Another Man's Child. Tara Quinn Taylor
He’d been putting in so many long hours for Cartwright Enterprises the past couple of weeks that the days had all started rolling into one. Not that he minded. To the contrary. The only time he didn’t have doubts about himself these days was when he was working.
But he still didn’t know where the first half of the month had gone. Someone had mentioned a golf date when they’d taken a break for lunch, and it had suddenly dawned on Marcus that it was the middle of June. The sixteenth to be exact. His anniversary.
Or maybe it hadn’t suddenly dawned on him. Maybe he’d been unconsciously trying to forget. He wasn’t sure there was much to celebrate. Not for Lisa, anyway. Not anymore.
He’d had coffee with his wife early that morning and she’d read the paper just like every other morning, not giving any indication that she’d remembered what day it was. She sure as hell hadn’t wished him happy anniversary as she had all the other years since they’d been married. And when he’d tried to call her at lunchtime, he’d been told she wasn’t expected in her office at all that day. Which meant she was either out exhausting herself in the free clinic or volunteering her time at the hospital. Anything to stay away from home. Not that he blamed her. The emptiness there mocked him, too.
“A telegram came for you about an hour ago, and your other mail is there, too,” Marge, his secretary of thirteen years, said as he let himself into his suite of offices on the top floor of Cartwright Tower in downtown New Haven. She’d been with him since his sophomore year at Yale, when he’d begun working his way up the ranks at Cartwright Enterprises. She’d been working for him the year he’d met Lisa; had been at his wedding, too. “There’s also a stack of letters for you to sign, and Paul Silas wants you to give him a call.”
“Thanks, Marge. Give yourself double overtime this week and go home. You don’t owe me all these late nights.”
“It’s okay, Marcus. The twins left a couple of weeks ago to take summer jobs at the University of Connecticut—they’re getting ready for their freshman year—and the house is so quiet it’s depressing. I’d just as soon be here as home.”
“Where’s James?” Marcus asked.
“He’s in Florida for a month, overseeing the construction of a new shopping complex outside Orlando. I almost wish he hadn’t been promoted to project manager.”
Marcus smiled at his middle-aged secretary’s uncharacteristic grumbling. “You don’t mean that, Marge. You’d have to give back that boat he bought you last summer.”
Marge grinned. “You’re right. I don’t mean it. But I’m telling you, Marcus, for once I think you and Lisa have the right idea.”
“About what?”
“About not having children. It hurts bringing them into this world, they take years off your life with all the worry they cause, and then they just up and leave home, not caring that they’re breaking your heart as they go.”
“And if you could, would you trade away any of the past eighteen years with them, Marge?” he asked softly.
She smiled, her pretty features lighting up. “Of course not. Don’t mind me. I guess. I’ll go home and bake some cookies. I promised the boys I’d send them some before the weekend.”
“So why not take tomorrow off and deliver them yourself? Storrs is only an hour away, and you’ll feel a lot better once you’ve checked up on them.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Maybe I just know you better than most,” Marcus said, envying her sons. He wasn’t even sure his folks had known he was gone when he left the family home for a dorm room at Yale.
“But what about the Rhode Island group?” Marge asked, frowning. “Aren’t you all meeting here tomorrow?”
Marcus shook his head. “We postponed it until after the weekend. George wants a couple of more days to study the manuals for the computer system we’re installing at Blake’s. So take the day off.”
“Yes, sir!” She was grinning from ear to ear as she tidied up her desk and gathered her purse.
Listening to her humming, Marcus headed on into his office and the tasks waiting there for him. Maybe the telegram was something urgent. Anything to take him away from New Haven and the empty house he knew he’d find if he went home. Of course, with all the time he’d been spending on the Blake venture, he had enough pressing work on his desk to keep him busy well past midnight. With that comforting thought, he opened the telegram.
MEET ME AT HAVEN’S COVE. I NEED LOVIN’.
Marcus stared at it, hardly daring to believe the words. But there they were, all neat caps, teasing him with long ago memories. Good memories.
He read it again. MEET ME AT HAVEN’S COVE. I NEED LOVIN’. What full-blooded man could turn down an invitation like that?
Especially when the woman issuing it was Lisa?
The love of his life.
And when the man was feeling such incredible relief that the woman wanted to celebrate their anniversary, after all. He broke every speed limit in Connecticut as his Ferrari ate up the miles to Haven’s Cove.
THE CABANA SMELLED of Lisa. It amazed him that after ten years of marriage, he could be aroused merely by the scent of his wife.
“Lis?” he asked, letting the door close behind him. He was eager to see what she had planned for them, prepared to change her mind if it wasn’t bed in the next ten minutes.
“In here,” she called from the direction of the bathroom.
Marcus shed his jacket as he headed across the room, the splashing of water luring him on. It sounded as if she was in the bath. As he recalled, the bathtubs at Haven’s Cove were huge. He’d played out a few fantasies in one of them on their honeymoon.
They’d been so filled with dreams back then. Dreams that had turned to ashes. He stopped outside the door. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“Marcus, come on. The water’s wonderful,” Lisa called, her voice husky with desire. It was all the invitation Marcus needed. All the invitation he’d ever needed. His wife to want him.
Lavender. The air was filled with lavender. Lisa was sitting in the enormous porcelain tub surrounded by bubbles, a piece of skimpy black silk hanging haphazardly from the towel rack above her. Her dark hair was pinned up on her head, with a few wispy tendrils, damp on the ends, falling down around her face and shoulders. The glistening skin of the tops of her breasts was just visible above the white foam.
She’d never looked so desirable in her life. Not even the first time he’d scen her naked, when her young ripe body had been much more beautiful than he’d even imagined.
“Hi,” he murmured, staring at her.
Her big brown eyes were sultry-looking, telling him she was his to command, to do with her as he willed. There was no sadness in them now. No disappointment lurking in their depths.
Marcus stepped out of his shoes and dropped the rest of his clothes in a pile at his feet in one quick move. Lisa’s eyes widened, and for the first time in a long time, Marcus was proud of his body. Sexually, he knew no other man could please her more than he did. Because no man could love her more.
“I hope you didn’t call for room service,” he said, lowering himself, facing her, into the warm water.
She shook her head, her eyes filled with a hunger room service couldn’t assuage. “I waited for you.”
“Good.” He slid his hands up her calves to thighs that were still as smooth as the day he’d married her, holding her gaze with his own. “Your skin’s like satin.”
She smiled slowly, the smile that had brought him to his knees the first time he’d seen it and kept him there ever since. For a woman who had come to him almost