The Man Plan Read online

  “No!” She locked her arms around his neck and raised her legs to hold him in place. Her breath caught as her movements pulled him deeper. “Don’t stop. It’s not so bad now.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized they were true. The pain had diminished considerably, her body beginning to accommodate him.

  He closed his eyes, sweat beading his forehead. “Still, I—”

  “No.” She shifted her pelvis again, squeezing tighter. “Please, James.”

  He groaned and muttered another curse under his breath. Taking her hips in his hands, he started to ease back.

  She held on. “Don’t stop.”

  His muscles bunched, and he gave a shaky laugh. “With all that wiggling you’re doing, I don’t think I could stop now if I tried.” He kissed her again, tender and unbearably sweet. “Relax, and I’ll show you.”

  Trusting him implicitly, she lessened her hold and allowed him to start moving inside her. He slid his hands under her hips to position her as he wanted, quickly establishing a rhythm that made her yearn and yield.

  Her toes curled, her heart pounding at a wild clip as her pleasure increased, the last of her discomfort easing until she forgot there’d ever been any pain at all. Until there was only heat and motion and the most exquisite delight she’d ever known.

  A new ache formed—an ache of want, of hunger so fierce she trembled beneath its force. The deeper and faster he plunged, the more she craved, until she didn’t think wanting more was possible.

  Her head rolled back and forth across the comforter, her hands grasping his wide shoulders as he pistoned in and out. She forgot everything but him, utterly lost, utterly without control, her breath coming in ragged, needy gasps.

  Suddenly she crested, calling out his name as bliss spread through her.

  He found his own satisfaction moments later, giving a hoarse shout as he followed her across to the other side. He buried his face against her neck, damp with perspiration, lungs pumping as if he’d just run a race.

  She held him, awash with happiness and love.

  Sometime after, he rolled them over so that he lay on his back. Smiling, she snuggled against his chest and drifted to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  James leaned back against the sparklingly clean kitchen countertop made of black-and-white-flecked granite and waited for the coffee to finish brewing. God knew he needed a cup, even if it was two o’clock in the afternoon—well past any conventional breakfast hour. Hungry, he considered fixing himself some eggs and toast, then decided he’d wait for Ivy.

  He’d left her sleeping, curled snug as a kitten beneath the covers. Not even the dull roar of his shower had penetrated her slumber. While he dressed in a pair of navy slacks and a button-down white cotton shirt, he’d studied her. The way her hair spread across his pillows like long rays of golden sunshine. How her cheeks glowed, dusty pink with warmth. The faint smile that curved her sweet lips.

  Young, he’d thought, as he’d fastened on a wristwatch he’d owned for more years than she’d been alive. She is so young. Much too young for me.

  A shroud of guilt settled over him.

  Until last night, she’d been innocent. No matter what she’d said she wanted, he’d taken that away from her. By making love to her, he’d crossed an invisible line. No longer her friend and protector but the man who’d corrupted her.

  And who wanted to go on corrupting her.

  The coffeemaker gurgled, hissing pungent steam as it finished filling the glass pot. He poured himself a cup and had just taken a first sip when the door chime rang. Mildly irritated by the interruption, he set down his cup and left the kitchen.

  He discovered the last person he would ever have expected to see waiting on the other side of his front door.

  Madelyn.

  With hair the color of a fiery sunset, eyes deep and blue as a sunlit sea, Madelyn Grayson was more beautiful than ever.

  Madelyn Douglas, he corrected himself, remembering she was married now—to the man she’d jilted him for more than five years before.

  She’d added an extra pound or two at the hips and bust, he saw—no doubt weight from the babies she’d given birth to. But the extra inches only made her lovelier, adding a lush maturity to curves no man could possibly find lacking. She’d shortened her hair, coppery curls bouncing around her expressive face in a sassy chin-length bob. She looked the part of a married suburban professional with an extra day off for the long weekend.

