“You’re not getting enough sleep.” His eyes narrowed on the purplish rings beneath her eyes.
“And you are?” she retorted, noticing the puffiness under his own.
“I drank too much last night.” was his excuse.
“And I worked late last night.” Anything but the truth. Why should she explain that her nights were filled with erotic thoughts of him? That a pillow doubled for his long lean body pressed next to hers? That Gina had confirmed the rumors of his starlet mistress, though her presence hadn’t been noticed lately. However, thoughts of them together tore her insides apart. All she had to do was tell him yes and she could have him ... on his terms. Her mouth tightened into a grim line to keep herself from admitting the truth. After five days she was ready to have him on any terms, and that knowledge frightened her half to death.
They stayed far apart as they walked down the front sidewalk and toward the car. She slipped into the Mercedes without his help. Not a meaningful word was said, but the same electricity was there, charging the very air they breathed. Small talk was the order of the day and, although stilted, it gave them a chance to hear each other’s voices. She had never been so starved for the sound and presence of him before and listened intently to catch everything he said.
The art show was avant-garde, with all the California society notables there, sipping champagne, making polite sounds of delight at seeing each other and ahhing over paintings they didn’t understand. And if the paintings hadn’t been labeled, neither would Victoria. One was red and black and white and labeled “Anger”, while another was three blobs of blue on a soft green background entitled ‘Tranquility.”
Kurt introduced her to a few of the other guests before being called away for a few minutes. Victoria slowly circled the room alone, stopping in front of each painting and pretending an intense interest, when in reality her senses were tuned to Kurt as he held a conversation first with a young couple, then with a beautiful blonde woman who oozed sex appeal from every perfumed pore. Her long red talons rested possessively on his jacketed arm for all of ten minutes before he finally shook her off, reluctantly, it seemed to Victoria, and returned to her side.
“What do you think?” Kurt murmured in her ear. She wasn’t quite sure if he was discussing the paintings or the people.
“It stinks.” She said it more for shock value than anything else. If he wanted platitudes he could return to the blonde.
His head tilted back and he laughed a hearty sound that drew attention. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked down at her. “I swear, if I was with anyone besides you I’d be shocked by such irreverent talk. But with you, it’s just right.”
She couldn’t help but grin back. Suddenly the stiltedness was gone, replaced by a warm intimacy. “I just thought I’d shake you up. You’re too stiff.”
“How right you are,” he murmured wickedly, a glint in his eye as he took her arm and began walking slowly about the edge of the room. A thrill ran down her arm at his touch and she shivered. He felt it and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her.
“Miss me? I missed you like hell.”
She didn’t bother hiding the truth. “So did I.”
“Another friend? Darling, do you collect women or is it an occupational hazard of the publishing world?”
The tall blonde stood in front of them, almost blocking the way, belligerence written across her features.
“Sometimes I’m not sure. Julie, meet Victoria.” His voice was easy, but without intimacy. Victoria smiled, receiving a cold smile in return. Without a word they both knew they were hunters after the same quarry. But Victoria didn’t want what Kurt had to offer, did she?
“And do you write also, Victoria?”
“Of course.” She returned Julie’s smile with even less warmth.
“I see. Do you work for Kurt’s magazine?”
“Not yet.” She glanced up at the man in question to find him enjoying the altercation, in fact he was enjoying it so much that he was grinning from ear to ear! Damn him!
“How nice,” Julie said with obvious falsity. “Well,” she said, turning her attention to Kurt, “time for me to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, darling. Don’t forget breakfast at ten,” she murmured as she walked off.
“Your mistress, I presume?” Victoria’s eyes flashed, her voice higher than usual.
“Does that thought bother you?” Kurt was unruffled; in fact he was still smiling. “I am, as you may have noticed, looking for a replacement — or a wife. Do you know anyone who’s willing to fill that spot?”
“It sounds like just anybody would do. You don’t seem to be too choosy with your favors.” Her heart was thumping madly against her breast Knowing some other woman existed was one thing, meeting her face to face another! He had proposed to her while he was still seeing someone else! What nerve!
“Actually, I’m extremely choosy. There’s only one qualification I look for.”
“Oh?” She strained to act unconcerned. “And that is…?”
“I think we’ve had this discussion before.” he murmured quietly before reaching to shake hands with a man who had just walked up to them. “Hi, Bob, how have you been?” From that point until they left they had no further chance to talk privately.
The drive home brought more of the small talk that had filled most of the evening. They spoke of the people who had been there, the paintings, even the champagne that had been served.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked as they drew up to her front door. “I also have some two-day-old danish to challenge your teeth.”
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
Once they were inside Victoria reached for the light switch, but Kurt stopped her, pulling her into his arms and against his body. “Keep it off for a minute. Let me hold you. Let me know you’re really here.”
Her arms looped around his neck, her head tilting, her soft lips unerringly finding his warm, firm mouth. A low groan escaped him before he deepened the kiss, holding her tightly against him as if she would disappear any second. “Why, Victoria? Why are you doing this to us?”
