Marriage Terms
highlight_author
Barbara Dunlop
highlight_reads
17.8K
highlight_chapters
12
One
If Amanda Elliott had her way, New York would have a law against ex-husbands. She took a deep breath, curled her toes over the pool deck at Boca Royce Health Club and dived headfirst into the fast lane.
A law against ex-husbands who invaded a woman’s life. She stretched her arms out, surging her body forward until she sliced back up through the surface.
A law against ex-husbands who stayed fit and sexy for over fifteen years. Her right arm pulled into a freestyle arc as she kicked into her rhythm, letting the cool water block out the world.
And a law against ex-husbands who held a woman tight, whispered words of comfort and made her insane world tip right again.
She scrunched her eyes shut against the illicit memory, stroking hard until her fingertips brushed the smooth pool wall at the opposite end. Then she twisted her body to kick into the next lap.
While the politicians were at it, they should write a law against sons who were wounded in shoot-outs, sons who were secretly government agents and sons who went to spy school without their mother’s permission.
It wouldn’t take much. A simple amendment to the admissions disclaimer, and no woman would ever again have to wake up and discover she’d given birth to James Bond.
Amanda pulled past the blue halfway floats.
Her son Bryan was James Bond.
She laughed a little desperately at that one, nearly sucking in a lungful of water.
Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine Bryan with a forged passport, driving exotic cars through foreign countries and pressing little remote control devices to blow things up. Her Bryan loved puppies and finger painting, he lived for those sweet little cream-filled coconut puffs you could only get at Wong’s on the corner.
She was grateful he was getting out of the spy game. He’d vowed as much to his new bride. Amanda had heard it with her own ears. So had Daniel.
Her stroke faltered. This time her ex-husband’s image refused to disappear.
Daniel had comforted her through the long night of Bryan’s surgery. He’d been her pillar of strength, holding her up when she swore the sheer weight of terror would topple her. At times, he’d squeezed her so tight that over a decade and a half of anger and mistrust melted between them.
Détente?
She made another turn, pushing off the pool wall with her feet and knifing back to the surface. She swam harder, and her jaw tightened as she concentrated on her strokes.
Détente wasn’t even a possibility.
It would never be a possibility.
Because Daniel was a true-blue Elliott. And Amanda…wasn’t. East-West relations were a cakewalk compared to that.
The truce was over. Bryan was well on the road to recovery. Daniel was back on his own side of Manhattan. And Amanda had opening arguments in front of Judge Mercer tomorrow morning.
Her knuckles hit the wall at the end of another lap. Five, she counted off in her mind.
“Hello, Amanda.” Daniel’s familiar voice came out of nowhere.
She scrambled to bring her body to vertical, scrubbing the chlorinated water out of her eyes and blinking at her ex-husband’s fuzzy image. What was he doing here? “Is it Bryan?”
Daniel flinched, quickly shaking his head. “No. No. Sorry. Bryan’s fine.” He crouched on the concrete deck, putting them closer to eye level.
Amanda whooshed out a breath of relief, clinging to the trough at the edge of the pool. “Thank goodness.”
“Cullen told me I’d find you here,” he said.
Her anxiety rushed back at the mention of her second son. “Is it Misty?”
Another shake of Daniel’s head. “Misty’s good. The baby’s kicking up a storm.”
Amanda studied his expression. His face was calm and impassive. Whatever had dragged him out of the office in the middle of the day wasn’t life threatening.
He straightened back to full height, and her gaze strayed to his muscular chest, then to his navy trunks. His feet were bare, and he sported a six-pack of a stomach that would be the envy of a man half his age.
Her mouth went dry, and she suddenly realized she hadn’t seen Daniel in anything but a designer suit for sixteen years. The man who had hugged her goodbye had a body to die for.
She bicycled her legs, trying to restore her equilibrium in the deep water. “Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for you.”
She blinked again, trying to make sense out of his words. Unless she’d missed something, they’d said their goodbyes at Bryan’s wedding and had gone back to their respective lives.
