Page 28 of Craig

"Will you be spending the night at her place?" Cecil asked gruffly.

"That I can safely say is none of your business." Tugging on her hand, he guided her from the room.

They said nothing to each other even on the drive home, each submerged in their own thoughts.

It was when he pulled up outside her apartment that he finally broke the silence. "Thanks for tonight," he said quietly, leaving the engine idling.

"It was mutually beneficial." She hesitated briefly, before unhooking her belt and turning towards him.

"I don't want you kissing me again. In order for this to work, we have to remember it's just business."

"You liked it."

"That's beside the point. We cannot muddle things up by getting personal. It's not."

"I'll make a note of it."

His sarcasm was ignored. Pushing the door open, she hopped out.

"Goodnight."

He sat there for several minutes, even when she went inside and closed her door.

Chapter 5

The kiss bothered her. She had tried to be sophisticated about it in the time they had spent at his grandfather's place, and she believed she had succeeded.

But inside the vehicle while he was transporting her home, she had had to work very hard to try to ignore the fact that she was affected, and far too much so.

Much too much. She had firmly told him not to touch her again, because of self-preservation.

If he touched her again, she would fall into his arms like a ripe plum.

It was just business, and to mix business with pleasure would be a recipe for disaster. So, the attraction was still there.

After all these years, the intensity of the passion was there; that much was proven earlier.

The very reason she had run like a scared rabbit and told him, a little carelessly, that she wanted to end things, was still very much... there.

Kicking off her shoes, she headed straight for the tiny kitchen and found the half bottle of Chianti that her brother had brought on his last visit to her place.

Pouring a generous amount into the glass she had hunted up, she sat at the small counter and took a sip. She was going to be moving.

It was a charming enough place, and the neighbors had grown on her, but she would not be devastated; mildly sad, perhaps, but she would quickly recover.

She wondered why he hadn't asked her why she chose to live here and what happened to the money she had earned in her various careers. Sipping wine, she recalled bitterly how her mother had suffered, while that- that goddamned monster who called himself her father was sailing through life, collecting wives like trophies.

Her sweet, kind, and caring mother who had loved the bastard until the very end had suffered for months before the cancer claimed her life.

The very disease that had wiped out all of her savings and left her destitute. Dylan, bless his soul, had helped as well, but his own mother, quite the bloodsucker and still very much alive, was always hitting him up for money.

"Oh God! What a pair we are," she whispered hoarsely.

Taking another sip, she rose and wandered aimlessly around the small room. She had not regretted spending money on her mother, and if she had to do it again, she would, gladly.

Rachel Graham had loved not only her, but Dylan as well, and had never shown an ounce of resentment and anger towards the boy and the man who had happily ridden off into the sunset and turned his back on them.

His wife and children. What a bastard!