Surrender

“I don’t understand what the big rush is. You’ve had leaking pipes before. Get Liza to put a pan under it for now.”

Lost in her thoughts, Aimee hadn’t heard Peter come up behind her. She looked up at him, and her heart tripped faster at the warmth in his eyes.

“Let me fix you some breakfast first, then I’ll take you home.”

“I’m sorry, Peter. I don’t have time. The pipe leaked through at least one ceiling tile that I know of, and it fell into the shop and cracked one of the display cases. That means I’ve got at least some ceiling damage, not to mention a shop full of water, and Liza said some of Simone’s feathered masks were ruined.” The panic came back to her in a rush, and Aimee immediately went into motion. She scooped up her jeans from the floor. “Heaven knows how much of the other merchandise has been damaged, and I don’t have any idea what kind of shape my apartment’s going to be in. I’ve got to get over there.”

Peter caught her by the shoulders as she reached for her blouse. “Hey, slow down a minute.”

“But I—”

Peter placed a silencing finger over her mouth. “I want you to take a deep breath.”

She did as he instructed, and her nerves settled somewhat.

“All right. Now, did Liza turn off the water?”

Aimee nodded.

“Good.” He tugged her into his arms and held her head to his chest. He stroked her hair. “I know this guy who’s a plumber. Why don’t I give him a call and have him take care of it for you? He’ll have it fixed in no time.”

Aimee pulled away from him. “Peter, I can’t afford a plumber.”

“You don’t have to.” He massaged the back of her neck with his fingers. “I’ll take care of it for you.”

“No,” Aimee said firmly. She stepped out of his arms and away from his touch. “I can’t let you do that.”

Peter frowned. “Why not?”

“You know why. Because it’s my building and my responsibility. Not yours.” Ignoring his sullen expression, Aimee started for the bedroom.

Peter followed. “Then make it my responsibility. Sell me the building. I’ve offered to buy the place from you before. The offer’s still good. Just say the word and I’ll take it off your hands.”

“I don’t want it taken off my hands. It’s my home,” she said, kicking her nightgown aside. Conscious of Peter’s gaze on her naked back, Aimee pulled her shirt over her head and then reached for her jeans.

“All right. Forget about the building, then. But don’t go rushing home. Not yet.” He brushed his lips against her nape and moved his body behind hers. “Stay, Aimee,” he whispered.

Aimee could feel his arousal pressed against her. Her breath quickened. She curled her fingers into the jeans she was holding. Oh, how she wanted to stay, how tempting he made it for her to forget her responsibilities and be with him. “I can’t,” she said finally, breaking free of the sensual spell of his nearness.

Peter’s mouth stilled on her neck, and Aimee was keenly aware of the loss of his warmth as he released her. “Can’t or won’t, Aimee?”

She knew he didn’t understand her not allowing him to pay for the plumber, any more than he had understood her reasons for not marrying him. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure she understood them herself. All she knew was that she loved him and it was his love she wanted in return-not his money or his help fixing her building or even in launching her art career.

But Peter didn’t believe that, because he was convinced everyone wanted something, everyone had an angle. She slipped into her jeans, then turned to face him. “Can’t. I’ve got a leaking pipe to fix.”

Peter remained silent, his face a stone mask, as she located her sandals and slid them onto her feet.

He yanked open his closet door and came out with a sport shirt and slacks. Tossing the clothes on the bed, he stripped off his pajama bottoms. Except for low-rise teal briefs, he was naked. Lean and solid, muscles rippling across his chest and shoulders as he moved, he reminded her of an ancient warrior. “Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll take you home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, averting her gaze. “It’s just a couple of blocks.”

He ignored her and pulled on his slacks. “I said I would see you home.”

“Peter, please. I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t have time. I have to go. Besides, you and I both know I can be home before the valet can even bring your car around.” Grabbing her purse from the dresser, she rushed over to him and gave him a quick kiss. “See you later?”

“Sure,” he said.

But from the look of frustration on his face, Aimee wasn’t so sure that she would.

