Two
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Alize had been proud of how much she’d been able to accomplish
for her sister on almost no budget. Flowers had been too expensive because of
Valentine’s Day, so Alize had gone to the nearest craft store and cut out large
hearts of red tissue paper, festooning them on their walls with red and pink
balloons and streamers. She’d decorated the house in the middle of the night, as
she’d waited for the cake to cool. For the reception dinner, their mother had
made her famous roast chickens and their friends and neighbors had brought
casseroles and salads for a buffet-style potluck. Alize had made her sister’s
wedding cake herself, using instructions from an old 1950s family cookbook.
She’d been tired but so happy when she’d fallen into bed at dawn.
But now, beneath Jhon’s eyes, the decorations no longer seemed beautiful.
She saw how flimsy it all was, how Rocky a send-off for her second-youngest
sister. Beny had seemed delighted when she saw the decorations and slightly
tilted wedding cake that morning. But what else could she have done, knowing
how hard her family had tried to give her a nice wedding when there was never a
dime to spare?
As if he could read her mind, John looked at her. “Do you need
money, Alize?”
Alize’s cheeks went hot. “No,” she lied. “We’re fine.”
He looked around the room again, at the paper plates with the
potluck dinner, at her homemade gown, clearly not believing her. He set his jaw.
“I’m just surprised your father couldn’t do better for Beny. Even if f money is
tight.”
Alize folded her arms, feeling ice in her heart. “He couldn’t,” she
whispered. “My father died six months ago.”
She heard Jhon’s intake of breath. “What” He had a heart attack during harvest. We didn’t find him on his
tractor until later. When he didn’t come home for dinner.”
“Oh, Alize.” John took her hand in his own. “I’m sorry.”
She felt his sympathy, felt his concern. And she felt the rough
warmth of his palm against her own—the touch she’d craved for the past year
and all the five years before. Her fingers curled over his as longing blistered her
soul.
With an intake of breath, then she ripped her hand away.
“Thank you,” she said, blinking back tears. She’d thought she was
done grieving for her father, but she’d spent most of the day with a lump in her
throat, watching her uncle walk Beny down the aisle, seeing her mother alone
in the pew with tears streaking her powdered face. Alize’s father should have
been here. “It’s been a long winter. Everything fell apart without him. We’re just
a small farm and always run so lean, one year to the next. With my dad gone, the
bank tried to refuse to extend the loan or give us anything more for spring
planting.”
Jhon’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
She lifted her chin. “We’re fine now.” Although they were just
surviving on fumes, trying to hold on another week until they’d get the next
loan. Then they’d pray next year would be better. She folded her arms. “Beny’s
husband, will live at the house and farm the land now. Mom will be able to
stay in her home and be well looked after.”
“And you?” Alize asked quietly.
Alize pressed her lips together. Starting tonight, she and Deny
were moving into her mother’s bedroom. The three-bedroom farmhouse was
now full, since Alize and her baby could no longer share a bedroom with Beny,
and her other sisters, Julie and Maya, shared the other. Leo had loyally said
she’d be delighted to share her large master bedroom with her grandson, but
Leo was a very light sleeper. It was not an ideal situation.
Alize needed a job, an apartment of her own. She was the oldest
daughter—twenty-seven years old. She should be helping her family, not the botherer way around. She’d been looking for a job for months, but there were none
to be had. Not even at a fraction of the salary she’d earned when she worked for
Jhon.
But there was no way she was going to tell him that. “You still
haven’t explained what you’re doing here. You didn’t know about the
wedding. Do you have some kind of business deal? Is it the old mine
that’s for sale?”
He shook his head. “I’m still trying to close the deal in Russia.” His jaw tightened. “I came because I had no choice.”
Over the noisy conversation nearby, Alize heard a guitar and flute
play the opening notes of an old English folk song from somewhere in the house.
She heard a baby’s bright laugh over the music and a chilling fear whipped
through her. “What do you mean?”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Can’t you guess?”
Alize sucked in her breath. All her worst nightmares were about to
come true.
Alize had come for her baby.
After all the times he’d said he never wanted a child, after
everything he’d done to make sure he’d never be burdened with one, somehow
he’d found out Alize’s deepest secret and he’d come to take Deny. And he
wouldn’t even take their son out of love, oh no. He’d do it out of duty. Cold,
resentful duty.
“I don’t want you here, Jhon,” Alize whispered, trembling. “I
want you to leave.”
He set his jaw grimly. “I can’t.”
Ice water flooded her veins as she stood near the fireplace in the
warm parlor. “What brought you? Was it some rumor—or…” She licked her lips
and suddenly could no longer bear the strain. “For God’s sake. Stop toying with
me and tell me what you want!”
His dark eyes looked down at her, searing straight through her soul.
“You, Alize,” he said in a low voice. “I came for you.”I CAME for you.
Stricken, Alize stared up at him with her lips parted.
Jhon’s dark eyes were hot and deep with need. Exactly as he’d
looked at her the night he’d taken her virginity. The night she’d conceived their
child.
I came for you.
