Chapter Five
Lauren had chosen to wear a dress of violet silk for the de Sevile showing. It had life, even under electric lights, yet it was subtle enough to play off Carlos’s bold, dark colors and make a feminine statement. The silk was molded lovingly over Lauren’s breasts and draped her slender waist, moving into a delightful triple row of horizontal gathers above her neatly rounded hips. From there it fell softly to the floor. It was simple, feminine, and provocative. Lauren hoped it would show de Sevile’s heavy-handed designs for the unsuitable styles they were for most women in their thirties.
And this time, Lauren would be the one seated beside Mike. She wondered again what connection he had with the striking brunette who had been with him last night.
She brushed her golden hair until it shone, and did it up in a gleaming crown on her head. Adds a few inches, she thought, remembering the brunette’s tall, svelte figure. Violet silk shoes and a silk shawl completed her ensemble. She picked up the small clutch purse, just large enough for her tiny lipstick, handkerchief, and the key to the suite.
A knock on the door startled her. She went quickly to open it, a smile on her lips. Instead of Mike, Herbert stood before her.
“I’m giving you one last chance, Lauren. Either agree to marry me or take the consequences.”
“You know the answer to that, Herbert,” she said quietly. “We were never friends. You were Al’s friend. And we really don’t even like each other. Can’t we just let it drop?”
He glared at her. “So be it. You asked for whatever you get, lady.” He turned and strode away.
Lauren closed the door, suddenly afraid. Herbert, like Al, prided himself on never forgetting or forgiving an injury. Often she had heard them recounting, with heavy laughter, the way one or the other of them had paid off a score against someone. But what had she done to Herbert? Only been angry at his efforts to sabotage her showing. Was that a crime? Determinedly she put thoughts of the unpleasant incident out of mind. Herbert had no grievance against her. He would have a few drinks and forget all about her in the company of one of the younger women he favored.
She was making a final careful inspection of her person in the mirror when another knock sounded. This time she opened the door cautiously.
Mike waited outside, an exquisite, tiny purple orchid in his hand. He presented it with a bow. “I was sure your choice tonight would be your signature color. This matches your eyes.” He bent to tie the velvet ribbon carefully around her waist.
“You knew enough not to bring me something I’d have to pin on a shoulder.” Lauren laughed, beaming with pleasure in the tiny, exquisite bloom.
“And thus ruin a costume over which you had spent hours?” He grinned. “Pin holes in that silk? Sacrilege.”
“You are the perfect escort,” Lauren told him, fluttering her lashes absurdly.
The wretch fluttered his right back at her. “And you, my dear, the perfect escortee. Now we’ve got that off our chests, permit me to take you up to Carlos’s tent-show. There’ll be enough razzle-dazzle to satisfy everybody on board.”
“Mike, you said you worked with Landrill’s,” Lauren ventured, as they strolled to the elevator. “Carlos is one of Landrill’s designers. Shouldn’t you be defending him?”
“Why? If he’s good, he won’t need defense. If he’s not, he needs to be told!”
Lauren grinned. “Have you ever tried to tell our Spanish hidalgo anything? If so, how did you get him to listen?”
“Thank God I don’t have to work with him,” Mike said.
Lauren had to be satisfied with that, for there were other couples in the elevator, and no privacy. Mike led her to a seat near the front of the lounge, bordering on the runway.
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll get sideswiped by one of those eighty-pound skirts of the Sevillana collection?” teased Lauren, sotto voce.
“Meow!” her partner mocked. “Control your admiration, honey, or you’ll have me thinking you’re afraid of the guy!”
Lauren subsided, smiling. This man was something, she thought, glancing across at his big frame. He held himself well. He’d told her he was thirty-seven. It was a well-kept, trim, and vigorous body, nicely tanned but not playboy-teak; the face showing some laughter lines around the eyes and deep creases around the well-cut mouth, but no flab or fat. Lauren sighed. I hope he wants to mean something to me, she thought wistfully. Not just a shipboard romance.