The woman was driving him crazy, Peter admitted silently. He shut the door to Gallagher’s and headed out into the summer heat. Despite the smoldering temperature and choking humidity, he strode at a clipped pace along the battered sidewalks of the French Quarter. A trickle of perspiration dotted his brow, and he loosened the tie at his neck.

How had his life gotten so out of hand? What had started out as a simple plan had turned into something a great deal more complicated. Any way he looked at it, Aimee Lawrence was tying him up in knots.

He didn’t like it. He liked even less the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.

The sun gleamed down, hot and punishing, and Peter slowed his steps. He glanced about the nearly empty streets and grimaced. Even the tourists who had been foolish enough to visit the city in the middle of June had enough sense to avoid the oppressive afternoon heat. Only idiots like himself were out roaming the streets in the sweltering sun.

And he did feel like an idiot, Peter acknowledged. He should be at Gallagher’s, uncrating the Matisse he had battled for so fiercely at the last auction. Instead, he was wandering through the streets of the French Quarter and thinking about Aimee.

Pausing, Peter wiped at his brow with his handkerchief and then glanced up. He frowned when he discovered he was standing in front of Aimee’s building. That in itself demonstrated just how completely she had been occupying his thoughts. He hadn’t planned to come here today. He had promised himself he was going to stay away from her until she came to her senses…until she came to him.

Only Aimee hadn’t come. She hadn’t bothered to call him either.

The frustration he had experienced that morning came back to him in a rush, along with the anger. He was still angry with her, he realized—not for leaving him when he’d asked her to stay, but for refusing his help.

It was one thing for Aimee to refuse to sell him the building. After all, he had been less than honest with her. She didn’t know that he was the unnamed buyer who had tried to purchase the place from her when she first inherited it.

She certainly hadn’t known then, and didn’t know even now, that the building had once belonged to him and he had sworn it would be his once again. Besides, he was sure she would be less than pleased to learn that the reason he had sought her out in the first place was to convince her to sell him the place. And he had no doubt that, if she ever learned that part of the reason he had asked her to marry him was to regain control of the building, she would be furious.

Still, his offers to help her with the repairs had been genuine and had had nothing to do with his interest in the building. He’d made the offers because he cared about her. He didn’t like seeing her work so hard to keep the place up. And he was getting damned tired of her throwing his offers to help back in his teeth.

Seeing his scowling reflection in the shop’s window, Peter tried to school his expression. He didn’t want to attempt to reason with Aimee while he was still angry.

But he was angry…and confused. Nothing about Aimee or his feelings for her fit in his orderly life or in his plans. And for an artist with a bohemian spirit, Aimee Lawrence was proving to be one of the most stubborn people he’d ever come up against. He didn’t understand her…and he certainly didn’t understand her refusing his offer of marriage and opting for an affair instead. It just didn’t make any sense.

Not for one minute did he believe she’d turned him down because he’d presented her with the prenuptial agreement. Everyone used the things these days. It was the smart way to do business. If he had had any sense, he would have insisted on one in his first marriage. If he had, the building would still be his and he never would have asked Aimee to marry him in the first place.

And if he had had a prenuptial agreement the first time around, he certainly wouldn’t be standing here in ninetyplus-degree heat, contemplating asking Aimee to marry him for the second time.

Because he was going to ask her again. He already knew that. In truth, he’d known it for some time. He was simply tired of waiting. He wanted to get on with his plans to expand Gallagher’s, and he needed her building to do it. There simply was no other piece of property that would do. He wanted that building, and he intended to have it.

Only somewhere along the way in the past few months, he’d discovered that he wanted Aimee, too.

The problem was, he wasn’t quite sure whether this need to bind her to him stemmed from his obsession with reclaiming the building or from his obsession with the woman herself.

Obsession.

He didn’t particularly like the word, but it aptly described the way she made him feel, the burning hunger to be with her that seemed to have become a part of him, the way she filled his thoughts and haunted his days when he wasn’t with her.

Yes, Aimee Lawrence had become an obsession for him…an obsession he didn’t understand…an obsession that rivaled his driving need to reclaim the building that had once belonged to him. That, in itself, made her dangerous. What was even more alarming was that he had yet to get a handle on Aimee or figure out what her angle was.

