Corey Rockford adjusted his sunglasses, pulled his red baseball cap down so the brim sat low over his eyes, and rang the front bell at Danworth. The enormous Georgian mansion just outside Princeton, New Jersey, had recently been purchased by his boyhood friend Aidan Conley — the infamous paranoid delusional recluse billionaire.
Rock, as he was known to his friends, and Aidan had grown up together. Now that he was back teaching English at the university, they were neighbors again.
"May I help you, sir?" Reeves answered the door, nose so high in the air he couldn't see who was there. Reeves was a native Jersey guy who'd taken on the airs and accent of a proper English butler at his employer's request.
"Hi, Reeves," Rock said. "It's me."
The butler lowered his nose, caught sight of Rock under the hat, and relaxed. "Hey, how ya doin'? Come on in, the coast is clear. Boss is in rare form."
Rock followed Reeves into the sumptuous hallway and up the curving staircase into the elaborately decorated study. Conley, however, was the room's masterpiece. He sat pitifully hunched in a wheelchair under a pink-and-blue flowered afghan. A bushy beard covered most of his face; his trademark oversize dark glasses rested crookedly on his nose; his hair stuck out in all directions.
"Aidan Conley, as I live and breathe. How are you doing now so many years after the extremely well-reported horrible accident that left you with a mind-altering brain injury?"
A mischievous smile erupted behind the beard. Aidan stood up out of the wheelchair and tossed the prissy afghan aside to reveal khakis and a dark green polo shirt identical to Rock's. "Much better now that you're here, Professor. Thanks for agreeing to a switch on such short notice."
"I'm ahead of schedule on my latest book for a change, so I allowed myself a break." Rock shook the hand of his perfectly sane and healthy friend, who had devised this imaginative and effective method of keeping away false friends, fortune hunters, and paparazzi drawn by his looks, money, and celebrity aura. "Where's the escape to this time?"
"A Norwegian cruise." Aidan tore off the wig, beard, and glasses, uncovering coloring and features similar to Rock's. "Escape this heat, take in a little scenery, good food, some history...and with any luck, a beautiful woman."
"The usual." Rock beat back a twinge of envy. Unlike Aidan, he'd given up the chase. At age 32 as a respected author and professor, he focused on finding a woman to stimulate his mind, not just his testosterone. "Anything I should know while you're gone?"
"You'll be interviewing new housekeepers." Aidan handed over pieces of his disguise. Rock eyed the wig and beard distastefully, painfully familiar with their hot, scratchy textures from the other times he'd stood in for Aidan. "The security cameras picked up some woman snooping around the property for the third time this month. If she shows up again you can pretend to be your own detective hero and spout poetry at her."
"No problem." Rock smiled. His detective, Dirk, could handle sonnets and heavy weaponry with equal ease, making him appeal to both genders and making Rock something of a surprise sensation — to him at least. "Anything I need to know in the land of venture capital?"
"Not a thing. I'll be in touch and of course Reeves is briefed, bless him. I think I'd go genuinely crazy without his help in this charade, or yours for that matter." Aidan opened a massive walk-in closet and pulled out two suitcases. "Is your car still out front?"
"Yes." Rock took off his baseball hat and jammed it on his friend's head. "Have a good time."
"I damn well will." Aidan paused at the door and grinned. "Have fun being me."
"Thanks, I won't." Rock headed resignedly for the wheelchair and pulled the odious wig over his head. "I never do."
Elizabeth Montclair buttoned her navy suit, blissfully enjoying the air conditioning Conley had installed in her family's house. Mr. Conley might think of it as his, but she couldn't seem to. Her father's family had built this house in the 18th century, lived here for generations before Conley kicked them out and ruined her father, causing the heart attack that killed him.
She wrinkled her nose. Okay, so Conley had bought the house well above market value so her parents could settle their substantial debt and buy a small home outside of Princeton.
And okay, her father had been on the way to ruining himself when Conley pulled his company's capital out of her dad's final venture.
And okay, maybe Dad was killing himself with drink and his penchant for high-everything food and smoking and all-night trips to gamble in Atlantic City.
But the house. The study Conley had her cooling her heels in used to be Elizabeth's bedroom. She could see the place on the wooden sill where she'd carved the heart with her initials and Tom Cruise's, remember the hours spent curled up on the window seat reading stacks of romance novels she'd snuck by her parents.
Right now, however, she was on a mission to become his housekeeper. She'd gained nothing but wasted time prowling the edge of the property, hoping she'd figure out how to get into the house without risking prosecution.
A few weeks ago, she'd been clearing out her ailing mom's attic in anticipation of the horrible moment when she'd have to move her into a nursing home, and came across a diary kept by her great-great-grandmother, Lucinda Montclair. Among the yellowing pages filled with delicate looping writing was an entry Elizabeth had read so many times she'd memorized it.
It was told to me today by my dear mother just before her death, that Montclair family heirlooms, including the Andias diamond, were hidden from the British in a secret room in the Montclair mansion by Augustus Montclair during the great American Revolution. I have not yet found such a room, but confess to great excitement amidst the grief.
Her mom shrugged off the legend as romantic fancy — but with a wistful gleam in her tired, sunken eyes. At that moment, Elizabeth determined that she owed it to her mother to find out if the jewels were there.
If Elizabeth could get her hands on some serious treasure — legally of course — she could afford a full-time nurse for her mom and spare her the indignity of her final years in an institution. And maybe, Elizabeth could finally fulfill her lifelong dream of going to England, land of King Arthur, chivalry, and her beloved Shakespeare.
"Mr. Conley will be in shortly, madame." The almost comically snobby butler popped his enormous nose-in-the-air into the room.
"Thank you." She rose, clutching her résumé, not at all sure what to expect from the man so many people whispered about. Brilliant, promising, genius, loved by the media and populace alike, then the terrible mysterious accident that left his intelligence intact, but ruined his social skills, scarred his face and body, and made him a bitter, rambling recluse, driven only by the need to make money.
Whatever she expected, the parody of a mad scientist rolling toward her in a wheelchair wasn't it. She had a terrible fear she was going to laugh, which turned into a sudden fierce twinge of sympathy. What a horrible comedown from the man she used to read about in the paper.
"Mr. Conley, hello. I'm Elizabeth de Rocher." She used her mother's maiden name to avoid any sticky recollections of dealings with the Montclair family. "I've come about the housekeeper position."
The eyes behind the crooked dark glasses stared at her, his mouth open, head going slowly up and down as if he were making a careful inspection of her body.
She gritted her teeth. Men never seemed to be able to see past her breasts, no matter how sedately she dressed. "Uh, Mr. Conley?"
"Excuse me." His voice was a raspy painful gasp that made her battle another surge of sympathy. He used to be a gifted athlete. Now even talking was an effort. "I was just admiring your necklace."
Right. Elizabeth clutched the gold locket her father brought back from one of his trips to London — the trips he kept promising to take her on and never did. "It's actually a book, a miniature volume of Shakespeare sonnets."