She shook her head, confused thoughts tumbling one over the other. When she was in his arms all rational ideas flitted away on gossamer wings.
His hands traveled over her slender body, searching, searing in their quest. She didn’t care that he was fanning a fire that would soon be out of control. Kurt was all that mattered. His lips traced a pattern down the side of her cheek to the small throbbing hollow at the base of her throat, searing a path that flooded warmth through her veins like slow-moving, heated lava. She could hardly stand, her legs were quivering so. All the electricity that had sparked between them during the evening had been let loose, the switch pulled to allow it to crackle from one to the other, burning, lighting them with unbelievable frenzy. And then the telephone rang. It didn’t register in Victoria’s ears at first, but she felt Kurt stiffen; then his hands dropped to his sides.
“Who would call you this late?” he growled “Another lover?”
“Yes. After losing my virginity with you last week I decided to try everyone, so I went on a prowling binge for the past four days!” She flipped on the light and turned away so he wouldn’t see the hurt his words had caused. But his hand on her shoulder stopped her from moving toward the phone.
“I’m sorry.”
“No more than I am.” Her throat had a large lump in it as she reached for the phone. “Hello?” Her voice was sharp.
“Victoria? I’ve been trying to reach you all night. I need to talk to you.” Her father’s voice came across the wire, tired and dejected as if he were exhausted.
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.” Suddenly his tone took on purpose. “And I mean to see you. Now, where will it be? At your place or at my hotel?”
“Call me tomorrow and we’ll discuss it.”
“I’ll be right there. I don’t care what time it is, I’m going to see you.”
“No! Wait!” S
uddenly she was alert again, and a sense of danger flooded through her veins. Her father wasn’t a man to be dismissed easily. “All right I’ll meet you for lunch tomorrow.”
He calmed down slightly and they made the arrangements. After she had hung up Kurt still stood by the door, his jacket open, and one hand in his pocket. He looked like an ad for good liquor in a slick fashion magazine. His brows came together in a frown that her hands itched to wipe away. “I gather that you’re meeting your father?”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft, her mind completely occupied with the next day.
“Would you like me to go with you?”
“No. I’ll handle him myself.” Her voice held a thread of steel.
Kurt continued to persist. “He’s probably upset because of your living arrangements, and I don’t want you to have to face his accusations alone. After all, you moved here because of me.”
“I don’t need someone to hide behind when it comes to talking to my father.”
“No.” His voice turned bitter. “And you don’t want anyone either, do you?”
“I can take care of myself.” She sounded like a small, belligerent child, bolstering herself with her own words.
“Of course you can. That’s why you spent the weekend at my house, in my bed. That’s why you turned down my proposal of marriage. That’s why you were so jealous tonight when you met Julie.” He almost trembled with anger. “You’re a child, Victoria. A spoiled, frightened child who can’t even see the mess she’s making out of her life. And all because your past memories are getting twisted up with your present life.”
“It’s my past and my present!” she stated defensively, stiffening in anger.
His expression hardened. “That’s right, it is. You won’t let anyone else into your little world. You’re afraid to live, to take a chance of someone hurting you. That’s why you won’t commit yourself to me, why you’ve refused to see your family again. You’re damned afraid of almost everything except holding on to your anger!”
She stood tall and straight. “Get out of here, Kurt Morgan, and don’t ever come back.” Her voice was low, filled with pain. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
He shook his head, the look in his deep brown eyes was one of sadness. “Someday...”
“There’ll be no someday. You just don’t understand me.”
“I understand you well enough, Victoria. It’s you who won’t try to see anything but what you want to see.”
“Get out.”
“For good, Vicky? Or until you realize just what a great thing we have going for us?” His dark eyes probed hers, his expression grim and accusing. She stared down at the carpet, unable to hold his look, unable to answer.
“I see. Goodbye, then, my Victoria.”
“I’m not yours!”
“You’ll always be mine in my heart. You just don’t know it yet.”
And before she could scream her answer at him he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For the luncheon with her father Victoria mutinously dressed in a way she knew he would dislike. She wore a white and blue peasant blouse tucked into a long, faded, blue denim skirt and tall brown western boots. She tied her sleek, dark hair back in a low ponytail. Long silver earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. She looked properly rebellious, no doubt exactly what her father expected from her. Victoria began putting on her contacts but decided against them, placing her large, round glasses on the perch of her small nose. Now let him compare her to his other daughter.
The restaurant was a new one, crowded, but not overly so. She spotted him immediately, sitting quietly at a table as he stared into space, his expression sad and tired, confirming that the sound of his voice on the telephone last night had not been an act. “Hello, Senator.” Her voice was soft. She immediately wished she had been more discreet in her choice of dress. It seemed so juvenile all of a sudden.
His eyes lit up as he stood, motioning her into the seat across from him. “I’m glad you came,” he said simply. “I thought you might have changed your mind.”
“And what would you have done?”