Because he was sure she had an angle. Everyone did. His ex-wife, Leslie, certainly had. She’d used him as her springboard to fame in the art world, then dumped him and taken most of his assets with her when she found someone who could take her to the next stage of stardom.

So what was Aimee’s angle? It certainly hadn’t made any sense for her to turn down the sure thing marriage to him had offered by refusing to sign the prenuptial agreement.

And it made even less sense for her to turn down his offers to help with the building’s repairs. Unless she thought that, when she refused his financial assistance and his offer of marriage, he would relent and agree to launch her career as an artist.

Peter steeled himself. The face that looked back at him from the window was cold, controlled once again. He might have broken one of his rules by considering marriage again, but launching Aimee as an artist and making her into a star was something he had no intention of ever doing. Never again would he put his livelihood at risk that way. And never again would he allow any woman to use him. No, if Aimee had any plans for him to be her starmaker, she was sadly mistaken.

If Aimee made it as an artist, she was going to have to do it without his help. In the meantime, he would marry her. As his wife, she would accept his help in refurbishing the building. With a little persuasion she would agree to his opening another branch of Gallagher’s here. He would compensate her fairly for the place. And when the chemistry between them had burned itself out, as he knew it would, he would settle with her fairly. Only this time, he intended to be the one who got the building.

Peter looked at the closed sign displayed in the shop’s window and frowned. It wouldn’t be the first time that Aimee had closed up the place on a whim. Whenever the urge to spend the day at the beach or play tourist struck her, she would shut down the shop and be off in a flash.

She was a lousy businesswoman, and everyone knew it…including her tenants. That was one of the reasons she was always short on cash. It was also the reason she had agreed to allow Liza to live in one of the building’s apartments rent-free in exchange for running the shop.

Arcing his hands around his eyes, Peter peered through the window. Although the lights were on, there was no sign of Aimee or Liza. He could see a ladder parked in the center of the room next to a display case. Water stains splattered the wall directly behind it.

Peter grimaced. Guilt pricked at him. Evidently the damage was worse than he had suspected. And, no doubt, Aimee would be trying to make the repairs herself, probably had been most of the day.

It was just one more reason for him to insist that Aimee marry him. Surely, as his wife, she would accept his help. He started to ring the bell, so that Aimee could release the locks on the building’s main door and allow him to enter, but decided to try the doorknob instead. It turned on the first try, giving him complete access to the building.

Swearing again at Aimee’s continued lack of caution, Peter started up the steep stairway leading to her apartment. The woman needed a keeper, he told himself. Yet another reason to insist she marry him. At least he would make sure she was safe-even if that only meant locking the doors.

He turned the corner and started down the hall to Aimee’s apartment. As usual, not only was the door to her apartment unlocked, it was open.

He stepped inside the living room, too occupied with his thoughts of Aimee to think about the memories and plans that this particular apartment held for him. He followed the haphazard trail of how-to manuals that led from the living room to the kitchen. Stooping down, he retrieved a worn red-covered volume entitled Save A Fortune—Do Your Own Plumbing Repairs. He shook his head, marveling at the strength of Aimee’s determination.

“Oh, Jacques, you’re a lifesaver.”

Peter paused at the sound of Aimee’s voice coming from the direction of her bedroom.

“Nonsense, mon amie. It was nothing.”

Peter went still at the distinctly male and decidedly French voice that responded.

“But it’s true. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Anger began to simmer inside him. Anger, and some inexplicable fear of what he was about to discover. Still holding the book, Peter moved purposefully toward the bedroom. The door was open, and the bed was piled high with an assortment of towels, soaps and toiletry items.

But there was no Aimee. And no Jacques.

“Ah, mon amie, something tells me you would have managed just fine without me. But if you wish to think of me as your hero, then who am I to argue?”

Aimee laughed, and Jacques joined in.

Peter gritted his teeth. He liked the man’s laughter even less than he liked his foreign accent, he decided. Crossing the room, he came to a stop at the doorway of Aimee’s bathroom, just in time to see her raise herself up on her toes and kiss the other man on the cheek.

