Her Leading Man

by Duncan, Alice

  He dragged his gaze up to her face.

  He sounded unhappy. Looked it, too.

  “I believe so. Either you want to conduct an affair or you don’t. I do. The ball’s in your court, Martin.”

  She felt quite sophisticated after her little speech. More in control. Less breakable.

  He stared at her for a few moments. She couldn’t read his expression, but she feared it boded ill for her sexual and emotional satisfaction.

  Damnation! Suddenly, Christina realized why she felt so desperate about this opportunity to have an affair with Martin—if it was an opportunity; she didn’t know what it was. All she knew for a certainty in that instant was that Martin Tafft was the first man she’d met to whom she had ever been this strongly attracted. If it had taken her this long to find one, how would she ever find another? Obviously, men who appealed to her feminine side didn’t grow on every tree. She might never have this opportunity again. If he rejected her overture, she might never experience lovemaking at all.

  Besides, the thought of making love to another man—any man other than Martin Tafft—made her feel queasy. By rights, she ought to be lusting after Pablo Orozco. Heaven knew all the other women in the United States did. But Pablo Orozco gave her a pain in lots of places. Only Martin made her female juices flow and her heart sing.

  “I’m sorry, Christina. I want you. I truly do. I can’t offhand think of anything more appealing than taking you into my arms and making sweet love to you until—well, maybe I’d best not continue along that line.”

  Darn. Christina wished he would. It sounded so good to her.

  “Anyhow,” he went on, “I can’t. I—just can’t. I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

  “I see.” After surreptitiously testing the state of her balance for a moment, Christina dared to stand up. She rested her fingertips on the table and gazed down at Martin. She hoped he’d look at her good and hard and realize what he was giving up. “Thank you for being honest with me. I’m sorry I’m not to your taste.”

  Knowing that was as good an exit line as any she’d be able to come up with at the moment, she turned and marched to the door. She hoped Martin’s heart would ache with the knowledge of what he’d just missed out on.

  “Christina, wait—”

  She didn’t. Nor did she turn to see what he was doing. She headed straight for the door, her posture erect, her head held high. Gran had made her walk for miles balancing books on her head so that she wouldn’t get stoop-shouldered. Christina would have been able to balance an entire set of encyclopedias on her head at that moment.

  Martin watched her go and felt as if his last hope on earth was deserting him. Not to his taste? Was she crazy? Was he crazy?

  Pushing his chair back so fast it tried to fall over—he didn’t let it—he jumped to his feet and stood there, irresolute for only a moment. Then he rushed after her. He had no idea what he aimed to do, but his insides were shrieking at him not to let her escape.

  He was probably crazy.

  Nevertheless, he raced to catch up with her. She had long legs. They were one of her more alluring qualities, in fact. But Martin was six feet tall, and his legs were considerably longer and stronger than hers. Therefore, he managed to reach her in mere seconds. He knew he wasn’t out of breath from physical exertion, although he was definitely out of breath. Must be from emotional overwork.

  “Christina, please wait a minute.”

  She kept walking, sending an icy, “No, thank you,” over her shoulder. She didn’t bother turning her head to deliver the message.

  Propelled by his momentous need, Martin reached out and grabbed her arm. He’d never manhandled another human being in his life, and it was sheer desperation that made him do it now. She turned abruptly and glared at his fingers clutching her arm. She looked pretty mad about it, too.

  He didn’t let go. “Please, Christina, don’t walk away, from me. I can’t stand it.”

  It was a clear acting triumph that she managed to look down her nose at him, since he was at least six inches taller than she, but she pulled it off beautifully. If Martin hadn’t been in such a reckless state, she might have discouraged him, but his acute craving for her to understand his reasoning processes led him to ignore her frigid condescension. “Listen, can we just talk for a minute? I need for you to understand.”