Daniel should be perched behind his mahogany desk at Snap magazine right now, fighting tooth and nail with his siblings over profits and market share. As he was locked in a battle for the CEO position at Elliott Publication Holdings, it should have taken a catastrophe of biblical proportions to get him out of the office during work hours.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said casually.
“Excuse me?” She shook the water out of her ears.
“Talk. You know, when people use words to exchange information and ideas.”
Clearing her ears hadn’t helped. Daniel had tracked her down to chat?
He smiled, bending at the waist to reach out his hand. “Why don’t we get a drink?”
She pushed away from the pool edge and began treading water. “I don’t think so.”
“Come out of the pool, Amanda.”
“Uh-uh.” She wasn’t chatting, and she sure wasn’t hopping out in front of him in a tight one-piece.
He might look like an advertisement for Muscle Mass Monthly, but the earth’s gravitational pull was winning the war with her body.
“I’ve got forty-five laps to go,” she said.
Fifty laps was a stretch, but she was upping her workout—starting here and now. Whether Daniel ever saw her in a bathing suit or not, a woman had her pride.
Daniel crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Since when do you stick to a plan?”
He wanted to start in on their weaknesses?
“Since when do you finish work before eight at night?” she asked.
“I’m taking a coffee break.”
“Right,” she drawled, with a skeptical nod.
He frowned, looking imperious despite the swimming trunks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you don’t take coffee breaks.”
“We’ve barely seen each other in over fifteen years. How would you know whether or not I take coffee breaks?”
“When was the last time you took one?”
His cobalt eyes darkened. “Today.”
“Before that?”
He was silent for a moment, until one corner of his mouth quirked in a grin.
She splashed at him. “Knew it.”
He ducked. “Do I have to come in there after you?”
“Go away.” She had a workout to finish and a head to get clear. It was all well and good to lean on Daniel when their son was in mortal danger. But the truce was over. It was time to return to their respective trenches.
“I want to talk to you,” he called.
She kicked farther into the lane. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
“Amanda.”
“If Bryan’s not back in the hospital, and if Misty’s not in labor, then you and I are leading separate lives.”
“Amanda,” he repeated a little bit louder.
“It says so on our divorce papers.” She swam away.
He paced along the edge of the pool, his voice muffled by the water covering her ears. “I thought…then you…making progress…”
She gave up and turned into a sidestroke, gazing at his long, lean body while a shriek sounded from the diving pool. It was followed by the thump, thump, thump of the board’s recoil.
“Progress toward what?”
His eyes narrowed. “I hate it when you play dumb.”
“And I hate it when you insult me.”
“How am I insulting you?”
“You called me dumb.”
He spread his hands in frustration. “I said you were playing dumb.”
“Then you called me scheming.”
“Do we have to do this?”
Apparently, they did. Every single time they got within fifty feet of each other.
“I was there for you, Amanda.”
She stilled, and the water lapped lightly against her neck. He was using it against her already?
He raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. “And you were there for me. I know. I know.”
“And it’s over,” she said. “Bryan’s alive…” Her voice cracked over her son’s name, and she drew a bracing breath.
“And Cullen is happily married.”
Daniel crouched again, lowering his voice. “What about you, Amanda?” His blue irises flickered with the reflection of the water.
Nope. She wasn’t doing this to herself. She wasn’t getting into a conversation with Daniel about her emotional or mental state.
“I’m definitely alive,” she informed him tartly, then did a surface dive and resumed her swim.
He continued walking along the deck, keeping pace, watching her strokes.
Soon, all she could think about was how far her butt was sticking out of the water and whether or not her suit was riding up.
She paused at the opposite end, swiping her hair away from her eyes.
“Will you be leaving now?” she asked. She wasn’t about to attempt forty-four laps with him sizing up her thighs.
“I want to talk to you about a legal matter,” he said.
“Call my office.”
“We’re family.”
She whooshed away from the edge, creating an eddy around her body. “We’re not family.” Not anymore.
