His Ultimate Temptation

Pediatrician visits were costly, however, and a baby’s needs were constant and expensive. Their dreams of Leslie being a stay-at-home mom were about as substantial as morning fog. They needed income and health benefits, period.

Without talking to Ben, because she knew he would veto the idea, she applied for the police academy, waiting until she was accepted before telling him. She came from a long line of San Francisco police officers, had grown up around cops gathered around the kitchen table and telling work stories. It was a world she felt comfortable in, and the job paid better than most for someone of her limited experience.

The bonus, however, was that Ben would have less to worry about financially. She’d been so excited when she’d told him, so happy to be pulling her own weight and helping to provide for them so that Ben could pursue his dream.

Then, everything collapsed. He’d been hurt that she hadn’t consulted him, and angry that she’d taken a job that put her at risk. At first stunned by how vehemently he fought with her about it, she became just as adamant about entering the academy. Nothing was the same after that.

The timer went off, interrupting her thoughts. Grateful, she transferred cookies to a cooling rack, then slid the last pan into the oven.

Her arms crossed, she paced, waiting for another ten minutes to tick down, wishing again she could share her problem with Ben. When she’d first become a police officer she’d tried to share what happened daily, but he shut her down, preferring not to know, even refusing to go on a ride-along with her to see what her job entailed. She learned to build a wall in front of her emotions when she drove home from work each day, leaving her job behind—and a big part of herself. In time it had become easier and easier to keep her work life separate.

The phone rang, startling her. If it was Gabe, he was going to get an earful from her.

“Hello?”

“Are you ever a hard woman to track down.”

“Alex?” His usually friendly voice was tinged with curiosity and irritation. “How did you find me?”

“I’m the FBI. I can find anyone.”

“No, really. How did you know where I was?”

“I was getting a little desperate. I called your friend Gabe. What’s going on, Les? Why’d you disappear without calling me?”

Oh, she knew what Gabe was up to. He’d figured that Ben would answer the phone and get jealous that another man was calling her. Honestly, Gabe was hopeless—and she loved him. “Did you hear what happened?”

“Yes. I wish I’d heard it from you.”

“Has it hit the news?”

“Newspaper and television.”

“There’s your answer, Alex. I didn’t want to be home to see or hear it.”

“So, where exactly are you?”

“A little cabin in the mountains.”

“Do you want company?”

She could picture him, his hair neatly combed, his eyes probing for something deeper. As an FBI agent, he was good at his job. As a friend, he was considerate and caring.

“Actually, I’m not alone,” she said, wishing she didn’t have to. “Ben and Erin’s plane had trouble, so they changed plans and came here. We surprised each other.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “And you’re staying?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“How nice for you.”

Sarcasm? she wondered. Alex kept a tight rein on himself, rarely revealing his emotions. He was a good, strong man. And he understood her job—the pressures, the frustrations, the atrocities. He listened, asked questions, paid attention to the answers. Why didn’t her heart flutter for him instead of Ben?

“Please, Alex. This is all so complicated.”

“You know how I feel about you. This is going to change everything.”

“The reasons for my divorce haven’t changed. He doesn’t want to be married to me.”

“You’ll be sharing a family holiday, isolated except for each other and your memories. Erin fantasizes about her parents reconciling, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.” And so do I.

“What happens when her fantasy doesn’t come true? What will you do to prevent her from getting hurt, Les? What will Ben do? How much will you sacrifice for Erin?” His voice quieted. “How am I supposed to compete?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Last week you said you would have an answer for me by New Year’s Eve. I’d bet my life that the answer’s going to be different now. No, don’t say anything.” He paused for just a second. “Do what you have to. I always knew what I was fighting.”

He hung up.

Emotions swirling inside her, Leslie moved to the window, not wanting to think about hurting Alex. Needing to think about something else.

Loneliness spun a web around her. She didn’t have anyone to lean on. Maybe she never had. Ben was someone she could count on, but not lean on.

No. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself. It was her responsibility to find the intimacy she craved. Not just physical closeness but an emotional connection that had been missing for too long from her life.

When the cookies were done, she shrugged into her jacket, pulled on her gloves, stuffed a few cookies from the first batch into her pocket and went for a walk, determined to improve her mood. It was Christmas Eve, after all.

A time of peace.