  He felt abused and misunderstood and unfairly put upon. If he coupled all that with his incredible hunger for her, Martin was in no mood to be ignored. He also resented her cold silence, and his temper began to climb. He wasn’t accustomed to losing his self-control, having learned long ago that actors, like ants, reacted better to sugar than to vinegar. Nevertheless, his voice rose when he spoke into her rigidly set, albeit beautiful, face.

  “Dammit, Christina, I’m trying to do the right thing. It would be unconscionable of me to take advantage of you!”

  Finally she deigned to speak to him. “If I recall correctly, it was I who suggested an affair. How, pray, can that be construed as you taking advantage of me?”

  Damnation, she wasn’t going to give an inch, was she? He didn’t dare let go of her for fear she’d bolt, but he badly wanted to tug on his worry lock. Deprived of this release, his temper climbed higher.

  “That doesn’t make it right! For the love of God, don’t you understand that I’d be a monster if I agreed to your suggestion?”

  “No,” she said coldly. “I don’t.”

  God, he was going about this all wrong. If he only knew how to do it right, he would, but he’d never encountered such stubborn resistance to the patently obvious before in his life. At least, he amended, his attitude was patently obvious to him. Clearly it wasn’t obvious to Christina.

  Trying with all his might to keep his burgeoning rage in check, he gritted his teeth and tried again. “Darn it all, Christina, I know you come from a family of eccentric females, but not even your batty grandmother would condone the two of us having an affair.”

  “My grandmother,” Christina said through her own pearly teeth, which seemed to be as tightly gritted as his, “is not batty. She’s a strong-willed, strong-minded, intelligent woman who believes women are treated unfairly in this world governed by men. I happen to agree with her. We’re both strongly motivated feminists, who know that we deserve the same opportunities men receive as a matter of their birthright.”

  How in the name of the Almighty had they got into a debate on feminism? Soon she’d be lecturing him on why women’s suffrage was a good thing. On a personal level, Martin didn’t care if women got the vote or not. As far as he was concerned, most politicians were crooks. Maybe it would clean politics up some if women did have the vote.

  But that wasn’t the point here. He decided to say so. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this situation.”

  Her icy control snapped, and she leaned into him as if a strong wind blew at her back. Her cheeks blossomed with color, her nostrils flared, and her eyes sparked fire. “Oh, yes, it does, damn you, Martin Tafft!”

  Shocked by her sudden vehemence, Martin stepped back a pace. “It does?”

  “Yes, blast you! Men think it’s their exclusive right to pursue and manipulate women into doing what they want! They’re the ones who set out to seduce! They’re the ones who do the courting. They think it’s their right to set the rules and boundaries of sexual conduct among the masses—as long as they get to play around on the side and pretend to keep the so-called ladies pure. In the meantime, their women are supposed to sit home and knit and not pay any attention to their husbands’ affairs on the side!”

  Martin was so startled by this outburst, he couldn’t form a coherent thought, much less speak one. He could only stand there, receive Christina’s complaints, and blink at her. He’d never heard anything like it. What made it worse was that she was saying aloud what he’d been thinking for years. Only hearing his thoughts spoken—and by a woman, yet—made him uncomfortable.

  Besides all that, this line was totally irrelevant.r />
  “Now, see here—”

  But she wasn’t through with him. “Oh, no you don’t! It’s the truth, blast you! Men have it all their own way, and when a woman dares to horn in on their territory—in this case, proposing a sexual liaison—they get all fussy and scared and run away!”

  Now that, Martin thought, was extremely unfair.

  “I didn’t run away! You did!”

  “You rejected me!” Christina all but shouted at him “Do you think I’m going to sit around with a man who doesn’t want me and wallow in his rejection? If you think that, Martin Tafft, you have another think coming! I’m not the wallowing kind!”

  She had pointed her forefinger at him during this speech, and by the end of it she was poking him in the chest with it. Martin grabbed her finger. “Stop that! It hurts! And dammit, quit yelling, will you?”

