Chapter 32
Afew hours later, Daniela climbed off the back of Caleb’s Ducati and removed her helmet. Tucking it beneath one arm, she gave him a demure smile, the engine a low growl between them.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“Anytime.” Caleb lifted his helmet’s tinted visor so she could see his eyes. His heavy-lidded dark gaze made him unbearably sexy. As memories of their erotic lovemaking marathon flooded her mind, she felt her cheeks grow warm.
She handed over her helmet and watched him stow it in the saddlebag. “I had a really wonderful time,” she told him.
“Me, too.” He winked. “I’ll be back at four to pick you up.”
She smiled, anticipation quickening her heartbeat. “I’ll be ready.”
Their gazes held for a heated moment. When he lifted his helmet off, Daniela stepped forward, cradled his bearded jaw between her hands and pressed a slow, soft kiss to his very kissable mouth. When she pulled away, the eyes that met hers were smoldering.
“Make that two o’clock,” Caleb amended huskily.
She gave a low, sultry laugh. “I’ll be ready.”
With a darkly seductive smile, he resettled his helmet on his head, revved the motorcycle’s engine and roared off down the street.
Daniela stood watching until he’d disappeared around the corner. Then, feeling like a lovesick schoolgirl returning home from her first date, she turned and skipped up the walk to the house.
Her mother awaited her in the living room, where she’d apparently witnessed the entire scene from the window. Daniela pulled up short, her face heating with embarrassment at getting caught.
But then elation took over, and she threw her arms around Pamela and exclaimed, “Mom, you’re home! I missed you!”
Pamela chuckled dryly. “Coulda fooled me.” She leaned back, looking vaguely amused as she searched her daughter’s face. “Who was that young man on the motorcycle?”
Daniela shrugged. “Just someone I met at the university,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant—but not so nonchalant that her mother would think she was having cheap, meaningless hookups with random men.
Pamela looked skeptical. “Just someone, huh?”
“Yes, just someone.” She dropped a kiss on her mother’s soft cheek before heading toward her bedroom. “I want to hear all about your trip—”
“Then why are you walking in the opposite direction?”
Daniela glanced over her shoulder with a sheepish grin. “Because if I stand there a minute longer, Mama, you’ll have me confessing everything I’ve done over the past week. Give me time to get my story straight.”
At that, her mother laughed.
Ten minutes later, Caleb roared up to the curb next to a sidewalk café where Shara sat at one of the little tables sipping a latte while working on her laptop.
He’d tracked her down using the app she’d insisted he install on his phone so he could locate her if she ever went missing while walking across campus at night.
It wasn’t a reciprocal exchange, since he’d never granted her request to track his whereabouts.
He wasn’t born yesterday.
Dropping the kickstand, he pulled off his helmet and propped it on his lap. The distinctive rumble of the Ducati’s engine turned heads, including Shara’s. When she saw him, her surprise quickly turned to pleasure.
“Caleb—”
He crooked a finger at her.
She rose without hesitation and sashayed over with a warm, delighted smile as he killed the engine. He didn’t want her to miss a single word he was about to say.
“What a nice surprise,” she gushed. “Did you change your mind about joining—”
“You talked to my father,” Caleb said flatly.
Her smile froze. “I—”
“Don’t ever do that again. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Well, no,” she conceded, “but since you wouldn’t listen to reason, I just thought—”
“You thought wrong.” His voice was hard, his stare cold as he quietly mused, “So this is what our friendship has come to, Shara?”
“Don’t put this on me,” she fired back. “You broke the rules.”
He regarded her stonily. “Fraternizing with colleagues is frowned on, but that didn’t stop you from welcoming me into your bed, and since then you haven’t stopped inviting me back.”
Her face tightened with humiliation, nostrils flaring. “If you came here to beg me to reconsider—”
“Beg? Please. You know me better than that. Do what you gotta do.”
She shook her head at him, looking hurt and stunned. “I can’t believe…It doesn’t have to be this way, Caleb.”
“On that we agree.”
“Stop seeing her,” she demanded petulantly, anger and desperation lacing her voice. “Tell her it’s over.”
“That’s not happening.”
Her chin lifted. “Then you leave me no choice.”
He leaned in close. “Do your fucking worst.”