With a wild flourish of toreador music, the de Sevile presentation began. Glancing around as the lights lowered, Lauren decided it was the largest attendance she had seen so far; whatever else he had, Carlos had a good publicity campaign. Just as she was bringing her gaze back to the stage, Lauren caught a flash of diamonds against black lace. It was the woman Mike had squired last night, the statuesque brunette. She leaned unobtrusively nearer.
“There’s a very beautiful brunette staring at you from the row just behind us,” she whispered. “Should you speak to her?”
Mike turned casually, spotted the woman, and waved nonchalantly. Turning back, he grinned down at Lauren. “Jealous?”
“Should I be?” Lauren asked lightly.
“It all depends,” the wretched man taunted. “Now watch the show, Mrs. Rose, honey. You might learn something from your competitor.”
“Like what?” Lauren gritted.
“Like how not to design clothes,” Mike said, obviously pleased with his own humor.
Lauren turned her attention to the runway, resolved to study the presentation with meticulous care. She knew she had much to learn, even from Carlos de Sevile, for he was a popular designer and famous among the “in” groups in the United States.
The show moved with slickly effective packing: Burlington casuals, Wimbledon tennis outfits, luncheon at Buck House, tea at Harrods, afternoon formals for the Queen’s Garden Party. . . .
“Carlos has gone British,” Lauren gasped.
Mike grinned at her in the semiglow of the dimmed lights. “His wily tribute to Cunard,” he murmured. “Carlos believes in grabbing on to a good thing.”
Lauren was silent as the lavish, overstated presentation swayed and wiggled and flounced itself to a conclusion, to the accompaniment of much heel-tapping and some rather tasteless reprises of British popular songs. The finale, called Royal Presentation, was intended to represent three debutantes being presented at the palace, with their fond mama as presenter. The mother looked, to Lauren’s jaundiced eye, to be no older than her daughters, and her gown was as laden with flounces and leathers as theirs. One costume even had a hoop to hold out the heavy skirt.
“I hope that thing’s on wheels,” Lauren muttered. “The poor model will never be able to swing it on her own.”
“Naughty, naughty,” Mike taunted. “Your professional jealousy is showing.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead presenting those clothes,” Lauren said, between her teeth. “You just wait until you see my designs.”
“I can hardly,” Mike admitted with a grin. “We have to stay here for a few minutes after the show,” he added, grinning. “To congratulate Carlos, you know.”
“You stay,” Lauren retorted. “I’ll meet you for dinner later.”
Mike stopped smiling. “That’s a promise,” he warned her. “Why don’t you grit your teeth and stay here with me? You won’t have to jump up and down, you know. Just be a good girl and tell Carlos nicely how pretty his dresses are.”
Lauren knew he was teasing her, but she couldn’t find the situation amusing. Carlos had snubbed and bad-mouthed her so arrogantly she wasn’t hypocrite enough to tell him she admired his heavily ornate costumes.
“Half an hour, in your suite,” she said, and got up to leave.
She had to move against the stream, as many of the audience were crowding up to the runaway to congratulate Carlos, who, resplendent in white tailcoat, was posing for pictures in a garland of his models. Lauren finally made her way out of the lounge, to be buttonholed by a young man she had seen the first evening at the cruise director’s meeting to set up the program. He was one of the polished youths who had fluttered around Carlos when the designer came to see what September Song was doing.
“Rose?” the young man said, placing himself in her way.
“I am Lauren Rose, yes,” she said quietly.
“Señor Carlos instructed me to warn you that nothing but a legitimate fashion show will be permitted.”
Lauren raised here eyebrows. “Indeed? What is that supposed to mean?”
“There have been rumors,” the youth explained loftily. “Word is out that you have some plan to put on a burlesque show tomorrow afternoon—”
“I’d never attempt to outburlesque the sideshow Carlos put on tonight,” Lauren said sweetly. “So vulgar it was almost classic.” She moved aside deftly. “Forgive me, will you? I need some Alka Seltzer.”
