A drawer opened, then closed, then the bathroom door closed and a moment later she heard the sound of the water running in the shower.
She opened her eyes and shifted positions. Thank goodness. One leg had already fallen asleep. Pins and needles tingled through it as she moved it back and forth to restore the flow of blood.
She shifted again, trying position after position in an effort to get comfortable enough to sleep. She froze again when she heard the sound of the water being shut off.
A few moments later the bathroom door opened and Hank walked back into the room, bringing with him the scent of minty soap and clean male. It was the most provocative scent she"d ever smelled. She wished she had a cold. She wished her nose was stuffed.
She wondered what he slept in. Pajamas? Boxers? Surely he wouldn"t sleep nude, not with her in the same room. She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed, refusing to satisfy her curiosity by peeking.
"You can relax, Angela," he said softly. "I"m decent."
She opened her eyes and saw him clad in a pair of red athletic shorts. Decent? She supposed, although the width of his broad chest decorated with dark hair was definitely indecent. As was his flat abdomen, slim hips and long muscular legs.
When she"d had her silly little crash on him, she"d tried to imagine what he"d look like beneath the tailored suits he always wore to the office. Nothing in her fantasies had prepared her for the reality.
He sat on the side of the bed. "Ready for lights out?" he asked.
"Yes." She desperately hoped he didn"t notice that her voice was a full octave higher than normal. She wanted the lights out more than she wanted anything in her life. She didn"t want another minute of having to look at him.
She breathed easier as he clicked the switch on the lamp and the room was plunged into darkness.
Within seconds her eyes adjusted and she realized the room wasn"t completely dark. There was enough moonlight seeping in through the window to allow her to see Hank as he got into bed and pulled the spread up around him.
"Good night, Angela," Hank said, his voice far too deep, far too intimate for her comfort.
""Night," she replied, trying to lie still.
He breathed a deep sigh, as if the mattress beneath him was infinitely comfortable. The rat, she thought irritably. She"d probably be crippled by morning. The floor would probably be more comfortable than the d.a.m.nable love seat.
If she was going to continue the marriage facade for the next week, she needed to get a good night sleep. She had to be on her toes, thinking clearly in order to continue their married pretense. The floor or the love seat, neither would afford her a good night"s sleep.
A light snore erupted from Hank. Of course he would fall asleep instantly. He was enjoying the nice softness of a mattress. She looked over at him in irritation. He was on his back, his mouth opened slightly. Even snoring he looked attractive.
What looked more attractive was the half of the bed that was empty. There was plenty of room for her. They were both adults. He certainly wasn"t attracted to her and she wasn"t sure she even liked him very much. Why couldn"t they share the bed?
The two hundred fifty dollars he"d offered her for him getting the bed wasn"t enough. It was silly for her to spend a miserable night on the love seat while half the bed remained empty.
Decision made, she stood and grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around her like a cotton coc.o.o.n. On tiptoe, not making a sound, she crept to the opposite side of the bed and eased down next to him.
He stirred, turned his head and gave her a sleepy grin. "You"re forfeiting part of your bonus."
"It"s worth it," she replied as her body conformed to the soft mattress. "That love seat is a torture device."
He laughed, a deep soft rumble that echoed in the pit of her stomach. "Good night." Almost immediately he was back asleep.
It took Angela longer to fully relax. Although there was a full six inches between their bodies, she could feel Hank"s warmth. His clean, freshly showered scent surrounded her.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on lying still, breathing deep and fully. Within minutes she was asleep.
Something tickled her nose. Brian with a feather duster, she thought. Her brother was such a tease. He was always pulling some prank or another.
She frowned, something not quite right. Mustang, Montana. She was in Mustang, Montana. What was Brian doing here?
As the last vestige of sleep fell away, Angela opened her eyes. Skin. That"s the first thing she saw. Tanned skin with dark hair...hair that tickled her nose.
Hank"s chest. What on earth was she doing with her face on Hank"s chest? She didn"t move, was afraid to. His breathing was deep and regular and she a.s.sumed he was still asleep.