He glanced around. “Do we have to do this here?”
“Hey, you can be wherever you want. I was swimming away, minding my own business.”
He nodded toward the mezzanine floor that overlooked the pool. “Come up and have a drink.”
“Go away.”
“I need your legal advice.”
“You have lawyers on retainer.”
“But this is confidential.”
“I’ve got laps left to swim.”
His eyes focused on her blurred shape beneath the water.
“You don’t need them.”
Her heart tripped over a beat. But then she remembered the way glib compliments rolled off his tongue. She turned and stretched into freestyle again.
He followed her to the other end and was standing there when she came up for air.
She sighed in frustration. “You can be a real jerk, you know that?”
“Go ahead and finish. I’ll wait.”
She gritted her teeth. “I don’t think so.”
He grinned and reached out his hand.
Daniel was worried she wouldn’t fall for his ruse. Then he’d have to find another way to lure her into conversation. Because he definitely had a few things left to say.
Over the past few weeks, he’d seen her frantic schedule. He’d overheard the late-night calls. And he’d watched the way her clients took advantage of her.
Her dark eyes narrowed warily, and he moved his hand a little closer, wiggling his fingers in encouragement. He just needed her attention for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks. Then she’d be back on track, and he’d get out of her life for good.
Finally, she grimaced and tucked her small, slick hand in his palm. He tried not to be too obvious about his sigh of relief as he gently lifted her from the water.
She straightened on the deck, and he took in her toned limbs and the way her apricot suit clung to her ripe curves. Because she favored casual clothes now—clothes that tended toward loose and baggy—he’d thought maybe she’d gained weight over the years. Not so.
She had a ton of fashion potential. Her figure was gorgeous. Her waist was indented, her stomach smooth and tight, her full breasts rounded against the wet Lycra.
A long-dormant jolt of desire hit his system. He clenched his jaw to tamp it down.
If he alienated her now, she’d bolt. Then she’d spend the rest of her life swimming away her office hours and wandering around midtown Manhattan in khakis, gauzy blouses and clunky sandals.
He cringed at the image.
She might not admit it, but she needed to broaden her professional circles, cultivate prosperous clients and, for the love of God, dress for success.
She extracted her hand from his.
“One drink,” she warned, giving him a don’t-mess-with-me look as she whisked water droplets from her suit.
“One drink,” he agreed gruffly, dragging his gaze from her luscious figure.
She took in his dry trunks, wrinkling her nose. “You didn’t even get wet.”
He cupped her elbow and turned her toward the locker rooms. “That’s because I wasn’t here to swim.”
Her skin was slick and cool, like the tile under his feet. She stopped at the head of the corridor and turned to face him. He could almost see her mind ticking through the situation, formulating arguments.
He scrambled for a distraction. “Don’t suppose you’d consider a family changing room for old times’ sake?”
That put a flash in her mocha eyes, but it also shut her up. Which was what he’d had in mind.
He didn’t really have a legal matter to discuss. It was a spur-of-the-moment excuse to get her out of the pool, and it was going to take a few minutes to put the finer points on the lie.
He gave her what he hoped was a nostalgic smile. “The boys sure loved it here.”
“What is wrong with you?” she asked.
“I’m just saying—”
“Fine. Okay. The boys loved it here.”
She was silent for a moment, then her eyes softened. He felt himself sinking into his own memories.
The shouts of children faded, and he suddenly saw two small, dark-haired boys whizzing down the slide and doing flips off the diving board. Boca Royce was the only recreation he and Amanda could afford during their lean years—thanks to the Elliott family lifetime membership. And Bryan and Cullen used to swim their little hearts out.
His memory moved on to the end of the swim day, when the boys were ready to drop. He and Amanda would bundle them home for frozen pizza and a cartoon movie. Then they’d tuck them in and curl up in their own bed for a leisurely evening of love.
His voice turned husky. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
She didn’t engage, didn’t meet his eyes. Without a word, she turned on her heel and marched down the corridor.
Just as well.
