He walked to the door then paused, a smile slowly blossoming across his face. “But you might want to phone first.”
With a wink, he left.
She finally looked up at Mark, worried that perhaps she’d overstepped the boundaries, but saw no sign of irritation or anger on his face. “I didn’t mean to stick my nose where it didn’t belong. Are you mad at me?”
Mark shook his head. “No. As Sam said, you were looking out for me.” He laced his fingers with hers and tugged her back onto his lap. “Kind of nice to know you worry about me like that. Besides, as Hauberk’s new vice president of Western Operations, it’s a reasonable concern.”
“Vice president?” A thrill shot through her at the title until she remembered Mark’s daily frustrations dealing with employees who were late or failed to show up at critical times. His anger when he caught several operatives smoking joints while on duty. And the mountains of paperwork that covered his desk. “Does that mean I have to sit behind a desk shuffling papers all day?”
Mark snorted. “As if that’ll ever happen.” When she tweaked a handful of chest hair, he sighed. “All right, there will be some paperwork involved. But you can hire an assistant if you need one. It also means you’ll get to boss the guys around even more than you do now.”
“I’m not bossy!”
He raised one eyebrow. “You just bullied a guy who’s six foot six and weighs two eighty buck naked about the merger. That wasn’t bossy?”
“That was…” she walked her fingers up his chest, “…a negotiation. On behalf of someone I love.”
His hands slipped underneath the bottom of her shirt, cupped her breast with his palms, his thumbs brushing over the sensitive tips. “Hmm. I love hearing you say that.”
She leaned into his touch, eyes closing. Talented fingers, she thought for what had to be the umpteenth time that night. “What? That I negotiated for you?”
“No, that you love me. You’ve never said that before.”
The distinctive sound of a Harley revved outside. Jodi rushed to the window just in time to see Sam tugging on his helmet. “I knew I’d heard a motorcycle! But how’d he get in without me seeing it?”
She glanced back and saw Mark’s lips clamp together, a telltale twitch at the side betraying his urge to smile.
“You! You came with him, didn’t you?” She poked him in the chest and thought back to when he’d arrived, and what he’d done. “And then you deliberately distracted me from watching the monitors, didn’t you? With that stupid vibrating egg!”
“Didn’t take much effort,” Mark said. He stood behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist as they watched Sam glance back at the house. He gave a salute toward them, then roared down the driveway.
Chapter Eleven
Mark turned her away from the window until she faced him, then kissed her, his lips brushing over hers in a featherlight touch. “Te amo.”
Jodi wrapped her arms about his neck, pulled him closer until her breasts brushed his chest. “I love you too.”
Not knowing what was at the bottom of the chasm he was about to leap into, he teetered on the edge. He hated the strange feeling of fear curling in his bowels. But there was no going back after tonight, there was no way he could let her walk away with someone else.
She nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder, rested her hand on his chest. Everything about her felt so right.
“Babe? I, uh, have something to ask you.” He swallowed hard. She’d said she loved him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to marry him. What if she said no?
She pulled back to look at him, her eyes wide, almost fearful, held her body still. “What?”
He took a deep breath and leapt into his future. “Will you marry me?”
Jodi stiffened in his arms. “M-marry? Marry you?” The words seemed forced, as if they’d stuck in her throat.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d wanted her to throw her arms about his neck and shout, “Yes, yes, yes! Of course, I’ll marry you.” Instead her hold on him loosened and blank shock filled her eyes. The bright light that he’d hoped would be his future turned out to be a heat-seeking missile racing toward him, its target his heart.
“I still want you to be vice president of Western Operations, whether you say no or not,” he said quickly, wondering if she thought her answer might be tied to the promotion. “Sam and I discussed it already. I just hoped… I want to…” He stumbled on, unable to stop himself from babbling, knowing he was sounding like an idiot. “I love you and want to marry you.”
She laughed, a half-hysterical sound he’d never heard from her before. Her head dropped onto his shoulder as her body rippled. Was she crying? Worse, she was laughing. No. Giggling!
“You…you…you want to m-m-marry me!” Her giggles reached an almost hysterical quality.
He’d bared his soul to her, asked her to marry him and she was giggling? His arms dropped as the missile hit its target and shredded his flesh, his soul. “I didn’t think it was so funny.”
“Oh, M-Mark,” she choked out from behind the fingers she’d pressed over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me.”
Sure didn’t feel that way.
“You see, tonight”-her giggles trailed off into a sigh-“tonight, when I was waiting for you in the van? I thought…I thought you were trying to brush me off, to dump me.”
He felt his jaw drop. Dump her? After all he’d gone through to arrange this evening? Would he ever understand how women thought?
“Why?” he finally managed to splutter.
“Because you’ve been so distant lately.” She held up her hand when he started to protest. “It was like you were trying to avoid me. I-I thought maybe you’d gotten tired of me. I thought maybe you thought it was time to move on.”
He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry-I’ve been busy arranging this evening with Sam, and hammering out the details of the merger. I never meant for you to feel like I was ignoring you.”
“I know.” She released a breath and her voice wavered. “No, I didn’t know. I just kept remembering that agreement we made that either of us could walk away at any time, no questions asked.”
He saw pain flicker through her eyes, realized she was remembering how she’d been treated by past lovers. Cursed himself for forgetting that beneath the tough exterior Jodi showed everyone else was a sensitive woman who needed reassurance that she could be herself without fear of rejection. He ran a finger along her jaw, marveling at how others didn’t realize her tough shell was just an act. “I’ve just been distracted. I’m sorry. If I wasn’t interested I would have told you straight out. I wouldn’t have just walked away.”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d do,” she said softly, not realizing how much it hurt him that she might think he could treat her so callously. “I figured you just might not know how to tell me. After all, we did agree that we wouldn’t…you know…”
“Fall in love?” He captured her hand with his, pressed a kiss to her palm. “Jodi, I’ve never felt like this”-he moved her hand to his chest, flattened her palm over his heart-“about any other woman. Ever. I love you. And I want to marry you. Will you marry me, Jodi?”
She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes filled with tears. “Yes. Oh, Mark, of course I’ll marry you.”
He released the breath he’d been holding and enfolded her within the circle of his arms, held tight, realized he was shaking with the fear that had engulfed him that she might say no.
When he nuzzled his nose against the side of her neck, he frowned. He could still smell a trace of cigar-of Sam-in her hair. He silently cursed himself again for letting another man touch her, while thanking Sam for forcing the issue, for forcing him to acknowledge how much he loved the woman in his arms. His grip loosened from about
