Tender Triumph

by Judith McNaught

  Katie nodded.

  "I think you've lost your mind, but at least you have sense enough not to resign and burn all your bridges behind you. In four weeks, or much less, you'll regret this insanely romantic—and utterly ab­surd—impulse. You know I'm right or you wouldn't be asking for a leave, you'd be resigning."

  "It isn't insane and it isn't an impulse," Katie said, her eyes pleading with Ginny to understand. "Ramon is different—"

  "I'll bet he is!" Ginny agreed disdainfully. "Latin men are impossibly chauvinistic."

  Katie ignored that because she already knew that Ramon was very Latin and very chauvinistic. "Ra­mon is special," she said, embarrassed at trying to put the way she felt about him into words, "He makes me feel special, too. He isn't shallow or self-centered like most of the men I've known." Seeing that Ginny was no more convinced than she was before, Katie added, "Ginny, he loves me; I can feel that he does. And he needs me. I—"

  "Of course he needs you!" Ginny scoffed. "He's a small-time farmer who can't afford to pay for a cook, housekeeper and bedmate. Therefore, he needs a wife, who for the mere cost of her room and board will be all three." Instantly, Ginny held up an apologetic hand. "I'm sorry Katie, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't impose my own views of mat­rimony on you. It's just that I honestly feel you could never be content with that sort of life, not when you've had this."

  "This isn't enough for me, Ginny," Katie said with quiet assurance. "Long before I met Ramon, I felt that way. I can't seem to be happy devoting all my time to me—my career, my next promotion, my future. It isn't that it's a lonely life, because I'm not lonely at all. It's an empty life; I feel useless and meaningless."

  "Do you know how many women long for exactly what you have? Do you know how many women wish they had only themselves to think about?"

  Katie nodded, uncomfortably aware that she was indirectly rejecting Ginny's way of life, as well as her own. "I know. Maybe it would be right for them. It isn't right for me."

  Ginny glanced at her watch and regretfully stood up. "I've got to hurry, I'm due at a meeting down­town, and I won't be back until after you've left. Don't worry about calling me within two weeks. Give yourself all four of those weeks. If you decide to resign, I'll simply put this in your file and say that you gave it to me in advance. It's bending company policy, but what are friends for?" She skimmed the letter and smiled at Katie's reason for resignation. " 'To accept a better position,'" she quoted. "Very nicely done."

  Katie stood up, too, her eyes aching with senti­mental tears. "In that case, I guess this is goodbye."

  "No, Katie," Ginny said with a laugh as she began shoving papers into her slim briefcase. "Two weeks from now you'll begin getting bored. Four weeks from now you'll miss the challenge of your career. You'll be back. In the meantime, have a nice vaca­tion—that's all you really needed, anyway. You're just a little tired. I'll see you in a month—or sooner.''

  At 5:05 Katie plunged through the revolving glass doors and dashed across the pavement to where Ra­mon had pulled the car up at the curb to wait for her. She slid into the seat, bravely met his inquiring look and said, "I took a month's vacation instead of resigning."

  His jaw tightened and Katie twisted in her seat to face him. "The reason I did was that—"

  "Not now!" he snapped curtly. "We will discuss it when we get to your apartment."

  They walked into her apartment together, neither of them having spoken a word during the thirty-five-minute ride home. Katie's frayed nerves stretched taut as she put her purse down, shrugged out of the navy blazer, and turned toward him. Aware of his smoldering anger, she asked cautiously, "Where do you want me to begin?"

  His hands shot out, gripping her arms. "Begin with why," he ordered harshly, giving her a shake. "Tell me why!"

  Katie managed to keep her fear-widened blue eyes on his. "Please don't look at me this way. I know you're hurt and you're angry, but you shouldn't be." Reaching out, she ran her hands up beneath the soft material of his gold golf sweater, her palms flat­tened against his muscular chest, trying somehow to soothe and gentle him.

  The gesture backfired. Ramon jerked her hands away. "Do not try to distract me with your touch, it will not work. This is not a game we are playing!"