He was here to offer her a few basic pointers, to get her professional life on track.
Anything else was off-limits.
Way off-limits.
Amanda felt considerably less vulnerable in faded jeans and a powder-blue tank top. In the ladies’ change room, she finger-combed her damp hair and smeared some clear lip gloss across her mouth. She never used much makeup during the day, and she wasn’t about to put any on for Daniel. She wasn’t blow-drying her hair, either.
Throwing her bright yellow athletic bag over one shoulder, she exited the change room and trotted up the wide stairs to the mezzanine.
One quick drink. She’d hear him out, refer him to somebody much higher priced than she was then maybe go see a good therapist.
At the top of the stairs, a set of arched, oak doors led to the pool lounge. A receptionist at the marble counter stopped her and asked to see her membership card. Before she could retrieve it from the depths of the bag, Daniel appeared, impeccably dressed in an Armani suit.
He took her arm and gave the receptionist a curt nod. “That won’t be necessary. She’s my guest.”
“Technically, I’m not your guest,” Amanda pointed out as he pushed on the oversize door. “I’m a member, too.”
“I hate it when they card you,” said Daniel, gesturing to a small, round table near the glass wall overlooking the pool.
“It’s so tacky.”
“They don’t recognize me,” she said. The receptionist was only doing her job.
Daniel pulled out one of the curved-back chairs, and Amanda sat down on the leather cushion, plunking her bag on the hardwood floor.
“Maybe if you were to—”
She glanced at him over her shoulder.
He snapped his jaw shut and rounded the table.
As he sat down, a waiter in a dark suit appeared. “Can I get you a beverage, sir?”
Daniel raised his eyebrows in Amanda’s direction. “Fruit juice,” she requested.
“We have an orange-mango blend,” said the waiter.
“Sounds good.”
“And for you, sir?”
“Glen Saanich on the rocks. Yellow label.”
“Very good.” The waiter gave a sharp nod and left.
“Let me guess,” she said, not in the mood to let the cut off insult slide by. “You were going to say that if I wore a power suit nobody would check my ID.”
He didn’t even bother to disagree. “The clothes do make the woman,” he said.
“The woman makes the woman,” she replied.
“A business suit and a nice pair of heels would give you a lot of credibility.”
“I dress like that for the courtroom, not to get into exclusive clubs.”
Daniel scooped the fanned, linen napkin from his water goblet and plunked it on the table. His study of her became more intense. “What do you plan your wardrobe around?”
“My life. My job. Just like everybody else.”
“You’re a lawyer.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Amanda, lawyers usually—”
“Daniel,” she warned. Whatever it was they were here to discuss, it wasn’t going to include her clothing.
“All I’m saying is drop by a boutique. Get a standing appointment at a salon—”
“My hair?”
He paused and something flickered in his expression.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Amanda.”
“Right,” she huffed. Too bad she had ugly clothes and bad hair.
“I’m talking a couple of blazers and a bit of a trim.”
“So I won’t get carded at Boca Royce?”
“It’s not just the ID card, and you know it.”
She stiffened her spine. Maybe not. But it was also none of his business. “Back off, Daniel.”
Unexpectedly, he held up his hands in surrender. A few beats later he offered an apologetic grin.
Somehow his easy capitulation felt unsatisfying. Which was silly.
He reached across the table and snagged her napkin, dropping it beside her glass so their view of each other was unobstructed. Her gaze caught on his strong, tanned fingers, and she had a split-second flashback to his hand against her skin. She swallowed.
Their waiter appeared, setting their drinks down on coasters and leaving an appetizer menu behind.
“Hungry?” asked Daniel, letting the menu fall open.
As if she was going to drag this out over phyllo or sushi. “No.”
“We could get some canapés.”
She shook her head.
“Okay. Then I’m good with the scotch.”
She focused on the expensive amber liquid, ruthlessly reminding herself of who he’d become. It had been a long time since she’d served him Bud in a can.
“Thirty-dollar scotch?” she asked.