Painted on the brilliant winter-blue sky were dabs of white clouds. A frosty wind sang a tantalizing chorus that made her smile and lift her face into the breeze. She stopped and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds, feeling the sting of winter against her cheeks.

Some people loved spring the best, the universal time of renewal. She loved winter, because winter brought Christmas, a time when anything could happen.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at the cabin, with its snow-covered roof and picturesque curl of smoke from the chimney.

A car came up the road, such a rare sight that Leslie couldn’t help but stare at it and the driver, a man in his mid-forties, with beefy arms and a florid face. He stopped and rolled down his window.

“Merry Christmas,” he called out.

“Merry Christmas.”

“You own this place?”

“Why?”

He smiled tolerantly. “I’m looking for a place to rent, away from the hustle and bustle of the ski traffic. This would work for me.”

“The owner doesn’t rent it.”

“I’d pay top dollar.”

Leslie shook her head, instinctively wishing for her weapon, even though he hadn’t made a move to get out of the car.

He held something out the window, toward her. “Would you give him my card and tell him I’d pay him enough to make it worth his while?”

“It’s not for rent.”

His face flushed redder. He jerked his arm back in the car and took off, tires spinning before gaining traction on the snowy road. As he drove out of sight she realized he’d asked her to give him his card, to tell him he’d pay a lot of money.

Was it just an expression? Or did he know the owner was male?

Considering Sebastian’s precarious position, and the reason he was in hiding, she was suspicious.

But why would he have offered a card which obviously would have contained his phone number if he meant Sebastian harm? Okay, that was a good point. Her job made her far too suspicious of people in general.

Which was a sad fact of her life.

Three

After dinner they sat in front of the fire, Erin cozy between her parents, reminiscing about Christmases past. The year she’d gotten a bicycle. Her first Barbie. Her first cookbook.

Leslie watched Ben stoke up the fire. He’d aged well, was just hitting his prime. And yet she could remember the teenage boy clearly. His body was different now, mature, but his smile still crinkled his eyes in the same way, whether he was being devilish or kind.

She traced his firm buttocks and legs with her gaze, admired the long, sturdy limbs—

She shook her head. “I think it’s time for bed, young lady,” she said to Erin, touching foreheads, “or Santa won’t come.”

“Santa?” Erin scoffed. “That’s for babies.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re my baby, and I say that Santa won’t bring you what you want most unless you get to bed. We’re on a different route this year, you know.”

“I already got my presents from you at home.”

Leslie stared meaningfully at her until Erin rolled her eyes and stood.

“Will you both come kiss me good night?”

“You bet.”

“Five minutes.”

“We’ll be there.” Leslie watched her go, then noticed Ben watching her as well. “This is her last Christmas as a little girl,” she said, leaning her elbows on her thighs and resting her chin on her fists.

He returned the poker to the stand beside the hearth. “Why do you say that?”

“She’ll be twelve next year—middle school. Chances are, she’ll start her period between now and then. We’ll be arguing about her wearing makeup and weird clothes.” She sighed. “I love this age. She’s still cooperative and happy. She’s only a little moody. And smart! It’s scary sometimes, how smart she is.”

She didn’t want to start a serious discussion with him, wary of his strangely contemplative mood since he and Erin had gotten back from skiing. Suddenly it occurred to her that he was leading up to telling her something important. Maybe he’d gotten really serious about someone. Maybe—Oh, God, maybe he was going to remarry. He wouldn’t tell her tonight, of all nights, that he was remarrying, would he? She couldn’t handle that now. Please don’t tell me that, Ben. Not tonight.

“It’s gone by fast.” He sat on the couch. “Do you feel old, Les?”

His question surprised her. “Sometimes I feel that life is flying by, but I don’t feel old. I refuse to believe that thirty-two is over-the-hill.”

“I feel really old sometimes.” Ben surprised himself with the admission—and instantly regretted it when she turned her head and studied him. “Maybe old isn’t the right word. It just feels like I’ve been on a treadmill, or one of those hamster wheels, running endlessly.”

“You pretty much have. But I thought you had achieved everything you wanted.”

“Professionally, yes. I guess I’m feeling ready for a change.”

She rubbed her hands along her thighs, a gesture Ben couldn’t interpret.

“More hotels?”

“I don’t know. I never intended to have this many. So far I’ve been able to create completely different environments for each location. I believe I could build more with the same success. But I’m tired of traveling.” He shook his head. “Yet the personal touch is what’s made them a success. People want to know who they’re doing business with.”

