The Great Escape: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  “Dear, sweet, unpredictable, crazy girl,” he murmured, running both hands up and down her back. She hiccupped an incoherent response, meaning vaguely to say something intelligent but only managing an inarticulate mumble. He whispered to her, “Shall I tell you what I think? I think you meant every word you just said to me, but there’s something you haven’t yet told me. I think that there’s only one explanation for the reason you invited me here today to witness what just happened. I was the only one besides Mr. Whittaker who wasn’t a beneficiary. There was no practical reason for my presence, was there, sweetheart? Except maybe one insane, wild, improbable reason… Dee, look at me.”

  It was an impossible request. She shook her head frantically, twisting her hands into his shirt and probably ruining the material quite irreparably, but neither really noticed as he put both hands gently on the sides of her head and forced her to meet his incredible, warm eyes. And of course once she looked at him she couldn’t look away but instead drank in greedily that telltale emotion that spilled from his glowing gaze.

  “That money has made you impossibly touchy for some time now,” he went on slowly, still with that look of incredulity lingering. “And we both know that it’s made me more than edgy. I wanted to give you time, time to readjust to a normal life without always having to look over your shoulder and be afraid. I wanted to a give you the chance for freedom if you wanted it, and chance to realise the enormous potential that your inheritance would bring you. I didn’t want to restrict you in any way. And oh, God, I wanted to have you so!” He closed his eyes and brought down his mouth to drink caressingly from her willing lips. Then he said with a thread of unsteady laughter, “Deirdre, my mad darling girl, I love you quite passionately and always will, and I probably would have gotten around to telling you fairly soon, but did you have to chuck the whole bloody bundle right out the window to prod me to it?”

  Dee exploded into a breathless laugh and pressed her lips to him again and again, and of course Mike was responding quite eagerly, and the closeness and the wonderful warmth of him was everything she’d known it would be. Then, leaning back against the curve of his arm and laughing brilliantly up into his face, emotion making her eyes almost impossibly black and blue and white against a pink flush of happiness, she said, gurgling merrily, “You’ve carried your deduction admirably far, but you haven’t reached the whole of it quite yet.” He smiled involuntarily at her deliberate use of words that brought to mind their last confrontation, now several weeks ago. “At first, several weeks ago, I was desperate enough to think of the Big Gesture, but I thought about it more and more and I realised that I really didn’t want the money. It became a matter of—well, I just wanted to be rid of the whole mess. The real gamble was how you’d react to such an action, not nearly the actual dictations. I love you. I don’t want anything to come between us, ever. But I still don’t think you realise that I like to balance my own chequebook every week, and I like to earn a pay-cheque by my own sweating effort. My father’s success was wonderful, but it’s not my success, and I want to taste success the striving, climbing, hard way, the real way. I’m not the same person who so blithely skipped out of town all those months ago. I’m different, and I’m older, and I’ve freely chosen a different way of life, without pressure from you or anyone else.”

  His finger ran over her face lightly, lovingly, and he breathed, incredibly to her mind, disgustedly, “At every turn, every single damned time, I’ve managed to underestimate you. You wonderful, lovable lunatic! Dare I assume that you’re going to marry me, love, or did you have something else in mind?”

  She sent him a look. “What do you think?” Her eyes twinkled at him as he laughed, head thrown back, hair falling off his brow.

  He moved off the floor, bent and slid his arms around her, and picked her up as lightly as if she had been a child. Then he moved over to the couch and sat down, firmly holding her against his chest as if he would never let her go. Dee put her head down on his shoulder, and his arms tightened convulsively. “I never want to let you go, never want to see you walk out of my life,” he muttered, deep in his throat, staring straight ahead. She held very still, instinctively recognising in that low tone something important. “Dee,” he whispered, and the whispering was both a plea and a command, “I need you. I need your warmth and your gaiety, and your zest for adventure and life. I’m too old for you.”

  At that she moved in an instinctive protest, her intention to deny it, contradict what he’d say in that low, serious voice. He looked down at her and held her quiet with his eyes.

  “But I’m a selfish man, and always have been,” he continued, self-mockery evident in his manner. “And I’m not about to let you go.” His green eyes were gently smiling at her, and her throat felt constricted suddenly with emotion.

  “Don’t you know even now?” she whispered, her eyes a brilliant, sparkling wet blue as she stared up at him. “Don’t you know that I need you every bit as much, need your love? That without it, my life is as barren as a desert?”

  But Mike was shaking his head at that and smiling strangely. “Oh, no. No, you’re one of those special people who never have a barren life, because of the quality in them that makes them reach out and grasp what there is in life with both eager hands.”