He closed the menu and set it aside. “What’s wrong with the scotch?”
“You ever drink beer anymore?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“I mean domestic.”
He lifted his glass and the ice cubes clinked against the fine crystal. “You’re a reverse snob, you know that?”
“And you’re a straight-up snob.”
He stared at her for a long moment, those knowing eyes sending a shiver up her spine.
Out of self-preservation, she dropped her gaze to the tabletop. She wouldn’t let Daniel’s opinion get the better of her. Forget the haircut. Forget the designer clothes.
His opinion of her meant nothing, nothing at all.
“Why do you suppose…?” he asked softly, and she glanced up. He started again. “Why do you suppose we argue so much?” The question was undeniably intimate.
She refused to match his tone. “Because we cling to the hope that one day we might change each other’s minds.”
He was silent for a long moment. And then a genuine grin grew on his face. “Well, I’m open to improvement if you are.”
Uh-oh. She didn’t know where he was going with this disarming act, but it couldn’t be good. “Can we cut to the chase?”
“There’s a chase?”
“The confidential legal matter? The thing you brought me up here to discuss?”
A fleeting expression tightened his features, and he shifted in his chair. “Oh, that. It’s a matter of some, uh, delicacy.”
That got her attention. “Really?”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward. Was there a veiled message in those words? Was Daniel in some kind of trouble?
“You telling me you did something?” she asked.
He blinked. “Did something?”
“You actually broke the law?”
His brows knit together. “Don’t be absurd. Jeez, Amanda.”
“Well, then, what’s with this secret meeting in the middle of the day? And why with me?”
“This isn’t a secret meeting.”
“We’re not at your office.”
“Would you come to my office?”
“No.”
“There you go.”
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Get to the point.”
Their waiter appeared. “Anything from the menu, sir?”
Daniel barely turned his head. “The canapé tray will be fine.”
“Very good, sir.”
As the waiter left, Amanda raised her eyebrows in a question.
“You never know,” said Daniel. “We might be here awhile.”
“At the rate you’re talking, we sure will.”
He took a sip of his scotch. “Fine. I’ll cut to the chase. I’m looking into an interpretation of our employee manual.”
“The employee manual?”
How on earth was that a delicate matter? Here she thought the conversation, his life, was about to get interesting.
He nodded.
She shook her head in disappointment and reached for her athletic bag. “Daniel, I don’t practice corporate law.”
He trapped her hand on the table, and her entire arm buzzed with the sensation.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She tried to ignore his touch. “I mean it’s not my specialty.”
“Well, maybe not labor relations…”
She shifted in her chair. She couldn’t yank her hand from his. That would be too obvious. “I practice criminal law.”
He stared at her in silence, the pulse in his thumb synchronizing with hers.
“Crime,” she offered helpfully, tugging her hand ever so slightly.
He blinked in confusion.
“Surely you’ve read the newspapers, seen the dramas on television…”
“But… Private lawyers don’t prosecute criminals.”
“Who says I prosecute them?”
His hand tightened convulsively. “You defend them?”
“Yes, I do.” She made no bones about trying to free herself this time.
He let her go. He glanced away. Then he stared at her again. “What kind of criminals?”
“The kind that get caught.”
“Don’t be facetious.”
“I’m dead serious. The ones that get away with it don’t need me.”
“Like thieves, prostitutes, murderers?”
“Yes.”
“Do the boys know about this?”
“Of course.”
He hardened his jaw. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Really?” As if his opinion had any bearing on her career decisions.
“Really, Amanda.” He reached for her hand with both of his this time. “I thought…” He shook his head. “But this is dangerous.”
His touch might be disturbing, but his words were even more so.
She fought him on both fronts. “This is none of your business, Daniel.”
He stared at her intently. “But it is my business.”
“No.”
“You’re the mother of my children.”
“No.”
“I can’t let anything—”
“Daniel!”
His hands tightened, and he got a familiar look in his eyes. That look said he had a plan. That look said he had a mission. That look said he was going to save her from herself.
