"My pleasure. Now hurry up and get dressed. I'll be waiting for you in the living room."
As soon as he closed the door, she dropped the sweater and pants on the bed, slipped out of Eric's jacket and began untying the laces on her corset. Once free of the garment, she took several deep satisfying breaths and scratched her ribs where the stays had left red marks. She reached for the sweater. Holding the beautiful lavender garment in front of her, she felt her heart sink to her toes. How could someone as big as Eric have a midget for a sister? The sweater was a good two sizes too small for her. She reached for the pants and held them up to her waist. They were stylishly short, hitting her at midcalf. The only problem was that they had been cut to be shoe length.
She was confident that if she struggled and forsook breathing and never sat down, she could squeeze into the sweater and pants. But they would be ruined after she was through with them. Eric must never have really looked at her to think she would be able to wear his sister's clothes. Begrudgingly she put the corset back on and went downstairs. She met Eric coming out of the kitchen.
"What's wrong?" he said. "Why haven't you changed?"
She grabbed his hand and led him into the living room where he had turned on the lights. At first she just stood there, her hands on her hips, at a loss for words. Finally her emotions found voice. "Would you please look at me?"
"What?"
"I want you to take a good look at me and tell me what you see."
She was so agitated that he decided not to question her further. He backed up and complied with her request. Slowly his gaze traveled her body, taking in everything from the way her breasts mounded softly above the red lace on the corset to the narrowness of her waist to the graceful length of her shapely legs, which were accentuated both by the heels she wore and the almost hip-high cut of the corset. The expression on his face reflected his thoughts as they changed from curiosity at her strange request to open admiration of her statuesque build.
The natural progression of his thoughts created a stirring inside him that nearly took his breath away. His eyes met Janet's, and he knew she had witnessed the transformation. It was as if they had suddenly been stripped of all ability to camouflage their true emotions and were laid bare to each other's eyes. Under the trappings of civilization and social mores, the ancient, basic drive that had perpetuated mankind since the beginning of time still smoldered in them. When fanned to flame, its power was staggering.
Janet swallowed. Her heart beat heavily in her chest. She struggled to breathe. What passed between them seemed imbued with a power of its own—to control and possibly to destroy the fragile relationship they had established. It was too soon for these feelings to surface so blatantly. Their defensive shields gone, they were far too vulnerable.
Eric struggled for a semblance of normalcy, feeling he was in the middle of a battle to preserve the budding friendship they had managed to establish. He forced himself to stop looking at her, dropping his gaze to the floor and reaching up to rub the back of his neck. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Never had he felt a desire for a woman that precluded every rational thought. Its effect left him shaken. "I… made us some coffee," he said, fighting to reestablish some kind of stability between them.
Janet hugged herself. "I… uh, thank you. Would… uh, would it be all right if I used your phone?"
Eric looked up, staring into her eyes, trying to read them. Was she seeking a way to get away from him? "Of course—it's in the study." He pointed to an open door at the end of the hallway. When she moved to step around him, he reached out to take her arm. "Why did you ask me to do that—to look at you?"
Unable to meet his gaze any longer, Janet stared at the front of his shirt, inconsequentially noting a thread working its way loose from a buttonhole. "I couldn't believe you had ever really looked at me before."
Oh, the answer he could have given her. Not only had he looked at her, but her image had become his constant companion when they were apart. Her presence in his thoughts was radically disproportionate to the time they had spent together and the relationship they had established. "I don't understand."
"Your sister must be half my size." Now she did look at him. She wanted to see his reaction. "How could you possibly think we could wear the same clothing?" Only then did she realize the intensity of her feelings stemmed from her keen disappointment. Subconsciously she must have hoped that he had woven her into the fiber of his days as completely as she had him.
"Since it's certainly not you—it must have been my sister I've never really looked at all these years," he said softly, understanding at last.