  She was dressed in butter-colored chinos, leather loafers, and a peach T-shirt. He noticed a smear of something that looked suspiciously like strawberry jam on her sleeve.

  She met his eyes with a cautious smile. “James, hi.”

  “Madelyn.”

  She rubbed a hand down the side of one thigh as if her palm were perspiring. “Sorry to drop by with no notice. I wasn’t sure if you’d be home. I . . . uh . . . decided to try my old elevator passkey. Imagine my surprise when it still worked. ”

  Many years ago, she’d been one of the first people he’d added to his small list of visitors granted unlimited access to his floor. He’d meant to remove her name and decode her key. Somehow he’d just never gotten around to it.

  Abruptly remembering his manners, he stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”

  Awkwardness hung between them, heavy as a thick pane of glass. Sad, considering the staunch friendship they’d once shared.

  “All right,” she agreed, “but only for a minute.”

  She followed him inside, looking around as they went. She paused for a quick sniff at the bouquet of fresh flowers Estella kept arranged in a Meissen vase on a stand in the hall outside the dining room. This weekend’s arrangement contained red and white roses mixed with blue hydrangeas, their perfume dewy sweet.

  “You haven’t changed anything, I see,” she remarked.

  “No. It’s all exactly as I like.”

  She shot him a look.

  He continued on into the living room. “I’d offer you coffee, but I know you don’t like the stuff. Something else perhaps? Tea? Juice? A cocktail?”

  “No, no, that’s all right.” She twisted her fingers together in a nervous gesture. “I can’t stay long. I wouldn’t have stopped by at all except . . . Well, I wanted to ask you . . .”

  He frowned at her distress. “Ask me what? Is something wrong?”

  “It’s Ivy,” she blurted. “I called her late last night and several times again today, but she isn’t answering her cell. She’s not at her apartment either. I just came from down there. Zack and the girls dropped me off up here, then went back down to her place in hopes that she’ll show up. I’m probably worrying for nothing. I was wondering if you have any idea where she might be. James, have you seen Ivy?”

  Her words hit him with the stinging crack of a whip.

  My God. Ivy!

  He’d forgotten all about her.

  Disloyalty crept over him at the realization. After last night, how could he have forgotten Ivy, even for an instant? Apparently, finding her older sister—his ex-lover—on his doorstep had retarded more than a few of his higher brain functions.

  Did he know where she was?

  Hell yeah, he knew. Upstairs, asleep in his bed, where he prayed she’d remain.

  I can’t let Madelyn find Ivy here.

  Lord, what had he been thinking, inviting Madelyn in?

  She had to leave, and leave now.

  “Ivy went to a party with some friends last night, I think,” he said hastily. “Maybe she decided to stay over with them.”

  Madelyn wrinkled her forehead, considering. “I suppose, though it doesn’t seem like something she’d do. Ivy’s not much for impromptu sleepovers.”

  Madelyn obviously had a lot to learn. Ivy’s sleepover with him last night had been about as impromptu as they came.

  “Even if she did stay overnight with friends, she ought to have checked her phone and at least texted me back.” She glanced at her watch. “It�
�s almost two thirty in the afternoon. Surely she should be back home by now.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was the Fourth last night, so she probably slept late and decided to stay for lunch. Or maybe she’s out sketching. You know how preoccupied she can get when she’s working on her art. You two’ve probably just missed each other. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m positive. And you know how bad she can be about answering her phone, especially when she’s painting. She probably put it on mute and forgot to turn the ringer back on.”

  “That’s true. She does tend to ignore calls when she’s in the zone, as she calls it,” Madelyn said.

  “Exactly. So why don’t you join”—he broke off, finding the casual use of Zack Douglas’s name distasteful even now—“your family down at Ivy’s place. She’s bound to turn up soon.” With a gentle hand on Madelyn’s elbow, he began to steer her toward the door.

