There was no denying, for Margo, that she liked the way he made her feel. Eternally young and sexy. "Well, in my case, it’s never going to become a very big number. I just won’t let it."
Bruce let his eyes travel over her. "From where I sit, you have nothing to worry about for a great many more years."
He was tempted to kiss her. Tempted to do far more than that. But he didn’t want to risk seeing that look in her eyes again. Not tonight. He supposed that he was feeling just the slightest bit vulnerable himself. There were feelings within him he needed to sort out before he acted on them. Or let them act upon him.
He moved to turn the key in the ignition. "I’d better let you go."
No, she thought, she was going to go on her own, before she was "let" go. Before something happened to end what had been the most exhilarating few weeks in her life. With the most exhilarating man she’d ever met.
Being with Bruce had made her feel safe and desired all at the same time.
That was just the problem. Feeling. She’d learned a long time ago that feelings only tricked you. They painted illusions that weren’t real. No man could really make her feel safe because no man was her protector. No man could be depended on to remain when needed.
She had to remember that. Hang on to it because the intensity of her feelings for Bruce frightened her. Somehow, when she wasn’t looking, what began as a harmless flirtation had swelled, infused with affection, until it had turned into something that was very strong.
Something she was afraid she couldn’t handle.
After next week she wouldn’t have to worry about handling anything. Even if he wasn’t bound for another country, she would be. She was certain of it. The references she had gathered from the other companies she’d worked for guaranteed her a position anywhere she wanted.
There was, she reminded herself again, absolutely nothing to worry about. And since there wasn’t anything to worry about, she could afford to relax, to indulge herself just a little more.
As Bruce watched, Margo seemed to transform right before his eyes. So quickly that he became certain he had imagined the earlier episode. There was nothing really bothering her, he thought, nothing making her distant except perhaps the jarring reality that she was getting older. But in her case, older simply meant better.
"Maybe you should come up for that extra lesson." Her invitation lingered seductively in the air as she got out of the car. She leaned over, looking into the car. "After all, you don’t want to take a chance on going blank at the party you’re hosting."
"The company is hosting," he corrected, unable to tear his eyes away from her. Grown men didn’t drool, he reminded himself. Unless it was completely unavoidable.
The Italian representative for their proposed foreign office was arriving tomorrow morning. Weston was giving a lavish party at the Ambassador Hotel in his honor. Never much for gatherings, Bruce wasn’t looking forward to it. The only thing that was making it bearable for him was that Margo was going with him as his date.
Date. The word still amused him. Dating at his age.
"What’s so funny?"
He got out of the car. "Nothing. Come on. let’s go upstairs. My tenses are getting all tangled."
The look she gave him was sinfully wicked. "Is that what they’re calling it these days?"
Taking her hand, his laugh echoed in the night air.
CHAPTER TEN
The doorbell rang as she was debating which pair of shoes to wear.
"It’s open!" Margo called, slipping on the higher of the two sets of heels. They were the more comfortable pair, and she had a feeling that it was going to be a long evening. The front door opened and then closed again. "I’ll be right out."
She was running behind schedule and that always irked her, but it couldn’t be helped. The interview with DataLinc had run over, lasting far longer than even her most liberal estimate. The personnel director had been so taken with her
qualifications, she had insisted on arranging an impromptu meeting with some of the people who would be involved with the Nice-based office over the coming year.
By the time she walked out of the building, the job was hers if she wanted it.
Margo hadn’t made up her mind yet.
It wasn’t as if there was anything keeping her here, she insisted. Melanie was well taken care of, and she could always fly home if there was any sort of a problem, or if Melanie needed her. And she had always wanted to live in Nice.
And yet she hadn’t said yes immediately. Hadn’t wanted to say yes immediately.
The offer from DataLinc--the personnel director had insisted on putting it in writing--was in her purse on the bureau. A silent reminder that she had options again. A way out if she wanted it.
If.
Not if, she corrected herself, when. A way out when she wanted it. Why was that so hard for her to get straight?
Checking herself over in the mirror, Margo picked up the long, dangling pearl drops she’d given herself on her last birthday. A birthday she had spent alone. she remembered. By choice.
She was putting on the second earring as she walked out into the living room. Bruce was standing by her coffee table, frowning.
"Sorry," she murmured. There. Finished. "Didn’t mean to be late."
She didn’t look rushed, Bruce thought. What she did look like was every man’s dream. She was wearing a pink-sequined dress that hugged her every curve as it caught the light, Flashing it back at him. Damn near hypnotizing him, he thought.
"You’re not late," he told her. "I’m early." That wasn’t why he was frowning. It was her lax attitude that concerned him. "And don’t you know better than to leave your front door unlocked?"
