A Daring Proposition (13 page)

He was stronger than she was, and drunk and insane, yet she kept believing he would stop, that he would never do this to her. But there had come a point when she knew, she no longer had a chance of escaping from him, and the fear and horror were so great that her mind simply went blank. Responding to her instinct for survival, she lay still and closed her eyes, willing herself not to be sick, afraid he might kill her if she was. Her sudden lack of struggle saved her. The hands mauled her, intimately hurting, deliberately and viciously intent on rape. But he could not. She was not experienced enough in the ways of men to understand that her struggles had excited him, and her passivity unmanned him. She only knew that as long as she lay there and did absolutely nothing, he would not complete the final act of degradation.

Her stepfather raged, screamed, blaming her for his own failure. She opened her eyes, unable to hide the contempt and hatred she felt for him. He slapped one cheek and then the other, back and forth, back and forth. Instinct told her to remain still; even as her mind screamed with pain—a long, endless scream that no one ever heard.

“Oh, my God! No more! I can’t take any more!”

“Leigh!”

Relief at having been startled from the nightmare was accompanied by huge shudders racking her body. There were no tears. There hadn’t been any tears in a long time.

Brian’s hand reached for her shoulders to pull her closer, and she jerked away. “Oh, God, don’t touch me!” In a moment, she could feel his weight lifted from the bed and she was alone. She realized then that Brian must have carried her from the couch to the bedroom, but she didn’t dwell on the thought. She huddled into a ball, trying to feel warm again, waiting for the shaking to stop. She took deep breaths of air, her heart thudding so fast it was an active pain in her chest.

It startled her anew when he returned and switched on the bedside lamp.

“Please,” she whispered.

He switched it off again and crossed the room to raise the window shades instead. The glistening reflection of moonlight on snow turned the room from black to light charcoal. He approached the bed, lifting her up to a sitting position with no-nonsense firmness, then folding both her hands around a warm mug. “Drink it,” he ordered. “Now, Leigh.”

The hot milk was calming, soothing, and she drank it all. He took the mug from her hands and she covered her face with trembling fingers. She felt the weight of his body on the other side of the bed, and with her hands still over her eyes she was shifted into the cradle of his shoulder, her legs remaining tucked up to her chest. She was a mindless ball of shuddering, but gradually the warmth of his body infused a feeling of life into her, and the shuddering passed.

“That’s the nightmare, is it?” he asked quietly. “The one Robert referred to. At the time, I conjectured it had to do with the death of a lover, but it’s something else—worse—isn’t it?”

She nodded. The shadows of it still encroached on her consciousness.

“Tell me, Leigh,” he said gently.

She couldn’t. It was bad enough to relive the trauma in nightmares without having to think it through in reality. And she couldn’t tell Brian. Not Brian. Her voice was husky and bitter. “Telling isn’t going to make it go away.”

But he wasn’t going to let her go until she obeyed. He’d already gotten a hint from her frantic whimperings when she was still asleep. Even to her own ears, Leigh’s voice sounded ragged as she told him the story as if it had happened to someone else; it
had
happened to someone else. She was no longer that innocent girl on that long-ago night, and she never could be again.

When she’d finally gotten away from her stepfather, she had pulled together a blanket and robe and hidden in Robert’s apartment, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She hadn’t awakened him, just slept on the floor by the old man’s bed. But when he woke in the morning and saw her… “He tried to get me to go to a doctor, but I wouldn’t. What was the point?” she said to Brian. “They were just bruises, a few cuts.”

The words tumbled out, in almost incoherent whispers, an avalanche she could not stop. “The worst of it was that nothing changed. I made up a story for my mother when she got home, told her a purse-snatcher had scuffled with me. I couldn’t tell her the truth. He was her husband. And I couldn’t just run. Oh, I could have—but I wasn’t of age yet, and the trust fund and the house I had inherited from my father wouldn’t be mine until then. How could I live? And my mother might have guessed if I threw it all away, so I…managed. I was never again alone in the house with him; for that matter, I was rarely in the house at all.” She shook her head bitterly, laughter bubbling hysterically in her throat. “The gay socialite!”

