Almost Forever

by Linda Howard

  “I’ve been reading about the possibility in the papers, but I had hoped it wouldn’t happen. So it’s final, then? When did it happen, and what does that have to do with you, anyway? They certainly aren’t going to get rid of Sam. He’s the brains behind Bronson Alloys. Aren’t you going to stay on as his secretary?”

  “The final agreement was signed yesterday.” Claire looked down at her hands, surprised to see that her fingers were laced tightly together. She made a conscious effort to relax. “Sam is going completely into research, so he won’t need a secretary any longer.”

  “That’s bad. I know how much you like him. But it’s also good that you’ve already had a job offer. What company is it?”

  “Spencer-Nyle.”

  Martine’s eyes widened. “The corporate headquarters! I’m impressed, and you must have impressed someone else, too!”

  “Not really.” Claire took a deep breath. This wasn’t getting any easier, so she decided to just get it said. “Max Benedict’s real name is Maxwell Conroy, and he’s a vice president with Spencer-Nyle.”

  For a full five seconds Martine merely stared at Claire with a stunned expression. Then hot color flooded her cheeks and she surged to her feet, her fists clenched. She seldom swore, but it was due to choice, not lack of vocabulary. She used every bit of that vocabulary now, pacing up and down and damning Max with every invective she could think of, and inventing new combinations when she ran out of the ones she already knew. She didn’t need to hear all the details to know that Claire had been hurt. Martine knew Claire well, and she was fiercely protective of her sister, as she was of everyone she loved.

  When Martine showed signs of running down, Claire interrupted quietly. “It gets more complicated. I gave him confidential information that he needed for Spencer-Nyle to engineer the takeover. That was why he was down here, and that was why he was showing so much interest in me. I blurted it all out like an idiot.”

  “I’ll tear his face off,” Martine raged, beginning to pace up and down again like a caged tigress. Then she stopped, and a peculiar expression came over her face. “But you’re going to Dallas with him?”

  “I’m going to Dallas for the job,” Claire said firmly. “It’s the only logical thing I can do. I’d have to be an even bigger idiot than I already am if I deliberately chose unemployment over a good job. Pride won’t keep the bills paid.”

  “Yes, it is the logical thing to do,” Martine echoed, and sat down. She still had that peculiar expression on her face, as if she were trying to think something through and it didn’t quite tally up. Then a slow smile began to crinkle the corners of her eyes. “He’s transferred you so you’ll be with him, that’s it, isn’t it? The man is in love with you!”

  “Not likely,” Claire said, her throat going tight. “Lies and betrayal aren’t very good indicators of love. I love him, but you already knew that, didn’t you? I shouldn’t love him, not now, but I can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. Just don’t ask me to believe that he ever saw anything in me except the means to an end.”

  “But when I think about it, he always watched you… Oh, I can’t describe it,” Martine mused. “As if he were so hungry for you, as if he wanted to absorb you. It gave me the shivers, watching him watch you. The good shivers, if you know what I mean.”

  Claire shook her head. “That isn’t likely, either. You’ve seen him,” she said, feeling her body tense up again. “He’s beautiful. It stops my breath to look at him! Why should he be interested in me, except for the information he needed?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? In my book he’d be a fool if he didn’t love you.”

  “Then a lot of men have been fools,” Claire pointed out wearily.

  “Fiddlesticks. You haven’t let them love you. You never let anyone get close enough to really know you, but Max is more intelligent than most men. Why wouldn’t he love you?” Martine asked passionately.

  It was hard for Claire to say, almost impossible. Her throat tightened. “Because I’m not beautiful, like you. That seems to be what men want.”

  “Of course you aren’t beautiful like me! You’re beautiful like yourself!” Martine came over to Claire and sat down on the deck chair with her, her lovely face unusually serious. “I’m flamboyant, but that isn’t your style at all. Do you know what Steve once said to me? He said that he wished I were more like you, that I would think before I leaped. I punched him, of course, and asked what else he likes about you. He said that he likes your big dark eyes—he called them ‘bedroom eyes’—and I was about ready to do more than punch him! Blue-eyed blondes like me are a dime a dozen, but how many brown-eyed blondes are there? I used to die with envy, because you only had to turn those dark eyes on a man and he was ready to melt at your feet, but you never seemed to know that, and eventually he gave up.” Suddenly Martine caught her breath, her eyes widening. “Max didn’t give up, did he?”