  "I'm not playing games!" Katie shot back, pull­ing her hands from his grip with a strength that was fortified by her own simmering anger. "If I wanted to play games with you, I would have lied and told you that I had resigned." Stalking away from him to the center of the room, Katie stopped and whirled around. "I decided to request four weeks off so that I could resign from Puerto Rico for several very im­portant reasons.

  "In the first place, Virginia Johnson is not only my boss, she is someone whom I like and respect immensely. If I resign without notice, I'll make Ginny look like a complete fool."

  Katie's chin lifted stubbornly as she continued her angry, impassioned speech. "And what about the men? If I quit without notice, it gives them all a per­fect reason to feel vindicated and superior because men don't run off to get married. I absolutely refuse to be a traitor to my own sex! So.. .when I resign from Puerto Rico with notice I will say that I am leaving to 'accept a better position.' Which I happen to think being your wife is!" Katie finished defiant­ly.

  "Thank you," Ramon said almost humbly. Smil­ing, he started walking toward her.

  Katie, who had worked herself into a fine temper, began backing away. "I haven't finished yet," she said, her color gloriously high, her eyes stormy with hurt indignation. "You told me you wanted honesty from me at all times, and when I was honest you bullied and intimidated me. If I'm supposed to be completely truthful, I have to know that no matter how bad the truth is, you aren't going to get angry with me for telling it to you. You were unfair and unreasonable a few minutes ago, and I think you have an impossible temper!"

  "Are you finished now?" Ramon asked her gen­tly.

  "No, I'm not!" Katie said, all but stamping her foot. "When I touched you, I was only trying to feel close to you. I wasn't playing games and I hated the way you treated me!" Having now exhausted her complaints, Katie glowered past his shoulder, refus­ing to meet his gaze.

  Ramon's voice was coaxing and deep. "Would you like to touch me now?"

  "Not in the least."

  "Even if I say that I am very sorry, and that I want you to touch me?"

  "No."

  "You no longer wish to be close to me, Katie?"

  "No, I don't."

  "Look at me." Ramon's fingers touched her chin, turning her face up to his. "I hurt you, and now you have hurt me back, and we both ache. We can either strike out at each other in our pain until our anger is spent, or we can stop now and begin to teach each other how to heal our hurts. I do not know which way you want it."

  Gazing up into his intent eyes Katie realized that he meant that literally; he wanted her to decide whether to turn their battle into a war that would last until their tempers were exhausted, or else tell him what to do or say to soothe her. Katie stared, the gracefully feminine curves of her face vulnerable and uncertain, her eyes deep blue with confusion. Finally she swallowed and bravely said, "I—I would like you to put your arms around me."

  With aching gentleness, Ramon drew her into the circle of his arms.

  "And I would like you to kiss me."

  "How?" he breathed softly.

  "With your lips," Katie answered, confused by the question.

  His mouth brushed hers sensuously, his lips warm but not parted.

  "And your tongue," she clarified breathlessly.

  "Will you give me yours?" he asked, beginning to tell her how he wanted his hurt soothed.

  Katie nodded, and his mouth opened hungrily over hers, their tongues tangling and caressing. His hands stroked restlessly over her shoulders and back, then down her spine, forcing her hips hard against his pulsing thighs. His mouth devoured hers as he pulled her down onto the sofa to lie across his lap, his fingers fumbling with the tiny buttons on her silk
blouse. Impatient with the buttons, his hand returned to her breasts. "Unfasten them," he said in a low, urgent voice.

  It seemed to take Katie forever to unbutton her blouse because her hands were trembling, and Ra­mon never stopped kissing her. When the last one was finally undone, he pulled his mouth from hers and whispered unsteadily, "I want you to take it off for me."

  Katie's heart began hammering as she pulled her arms from the sleeves, letting the white silk slide through her shaking fingers. Ramon's gaze dipped to her lacy bra. "That, too."

  With fire racing through every nerve in her body, Katie unclipped her bra and slowly slid it down her arms. The ivory globes of her breasts swelled proud­ly beneath his possessive gaze, her nipples slowly hardening as if his fingers, rather than just his eyes, were touching them. Ramon watched them, his eyes burning with passion, his voice rough with it. "I want to see my baby at your breast."