One of his arms was around her, his hand resting lightly at the small of her back. Their legs were tangled together, how and when they had become that way, Angela had no clue.
Still, for a long moment she did nothing but remain unmoving, finding pleasure in the easy way their bodies had found each other in sleep. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her cheek, a faint rhythm that seemed provocatively intimate.
The first rays of morning peeked in through the curtains, golden shards of light that lit the room in a surreal illumination. Surreal. The entire experience of being in Hank"s arms felt surreal.
"Good morning." His chest vibrated as he spoke.
Angela shot up and away from him, nearly falling off the side of the bed as she tugged her legs away from his. "I thought you were still asleep," she exclaimed.
"I"ve been awake for a while, but you seemed to be sleeping so soundly, I didn"t want to bother you."
"I was. I was sound asleep...completely unconscious asleep." She wanted him to know that she hadn"t willfully, consciously draped herself across him. How embarra.s.sing. How utterly mortifying.
He grinned and stretched with arms overhead, looking like a majestic lion awakening from a nap. "I slept great. What about you?"
She nodded, wanting to get up and out of the bed, yet subtly captivated by the notion of being in bed with him. She was definitely crazy, she decided. But, what a pleasant delusion. "I slept well once I decided to forego the love seat."
He rolled over on his side and braced his elbow beneath him. His eyes were the deep blue of fathomless water, his jaw darkened with a morning shadow of whiskers. His hair was disheveled, strands skewed this way and that, and yet Angela had never seem him look more handsome, more masculine.
She remained sitting up, knowing her hair was a mess and not a st.i.tch of makeup adorned her face. No mascara to darken her pale lashes, no lipstick to add color to her lips. Nothing to hide behind.
She flushed beneath the intensity of his gaze. "You"re staring at me," she said with an uneasy laugh.
"Yes, I am," he agreed. He reached out and touched a strand of her long, curly hair. "Why do you tie it back all the time?"
"It"s too curly and wild."
"It"s beautiful." He dropped his hand and sat up, a slight, irritated look crossing his face. He picked up his watch from the nightstand. "We"d better get dressed and ready for breakfast. It"s already almost seven."
"You can use the bathroom first," she offered.
"Fine." Without hesitation, he got out of the bed, grabbed clothes for the day and disappeared into the bathroom.
Angela stared at the closed door, wondering what had irritated him. Her hair? That didn"t even make sense. He"d said her hair was beautiful. Warmth suffused her as she remembered those words.
Perhaps seeing her without makeup, her features completely unadorned, had scared him up and out. Maybe he was irritated over the fact that she"d half smothered him while sleeping. G.o.d, how embarra.s.sing. And it was only the first night She still had five nights left to sleep with Hank. She shivered at the thought, disturbed by the fact she wasn"t sure if the shiver was brought on by fear...or delight The morning session whizzed by without any problems. Hank mentally worked on a new ad campaign for one of his accounts while Barbara lectured them on the history of marriage and the reasons why the inst.i.tution was so important to society. Hank cared about neither.
Angela sat next to him, appearing to listen intently to Barbara"s every word. He cast Angela a surrept.i.tious gaze. As usual, her hair was tied back in an untidy knot at the nape of her neck. The dark brown curls absolutely refused to be confined, springing free from the barrette that attempted to maintain order.
It had been odd, waking up with her asleep nearly on top of him. Her soft breathing had caressed his chest and he"d felt the press of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his side. Initially, when he"d awakened, his first impulse had been to spring up, disentangle from her as quickly as possible before she woke up. But, the longer he"d waited to move, the more pleasant the sensations that whispered through him.
Her body had fit so perfectly against his. She"d felt both small and vulnerable in sleep, yet s.e.xy and alluring at the same time.
When he"d touched her hair, felt the silky softness of a curly strand, warmth had shot through him, a warmth far too appealing. The physical desire that had speared through him had both shocked and surprised him.
He valued Angela"s secretarial and management skills far too much to risk losing them by having s.e.x with her. And that"s what it would be...having s.e.x, not making love. He had a feeling that Angela would want more...she would want lovemaking, not just s.e.x for desire"s sake. And even though he knew it was none of his business, he still wondered just how many lovers she"d had in the past.
