Scandalous: Scandalized!

She braced herself and said, “I think I can get a few days away. How about you?”

“A few days?”

“Well of course.” Olivia frowned at him. “According to the book, an extended amount of time might be necessary. Listen to this. The couple should have intercourse at least twice with an interval of six hours between. You see? There’s no reason to do it if we aren’t going to do it with proper enthusiasm. Things like this can’t be rushed.”

“I, ah…”

“There’s something else, too.”

Tony raised his brows, not deigning and frankly not able to verbalize at this point.

Olivia forged on. “It also mentions you should do without sex until then to allow your sperm count to build to a higher level.” She paused, taking a small sip of her tea, then pinning him with her gaze. She felt horribly deceptive, but determined just the same. This was to be her time, and hers alone. “You should be celibate until we’re together. Will that be a problem?”

“Olivia…”

She hurried to explain, wanting him to understand the supposed reasoning behind her request. It wouldn’t do for him to know her remarks were prompted by a possessive attitude, rather than a legitimate concern. “You don’t want to deplete your sperm, Tony, now do you?”

“No.”

“Good.” Olivia didn’t want to admit to the relief she felt, and she certainly didn’t want Tony to witness it, so she busied herself by smoothing back another page. Tony looked down and his eyes narrowed at the number of lines she’d highlighted. Olivia quickly tried to close the book, but Tony’s finger got in the way.

“What’s this? Other interesting facts you’ve made note of?” His voice sounded deeper than usual, and a little hoarse.

Olivia was very careful not to look at him. “A few.”

“They apply to us?” When she only nodded, he said, “Please, enlighten me.”

“Perhaps it would be better to wait until later—”

“But I’m dying of curiosity.”

His mocking tone brought her head up. “All right.” She held the book before her and made a show of clearing her throat. She’d bluffed her way through more than one difficult situation without losing her poise. “It also says, For further assurance of success the woman should lie still on her back for several minutes, preferably with the man still inside her, with her legs bent at the knee to allow a pool of sperm to remain near the cervix.”

Tony had just taken a sip from his glass as Olivia began her discourse. When he choked, spewing water across the small table, Olivia leaned over and pounded on his back, nearly unseating him. He caught her hand and stared at her, his face turning ruddy, until she finally subsided and pulled away.

Olivia felt satisfied with his reaction. If she could keep him off guard, he wouldn’t stand a chance of dissecting her motivation and discovering her perfidy. “Surely you know all this already? It was your idea after all.”

“No.” He vehemently shook his head. “My idea did not include staying still inside you for several minutes.”

“You find the idea repellent?” She did her best to look affronted, knowing his problem now didn’t stem from distaste, but rather from the intimate level of the conversation—and possibly his response to it. “You would prefer, of course, that I lie on a sterile table while a damn white-coated doctor probed me with a syringe?”

“Olivia…” He reached across the table and took her hand again. “I don’t think you have any idea how all of this is affecting me. I’m only a man, you know, and I’m not accustomed to this sort of conversation.”

His hand felt warm and dry and very large. Olivia closed her eyes, then experienced another wave of guilt. She was twitting him mercilessly for her own benefit, and he was having difficulty surviving it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t carry on. The truth is,” she added, hoping just a touch of honesty would help smooth over the situation, “I’m a little uncomfortable, too. I’m trying to be as straightforward and open about this as I can, so that we can look at it in a purely businesslike fashion.”

“I know, and I understand.” He hesitated, then released her fingers and leaned back in his chair. His gaze seemed hot, and very intense. “But I don’t think it’s going to work, Olivia.”

CHAPTER THREE

HER HEART SKIPPED A BEAT and a swelling sensation of near panic threatened to suffocate her. Had she pushed him too far? “You want to call it off?”

“No!” He abandoned his casual pose and was again leaning toward her. “No, I just don’t think I’m going to be able to look at this as anything but personal. I’ve thought about it a lot over the past few days and I don’t believe it’s at all possible to sleep with a woman—a woman I know and admire—and pretend that it isn’t the least bit intimate. I do think we can get past that, though, if we both try.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” At least he wasn’t canceling on her, and that was all that really mattered.

“I think we should look at this as something of an adventure. So long as we limit our socializing to the…ah…process, we should be able to keep things in perspective.”

“I see. No friendly visits between appointments.”

“Exactly. We’ll meet when we have to in order to see things through, but the rest of the time our relationship, such as it is, will remain the same.”

“Which is strictly business.”

“Yes.”

Olivia toyed with her fork. For some ridiculous reason she felt insulted. Her tone was a touch acerbic when she remarked, “That serves my purposes just fine. I’ll enjoy you while you employ all your manly skills to impregnate me.” A mental image formed with her words, and she had to catch her breath. “As to the rest, if you’ll recall, I don’t have time for frivolous dating.”

He curled his hand into a fist and searched her face, looking as if he wanted to say more, but then he shook his head, and said, “All right, we’re agreed then. And this weekend is fine for me, also. Should we begin Friday evening?”

“I’ll be at the Southend location that day, but I’ll finish up about six.”

“That’s good for me.” He reached out to straighten his knife and fork, and Olivia saw that his hand was shaking. She shook, too, in impatience. “I’ll make arrangements for us somewhere private, then meet you there. That way, no one will see us together, which I think is important. We need to maintain our social distance.”

It was the physical closeness that interested Olivia, not the social distance, so she nodded. “I’d just as soon no one suspected us of enhancing our relationship, too. I don’t want to start any nasty gossip and end up in a scandal.”

He chuckled. “At least you wouldn’t have to worry about your folks catching wind of it. My entire family lives nearby, and they all think they need to straighten out my life. Anytime the mere hint of a scandal surfaces, I find them all at my door ready and willing to butt right in.”

“And what we’re conspiring to do goes beyond the ‘hint’ stage. It defines the word scandalous.”

“Which means my family would have a field day.”

Olivia was fascinated. She’d often wondered what kind of upbringing Tony had, especially in light of the fact she had no family at all. He was such a good person, she supposed his family had to be pretty good, too. “So they have no idea what you’re planning? I mean, with the baby and all?”

“Hell no. My family is old-fashioned. They definitely believe in doing things in the right order.”

“Marriage first?”

“Yep.” He grinned again, that ready grin that made all the ladies of his acquaintance smile in yearning. “They’ve been very diligent in trying to get me married off. Every damn one of them has produced at least three prospective brides. I can’t make them understand that I’d prefer to do the choosing myself when I decide the time is right.”

Olivia suddenly realized they’d already broken their new set of rules. Learning about Tony’s family definitely went beyond business and was dangerous besides; the more she knew about him, the more fascinating he seemed. It had taken her no time at all to become accustomed to wanting him, to accepting him as a desirable man. Every day, every minute it seemed, her feelings for him grew. She began to wonder if those feelings hadn’t been there all along, waiting to be noticed.

It was a very scary prospect. She couldn’t afford, professionally or emotionally, to get overly involved with him. So she changed the subject, away from his family, and tried to dwell on something less intimate.

Their soup was delivered and throughout the rest of the lunch they discussed Olivia’s new shop and Tony’s proposed agreement. To his credit, Tony argued fiercely, but Olivia wore him down. The meal ended with Tony promising to have his lawyer okay everything and return the finalized papers to her very soon.

They stood on the curb outside the restaurant, the lunch-time crowd flowing around them, and Tony touched her arm. “Friday at six.”

“I’ll be ready.”