  Katie's embarrassment over her body's obvious response to him was eclipsed by the violent yearn­ings surging through her. Drawing a quivering breath, she said, "Right now, I would rather see you there."

  "Give it to me, Katie."

  An uncontrollable inner excitement shook her as she curved a hand around his nape, pulling his dark head down and simultaneously lifting her breast, of­fering her nipple to him. When Ramon began to suck on it, she almost screamed with the raw plea­sure. By the time his lips released her, desire was running through her veins like molten steel. "Give me the other one," he ordered thickly.

  Katie tremblingly cupped her other breast and lifted it to his mouth. The moment his lips covered it, flames shot through her. "Please stop," she cried softly. "I need you, I can't stand any more."

  "You can't?" he breathed, swiftly lowering her to lie on the sofa, his mouth exquisitely exploring her ear, the curve of her neck and cheek, as he lay down beside her. Lost in a frenzy of rampaging desire, Katie felt his hands sliding up under her skirt, pull­ing the elastic lace band of her panties down from her hips to her lower thighs.

  Ramon groaned softly as his fingers traced be­tween her thighs. "You want me," he corrected. "You want me but you do not need me yet," he breathed, plundering her mouth with demanding in­sistence.

  Katie was almost sobbing with desire for his pos­session, her hands feverishly rushing over the taut muscles of his back and shoulders. "I need you," she whispered fiercely, crushing her parted lips to his. "Please—"

  Ramon raised his head and said almost gruffly, "You do not need me." Taking one of her hands from around his neck, he pressed it tightly against his rigid arousal. "That is need, Katie."

  Opening her desire-glazed eyes, Katie focused on his strained face as he said, "You want me when I take you in my arms, but I need you every moment of every hour. It is an ache that never leaves me; a longing to make you mine that ties me into knots." Abruptly he asked, "Do you know what fear is?"

  Bewildered by his sudden change of subject, Katie searched his handsome somber features, but did not attempt to reply.

  "Fear is knowing that I have no right to want you, and knowing that I cannot stop myself. Fear is dreading the moment when you will see the small cottage where you will have to live and decide you do not want me enough to live there."

  "Don't think that way," Katie pleaded, her fin­gers smoothing the short hair at his temple. "Please don't."

  "Fear is lying awake at night, wondering if you will decide not to marry me, and wondering how I will bear the pain." Gently, he brushed away the tear that trickled from the corner of Katie's eye. "I am afraid of losing you, and if it makes me 'unrea­sonable' and bad-tempered, then I humbly apolo­gize. It is only because I am afraid."

  Melting with tenderness, Katie laid her hand against his jaw and gazed deeply into his dark eyes. "In my whole life," she whispered, "I have never known a man with enough courage to admit he's afraid."

  "Katie...." Her name was a hoarse groan that tore from his chest as his mouth came down hard and hungry on hers, his lips and hands fiercely urgent now, guiding her toward the peak of fulfillment, driving her as close to the edge as she was de­liberately driving him. And then the doorbell rang.

  "Don't answer it!" Katie implored when he im­mediately pulled out of her arms and sat up. "They'll go away."

  Slanting her a rueful smile, Ramon combed his hand through the side of his thick hair, restoring it to order. "No, they will not. In the…excite­ment… I forgot to tell you that your parents were coming over to help us pack and then have dinner with us."

  Katie jackknifed to her feet, scooping up her clothing as she dashed to the bedroom. "Hurry and let them in or they'll guess what we were doing," Katie told him when she saw that Ramon was merely standing near the sofa, his hands on his hips.

  "Katie," he said with a wicked grin, "if I let them in too quickly, they will .see what we were doing."

  "What?" she asked, standing in the doorway to her room, her perplexed gaze sweeping over the sofa for incriminating evidence, then the floor, then over Ramon. "Oh!" she said, blushing like a schoolgirl.

  Katie pulled off her clothes in mad haste, telling herself that she was being absolutely absurd. She was twenty-three years old, she had been married before, and she was going to marry Ramon. No doubt her parents assumed they had already made love many times. After all, her parents were modern, sensible people. Very modern and sensi­ble—except where their children's behavior was con­cerned.