"Ah, Shakespeare." One dark brow quirked up above his glasses. "'If I could write the beauty of your eyes/And in fresh numbers number all your graces,/The age to come would say, "This poet lies:/Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces."' From sonnet number —"
"Seventeen," Elizabeth whispered. Never in a million years had she expected Mr. Ex-Playboy to be a devotee of her beloved Bill. "Have you been to Stratford-on-Avon? Seen his theater? I've always dreamed of going there. To stand on that ground where he must have stood and recite —"
Elizabeth snapped her mouth shut. What the heck was she doing? Telling a total stranger her innermost desires? "I'm sorry. You must want to interview me."
"Oh, yes. I want to interview you, Elizabeth."
Warmth rose up into her cheeks and ricocheted down through her body. Oh my goodness. Something about the way he said that made her…furious. She took the seat he indicated, trying not to stare at the hand that emerged from under his afghan to reach toward his desk. You could tell a lot about a man by his hands. Aidan was strong, graceful, clean, and…large.
"So." His strong graceful clean large hand picked up a gold pen and pad. "What experience have you had as a housekeeper?"
None. "Well, I grew up in a large house and I've cared for my mom for several —"
"No experience," he said as he wrote.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. She had to get this job. Her mom deserved a comfortable happy old age and Elizabeth could picture herself in England. Who knew? Maybe she could meet someone else who could quote Shakespeare sonnets off the top —
"You're an English teacher at Princeton Day School." Aidan folded his arms across his chest. "I suppose you plan to hold both jobs in the fall?"
"Yes, sir." For some inexplicable reason, Elizabeth started getting flustered and fidgety under Aidan's unwavering silent stare. Even from behind the glasses she could feel its intensity. No wonder women had swarmed all over him before the accident. She could feel the beginnings of a swarming instinct in herself, and she wasn't remotely the swarming type.
A discreet knock sounded at the door; the pompous butler came in and whispered something in his boss's ear. For a second Aidan Conley had his face turned to the side and Elizabeth got a glimpse of clear dark eyes and long dark lashes. She swallowed and set herself firmly. This was not the time to develop a weakness for wounded geeks.
"Thank you, Reeves." He turned back to her, face once more shrouded behind the beard, glasses, and ridiculous frizzed-out hair.
"Mr. Conley, I have my references —"
"No need for that."
"What?" She'd been disqualified already? "If you'd just let me —"
"I said there's no need. You can go now." He backed up the wheelchair and gestured to the door of the room. "I'll expect you here by nine tomorrow."
At the shocked look on her face he continued. "You're hired."
"What?" Elizabeth stared down at the absurd figure of chair-bound Aidan Conley, wondering if his brain really had been as damaged by the accident as the rumors had it.
"I said, you're hired." He wheeled his chair over behind his desk and began sorting through his papers. "You can start tomorrow morning."
"Don't you want to check my —"
"I've checked them." He glanced up. "They're perfect."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. As far as she could tell, all he'd checked were her measurements.
She could be glad to get the job this easily, considering high school English teachers didn't have a lot of training as housekeepers. She could grab the land-in-her-lap opportunity to check out the legend she uncovered and see if there really were heirlooms belonging to her family hidden in a secret room in this house, representing wealth she desperately needed to care for her ailing mom, and desperately wanted to fulfill her dream of going to England.
But not if the land-in-her-lap opportunity extended to her lap landing in Aidan Conley's. "I'd like one thing clear, sir."
"Yes?" He picked up a stack of papers and started sorting it into smaller piles.
"I'll be a housekeeper here, nothing else."
"Of course, what did you —" He looked up from his work; his nicely shaped mouth spread into a wistful smile in the center of his overgrown beard. "Ah, Ms. de Rocher. You flatter me. Unfortunately, you don't need to worry on that score."
"I… I don't?" Elizabeth braced herself, her outrage fading. Every feminine instinct told her she'd trodden somewhere she had no business treading and this was going to get ugly and embarrassing in about three seconds. One...two...
"You see, the accident left me impotent."
"You told her I was what?" Aidan Conley's voice crackled on the overseas line.
Rock grinned, enjoying his friend's discomfort. Especially because Elizabeth had looked alluringly dewy-eyed when Rock quoted her a Shakespeare sonnet, and it occurred to him he might be unwittingly setting up Aidan's next conquest — with a woman Rock would like to know better himself. "I told her you had a little…levitation problem."
"Why the hell did you tell her that?"
"Because she thought I — that is, you — needed a female bed warmer. The woman has zero qualifications, aside from a great pair of…references, and I hired her on the spot."
"You hired me breasts for a housekeeper?"
"Reeves recognized her as the woman your cameras caught snooping around. This makes it easy to keep a close eye on her." Rock glanced at his watch, wondering if there were any circumstances under which it wouldn't be easy to keep a close eye on Elizabeth de Rocher. The woman had done more for his drooling idiot act than she had any right to know about.
He had to remind himself over and over to be interested in her mind — until she showed her passion for Shakespeare, shared her fantasy of going to England, and touched something deep in his academic soul. It might be simpler if he just lusted after her amazing body. "I better get dressed as the insane billionaire. She's due to arrive soon. Don't forget to come back. I can only stand playing social leper for so long."
"Oh? Any reason having to do with a certain great pair of references? Maybe I'll come home early. I've found nothing but ice in these fjords so far."
Rock felt that unfamiliar emotion again, jealousy at the thought of Aidan returning to his own identity with Elizabeth traipsing around his house with a brain full of sonnets, looking like the perfect fantasy combination of Playboy centerfold and schoolmarm innocence. "Suit yourself. I've got to go."
He wandered over to the windows to see if her car had arrived. Not yet. He traced a small heart in the wooden sill with the initials E.M. plus T.C., carved no doubt by some overly romantic fool.
Of course he wasn't far from behaving like one himself.
Ms. de Rocher had gotten into his brain, no question. He recognized the usual signs, not that they were terribly hard to spot. There was the can't-stop-thinking-about-her sign, and the endless-sexual-fantasies sign, those he was used to. But then there was a gentler, more noble curiosity about her. What she was like; what she thought about; what she wanted from her life. And of course why she'd been so obviously trying to worm her way into Aidan Conley's mansion.
He raised his arms and rested them against the window frame. So what was wrong with that? This kind of deeper interest was exactly what he'd decided to give up more shallow intimacies for. The quest for shared intellectual pursuits, the exchange of ideas and evolving personal philosophy, the chance for lifelong debate on the nature of man and his universe, the… the…
Elizabeth's navy Mazda drove up the estate's long driveway and parked. Long legs emerged from the driver's side. Long legs wearing shorts. Then long honey-blond hair pulled back into a thick braid, then a torso with those fabulous…references in a sleeveless white gauzy scoop-necked thing that if he edged forward just a little, he might —
She snapped her head up as if she could read his dirty little mind. An instant before she spotted him he jumped back, appalled at his carelessness, appalled at how deeply those shallow hunting instincts were rooted. No more. He'd fight the good fight. Keep his thoughts trained on intellectual philosophical universe-type debates and… so on.