The youth stamped his foot petulantly, but Lauren moved away with a laugh. Who had run to Carlos with that bit of gossip? Dani? Nella? Not likely, although Dani might have discussed it in someone’s hearing. Herbert? Did he know? He had enough ill-will to invent such a story on even a hint of her plan. Did he have a hint? Surely not from Mike, who had said he despised Herbert. Shrugging, Lauren went down to her suite to freshen up before her dinner with Mike. She had hardly let herself into the sitting room when the phone rang. It was Tony, in a hurry.
“We’ve run into a snag,” he explained. “Can we borrow the clothes we are to wear, so I can check the choreography and timing?”
“Yes, of course,” Lauren answered. “I’m here for the next half-hour. Borrow a rack from the purser’s office. I’ll throw a sheet over it. Can you and Derek come right away?”
“See you,” Tony said briskly.
Within five minutes there was a subdued knock on the door. Lauren let the two men in and began transferring the clothes to their rack. As she hung up the jewel of her collection, she begged. “Please bring them back the minute you’ve finished?”
Derek looked grave. “It may be long after midnight. Will you mind waiting up to let us in?”
Lauren considered. She might very likely be in Mike’s suite at that hour. She couldn’t risk having the men wake Dani or Nella. Reluctantly she made up her mind to a rather dangerous course of action.
“Keep the clothes overnight. Have you some safe place to lock them up? Don’t leave them in the gym.”
“Violet and I have a small cabin, but it’s all ours.” Derek grinned. “I’ll sit up all night with a shotgun.”
“Do that,” Lauren smiled, watching Tony roll the sheet-covered rack to the outer door. “I appreciate all you’re doing for me.
“Think nothing of it,” Derek whispered, helping Tony out the door with the rack. “See you at eight sharp, luv.”
Lauren washed her face, freshened her makeup, and took her hair down out of its coronet. She brushed it until it shone, and let it flow softly to her shoulders. Then she tied a narrow violet silk scarf around it to hold it off her face. Finally, she donned a dark-purple cape lined with mauve silk.
There could be no all-night meeting tonight. She had to be at the early rehearsal the next day, functioning well. Nothing must stand in the way of the agreement she had made with the Cunard Company to present the very best show of which she was capable. This was her priority: even love—if it was love between Mike and herself—must wait until she had kept her promise.
Pulling the cape more closely about her shoulders, she left the suite, locking the door carefully and securely behind her.
She walked up the stairs to Mike’s suite, reluctant for some reason to use the elevators. As she approached his rooms, she could hear music and laughter. Was Mike entertaining others besides herself? Frowning, Lauren hesitated near the outer door of his suite. A laughing couple, coming up behind her, forced her to step aside. They rapped lightly on the door and went in, leaving it ajar. A babble of talk, laughter, shouts and music flooded the hallway. The sitting room was crowded. In a momentary gap caused by the movement of the crowd, Lauren caught a flash of Mike. He was standing with a champagne glass in his hand, talking to the statuesque brunette and Carlos de Sevile.
Lauren turned away and went back down the corridor. This time she took the elevator to her own deck. She had a fleeting wish to seek the dark serenity outside, but her heart was too sore.
She undressed quietly after locking the outside door, and tried to get to sleep. Eight o’clock would come soon enough and the models must be roused and fed by seven at the latest. This was much better, she decided. She had been foolish to think of spending several hours with Mike tonight, with her show set for the next day. Why had she even considered it?
Because you are a fool, she told herself harshly. Thinking you had found the perfect mate, a man you could love with all your heart and mind and body, when in fact all you have found is a man who can’t even remember he has invited you to dine in his suite. Of course, a man-of-the-world isn’t looking for a romantic attachment. One-night stand is more his style, she lashed herself. Isn’t it about time you acted your age, woman? A man with his virile charm doesn’t have to settle for some thirty-five-year-old widow. He’s more likely to marry the Dark Lady whose diamonds and costumes bespoke both taste and breeding. At which point she began to cry, soundlessly, bitterly, into her pillow.