  “And you’re not?” Dee queried laughingly. “I can’t and won’t believe that! Not in your line of work, not in your profession! You’ve reached out every bit as eagerly for that special life—and that’s one of the reasons why I love you so.”

  “Yes,” he mused, leaning his head back on the couch, “I’ve led a pretty full life. I’ve had some experiences as a private investigator, let me tell you! It was a good time.”

  She stared at him, alarmed. “You’re—you’re talking as if it’s over,” she managed to get out, hesitantly. His eyes slanted down to her roguishly.

  “It is,” he said simply, and waited for her explosion. Dee surprised him yet again by simply staring, finally managing to get out something that sounded quite strangled.

  “I—don’t understand,” she whispered.

  His eyes looked amused, and it was a gentle amusement that caressed her. “Deirdre my sweet,” he murmured in a loving mockery, “my line of work has been rough, with its fair share of risks. I’ve done some harrowing things in the last few years, not to mention running into a burning building, nearly getting shot—twice, I believe—and fighting for my life and yours in darkness with two opponents. Before I had only myself to think of, and now I have you. There’s one thing I never want for you to experience. I never want for you to get a phone call, or a late night visit from kindhearted, reluctant policemen, and that would be a possibility, if I didn’t quit now. I love you—I want to spend my life with you. Listen to what I’m saying, Dee. They’re simple words, but they have an overwhelming precedence in my mind.”

  He shook her up so. Her eyes really were blurred, as she looked away, feeling somehow terribly sad and incredibly touched.

  “I have money invested,” he said, continuing cheerfully after one intense, quick scrutiny of her face and expression. “It’s a fair amount—quite enough to draw an annual income from, in fact. After you finish school and have a better idea of what direction your career life is going to be heading in, I think we should consider traveling around a bit. I’ve always wanted to have adventures overseas. Then perhaps I can think about setting up a detective agency, and put my administrative college courses to use.”

  Dee began to brighten. “That’s an idea. I could be your secretary.”

  “Can you type?”

  “N—no.”

  “We’ll work on it,” he told her kindly, and laughed at her expression. He pressed his lips to her forehead before continuing. “You say you want to taste success on your own steam. I think you’ve demonstrated adequately this afternoon that money can’t be your goal. Just suppose you were to make a fortune on your own—what in the world would you do with it?”

  She ruefully grimaced and la
ughed. “I just got rid of one headache and here you are trying to give me another one! I really doubt that I would do that—I’m the world’s worst businessperson. In fact, I don’t really know what kind of success or lifestyle that I want to work for, yet! I think I’ll just be happy to be happy, no matter what I do. And I know,” and she snuggled down closer to him, “that I’m going to be happy. But if by some bizarre chance I made a fortune in money, why—” her eyes twinkled coyly up at his and slipped away, “—I guess I’d give it all away and do it again.”

  The swooping, laughing, unrestrained hug that she got from him at that was so full of a wealth of joyous warmth and love that she wordlessly knew she’d already found her fortune, and it was more than enough for her. Mike grabbed her head, pulled her around, and he started to kiss her strongly, hungrily, and she suddenly felt the piercing ache that had been inspired by weeks without him. They were both so totally swept away with their own wants and needs that she felt more than a little out of control, and shaken.

  He broke off kissing her, leaned his head into the hollow of her slender neck and shoulder, one hand jerkily massaging her shoulder. And then she felt him smile, felt his chest heave slightly, and she smiled to herself, murmuring, “What? What is it? Tell me.”

  Mike turned his head and whispered into her ear, “I must confess to some ambitions, even though you are so singularly free from them.”

  “Mm. What are they?” she asked, not really paying attention since his hands were distracting her so deliciously. He brought his lips even closer and delicately nipped her ear before whispering something into her ear that made her eyes start open wide, her heart thud hard, and she laughed breathlessly. “You’re kidding! Tonight? Oh, my, you are an ambitious fellow, aren’t you?”

  Thank you!

  Thank you for purchasing The Great Escape! I hope you enjoy this blast from the past! Harlequin Mills & Boon in London published this story in November, 1984. In my previous author incarnation, I wrote several contemporary romance novels as Amanda Carpenter and will be re-releasing 15 of them as ebooks throughout the coming months.

  Unfortunately, I can’t release them in paperback—Harlequin still holds those rights—but they will soon be available digitally. Because Mills & Boon is a British publisher, the stories were originally published with British English. Those word choices are not typos or mistakes, and I’ve chosen to release them without updating or changing the text. And please be sure to look out for the next reissue in my Vintage Contemporary Romance series, Flashback.

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  Happy reading!

  ~Thea

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