The blood drained from her face, tears springing to her eyes. “Caleb—”
“I’ve enjoyed your friendship, Shara. I really have.
But just know that whatever happens from here on out, you and I are fucking done.
” With that icy promise hanging in the air, he shoved his helmet back on and jabbed the starter, and when the hot engine fired to life, he took off without a single backward glance.
Thanks to Deacon Hubbard—who arrived an hour later to take Pamela to lunch before escorting her to a gospel concert that evening—Daniela was spared from having to answer her mother’s questions about Caleb.
As she observed the warm interactions between Pamela and the handsome deacon, a pleasant suspicion took root in her mind.
She wondered if her mother and Lionel Hubbard were falling in love.
And then her mind went a step further: If the two of them got married, Daniela wouldn’t have to worry about her mother growing old alone.
She also wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about not buying her dream ranch.
Because after today’s ugly showdown with Philbin, that wasn’t happening anymore.
A sickening ball rolled around Daniela’s stomach at the reminder of Philbin’s malevolent parting words. She’d already made the calculated decision to activate the poison pill that would take away his leverage. His ultimatum had only strengthened her resolve.
After seeing her mother off, Daniela treated herself to a leisurely bubble bath, hoping to relieve her tension and distract herself from the feeling of impending doom.
As she soaked in the steaming water scented with her favorite fragrances, she let her mind wander back to her happy place.
Back to Caleb. She fantasized about him, reliving every magical, sensual detail of the past twenty-four hours, sighing when she found herself getting turned on.
She had no business spending another hour with him, much less the entire weekend—a three-day weekend, at that.
When she’d agreed to go for a ride with him the night before, she’d told herself it would be the very last time.
And now here she was preparing to be whisked away to his father’s secluded ranch for what promised to be the most romantic weekend of her life.
It was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.
And though she knew she was being selfish, that it was wrong to prolong her relationship with Caleb when they could have no future together, she wasn’t about to cancel her plans with him.
Rising from the clawfoot tub, she wrapped her body in a big fluffy towel and padded to her bedroom. After dressing in a pink tube top and a linen maxi skirt with a slit up the front, she packed her overnight bag, tossing in two handfuls of her sexiest lingerie.
Not that she remained clothed for very long in Caleb’s presence, she thought, a lascivious smile curving her lips.
He arrived an hour and a half later, effortlessly handsome in a loose white shirt and tan slacks. She let him in, smiling as his eyes ran the length of her, glittering with frank appreciation.
“Are you ready?” he murmured.
She nodded. “First I want to give you something.” As he raised a curious brow, she went into her bedroom and returned carrying the framed photograph of the Majestic Theatre that she’d bought from April.
Caleb looked surprised when she handed it to him. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” she interrupted softly. “I want you to have it, Caleb.”
“But you like this photo. That’s the reason you bought it.”
“True,” she admitted. “But you liked it too, and if I hadn’t beat you to the punch, you would’ve bought the photo first. So please take it, Caleb.
I insist.” When he continued to hesitate, she added quietly, “I think we both know that the Majestic Theatre has more sentimental value for you than me.”
He gazed at her with an expression of such tender warmth that her throat closed. “Thank you, Daniela,” he said huskily. “This is a wonderful gift.”
She felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids. “It’ll give you something to remember me by,” she joked, then wished she could take back the revealing words.
Hearing the note of finality in her voice, Caleb frowned a little. “Are you going somewhere?”
Instead of answering right away, Daniela reached up and touched his face, her fingers splaying across his bearded jaw, thumb brushing the sculpted softness of his mouth.
I love you, she thought achingly. I’ll never ever forget you.
Caleb had grown very still as he waited for her response. “Daniela?”
She stared at him in an agony of indecision, then finally mustered a wobbly grin.
“Of course I’m going somewhere,” she said lightly.
“Unless I’m mistaken, we’re both supposed to be going somewhere.
” She glanced at her watch. “And if we don’t get out of here before my mother returns, we’re gonna find ourselves in the hot seat, the kind that makes what you put us through in class look like child’s play. ”
Chuckling softly, Caleb picked up her overnight bag and followed her from the house with his hand resting in its familiar place at the small of her back.
It was one of those simple pleasures that she would remember, and ache for, long after he was out of her life.