taste it if he kissed her there?
Damn, but he wanted to find out.
"This is a joke to you, isn’t it?" he asked softly. Was that because she didn’t feel the way he did?
Or because she did?
No, it wasn’t, Margo thought. Nothing Bruce did struck her as a joke, just touchingly amusing. There was a difference.
"You don’t have to beat up men if they come on to me, Bruce. I can handle myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time." Far longer than she liked to think about, but for so long that she was accustomed to doing it, and very set in her ways.
"l know." This time he did indulge himself. With the tips of his lingers, he swept a wayward curl away from her face. "Maybe it’s time you let someone else do it for you."
Something came to rigid attention within her. She couldn’t give up control, not over herself, not even a little bit. She’d been holding on for so long, letting go was not an option.
"l wouldn’t know how." Looking around. she realized that no one else was dancing. This was getting to be a habit for them, dancing when there was no music. Margo drew away from him. "The music’s stopped."
The only music he’d heard was the sound of her voice, low, sultry, as she spoke. He still heard it.
Unembarrassed, he merely nodded. "So it has."
Bruce was going to say something to her she didn’t want to hear. She could see it in his eyes. Margo didn’t want the evening to end. but it would if he asked her to come with him to Italy. Not with the company, but with him. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t risk it.
Damn, why did he want to spoil things?
"Let’s get something to eat, I’m starved," she announced abruptly.
Without waiting for him to reply. Margo turned on her heel and went to the buffet table.
Bruce watched her walk away, wondering just what he had said to make her mood change course so suddenly. She looked almost spooked.
It made no sense to him.
Initially, when he had tried to keep up a barrier between them, she had appeared to take it as a personal challenge. In very short order, she had scaled that barrier using her wit, her humor and a good-sized grappling hook called attraction. Now that he finally admitted to himself that he was growing serious about her, about them, she was backing away.
Why?
It was as if she had felt safe being herself as long as there was no danger that he would take her up on anything. It just didn’t make any sense to him. She wasn’t what guys in his younger years had called a tease.
And yet, that was what it seemed like to the outside observer.
He didn’t want to be an outside observer. Not any longer.
With a sigh, Bruce went to join her. Maybe he could sort this out with her, clear up whatever misunderstanding was at the bottom of this before it became some sort of major obstacle between them. He didn’t want obstacles between them.
As he tried to get to the buffet, he found his path blocked by Giovanni. The latter was obviously availing himself of the opportunity of finding him alone to talk.
He had no desire to talk to Giovanni, not when he was preoccupied with Margo. But it looked as if he had no choice.
Giovanni appeared to want to assure himself that there were no hard feelings. He clapped his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. one comrade-in-arms in the battle between the sexes to another.
"You know, my friend. I admire a man who stands up for what is his."
His. It had a nice ring to it. But it was a false one.
He looked at the slighter man. It would have been easy, Bruce thought, to let Giovanni believe that he and Margo were a couple. That way he’d be making sure that there would be no trouble coming from the handsome Italian.
Easy, yes, but dishonest. And he had always been honest. Honest to a fault. It was too late to start something new at his age.
Was it? a small voice within him whispered. Was it really too late? Wasn’t that the whole point of this? Of him and Margo? To start something new?
Point or not. letting Giovanni believe that they were a couple in every sense of the word wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to Margo.
He’d deal with what was fair to himself later.
"lf you’re referring to Margo," he said quietly, "she’s not mine."
Bruce looked around and saw her at the head of the buffet table, talking to the company’s first VP. The man was laughing at something she’d just said. She had a talent for that, he thought, for making men feel good around her.
"No?" Giovanni looked surprised. Pleasure began to blossom in his face. "But the way you act, the way your eyes meet, l thought that..." He let his voice trail off significantly. When Bruce shook his head. Giovanni’s smile widened. "Ah, then Margo is, how you say, fair play?"
"Game," Bruce corrected automatically. "Fair game. And she’s not."
"But...oh, I see. You do want her. In this, you must see that you are not alone."
It wasn’t a club competition, Bruce thought. But he had to concede at least that point to Giovanni. He realized he wasn’t alone. As he looked at him, he could all but see the man rubbing his hands together.
"Well, until she makes up her mind, you will not fault me for dancing with her. She is a very desirable woman." He laughed softly to himself. When Bruce raised an inquiring brow at what he found so funny, Giovanni explained. "If she were mine, I would keep her under lock and key, for my eyes only." His smile was broad and downright wicked.
It was his own fault for being so honest, Bruce upbraided himself. But there wasn’t anything he could do, other than to sternly point out, "We don’t treat our women that way."
