It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,72
she thought about it all the time.
Couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Especially in bed at night, or in the shower, with the water sluicing over her skin in a trail his hands could...
If she slept with him, could she really save him from a lifetime of unhappiness?
“You like him.”
“Yes, I like him, but—”
“You more than like him.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s like I said. It’s your job to save him.”
“Absolutely not.” Finishing the last one of her cookies, Addy wiped her hands on the moist paper towel beside her, pushed back from the table and carried two of the four laden trays over to the preheated oven.
“At least think about it.”
“No, Nonnie.” Turning, she pinned the woman with her courtroom stare. “I will not sleep with Mark just to keep him from marrying another woman.”
“Then do it because you want to.”
Addy excused herself to go to the bathroom, praying that Nonnie hadn’t seen how badly her hands were shaking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MARK WAITED FOR Addy outside her botany lecture on Monday morning.
In jeans and a white, button-down blouse, with her satchel over her shoulder, she could have passed for any one of the many students around them, except that she was the only one he noticed. Her particular gait. The exact color of her blond hair.
The set of her shoulders. The way she tilted her head. Didn’t matter, he had her inside of him.
She walked right up to him, which he took as a good sign. She could have pretended not to see him standing there. “I miss you.” His jeans and short-sleeved polo shirt were appropriate for the seventy-degree coolness, but he was sweating.
“I just saw you on Friday night,” she said, but the light tone in her voice didn’t match the way her eyes took him in.
“How’d your exam go?” she asked next, falling into step beside him.
“I totally aced it.”
She grinned and nudged him. “Good for you!”
She’d touched him and he was on fire. How could he contemplate marrying another woman when he wanted this one so fiercely?
“I never saw myself as a classroom type of guy.”
He’d never seen himself as a guy wanting more than he could have, either.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all.” Addy’s glance was personal. His body responded. “You just needed to give yourself a chance.”
Ella would have made some comment about him being too good for her. Or asked him if he was going to move to a big city and work at some fancy job. She’d have wanted to know how his good news affected her.
Had she ever thought of what he wanted?
Was he being selfish now, only thinking of himself?
They reached the entrance to her parking lot. In silence, he walked beside her. And then she was pulling out her keys. Unlocking the door.
Before climbing in, though, she turned to him. “For what it’s worth, I...miss you, too.”
His hands in his pockets, Mark nodded. “I’ll be home for dinner tonight so you don’t have to worry about Nonnie.”
“I know. She called out to me as I was leaving this morning.”
He couldn’t let it end. Not yet.
“So...will you join me outside tonight?”
“Yes.”
He had to get to class. And she looked so damned good, standing there with the reflection of the sun peeking through the trees to linger like gold dust in her hair.
He’d never known hell could feel so good.
* * *
ADDY STOPPED BACK in to see Randi Parsons Monday afternoon. She’d had a message on her machine the day before from the woman she’d once hoped would be her aunt. Randi wanted permission to check her “sister’s” academic records for possible admittance into Montford.
Which sounded like Randi might have found some scholarship money. Was Will’s baby sister a miracle worker? Or a softhearted woman with shady ethics?
Her heart hoped for the former, but her instincts were pointing toward the latter. She’d spent the night before going over the university’s budgets while Mark had been at work. Starting back when Will had become president of the university.
She’d been nibbling away at the plate of chocolate chip cookies Nonnie had insisted she bring home with her.
And had lost her appetite when she got to the women’s athletic budget from ten years before. Or rather, both the men’s and women’s budgets. The men’s athletic budget, which was nationally understood in the educational world as an investment against revenue for the school, had been drastically cut to give more money to women’s athletics. The person responsible for the budget request had been Randi Parsons.