Free Silk Scarves and Seduction by Shiloh Walker Page A

her.
    But by the time he was through with rehab, Tessa was engaged. But he didn’t just sit back and let it happen. He went about seducing her in the same way he had done everything else in his life, with calm, quiet assurance. A gift basket like none other Tessa or Valery had ever seen, and then letters and short stories.
    By the time he had actually showed up, in silence, at night, Tessa had already been so head over heels with her secret admirer, the rest had been a fa it accompli. But Valery suspected part of Tessa had known all along that it had been Caleb.
    Yeah, Caleb was an anomaly. Practically born loving Tessa. She sighed as she parked, wishing she had the kind of feelings for her own secret admirer that Tessa had for hers.
    But even if the man sending her the steady gifts of body lotion appeared in front of her right now with a wedding ring and the new -megapixel Canon D camera, she’d just walk away. It would hurt, especially since that camera had a price in the five-thousand-dollar range.
    But she’d take as many nights with Marc as she could get, instead of her ever-silent secret admirer any day.
    Her belly was jumping as she climbed out of the car.
    Marc wasn’t going to be here.
    Tessa said he had a lunch meeting with a bunch of doctors and she had sent the office staff to a training seminar. Pressing her hand to her belly, she ordered the butterflies to fly away for the winter. Or the millennium. Then she strode into the office with much more confidence than she really felt.
    Tessa greeted her in the waiting room, glancing up from straightening magazines and toys, a cool smile on her face. “So…are you done dodging me?”
    “Well, I wasn’t exactly—”
    “Oh, bullshit,” Tessa said succinctly. “I’ve figured out Marc’s part of it well enough, although he’s not telling me a damn thing either. Or Caleb. And I tried that route, too. I sicced Caleb on him. And Caleb can’t get a word out of him. So I’m down to you. So…what’s up?”
    Valery watched as Tessa settled down in a chair, crossed one silk-covered leg over the other and stared at her, her eyes patiently waiting. Valery knew she wasn’t planning on going anywhere until she had some answers.
    But Valery didn’t have a bloody clue as to what was going on. Except that Marc had somehow figured out she was the one who had sent him the pictures, and he wanted her.
    And even more bizarre…he had wanted her for a while.
    A tiny smile canted up the corners of her mouth, and try as she might, she couldn’t wipe that smug smile off her face.
    “Hell, can’t two adults have sex without there being a story behind it, Tessa?” she asked, moving her shoulders restlessly as her gaze roamed the room, darting from one place to another, landing everywhere but Tessa’s face.
    “Sure. But you’ve been in love with Marc all your life. And I happen to know he has feelings for you, and always has. So when it comes to you and him…no. That doesn’t work,” Tessa answered simply. “Do better.”

    Marc jerked his tie loose and cursed under his breath. What a fucking waste of time. If he had to go to one more meeting—hell, was there a doctor alive who didn’t know how much they were being bled by insurance companies?
    It didn’t help that you had the problem with parents taking kids to the emergency room for a runny nose, a cold, a cough. It didn’t help that a parent stopped giving their kid an antibiotic five days into the treatment, instead of finishing it out and making sure the infection was gone.
    All of that was driving medical costs too damned high, and to top it off, he was spending too much money on these damn things.
    He was tired of it, frustrated, and tense.
    Lynn Howard had sat next to him, running her thigh up and down his the entire time, smiling at him suggestively until he had finally had enough and just cut out early, shoving out of his seat and leaving, his meal untouched, ignoring the comments from colleagues as he