“Sounds like you’ve got some decisions to make.”

He hesitated. His conversation with Erin this morning had stuck with him all day. He didn’t know how much of it to relate to Les. She apparently had enough on her mind. Even now she couldn’t seem to sit still. He wondered if she knew how Erin was struggling with their divorce. Their not-so-perfect divorce.

He picked up the thread of their conversation again. “Decisions. Well, I guess I haven’t really been away from the business long enough at a stretch to just let my mind wander.” And wander it had, all day, all the way back through their relationship. Eighteen years. It was a long time—and yet a drop in the bucket of what they’d expected to have.

“It’s my personal life that needs changing.” He angled toward her, deciding to tell her what happened with Erin that morning. “Les, we need to talk about—”

“Erin’s probably waiting for us,” she said, pushing herself up.

Caught off guard by her abrupt end to the conversation, he watched her walk away. He should be grateful the moment was ending, he decided. He probably would’ve said too much, expected too much from her.

When Les sat on the bed to kiss Erin good night, it was all he could do not to sit behind her, as he used to, the image of the past rising unbidden before his eyes. Bedtime had been a ritual for the three of them on the nights he was home. A story read, a gentle tease or two, prayers said, good-night hugs and kisses all around. God, he missed that.

A shard of loneliness sliced into him. He’d thought it would be better to be alone than to be hurt, but he wondered now if that was true. This was painful, this longing to be a family again and knowing it wouldn’t work. The same problems sat between them now as before. He’d fought hard to keep his family together. It hadn’t changed anything.

And the irony was that now that he could provide well for his family, his goal all along, he had no family. Just fragments of one, parceled out in short visits. At least if something happened to him now, Erin would be provided for, even Les, if she needed it.

He was proud of that.

Les stood, moving aside to let Ben hug their daughter.

“’Night, sweetheart.”

She held him extra tight and whispered in his ear. “This is how it’s supposed to be, Daddy.”

Guilt joined the rest of the turmoil inside him, choking off his ability to answer her. He couldn’t tell her everything would be like before, because it wouldn’t. So he kissed her good night then left.

Leslie followed a minute later. She found him resting his palms on the fireplace mantel and staring at the flames. Tempted as she was to rub his back or soothe him in some way, she kept her distance.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

The phone rang. Who would call on Christmas Eve? Gabe wouldn’t dare. Sebastian couldn’t. If it was Ben’s mother, Leslie would probably cry. She missed Maura dreadfully, the woman who had mothered her through her high school years, when she’d needed a woman’s influence. While they hadn’t lost contact completely, their relationship was different now, more distant, and not just in the miles that separated San Francisco from Chicago, where she’d moved when she’d finally remarried.

The call was for Ben. She couldn’t tell who was on the other end, except that it was business, which didn’t stop on holidays. She’d forgotten that.

Deciding to give him privacy, she slipped into her ski jacket and headed outside. The warmth of the cabin, which had wrapped her in memories and made her hopes soar, froze in the brittle snap of winter air, a stinging reminder of the tears that had turned to ice on her cheeks last night.

She leaned against the porch railing. After a minute she heard the front door open and close, then the sound of his boots on the wood planks.

“You didn’t have to leave,” Ben said, coming up behind her.

She turned abruptly, losing her footing. He caught her by both arms, keeping her upright as she peered at him through the dark. “I don’t have a present for you,” she said softly, painfully.

“I don’t have one for you,” he replied as softly, not letting her go.

“Oh, Ben. How did it ever come to this?” She clutched his jacket. “No. I won’t put you on the spot. I know how it came to this. I know what happened. In my head, anyway.” She loosened her grip, then pushed past him to return to the house, wondering what to do with the emotions threatening to burst from her.

He didn’t follow, giving her too much time to think. She glanced at the photos on the mantel, focused on the one taken twelve years ago when they’d all just finished building the cabin. Sebastian, Gabe, Chase, Ben and her—five twenty-year-olds poised on the brink of adulthood, the slates of their futures not blank, but filled with hopes and dreams. Goals. She and Ben had stayed on an extra night to celebrate Valentine’s Day alone, and from that night of passion had come Erin, a surprise but welcome gift. Leslie had switched from a diaphragm to birth control pills after Erin was born, knowing they couldn’t afford to be caught off guard again.