  She took a couple steps, then stopped. “I suppose you’re right. Trouble is, we don’t have a key to Ivy’s apartment. I can’t leave the girls sitting out in the hallway for hours.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call the guard’s desk, explain the situation, and ask them to come up and let you in.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind at all.” He stretched out an arm to herd her in the right direction. “Why don’t you go ahead in case she’s already there, while I make the call?”

  “All right. I—”

  The door chime rang.

  Holy Mother of God, James silently cursed. Who is it now?

  Before he took a step, Madelyn headed for the door.

  Moments later a child’s high-pitched squeal rang out, followed by the drumming of tiny feet.

  A toddler raced around the corner, then stopped dead the instant she saw him. She tipped her head back as far as it would go, her hair a mass of silky black ringlets silhouetted around her cherubic face. She met his eyes, her own a brilliant shade of green. They widened to the size of moons as she stared.

  He’d never seen one of Madelyn’s children before. Not much resemblance to her, he decided, the small girl’s beautiful features a feminine version of her father. Except for the stubborn chin. That he recognized as pure Grayson.

  Yet aside from the child’s dark coloring and another man’s features, he couldn’t help but think, She should have been mine.

  If life had worked out right, she would have been mine.

  Forcing away such useless thoughts, he smiled at Madelyn’s daughter.

  The girl turned and ran straight to her father, who’d just walked into the room. Seeking his protection, she wrapped her pudgy arms around his sturdy leg. Safe again, the child darted a shy peek up at James, checking to see if he was still watching.

  He smiled at her again, then lifted his eyes to meet his former rival’s shrewd green gaze. He gave a curt nod. “Douglas.”

  Zack returned the gesture with an equal lack of enthusiasm. “Jordan.”

  “I see you’ve met Hannah,” Madelyn remarked, coming up next to her husband.

  Another child—identical to the first—clung to Madelyn, her tiny little arms locked around her mother’s neck. The girl rested her cheek against Madelyn’s shoulder and watched him out of a second pair of startlingly clear green eyes.

  An uncomfortable wave of melancholia hit him. “They’re beautiful, Meg,” he said, unconsciously using his old nickname for Madelyn. “You should be proud.”

  Madelyn smiled, obviously touched by his words. “I am.” She bounced the girl she held in her arms. “This is Holly.”

  “Hello, Holly.”

  The baby stuck her thumb in her mouth and turned her face into her mother’s neck.

  Hannah, not to be upstaged, swung around to face him but kept a fistful of her father’s jeans held tight in one little hand.

  “Hello, Hannah,” James said, trying again.

  She giggled.

  “They refused to stay downstairs,” Zack informed Madelyn. “Insisted I find Mommy. What could I do? I was outnumbered. Lucky for all of us, you gave me the passkey so we could come to get you.”

  James promised himself to make updating the passkey list a priority.

  Somehow he doubted the idea to find Madelyn had originated with the children. James hadn’t exchanged more than a few words, and some choice sneers, with Zack Douglas over the years. And James was an astute enough judge of people to know that letting Madelyn come up to his penthouse alone must have been driving the other man insane.

  She adjusted Holly on her hip. “James thinks Ivy may have stayed over with friends last night and is having a late lunch with them. Or that she went out with her sketch pad to do some drawings. I have to admit it sounds like something she might do. Both of you are probably right, and I shouldn’t be so worried.”

  “Not yet anyway.” Zack reached down for Hannah, who’d decided she wanted to be held like her sister. “Maybe we should have a late lunch ourselves. I didn’t get to eat peanut butter and jelly crackers and apple slices in the car like these two.” He lifted his daughter’s hand, pretending to bite it. Delighted, she screeched and then laughed. “We’ll stop back afterward. Ivy’ll probably be home by then.”

  “Oh, well, I suppose we could, but James was just about to call down and have one of the guards let us into Ivy’s apartment.”

  “Really?” Zack shot him a look. “Guess there’re a few perks to owning the building, such as bypassing security protocols.”

  James stared back, refusing to take the bait.

