it alone.’
‘But how can you—?’
He shook his head and glanced around. ‘Just this once do you think you could do what I tell you to do?’
When he looked into her eyes again what she thought she could read in the cobalt depths made Miranda want to march across the room and give his sister-in-law a piece of her mind. She understood how difficult it was for Tyler to be there even if no one else did. Had he brought her along as back-up or a smokescreen? She was a lot happier with the first option, would have volunteered if she’d known he needed support. Didn’t he know that? She wanted to talk to him about it—hear the story from beginning to end in his words—but it was the archetypal wrong time, wrong place.
He lifted his mug and drained the contents. ‘You want to take that ferry ride, we best say our goodbyes.’
Miranda acquiesced with a nod. A ferry ride would be the ideal place to talk. She just wished she didn’t feel as nervous about hearing what he had to say as she’d been about meeting his family. Gathering herself together, she pinned one of her public-persona smiles in place and turned around. Even if it was more than likely she would never see them again she wanted his family to think well of her.
One by one the people she barely knew said their goodbyes with a hug, a kiss on the cheek or both. At first she felt awkward about hugging them back, her body stiff and unyielding; particularly with Jo. But by the time she got to the eighth person—his mother—she was holding on for a moment longer than strictly necessary, her throat clogged with emotion.
They made her feel so accepted it was all too easy to paint a picture of a fantasy future where she was part of their world. She would sit in the seat next to Tyler every Sunday, at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and be there just for him the way it felt he’d been for her.
She gave herself a mental talking-to as they left the house. If she wasn’t careful before she knew it she’d be doodling Miranda Brannigan inside hearts on stationery. The man had been in love with another woman—still was for all she knew. Then there was the small matter of her freedom—she didn’t want to trade one form of captivity for another.
Their relationship was about sex and, once they’d had a little chat on the ferry to ensure they were on the same page, they were going to his apartment to have lots of it.
TWENTY-ONE
If pressured Tyler might have admitted taking Miranda home to meet his family wasn’t planned. But it would have taken extreme torture for him to confess the reason behind it was that it felt as if she had him on the ropes.
Truth was he doubted taking her to meet the family priest would keep them out of the bedroom for much longer.
As she walked beside him, unruly tresses of flame-red hair tossed by the wind, all he could think about was how it felt to have those silky soft strands sliding over his fingers. He wanted to strip her naked and keep her that way until he’d sated his hunger for her. He wanted to map her body with his mouth and his tongue, taking her close to the edge over and over again without allowing her release until she begged him to take her.
He’d used every trick he could think of to get it off his mind. He’d even summoned random pages of books from his memory and recited them word for word inside his head. When his talent for retaining information chose to remind him of the time he’d furtively flicked through a copy of Lady Chatterley during puberty, he’d stopped.
So much for that great idea...
But there was no point denying there was something else going on that had nothing to do with sex.
He’d watched from the sidelines as she smiled, talked and laughed with his family. She’d looked right there—as if she belonged—and Tyler realized on some level he’d known she would. What he hadn’t realized was how much he would like having her there. He’d even looked at Jo and Danny and felt at peace with the past; as if things were the way they were supposed to be.
It felt as if a weight had been lifted.
Studying her from the corner of his eye, he tried to figure out what was different