And the telephone beside her bed rang.
She wouldn’t have answered it, except that she was afraid the ringing would wake the models. She lifted the receiver.
“Yes?” she said, in a small, husky voice.
“You’re late,” Mike said quietly in her ear.
“I’m surprised you missed me in that crush,” Lauren heard herself saying.
There was a slight pause, and then he said, “I’ve got rid of them now, Lauren. Come to dinner. It’s waiting to be served.”
Lauren felt very contrary. “Why should I?”
“Because I’m hungry,” Mike said, in a surprised voice.
Lauren couldn’t help herself. She chuckled softly.
“That’s better,” he said smugly. “C’mon up.”
“I’m in bed,” she said ungraciously.
“Shall I come down?” he asked.
“I’ll come,” Lauren groaned softly. “There’s no food here, and I’m hungry, too.”
Mike hung up with a laugh, and Lauren got up and dressed again. This time she put on a dark purple suit with a mauve silk shirt. If she was going to come back after midnight, she told herself, she wasn’t going to look like Cinderella. This was the suit she had intended wearing for the rehearsal, but she refused to let herself consider the implications of that. She did not intend to spend the night with Mike; it was just that she’d already laid out these clothes for the morning. They were handier.
Who am I kidding? She thought as she relocked the outside door and took the elevator up to Mike’s deck. The door was closed this time and no sounds of revelry came from behind it. Lauren knocked softly. The door swung open. A steward was busy clearing away glasses and trays of hors d-oeuvres, napkins and ashtrays. Mike held his hand out with a warm smile.
“Welcome to the battlefield. Henry swears he’ll have this mess cleaned up in five minutes, and have our dinner set up in five more.” He drew her inside and closed the door as he spoke.
Henry was as good as his word. Within five minutes he had the sitting room clean and the terrace doors standing open to air away the fumes of cigars and cigarettes. He rolled the refuse out on his trolley. Mike took Lauren out onto the deck to watch the waves as they raced past.
“This is where I wanted to be,” Lauren confessed. “I was . . . a little surprised to find out that you’d invited so many guests to dinner.”
“In the first place, I didn’t invite them,” Mike said with a wry expression. “Knowing Carlos, you should be able to reconstruct that script. He just swept everyone along on the wave of his own bumptious self-interest. You know he works for Landrill’s. I owed him a celebration after his ‘triumph,’ I believe was the way he put it. He even invited all the judges.”
“Did they come?” Lauren was fascinated, at such one-upmanship.
“Reb Crowell did. He loves the scent of a story. The others properly refused him, apparently. Carlos said something about uppercrust snobbery, which ill-suits his claims to be a member of the minor nobility himself. He’s as vulgar as his designs.”
“You’d think Landrill’s would get rid of him,” Lauren said waspishly.
“His contract doesn’t run out until next year,” Mike informed her.
“How did you get rid of them all?” Lauren was curious. The last time she’d seen this room, it was crowded with zealous merrymakers.
“I told them about the big party Landrill’s had arranged to celebrate Carlos’s showing. We’ve taken over the Players Club for the rest of the night, in case anyone wants to gamble; a buffet supper is being served in the Queen’s Grill, dancing later on the Lido Deck. Carlos couldn’t resist the splash—a de Sevile Night on the QE II. He’ll probably spend the rest of it running from one place to another to collect applause. And how do you expect to spend the rest of the night?” He put the simple question to her with devastating unexpectedness.
The man was taking an unfair advantage, Lauren thought, by sneaking in that particular question. He was standing over her, so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body and the strength of his virile attraction. She had never seen anything as sensual as his smile. It was a hard, wolfish grin, revealing his white teeth, those teeth that had closed so gently over her earlobes, her lower lip, her nipples . . .
Lauren closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think of what had happened after he had roused her nipples to hard, rosy buttons. No man had ever before touched her that way, evoked in her that amazing, unexpected thrill that had pierced her whole body with a pleasure as sharp as pain.
Mike would not permit her to withdraw. He took her in his arms, pulled her close to his big, warm body. Lauren shivered.
