Until Now

Oh God, oh God, oh God! What have I done?

The house was still quiet, and Tamara prayed that Marshall was in a bathroom somewhere. If she could get up quietly, she could sneak out of the house.

She threw the covers off of the queen-size bed and slipped her legs over the side. As her feet came down on the floor, the hardwood squeaked. She winced, hoping that she didn’t get Marshall’s attention—wherever he was in the house. Because she had to get out of there without him knowing.

She didn’t even know where he lived in relation to Callie and Nigel, but she would find her way somehow. Maybe Marshall was the type who had to work out every morning, and that was where he was now. If so, all the better.

She couldn’t face him.

She’d been in his bed. And she knew what Marshall did with women in his bed. Even if she hadn’t heard the salacious stories, the fact that her dress had been tossed onto the floor spoke volumes.

But why couldn’t she remember anything? Somehow, she had lost time. She remembered... She remembered nothing. The kiss, yes.

But certainly not a hot night between the sheets.

She quickly scooped her dress up from the floor and slipped it onto her body. Then she reached for the zipper on the side and pulled it up. The mauve dress with swirls of white had looked incredibly sexy on her when she’d put it on, and that had been what she’d needed. As a newly divorced woman, she’d wanted to look feminine and desirable.

And she had—to Marshall. Had this very dress led her down the path of temptation and into this dilemma? She had wanted to reclaim her womanhood. Had she done that and more?

And with Marshall, of all people?

Tamara opened the bedroom door and peered into the house at large, finding that she was in the hallway. On the opposite side she saw that the door to another bedroom was open. It was much larger, with a king-size poster bed, and far more photos on the wall. Clearly, that was Marshall’s master bedroom.

Realizing that she hadn’t been in his bed should have given her comfort. But it didn’t. Because his bed was immaculately spread and didn’t look as though it had been slept in last night.

She swallowed and then stepped to her left, toward the top of a staircase. The staircase opened up to a two-story ceiling, with a large skylight. Sunlight flooded into the house, almost like a spotlight on her as she made her way down the stairs. The steps creaked, and she tried to tiptoe without making much sound but it was pointless.

Where was Marshall? In another bedroom? She didn’t hear the shower.

The house appeared massive, with a huge great room off of the foyer. She could see the brown-leather sectional, with decorative throw pillows, in front of a wall that housed a television that looked to be sixty inches. As she stepped onto the first-floor landing, she could see part of a dining-room table in a room that sprang from the left of the foyer. The wood was black, probably black maple, and the room had majestic gold-colored curtains topped with cream swags. It was the kind of house Tamara would love to explore, but given the circumstances, she just wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

Tamara’s feet were cold on the marble floor, but thank God her silver stiletto sandals were neatly sitting on a mat near the door. And she saw her purse on the table in the foyer. At least she would have her phone to call for a taxi and money to pay for it.

A house like this would have an alarm, and she only prayed that it wasn’t currently set. The small alarm panel was closer to the door, so she hurried over to it and perused it, determining with relief that it didn’t appear to be activated.

She bent over and slipped her bare foot into one shoe. She was putting on the second shoe when the door began to open. Her heart spasmed.

In walked Marshall. As though he had walked into his house to greet her in the morning countless times, he smiled an easy, charming smile. Was that the smile he had used last night to get what he wanted?

“You’re up,” he said. And then a little frown marred his face. “Where are you going?”

“I—I have to leave. My son—Michael—he’ll be... God, I can’t believe this.”

She was flustered, and she couldn’t form coherent words. The last thing she wanted was to be heading back to Callie’s place the morning after some sort of scandalous night with Marshall. Her son would wonder where she had been, and what could she tell him?

Lord, this was a nightmare.

“I picked up some breakfast,” Marshall told her. “I didn’t have anything decent in the house. I bought some egg sandwiches from a local deli. A few varieties, since I didn’t know what you liked. I got coffee, too.” He lifted the tray in his hands, in case she somehow hadn’t seen it.

“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s never a good idea to skip breakfast,” Marshall said.

“Thank you for...” She stiffened. For what? “I—I need to get to my son.”

“You can’t take a few minutes to eat breakfast with me?” His eyes narrowed slightly, saying he was more than a little confused as to why she wanted to get out of his house so fast.

She supposed she could understand why he was confused. Most women probably didn’t run screaming from him the morning after a night spent in his bed.

But she wasn’t most women. And clearly, she wasn’t even herself. She had no memory of what had happened at all, which made it much worse.

“I’m sorry,” Tamara said. “I’d rather just leave.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I need to get to my son. This is not how I planned our first night in Cleveland to be.” She was flustered. She stared up at him, her chest rapidly moving with each breath. “But thank you. Thank you for the coffee and the breakfast sandwich.”

“Are you okay?” Marshall asked.

That was a loaded question. How could she be okay? She didn’t know what she’d done with him, but she could only imagine the worst. She didn’t dare ask him, like some fool who ended up in a man’s bed with no recollection of it. Obviously, she’d had too much alcohol and had somehow passed out.

She forced a smile but barely met his gaze. “I’m fine. I’ll take the coffee and sandwich with me for later, if you don’t mind.”

Marshall nodded. “Sure. Though I’m a little disappointed that you want to get away from me so quickly this morning.”

Again, the smile. This time a little devilish. Tamara’s stomach sank.

She’d slept with him. It was obvious now. The look in his eyes, she knew she had.

Oh, God.

Tamara took a coffee from the tray. “I’ll just call for a taxi. No need for you to take me to Callie and Nigel’s place.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll drive you.”

Tamara felt a bout of anxiety. She wanted to escape Marshall, not be confined in a closed space with him. “It’s perfectly fine. You’ve already...done enough.”

“Their house is in Shaker Heights, about a fifteen-minute drive,” he told her. “Honestly, how long will it take a taxi to get here when you call? I’ll just take you.”

Tamara hadn’t thought of that, and certainly it didn’t make sense to sit or stand inside or on the porch for possibly ten minutes or longer for a taxi to arrive. She would love nothing more than to simply flee, start walking anywhere, but she’d caught sight of his sprawling circular driveway when he’d opened the door. Heck, it would probably take her five minutes to get off of his property—where on earth would she walk to?

As much as she wanted to be away from Marshall, taking him up on his offer for a ride seemed the best thing to do.

“As long as you don’t have anything else to do,” Tamara said, resigned to her fate.

“I’m all yours.”

Tamara cringed at the words, wondering if they held special meaning for him. Then she opened the cutout in her coffee lid and sipped it.