Slowly, as radiantly as a flower opening to the warmth of a morning sun, Janet smiled. "I'd better call Ralph Cummings and tell him what happened at the party before someone else gets to him first."
He moved aside to let her pass. "As soon as you're through I'll let you try on something of my mother's— she's a lot closer to your size—and I promise you, I have looked at her often enough to know."
"Your mother? She lives here, too?"
"Along with my father… and occasionally, my grandparents."
Eric had never moved away from home? She thought a second. "I don't think I know—"
"About any grown man who still lives with his parents?" There was a teasing look in his eyes. "That was what you were about to say, wasn't it?"
"Uh… that's not precisely what I was going to say." It was close enough.
Eric slipped his arm around her shoulders and walked with her to the study, purposely striving to recapture the easy familiarity they'd had before they had been thrown for such an unanticipated loop. On the way he explained the function the San Francisco house served for his family. "So you see, it's not quite as bad as it first sounded."
"You didn't have to explain."
"I figured it was best to get everything out in the open just in case you wound up having to try on my grandmother's clothes if my mother's didn't fit."
She leaned lightly into his shoulder. "So where do you really live?"
"First make your phone call, then we'll talk when you get through." Eric closed the door behind him when he left.
Janet walked across the room to the massive oak desk that sat in the corner facing the window. She perched on the edge of the desk, reached for the phone and dialed. "Ralph—this is Janet."
"I already know what you're going to say."
She crossed her legs and leaned her elbows on her knees. "Who told you?"
"The guy who originally hired us. He called to congratulate the agency for coming up with such a clever comic routine—said it was a lot more fun than any he's ever seen. I'm not completely convinced he's still going to feel the same way in the morning. But tonight he's well pleased with what he got for his money."
"I can't believe he's not mad." Janet was flabbergasted. In her wildest imaginings she couldn't have come up with this scenario.
"Believe it—he's just concerned about getting your tip to you." Ralph chuckled. "He did mention that we might want to consider changing the routine a little and have you come back for a final bow. I told him we'd take it under consideration."
"And how do you feel about all this?"
"Before I tell you that—you tell me how the cake looks."
"I don't know. I didn't get much of a chance to see it on my way out, and then I didn't go back inside to check on it for fear I'd never be able to escape again. But since I have to go back to the hotel to get my things later, I'll be able to check it out and give you a call."
"Was it really as bad as it sounded?"
The highlights of the evening flashed in front of her eyes like an old-time movie—full of stops and starts and jerky action. Now that it was over, she was able to laugh at the memory. "I think it was probably worse than you heard, Ralph. The groom and I were rolling around on the floor with this great big curtain wrapped around us. I was sneezing and he was choking. Everyone else was laughing…"
"Are y
ou all right now?"
"I'm fine."
"Listen, don't worry about the cake, I'll send someone over for it later. If it's damaged, it's damaged. There's nothing we can do about it anyway. Go home and get some sleep, and I'll see you tomorrow."
She almost groaned aloud. "I thought I had tomorrow off."
"Just a minute, let me check here. You're right, you do have the day off. I guess I won't see you until Tuesday. Well, enjoy your weekend."
"Thanks Ralph, you too." She said goodbye, replaced the receiver and had started to leave when the phone rang. Without thinking, she picked it up.
"Is Eric Stewart there?"
"Just a second, I'll get him for you." She went to the door to call Eric. He came into the study to take the call, and she started to leave, but he stopped her by taking her hand.
"This is Eric Stewart," he said. When he recognized the caller, his shoulders slumped in weariness. "Howard, do you have any idea what time it is? I realize that, but just because it's two hours earlier out here doesn't mean it's not late. Besides, it's Friday night. I told you I would call you first thing Monday morning, just as soon as I had time to research those items we discussed."
Janet was beginning to get cold again. She gently tugged her hand free, pointed to the other room and then to herself and mimed drinking a cup of coffee.
