His Sugar Baby(63)

Michael sipped his wine, leaning against the counter. He watched her assured movements as she alternated layers of cooked noodles with the meat sauce and egg-and-cheese mixture. She was relaxing to be around, he mused. She had a way of making wherever she was comfortable and homey. He didn’t pursue the interesting thought, instead commenting, “My mouth is already salivating.”

She laughed at him, her hazel eyes gleaming with amusement. “That’s the whole point behind good comfort food!”


He heard the ring of his cell and reluctantly excused himself to answer it. He listened for a moment. “Yeah. Okay, Darryl.” He closed the phone. “Sorry. Darryl is in New York. He needs some specs that are at the office faxed to him. I’ll have to go in. I hate to leave you like this, Winter. Will you be all right here until I get back?”

“Oh, sure! When I finish putting this together, it will bake for an hour.” She blew a curl out of her face and flashed a smile at him. She had pinned her auburn hair up, but springy curls had escaped around her face and neck.

“I’ll be back long before that.” He slid his arms around her waist and kissed her warm nape. She leaned back against him. Her soft curves pressed nicely against all the right places along his body. Reluctantly, he stepped away.

“Wait! I’m parked behind you! Let me wash my hands, and I’ll move the Lexus.” She started to put down the bowl of egg-and-cheese mixture.

Michael waved her back. “That’s okay. I can move it. Where are your keys?”

“In my purse, in the front pocket.”

Michael retrieved the keys. As he walked past her, he dropped a casual kiss at the junction of her neck and shoulder. Her skin was moist and heated from working over the stove. She smelled good, womanly. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Michael walked outside to the Lexus. He got in, started it, and backed out of the driveway to park at the front curb. He reached to turn off the ignition, but his hand stilled on the key when his gaze chanced to drop to the GPS. He stared, not a thought in his head, before accessing it to find Winter’s home address. A second later it hit him, what he was doing. Immediately irritated with himself, he switched off the ignition, swiped up the keys, and got out.

Michael walked swiftly back up the driveway to his Porsche. As he slid into it, he berated himself. What the hell had he done that for? He didn’t want to know where she lived. He didn’t want to know who her friends were or where she worked. It was just a stupid impulse. However, like many bits and pieces of trivia, he was left with a mental notation of Winter Somerset’s address in his near-photographic memory. He put the incident out of his mind as a bad decision.

When he returned to the house, he made it a point to make love to Winter. It was a way to reassure himself of the real basis of their relationship. She was a little startled by his abrupt initiation, but she warmed quickly enough. Good sex, followed by good food. A man couldn’t go wrong with that. He didn’t ask her to stay over that night. He didn’t need her to stay, he told himself.

When he opened the refrigerator the next morning, the leftover lasagna that she had left mocked him.

A few days later, he was driving through the city. The traffic was bumper to bumper ,and he decided on taking a different route, hoping to cut off some time. A street exit sign flashed by and triggered his orderly memory. On impulse, he loaded the information into his GPS, listened to the directions, and swung back through the area. It took a few minutes, but eventually, he found the right block.

Michael drove slowly down the street, frowning as he took in the seedy area that had seen better days. Tiny run-down block houses on postage-stamp lots, most canopied with untrimmed trees and overgrown shrubs. Sharp-angled tenement buildings. Commercial establishments. The depressed aura of the neighborhood bugged him. Hell of a place for a little girl to be living. He scowled when he saw a group of ill-dressed men sauntering slowly down the narrow broken sidewalk. They stopped to stare as he drove past in the Porsche. He wondered if the area was even safe for a woman raising a child alone. It was hard to imagine someone like Winter here.

When Michael found the address, he pulled his car over to the curb and bent forward to look out of the side window. The apartment complex had visible signs of neglect in the building’s peeling siding, in the sad, sparse landscaping. He narrowed his eyes. Surely Winter could afford better than this, especially with what he was giving her each month. Maybe he hadn’t remembered the correct address. He shifted into gear and turned into the building’s parking lot. He eased the sports car forward, feeling the chassis sway when he wasn’t able to avoid all of the crumbling potholes. Slowly cruising through the lines of parked vehicles, he spotted the familiar Lexus.

He hadn’t been wrong about the address.

She was home.

Michael swung his car into the empty parking space next to the Lexus. As he started to shift into park, he hesitated while he contemplated his next move. He glanced over at the Lexus, and at the closer distance, he saw the car seat on the back seat. It occurred to him that school would already have let out, and she probably had her daughter with her.

Letting the powerful engine continue to idle, Michael debated the wisdom of knocking on her door. Abruptly, he shook his head. Their agreement was that they would not share their personal lives or histories with each other. Michael was acutely aware that dropping in on Winter, without invitation and without permission to her address, would be a serious breach of their agreement to personal privacy. He had already stepped way over the line just by coming here. If he was being brutally honest with himself, he had first broken trust with her when he had deliberately examined her GPS.