on. Get out of here before I give you something to do. Have a great weekend.”
At a stoplight on the way back to her office, Sean glanced over at Avery and caught him gazing at her. He smiled tentatively, then turned toward the window. The light changed, and she moved on. They were tired, and hadn’t said much for the last few miles. As the streetlights flickered on against the darkening sky, Sean didn’t want this car ride to end.
Avery had talked to his wife’s doctor this afternoon. Apparently, Joanne was better, eating more and responding to the nurses. In a strange way, this news made Sean feel sad, and more alone. Avery was due back on the set Monday. He’d asked if she needed his help over the weekend. Sean had said that she didn’t know yet. She found herself trying to think of an excuse to be with him tomorrow or the next day.
But there wasn’t much to do. They’d uncovered enough circumstantial evidence to establish reasonable doubt. Actual proof of a conspiracy now depended on what Nick Brock could find in Opal, Idaho. Unless Sean decided to join him in Opal, all she and Avery could do now was wait.
She should have been happy tonight. They were on the verge of exposing these criminals and proving Avery’s innocence. But she was on the verge of losing him too.
Sean switched on her indicator and began to slow down as they approached the parking garage where Avery had left his car this morning.
“Don’t stop, keep going,” he said urgently.
He didn’t have to explain. Sean glanced at him, and out the passenger window, she saw a white Corsica parked across the street. Two men sat in the front seat. Sean stepped on the gas.
“We’ll go back to my office,” she said. “We’ll call a taxi to meet you around back.” She checked her rearview mirror. The Corsica hadn’t moved yet. “This weekend, I want you start shopping for a bodyguard, okay? What time are George and Sheila expecting you tonight?”
“They have theater tickets. I’m going home.”
“Alone?”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I have a dozen reporters and a lynch mob camped out by my front gate. I won’t be lonely.”
Sean turned into the alley by her building, then parked around back. As they climbed out of the car, she let him carry her briefcase. They started up the back stairwell. “Listen, Avery,” she said. “I want to apologize for snapping at you this morning—you know, in the car?”
He paused on the landing and smiled at her. “It’s okay.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that I have it a lot worse off than you. What you said was right. Our situations
“Maybe you were just setting some boundaries,” Avery said. They started down the hallway to her office. “I probably had it coming. I was a bit too familiar last night.”
Sean gave him a questioning look. “When?”
“Here. After we read the fax, I hugged you. It was inappropriate.”
She opened her office door. “It felt nice, Avery,” she admitted. “I think I just got a little scared.”
For a moment, he gazed at her in the darkness of her office. He set down her briefcase, then touched her arm. “All this time, you’ve never been unfaithful to him, have you?”
Sean shook her head. Her first instinct was to step back, but she didn’t.
“And he hasn’t been able to hold you or kiss you?”
“Not for the last fifteen months.”
He sighed. “Jesus, what a waste.”
She let out a sad little laugh. “That’s what Dan says.”
“Sean, do you think it would be okay if I—put my arms around you? Just for a little while?”
“I think so,” she whispered.
Avery gently pulled her toward him, and she gratefully sank into his embrace. He stroked her hair. She couldn’t keep from crying. He kissed the tears on her cheeks, then his moist, soft lips slid down to her mouth.
Sean trembled at the feelings awakening inside her. She kept thinking that this wasn’t supposed to happen, it was wrong. Yet she surrendered to every sensation.
He whispered her name and kissed her neck hungrily. His beard stubble was scratchy, but felt wonderful. It seemed like forever since she’d heard her name spoken in the height of passion. His warm breath was swirling in her ear. Sean ran her fingers through his wavy black hair. Avery’s mouth met hers again, and she parted her lips against his. She clung to his shoulders. It was as if a giant, warm wave had washed away that huge wall of protection she’d built around herself and her feelings.
Sean’s head was spinning. They sank back on the sofa together. He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat, and she sighed with pleasure.
Avery pulled back for a moment to unbutton his shirt. She ran her fingers through his chest hair. She could feel his heart racing. Avery had a movie star physique, but what captivated her most were his beautiful hands— manicured, masculine, and so skillful in the way they caressed and aroused her. Sean brought those exquisite hands to her mouth, kissing his fingertips, sucking on them. It had been so long since she’d experienced a man’s touch. She couldn’t help thinking about how Dan’s hands had become bloated, pale, and hairless—deadened by disease. Suddenly, a panic swept through her.
Avery kissed her again. Sean fiercely clung to him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, crying. “Please. I’m sorry, Avery. We have to stop. I’m so sorry.”
He just held her, his face pressed against her breast. He rocked her in his arms. “I know,” Avery replied, his voice raspy. “It’s okay.”
Sean realized he was crying too.
From a window in the back stairwell, she watched Avery climb into the taxi. Looking up, he gave her a melancholy smile, then shut the cab door.
They’d spent the last hour and a half on her office sofa, just holding each other. Occasionally, he’d kiss her forehead, or bring her hand up to his lips. Neither of them said anything. They huddled together in the darkness, listening to the traffic outside. There were moments when she remembered how it been with Dan, and she could feel Dan’s arms around her again. But she never forgot that it was Avery rescuing her from the emptiness of the past fifteen months. With his tender kisses and caresses, he’d resurrected those feelings in her.
She’d missed dinner with her family. But she wouldn’t have given up one minute of intimacy with Avery—not even for Dan and her children. It had scared her to realize that.
Sean had been the one to say it was getting late. She’d phoned for his taxi, and given him a fleeting good-bye kiss in the stairwell.
She watched the cab pull away; then she wandered back toward her office. She didn’t want to go home right now. Maybe she should have made love with him tonight. She couldn’t imagine feeling any more guilty and torn than she was now.
If only she could go away for a couple of days, and not have to face Avery or her family. Right now, she felt such an urgent need to put some distance between the people she loved and herself.
Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness in her office. Without turning on the lights, she found Dayle’s fax from Nick Brock on her desk. Sean sat on the edge of her desk for a few minutes.
Finally, she picked up the phone, dialed Debbie’s Paradise View Motor Inn, and asked for Tony Manero’s room. He answered after two rings. “Yeah?”
“Is this Nick Brock?” she asked.
“Who’s calling?”
“I’m Sean Olson, Dayle’s attorney friend. We talked the other day.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re the one who said you wouldn’t hang up on me, though you were tempted. What can I do you for, doll?”
“I just thought you should know,” she said. “I’m flying out there tomorrow to work with you.”
Twenty-one