“Am I interrupting?” Peter asked, in a voice that was a great deal more civil than he was feeling.

Aimee jumped. “Peter! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.” She rushed over and brushed her mouth against his.

“Obviously.” He slipped his arm around Aimee’s waist and anchored her to his side. Given the way the other man was looking at her, it would have provided him with a great deal of pleasure to wipe the smile off the Frenchman’s face.

“Peter, this is Jacques Gaston. He’s the new tenant I told you about.” Still smiling, Aimee continued, “Jacques, this is Peter—”

“Gallagher.” Peter finished the introduction for her. With a feral smile, he extended his hand. “Aimee’s fiancé.”

Two

Stunned, Aimee opened her mouth, then clamped it shut. She could feel the flush climb her cheeks at Jacques’s questioning gaze.

“I had not realized Aimee was engaged,” Jacques said, breaking the awkward silence. “Congratulations, Monsieur Gallagher. You are indeed a lucky man. And you, mon amie,” he continued, “you should have told me you were affianced.”

“I’m not,” Aimee said. As she recovered from the initial shock of Peter’s declaration, her temper started to rise. Did he think by proclaiming them to be engaged he could make her sign that stupid prenuptial agreement and marry him? If he did, he had another thought coming.

“But, I do not understand,” Jacques replied, his bewilderment evident.

He wasn’t the only one, Aimee fumed silently. She tried to pry herself free from Peter’s side, but his fingers were like talons of steel, keeping her pinned to him.

“What Aimee means is that it’s not official yet,” Peter explained.

Aimee shot a fiery glance toward Peter at the out-and-out lie. “What I mean is that we are not engaged—” She hesitated at his pained expression. Her chest tightened as she glimpsed the sadness hidden beneath his hard facade. As always, Peter’s vulnerability was her undoing. The anger drained from her as quickly as it had come. “Yet,” she found herself adding.

Peter’s fingers eased their death grip on her waist, but he didn’t release her. “You see, Aimee hasn’t actually agreed to marry me yet.” He cupped her jaw with his free hand, gently turning her so that she was forced to look into his eyes. “But I have every intention of changing her mind.”

He stroked her bare arm. It was an innocent gesture, but one that set off tiny currents of sensation in her body. It had always been like this with Peter—the electricity, the heat—right from the beginning. As she looked into his eyes, she could feel it happening again, the flush of warmth, the excitement. From the first time she looked into his blue eyes, all hungry and hot as he watched her, she had responded with an answering need. Tendrils of heat unfurled in her stomach, flowed between her thighs.

She had felt like Cinderella that first night, and Peter had been her prince. She had been powerless against her feelings for him, and had fallen in love with him almost from the start. His swift and relentless pursuit of her, followed by the proposal of marriage, had only added to the fairy-tale feeling.

Except Peter hadn’t offered her a glass slipper or a place in his art kingdom where they would live happily ever after. She would easily have forgone both those things, if he had only offered her his love.

He hadn’t. Instead, he had offered her a contract, one without promise or even hope for the future—a piece of paper that said he didn’t believe in love. That he didn’t love her.

It had hurt. It still hurt. Yet she continued to love him. And there were moments, like when he awakened from one of the bad dreams that plagued him, or like now, when she sensed the yearning in him…It was at these times that she was sure that Peter not only wanted her love, but needed it, too.

It was these moments that made her decide to continue her relationship with Peter…that gave her hope that he might fall in love with her one day…that made her bite her tongue now and give credence to the false impression he had just given Jacques.

“Shame on you, Aimee.”

Aimee pulled her thoughts back to the present at the sound of Jacques’s voice. “I beg your pardon?”

“You allowed me to boast to you about my exhibition and never told me about your own.”

“Jacques, what are you talking about?” Aimee asked, genuinely confused by the direction of the conversation.

“I mean, Peter here is the owner of Gallagher’s, no?”

“Yes.”

“Then, surely, as your almost-fiance, his gallery will be hosting an exhibit of your works.”