  Exactly four minutes after the doorbell rang,

  Katie strolled out of her room wearing tan slacks and a soft cream jersey turtleneck, her hair brushed into a shining mantle around her shoulders. She managed to give her mother a cheery greeting, but her face was still slightly flushed, her eyes suspiciously languorous, and inwardly she was trembling with lit­tle aftershocks of desire.

  She found Ramon, who appeared to be feeling none of her sensual sensitivity, fixing drinks for the four of them in the kitchen, laughing about some­thing with her father. "I'll bring these drinks into the living room," Ryan Connelly said, picking up two glasses. Turning, he discovered his bemused daugh­ter staring at her fiancé’s profile. "Honey, you look radiant," he said, planting an affectionate kiss on Katie's forehead. "Ramon must be good for you."

  Hot color ran up under Katie's cheeks as she smiled helplessly at her father. Waiting until he vanished into the living room, Katie turned to Ramon who was putting ice into two more glasses. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Without looking at her, he said, "You are blushing, querida. And you do look radiant."

  "Thank you," Katie said in exasperated amuse­ment. "I look as though I've been ravished, and you look as though you've been reading the newspaper! How can you be so calm?" She started to reach for the drink Ramon had just fixed her, but he put it on the counter beside his. Turning, he drew her tightly into his arms for a long, drugging kiss. "I am not calm, Katie," he whispered against her mouth, "I am starving for you."

  "Katie?" her mother called from the living room, causing Katie to pull awkwardly out of Ramon's embrace. "Are you two coming in here, or should we wait out on the patio?"

  "We're coming in there," Katie answered hastily. With a laughing look at Ramon, Katie said, "I once read a novel where every time the man and woman began to make love, the phone rang; someone came to the door; or something happened to stop them."

  Ramon's grin was lazily amused. "It will not hap­pen to us. I will not permit it."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunlight glinted on the big jet as it streaked southeastward, thirty thousand feet above the earth.

  Careful not to disturb Katie who was asleep, her shining head resting against his shoulder, Ramon reached across her and pulled the shade down over the window, shielding her beautiful face from the glare of the sun. The flight had been extraordinarily rough, and many of the passengers were showing distinct signs of alarm. But not Katie, Ramon thought with a tender smile at her sleeping form. Beneath her delightfully soft, feminine exterior, Ramon was discovering that she possessed tr
emen­dous courage, strength and determination.

  Even yesterday and today, when her parents' ob­vious sadness over her impending departure had placed a terrible burden of guilt on Katie's slim shoulders, she had borne their unhappiness with calm understanding and smiling resolve, despite the emotional strain Ramon could see she was feeling.

  On Friday night Katie's parents had volunteered to handle the subletting of her apartment and to pack the rest of her belongings for shipment to Puerto Rico. Then they had insisted that she spend the weekend at their home instead of her apartment.

  Although he had also stayed there over the weekend, Ramon had not had either the opportunity or the ex­cuse to be alone with her since Friday.

  As the hours had passed, he had watched Katie's tension mounting, bracing himself for the time when she would weigh her uncertain future with him against the love and security her parents and job still offered, and tell him she had changed her mind about going to Puerto Rico. Selfishly, he had longed to get her back to her apartment and into his arms where, with time and privacy, he knew he could make her passion overwhelm her mind. Yet, even without the physical stimulus of desire, Katie hadn't wavered in her brave resolve to leave with him.

  Her long curly lashes made shadows on her creamy cheeks, and he pleasured himself with the sheer beauty of her profile. He was glad he had booked first-class seats for them because they were roomier. Katie had mistakenly assumed that the rea­son they were "lucky enough" to fly first class was that the airline had oversold the coach seats and had automatically offered them vacant first—class seats for the same price, and Ramon had let her believe it.

  Bitterness seeped through him, hardening his jaw, and Ramon turned his head to stare out the window across the aisle. A few months ago he could have taken Katie to Puerto Rico in Galverra Interna­tional's private Boeing 727 jet, with its splendid bedroom, dining room and spacious living room, all furnished in magnificent antiques and carpeted in white. Katie would have enjoyed that, Ramon thought. But she would have been more thrilled with his own sleek Lear jet, which he had flown into St. Louis and which was now in a hangar at the St. Louis airport.