He heard Reeves open the front door, greet Elizabeth, and start her on the route upstairs. Rock flew across the room, pulled on the beard, wig, and glasses and fell into the wheelchair just as the knock sounded on the study door.
"Come in." He wheeled himself behind the desk, steeling himself to be unaffected by his new housekeeper.
"Ms. de Rocher reporting for duty, sir." Reeves opened his eyes wide with his back to her and mouthed words Rock couldn't decipher.
Elizabeth brushed past him and came into the middle of the room, lighting it up with her freshness as if she'd turned on one of the Tiffany lamps. She glanced at Rock — briefly, but enough to send a jolt of involuntary electricity through him — then swept the room with a gaze that only returned to him after it had finished its errand.
"Good morning, Elizabeth." He croaked out the words in his best unstable genius voice, stroked the fake beard, and tried not to think about how incredibly perfect she looked, and what a lift she'd given to his day… in more ways than one. "Looking for something?"
"Oh, just curious." She gave another glance behind her then fastened her endlessly deep eyes on him. "Who was the man I saw standing at the window?"
"Who was the man I saw standing at the window?"
Elizabeth repeated the question since Aidan Conley had either gone into shock or off to sleep. She could see her reflection in the huge crooked dark glasses below the wild mop of stringy-looking hair and the out-of-control beard. What would this guy look like with a haircut and a shave?
"Oh, him?" Aidan's voice seemed even more croaky than usual. "You must have seen my… bodyguard, Corey Rockford — Rock to his friends. He, uh, had to go."
"Oh." She frowned. She'd grown up in this house. The only way to leave would have been past her.
"He's staying on the third floor." Aidan's sudden dynamite smile took her completely aback. "You'll probably get to see a lot of him, Elizabeth. He's a great, great guy. A former track star. Those stairs would have been nothing to him. That's why he could take them so fast."
"I see." Whatever. The only thing she hated more than cocky athletes was the way they treated her. She'd experienced it too often in high school and college, before she got smart. Hockey goalies requiring multiple slap shots, basketball stars committing too many personal fouls, tight ends trying to run it into her end zone.…
Elizabeth finally vowed only to date men she could beat up. Except that she still had this fantasy of broad shoulders, powerful arms, masculinity enough to —
"Maybe he could take you to lunch today, to celebrate you coming to work for me."
Elizabeth blinked, then shook her head. He was playing matchmaker for his bodyguard? "No thanks, sir. I'm sure I'll be too busy. Perhaps another time."
"'Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,/He of tall building and of goodly pride:/Then if he thrive, and I be cast away,/The worst was this: my love was my decay.' Shakespeare, sonnet number —"
"Eighty." Elizabeth stopped breathing. One of her favorites, the song of a wretched soul afraid to lose his beloved to a better man. Could Aidan be trying to —
"Elizabeth." He said her name in that low husky tone he'd used yesterday, and that same shivery warmth swept over her. She could probably beat up Aidan Conley.…
"Yes, sir?" She tried to remember her real reason for being here. It was not to fall for a guy who looked like Rip Van Winkle and was personal-hygiene challenged. Not to mention impotent.
He rolled the wheelchair closer and she got a tiny whiff of a very, very nice aftershave before a strange musty odor that was probably unwashed hair took over. "Call me Aidan."
"Yes, sir — Aidan," she whispered. What the hell was the matter with her? This was taking geek love to new depths.
"Good." He wheeled his chair back to the huge mahogany desk that stood where her four-poster eyelet canopy bed used to be. "Reeves can show you the ropes."
She bowed her head demurely and marched out of the room to find Reeves. After the tour, she armed herself with cleaning tools and patted the measuring tape in her pocket. All she needed to do to find the secret room was measure the walls until she found one out of whack. The secret room had to be behind there.
She smiled in satisfaction and started off to the front living room to begin her work. With the master confined to his study and the staff hard at work, she could find the jewels, get her mom the best, most luxurious medical care money could buy, and see about booking a trip to England, to immerse herself in the world of her beloved bard, all in a matter of days.
As long as this Rock person kept to himself.
Rock walked into the living room after following the thumps and bumps "his" new housekeeper was making, intent on ignoring his screaming primal attraction and enhancing the connection he'd already established with her, disguised as Aidan. Two steps into the room, he froze.
Elizabeth. Bending over. Head stuck way into the fireplace. Facing away from him. Temptation herself, in jeans that fit like — Stop. Think poetry. Think casual chat. Think anything but what he was thinking. "Did you lose something?"
She gasped and jerked up. There was a dull thud as her skull made contact with the marble fireplace. Rock rushed forward and reached to guide her head out safely. Soft skin. Soft hair. Stop. "Are you okay? What were you doing in there?"
"I'm fine. I wanted to see, uh, if the…chimney needed cleaning." She rubbed her head and looked at him expectantly.
Rock took a deep breath. Okay. Here it was. His chance to dazzle her with intellect. "Uh… I'm Rock."
"I'm Elizabeth."
"I know." He stood there, feeling as tongue-tied and ridiculous as when his father provided a "lady escort" to initiate him when he was 16 and started him down an addictive highway he'd only recently managed to exit.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rock." She frowned and he realized he'd been staring. No. Gaping. Stop. "Was there something you wanted?"
Inspiration hit suddenly. She was the woman Conley's security cameras had caught snooping on the property earlier in the month. He could try to find out why she'd been poking around Aidan's house, most recently with her head in the fireplace. "Are you from Princeton?"
"I grew up here." Her lips tightened into a sad smile. "I live with my mom in Pennington now."
"You go to the high school?" He examined a fingernail to make the questions seem casual and grinned when she nodded. "College?"
"Princeton."
"Impressive." He took a quick step forward, to unnerve her, the way his fictional detective hero, Dirk, unnerved his suspects, surprised when she took a step back and sent him a wary look. "So why become a housekeeper?"
"I need the money. Why all the questions?"
"Just curious." Time to back off; she was getting skittish. "So what do you think of our employer?"
"He seems gentle. And kind." She blushed. "Not the monster the press makes him out to be."
"Well, well. You seem quite taken with him." Terrific. He made her blush as an impotent shut-in and could barely get a smile out of her as himself.
"He's a gentleman." A wistful look crept into her eyes. "He seems to know a lot of poetry. I majored in English at Princeton — mostly Shakespeare."
"I love Shakespeare, too."
"You do." She eyed him doubtfully.
He gulped. This was not going well. More quotes from the bard were out. A little too coincidental if the master of the house and his bodyguard could cough up sonnet lines at the drop of a hat. But what other poets' work did he know that well? To create that fabulous softening of her eyes and features, that dreamy look of a hungry soul?
"'Cold in the earth — and the deep snow piled above thee,/Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave.'" He cleared his throat. Judging from the ice forming on her face, that wasn't quite the romantic tone he wanted to set. What else, what else? "That was Brontë. How about Browning? 'I left thee last, a child at heart,/A woman scarce in years:/I come to thee, a solemn corpse…'"
She looked at him as if he'd made an impolite body noise. Rock sighed and glanced around for something to bang his head on. Damn Aidan and his cooked-up invalid scheme. Damn himself for agreeing to trade places. Damn Elizabeth for putting him in the absurd position of being wildly jealous of himself.
