There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and then Savannah said, "How is Emily?"

"Fine," he answered her. "We're talking about you, Savannah. Prunella just takes a bit of getting used to, sweetie. She's never worked with an American before."

"She wants a detailed outline. She says sales needs it," Savannah wailed.

"I'll call her and explain you don't waste your time with outlines," he said quietly.

"She wants to see pieces of the ma.n.u.script," Savannah told him.

"I'll tell her you deliver a completed ma.n.u.script, and not bits," Mick responded. "What else?"

"She isn't you!" And Savannah Banning began to cry.

Michael Devlin laughed softly. "I miss you too, sweetie. And I miss old Reg, and the kids, and those great family weekends down in Suffolk. But I suspect I'm back in the Colonies to stay. We're both going to have to get used to it."

"Then Martin is going to put you in charge," Savannah said.

"I hope not," Michael Devlin replied. "I like what I do, and J.P. is really more suited to run a publishing house than I am."

"You could learn," Savannah sniveled.

"I could, but I don't want to," he told her. "I just want to edit my books. I'll make it all right between you and old Pruny, Savannah. Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed. "Now, tell me about you and Emily."

"There's nothing to tell," he lied.

"Bulls.h.i.t!" Savannah said.

"Lady Palmer!" Michael Devlin exclaimed. "I'm shocked. Shocked."

"I hope you've become lovers, Mick. She such a sweetie, and she needs a good man," Savannah told him.

"Savannah, do not disparage my reputation. I pride myself on being a bad boy, and you know it," he told her. "Remember all my fun miniscandals in London over the past few years. By the by, do the girls miss me?"

"Mick, you are such a silly man sometimes," Savannah remarked. "Was she a virgin? I somehow thought she might be."

"Savannah," he warned. "Remember we're on a company phone. Now if there is nothing else, I'm going to ring off. I'll call Pruny tomorrow. She'll be gone from the office by now with the time change. Say hi to Reg and the children for me. Ta." He put the telephone down while at the same time reaching for his cell and punching in the number one.

"h.e.l.lo?" Emily's voice came through clear and sweet.

"I miss you," he said.

"It's only been a day, Devlin," she answered him.

"A day and a half," he corrected her. "I drove back late Sunday afternoon. Just another week, and we've got an entire month to ourselves."

"Devlin, I have to work if this book is going to be in on time," she reminded him.

"I want to be inside of you," he murmured. "I sent you that little toy for times like this. When we aren't together, I want to play phone games with you."

"Devlin!" she pleaded.

"Get it," he said. "I need you!"

"Hold on. I hid it so Essie wouldn't find it," she half whispered.

"I thought you didn't let her in your office," he said.

"I don't, but you never know. Okay, I've got it." Emily was already feeling a twinge of excitement. The sound of his voice on the phone could make her wet.

"Take it out of the box, angel face. Realistic, isn't it?" he teased.

"Looks just like you, Devlin," she teased back.

"What are you wearing?" he asked her.

"Never got out of my sleep shirt this morning," she told him.

"Hold it in your right hand," he instructed her. "Start licking it. And use your left hand to play with yourself. I want you nice and wet, angel face," he told her as he unzipped his slacks and released his p.e.n.i.s, which was already partly swollen with just the sound of her voice. He imagined her leaning back in her big leather chair, the sleep shirt hiked to her waist, the softness of her smooth, rounded hips against the black leather.

"Ohh, Devlin, this is so good," Emily whispered into the telephone. "Ummm. Ummm. Ummmmm." She began to suck vigorously on the d.i.l.d.o in her hand. It had been made to duplicate Michael Devlin's long, thick c.o.c.k in full flagrante. It was made of a natural colored rubber, and spitted on a twisted rod of polished ashwood.

"Are you playing with your c.l.i.t?" he wanted to know. The sucking noises were driving him wild. He could almost feel her mouth on his p.e.n.i.s.

"Are you playing with your d.i.c.k?" she countered.

"I am so hard you could break it off." He groaned.

"I'm so wet that Mr. Naughty is going to slip right in and go all the way," she replied. "I've got it ready, Devlin. Do you want me to shove it in? Do you?" Her voice was breathy with her excitement.

"Not yet. I want you to want it a little more, angel face," he teased her.

"You're going to come all over your office, Devlin, if you don't stop," she said. "Better let me f.u.c.k myself now so you can cool off."

"b.i.t.c.h!" He groaned. She was right. He reached for his handkerchief to contain the spurts of c.u.m he couldn't contain any longer.

