An Improper Affair (Millionaire of the Month #4)(18)
Author: Anna DePalo

The living room contained a sofa and love seat at right angles to each other. They were covered with a profusion of pillows in different prints and shapes. An etched-glass cabinet stood against one wall and a fireplace was set in another. A tasseled nig partially covered the wood floor.

"If your decorating project at the lodge turns out as well as your house." he said, turning toward her, "I’d say you’re well on the path to success."

"Distressed Success," she deadpanned. "Is there any other’?" he countered.

She smiled. "I’d offer to show you the rest of the house, but I think we’ll be late." Looking into her eyes, he said. "Next time."

The moment drew itself out between them and he could tell she was thinking about what meaning to attach to his words.

AH of them, he wanted to tell her.

Kelly cleared her throat, breaking the mood. "Let me just turn off the lights and make sure I’ve got my house keys."

As she switched ofi" lamps, he reflected that she’d surprised him last niglit and proven him wrong, and he wasn’t a man used to being surprised— or wrong.

She’d only slept with a guy once or twice. She’d floored him with the admission, though she’d given, no sign since that she even remembered what she’d said.

He realized now that she must have been even more affected by growing up with Brenda Hartley than he’d been by being Webb Sperling’s son.

Last night she’d even referred to not being able to shake off her mother’s history. Now he knew how it had affected her in surprising ways..

Of course, it all meant he’d been wrong about her— wrong to accuse her of being like her mother and wrong to think he had her all figured out.

Sure, the way she’d dressed and acted last night had been at odds with her sexual inexperience, but she seemed to have set out to teach him a lesson.

She’d said she was just living up to the behavior he expected of her. Or just maybe, he mused, it was the behavior she was expecting of herself that she had fought against.

It also occurred to him now that she might have gotten her start as a designer by making the most of a modest budget while she was growing up. His recollection was that Brenda Hartley was not supposed to have had much money, and rumor around town was that she’d also been an indifferent parent.

When Kelly drifted back to his side, he asked, "Ready?" She smiled. "Yes."

On the drive over to Clearwater’s, they chatted casually about local events. When they got to restaurant, he made sure they were shown to a table with a prime view of the twinkling lights on and around Lake Tahoe.

They talked about innocuous subjects such as the weather and skiing. She’d learned to ski only when she’d moved to Tahoe, he discovered, while he did black-diamond runs to work off steam.

After the waiter arrived and they’d placed their order— she, a salad and veal francaise, he, a shrimp cocktail and the surf and turf— he sat back and contemplated her.

She had extraordinary features. Her bone structure was exquisite and the combination of full lips and hazel eyes with shades of topaz added a hint of exoticism.

"Why are you staring at me’?" She looked back at him with a hint of uncertainty.

"You’re beautiful," he said simply. In her case, it was a statement of fact, not flatten’. She looked as if she didn’t know how to react. "Thank you," she said eventually. "I also think you’re not completely happy with the fact," he added. Her eyes lowered to hide her expression. "I don’t know what you mean."

"I mean." he said, refusing to let her off the hook, "you don’t seem entirely comfortable being Brenda Hartley’s daughter."

"About as comfortable as you are being Webb Sperling’s son."

He nodded briefly. "I accept that," he said, then he eyed her. "Have you been in touch with him recently’?"

"Who9" she asked, cloaking her expression again.

"You know who. Your mother’s former lover." He said it unflinchinslv, forcing them both to face the fact baldly.

"Why would I tell you’?" she countered. "You obviously don’t approve." "I don’t like watching anyone make a deal with the devil."

"Some have called you ruthless and worse. I do read the newspapers like everyone else, you know."

He changed tactics. "Webb Sperling is a philanderer and worse." She remained silent.

"When I started hearing rumors he was having an affair with your mother," he went on, "I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d cheated. But my mother had just gotten diagnosed with stage -three breast cancer. I figured the least the bastard could do was keep his pants zipped while she went through chemo."

She still said nothing, though this time she looked as if she wanted to.

"Did you know about the affair?" The answer was irrelevant to him now, but curiosity made him ask.

She nodded finally. "My mother has a history of choosing the wrong men at the wrong time, starting with my father— actually, maybe even before that." She paused, then added, "I didn’t know him, by the way."

"Your father?"

She nodded again. "Brenda wasn’t positive about his identity, but she thought he was an out-of-town salesman visiting Vegas while she worked at a casino."

"Yeah, well, I was legitimate, at least," he drawled. "Webb made sure of that. There was no way he was jeopardizing his claim on my mother’s millions."

"I saw Webb a couple of times during the affair," she admitted, then wrinkled her nose. "He and Brenda weren’t the most discreet of couples."

His lips lifted in sardonic amusement. "You call her Brenda?" "Don’t you use Webb?" A dry chuckle escaped him. "Another thing we have in common."

"Brenda didn’t like to be reminded she was a mother," Kelly said. "It was bad enough I spelled the end of her aspirations to be a showgirl. Of course, since I’m twenty-eight now, she’d much rather I lied these days and said we were sisters."

"Given what you look like, I don’t blame her for that." "Thank you. At least you got to escape Clayburn and go to Harvard." "Yeah, except I discovered there’s no use trying to outrun your past." "Easy for you to say." she replied. "You’ve always had money, power— " "— and you never have," he finished for her.

"Exactly."

"You know," he said, "I remember driving by the house you lived in with your mother." She looked surprised. "I didn’t even know you knew I existed."

"I knew who you were, all right. The rumor mill in Clayburn made sure of that. As a point of pride, though, I pretended not to recognize you."