Elizabeth half turned away so her fabulous silhouette was silhouetted even more fabulously. He broke out in a sweat. She was incredible. He wanted her. He was losing it.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rock." She brandished a feather duster like a weapon. "I need to get back to my work."
"Can I help?"
"No."
"Can I watch?"
"No."
"Can I press you up against the wall and kiss you until you're breathless?"
He froze, horrified. The words had spilled automatically, out of frustrated carelessness, in habitual response to his desire and the bantering tone of their exchange.
For one unbelievable second, her face flushed, her breath rushed in between parted lips, and her eyes melted into his. But just for that one unbelievable second. Then her face paled, her lips tightened, and her eyes froze up solid.
"And you wonder why I think that man upstairs is such a gentleman." She shoved the feather duster in his hand and stalked out of the room, leaving him embarrassed, bewitched, ashamed, and definitely, definitely aroused.
To hell with intellect. Any two people with similar interests could share that connection. He and Elizabeth already had, though she didn't know it yet. But for that one moment Elizabeth had responded to him purely physically. As a woman, not a Shakespearean goddess. Passion burned within her for things entirely of the body. And however much she might deny it, she wanted Rock to give them to her. Not Aidan.
He grinned. Poor Elizabeth. All of a sudden Aidan wasn't going to be quite as charming as she was used to. No, indeed. And after giving her a few more chances to experience this response to him, Rock would try something new.
He wasn't just going to talk about pressing her to the wall and kissing her breathless. He was going to do it.
What will Elizabeth do if Rock does manage to catch her and kiss her breathless?
South wall of the library — 25 feet.
Elizabeth snapped her tape measure shut. Three days into her search for her family heirloom and she was dead on her feet. The cleaning wasn't so bad, since the rooms were barely used by the mysterious new owner — a far cry from the mess her family had left it in every night. Supervising the staff was a breeze, since the staff consisted of a cook, gardener, butler, and chauffeur, all very nice people who knew exactly what to do and when.
But combining her duties with the real reason she was here — to find the secret room holding her family's heirlooms without being caught by either the intriguing master of the house, Aidan Conley or that horrible snooping pain in her duster who kept popping up out of nowhere, Corey "Rock" Rockford — all that was enough to wipe out a marathoner.
So far, no luck. All the measurements of all the rooms meshed neatly, no discrepancies that would indicate a concealed space of any kind. She'd worked her way through the rooms on the first floor and up to the library here on the second floor. She'd have to be extra cautious on the third floor — Rock's room was up there.
She'd cleaned it once, not that it needed much. He definitely went against type for the cocky jock. She'd expected dirty underwear and crusty tissues, not neatly folded clothes and a bookmarked volume of the new translation of The Odyssey on his bedside table. Go figure.
He was certainly attractive; she'd give him that. But that's all she'd give him. Well, and he seemed fairly intelligent. She could give him that, too. But that was it. Oh, and a kind of overly obvious charm, sure. He could have that. Major sex appeal, too, uh-huh. But —
Enough! She'd been seduced and abandoned by men like him too many times. Deep brown eyes that got inside you and made you feel like an undercooked egg; solid body that induced in you a thrilling combination of danger and safety; enough charisma to coax supreme court justices out of their latest opinion; a deep voice that could make you —
Someone coughed behind her. She whirled around, and blushing, hoped Aidan Conley wasn't a mind reader.
"Hello, Elizabeth," he wheezed. "How is the job going?"
"Fine. Fine." She nodded too many times and stopped her head. No question, the man affected her. Why she would find someone who was weird and smelly attractive she had no idea. Maybe because of his impotency problem, she knew he wasn't going to try to drag her off to his cave. Very refreshing. Maybe his tragic story intrigued her — the gorgeous guy he used to be before the accident, who he must still be under all the trappings. Maybe it was just that fabulous aftershave, she couldn't tell, but she was never quite herself around him. Such an intelligent man. She admitted openly to lusting after his mind. In fact, he hadn't been around for the past few days and she was shocked to discover she missed their discussions.
"Reeves has nothing but praise for your work." He raised his head and coughed loudly without covering his mouth. "And Rock tells me he's met you. A few times. He seemed totally charmed."
Elizabeth's smile froze solid on her face. "I see."
Aidan twirled a finger through his hair in a strange affected gesture she hadn't noticed before. "Apparently, however, you got off on a rough start."
"You might say that." She kept a sneer off her face with considerable effort.
"Rock is… He's actually quite nervous around some women."
Elizabeth suppressed a snort. "No disrespect meant, but he doesn't strike me as nervous."
Aidan pulled a strand of hair down over his forehead, directed his breath up to blow it away, then chuckled as if he thought the trick extremely clever and did it again. "Does he come on a little too strong?"
"Uh… like a bulldozer." Where was her magnetic Shakespeare scholar today?
He nodded and wheeled closer, close enough that she caught another practically erotic whiff of his aftershave, mixed in with that strange moldering smell that wasn't quite so enticing.
"You must make him very nervous, Elizabeth." He said the words slowly, quietly, almost whispering, in that funny old-man gravelly voice, drawing out the syllables of her name and just about making her melt onto the Oriental carpet under her feet, except he did another one of those openmouthed coughs, which made his face turn red and the veins stick out in his neck.
"Just… give him another chance. He's worth getting to know, I promise." He drew his arm out from the flowery afghan he hid under, found her hand, gave it a squeeze and held it, his fingers warm and strong, his eyes staring up at her, obscured by the dark lenses of his sunglasses.
Elizabeth's mouth dropped; her breath caught in her throat; another blush swept over her face. "Yes. Okay."
The words were barely out of her mouth before she realized her softness for one man was in effect propelling her into the greedy drooling…well, hardness of another. A man who sent a giant sign flashing into her brain: Caution: Proceed at Your Own Risk.
"So, Elizabeth," Aidan dropped her hand and wiped his across his nose, "do you find Rock attractive?"
"Uh…" Her swallow was an audible gurgle of confession. "He's… well, you know, he's — I mean, if you like that… tall, dark, major hunk thing."
His eyebrows rose so high they peeked over the top of his sunglasses. "You don't?"
"In my experience, jocks can't think about anything but scoring." She surreptitiously wiped the hand he'd been holding on her jeans. "I prefer guys whose brain is the most used part of their anatomy."
"Rock is a professor at Princeton." His right cheek twitched; he jerked his head a few times. "Did he tell you that?"
"He's a… at Princeton?" She clamped her sputtering mouth shut, so stunned she stopped being afraid Aidan was going to have a seizure. He was a professor? That... that Rock person?
"He's also..." Aidan cleared his throat as if he was trying to bring his insides out for some air. "He's also Daniel Alexander who writes the Dirk Davis mysteries."