  Claire was staring at her sister, unable to believe that beautiful Martine had ever found anything about her to be jealous of. Distracted, she said, “Max doesn’t know those two words are ever used together.” Then she realized what she had just admitted, and she flushed. She wasn’t used to talking so frankly to anyone, even her sister, but she was learning some things about herself that she’d never suspected before. Was it true that she held people away from her, that she didn’t let them get close enough to care? She hadn’t looked at it from that angle before; she had thought that she was keeping a distance between herself and other people so she wouldn’t care, without considering the person who was being held at arm’s length.

  “Max won’t leave me alone. He insists that it isn’t over. He was called back to Dallas,” she explained steadily. “By the time he returned to Houston, I had already found out his real name and what he was doing here. He called, but I refused to go out with him again. So now I’ve been transferred to Dallas.”

  “To his own territory. Smart move,” Martine commented.

  “Yes. I know all that. I know how he reacts to challenges, and that’s all I am to him. How many women do you suppose have ever refused him?”

  Martine thought, then admitted ruefully, “You probably stand alone.”

  “Yes. But I have to have a job, so I’m going.” Even as she said the words, Claire wondered if there had ever been anything else she could have done. “What would you do in my place?”

  “I’d go,” Martine admitted, and laughed. “We must be more alike than you think. I know I’d never let him think that he’d made me run!”

  “Exactly.” Claire’s dark eyes turned almost black. “He makes me so angry I could spit!”

  Martine raised a militant fist. “Give him hell, honey!” Seeing the anger in Claire’s face made Martine want to dance around the yard. Too often Claire held her emotions in, hiding her vulnerabilities from the rest of the world. Even when she had lost her baby, Claire had been pale and quiet. Only Max had ever jostled her out of her composure. Claire might not think that Max cared for her at all, but Martine had seen Max watching her sister, and thought Claire was seriously underestimating the strength of his attraction to her. There was no doubt that he loved a challenge—he had that sort of fire in his eyes, that self-confident arrogance. But Claire didn’t realize that she was an ongoing challenge, with her silences and perceptions, and the depths of her personality. If Martine read him correctly, Max would be fascinated by the complexity of Claire’s character. And, damn him, if he hurt Claire again, he’d have to answer to Martine for it!

  Claire felt as if she had made a momentous decision, but she was calm, even though the thought of changing her life so completely was a wrenching one. She had lived in her quiet, cozy apartment for five years, and it hurt to think of leaving, yet she knew that she had made the only logical choice. It was just that she preferred changes to come slowly, so she could adjust to them, rather than in a confusing rush.

  She sat in silence that night, looking around and trying to accustom herself to the idea of a new apartment
, a different city. She wasn’t in the mood for either television or music, and she was too disturbed to find refuge in a book. There were plans to be made, work to be done—she had to find another apartment, get the utilities turned on, pack…say goodbye to her family. Martine already knew, but Alma would be the difficult one. It wouldn’t really be goodbye, but it would be the end of easy access to her family. The distance between them would be great enough that she couldn’t just get in the car and drive over whenever the whim took her.

  Her doorbell rang, and she answered it without thinking. Max filled the doorway, looking down at her with a peculiarly intense glitter in his eyes. Claire tightened her hand on the doorknob, not stepping back to allow him entrance. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? She needed time by herself to get accustomed to the sweeping changes she was making in her life.

  The glitter in his eyes intensified as he realized that she wasn’t going to invite him inside. He put his hand on hers and gently but forcefully removed it from the doorknob, then stepped forward, crowding her back into the apartment. He shut the door behind him. “Are you sitting here brooding?” he asked shortly, glancing around the silent apartment.