Peter’s fingers stilled on her arm. Pain lanced through Aimee as she felt his body stiffen beside her. Quickly she stepped away from him, feeling as though she had just taken an arrow in the heart.

“Gallagher’s doesn’t carry my work,” Aimee said evenly.

“But I don’t understand,” Jacques began. “I thought that since you and Peter were…that is, if you are soon to be married…”

“It’s all right, Jacques.” Aimee knew exactly what Jacques had thought. The same thing everyone else had thought. That if she and Peter were sleeping together, then surely he would be displaying her work.

Only Peter had made it plain from the start that he had no interest in her as an artist—only as a woman. While that in itself was exciting, it did have its drawbacks—especially when she wanted so desperately to earn her living with her art. Still, from what little she had learned of his past, that he had been married to an artist and had been badly burned by the experience, she did understand somewhat. He had sworn never to mix business with pleasure again.

Though she was disappointed, she had agreed to his terms. It had been the only way to prove to Peter that it was him she loved and that her feelings had nothing to do with what he could do for her career. Still, his rejection of her as an artist had hurt. It had made her question whether it was the idea of representing an artist with whom he was involved that he found objectionable, or whether it was the work itself. While she knew she would never be another Ida Kohlmeyer, she had hoped to find a home for her work-if for no other reason than to feel worthy of the name artist. The fact that her art had yet to capture any significant dealer’s eye only added to her sense of insecurity.

“It’s not a reflection on Aimee as an artist,” Peter explained, as though he had sensed her thoughts. “I simply make it a policy not to represent the work of any artist with whom I’m personally involved.”

“But surely, after seeing Aimee’s work, her talent-”

“Oh, my, I certainly could use something cool to drink,” Aimee proclaimed, feigning thirst in an attempt to change the subject. “What about you, Jacques? The least I can do is offer you something to drink for helping me with that pipe.” Slipping her arm through his, Aimee led him through the bedroom and headed toward the kitchen.

“Forgive me, Aimee,” Jacques whispered as they made their way to the front of the apartment. “I did not mean to open old wounds.”

Aimee looked up at the handsome Frenchman, moved by his sensitivity. She gave his arm a light squeeze. “I know.”

Why, she asked herself for the dozenth time, couldn’t she have given her heart to someone like Jacques? He was certainly more handsome than Peter. With dark blond hair that fell past his collar, and laughing brown eyes, he turned female heads wherever he went. He was kind, caring. And, as a fellow artist, he understood and shared her own passion for making art. To top it off, he had been interested in her.

But it wasn’t Jacques who made her heart race. It wasn’t Jacques who could look at her across a crowded room and make her breath catch, her body tremble with longing. It wasn’t Jacques she loved.

It was Peter.

“Chin up, little one,” Jacques murmured, breaking into her thoughts. “I’m the one who should be wearing the long face.”

“You? Why?”

The smile in his eyes spread across his lips. “Because here I finally find the woman of my dreams, only to have her turn me down because she prefers to give her heart to a beast.”

“You’ve been listening to Liza,” she said accusingly, then ruined the reprimand by chuckling.

“Laugh if you will. But perhaps I am the lucky one, after all, to escape in one piece.”

“What do you mean?”

“Judging by your Peter’s expression when he came in, I think he would have liked very much to rip my heart from my chest. He’s a hard man, your Peter.” His grin eased the impact of what he was saying. “But then, I suspect you already know that. He needs your gentleness. Whereas I, I am a man renowned for his gentle nature. Ask anyone who knows me.”

“You mean any female who knows you,” Aimee told him, her mood lightening at his teasing.

“Especially any female.”

Still laughing, Aimee entered the kitchen. Her gaze swept over the room, and she was glad once again that she had painted the old wooden cabinets white. The room looked brighter, more spacious, than before, and the colorful spice print that she’d painstakingly applied to the walls lifted her spirits. A smile still on her lips, she turned to Jacques. “Now what can I get you to drink?” Opening the refrigerator, she inventoried its contents. “I have ice tea, apple juice, lemonade…”