Elizabeth's face, which had been preparing to scrunch in revulsion stretched out into new shock instead. Rock was Daniel Alexander? The man who wrote those brilliant, sexy detective stories she loved so much?
"I'm so sorry," she gasped out. "I guess I was a little sexist. It's just that... when you look at him, brain isn't the first thing you think."
Aidan removed a finger that had been exploring places polite people don't. "What is?"
Sex. "Why are you so interested in what I think of Rock?" she asked instead.
"Because last night he was a mess over you."
She put down her rag and turned back. "He was?"
"I've never seen him like that… sort of like a wounded puppy." Aidan lifted one arm and gave its pit a long, apparently satisfying scratch. "Pretty pathetic, in fact."
"Oh." A strange melty tenderness in the area of her heart made it possible for her to ignore this latest breach of etiquette. "I can't quite picture that."
"Elizabeth."
She braced herself against the weird thrill whenever he said her name, but it didn't seem to want to come this time.
"I don't think this is just about sex appeal for him. "
He rolled away, leaving her standing there with her mouth hanging wide open. Rock had real feelings for her? How on earth could he believe that after a couple of awkward conversations where he seemed to spend the entire time trying not to drool over her and failing?
She shoved a traitorous warmth firmly back under an emotional rock where it belonged and rooted through her bag until she found her sketch of the house. She was not going to think about Rock anymore.
So, he was sex personified, big deal. And a gifted author she'd admired passionately for years, so what? He'd turn out like all the others and then where would she be?
"Twenty-five feet." She penciled in the measurement and frowned, all sexy and consuming nonthoughts of Rock suddenly replaced by an eerie excitement. Had she made a mistake?
She calculated again. No mistake. Even allowing for the width of the fireplace in the inner wall, the back of the library should only measure 21 feet. Elizabeth fell into an overstuffed chair and stared at the sketch in her suddenly shaking hand.
She'd found the secret room.
She'd found the secret room.
Elizabeth jumped out of the striped overstuffed chair and paced the length of the library's inner wall. How many times had she been in this room as a girl never knowing she'd been so close to the Montclair family heirlooms. Or so they'd been described in her great-great-grandmother's diary. Including the Andias diamond.
In Elizabeth's imagination, it was a jewel of about eight carats that would sell for enough money to keep her mom out of the nursing home by hiring a private nurse, buy them a nicer house in the heart of Princeton, and let Elizabeth visit England, to revel in her love of Shakespeare, any time she felt like it.
So where to look? And how to do so and remain inconspicuous? How many times could she clean the library before someone started asking questions? Rock, the unbelievably sexy jock pig who turned out to be a professor and one of her favorite authors, had already been asking too many for her comfort. Aidan Conley, strange and mysterious master of the house, had just left the room in his wheelchair; he'd probably stay away for now anyway.
She reached for and grabbed a book. In the movies, concealed doors were always activated by moving a book. But it would take her hours to check each one.
Or… her eyes lit on a bust of Beethoven. In the Batman TV show, the Caped Crusader had always flipped a switch in a statue's head to gain access to the Batcave. Maybe she could start there.
The marble of the bust was cool and smooth under her fingers. She shifted the statue, explored along its surface, checking for hinges or cracks or —
"Lucky Beethoven."
Elizabeth stiffened and clenched her hands into fists. Rock always managed to have the worst timing.
She unclenched her fists and forced herself to smile at him, wishing he didn't look quite so clean and strong and male and sexually available. Fifteen minutes ago she'd listened in disbelief as Aidan announced Rock had fallen for her, and under pressure she'd promised to give Rock a second chance.
Deciding to uphold her part of the agreement she smiled her very best smile at him. If he was remotely worthwhile as a human being he'd prove right now that he could let a second go by without a come-on line. "I'm checking him for dust."
"I think I might be dusty, too. Would you check me?"
Her smile faded. Okay, that was enough of a second chance. She turned to the bookshelf, hoping her back would be stiff and discouraging enough to make him leave.
To her horror he came up close behind her. Close enough that she could almost feel the heat from his body — or at least close enough that she started imagining it pretty strongly. Why weren't gentle geeks ever this sexy and confident?
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth." His voice was deep and sincere behind her. The warmth of his body became so vivid in her imagination that she had to steel herself to keep from leaning back into it. "The lines are just a habit. A stupid autopilot habit I'm trying to break. Born out of spending too much time with beautiful women who bore me to death. But you excite me. That is, your mind excites me." He sighed. "Okay, your body excites me too — I'm only human."
She turned around and put her hands on her hips, not surprised when he glanced down at her breasts. "My mind excites you?"
He turned brown eyes that took her aback with their sincere intensity up to hers. This guy was good. He made David Jensen look like an amateur. David had proposed marriage, complete with diamond solitaire, during senior year in high school. He'd taken her virginity and then asked for his mother's ring back. His mother was alive and well and wondering where the heck her ring was.
Of course the incident was partly Elizabeth's fault. If she wasn't such a romantic, wasn't so dying to believe in love at first sight with Mr. Macho Perfection…
She shook off the memories. "As I recall we've had one or two brief conversations, which consisted primarily of me answering questions about my schooling and trying to fend you off. How boring were those women?"
For one incredible second he looked trapped. Ha! She wouldn't have expected it to be this easy. Maybe now he'd leave her alone so she could continue her search. Leave her alone so she could stop wanting to find out if his body was as smooth and hard as it looked.
She winced and censored her own thoughts. When would she ever stop lusting after macho pinups and settle down with the gentle soul who could make her happy? But gentle souls never quite seemed to push her over the edge into wanting forever after.
"You like this room?" He backed off and ambled casually along the walls, running his hands along the shelves of books.
She blinked. "Yes."
"You planning to spend a lot of time here poking around?" He shot her a keen glance, measuring her reaction.
Elizabeth stiffened. What was this? "I thought I could make myself useful in here. You know, cleaning the books, making sure they're in good shape. Even organizing them if Aidan… Mr. Conley wants me to."
"Aidan?" He stopped in front of her, too close for comfort even a few paces away. "You really like this guy?"
"I… well, I thought I did." Her tongue thickened impossibly and that strange tenderness invaded the region of her heart, but this time not for Aidan. "Are you really Daniel Alexander?"
"Yes." Rock took a step toward her; she jumped back. His eyes narrowed. "What's the matter, do I make you nervous?"
"A… little." But only enough that she had her back pressed against a shelf of books and was shaking in every muscle group. "I really love your books. You manage to work in so much character depth and… and wonderful literary references that give them —"
"Does Aidan make you nervous like this?" He took another step forward.
Elizabeth shook her head, finding it suddenly difficult to take deep breaths. "I... understand you're also a professor. At the university. How —"
"Do you ever want him to kiss you?"
"Look." She stopped for a gulp of air. Her voice didn't have even a quarter of the outrage she was supposed to be feeling. His body was massive and warm even without using her imagination. And his eyes were doing that undercooked egg thing to her insides. "I don't think this is appropriate."