  Claire moved away from him, her face closed. “I’ve been thinking, yes.”

  Strong habits had been established in the short time they had been together—Claire went automatically to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, then turned to find him leaning in the doorway, still watching her in a way that made her want to check all her buttons to make certain they were fastened. She would have to brush past him to get to the living room, so she opted for retaining the relatively safe distance between them and remained where she was. “You might as well know,” she said, throwing the words into the silence between them. “I’ve decided to take the job.”

  “Is that what you’ve been brooding about?”

  “It’s a major change,” she replied coolly, using every ounce of self-control she possessed. “Didn’t you have any doubts when you relocated from Montreal to Dallas?”

  Curiosity sharpened his gaze even more. “Ah, yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Exactly how did you discover my last name?”

  “I read a magazine article on Spencer-Nyle. It had a picture of you.”

  He strolled into the kitchen, and Claire turned away to get two mugs out of the cabinet. Before she could turn around again, he was behind her, his arms braced on the cabinet on either side of her, effectively trapping her. “I had intended to tell you that morning, when we woke up,” he said, bending his head to take a little nip at her ear. Claire sucked in her breath and twisted her head away, both alarmed and angered by the way his slightest touch made her pulse race. He ignored her movement of rejection and nuzzled her ear again, continuing his explanation whether she wanted to hear it or not. “But that phone call interrupted everything, and by the time I got back to Houston, you’d already found out, damn my luck!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she protested tightly. “What could you have said? ‘By the way, dear, I’m an executive with a company that has targeted your company for takeover, and I’ve been using you to get information’?” She mimicked his clipped accent and saw his hands clench on the cabinet in front of her.

  “No, that wasn’t what I would have said.” He pushed himself away from her, and Claire turned, clutching the coffee mugs to her chest, to find him staring at her with barely restrained violence in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have said anything at all until you were in bed with me. Trying to reason with you has turned out to be a waste of time.”

  “Oh?” she cried. “I think it’s terribly unreasonable of you to think you could just waltz back into my life and pick up where you’d left off, after what you did!” She slammed the mugs down onto the cabinet, then stared at them in horror. What if she’d broken them? She never lost her temper, never screamed or threw things or slammed them down, but now it seemed as if her anger was so close to the surface that Max could bring it out every time he spoke to her. She was reacting in a way that was totally unlike herself. Or maybe, she thought grimly, she was simply discovering facts about herself that she’d never before suspected. Max had a talent for drawing intense reactions from her. Grimly she sought control again, taking another calming breath. “Why are you here?”

  “I thought you might want to know more about the job before you made your decision,” he muttered, still looking furious. He admitted to himself that he was lying. He had wanted to see her—he had no other reason.

  “I appreciate the thought,” Claire said, as distant as the moon. She poured coffee into both mugs and extended one to him, then took a seat at her tiny kitchen table, which was just big enough for two. Max took the chair opposite her, still scowling as he drank his coffee.

  “Well?” she prompted a few minutes later, when he still hadn’t said a word.

  His frown deepened. “You’ll be secretary to the general office manager, Theo Caulfield. The departments of payroll, insurance, general accounting, data processing, maintenance, office supplies and equipment, as well as the secretarial pool, are all under his control, though each department has its own manager. It’s a demanding job.”

  “It sounds interesting,” she said politely, but she was being truthful. A job that diverse had to be interesting, and challenging.

  “You’ll need to work late occasionally, but the extra hours won’t be excessive. You have two weeks to get settled. I would give you a month but the office is in an uproar with a lot of transfers, and you’re needed on the job.” He didn’t add that he was the reason the office was in an uproar. “I’ll help you look for an apartment. You helped me, so I owe you a favor.”

  Claire’s face stiffened at the mention of his apartment; it was only an expensive prop, a part of his hoax. That apartment had given him the appearance of stability and permanence. “No, thank you. I don’t need your help.”

  His face turned dark, and he set his mug down with a thump. “Very well,” he snapped, getting to his feet and hauling her up with a strong grip on her arm. “You’re determined not to give an inch, not even to listen to my side of it. Be safe, behind those walls of yours, and if you ever think of what you might be missing, think of this!”