He set her free at once. “Are you cold? We’ll go back inside.”
When they were once more in the softly lighted sitting room, Lauren expected Mike would take her in his arms again. Instead, he took a cigarette from a box and lit it, watching her, frowning.
“What is it?” she asked somewhat nervously.
“It’s that damned suit. More like a coat of mail. Why did you change out of that sexy thing you had on for the show? I was looking forward to taking it off you, very slowly. And with appropriate ceremonies.”
Lauren couldn’t meet the wicked provocation in his face. Nor could she think of anything to say. Any bits of bright repartee she might have come up with to divert his intent assault on her senses had vanished. His keen gray eyes were too knowledgeable to be fobbed off with anything but the truth. Lauren, completely aware of every inch of his splendid body, was completely vulnerable to him. They both knew she would do anything he asked of her.
Henry entered then with the food trolley, saving her for the moment. Grinning at her obvious relief, Mike ushered her into her chair across from his at the round table. Henry had set it out with crisp linen and heavy silver and a vase containing a single rose. Lauren noticed Mike’s glance traveling from the flower to Henry’s imperturbable face. It was evident that the steward’s sense of occasion amused her host.
The meal was actually a rather silent one. The food was superb, as it had been the night before. In fact, Lauren commented that she had never had a poor meal on the ship. Mike treated this diversionary remark with smiling silence. To her surprise, Lauren did full justice to each course, including the coffee and the dessert, a meringue cup filled with dark cherries and whipped cream
Mike settled her on the big couch and handed her a liqueur. “To relax you.” He grinned ominously. Henry said good night.
Lauren faced him at last—this big, smooth, inscrutable man who had become, in the space of four days, incredibly important in her life. And then she surprised herself.
“Who is the brunette with the diamonds?” she heard herself asking.
Mike seemed less surprised at the question than Lauren was. “Her name is Buffy Hardacre Landrill. She’s the temporary sister-in-law of the owner.”
“Temporary?”
“She’s in the process of getting a divorce from Christopher Landrill. All very amicable and, of course, lucrative for the lady.”
Lauren frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“My dear, the laborer is worthy of her hire,” Mike said in a mocking tone that disturbed Lauren. She wished she had never brought up the subject. Still, she had, and now she must pursue it.
“I’m not interested in the marital affairs of the Landrills,” she explained. “I meant your tone was so . . . cynical. All women are not just out for what they can get, you know. Some of us take pride in our own independence.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a libber,” Mike taunted. “One look at you and a man knows how delightfully you could cling.”
“I am a responsible professional woman,” Lauren protested, angrier than she wanted to be. Clinging vine, indeed. “You do know I am the designer for September Song line, don’t you? A successful businesswoman? And I didn’t get there hanging on some man’s coat sleeve.”
Mike laughed. “I’m not talking about your business experience, which is more than admirable. I’m referring to your way with a man you take a fancy to.”
“There’s only been Al,” Lauren told him. “I don’t sleep around.” And then she was horrified to feel a hot blush mount to her cheeks. Had she not just spent the previous night sleeping in Mike’s bed? She raised anguished eyes to meet his gaze. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean.” The cynical note had gone out of his voice and he smiled at her lazily. “And that means that you must have felt something special about us?”
Lauren nodded. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
Mike sipped at his liqueur. He wasn’t smiling now, Lauren noticed. After a minute he said, “We need to talk about this. First, I must tell you that seldom, if ever, have I felt—” He paused, frowned, then said in a very different voice, “What a pompous ass I sound. Meeting your splendid honesty with such an absurdity! I know damn well I’ve never felt this way before, even when I was married. Especially when I was married,” he concluded grimly.
Lauren stared at him, her heart in her eyes. He came to sit down beside her, took the glass from her fingers, kissed her hard yet sweetly on the lips, murmured, “Tasty,” and then took her hand.
“I’m going to tell you the story of my life, he began, reaching for a lighter note. “Specifically, my married life. I was twenty-six, graduated from Harvard, and postgrad USC, when I met Lilith. Lilith Delmar,” he explained.
