Pleasure My Lustful Heart: A Romance Novella (5 page)

My clock radio woke me at seven, and I dragged myself into the shower, hoping I could function all day on three hours sleep.

By 8:15, I made it to my desk at the shop, and found that I could work better than I expected. I guess you do what you have to do.

It was eleven-thirty when Henrietta at the front desk called to tell me I had a visitor — Gregg
Monsell — and could he come back to my office to see me? I sat there for a moment before I answered. I thought, this guy never gives up, does he? Well, I had to admit I'd been tough on him last night. “Sure, send him back,” I said. I wasn’t certain whether to be annoyed or amused. I decided I would simply do my best to be courteous — no easy task for me.

Just before I hung up the phone, I heard Henrietta whisper, “He’s a cute one, Kit.”

A moment later, Gregg stood in my doorway, looking contrite. and holding a brown paper bag. “I come bearing a gift,” he said. “I’m trying to make up for being out of line last night. I get things wrong sometimes. Just occasionally.”

Henrietta wasn’t quite right about him. I wouldn’t call him cute, really. As he stood in the sunlight that streamed into my office through the only window, I had to admit to myself that he was truly more
good-looking than cute.  And after the painful episode with Lucien the night before, it felt good to see a handsome man smiling at me. I was actually glad he came. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were right about the wine,” I said. “Have a seat.”

He took the chair opposite me, placing the bag on the desk. “All right,” I said, “what’s this gift you brought me
, diamonds or pearls?”

“Something
better.” He opened the bag and took out one of those white styrofoam doggie bag containers restaurants use to pack up leftovers for customers to take home.  Even before he opened it, I knew what would be inside. “Braciola,” he said, displaying a row of meat rolls that filled the container. “I felt badly that you missed out on the specialty of the house, so I had them pack up some to go for you. The sauce is on the side.” He reached into the bag and brought out a covered plastic bowl filled with red sauce. “It’ll make a great lunch. It’s cold from being in my fridge all night, but I figured you must have a microwave in your lunch room.”

“If you’re trying to bribe me…“ I said.

“Yes?”

“ …
you are succeeding,” I said. “But you brought so much. That’s a lot of braciole.”

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t want to eat alone, and as it’s nearly lunchtime, and I’m already here, maybe you’d like to invite me to share your
braciole with you. Or am I being too aggressive again?”

“You are,” I said. “But I feel more forgiving in the light of day.” What I didn’t say was that I’d had a disturbing visitor the night
before, that I hadn’t been able to sleep, that now I was feeling tired and troubled — so that Gregg’s arrival was a bright light in the darkness. I also didn’t tell him was that I was just beginning to think he was a good-looking, decent guy. Good looking was obvious. Decent I wasn’t quite sure of yet.  “I’ll go warm up the food in the lunchroom, and we can eat it here. Tongues will wag if I bring you in there with me. Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The enticing aroma of the heated
braciola filled the hallway as I carried the container back to the office from the lunchroom. I also brought two paper plates plus plastic forks and knives. Not elegant, but serviceable. “Smells great,” I said.

“Maybe I should have brought a bottle of wine,” Gregg said.

“Don’t need wine,” I told him. “You got me with the braciola.”

The food was as delicious as he’d said it was, and we both dug into it.  At the end of the lunch there was one
braciola left in the container, and after each of us insisted that the other have it, we agreed to split it. “You see,” he said, placing half on my plate, “we can come to a friendly decision, after all.”

“Are we going to spoil this treat with merger talk?” I said. I was in truly good spirits by this time, and didn’t feel like delving into anything troublesome.

“No, no, no.  Absolutely nothing like that. That’s not why I’m here.” He shoved the trash from our lunch back into the brown bag they came in, then deposited the whole package into my wastebasket. He looked at me, waiting for me to respond. Then, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I came?”

“
Why should I ask? You’re going to tell me, anyway.”