“Come after you. You’re my daughter.”
“Really?’ Suddenly the anger and hurt were back, bombarding her nerves. “What a shame you just realized it. We could have had such good times together.”
He wasn’t put off. “We did have good times together. You must have forgotten.”
“I didn’t. You did.” she said with false sweetness. “Remember?”
He ran a hand through thinning hair the color of hers. “You’ll never let me forget will you?” He stared at her. “You’ll pay me and your mother back for one mistake for the rest of our lives. Just like you’re doing now with that outfit. With the coldness in your voice.”
Her chin tilted defiantly. “I’d call it more than one mistake, Senator.”
“No, only one. Your mother and I should never have divorced, but we also foolishly thought that another divorce for me and whether or not we chose to remarry and all the reasons for and against it were our business and no one else’s.”
“It became my business when I was forced to realize just where I stood in your life.”
He sighed heavily. “So it did.” he admitted.
“Why am I here?” Her heart beat heavily as she tried to casually scan the menu. Anything would taste like sawdust right now, so why bother picking and choosing?
“Your mother is in the hospital here. She wants to see you. I want you to visit her.”
“You want, she wants. What about what I want?”
He looked her straight in the eyes. His own tired ones daring her to look away. “All right, Victoria. What do you want? The last time I attempted to talk to you, you didn’t seem too clear on the subject. Want to try again?”
He had stumped her. She didn’t know what she wanted. And what was worse, she knew that he knew it too.
“How’s your daughter?” Her voice held an airy quality, a false gaiety.
“She’s fine. She’s going to have a baby next month.”
“Congratulations. You’ll be a grandfather.” The words stuck in her throat. He nodded. “For the second time, yes. Your brother’s wife had a baby girl three months ago.”
“Don’t tell me you’re claiming it?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Don’t do this to yourself, or to me, Victoria. Keeping alive a hurt that should have died years ago will only make you turn bitter and old before your time.”
She gulped past the lump in her throat, angry yet knowing he was right. But somehow she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out; she couldn’t halt the hurt that spilled forth. “I didn’t know you cared, Senator. It certainly didn’t show before this. What a turnaround! From having one child to claiming two more! My, my, what will the voters think?”
“It’s a matter of record that I was married before. The only person who didn’t recognize it was a young girl who accidentally met her half-sister on the street.”
He stared at her a long minute. “Was I supposed to shock her or was it the other way around? If it were your decision, which would you have chosen?”
The silence was stiff with emotion. It had never been stated in that way before, and she was startled with the choice he’d had to make that day.
Her father suddenly looked old, much older than she remembered. “Besides, I’m not running again. I’m retiring to live the rest of my days in private. And if your mother pulls through this next ordeal, with God’s help, I’ll live them by her side.”
“Leaving your wife?” she sneered.
“My wife left me years ago, Victoria. We live separate lives. She’s there for the occasional function when I need her, but she has her friends and I have mine. She’d have no objection if I asked for a separation or divorce. But you didn’t know that did you? If it hadn’t been for your mother I would have been a free man by now.”
“What did mom have to do with it?” Was he trying to soft-soap her? No, h
is expression was too serious, too honest. The word seemed a mockery when connected with him, but it seemed to be the only one that applied.
“Your mother always had a fear of crowds, groups, gatherings. We weren’t married a month when we realized just how ill-suited she was for public life. By the time your brother was born we both knew that either my career stopped or we stopped. Divorce was the only answer. The problem was that we were still in love with each other and nothing has changed that fact. I convinced myself otherwise and married a woman who thrived in the political limelight, only to find that remarriage wasn’t the answer, either.
But by that time your mother had decided that she liked the present plan. Before we knew it”, he gave a shrug, his eyes dark with the remembrance of another time, “we were committed to a relationship and a way of life that has lasted all this time. Your mother hated public life and everything it stood for. And it was the only thing I loved, next to her.”
“So you had the best of both worlds,” she finished bitterly.
“So I walked a tightrope, willing to give neither of them up but never having the life I wanted either.”
“And will you have enough money to support two families once you retire?”
“I never supported your mother, whatever you may have thought. The house, furniture, daily expenditures, they were all paid for by her with her father’s money. She had a good business head on her shoulders, not like your uncle Jake. All I ever gave her was my love.” He smiled sadly. “I know it sounds corny to you in today’s world, but it’s the truth.”
Her glistening brown eyes were wide as saucers; the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. In fact it was growing larger. “Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me years ago, when I needed to know?”
“Years ago you wouldn’t have understood. Every-thing was black and white to you, with no gray to mess up your idealistic personal standards.” His eyes grew grave. “But I’m telling you now because I think you’re old enough to understand a little more. Maybe not” He shrugged, looking oddly tired. “I don’t know.” He gave a small sigh. “It’s tough to find out that someone you idolize has feet of clay. As a child you never seemed to see the faults in people until it was too late. Then you hated them for their weaknesses instead of understanding that they were human, just like everyone else. Maybe that hasn’t changed.”
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