He bent forward until his mouth was only about an inch from hers. "Do you ever want me to kiss you, Elizabeth?"
And then he was kissing her and the only sound of protest she managed to make was a sigh of longing, which wasn't at all an effective deterrent.
Kissing Rock was heaven. Absolute, unadulterated heaven, if it was proper to refer to heaven when every sense was on fire with pagan lust. He tasted good, he felt good, he smelled —
Elizabeth opened her eyes, then narrowed them to furious slits. She broke off the kiss and tilted her head back. "Go to hell, Corey Rockford. Go directly to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect —"
"What the —"
She pushed him back with all her strength and caught a glimpse of the same glazed-with-passion shock that she was sure had been on her face a minute ago... until she smelled the tantalizing smell of Aidan Conley's aftershave and realized she'd been duped again.
Aidan Conley and Corey "Rock" Rockford were the same man.
Go to hell?
What in the world had happened to the warm, beautiful, passionate woman he had been kissing, Rock wondered as Elizabeth stormed out of the room.
He'd been kissing Elizabeth because, unless he was getting signals from an alternate life-form, she'd desperately wanted him to. God knew he'd been desperate to from the second he first saw her. Then bang! He was outta there. But not the usual I've-come-to-my-senses or How-dare-you female outrage. She'd been furious. Livid.
"Psst." Reeves's head poked around the door.
He sighed and nodded to Reeves. "What is it?"
"The master is home. Got in late last night. Apparently he had a miserable time, then caught some bug so he figured he'd be just as badly off back here."
Rock's stomach sank. Great. The only way Elizabeth responded warmly to him was when he was disguised as Aidan's mad billionaire alter ego. And he doubted Aidan would go for the snorting and twitching routine Rock had adopted to make the invalid character less appealing.
"He wants to see you, catch up on what's been going on."
"Sure." Rock went to the study. "Hey, Aidan. Nice to see you back. You look like hell."
Aidan rolled his eyes, still the kind that felled women with a single wink, even above dark circles. "I felt worse yesterday. What's been happening here?"
Rock almost laughed. "Not much."
"Reeves has a different story." Aidan lifted his eyebrows. "Have you found out what that housekeeper was snooping around for?"
"Not yet."
"You been… spending a lot of time in surveillance?"
"She thinks I'm a pig." He jammed his hands in his pockets and started whistling, forgetting how well Aidan knew him.
"Uh-oh." Aidan crossed his arms over his chest and gave Rock a penetrating stare. "You've got it bad, Professor."
Rock spun around and went to the window. "It gets worse."
"How much worse?"
Rock pulled back the curtain, remembering how she'd looked coming out of the car that first day and how hard he'd fought his attraction. Irrational jealousy twisted inside him. "She's falling in love with you."
"I haven't been here. She fell in love with you, you idiot."
"No." He shook his head. "Your supposed tragedy, your lost health, your brilliant command of Shakespeare… I'm the dumb jock. What's worse, she rattles me so badly I behave like a dumb jock. Except when I'm you."
"Oh, boy." Aidan wiped the smile off his face. "You've definitely gotten in deep."
Rock nodded. Way deep. Kissing her had been like being reborn into something noble and powerful. Like Super Rockman, only painfully human and mortal and definitely vulnerable. His feelings for Elizabeth had nothing to do with his umpteenth time scoring and had everything to do with his first time falling in love. But he couldn't face any more duplicity.
Even if she never forgave him, he had to tell her the why and wherefore of the disguise, that he and the Aidan she knew were the same person. It was the only way if he wanted any shot at a real and forever kind of relationship with her.
He grinned weakly. "Aidan, old buddy, it's true confession time."
With any luck, he'd emerge with his pride and his body parts still intact — and have a chance to explore something deep and real with the woman who'd invaded his heart.
Elizabeth paced back and forth on the carpet in the first-floor salon, wondering how long before she wore a threadbare path.
The arrogant jerk. Playing with her emotions, making her first want him as a brilliant helpless invalid and then as a sexy, virile…side of beef. What fun this all must have been for him. Gee, Elizabeth, Rock is such a nice guy. You should really drop your pants next time you see him.
Grrrrr.
For all the defenses she'd erected around herself, the males of the species had found a new and inventive way around them. Elizabeth Montclair wanted revenge and she wanted it bad. Which left her muttering over and over the phrase evil plotters and crafty planners, including Dr. Seuss's Grinch, had been using for centuries: But how?
She wanted to trap Rock into confessing that he'd been masquerading as Aidan Conley. Make the stupid disguise patently obvious, so he'd know he could fool some of the women some of the time, maybe even most of the women most of the time, but not all of them all the time. And not this one ever again.
She pictured him in his chair, under that stupid afghan, pretending to be ill, mad, impotent.…
Perfect! She had the perfect revenge.
She undid her braid and shook her hair out into loose waves. Next, the shirt buttons were undone. Tie the shirttails in a loose easy-to-slip midriff-baring half-hitch under her breasts. Cuff the shorts way up to expose maximum leg. And the final touch —
The vacuum cleaner.
Ten minutes later, she knocked on the door to the study.
"Yes."
The feeble voice came through the door and she smiled a vicious triumphant smile. For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;/Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
"I'd like to come in and clean, sir?" She kept her voice honey sweet to hide the venom trying to come through.
"Come in."
She licked her lips to make them moist, stuck them out for the pouty sexpot look, took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and sauntered in. "Mind if I suck your dust?"
A gasp came out from behind the fake beard that would have alarmed her if she hadn't known he was in perfect health. She bit her lip to stop her grin. The son of a you-know-what had it coming. He'd probably even forget to scratch.
She bent over in best Playboy bunny style to plug in the vacuum, very aware he'd have an excellent view of anything he might care to see, which, judging by the faint strangled gurgle coming from the chair behind her, was everything. She turned the motor on and began vacuuming in slow passes, making sure her body undulated sensually with every stroke.
Take that! She pushed the vacuum closer to his chair, vacuuming more vigorously so the shirttails gradually loosened and flapped open, exposing her lacy bra. Now for the final attack. She put the dusting attachment on the end of the hose.
"Excuse me." She leaned across his desk and played the vacuum over the dark mahogany, making sure her breasts were at his eye level. At the triumphant crowning moment, she'd sweep the afghan off his lap to expose the hoped-for lack of impotence, then rip the disguise off to expose his mortification.
One… two… three….
Sweep. Ha! There it was. A regular Washington Monument.
Rip.…
Elizabeth screamed. The vacuum cleaner motor died behind her.
Silence. An awful, awful chilling silence.
"Well, well, Elizabeth."
She turned around and encountered Rock, vacuum cord dangling from his fingers, hands on his hips. He glanced between her and the Washington Monument. "Looks like you've got yourself between a Rock and a hard place."
"You… you…" She sputtered furiously. It had been him under the beard before. She'd smelled that same aftershave. Somehow he'd figured out she was going to try and trap him and pulled another switch.
The stranger in the wheelchair snatched back the afghan to cover himself. "Rock, I didn't touch her."