  After a minute, Zack broke off the staring match and turned to his wife. “All right. We’ll go to Ivy’s instead, since I know it’ll make you feel better. We’ll raid her fridge. If it’s bare, I’m calling for takeout.”

  Relieved they were finally leaving, James did his best to shepherd them toward the door.

  “He’s right,” James prompted. “You all go on and I’ll make the call. The guard will be there in less than five minutes.”

  Madelyn paused. “Maybe I should phone her one more time. With luck, she’ll pick up this time and you won’t need to bother the guards.”

  A sudden image of Madelyn calling her sister and Ivy’s phone ringing from inside Ivy’s purse here in the penthouse popped into his mind.

  “No!” he said quickly. “No need to do that. It’s no bother, none at all. It’ll give the guards something interesting to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Now, go on. Won’t be but a minute.”

  Madelyn frowned, confused. “Well, all right. If you’re sure—”

  “Hell-o,” called a cheery, singsong voice. “James? It’s me.” High heels clicked on the entry hall’s polished cherry floors.

  Parker.

  Fuck me. Not her too! he thought.

  She rounded the corner, halted abruptly when she saw he had company.

  “Oh, hello.” She nodded a greeting at the Douglases and then looked at James. “Did you know your door’s open, darling? Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Actually, we were on our way out.” He took Parker’s elbow and tried to turn her, stretching his other arm wide behind Madelyn and Zack and their little girls as if he could force them onward.

  Madelyn stood her ground, tossed him another puzzled look. “But you were going to call.”

  “Yes, yes, of course I was. I am. I mean . . . I just . . . That is, when I said we, I meant all of you. And then me, since I thought I’d come downstairs . . . after I call, you know, to make sure everything’s okay. Okay?”

  Madelyn frowned. “Is something the matter, James? You’re acting weird.”

  “Maybe he’s been drinking,” Zack quipped in a caustic aside.

  “He’s sick.” Parker pulled out of James’s grip and reached up a hand to check his forehead for fever. “Poor baby came home quite ill last night. Are you still nauseous?”

  Actually, he was beginning to feel a little sick.

  M
adelyn reached out, set the back of her hand against his cheek.

  Zack shot her a black scowl.

  She ignored it. “You should have said something if you aren’t feeling well,” she told James.

  “Actually, I’m feeling much better today. Really. Now, why don’t we all go on downstairs?”

  Madelyn shook her head. “Even so, if you’ve been ill, you shouldn’t push yourself.”

  “Exactly,” Parker agreed. She lifted up a small brown paper sack. “I brought chicken soup from the kosher deli, if you’re up to it.”

  “I am not hungry,” James stated, the volume of his voice increasing with each word. “And I am not sick. Now, let’s go on before—”

  “Who’s sick?” A soft, distinctly feminine voice cut through the conversation, carrying with the force of a rocket-propelled grenade.

  Parker, Madelyn, Zack, even the twins, looked toward the upstairs landing.

  James closed his eyes.

  Madelyn found her voice first. “Ivy?”

  “Malynn? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. We were worried.”

  “You were? Why?”

  “We’ve been trying to call you since last night. We stopped by your apartment, but you weren’t there.”

  “No, sorry. I went to a party last night and it was really late when we got back. I just woke up and didn’t think about checking my cell for . . .” Her words abruptly trailed off as she apparently realized what she’d just revealed. “Messages.”

  James winced and reluctantly opened his eyes.

  Looking up, he found her standing at the railing outside his bedroom. Barefoot, she wore her badly wrinkled party dress from the night before, her long hair hanging in hastily brushed waves around her shoulders. She looked rumpled and rosy and well satisfied from a night of pleasurable sex.

  “I see,” Madelyn murmured with an odd-sounding squeak to her voice.

  “So do I.” Hissing like a snake, Parker turned on James. “You . . . you lying, deceitful, conniving bastard.”

  She pointed an arm toward Ivy. “Is that your little friend? The one you’ve been spending so much time with lately? The little sister you would never, ever think of fuc—”