The Commitment by Unknown Page B

went.
    "I don't like to be out of control." Miranda sat straighter.
    "Doesn't bother me a bit." He raised his cup in mock salute. He enjoyed watching as the embarrassment in her eyes shifted to annoyance. She narrowed her eyes at him.
    "Don't think it will work again, Drake."
    "I won't even try. I much prefer knowing a woman wants me for who I am, not for the whiskey she's drunk." He meant it to be sarcastic but the caustic tone of his voice made him flinch. Miranda threw down her napkin.
    So much for a congenial dinner together.
    "Drunk or sober it will take more than a miracle to find me in bed with you again," she shouted. She stalked out of the room.
    He leaned back and waited.
    Two seconds later she returned, flames in her eyes, mouth tight and tense. "Where the hell is my bedroom?"
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
     
    Miranda's first night at Drake's house was a bust as far as he was concerned. Instead of a rerun of the wild passion of the previous night, icicles shot from her eyes as she slammed the bedroom door in his face.
    He had four weeks to melt icicles.
    Instead of Miranda sharing his king-sized bed, Pumpkin snored on the rug on the floor beside him.
    In the morning he found a piece of white notepaper at her place at the table instead of her. The note said, "Had some things to do before work. Will see you there." Polite, bland, passionless except for the thickness of the dark lines of her script.
    Her absence disgruntled him. Until that moment he'd been unaware of how much he'd been looking forward to seeing her across the table from him again.
    "She didn't even wait to see you this morning," he said to Pumpkin, who followed him everywhere. The dog even stood outside the shower door while Drake showered. At first the big brown eyes staring at him through the frosted glass disconcerted him. He became glad of the company soon enough.
    He cut his morning routine short. He wanted his wife. More troubling, he wanted her to want him.
    Rose and gold mist reflected the last of dawn's radiance on Pikes Peak. Fresh snow glazed the road making the morning sparkle. He was on the way to her. For the first time in years he enjoyed a frigid winter morning.
    Her parking space at Millennium Tech yawned empty. It was early yet. The executive suite echoed with his footsteps as he strode across the hardwood floor.
    He glanced into her office. The room and the position he'd created just for her was as empty as his stomach.
    Where was she? She was as reliable as the sunrise, as the fact that it would snow in March.
    "Get a grip," he mumbled. She must have gone back to her apartment for something he forgot to pack. He held that as a talisman against the worry that nagged at him. He turned on the computer. Soon he was engrossed in reading and answering email.
    On the edges of consciousness he was aware of the sounds of the building waking up around him. He grunted his thanks as his assistant put his ritual morning coffee at his elbow. By that time he had the stock market quotes displayed on the screen. He studied what he saw there, then switched to the company stock system.
    Something was wrong. More shares of private stock had been manipulated than when he last checked yesterday. An expert had shuffled them. He was being undercut.
    He needed to talk to someone.
    He needed Miranda.
    * * * *
    "He's a pig-headed jerk," Miranda said to Alice over coffee. She didn't care that she was late to work. She only knew that she needed to touch base with someone familiar.
    Alice smiled around the steam from her mug. "Because he wants you to be comfortable in his house?"
    "You're on his side?" Miranda asked. Her voice squeaked a notch higher.
    "I am not taking sides, my dear. Just trying to see both of them."
    "It's just that everything is moving too fast. And now," she stopped. As far as Alice knew the last time Drake and Miranda had slept together had been on their so-called wedding night. Miranda thought of it in capital letters, The Night of