Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(40)

She trailed off, her gaze skittering away from his, and Marc felt a stab of guilt somewhere around his solar plexus.

“I’m sorry. Mother had them thrown out after you left. I didn’t expect you to be back, so I didn’t think to keep any of them.”

The truth was, they’d been too painful a reminder of her. Of her desertion, of the divorce papers he’d signed willingly more out of anger than any real desire to be single again and of the happier times they’d had together before things had somehow gone terribly wrong.

He shouldn’t have let his mother dispose of them, he realized that now. It had been his place to deal with them, and he probably should have tracked Vanessa down to see if she wanted any of the items shipped to her before having them carted away. But at the time, he’d just wanted them gone and had been almost relieved when his mother had declared it was time to rid the house of any reminders of his ex-wife’s abandonment.

The only thing that had been left behind was that crystal decanter of perfume.

“You look beautiful,” he repeated, striding across the thickly carpeted floor to grasp her shoulders. “And we’re not here to impress anyone. Not even Mother,” he added with a grin.

When her mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile and at least some of the anxiety seemed to drain away from her features, he leaned in and kissed her. He kept it light, even though that was far from what he really wanted.

Just the firm press of lips to lips instead of a ravaging of tongues. Just the brush of his fingertips over the warm skin of her bare shoulders instead of his hands delving inside her bodice and beneath the hem of her skirt.

He lingered for a few precious, breathless moments, then released her, stepping back before the full proof of his desire for her became obvious. Her freshly applied lipstick was smudged and he reached out to brush a spot with the edge of his thumb.

“Maybe we should skip dinner and go straight to dessert,” he suggested in a low, graveled voice.

“I don’t think your mother would like that very much.”

He was pleased to hear the same huskiness in her voice as in his own. It meant he wasn’t alone in the passion causing his pulse to hammer and hum.


“I don’t think I give a good damn,” he muttered with no small amount of feeling behind the words.

“As bad an idea as that probably is, I sincerely wish we could. Anything would be better than having to face your mother again.”

The corner of Marc’s mouth quirked down in a frown. Was she implying that staying in the room to make love with him would be only slightly less miserable than an evening spent in his family’s company? He wasn’t sure he liked being considered the lesser of two evils.

Before he had a chance to reply, however, a tapping sounded on the suite’s outer door.

“That will be the nanny,” he said, just managing to mask a sigh of disappointment.

“You hired a nanny?” Vanessa asked, sounding both surprised and disapproving.

“Not really,” he replied. “One of Mother’s maids is going to sit with him for a couple of hours. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

Her brows crossed. “I don’t know. Is she good with infants?”

“I don’t know,” he said, repeating her phrase. “Let’s go meet her and give her the third degree.”

Wrapping his hand around her elbow, he pulled her with him toward the bedroom door.

“I don’t want to give her the third degree,” Vanessa murmured softly as they crossed the sitting room where Danny was sleeping. “I just want to know that she’s qualified to sit with my child.”

“We’ll be right downstairs, so you can come up and check on her any time you like,” he assured her, keeping his voice equally low. “Tonight can be her test run. If you like her and she does a good job, she can stay with Danny whenever you need her while you’re here. If not, we’ll hire a real nanny. One you feel a hundred percent confident in.”

“You’re placating me, aren’t you?” she asked, an edge of annoyance entering her tone.

With his hand on the knob of the sitting room door, he turned to her and smiled. “Absolutely. While you’re here, whatever you need, whatever you want, I intend to see that you get it.”

Her eyes widened and he knew she was about to argue. So he bent down and captured her mouth, kissing her into warm and pliant submission.

When he pulled away, his own body was buzzing with warmth, but he was far from pliant. Quite stiff and unyielding would have been more accurate.

“Indulge me,” he said, brushing a stray copper curl behind her ear while the taste of her lingered on his lips and prodded him to kiss her again. “Please.”





Thirteen




As always, dinner with Marc’s family was exhausting. Delicious, but exhausting.

Marc’s mother was her usual haughty self, and though Vanessa had always liked Marc’s brother Adam and Adam’s wife, Clarissa, they were cut from the same basic cloth as Eleanor. Born with silver spoons in their mouths, they’d never known a moment of true want or need. And being raised as they had been, they were extremely refined, never a hair out of place, never a wrong word spoken.

The only reason Vanessa felt kindly toward them at all was that, despite their upbringings, Adam and Clarissa weren’t quite as cold and judgmental as her ex-mother-in-law. From the moment she’d married Marc, they’d treated her like a true member of the family and had seemed genuinely sorry when she and Marc had split up.