Lauren had heard—who had not? —of the beautiful starlet whose sexual prowess had quite outshone her acting ability. Seven husbands—had Mike indeed been one of them? Lauren cast her mind back, trying to remember their names.
Mike shook his head, well aware of her confusion, “I’ll tell you. She was just seventeen at the time, and I was her first husband. Michael Landrill.”
Lauren drew in a sharp breath. No wonder Mike had one of the best suites on the splendid liner. Entrepreneur and talent scout indeed! But not as visible as some other multimillionaires, it seemed. Lauren couldn’t ever recall having seen a photo of him in a newspaper or magazine. But Mike was going on.
“The charming Lilith stayed married to me for a year. By that time I was more than happy to pay the five million dollars she demanded to let me divorce her. It took quite a while for the wounds to heal.” He looked at Lauren. “That’s when I decided never to get caught in that particular trap again. You might say, once married, twice shy.”
“I can understand that,” Lauren said quietly. It was odd how quietly one’s dream house can shatter and fall.
“I’m not against marriage as a general thing, for the propagation and protection of children. But I’m not sure I’ve the patience or the zest to be a father, and I wouldn’t hamper a child with an uncaring parent. I’ve had that experience also.”
Lauren was thinking that one would never know, to look at this fine man, that he was carrying such deep and still-painful scars. Uncaring parents, a vicious wife—what else could have happened?
Mike told her. “My younger brother, Chris, met and married Buffy when he still in college. She encouraged him to drop out so that she could enjoy the ski-and-sun-fun life. He was badly injured at Gstaad last year and that gave Buffy her way out. Her lawyers and mine are negotiating the settlement now. I’m keeping my mouth shut until we have her signature on the dotted line, for Chris’s sake. None of us want her to have second thoughts and decide to stay married to him.”
There was a small silence, not comfortable. Then Lauren said, “Your brother and you have had a nasty experience with marriage. I can understand your refusal ever to be trapped again. My marriage, I’m coming to see, was unsatisfying on many levels. Still, I believe in marriage as a good way of life.” She tried to smile. “I guess I’m just a cockeyed optimist!”
Mike frowned. “No recriminations because I didn’t tell you my whole name sooner? No tears that I made love to you last night without a permanent relationship in mind? You are an unusual woman, Lauren.”
Although he said it gently enough, Lauren sensed the deep wariness, the unhealed hurt behind the words. She gave him her best smile. “I wanted to make love to you as much as you needed me,” she said quietly. “It was the most perfect thing that’s ever happened to me, and I have no regrets. I hadn’t planned on a—a shipboard romance when I came on the Queen, but I wouldn’t have it different. And now I think I’ll go along, Mike. I’ve got a dress rehearsal at eight o’clock, and my show hits the runway at two o’clock sharp.” She got to her feet. She was shakier than she’d expected. She covered her slight stagger with a chuckle. “Too much of that good liqueur. Thank you for a wonderful dinner. And good night.”
Mike was beside her, towering over her, his forehead creased into a thunderous frown. “What do you mean, good night? You’re staying here with me. I haven’t had enough of you yet.”
Lauren saw the anger, hurt, and suspicion he was covering with the arrogant demand. She wasn’t a promiscuous woman. The very idea of a one-night stand was abhorrent to her. And yet this was Mike, of the big, warm hands that had gently dried her feet; Mike, who had held off his own satisfaction for a long time while he brought Lauren to a full and delicious consummation. This was the man she could talk to, laugh with, be comfortable with. Love.
Her smile was natural and tender this time. “Of course, I’m staying,” she said softly.
Mike’s body relaxed, but he still had the wary expression on his face. “Want any more to drink or eat?”
Lauren shook her head, patting her stomach ruefully. “It’s lucky I’m not needed to model the clothes tomorrow. I’m sure I’ve gained five pounds since we left New York.”