  “No!” she yelled. “I will not quit yelling!”

  Doors had started to open, and people had begun to peek out from behind them. Martin saw a couple of Peerless folks standing in a clump near the door to the lobby, looking frightened and uncertain. Great. This was just great. Exactly what he wanted to do: make a scene.

  “Darn it all, this is ridiculous, ‘ he muttered at last. “Come with me.”

  Again, he had to use force, but he eventually managed to drag and push Christina up the stairs to his hotel room.

  Nine

  Christina really didn’t know why she was being such a pill. Probably she was only feeling humiliated because Martin hadn’t leaped at the chance to have an affair with her. It truly was mortifying, though. He was the first man she’d ever met with whom she’d even consider having an affair, and he didn’t want her.

  It was embarrassing and humiliating and infuriating, and she didn’t want to talk about it, especially with him. What she wanted to do was heave bricks at stone walls and have the satisfaction of seeing something burst into pieces. Something other than herself, that is to say.

  She felt shattered. Ashamed, embarrassed, rejected, and humiliated. Not very comfortable emotional companions for a woman who was normally on top of the world and everything in it. She also could scarcely believe that Martin Tafft, of all men, was actually using brute force to bend her to his will.

  He opened the door to his room, shoved her inside, and after stumbling and barely catching, herself before she could fall flat on her face, Christina jerked away from him, swirled around, and would have slapped him in the face if he hadn’t caught her wrist and held on to it. His grip was quite strong. She was secretly impressed, although, since she now hated him every bit as much as she’d wanted to get him naked only minutes earlier, she’d never say so.

  “Will you stop that?” he said angrily. “I don’t want to fight with you! I want to figure out what’s going on here!”

  What she wanted to do was scream abuse at his face, but Christina knew she would only embarrass herself further if she did so. Therefore, she sucked in several deep, soothing breaths and decided to wait until she’d calmed down a bit before she tried to speak again.

  Thank the good Lord he released her wrist almost as soon as he’d grabbed it. Free to move again, she spun around and stalked to the window, where she ripped the curtain aside and glared outside. The only green in sight was that of the palm trees, their fronds gently swaying in the desert breeze. Merciful heavens, this desert was ugly.

  Out of breath, probably from fury, she still listened with all of her senses on the alert to detect what Martin was doing behind her She didn’t suspect him of malicious intent—if anything, Martin Tafft was too good for this world, damn him—but she didn’t want him to take her by surprise.

  He, too, breathed heavily. As well he might. She was a slim woman, but still a grown-up one. And he’d had to force her upstairs, down the hall, and into his room. Good. Christina felt slightly better, knowing it had been she who’d worn him out.

  After several tense moments, he spoke. “Listen, Christina, I’m sorry I manhandled you. I-I really don’t do things like that.”

  She said, “Ha!” and felt even better.

  “I know, I know. I must do things like that, because I just did.”

  Although she’d be hanged before she’d turn and look, Christina imagined him either running his fingers through his hair or tugging on that lock of hair he loved so much. Her heart executed a sharp spasm of sympathy, and she told it to stop doing stupid things. She didn’t speak.

  “But I don’t usually do things like that,” he continued. It sounded to Christina as if he were floundering in the dark, unsure what to say now.

  And well he might flounder, the brute.

  Even as the epithet crossed her mind, she knew it was unfair. Martin wasn’t a brute. He was a fine man. A gentleman—whatever that was—and he thought he was doing a noble thing by refusing to have an affair with her. Heck, he thought he was doing her a good turn. Saving her virtue and all that rot. As if her virtue had ever done her any good.

  She wanted to strangle him.

  “Anyhow,” he went on, reminding her of a blind man groping toward light, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t.” There. Let him come up with another cliché and see if it would fit any better.

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  She huffed to let him know she wasn’t mollified.

  “And I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  Christina whirled around, incensed. “Damn you, Martin Tafft! You didn’t hurt my feelings!”