"Ahhhhhh! Oh, G.o.d, that feels good!" She thrust the d.i.l.d.o back and forth in her v.a.g.i.n.a until, with a long exhalation of a sigh, she came. "But it's not as good as the real thing, Devlin, is it?" she complained. "I miss you too."

"I talked with Lady P today. She sends kisses," he told her.

"I'll e-mail her later," Emily responded. "And as lovely as this interlude was, I think we both have to get back to work, Devlin."

"Yeah." He sighed. "I've got a lunch date with some s.e.xy new author."

"Think of me when you're with her," Emily told him.

"That's the problem. If I think of you I'll get a hard-on. We wouldn't want another woman getting the wrong idea, now, angel face, would we?"

Emily laughed. "Good-bye, Devlin," she said as she hung up the phone. She hadn't answered his question. She couldn't. But the truth was, she didn't want him with any other woman. Almost eleven weeks ago Michael Devlin had walked into her life. She had lost her virginity and fallen in love for the first time. What an idiot she was. She was in love with a man who owned a house in London, and had women with t.i.tles fighting over him. "You have finally gone around the bend, Emily," she said aloud.

She had seduced him in order to experience s.e.x so she could write the kind of novel Stratford wanted her to write now. She had blackmailed him into becoming her lover, and teaching her all those wonderful, delicious, and sensual things she needed to know. He thought of her as business, and nothing more. Oh, pleasant business, to be sure-for both of them, if she were being honest with herself. But she had no business falling in love with a man like Michael Devlin. He was going to break her heart. But until then she was going to enjoy every minute of her time with him. Autumn was coming. The book would be finished by November, the way she was writing. And then it would be over.

Emily started to cry. She didn't want it to be over. She wanted it to go on forever and ever. Her heroines got happy endings. Why couldn't she have a happy ending? Her intercom buzzed. Emily struggled to compose herself. "Yes, Essie, what is it?"

"Rina's here. She says you were to have lunch. You didn't tell me you were having company. I was doing your grandma's silver," Essie grumbled.

"We're going out, Essie. That's why I didn't tell you to fix lunch," Emily replied. "Tell Rina I'll be down in five minutes."

"Oh, that's okay then," Essie said, and the intercom went dead.

Emily sat for a long moment. Then, realizing the d.i.l.d.o was lying on her desk and her sleep shirt was up around her waist, she began to giggle helplessly. Good thing Rina hadn't come up, she thought, and found her with her legs spread open on her antique desk, f.u.c.king herself while she talked dirty on the phone with her editor. She wiped the d.i.l.d.o down with water from her water pitcher, and replaced it in the cream-and-gold silk box it had come in before putting it back in her bottom desk drawer, which she locked. Standing, she pulled her sleep shirt down. Then she hurried downstairs to her bathroom to wash her face and hands, get quickly dressed, and run a brush through her tangled strawberry-blond hair.

"You look cute," Rina noted as Emily came down the stairs. "I like the capris."

"Where are we going?" Emily asked her.

"I thought the club," Rina said. "It's quiet there with so many kids still in camp."

"Essie, I'm going now," Emily called to her housekeeper.

They drove to the Egret Pointe Country Club in Rina's Lexus, parked, and went through the bar to the terrace by the pool, seating themselves beneath an umbrella table. The waiter brought them peach iced tea, took their orders, and disappeared. No one was swimming, and there was only one other couple across the pool at a table. Emily recognized Nora Buckley and her employer, Kyle Barrington.

"He is so dishy," she remarked to Rina.

"Isn't he?" Rina chuckled. "But as was said of Lord Byron, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. At least, that's his reputation. I hear he's broken up one marriage and endangered at least two others. And he seems to do it just for the pure sport of it. He really isn't interested at all in the women he screws. I don't know how Nora manages to work for him, but she says he's a good employer, is nice to her, and hasn't hit on her."

"I think Nora's the nice one," Emily remarked. "And so brave, after everything that happened. She's your neighbor, isn't she?"

Rina nodded. "Yes, and she is nice. Ah, here's lunch."

The waiter set down salad plates, each holding a scoop of chicken salad, potato salad, and cole slaw along with a sliced tomato. The two women ate, and Emily was unable to resist dipping into the breadbasket for a miniature blueberry m.u.f.fin. s.e.x always increased her appet.i.te.

Rina chuckled as her companion reached for a second m.u.f.fin. "The work is going well then," she said.

