" her father asked, scowling. "Just because you've had an illegitimate baby doesn't mean you have to hide yourself away."

Aislinn laughed. "Why, thank you, Father, for your broadmindedness." Her sarcasm escaped them. "I don't want to go through an embarrassing evening where you and Mother try to match me up with some man who has a tolerant attitude toward fallen women."

"That's enough," he said sharply.

"We're only doing what we feel is best for you," Eleanor said. "You've made a mess of your life. We're trying to rectify your mistakes as best we can. I think the least you could do is—"

Eleanor ended her lecture with a soft indrawn breath. She even raised a fearful hand to her chest as though to ward off an attacker. Willard Andrews followed his wife's startled gaze and he, too, was visibly taken aback. Without even turning around, Aislinn knew what had ruffled her usually unflappable parents.

Indeed, when she turned and looked at Greywolf, she felt that tingling in her system that was a combination of fear and anticipation. Every time she saw Lucas, she experienced that initial reaction.

He stood straight and tall in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. His unwavering gray eyes were fixed on her parents. His mouth was set in a hard, thin line. His shirt was open almost to his waist, and his torso barely moved as he breathed. He was so still he could have been a statue had it not been for the latent energy he emanated.

"Mother, Father, this is Mr. Greywolf," Aislinn said, her voice cutting through the heavy silence.

No one said a word. Lucas gave the Andrews a curt nod of his head in acknowledgement of the introduction, but Aislinn thought that was because Alice Greywolf had probably grilled her son in proper manners and not because Lucas felt any deference or respect for her parents.

Lucas could have been an uncaged tiger for the fearful stare Eleanor gave him. Willard was almost as dumbfounded, but he finally asked, "Lucas Greywolf?"