Such a simple time then, for all of them. Who would’ve thought their lives would veer down such surprising paths. Ben and Leslie, divorced. Sebastian, in hiding after being falsely accused of a crime, trying to overcome paralysis and become strong enough to defend his good name. Chase, married and expecting a baby. Gabe—

Frigid air blasted into the room as the door swung open. Ben trudged in carrying a bucket holding a two-foot-tall pine tree.

“I spotted it earlier today,” he told Leslie, sweeping past her to set the bucket on the coffee table. “Can’t have Christmas without a tree, right?”

Certainly she thought so, but did he? “The ground was frozen, Ben.”

He gave her a look so cocky—and so familiar—it set her heart spinning like the Sugarplum Fairy dancing across a stage. Of course a little frozen earth wouldn’t stop him from accomplishing what he wanted.

This was the Ben she remembered—spontaneous, giving, fun-loving. He’d withdrawn from her so long ago. Long before the divorce. She never thought she’d see him like this again.

They found a tablecloth to drape around the bucket. From aluminum foil they fashioned ornaments to decorate it, then stacked his presents for Erin around it. Almost midnight, Leslie realized when they were done. Almost Christmas. Her most-favorite day of the year.

“Erin will be surprised,” she said, adjusting a foil wreath balancing precariously on the tip of one branch.

He met her gaze as she straightened. “It’s for you, Les.”

Tears welled. She blinked them back instantly. How much worse could she feel? She didn’t have anything for him—nothing that he wanted, anyway, although certainly something she wanted to give him.

“Don’t cry,” he said, his voice rough and tender at the same time.

“I’m not crying. You just make me so mad,” she said, curling her hands into fists.

“You’ve always insisted that Christmas is magic,” he said, his gaze intent.

“I do. It—” she swallowed as he closed the distance between them “—is. But you don’t.”

“Accept the gift in the spirit it’s given, Les.” He brushed his lips against her cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

Her head turned as if pulled by a power magnet. She kissed him, a featherlight caress, then he groaned and pressed harder. Slivers of heat pierced her. This was Ben, the man she’d loved since she was fourteen. It was his mouth on hers. Finally. After a lifetime of denial, he was here again, teasing her with his tongue, searching her mouth, breathing raggedly, his demands growing stronger by the second. She matched him kiss for kiss, touch for touch, groan for groan.

He raised his head, confusion clouding his eyes. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, yet his arms tightened around her.

Her throat vibrated with sound as his hands curved over her rear and eased her closer, then he sucked in a harsh breath as her belly molded the hard male shape of him, familiar and yet not. Her arms twined around his neck, seeking balance as she moved against him. Grinding out her name, he dragged her leg over his hip, bringing her impossibly closer, keeping her there by sheer strength. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. The taste of him was wild and exotic and threatened to take her over the top as he said her name over and over between kisses growing more and more desperate.

Desperate? Leslie ended the kiss abruptly. Everything she didn’t want to happen was happening, and she was letting it. There could only be pain ahead. And another long struggle to move on. “Stop. Please, we have to stop.”

Reluctantly Ben turned her loose. He’d thought he could give her a simple kiss, the kind that longtime friends shared—something soft and quick, without any agenda or expectations for either of them.

“My fault,” she said, flicking lint he couldn’t see from her sleeve. “It’s been—” she made a little sound in her throat “—a long time.”

Did she mean a long time with him, or a long time, period? “Has it?”

“Well, I’ve dated. So have you.” She crossed her arms. “You’ve slept with your dates, I imagine.”

And you haven’t, Les? The thought staggered him. Made him feel like the lowest, cheatingest man alive. They were divorced. He didn’t owe her fidelity. So why are you so ashamed? his conscience asked.

Something warm curled up inside him at the possibility she hadn’t taken a lover. He acknowledged the thought as hopelessly chauvinistic. He lifted a hand to touch her, but she tossed her head, a gesture he recognized as self-preservation.

“I can’t go to bed until you do, Ben. I’m sleeping on the couch.”

He said a quiet good night, then left. Leslie let her knees buckle, and she dropped onto the sofa, then buried her face in her lap. She could still feel his arms around her, still feel his mouth move over hers in that special way that had always driven her crazy with need. She could feel his need in return, hard and strong and tempting. Of course she hadn’t slept with another man. How could any man compare?

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