"We"ll break for lunch now," Barbara said, drawing Hank"s attention away from the woman next to him. "We"ll be serving in about fifteen minutes," she explained.
Lunch pa.s.sed far too quickly and all too soon it was time for Hank and Angela to join Barbara in the library for their "personal" marriage workshop.
"I"d like for the two of you to sit on the floor and face each other," Barbara said as she closed the library door, giving the three of them complete privacy. She gestured to a plush, thick throw rug in front of the fireplace.
Hank sank down as Angela did the same. He wondered if his facial features held the same anxiety that Angela"s expressed. As they faced each other, he saw the tension that thinned her lips and darkened her eyes. He had a feeling this would be the first real test of their "marriage" and he knew Angela realized the same thing.
Could they pull it off? Could they make Barbara believe that they"d been married for two years, shared intimate secrets with each other, worked together toward common goals and dreams?
"Come on, get closer together. Make your knees touch," Barbara instructed. They moved closer, their knees meeting each other"s. Barbara sat down on a chair some distance from them.
"Often in the courtship game and an ensuing marriage," she began, "the two people involved don"t share everything with each other. There are pieces of their past, events from their childhood that made them who they are, and it"s often these milestones we don"t share but rather guard inside."
She smiled at Hank and Angela. "Today you"re going to share those places with each other. Now, I want you to hold hands."
Hank took Angela"s hands in his, surprised by how soft, how utterly feminine they were. He"d never noticed before, but she had pretty hands, with long slender fingers and neatly shaped nails painted a pearly pink. The nail polish astounded him and oddly touched him, so utterly female in his nononsense, efficient secretary.
She squeezed his hands and he didn"t know if she was attempting to a.s.sure him or communicating to him she needed a.s.surance. He squeezed back, wondering if she had any idea how nervous he was.
It was crazy. He wheeled and dealed with millions of dollars at stake and never broke into a sweat. But this little exercise of Barbara"s had him more nervous than he"d ever been in his life.
"Okay, we"ll start with Angela. Angela, I want you to share with Hank the very best day you can remember from the time you were small until you were eighteen years old."
"That"s easy," Angela replied, her gaze still on Barbara. "The day my mother brought my baby brother home from the hospital."
"Don"t tell me," Barbara exclaimed. She pointed to Hank. "Tell him. Tell him everything about the day and how you felt at that time."
Angela directed her gaze to Hank. "I was nine years old when Brian was born. By then my father was gone and my mother was sick a lot, so I knew I was going to play a big role in the everyday raising of Brian."
She smiled, a smile that lit her eyes and caused golden warmth to flow from them. "He looked more like a monkey than a baby. He had a head full of dark hair and his face was wrinkled up like an old man"s." She laughed at the memory, and the sound of her pleasant laughter shot through Hank like a warm swallow of good liquor.
"But the minute his little fingers closed around my thumb, I knew I"d do anything for him," she continued. "I knew the first moment I saw him that he was going to be a big responsibility, and a lot of that responsibility would be on my shoulders. But, I didn"t care. It was a labor of love."
Hank remembered that moment when he"d stepped into her house and saw her wrestling with her brother. Her cheeks had been flushed with her exertion, but her eyes, her features, all had been lit with the love she had for her brother.
That same smile lit her face now, transforming her from average to almost beautiful. "I knew on that day, I was no longer Angela Samuels, daughter of Roger and Janette Samuels. On that day, I was Angela Samuels, big sister to Brian Samuels."
Her smile fell away and her expression grew thoughtful. "I knew even then that as long as I loved him, that little baby boy would love me unconditionally. It was the absolute best day of my life."
"And your brother still loves you unconditionally," Hank replied softly, remembering the love that had so obviously flowed between brother and sister the morning he"d come to Angela"s house to pick her up.
Angela smiled. "Most of the time. Now, it"s your turn. The happiest day in your life was when?"
Hank frowned thoughtfully, trying to remember a day in his life that could equal what she"d just shared with him. "The day I got my first horse." The words fell from his lips unbidden, a picturememory filled his head. He smiled as the memory unfurled in his mind. It had been years since he"d thought of that day.