Mike grinned and caught her up in his arms, swinging her off her feet and against his chest. He grinned, then mimed a stagger. “Phew! Closer to fifty pounds, Mrs. Rose. We’ll have to work some of that off right now.”
Looking up into his glinting gray eyes, set in their fan-shaped laugh wrinkles, Lauren realized that she loved him. Even his would-be-lecherous jokes seemed funny to her. So he didn’t want to take a chance on being hurt again. She could understand that, although she didn’t think there was much similarity between herself and a greedy, shallow seventeen-year-old starlet. But Mike had his brother’s failed marriage, and apparently an unhappy childhood, fixed in his mind as the inevitable result of marriage. It wasn’t inevitable, but Lauren could understand his bias. He’d been taught in a hard school. She looked up into his face and knew she would never deliberately hurt him.
When he put her down beside his bed, he sat on the side of it and drew her in between his thighs. For a moment he stared up into her face, a questioning look so plain that Lauren impulsively pulled his head gently against her body.
“I love you, Mike.”
He became very still in her arms. Then he leaned back and stared at her face. This time there was a hard, cold doubt in his expression.
“Is this a pity trip, Lauren?” he asked sharply. “If so, I don’t want any part of it.”
“Pity? For whom?” Lauren scoffed lovingly. “You know better than that, Mr. Gorgeous Mike Landrill. You were here last night. It was Christmas and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July rolled into one package.”
A grin broke slowly over Mike’s face. “You do know how to make a man feel good, Lauren Rose,” he said softly. He stood up and led her back to the sitting room.
Lauren went reluctantly. She had brought herself to the point of accepting what he was able to offer her, and now it seemed as though he was having second thoughts.
“Is something wrong?” she asked nervously.
“We’ve got to talk,” he said in that deep, abrasive voice that set her nerves to tingling. “I have a special feeling for you, Lauren, but I’m not sure what it is. I sure as hell know what I don’t want: marriage with you or any other woman.” He brooded for a moment over the idea. “I might conceivably decide to get married someday, just to have a son, but I can’t imagine doing it in this decade, and by that time you’d be too old for safe child-bearing. Although you might have made a good mother if you hadn’t been a professional woman.” He scanned her face and body darkly.
Lauren felt as though she had received a blow in the stomach. How casually he had just cast away a dream of hers, as if it were already too late for her. He couldn’t know how cruelly his remark had hurt. For years she had tried to coax Al to start a family. He had always said kids were a nuisance, that neither of them had time, especially with her work, to being them up. He always managed to have a crisis or a problem about the work to turn aside her plea. She turned her head away.
He seated her at one corner of the couch and took a chair across from her. After a long, probing glance, he said, “All right, Lauren, tell me what you expect from me.”
Lauren’s head came up proudly. “I don’t expect anything, Mike Landrill. I knew from the beginning that this was just a shipboard romance, a fling for you.” It seemed that that rankled; she hoped her voice hadn’t given her away. She tried for a sophisticated smile as she concluded, “I expect you to say, ‘Thank you, Lauren-baby, for a lovely—a lovely . . .’ ” To her horror, she couldn’t complete the flip little sentence.
Mike was staring hard at her. “You know neither of us feels that way about what’s happened. Tell me what you really think about us, Lauren.”
She had to pull herself together and answer honestly as a woman.
“I think you’ll have to make your own decision about what you want from our—our coming together on this ship and finding a mutual attraction. I can’t impose my standards on you.” She was trying to think her position through and explain it to him. She was happy to see that he was listening carefully, his eyes intent on her. She went on, slowly, “I’ve been married, and only now am I beginning to realize how unsatisfactory it was. Now that I’ve found something so much better.” She smiled at him warmly. “It seems to me that people go through the motions—courtship, engagement party, wedding with gifts and guests and a reception and a honeymoon—all as if it’s a sort of tribal custom. And somewhere there, the way the two people feel about each other gets lost. They’ve signed a life contract without reading the fine print, without considering the real reasons why a man and a woman would want to commit themselves. Sexual attraction, yes. We know how potent that can be.” She gave him a slow sensuous smile that left him grinning. “But it’s got to be more than sex. What would motivate a person to commit himself for life to some other person?”