Elizabeth grabbed her shirttails together and gestured at the handsome man in the wheelchair. The real Aidan Conley. She'd know that face anywhere. "You're not scarred, not sick. Not —" She gestured in the vague direction of his crotch.
"It's a miracle! How can I ever thank you?" Aidan stood up and grabbed her hand, pumping it enthusiastically. Then his eyes narrowed. "Hey, I know you. You're a Montclair. I bought this house from your family."
"I… I…" She stood in helpless mortification wondering what else could go wrong.
"How interesting." Rock came forward, grabbed her hand and pulled her not very gently to the door. "Excuse us, won't you, Aidan?"
He dragged her out of the room, into the library, turned and grabbed her shoulders to make her look at him. "Mind telling me what's going on Ms. Montclair-not-de Rocher and snoop extraordinaire?"
"Maybe you should start, Mr. Just-pretend-I'm-Aidan-Conley." She didn't know whether to feel furious or hurt or ashamed, so she felt all three. "I don't know how you pulled that fast one, but the guy behind the beard before today was you."
"I had good reasons." He pressed her back against the bookshelves. "More honest than yours, I bet."
"I wouldn't count on it." She pushed her head back to gain some badly needed distance from his overwhelming presence. Her head hit and pressed against a hard rounded protuberance. In a surreal slow-motion moment, the entire bookcase shifted behind them.
"What the —"
"Oh my gosh!" Elizabeth gripped Rock's arms, head spinning from a strange combination of lingering vengeful bloodlust, intense sexual attraction, and triumph. The secret room did exist.…
"What the hell is this?" Rock stared behind Elizabeth's head at the bookcase, which had somehow moved to one side exposing what looked like a secret corridor.
"The bookcase is on some kind of track. The whole thing slides to the left." Elizabeth crouched to the ground, examining the machinery, her heart beating furiously as she realized she was about to find the Montclair family heirlooms.
Rich! She was going to be rich! Once she got the door open all the way, that is.
Thank goodness Rock had been so furious with her for trying to seduce him while he was disguised as the impotent Aidan, who, it turned out, wasn't Rock and clearly wasn't impotent. If all that weirdness hadn't transpired, then it might have taken her weeks to find the secret door. Luckily her head had found it all by itself when she cracked it on the release knob.
Ouch.
"Let me help." Rock braced his shoulder against the door and pushed. With a groaning creak, the bookcase swung back and slid slowly to the left.
When there was a passage large enough to slip through, Elizabeth stopped him. "Wide enough; I'm going in. I still can't believe I found it."
"Found what?" Rock caught her arm, turned her to face him, eyebrows drawn into a dark frown. "You know what's back there."
She nodded. Lies didn't come easily to her, and she was sick of the ones she'd had to tell him already. "Yes, I know."
"This whole housekeeper charade was a ploy to get into Aidan's house."
"Hold the stone throwing." She jabbed a finger into his chest. "Your whole Shakespearean wheelchair charade was a ploy to get into my pants."
"No offense, but if I just wanted to get into pants I would have picked pants without the deadbolt, chain, burglar alarm, and Do Not Enter sign."
"I'm sure you —"
"Pants that don't lie their way into someone's house and try to steal —" He gestured back into the dark opening behind her. "— whatever."
"I'm not stealing. I would have told Aid — Mr. Conley." She sighed, suddenly tired of her deceptions. "What's back there are Montclair family heirlooms, which have belonged to my family for centuries. If Mr. Conley wants to stop me, I probably haven't a leg to stand on legally. But I would hope he'd —"
"If they're from your family you should have them." Aidan came into the room, tall, handsome, and so much like Rock they could have been brothers. He winked. "And call me Aidan. Any woman who can cure impotence with a vacuum is okay by me."
Rock's grip tightened painfully on Elizabeth's arm. "Did something happen back there before I came in?"
Aidan let out an exasperated sigh. "I was kidding. Let her go look for her heirlooms."
Elizabeth sent Aidan a grateful look and dared a pleading glance at Rock. He let go grudgingly, obviously relieved no erotic vacuuming had gone on, but still not particularly pleased with her, which pretty much mirrored her own state of mind about him.
She turned toward the dark opening in the library wall and took a deep breath. By finding these jewels she could restore part of the family fortune and make sure her mom spent her remaining years in comfort, plus she'd finally be able to visit England to explore her passion for the country and its long-ago famous inhabitants. She'd deal with her feelings for Rock later. When she had several weeks to try to figure them all out.
She made her way into the short dusty passage, wondering if they should have pushed the door farther open for more light. Rock's big body followed closely behind her, enticing and intimate in the tiny shadowy space.
Okay, she'd deal with most of her feelings for him later.
The passage opened out into a tiny rough room, with a table, chair, and… a wooden trunk in the middle of the floor.
She stopped at the sight of it, overcome by emotion.
Rock whistled softly. "Open it, Elizabeth."
She knelt next to the trunk, caressed its worn top, undid the leather straps and opened it. Inside was a hand-stitched, carefully folded quilt. She lifted it and froze when she saw what lay underneath.
Looms. A stack of them. Probably six. One with a geometric pattern woven into the threads.
"What the heck is that?" Rock's voice put into sound what she was feeling. Disbelief, incredulity, and potential misery.
Elizabeth lifted the loom with the geometric pattern; it was wooden and strangely heavy with letters on the side in graceful script: Ayre Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
"Oh my God." She stared at the weaving and realized with horrifying clarity that the pattern was made of diamonds. "I think I'm going to be sick."
Rock moved forward. She shook her head, crushed by disappointment. "Figuratively, I mean."
"What is it, a joke?"
"No. A misunderstanding." She held the clunky object up and gave a miserable chuckle, her dreams of helping her mom sloshing gently down the commode along with her trip. "Behold. The Montclair family Ayre looms."
Her words, dead and muffled in the tiny room, were immediately followed by the grating sound of the bookcase door sliding shut, leaving them trapped in total blackness.…
Elizabeth screamed as the door to the secret room slid shut behind them. Being trapped in a tiny pitch-dark room with Rock, the most desirable man on the planet, was... was... well, actually, it had definite possibilities.
But first she had to trust him completely, make sure he wasn't just after a quick roll on the dusty planks. She was tired of having her heart trashed by macho jerks, and he could trash it like no one had ever tr —
"Aidan." Rock had jumped to his feet and judging by the booming sounds, was pounding on the door into the library that had just slid shut. "This isn't funny. Open the damn door."
"Not until you guys quit fighting and make up." Aidan's voice came faintly through the door, muffled, but unmistakably amused. "I'll give you two hours."
"For God's sake, Aidan, what are we going to do in here for —" There was a long pause. "Okay, see you in two."
He came back along the passage toward her; she stepped away, nervous and excited, until her back touched cool plaster.
"Elizabeth." He drew out the syllables, the way he said her name when he was pretending to be Aidan. The way that got her juices... juicing. "Where are you?"
"I'm..." She cleared her throat. "I'm here."