He smiled.
Beautiful white teeth. Full,sensual mouth. When I’d met him yesterday, I didn’t care. Now I was beginning to care. “I’m here because I know I made an awful impression last night,” he said, “and I was afraid I’d sunk our relationship before it ever got started.”

“Relationship?” I said. “I didn’t know we had a relationship.”

“There I go getting pushy again. What I mean to say is the relationship I hope we can have.”

“More than as a merger partner, you mean.”

“Forget about a merger.  I want to know you, merger or no.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, you like good food.”

“Don’t forget the wine,” I said.

“The wine was from last night. We’ve turned that page. We’re starting all over, from today.”

“Okay.”

“Look, Kit, I like you because you’re real people. And I haven’t known anyone real in a long time. You’re special. You say what you think. You’re pretty and smart and funny and I like the sound of your voice and the way your hair flows over your shoulders.”

That’s a line that could win an Academy Award, I thought. But I didn’t say it.
Because on some deep level, I wanted it all to be true. What I did say was, “You’re very kind to say those things.”

“I was hoping we could spend some time together. I’m going fishing tomorrow, and I’d like you to come with me.”

“Fishing? I’ve never been fishing in my life.”

“No problem. I’ll show you how. I have a cabin on Wiley Lake, and a little boat with a motor. It was all
Dad's. He left it to me. Pretty rustic, but also very beautiful. It’s only an hour’s drive. We can spend the day on the water. The whole weekend is supposed to be perfect weather. Please say you’ll come with me.”

Fishing.
A cabin at the lake, an hour from home. A boat out on the water.  I’d be trapped for the day with the man Pa had told me to be wary of, who had a risky plan he was trying to sell, and who had a suspicious reputation. But he was also the man who was beginning to stir a hunger in me, despite my concerns.

“Sounds like fun,” I said.

What the hell, Kit. Take a chance.

CHAPTER 7

Gregg picked me up early the next morning, and though he was all smiles, he said very little as we drove, which surprised me. By 9:30 we arrived at his cabin, the last half mile or so on a dirt road off the highway.

It was a log cabin
in a clearing, right out of a storybook. You almost expected to see a young Abe Lincoln come walking out the door. There were two steps leading to a tiny porch under an overhang of the roof, and a stone chimney running up one side of the cabin. Inside, it was all one big room, except for a tiny bathroom with a narrow door, built into one corner. Four bunk beds were pushed against a wall, and in the center of the room was a rustic wood table, with five mismatched chairs. “As someone once remarked: all the comforts of home.” Gregg said. “Electricity, genuine well water, fireplace, and an indoor john.”

“This really is isolated,” I said. “This is the only cabin I see.”

“There are more, down the road a little farther.  Dad bought up a big piece of the shoreline during the depression, when land was amazingly cheap. He didn’t have money left to build a real house here, so he put up this cabin, and said he’d build something bigger when he had more to spend. Somehow, he never got around to it.” He unloaded a cooler from the trunk of his car and brought it to the cabin. “Lunch,” he said. “We’ll come back here to eat. By noon we’ll want to get out of the sun for a while.”

The boat was tied up to a dock on the lake.  Gregg hooked the hose from a red gas tank to the engine, loaded the fishing gear, and two seat cushions. “The seats in the boat get hard after the first hour,” he said. He held up what looked like a small candy box, only it wasn’t filled with candy. “Night crawlers. Worms. The bass love ‘
em. Don’t worry, I’ll bait the hook for you.”

“Very generous, Mr.
Monsell, but I’ll do it myself. Just show me how.”

“It’s a deal,” he said.  He helped me into the boat, undid the lines to the dock, and tinkered for a moment with the outboard motor. Then he yanked the starter rope a few times, and the engine
sputtered into life, then ran smoothly.  We swung around toward open water and motored smoothly out into Wiley Lake.