"Yep." Emily nodded, smearing soft b.u.t.ter on the little m.u.f.fin and popping it into her mouth. "I would never have thought I could write like this, but I can!"

"And having your handsome editor in your bed every weekend hasn't hurt either," Rina murmured softly. She reached for the last little m.u.f.fin.

"And I'm using the Channel too," Emily admitted. "I was always an observer before, but now I put myself in the heroine's slippers, Rina. The duke looks just like Devlin, but his personality is quite different."

Rina's brown eyes widened. "You're having s.e.x there too?" she practically whispered. "My G.o.d! I thought you looked tired lately, but I put it down to the stress of work, and having to change your style so drastically. Emily, I'm not sure you should be doing what you're doing in the Channel. Oh, I know a lot of women take lovers there because they can't be caught or get STDs or get pregnant. And after a while most women need a bit of a change from their spouses. The Channel offers us our fantasies without any of the guilt we would have in our own reality. But I think you're playing a dangerous game, Emily, honey."

Emily shook her head. "Look, Devlin is doing what he's doing with me to help me over the-you'll forgive the a.n.a.logy- hump and into a new style. He's my editor. It's his job. But once the book is done it will be over. I'll just have the lovers I take in the Channel. I think he might even go back to London."

"He's in love with you," Rina said quietly.

"No, he isn't!" Emily exclaimed. And she sighed wistfully.

"Sweetie, I could be your mother. I know these things. I recognize the signs. I've seen Michael Devlin with you. I've seen both of you in East Harbor at least twice. Once you were having a cozy luncheon in a corner of the Lobster Trap. Sam and I had been antiquing and were going there for lunch when we saw you. We stayed outside on the terrace so that you wouldn't see us and be embarra.s.sed. It was obvious you just wanted to be with each other. Then we saw you another time at the inn when we went out for the anniversary. Oh, Emily! The way he looks at you. He isn't treating you like an editor with a writer. He's treating you like a man in love. Give him a chance, and you'll see."

"It's nothing more than a business arrangement, Rina. You'll see," Emily said softly, and she blinked back the tears that were threatening to well up in her blue eyes.

Rina smiled and shook her head. "No, you'll see I'm right."

"Dessert menu, ladies?" the waiter asked, coming up beside them.

Rina gave him a jaundiced look.

The waiter grinned and handed them the menus.

"I'll take the key lime pie," Rina said quickly.

"I want the three-berry sorbet," Emily decided. "What kinds today?"

"A scoop each, strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry," the waiter answered.

"Yum! Make it so," Emily told the waiter, who grinned at her Star Trek reference, and went off to fetch their desserts.

The couple on the other side of the pool got up and wended their way through the large planters of New Guinea impatiens, petunias, and trailing vinca to stop at their table. Rina and Nora Buckley greeted each other affectionately, while the tall, dark, and handsome Kyle Barrington stood waiting impa.s.sively.

"You know Emily Shanski, don't you, Nora?" Rina asked.

"I remember you as a young girl," Nora said, "and I certainly enjoy your books. How is your new one coming along, my dear?"

"Very well, thank you," Emily answered, wondering how Nora Buckley knew she was in the midst of a new book.

"How are the kids?" Rina asked. "I haven't seen you in ages."

"My job keeps me busy," Nora answered. "The kids are fine. Jill starts her last year at Duke Law in a few weeks, and J.J. is going into his junior year at State. And I have terrific news: Margo has finally agreed to marry Taylor. She kept turning him down because she said she didn't want to be widowed again. Turns out he's five years younger than my mother." She laughed.

"Nora."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Barrington. We really have to go, Rina. Call me. Bye, Emily. Nice to see you again." And then Nora was gone.

"He's even dishier close up," Emily remarked when the couple were out of hearing. "But he's got cold eyes. And he makes me nervous just being around him."

"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Rina repeated. "But Nora seems to do well with him, and she loves her job. He's quite the expert on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and American furniture, if you ever want anything in the house appraised for insurance purposes," Rina remarked.

"No use insuring antiques if you love them, my grandmother always said. If they're stolen or lost in a fire, money won't bring them back," Emily said.

They ate their dessert, and then Rina drove Emily back to her house. "When do you see Devlin again?" she asked as they drove along the tree-lined road.

"Well, he won't be staying with me in August because he's got Aaron's cottage," Emily replied. "I've got the book pretty much under control now."

"But you don't have yourself under control," Rina said. "Are you in love with him, Emily?"

"Doesn't matter if I am," came the reply.