Helen Myers - It Started with a House....

“But you’re still uneasy.” Marshall stroked his thumb over her soft skin.

“Anyone would be.”

“No, not anyone. You. You’re far more decent and principled than many of your sex, Genevieve. Believe me, from my past vantage point, I’ve seen plenty.” Then, with a faint smile, he added, “But I’m fairly certain that you blushed at least twice when I caught you looking at me.”

Mortified, Genevieve pulled her hand free and covered her eyes. “Please tell me that Cynthia never saw that?”

“She didn’t. But don’t torment yourself. She liked you and would approve of this. Us.”

“There is no us. It’s just too soon.” She gestured toward the French doors. “Besides which, I’ve established a nice business here. Gossip could destroy a reputation in my business as quickly as getting called up on ethics charges.”

“What are we supposed to do, pretend we feel nothing until the police and local gossips give the signal that we’ve suffered enough to suit them?” Marshall uttered something disparaging under his breath. “Speaking for myself, I’ve been through several kinds of hell watching the slow death of my wife, and the slower death of my marriage due to our spats about her inability to quit smoking. I want to feel something besides pity, regret, grief and guilt. I want my life back.”

Genevieve understood, sympathized and even agreed with him. In principle. But, while she wasn’t a coward, she had to avert her eyes to protect herself from the intensity she knew was radiating in his. Marshall was a passionate man and she recognized that now that he was free and had made his feelings known, she was all the more vulnerable to him.

“Look at me,” he ordered softly. When she failed to comply, he closed the short distance between them and put his fingers under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You know what? I think you’re even more confused and trapped than I am by this world of cellophane morals and shredded principles, so this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to kiss you. Then you’ll leave—probably as quickly as I’ll want you to go, but for entirely different reasons. And we’ll talk again after you’ve had a chance to really get used to the idea. Understand?”

She shook her head.

Marshall exhaled in a brief, low laugh. “God help me,” he said, lowering his head. “Neither do I.”

For the next hour after Genevieve left, Marshall sat at his desk in his new office, his gaze on Genevieve Gale’s business card from The Gale Agency. The colored photograph in the top left corner was flattering in that one-dimensional, photo-by-stranger way, but it didn’t begin to do her justice. The photo he was wishing he had framed before him was one fresh in his mind—Genevieve just kissed.

His chest rose and fell on a deep breath as he sought the last nuance of her scent. She made him think of his first taste of lemon gelato years ago when he was fresh out of college and racing through Europe before he got too buried in his career. It had been refreshing and sexy, and addictive the way chocolate could be to others.

Closing his eyes, he relived how she’d stared at his mouth until just before his lips touched hers, then raised her gaze to seek further confirmation of the truth in his eyes. He knew she’d seen it because his emotions had his heartbeat nearly rupturing his eardrums, especially when she’d touched her fingers to his face in appeal—for what, he wasn’t sure. To reconsider? To be sure he knew what he was doing? Coming this far, he couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to, and he definitely didn’t want to. He’d waited long enough for this.

Genevieve. Like her name, she was elegant and graceful. A lady. A fine businesswoman and a person anyone would want as a friend. But there was much more to the woman, and he wanted to explore the far reaches of her mind, just as he wanted to learn every inch of that body.

Afterward, she’d fled, pale, her caramel eyes strangely shadowed from the shock of her rediscovered passion, while her gently bowed lips were swollen from a kiss that had gone from whisper-soft to ardent before either of them could stop it. It thrilled him to discover she wasn’t as in control as her professional demeanor suggested, and to learn that she wanted him, too. Granted, she would continue to struggle with this and feel guilt—hell, he did and would for some time himself. You couldn’t live with another person for over a decade and a half and make every memory go away. Nevertheless, he was also grateful that he wouldn’t have to endure the bar scene and blind dates that would have been his future. The woman he wanted wouldn’t require a background search or blood test to prove her health status. Such a gift had to be treated with the utmost respect and care; however, having repressed his sexual craving for so long, he was like a parched creek bed ready to soak her up in one desperate swallow. It had been a challenge to let her go, and he was already wondering how long she would make him wait before he could see her again.

Marshall made himself get out of the leather chair and do another, more thorough, examination of the house. He was impressed with how well Genevieve remembered Cynthia’s directives between draws at the oxygen mask of where she would put what. The furnishings seemed made for the house, a sturdy mix of leather and wood, the colors mostly earth tones with accents of green, eggplant and blue. None of the paintings were hung yet, just a few of the knickknacks were unboxed, and only one lamp—a Frank Lloyd Wright type of design, the shade made of agates and quartz, the frame brass. It looked as if it had been made for the house, and Marshall wondered if Genevieve had placed it on the sofa table behind the couch where it was immediately a focal point, or was it simply the resting spot decided by one of the movers? Never. It had to have been Genevieve. Poor Cynthia had a mathematician’s rather uninspired taste for decorating. If a lamp, ashtray or book was set on one end table, their twins had to be on the other. A wreath on one side of the door required a matching one on the other side. She was all about regimen and order, partly because of the way she grew up, partly because of losing her twin, Scott. Heaven knew he’d tried to figure it out and set her free to be more impulsive and experimental.

In contrast, Marshall could already see by the few pieces that Genevieve had unpacked that she avoided clutter, and wasn’t afraid of mixing styles. He wondered what her home looked like. He wondered what else she could do with this place if given the opportunity.

That gave him an idea and, as he returned to the kitchen, he reached for his BlackBerry and clicked on her number in his address book. For a moment he thought he would only get her voice mail, but then she was on the line saying hesitantly, “I didn’t expect to hear from you again today.”

“Am I pushing my luck?”

After a pause, Genevieve replied softly, “I have no right to say that—I kissed you back.”

Reaching over to her wineglass, Marshall stroked his thumb over the hint of lipstick on the rim. “And left me wanting so much more.”

Clearing her throat, Genevieve said, “Ina just signaled that I have a call holding and my least patient agent is about to barge into my office.”

Taking the hint, Marshall made his point quickly. “I have an request, plea or whatever you want to call it. I’ve just finished going through the house to see all you did, and I’m stuck. I’m an administrator and idea guy. I can renovate a building and suggest an atmosphere that I’m going for, but I don’t know anything about decorating until I see what I like.”

“That sounds like an apology, not an request.”