"Hold on a minute, Howard." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "I'm sorry, Janet, I'll get rid of him as quickly as I can."
"Don't worry about it… I'll get myself some coffee and wait for you in the living room."
"Thanks."
She smiled and gave him a thumbs-up signal as she left. Before getting her coffee, she made a detour upstairs to retrieve Eric's coat. Despite being inside, she was still cold. On the way into the kitchen, she caught a reflection of herself in the plate-glass windows of the living room. The French twist she had used to put her hair up earlier had started to come apart, releasing one long strand of hair that bobbed when she moved her head. As she reached up to tuck it back in place, she was struck by the cumulative image of the woman staring back at her. She closed her eyes and let out a soft groan. She looked like a hooker. And a cheap one to boot!
What if Eric's sister happened to choose tonight to return to San Francisco? Or his parents? Or, God forbid, his grandparents? Resolutely she turned away and headed for the kitchen. Since there was nothing she could do about the way she looked, the next best thing was to ignore it.
After rummaging through three cupboards, she found a cup and went over to the counter to pour her-self some coffee. With the evening winding down, fatigue had begun to settle over her like a giant invisible shawl, first on her shoulders, then gently covering the rest of her. She had been up since four o'clock that morning and had gone to bed at one-thirty the night before. She leaned back against the door frame and spent a second inhaling the fragrant steam from the coffee before taking a sip. She made a face when the bitter black liquid hit her tongue.
Eric's "world-famous coffee" was unequivocally the worst thing she had ever tasted. Not even her mother, who was known to occasionally forget to rinse the soap out of the electric percolator before brewing another pot, had ever made coffee that tasted this bad. Janet shuddered and walked over to the sink and poured the foul liquid down the drain, checking to see if it was going to foam back up when it hit the trap. She vowed she would have to be near death in the middle of a blizzard, with Eric's coffee the only source of heat, before she would ever subject herself to it again.
She wandered back into the living room and looked around. In here the colors were primarily blue and white, with highly polished cherrywood used for the end tables and accent pieces. Built-in lighted bookshelves held several pieces of Chinese porcelain—all in distinctive blue and white. The room avoided a museum look, though, through the eclectic assortment of books haphazardly placed on the shelves and, what was obviously someone's favorite resting place, an old, nearly worn-out high-back wing chair with matching ottoman.
Since all the lights were on in the room, and the fog had rolled in earlier, she knew she wouldn't be able to see the view from the window without pressing her nose against the glass and cupping her hands around her eyes. Since that would leave telltale fingerprints all over the glass, she didn't bother trying. Besides, she really didn't have to actually look outside to know precisely what the view was like—breathtaking. This was one of the wealthy areas of San Francisco and the view the location afforded was the chief consideration in the value of the house.
Still cold despite Eric's coat and, without anything to keep her busy, becoming increasingly more aware of her fatigue, she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the corner of the couch. The house was quiet except for a softly ticking clock on the bookshelf and the traces of Eric's conversation that occasionally drifted in her direction. As she sat there waiting for him to return, her eyelids slipped farther and farther down her eyes. Whenever they closed completely, she blinked them open—which worked for a while. The first time she forgot to blink, they stayed closed…
Eric had finally reached the conclusion that there wasn't any way he could allay Howard's fears about the upcoming merger short of flying back to Detroit and holding his hand. "Howard, this is simply going to have to wait until Monday. Why don't you take the weekend off—go skiing or something. You're going to drive yourself crazy if you don't give this thing a rest for a few days."
"I couldn't relax if I did go away."
"It's not going to do you any good to stay around there stewing about this thing, because if you come up with any new questions, you're not going to be able to get in touch with me again even if you wanted to. I'm leaving tonight and will be out of town the entire weekend." It was a lie, but it was the only thing he could think of to get Howard to take a few days off and relax. He was turning into a nervous wreck, and Eric had begun to worry about his physical state.
There was a slight pause. "Are you leaving because of me?"