She found it rather touching that he worried about her. "I was expecting you. and I didn’t want to rush to the door, half-dressed."
"I wouldn’t have minded." He tried not to dwell on the image that popped into his mind. "It’s a lot better than coming in to find you dead. I could have been a burglar."
"But you weren’t, unless you’re leading a secret life I don’t know about." She brushed a kiss against his lips. "And besides, burglars don’t ring doorbells."
It was hard to stay annoyed with her when she made him lose his train of thought like that.
"Just keep your door locked from now on," he warned. "This is Southem California, not some rural town in Utah where everyone knows everyone else."
Her mouth curved in amusement. "Obviously you’ve never watched too many movies, or seen Peyton Place
for that matter," she said, referring to the classic melodrama about a small town with scandalous secrets.
"I never had much time to watch movies. Ones in English at any rate," he added. The other night they’d watched two Italian movies, one with subtitles, one without, when she thought he was ready to wing it. When he’d protested, Margo tactfully reminded him that the people he would be dealing with in Italy wouldn’t come equipped with subtitles.
She merely shook her head. "So much to teach, so little time."
Margo reached for her wrap on the back of the sofa, but he had already grabbed it. As he circled behind her, he realized for the first time that the dress she was wearing was backless. He paused as he assured himself that his heart hadn’t stopped beating. Satisfied. he carefully draped the wrap around her shoulders.
"There’s not much to this dress. is there?"
She tumed around slowly, smiling up into his face. "Just enough to whet an appetite."
Amen to that, he thought.
Tucking her small clutch purse under her arm, she took a closer look at Bruce. "You look nervous."
It was more like a case of being unsettled. She seemed to do that to him, no matter how ready he thought he was for her.
"That’s only because you look so beautiful. I think you’ve liquified my kneecaps." Opening the door, he waited for her to walk through first.
She could get used to this very quickly, she thought. That, too. was a danger.
"Well, not only have you leamed Italian. Bruce, but you’ve also leamed how to speak fluent 'charming.' "
Taking her arm, he walked her to his car parked at the curb. "I’m not being charming, I’m only telling you what I see."
Getting in, Margo was careful not to snag her dress on the seat belt as she buckled up. She turned to look at Bruce. He was wearing a different cologne tonight. Something male and arousing. She could feel all her pulse points coming alive. As if they hadn’t responded to him already.
Dressed in a tuxedo. he looked particularly dynamic tonight. "And I see a man who could go very far if he wanted to."
"I'm already going far." He started the car, wishing they weren’t bound for the hotel and the lavish party. He wanted her to himself tonight.
The feeling was becoming more and more familiar to him.
"They’re sending me to Italy, remember?"
Margo settled back in her seat. "I meant in the company." He didn’t strike her as a man who was content not advancing. Soft-spoken, gentle, he was still a man who knew what he wanted, a man with a presence about him. Men like that resided at the top.
He had no desire to get involved in the clawing and backbiting that was part and parcel of every push to get to the apex of the corporate ladder. The view from where he sat--Bruce glanced at Margo. at the way the bodice of her dress rose and fell with every breath she took--was just fine.
"I’ve already gone further there than I really wanted to." The traffic light up ahead was out. Cars in all directions were queuing up, turning the defunct light into a four-way stop sign.
Margo didn’t understand. He was one of the major CEOs at one of the top software design companies in the country. Considering the way the Held was mushrooming, that was saying quite a lot. Didn’t he want to be there?
"I thought this was what you were working toward, what you were aiming for."
"What I was aiming for was just to blot out all the pain going on inside of me. Spending eighteen hours a day at the job accomplished that to a degree. I guess advancement was just a by-product." It was his turn to go. "But the pain’s gone now."
"Speaking of gone, shouldn’t we be there by now?" The hotel wasn’t that far away, even with the dormant traffic light. Bruce was driving inordinately slow. "You don’t want to arrive late for this thing, do you?"
An enigmatic smile played on his lips as he slowed for a yellow light, stopping as it took its time turning red. "I don’t want to arrive for this 'thing' at all."
He looked at her. his eyes touching her hair, her face, the tempting swell of her breasts. Would he really be missed if he didn’t turn up tonight? There would be so many other people there.
But none of them would be heading the Florence office, he reminded himself. With resignation, he pressed down on the accelerator again.
"I would like to take you to some isolated little cafe that no one’s ever heard of where they serve real coffee--not cappuccino, not latte, but just plain, black coffee--and have three musicians huddled in the corner, playing the blues all night."
"Three?" The smile on her lips rose to her eyes. "Not four, not two, but three?"
He nodded, turning at the next corner. "Three’s a good number."
He was a very unusual man, she thought. Some might have even called him special.