His firm step sounded as though it was coming toward her, making one plank creak, another groan. "This is perfect."
"Why?" Her voice came out breathless and shivery.
"Because you can't see me. Because you can't judge me by anything but what I say...." He took another step. "And how you feel."
"Oh." More breathlessness. More shivers.
"How do you feel?"
She stopped breathing, started shaking in earnest. Could she summon the nerve to tell him? He was, after all, the gentle man in the wheelchair with whom she had had so many fabulous discussions, and who had so touched her heart; he was also the brilliant author whose words she'd admired for so many years; and he was the strong, sexy guy who made it hard for her to see or think straight. Putting the parts of the puzzle together made him the perfect combination of everything she'd always wanted.
"Elizabeth?"
There it was again, Eliiizzzabeth. Even without the sexy voice he affected her more deeply than any man ever had. But she couldn't quite bring herself to trust that this wasn't all about her body. That buried in that fine mind opposite her might be merely the primal male urge to make it with anything sporting a D-cup.
So she had a simple choice. Either she could protect herself by staying on the sidelines, or risk heartbreak by jumping in, as she'd done too many times in her naive youth. Possibly this time she could find real joy. Possibly this time she could find real love. But...
"I'm sorry about the deception, Elizabeth, about not coming clean that I was disguised as Aidan. But you responded so much better to him." His voice came out low and husky in the darkness; he cleared his throat. "I hated being around you as myself and feeling like the loser."
She took a deep breath. Honesty was a good place to start. "I didn't make it easy for you. I didn't even give you a chance until I discovered who you were underneath the pickup lines and the attitude. That's why I was so attracted to Aidan — at least until the twitching started."
He chuckled and came closer so she could sense his warmth in the darkness, hear his breath, steady but fast. She tensed, waited for his hands to be all over her.
Instead he kissed her on the mouth without putting his hands on her, over and over, gentle soft kisses that gradually increased in intensity and pressure until she was clinging to him, weak and gasping, overcome by desire so strong she felt she could reasonably die of it.
He broke away over her murmur of protest and she sensed he'd knelt in front of her. "Rock?"
"I'm spreading the quilt."
She stood in the darkness, trembling. He was taking it for granted they'd make love. Was that what she wanted? Her body certainly did. But her mind? Her heart? Could she take this kind of risk?
"There."
She cocked her head in the darkness. A shuffling sound now, as if he were still on his knees and —
Strong arms clasped her waist, brought her gently down to the floor to lie with him on the colonial quilt. He slid his warm hands under her shirt, unhooked her bra and stroked her back, stroked up and over her shoulders, then down to her breasts. "Oh, Elizabeth..."
She stiffened, as much as she told herself not to. But this was when men, even the most honorable, well-intentioned ones, lost their minds and used words like "fabulous hooters."
"I love you."
She gasped, a joyous surprised sound, and then she melted. Absolutely melted. Melted against him, melted out of her clothes, melted out of her mind. All she knew was that he loved her, and his hands on her body were making her feel not like an exhibit at Ripley's Believe It or Not, but powerful and glorious and invincibly female.
Then he was naked, too, rolling on top of her and they joined in an unbearable agony of pleasure, moving together to make the darkness seem like their own version of heaven. With a rush of emotion and sensation like nothing she'd ever felt, she climaxed and said his name at the same time he whispered hers. And when it was over and they came down together, she knew he'd been making love to her, not just to her body, and she almost exploded with the joy of it.
"I love you, too, Rock."
He rolled to one side and pulled her against him, kissed her with passion and tenderness, then drew a gentle finger across her lips. "Let me treat you to England, Elizabeth. I'm renting a flat in London for August. I'll show you everything. We can live Shakespeare together."
Elizabeth bit her lip, her sudden rush of euphoria just as suddenly deflated under a picture of reality. He was the fabulously successful author and scholar; she was a struggling teacher with a mom to care for. He loved her, yes, but wanted to take her to England, pay her plane ticket, her rent, her meals — and all her giving would take place in the bedroom.
She squeezed her eyes shut against tears of frustration. If only the family heirlooms had amounted to more than a joke, she wouldn't have to feel so... kept. Maybe it was just her Montclair pride, maybe lingering paranoia, but she needed to feel more equal. "Rock, thank you. But — I wouldn't feel right having you pay my way. And I can't leave my mom."
"I can arrange care for her. She wouldn't want you to stay home on her account. And money is totally meaningless."
"Except when you don't have any." She found his face in the darkness and sadly traced the firm line of his jaw. "I'm sorry, Rock. I'd love to go to England with you someday, but it would have to be on my own —"
A sudden pounding jolted her.
"Time's up. What's the verdict?" Aidan's voice came through the wall in the library.
Rock got up and pulled his shirt out from under her body. "We're coming."
"Oh, sorry. I'll wait until you're done."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, sat up, rehooked her bra and fumbled around for her jeans and panties, feeling elated and despondent all at once. The man of her dreams loved her. She had every right to be floating on air. But the facts of their relationship wouldn't leave her alone. Those damn jewels were supposed to be her salvation.
"Let me know when you're ready," Rock whispered.
She found her clothes and pulled them on, though she wasn't entirely sure everything had gone on quite right. "Okay."
"We're ready," Rock called. She heard his footsteps going toward the door, then a bang and a crunch, a curse, and a funny scattering sound, like pebbles being dropped on a hard floor. At the same time the door swung open, light poured into the room and made Elizabeth blink.
"What was that noise?" She squinted down at the floor. The Ayre loom with the diamond pattern on it lay broken on the floor from the pressure of Rock's weight. And scattered around it in a glistening array, were —
"Diamonds." Elizabeth gasped the word out, barely able to comprehend what had happened. Her mom's medical care. Her family honor. Her trip to England. Rock. "Oh my god, diamonds."
Rock whistled, crouched down, and held up a pear-cut stone the size of a prune. "Would you look at this?"
"The Andias." She knelt next to him and stared in awe at the sheer size of the stone.
Rock picked up her left hand and balanced the huge diamond on her fourth finger. "What do you think, would it catch on things?"
A heady charge of electricity swept over her. Was he — Did he mean — "Rock?"
"It certainly is." He grinned, then his eyes grew serious, tender, and slightly vulnerable. "Would you like to marry me in England next summer, Elizabeth? Would you like to use some of the trip next month to plan the wedding, now that you have your diamond heirlooms?"
"Oh. Yes. Yes." Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She did have her heirlooms — and something much more important. "'For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart/Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.'" She sniffed. "Sonnet number —"
"One hundred thirty-one." He drew her to him and kissed her hard and long with increasing passion, pressing her body close against his obviously rearoused one. "Mmm. Want to go back into hiding, Mrs. Shakespeare?"
She laughed and pulled back to send him a teasing glare. "I thought you loved me for my mind."
He smiled, his eyes promising the happy ever after she'd never quite been able to stop believing in. "I love you for you, Elizabeth. Just for you."
"Now that —" she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, unable to believe how much happiness had come into her life in such a short time and how sure she was it would last "— is sheer poetry."