  He had hurt her feelings. Dreadfully. She’d die a painful death before she’d admit it to a soul.

  Martin looked confused for a second or three, then said, “But . . . but then I don’t understand.”

  “Oh!” So furious, she almost saw red again, Christina turned around once more and slammed her palm against the wall. At once, she spared a second to be grateful she hadn’t hit the window glass.

  The truth of the matter was that she didn’t understand, either. Not really. In an effort to hide her own puzzlement at her shocking behavior, she raged on. “Men! You’re all alike. Think you’re the only people in the universe able to make decisions.”

  “That’s not true, Christina. The only person I can make decisions for is myself. And I try to make decisions I can live with.”

  Oh.

  For some reason, Martin’s calm rationality didn’t make her feel any better at all. This time, she, turned slowly to gaze at him. So. If he honestly believed what he’d just said, then he had refused her offer to have an affair with him because he honestly didn’t want to bed her.

  When the silence thickened and became oppressive, she forced herself to say, “I see. Well, then, I guess there’s no further need to chat, is there?”

  Had she truly used the word chat to describe the past several intense minutes? She’d have rolled her eyes in disgust with herself if she didn’t feel so ghastly.

  Christina didn’t cry easily, and she seldom lost her temper, although she certainly had one. At the moment tears pressed against her eyelids, her temper was in shreds, and she wanted to hit Martin Tafft with a blunt instrument, then bang her own head against a rock wall, then stab Pablo Orozco to death with a dull butter knife, then jump off a high cliff, and then line up all the people she didn’t like and run them down with her motorcar—not necessarily in that order.

  She’d never felt more pathetic, powerless, and unhappy in her life. Even when she’d understood, finally and completely, that she’d never be able to earn a scholarship to attend medical school, in spite of the fact that she was smarter, better qualified, and better educated than ninety-nine percent of her male competitors, she hadn’t felt this awful. Heck, when that had happened, she’d been prepared for it, having lived twenty-one years in this wretchedly unfair world. That lineup of black crows who called themselves regents of the university had only confirmed what she already knew about the world as it related to women.

  This was different. This was an intensely personal rejection.
She couldn’t offhand think of anything more personal, actually.

  Martin held out a hand to her. The gesture was tentative, as if he feared she might slap it away. She felt like it. She also felt like grabbing his hand and pressing it to her cheek. The state of her emotions boded ill for the rest of her sojourn on the set of Egyptian Idyll. But she’d persevere. She was nothing if not persistent.

  “Please, Christina, I want us to be friends.”

  Friends? Fat chance

  When she didn’t respond, he said—and Christina could hear the frustration in his voice, “More than friends. I—I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. If you were older . . . I mean, if I were younger . . . I mean, if I were a different sort of . . . I mean, I desire you. Honestly, I do. I don’t understand how you can even doubt that.”

  She did doubt it. In spades.

  “But—but I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to—to have an affair.”

  He blushed. To her absolute astonishment, Martin Tafft, who was a sophisticated man of the world if Christina had ever met one, blushed when he uttered the word affair. She said, “Yes, Martin. You conveyed your message very well.”

  “But, I still don’t think you understand, Christina.”

  His tone was pleading now. “I want you to understand.”

  She looked at him for a moment before saying, “I understand, Martin. Thank you. I’d like to go now, please.”

  He stood aside, and she walked to the door, trying to adopt a dignity that felt as far away from her at the moment as Peru. Martin didn’t move until her hand touched the doorknob, and then she heard a sudden movement, and he was there beside her.

  “Wait! I can’t let you go like this.”

  She turned, confused. What the devil was he playing at now? If they prolonged this painful scene much longer, she wouldn’t be able to contain her frenzy or, worse, her tears.

  His hand closed over hers and drew it away from the doorknob. “Wait, Christina. I can’t—I won’t—I don’t want— Oh, hell.”