"I was seven at the time," he said. "I came home from school and my dad told me to go out to the barn and get him some rope. I went out to the barn and started to grab a length of rope and that"s when I heard the deep snorting of an animal, the stomping of horse hooves."
For a moment Hank was back in that old, dilapidated barn. At seven years old, what he wanted more than anything else in the world was a horse of his own. He"d considered himself a cowboy, but it was impossible to be a cowboy without a horse.
"We didn"t have any horses. Still, I followed the sound to the last stable, and there she was ... the prettiest young mare in the world. She looked at me with her liquid brown eyes, nuzzled my chest as if searching for my heart, and I knew then that we were going to be best buddies for a long time to come."
"What did you name her?"
"Bandit. She had a dark mask around her eyes and it was easy to see that was what her name should be." Hank sighed, the happy memory embracing him. "I think I knew even then that we were struggling financially, and that only made Dad buying Bandit for me that much more special."
Angela"s features reflected his pleasant memories. Her eyes radiated warmth and her lips were curved upward in a sweet smile of shared reflections from a distant past.
"Good. You two are doing terrific." Barbara"s voice surprised Hank. For a few moments he had forgotten her presence in the room. "I can tell by the look on your faces that you"re enjoying not only your own memories, but each other"s as welL Now I want you do to something a little more difficult. I want you to share with each other the most painful day in your life as you were growing up."
Hank"s first impulse was to jerk his hands from Angela"s and say no way. Already he felt as if a small invasion had occurred, an unwelcomed entry into those private places he guarded so well.
It had been years since he"d thought of Bandit, of those carefree days on the ranch where he"d been truly, completely happy. His memories were his own, and he was reluctant to share any of them with anyone.
But, before he could voice any true protest to furthering the exercise, Angela drew a deep breath. "That"s an easy one, too. The day my father left," she said. Her expressive features radiated myriad emotions, the strongest one a sadness, a sense of loss so profound, he felt it echo in the deepest chamber of his heart.
He squeezed her hands more tightly as she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, apparently fighting a wave of tears that appeared poised in her eyes, ready to spill onto her cheeks. How quickly the tears had appeared, letting him know the depth of pain left by her father"s abandonment.
"I didn"t even know he and my mother were having problems. They never fought, Mom was pregnant and I thought everything was fine, my whole world was secure. Then one summer morning I woke up to find Dad packing his clothes."
A single tear fell onto her cheek, and Hank checked the impulse to lean forward and swipe it away.
"He told me he had to leave, that he wasn"t happy living with us." She started to speak more, but instead closed her mouth as if to say anything more was too painful.
In the last two days he"d seen her embarra.s.sed, indignant and irritated. In the time of her employment, he"d seen her as efficient, productive and capable. Nothing had prepared him for this soft vulnerability, the painful ache her hurt created inside him. How was it possible that her pain could feel so bad inside him?
"I never saw him again, never heard from him again after that day. He left and never looked back and...and I always wondered if I"d been smarter, better, prettier, would he have stayed?"
Her question hung in the air, containing all the wistful fantasies, all the yearning and sadness of a child abandoned.
"Hank, tell Angela how you feel," Barbara said softly. "Tell her how you feel about what she"s shared."
Hank looked into Angela"s eyes, saw her need for comfort and realized he couldn"t block her pain from his heart. "I feel bad for her. My heart aches with her pain. I wish she"d never had to go through that."
"Tell her," Barbara instructed. "Don"t tell me."
"I feel bad for you," he amended. "I...I wish I would have been there, that I had known you then, so I could have told you that it was his loss. He was the one who missed out on knowing what a wonderful person you are, what a loving heart you have."
And she did. Even without knowing her well, Hank knew instinctively that her capacity to love would be awesome. He"d seen it when she"d spoken of her brother.
He wondered what it would be like to be the person on the receiving end of such vast love. Surely it would be beyond spectacular.
"What about you, Hank?" Barbara asked. "Share with Angela the worst day of your life."