Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

“Do we have time to shower and change?” David asked.

“Sure,” she told him. “I need to do that myself. I’ve been working out all afternoon.”

“You push yourself too hard,” Steve remarked coolly. “Is it really worth it?”

“Of course!” she said. She smiled outrageously. “Don’t you know that ballerinas are the ideal ornament for rich gentlemen?” she added, lying through her teeth. “I actually had a patron offer to keep me.” She didn’t add that the man had adoption, not seduction, in mind, and that he was the caretaker at her apartment house.

Incredibly Steve’s eyes began to glitter. “What did you tell him?”

“That I pay my own way, of course.” She laughed. She held on to the railing of the long staircase and leaned forward. “Tell you what, Steve. If you play your cards right, when I get to the top of the ladder and start earning what I’m really worth, I’ll keep you.”

He tried not to smile, but telltale lines rippled around his firm, sculptured mouth.

“You’re impossible.” David chuckled.

“I make your taciturn friend smile, though,” she added, watching Steve with twinkling eyes. “I don’t think he knew how until I came along. I keep his temper honed, too.”

“Be careful that I don’t hone it on you,” he cautioned quietly. There was something smoldering in his eyes, something tightly leashed. There always had been, but when he was around her, just lately, it threatened to escape.

She laughed, because the look in those gunmetal-gray eyes made her nervous. “I won’t provoke you, Steven,” she said. “I’m not quite that brave.” He scowled and she changed the subject. “I’m sorry about Aunt Jane,” she added with sincere apology. “I’ll call her and explain, if you like.”

“There’s no need,” he said absently, his gaze intent on her flushed face. “I’ve already taken care of it.”

As usual. She could have said it, but she didn’t. Steven didn’t let grass grow under his feet. He was an accomplished mover and shaker, which was why his company was still solvent when others had gone bankrupt. She made a slight movement with her shoulders and proceeded up the staircase. She felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t look back.

When Meg had showered and changed into a lacy white pantsuit, she went back downstairs. She’d left her long blond hair in a knot, because she knew how much Steven disliked it up. Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief.

Steve had changed, too, and returned from his house, which was barely two blocks away. He was wearing white slacks with a soft blue knit shirt, and he looked elegant and unapproachable. His back was broad, his shoulders straining against the expensive material of his shirt. Meg remembered without wanting to how it had felt all those years ago to run her hands up and down that expanse of muscle while he kissed her. There was a thick pelt of hair over his chest and stomach. During their brief interlude, she’d learned the hard contours of his body with delight. He could have had her anytime during that one exquisite month of togetherness, but he’d always drawn back in time. She wondered sometimes if he’d ever regretted it. Secretly she did. There would never be anyone else that she’d want as she had wanted Steve. The memories would have been bittersweet if they’d been lovers, but at least they might fill the emptiness she felt now. Her life was dedicated to ballet and as lonely as death. No man touched her, except her ballet partners, and none of them excited her.

She’d always been excited by Steven. That hadn’t faded. The past two times she’d come home to visit David, the hunger she felt for her ex-fiancé had grown unexpectedly, until it actually frightened her. He frightened her, with his vast experience of women and his intent way of looking at her.

He turned when he heard her enter the room, with a cigarette in his hand. He quit smoking periodically, sometimes with more success than others. He was restless and high-strung, and the cigarette seemed to calm him. Fortunately, the house was air-conditioned and David had, at Meg’s insistence, added a huge filtering system to it. There was no smell of smoke.

“Nasty habit,” she muttered, glaring at him.

He inclined his head toward her with a mocking smile. “Doesn’t your great-aunt Henrietta dip snuff…?”

She sighed. “Yes, she does. You look very much as your father used to,” she murmured.

He shook his head. “He was shorter.”

“But just as somber. You don’t smile, Steve,” she said quietly, and moved gracefully into the big front room with its modern black and white and chrome furniture and soft honey-colored carpet.

“Smiling doesn’t fit my image,” he returned.

“Some image,” she mused. “I saw one of your vice presidents hide in a hangar when he spotted you on the tarmac. That lazy walk of yours lets everyone know when you’re about to lose your temper. So slow and easy—so deadly.”

“It gets results,” he replied, indicating that he was aware of the stance and probably used it to advantage with his people. “Have you seen a balance sheet lately? Aren’t you interested in what I’m doing with your stock?”

“Finance doesn’t mean much to me,” she confessed. “I’m much more interested in the ballet company I’m working with. It really is in trouble.”

“Join another company,” he said.

“I’ve spent a year working my way up in this one,” she returned. “I can’t start all over again. Ballerinas don’t have that long, as a rule. I’m going on twenty-three.”

“So old?” His eyes held hers. “You look very much as you did at eighteen. More sophisticated, of course. The girl I used to know would have died before she’d have insinuated to a perfect stranger that she was sharing my bed.”

“I thought she was one of your women,” Meg muttered. “God knows, you’ve got enough of them. I’ll bet you have to keep a computer file so you won’t forget their names. No wonder Jane believed I was one of them without question!”

“You could have been, once,” he reminded her bluntly. “But I got noble and pushed you away in the nick of time.” He laughed without humor. “I thought we’d have plenty of time for intimate discoveries after we were married. More fool me.” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth, and his eyes were ice-cold.

“I was grass green back then,” she reminded him with what she hoped was a sophisticated smile. “You’d have been disappointed.”

He blew out a soft cloud of smoke and his eyes searched hers. “No. But you probably would have been. I wanted you too badly that last night we were together. I’d have hurt you.”

It was the night they’d argued. But before that, they’d lain on his black leather sofa and made love until she’d begged him to finish it. She hadn’t been afraid, then. But he hadn’t. Even now, the sensations he’d kindled in her body made her flush.

“I don’t think you would have, really,” she said absently, her body tingling with forbidden memories as she looked at him. “Even so, I wanted you enough that I wouldn’t have cared if you hurt me. I was wild to have you. I forgot all my fears.”

He didn’t notice the implication. He averted his eyes. “Not wild enough to marry me, of course.”

“I was eighteen. You were thirty and you had a mistress.”

His back stiffened. He turned, his eyes narrow, scowling. “What?”

“You know all this,” she said uncomfortably. “My mother explained it to you the morning I left.”

He moved closer, his lean face hard, unreadable. “Explain it to me yourself.”

“Your father told me about Daphne,” she faltered. “The night we argued, she was the one you took out, the one you were photographed with. Your father told me that you were only marrying me for the stock. He and your mother cared about me—perhaps more than my own did. When he said that you always went back to Daphne, no matter what, I got cold feet.”

His high cheekbones flushed. He looked…stunned. “He told you that?” he asked harshly.

“Yes. Well, my mother knew about Daphne, too,” she said heavily.

“Oh, God.” He turned away. He leaned over to crush out his cigarette, his eyes bleak, hopeless.

“I knew you weren’t celibate, but finding that you had a mistress was something of a shock, especially when we’d been seeing each other for a month.”

“Yes. I expect it was a shock.” He was staring down into the ashtray, unmoving. “I knew your mother was against the engagement. She had her heart set on helping you become a ballerina. She’d failed at it, but she was determined to see that you succeeded.”

“She loved me…”

He turned, his dark eyes riveting to hers. “You ran, damn you.”

She took a steadying breath. “I was eighteen. I had reasons for running that you don’t know about.” She dropped her eyes to his broad chest. “But I think I understand the way you were with me. You had Daphne. No wonder it was so easy for you to draw back when we made love.”

His eyes closed. He almost shuddered with reaction. He shook with the force of his rage at his father and Meg’s mother.