Mistress Minded by Katherine Garbera

left with Ray.
    An answering tautness sprang to life inside her. She shook her head. “I lied. I didn’t have a headache.”
    He stepped out onto the balcony and leaned next to her at the railing. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking to her like a relaxed man with nothing but time on his hands.
    “Why?” he asked. There was a dangerous softness to his tone that she knew from hearing it in the office meant he was close to losing his temper.
    She didn’t place too much importance on that. She probably should have stayed and acted her role for Ray and Didi, but she couldn’t. She’d been exposed there in his arms. And if Adam had been watching her instead of Ray, Jayne feared he’d have seen her heart in her eyes. “I needed to get away.”
    “From me?”
    She nodded. From him and from herself. But there’d been no escaping her own thoughts. So she’d tried to work, and then she’d tried to call her mom, figuring that Mona would know how to keep a manlike Adam in her life. But her mother hadn’t been home, and in the end Jayne hadn’t been able to leave a message.
    Adam watched her with an intensity that made her remember his hands on her breasts earlier. She forced her thoughts back to the conversation. “I didn’t want to talk to Angelini. I don’t think I’m cut out for this, Adam.”
    “You’re talking about becoming my lover.”
    “At least you didn’t say mistress.”
    He cursed under his breath and pivoted to face the sea, his hands braced on the railing and his head bent. This was the Adam she wanted to wrap in her arms and comfort. Except she knew now the price was too high, and that she wasn’t to pay it for a few weeks with him.
    “I knew it. What the hell happened?”
    How could she explain without revealing her own vulnerability where he was concerned? “I just got a wake-up call.”
    “Am I supposed to follow that?”
    “I guess not. I think the island was working its magic on me. I was falling for the romance of the legend of Perla Negra. And casting you in the role of a swashbuckling hero.”
    He rested one lean hip against the railing, his expression now forbidding and dark. And she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
    “But now you’ve decided I’m not a hero?”
    She’d hurt him, she realized. “I think you’d make a wonderful hero, Adam. Just not for me.”
    “Why not?”
    “I need more than you can give me.”
    “Jayne—”
    She reached up and touched his lips to stop the words. “Don’t say anything yet. I’m not even sure what I need, but I know it’s more than you give your women. And I thought I could make you understand that.”
    She dropped her hand and tilted her head to study him in the moonlight.
    “What happened to change your mind?”
    “That kiss with Ray watching. I forgot that even though you want me in your bed, we are playing a part.”
    “Dammit, Jayne I wasn’t playing to Angelini.”
    She wanted to believe him, but she knew better. Adam was always aware of everyone and everything. “I’m not mad about it. I’d have done the same thing in your position.”
    “How gracious you are. What if I wanted to make love to you out here on the balcony?”
    “I’d have to draw the line there. I just told you I’m having a hard time keeping up with the pretense.”
    “Exactly what is your difficulty? The hero thing?”
    “Yeah, the hero thing.”
    “There isn’t another woman in the world I’d have this conversation with,” Adam told her, exasperated.
    “Should I be flattered?” she asked mockingly.
    “Hell, yes. Dammit, Jayne. For the first time I’m willing to break my own company rules.”
    “I know. It means something, but not enough. Even though I’m blaming the island resort, that’s not what’s wrong with me.”
    “What is it then?”
    “I believe in love and want a family. And you don’t.”
    “Would it help if I lied to you?”
    “God, no.”
    “Then I don’t know what you want. I do know if we both crawl