His Sugar Baby(23)

Michael shifted, trying to ease the uncomfortable swelling in his groin. Their last time together—the way her hot, wet sheath had clenched around him, her unexpected excitement and arousal at doing it in the open—

Michael’s heated reflections skidded to a halt. Son of a bitch. That was it. He had pushed her too far, too fast.

Michael swore. He was sure that he was right. She had been skittish from the beginning. He should have known better. But when she became so turned on by the way he was teasing her after the ballet premier, he had acted on his impulse to spin the fantasy into reality. The resulting sex had been good. Damn it. It had been more than good. He remembered what he had said afterward and how Winter had shut down. Michael shook his head in disgust at his stupidity. Knowing the little about her that he did, he should have anticipated that she might react badly.

React badly? Winter had been frightened right down to her vanilla core.

When they had first met over coffee, there had been something about her that drew him and would not let him forget her. It was the reason why he had renewed contact in hopes of meeting with her again. From his perspective, the night they spent at his house had been a spectacular success. He had never felt such a fever of lust in his life. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her. He still felt that way. Winter was an anomaly, a mystery, a puzzle. He had glimpsed the depths of passion hidden inside of her. He wanted to ignite it and burn in it.

Michael swore again, this time more softly. He had planned to woo her and gain her trust and perhaps in the process teach her to trust herself and her own passions. She was his, but she didn’t know it yet. He wasn’t going to give her up without a fight. And for damn sure he wasn’t going to accept a “Dear John” e-mail.

Michael carefully composed an e-mail that was an auto-responder clone, informing the recipients that he was absent out of the country on business but would be back in touch when he returned. He sent the generic-looking response in reply to Winter’s e-mail address. When she received it, she would not know if he had actually seen her own e-mail and that was exactly the way he wanted it. He wanted to keep her off-balance. He wanted her to think that he knew nothing about her effort to break off with him.

When he got back from Singapore, he would do some major damage control.





Cathy fretted over the e-mail she had sent to Michael, wondering how he would react. Badly, she suspected. She didn’t think he would let her e-mail go without comment. She hoped that he would respond without recriminations, but if he did get ugly, then she would simply drop out of sight. She would close both the secondary e-mail account and the bank account. Since he didn’t know where she lived or worked, she could be assured that he would not appear on her doorstep.

Two days passed without a call or e-mail from him. She began to think that was the end of it, and she breathed a little easier.

When the response finally came, it caught her by surprise.

Cathy frowned when she read the auto-response in her e-mail inbox. Apparently Michael was so completely out of pocket that he was not responding personally to his emails. She chewed nervously on her bottom lip. Now she would have to wait until his return before she could terminate their association. She disliked having to do the disagreeable task all over again. She groaned aloud. “Damn it!” She just wanted to have it over and done with!

Cathy thought about using the phone that he had given her, which she had never done before. He had said that he had programmed his office number and his home number into it. Leaving a message at his office was definitely out of the question. Anyone could hear it. It wouldn’t do any good to leave a message at the house, of course, because he wasn’t there. She also had his direct cell number programmed into her phone. She could simply call him, but she hesitated. He had said that he was meeting with an important new client. Cathy did not want to unintentionally interrupt or even jeopardize the smooth transaction of Michael’s business deal.

She sighed in frustration. All right, she would just have to deal with it. She would make an effort to put it out of her mind for now and make it a point to talk to Michael once he returned. She just hoped that her courage wouldn’t fail her.

Cathy shut down her computer, locked her apartment, and hurried out to her car. She shouldn’t even have turned on the computer. She was already running a few minutes behind in going to see her daughter.

She was taking the beautifully dressed teddy bear along with her on today’s visit. She smiled, anticipating how Chloe’s eyes would light up at seeing the soft plush toy. She sat the teddy bear on the passenger seat of her car. In her purse, she also had a cheap pair of pink plastic hoop earrings for Chloe.

Cathy turned the key in the ignition. There was a grinding noise and the slow spluttering rev of an engine that didn’t want to crank. The electrical warning light flickered. “No, oh no, not today,” she groaned.

She turned the key again, and this time the engine caught without a beat. Cathy breathed a sigh of relief and threw the car in reverse. “Just keep going, car, okay? I need you to keep going.”





Chapter Eight



After the fright with her car, the trip across town seemed abnormally long. It didn’t help that she had gotten off work later than usual, and the traffic was bad. But at last Cathy turned into the hospital parking lot. She grabbed her purse and the teddy bear. As she hurried inside, the familiar odor of stale ammonia assailed her nostrils. She pressed the elevator button more than once, made impatient by the slowness of the elevator. At last, she reached Chloe’s floor. She hurried down the hall, calling out a quick greeting to the nurses at the station as she passed by on her way to her daughter’s room.