"Yes, I know." Giovanni nodded. "It is a pity for you, but very fortunate for me." He handed Bruce the glass of champagne he’d been sipping. "You will excuse me, I am suddenly feeling very hungry."
Bruce had no doubt that the hunger Giovanni was experiencing had very little to do with his stomach. He thought of going over to Margo himself. There was no doubt he’d get there first. He was the taller man, and his stride was definitely longer than Giovanni’s.
But that would have been infantile, and one stern talk with himself was enough for the night. He wasn’t about to descend into adolescent behavior again and take part in what amounted to a footrace.
Besides, he’d been right. No matter what he felt, no matter how he felt about her, he couldn’t put restraints on Margo, even if she were his.
Which she wasn’t.
Deciding to forgo the buffet, he went instead to the bar to get himself a real drink. He set Giovanni’s half-empty champagne glass on a side table as he strode past it.
"The evening went pretty well, don’t you think?" Margo commented as they left the ballroom.
With his hand lightly against the small of her back, Bruce guided her toward the lobby. He was relieved to have her to himself again. Giovanni had all but monopolized Margo for the remainder of the evening.
"From Weston’s standpoint," he agreed. "Marcello agreed to sign contracts in the morning."
She picked up on his tone. "And from your standpoint, how did the evening go?"
Bruce shrugged. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but since she’d asked, "I got to see a side of myself l didn’t like very much."
She knew what he was referring to. Another man might have caused a scene. He’d gallantly stepped aside, letting her make her own choices. You couldn’t help but like a man like that. And she did. Maybe too much.
"You’re being entirely too hard on yourself." They’d almost reached the revolving door when she remembered. Margo stopped, holding up her hand. "Wait, I almost forgot." She looked at him. "I need to stop by the front desk."
"Sure." He turned around and began to walk across the lobby again. "Why?"
"I have to leave Giovanni a message."
Her careless admission hit him with the force of an iron fist swung straight to the gut. Since they had just left the man less than three minutes ago, Bruce could onl
y think that whatever message she had to leave for Giovanni was the kind of thing you didn’t say aloud around other people.
He wasn’t surprised, he supposed. Any woman would be flattered by Giovanni’s attention, and he had certainly been attentive to Margo throughout the evening.
So much so that the flamboyant Italian representative had some perilously close to needing new dental work once or twice. Exercising extreme control had been the only way Bruce had managed to hold himself in check.
The desk clerk looked up as they approached. His genial smile went up a few more watts when he looked at Margo.
There was genuine enthusiasm in his voice as he asked, "Is there anything I can help you with?"
Margo opened her purse and took out a key. "Yes, would you give this to Mr. Giovanni Marcello?" She slid the key along the counter, pushing it toward the clerk. ‘He’s in room 1209. Please tell him that the lady says thank you, but she won’t be needing it."
With that, she threaded her arm through Bruce’s and turned toward the front entrance again.
Walking beside her, Bruce could only stare at Margo, his power of speech all but gone. For a second he thought of wrapping his hands around Giovanni’s aristocratically thin neck. The bastard had actually tried to arrange a tryst with Margo right under his nose.
"He gave you the key to his hotel room?" he finally asked.
Bruce’s even voice wasn’t fooling her. She’d seen enough covered boiling pots to know he was very close to blowing.
"That," she said offhandedly, as if it were a trinket housed in a box of cereal instead of an invitation to a night of seduction, "and a line that was very, very smooth."
He could feel the anger, the indignation at Giovanni’s insult, draining slowly away. She was here with him, not riding the elevator to Giovanni’s room. There was no reason to feel jealous. She’d made her choice. "But you didn’t buy it."
She would have thought that was obvious. Her mouth curved. "Nope."
Letting Margo go out the door first, he was right behind her. "What was it?"
Margo turned and touched his cheek. "You don’t want to hear."
No, he guessed he didn’t. It was enough to hear that she had turned it down. He didn’t want a reason to get angry. Anger clouded too many things.
Bruce handed his ticket to the valet, who went hurrying off to retrieve his car.
"Would you like to go somewhere?" he asked suddenly. By the look on her face, he knew he’d caught her completely off guard. "Dancing?" It was the first thing that came to mind.
She looked bemused. And just a touch bewildered. "I thought that’s why we left, because you were tired of dancing."
"No," he contradicted, "I was tired of watching Giovanni dancing with you. And I was tired of Giovanni cutting in on us while we were dancing." Bruce slipped his arm around her shoulders, not possessively or to mark what was his, but because it felt right. "I’d like to hold you in my arms for a while and dance with you without feeling that annoying tap on my shoulder." He peered at her face. "Unless you’re tired."