How many times had she dreamed of Jhon finding her and
speaking those words?
She’d missed him constantly over the last seventeen months, as she’d
given birth to their baby alone, woken up in the night alone and r, raised their child
without a father. She’d yearned for his strong, protective arms constantly.
Especially during the bad times, such as the moment she’d told her family she
was pregnant. Or the day of her father’s funeral, when her mother and three
younger sisters had clung to her, sobbing, expecting her to be the strong one. Or
the endless frustrating weeks when Alize had gone to the bank with her baby in
tow, day after day, to convince them to extend the loan that would let their farm
continue to operate.
But there had been happy times as well, and then she’d missed
John even more. Such as the day halfway into her pregnancy, when she’d
been washing dishes in the tiny kitchen and she’d suddenly clutched her curved
belly and laughed aloud in wonder as she felt—this time for sure—their baby’s
first kick inside her. Or the sunny, bright August day when Deny had been
born, when she’d held his tiny body against her chest and he’d blinked up at her,
yawning sleepily, with dark eyes exactly like his father’s.
For over a year, Alize had missed John like water or sun or air.
She’d craved him day and night. She’d missed the sound of his laugh. Their friendship and camaraderie.
And now, he’d finally come for her?
“You came for me?” she whispered. Was it possible he’d thought of
her even a fraction of the times her heart had yearned for him? “What do you
mean?”
“Just what I said,” Jhon said quietly. “I need you.”
She swallowed. “Why?”
His dark eyes glittered in the flickering firelight. “Every other
woman a has been a pale shadow of you in every way.”
If her heart had been fluttering before, now it was frantically rattling
against her ribs. Had she been wrong to leave him, fifteen months ago? Had she
been wrong to keep Deny a secret? What if Jhon’s feelings had changed, and
all this time he’d cared for her? What if—
He leaned forward as his lips curved into a smile. “I need you to
come work for me.”
Alize’s heart stopped, then resumed a slow, sickly beat.
Of course. Of course, that was all he would want. He’d like
forgotten their one-night affair long ago, while she would remember it forever—
in her passionate dreams, in the eyes of their son. Alize stared up at John’s s
dark, brutally handsome face. She saw the tension of his jawline, the taut
muscles of his folded arms beneath his suit jacket.
“You must want it badly,” she said slowly.
He gave her a tight smile. “I do.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother coming back down
the hall, holding Deny in one arm and a slice of wedding cake in her other
hand. Alize sucked in her breath.
Deny. How could she have allowed herself to forget, even for an
instant, that her son was counting on her to keep him safe?
Grabbing Jhon’s hand, she pulled him out of the room, dragging
him out of the house, away from prying eyes and into the freezing December air.
Outside in the wintry night, cars and trucks were wedged
everywhere along the gravel driveway between their old house and the barn,
strewn along the country road in front of their farm. Across the old stone walls
that lined the road, white rolling hills stretched out into the great north woods,
disappearing now into the falling purple twilight.
Behind them, next to the old barn, she could see the frozen water of
their pond, gleaming like a silver mirror under the lowering gray clouds. Her
father had taught all his daughters to swim there during the summers of their
childhood, and even though Alize was now grown, whenever she felt upset, she would go for a swim in the pond. Swimming made her think of her father’s
protective arms. It always made her feel better.
She wished she could swim in the pond now.
Alize looked down at her breath in the chilly air and saw the white
smoke of Jhon’s mingle with hers. She realized she was still holding his hand
and looked down at his large fingers enfolding her own. The warmth of them
suddenly burned her skin, sizzling nerve endings the length of her body.
She dropped his hand. Folding her arms, she glared up at him. “I’m
sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing. I’m not going to work for you.”
“You don’t even want to hear about the job first? For instance—” he
paused “—how much it pays?”
Alize bit her lip, thinking of her bank account, which held exactly
sixteen dollars—barely enough for a week’s supply of diapers, let alone
groceries. But they’d get by. And she couldn’t risk Deny’s custody—not for
something so unimportant as money! She lifted her chin fiercely. “No amount of
money could tempt me.”
His lips quirked. “I know I wasn’t always the easiest man to live
with—”
“Easy?” she interjected. “You were a nightmare.”
His eyes crinkled in a smile. “Now that’s the diplomatic Miss
I remember.”
She glared at him. “Find another secretary.”
“I’m not asking you to be my secretary.”
“You said…”
He looked down at her. His voice was dark and deep, his eyes
burning through intensity. “I want you to spend a night with me in Italy.
As my mistress.”
His mistress? Alize’s mouth fell open.
John continued to stare down at her with his inscrutable dark
eyes, his hands in his pockets. She licked her lips.
“I’m…I’m not for sale,” she whispered. “You think just because you
are rich and handsome you can have whatever you want, that you can pay me to
fall into your bed—and go away the next morning with a check?”
“A charming idea.” A humorless smile traced his sensual mouth.
“But I don’t wish to pay you for sex.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks went hot. “Then what?”
“I want you—” he moved closer, his hard-edged face impossibly handsome “—to pretend to love me.
- Writer