Eric laughed. "To be honest, the thought did cross my mind."
"I'm sorry about this, Eric. I know I'm being a pain in the—"
"Howard, I'm going to hang up on you now and check to see whether my company has decided I'm never coming back and has left to go home."
"By any chance are you talking about the woman who answered the phone?"
"Uh-huh." There were times when Eric regretted having a client who also happened to be a friend.
"You should have said something sooner. I just assumed it was Susan."
"Well, I'm saying something now—right along with goodbye."
After he had finally got rid of Howard, Eric sat at the desk a while longer, trying to compose an effective apology for leaving Janet alone for so long. While he had been growing up in this house, proper social behavior had been as integral a part of his life as the smell of salt water and the call of sea gulls. He decided to wing it, hoping she was as understanding as she seemed.
When he found her curled up on the end of the couch, sound asleep, he felt twice as guilty for spending so much time trying to pacify Howard. He knelt close to her and reached out to touch her arm.
Before his hand made contact, she let out a moan. A shiver raced down his spine. The sound she had made was the most erotic he had ever heard. He spent a moment watching her, unwilling to wake her. As he waited, he was inevitably, inexorably caught up in his own imaginings. In the guise of a shadowy, illusive figure, Janet had wandered in and out of his mind the past three weeks, both when he was sleeping and when he was awake. Though his imagining had rarely followed scripts, the emotions were always the same—powerful, demanding, enticing. And always he was left with a hunger more acute than the time before, forcing him to acknowledge that what he felt for Janet was becoming the focal point of his days and nights.
Suddenly her breath came in quick sighs, and she touched her lips with her tongue. She turned in his direction, and his coat separated. She need only move a little farther, and her breasts would be free of th
e gently confining lace. With unsteady hands he covered her again.
He smiled as he looked at her. She was amazing. Even in her tawdry costume, an air of elegance shone through. Somehow she managed to be impish and coolly regal at the same time. And she was beautiful in a way he seldom noticed in the women he came into contact with on a daily basis. Her clear skin, strong bone structure and the thick dark eyebrows that accentuated her incredible blue eyes made makeup superfluous. Imagining her on The Promise with the wind in her hair, the sun at her back and a smile meant only for him took his breath away.
His gaze dropped to her legs and he noted the way they were drawn up close to her body for warmth. She had precisely the kind of long, lean build that appealed to him—the build of someone who moved and walked with such grace that people stopped to stare…of someone born to move easily about the deck of a ship.
He was sorely tempted to get a blanket and have her spend the night where she was, but he was afraid someone might be waiting for her. Gently he touched her shoulder.
His touch seemed like a caress to Janet, and still sleeping she moved toward him, snuggling against him. He let out a sigh, and her eyes fluttered open. What happened next happened so naturally that Eric became a participant without conscious thought. All he knew was that he was suddenly holding Janet in his arms and kissing her, and that this was everything he had imagined it would be. Instantly he was thrown into a world so finely focused that everything else disappeared. The house could have been burning down around them, and he would have been oblivious. In his mind, a symphony celebrated this special moment of their coming together for the first time. You were right, a voice echoed in his mind. All those times he had told his family and Elizabeth and Walt that there was a special woman meant only for him, and that he would find her someday—he had been right. She felt so good—he felt so good holding her—that he never wanted to let her go.
Janet felt Eric's initial restraint disappear when she opened her mouth and encouraged the deepening of their kiss. Somewhere in her subconscious the voice of sanity called out to her, demanding she recognize precisely what she was doing. But she ignored the summons, allowing the warm swell of pleasure that filled her world with fireworks and rose petals to take precedence. It had been such a long time since she had felt a man's arms around her… so long since she had known such intense desire, and she was caught unawares by its force. Like a tree toppled into a storm-swollen river, she was swept along in the current without control, leaving reason, a shadowy figure, on the shore.
A Week from Friday Page 9