“Now you’re stating my point of view,” Mike said. “People grow and change. Nothing remains the same. Why make promises you know you can’t keep?”
Lauren nodded briefly. “I seem to have talked myself out of what my friends call ‘a relationship.’ ”
Mike shook his head. “No, you’ve talked yourself out of the naïve romanticism of marry-and-live-happily-ever-after.” He got up and came to sit beside her: He took her hand and turned her to face him. “But you haven’t told me how you feel about some sort of a—a partnership with me. What do you see for us, Lauren?”
“I guess I haven’t finished stating my position,” Lauren said. She looked at him, and a bitter smile tugged at her lips. “One thing I never thought I’d do was enter into an academic discussion of the kind of affair I’d be willing to engage in. And yet I’m glad we had this talk, Mike. Because I’ve discovered that, much as I believe I’ve fallen in love with you”—she twisted her soft lips cynically over the phrase—“I’m not ready to have a brief, sexual fling or even a longer-term liaison with you. I’m being as honest as I can, Mike,” she said as he became hard-faced. “I’ll wait for another idiotic romantic like myself, I think. A man who can visualize living with me, sharing the hard going, reveling in the good times, facing the challenges that might break up two less caring people. Making it work, Mike. It’s not easy, but I know one thing. And it’s thanks to you that I finally understand it.”
“And what’s that?” His voice was harsh, angry.
“That you have to care more about the other person’s pain than about your own. Isn’t it crazy?” she asked. “That old chestnut—‘it hurts me more than it does you’—it’s true, Mike. I think that’s what love means to me: that I would rather be hurt than let my loved one suffer.” She got up at his shuttered expression with rueful eyes. “I’ve sounded like a prig or a schoolgirl, I know. But that’s the way it is for me. I guess I’ve got to have a man who wants me in the same way I want him.”
“With a marriage license in one hand and a ring on the other,” Mike said bitterly. “I thought we had something less commercial than that going for us.”
Lauren frowned. “You’ve missed my point. It’s not commercial—it’s sacred, a dedication. The ring is a vow, not a payment. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”
Mike could see just how much she meant her words by the look of pain and regret on her face. He said shrewdly, “If you love me with the sort of love you claim, and don’t want to see me suffer, then you’ll stay with me tonight. Because if you don’t, I’m going to suffer in more ways than one.” He took her slowly into his arms and bent his head to take her lips with his mouth, at first gently, and then, as he felt her response, with increasing arrogance, moving one hand inside her jacket to grasp her breast.
Conquered as much by love as by his use of her own argument, Lauren allowed herself to enter into the kiss fullheartedly. She did love Mike, whatever that meant to either of them. She wanted to satisfy his body, comfort his ego, make him feel strong and desirable and wanted. She gave herself ardently to the kiss, putting her arms around his shoulders and stroking as much of him as she could reach. She melded herself against his hardness, pressed her breasts and hips against him softened her lips and opened them to his demanding mouth. She could feel his excitement burning hotter as her surrender roused him.
“Do you want me, Lauren?” he demanded, raising his dark head.
“I love you,” she said softly. She wouldn’t compromise.
The man stared into her face, reading the clear dedication there. Slowly he let her go, turned, and walked over to the door leading to the terrace. “It’s gone flat, hasn’t it? We’ve talked away the lovely lust we felt for each other. Was last night just a lucky fluke?” He was refusing to look at her, failing to see the steady light in her eyes. He shrugged. “Well, perhaps it was too much to expect, that anything that good could be repeated. I’ll see you to your cabin.”
“No, thank you.” Lauren couldn’t believe how calm her quiet voice was sounding, while, inside, something was tearing with a pain so hard it made her dizzy. “I’d rather go alone.”
She heard his door close before she was three steps along the corridor. He wasn’t going to come after her, pull her into his arms, tell her that it was all a mistake, that he loved her . . .
It was over.