There wasn’t a ripple on the water. The air was fresh and crisp. It smelled like orange blossoms and marigolds and freshly mown grass, all mixed together. It was glorious just to be there, gliding along, with only the sound of the motor intruding on the scene. I was sitting near the front of the boat, facing ahead. I turned to look at Gregg. He sat next to the motor, steering the boat. He was smiling at me. I smiled back.

After a ten minute ride, he stopped the boat and lowered the anchor, a metal bucket filled with concrete, over the side. “This is where the big ones are,” he said. Then, “I hope.”

“How do you know?” I said. “All the water looks the same from the top.”

“Because I’m a wizard. I’ll call those big bass forth from the deep. They wait for me right here, you know. They’ll come to the surface, see it’s me, and jump into the boat.”

More bluster from him, I thought, but in fun. “No, really.”

“Oh, you want really? Why didn’t you say so? Here’s the truth, really. I’ve caught big bass right where we are now, about a hundred yards offshore, straight out from that big rock in the shallows there. The bottom drops off below us out here, and the fish head into the colder water when the weather gets hot.”

“I’m impressed. How do you know all these things?”

“A lifetime of study. Also, I’ve been fishing in this lake since I was a kid.”

“What kind of kid were you, Gregg? I said.

He baited his hook while I watched, impaling the worm, then winding it around the hook. “Interesting question. I was a holy terror. Snippy to adults, always spoiling for a fight with other kids. Not afraid of anything. My father died when I was eight, and my mother never disciplined me. I didn’t become a genuine human being till I got into high school. Played baseball. Ran track. Discovered that girls were different from boys.”

I threaded a big, juicy worm on my hook the way Gregg had done. “I’m sure you know about your reputation around town,” I said.

“As a bad boy, you mean? When I was younger I was proud of that. In my mind I was a big deal. All the kids thought I was some kind of stud.”

“Were you?”

“Not really. Let’s just say my reputation was more exciting than my real life.” He put bobber floats on our fishing lines about six feet above the hooks and we tossed them into the water. “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?”

“Just one more, I promise. Tell me, are you still a bad boy?”

“I’m different now, Kit.” He looked at me thoughtfully, the smile slowly fading from his face.  “I’m older, and I’ve seen things. On the front lines in Iraq, and then in Afghanistan, it changes you. You can never be the same person again. Seeing people die all around you, it gives you different values, a different way of looking at the world. The things that used to be important to me aren’t any more. “

“What’s important to you now?” I said.

“I find myself in charge of a company I know very little about.  To do right for myself and all those people who work for me, I need help. I need an anchor in my life.”

“Anchor? Really? Am I here to audition for that role?” I was sorry as soon as I said it. It was thoughtless and mean. I thought, here’s this gorgeous guy baring his soul to me, and I’m being a bitch. Again.

But if he was offended, he didn’t show it. He laughed. “Only if you want to be,” he said. “You said you’d ask one more question, and you’ve asked three.  My turn now.”

“Ask me anything,” I said.
Then, stealing a line from Uncle Aaron, "My life is an open book.” That’s what I told him, but I knew there were chapters of my life I wouldn’t share with Gregg or anyone. At least not yet.

“Have you ever been in love? I mean, deeply in love?”

“You don’t beat about the bush, do you?” I said.

“I’m just trying to know you better, to understand you. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’ll tell you. There have been, let’s say, certain episodes that might qualify as love.”

“Don’t you know for sure?”

“I don’t. Relationships puzzle me. How do you tell if there’s something earth-shaking going on, or if it’s just an immature attraction that draws people to each other? If you can’t tell one from the other, you can make some monumental mistakes”

“You’re very cautious, then.”

While I was thinking how to get out of the verbal corner into which I’d backed myself, Gregg pointed to my bobber, now jiggling on the calm water. “There’s a nibble,” he said. The bobber disappeared below the surface. “You’ve got a bite. Pull your rod up sharply to pull on the line and make sure he’s hooked, then start reeling in. That’s it.  Don’t give him any slack in the line. You’ve got him. Keep reeling.”