If she was, the feeling had completely vanished. She threw back her head, one earring brushing against her shoulder as she laughed. "Darling, I could dance until dawn."
He believed it.
Professionally, Bruce had to admit, things were falling into place very rapidly. Once Giovanni had signed the contracts for the merger of their two companies overseas the morning after the party in his honor, the date for opening the Florence office was moved up.
Bruce was told he had less than two weeks to get everything in order on the home front before he took the flight to Italy.
It didn’t seem like nearly enough time.
All he actually needed, he told himself, was one evening. The right evening with the right setting.
And the right answer.
Determined, like a man with a mission, Bruce set things in motion. He made phone calls, went shopping and crossed his fingers.
There was a lot riding on this. It had been a long time since he had taken a personal risk. It occurred to him that he was getting back into the game with a doozy of a big one.
Johnny Mathis was softly crooning theme songs from old romantic movies on the CD player in Bruce’s car as he drove.
He’d bought the CD just for her, Margo thought. She couldn’t picture Bruce owning a CD like this of his own volition and yet he did.
He really was one in a million, she mused.
Turning toward him now, she looked at his profile. It was bathed half in shadow, half in moonlight. He appeared so rugged, so strong, it was hard to imagine the gentler, kinder emotions that dwelled just beneath the surface.
"You’re being incredibly mysterious about this," she commented.
Bruce merely glanced in her direction without commenting, adding to the mystery.
They were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway
. On her right, the ocean shimmered, warm and inviting, beneath the moonlight. The moon was full and cast a long, pale yellow line that skipped along the waters, leading off into eternity.
She hadn’t a clue what was going on.
Bruce had called her at Melanie’s shop just before closing time and asked to see her tonight. She’d agreed without a moment’s hesitation. He was leaving at the end of the week. Five days from now, except for the occasional holiday and family get-together when they both found themselves on the same side of the same continent, he would be out of her life.
The thought brought a pang to her heart and filled her with an urgency she was unaccustomed to. An urgency to get in as much time with him as she possibly could. Before it was over.
"Over" the way all things were eventually over, she reminded herself.
She was glad he’d called. If he hadn’t, she would have called him. She didn’t believe in standing on ceremony or adhering to the rules of any game still being played between the sexes. It would have been a shame to waste these last few days by being apart.
"Shouldn’t you be home, packing?" she asked when he still said nothing. He was being awfully quiet tonight. "I can help," she offered with growing enthusiasm. "I’m very good at packing. I’ve been living out of a suitcase for more than the last three years now, so that makes me an expert."
Packing was the last thing on his mind. He hoped none of his instructions had been overlooked. "I’ve got time to pack."
Margo could only shake her head. "Typical male thinking." Although it was probably the only thing about him that was typical, she added silently. "You leave it all to the last minute, then throw things haphazardly into a suitcase, rushing to catch your plane. You arrive at your destination with wrinkled clothes that you don’t even need and find that you have to run out to buy underwear and socks, because you forgot to pack any."
He laughed at her scenario. All too true, probably, although he had managed fairly well on his previous business trips.
But this wasn’t a trip, he reminded himself, this was a prolonged stay.
"All right," he allowed magnanimously, "when the time comes, I’ll let you help."
"Let me?" she echoed mockingly. Despite the fact that she was restrained by the seat belt, she turned completely around to face him, feigning umbrage. "I’ll have you know it’s a privilege watching me pack."
"Then I’ll be looking forward to it," he said with more feeling than she thought the situation warranted.
Margo sat back and studied him. Just what did he mean by that?
CHAPTER TWELVE
He wouldn’t answer her questions no matter how subtly she prodded.
Margo was torn between feeling amused, feeling frustrated and feeling just the slightest bit agitated.
She didn’t like not knowing. lf you didn’t know, you weren’t prepared, and she firmly believed, despite her blase attitude, in being prepared.
For everything.
But no matter how she tried to worm the information out of him, Bruce merely gave her an enigmatic smile and said that she
would find out where they were going soon enough.
She sighed and sat back. And waited. Bruce apparently wasn’t a man to be budged once he made up his mind. Any other time, she might have admired his strength of character, but not when it was pitted against her.
The Pacific Coast Highway
gracefully sashayed its way through the art community that had settled in along the picturesque shores of Laguna Beach. The colony had left small shops, museums and trendy restaurants in its wake to mark its progression. It was still just as charming as she remembered it.
Never Too Late For Love Page 16