"You’re the expert on numbers," she conceded.
"Yes," he said quietly, slanting another look at her. "l am."
Bruce had never walked into a room before where the most stunning woman in the place was the one on his arm. He didn’t have to look to know that every pair of eyes turned in their direction when Margo and he entered the
ballroom.
When Margo entered the ballroom, he silently amended. He was just her escort.
He wanted to be more than that.
Funny how things changed. Most of his life he’d been a great advocator of status quo. But things, life, had insisted on changing. First for the worst and now. in these past few months, for the better. His son had reentered his life, then he’d gained a daughter-in-law. one who, even before the wedding, had become the daughter he’d never had.
And now, a woman had come into his life. A woman who made his blood heat and his imagination soar.
All these years he’d never thought that there’d ever be room in his heart for anyone else but Ellen. Now he knew that he’d been mistaken.
It was a hell of a discovery to make at his age.
So was finding out that he wasn’t above being just the slightest bit vain. He liked the way men looked at Margo. with admiration and desire. Most of all. he liked the fact that she was with him.
When the other men looked at him, there was envy in their eyes. There was even a spark of interest in Weston’s eyes, and the man had to be moving well into his seventies, if he wasn’t there already.
Out of the comer of his eye, Bruce saw Paul standing over by the terrace. As usual, the man had brought an extremely attractive young woman with him. If he was running true to form, Paul was contemplating a little rendezvous for later in the evening, after the party.
But at the moment Paul’s mouth appeared to have frozen in midword. He was staring in their direction. Bruce wasn’t sure if he even saw him with Margo. Knowing Paul, all he saw was Margo.
The lights from the chandelier played seductively along her dress, all but caressing her body. Just the way he longed to do, Bruce thought.
"Doesn’t take long for your magnetism to kick in, does it?" he whispered against her ear.
"It did with you," she countered playfully.
Bruce inclined his head, agreeing. "I’m a slow learner."
She laughed softly, her breath shimmying up to his cheek. "Not from where I’m standing."
Bill Wakefield, a senior design engineer was the first to descend on them, cutting off their access to the center of the ballroom and the guest of honor.
"Bruce, you’ve been holding out on us." Wakefield hardly spared Bruce a look as he all but devoured Margo with his eyes. "Who is this charming creature?"
He’d never cared for Wakefield. Now he knew why. "Bill Wakefield, may I introduce Margo McCloud. My tutor," he added.
"Ah!" Wakefield’s eyes took another languid tour of her body. "You make me want to crack open a few books myself." His voice dropped suggestively. "Along with a bottle of vintage champagne."
She’d come across more than one Bill Wakefield in her tune. He bore very strong similarities to Jack, right down to the way he flashed his smile, with an aim at dazzling her.
"Champagne clouds the mind when you’re studying," she said, her tone mild, disinterested.
"Not mine," he assured her. "It sharpens everything about me."
There was no feeling in her smile. "How very nice for you."
It was Bruce’s experience that Wakefield never knew when to back away. There were no surprises tonight. "I’m going to Rome this summer. Maybe I might need a few lessons myself. How would I go about arranging for those?" The look he gave her was both suggestive and pointed.
She slipped her arm through Bruce’s, appearing to hang on him. Killing two birds with one stone. Instinct told her that annoyed Wakefield and pleased Bruce. "When you’re ready for them, talk to Bruce. He’ll know where to reach me."
Wakefield’s lips twitched in a sly smile. "I’m surprised Bruce still remembers how to reach."
What a creep, she thought. If they weren’t at a party, she would have told him so. But she didn’t want to make scene.
Margo felt Bruce stiffening. She didn’t have to look his expression to know that he was coming precariously close to defending what he deemed to be her honor. Beneath his gallant exterior was an equally gallant interior. She wanted to see neither get into an altercation on her account.
Tugging ever so slightly, she began to draw Bruce away before he carried out her fantasy and punched Wakefield out. "Bruce is a very surprising man. But I’m sure you already know that. And to satisfy your cu
riosity, Bruce remembers everything just fine." She deliberately purred the words. "You’ll excuse us. but we have to go mingle. Don’t we, Bruce?"
He merely grunted in response.
"Be nice," she chided, more amused now than insulted or angry. There would always be Wakefields in the world. The trick was not to let them get to her.
"I was ready to flatten him," he told her.
"I know." She swallowed the playful laugh echoing in her throat.
. Bruce looked at her, hearing what he just said for the first time. He’d reached six-four by the time he was fifteen. Because of his imposing size, he’d never found it necessary to become physical with anyone. But he’d wanted to this time. He wanted to know what it felt like to smash that perfect nose beneath his knuckles. "I never felt like that before."
Never Too Late For Love Page 14