  His mouth was hot and strong. His arms crushed her against him, as if he couldn’t get her close enough. His tongue went deep, reminding her.

  Claire whimpered, tears burning her eyes as the wanting curled in her again, as hot and alive as it had ever been.

  Max pushed her away, breathing hard. “If you think that has anything to do with business, you’re a damned fool!” he said harshly and slammed out of the apartment as if he couldn’t trust himself to stay a minute longer.

  CHAPTER 10

  To her surprise, Claire was too busy during the following two weeks to feel much anxiety over her move to Dallas. Finding an apartment wasn’t easy—she spent hours inspecting and rejecting, getting lost time and again in the unfamiliar city but somehow having fun doing it. Alma, once she’d gotten over the shock of one of her daughters moving out of her immediate reach, threw herself into the apartment search with all her typical zest and spent days touring Dallas with Claire, ruthlessly hunting out any potential trouble spots in an apartment. Claire let her mother go on, amused by that overflow of energy. It was odd that the older she became, the closer Claire grew to her family. At some point, their beauty and self-confidence had ceased to intimidate her. She loved them and was proud of their accomplishments.

  Even Martine was dragged into the apartment hunting, and together they made a list of the most suitable locations then began narrowing the choices. Claire didn’t like the ultramodern condos, despite their conveniences, and though she hadn’t really considered a house, in the end it was a tiny, neat house that won over the apartments. The rent was remarkably reasonable because of its size. Getting it ready for Claire to move in became a major family project. Claire and her father repainted the rooms in white to make them seem larger, while Alma and Martine bought mate
rial and sewed curtains to fit the odd-size windows. Steve put new dead-bolt locks on the doors and locking screens on the windows, then sanded and polished the old-fashioned wooden floors. Brad and Cassie, the children, romped in the postage-stamp yard and appeared periodically with demands for sandwiches and Kool-Aid.

  On the day she moved in the entire house was in chaos, with the movers carting furniture and boxes in, while she and Alma and Martine tried to put everything in some sort of order. Harmon and Steve kept out of the decision-making, simply standing by to provide muscle if needed. Claire was headfirst in a box of books when a cool voice said from the door, “Would another pair of hands be welcome?”

  Claire straightened abruptly, her face still as she tried to deal with the way the sound of his voice affected her. For two weeks Max had been as polite as a stranger, and she had been tormented by a lingering sense of loss. The tumult of moving, with its mingled moments of hilarity and frustration, and her pure physical exhaustion from so much work, had buffered her somewhat from her thoughts, but there were still far too many moments when she wished she had never found out the truth about him, that the hurt and anger would all just go away. The distance between them the past two weeks had hurt, too, though she had tried to ignore it. Why had he shown up now, strolling into the middle of the overflowing mess with that indefinable grace of his?

  Harmon groaned, straightening from his task. “Another strong back is just what we need! Take the other end of this table—it weighs a ton.”

  Max picked his way over the cluttered floor to help Harmon lift the table and put it where Claire had directed. Alma sailed out of the kitchen, and a glowing smile broke over her face when she saw Max. “Oh, hello! Did you volunteer, or were you kidnapped?” she asked, going over to hug him.

  “I volunteered. You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen,” he said, smiling as he returned Alma’s hug.

  Claire turned back to the box of books she’d been unpacking, a tiny frown darkening her eyes. She hadn’t told Alma all the circumstances behind her move to Dallas, but neither had she thought that her family would be having any further contact with Max. Perhaps Martine had revealed some things, but Claire didn’t know and didn’t want to ask. Would Alma have been so friendly to Max if she had known the truth? This could be a little awkward—they knew Max as Max Benedict, but he was really Max Conroy. Should she let them continue thinking that was his name or reintroduce him? What could she say? “Conroy is Max’s real last name; he just uses Benedict as an alias occasionally.” She thought that Miss Manners probably hadn’t ruled on this particular situation, so she decided to say nothing.