The laughter died. “It wasn’t the same, going out. All the boys I’d always known and gone with before…now I would look at one and all I could see was whether or not he was stronger than I was, because whether or not he seemed nice didn’t seem to matter anymore. David had always seemed very nice—too nice, too charming—and my mother used to complain that I wasn’t grateful enough for his kindness.”

Brian was smoothing her hair back from her forehead, a hypnotically gentle motion that she was almost unaware of, but she was beginning to be aware of the way she was nestled against him, of his arm stretched across the front of her. He had pajama bottoms on, but no top, and his chest gleamed white in the moonlight, accenting the dark patches of curling hair. She closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. “It was more than a year later that they were killed in a car crash. I dropped out from their kind of life. I made my own. I was angry with myself because I couldn’t seem to get over it, couldn’t stop the panic when any man but Robert touched me.” She took a breath. “And then, when I was a senior in college, I met Peter.” Haltingly, she described their relationship, and their break-up.

“And you believed him when he said you must be frigid. You thought that what happened with your stepfather had made you that way.” His voice was strangely gritty and low. She glanced at him, and saw that his dark eyes were fathomless and the rigidity of his expression was a denial of his gentle, soothing touch. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that Peter was to blame? That a more experienced, more sensitive lover might have sensed your fears, would in any case have waited until you were ready—would have known how to make you ready. I don’t believe in frigid women, Leigh, only inept men.”

“Poor Peter. He loved me.” She hesitated, uncertain why the muscles in his chest went taut. She leaned forward suddenly, her hair swinging in a tousled curtain that covered her face. His arm followed her, his hand reaching to massage her spine. She was so emotionally exhausted that she was barely conscious. “I’m glad you don’t love me,” she murmured.

His fingers stilled. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“That it would matter so much, if you cared that way,” she whispered, her head bent. “I couldn’t… You see, if you change your mind, you can always just leave. I’d never hold you to—”

“Red.” The growl in his voice startled Leigh. “If this is your weekly offer to set me free, save it for once, would you?” Swiftly, she felt the pillows and covers being rearranged behind her.

“I just want you to understand,” she started hesitantly, wearily. “Your needs may change, Brian, but mine won’t, and I don’t ever want you to feel tied to me.”

“I have this picture of you. After it happened. Worrying about your mother and worrying about Robert, worrying about everyone around you.” Firmly, he shifted her down into the cocoon of covers again, his hands possessive. “Who the hell took care of you when you needed it? All this time…” One arm folded beneath her and the other rearranged the covers to her chin, then crept under them to rest like a warm, firm weight on her rib cage. The vibrant tension in his voice had startled her, and now it suddenly disappeared. “You’re never going to dream about it again, Leigh,” he promised her solemnly. “You’re safe, and you’re going to stay that way. And right now you need to sleep.”

His hand burned like fire, resting beneath the firm swell of her breasts, but she couldn’t move and could no longer even think. The release of emotions had been exhausting, and in its place was a new vulnerability that cried out for protection. Involuntarily, she moved her own hand to cover his, and his palm curled around the silk-covered breast. She felt the sudden constriction in his thighs even as the rest of his body relaxed, cradling her closer. She was aware of the current, aware that this time she had even initiated it, and aware as she had never been in her life of the intimate feel of a man’s body next to hers. But it was not “a man.” It was Brian—
his
hard thighs spooned under hers,
his
warm wall of chest molding to her back,
his
hand, possessive and protective. She wanted him there, beside her; she needed him. And for a single moment before she fell asleep, almost desperately, she even wanted him.

Two weeks later Leigh was standing in the dining room with a ladle in her hand, staring down into the porcelain bowl of vichyssoise. After a moment, she blinked, glanced quickly out the window and then spooned up a dish for Robert. “Would you tell me why I made this?” she inquired of him absently. “It’s supposed to be so gourmet, but all it reminds me of is gruel. I’ve never even liked it.
Why?
”

Robert’s eyes twinkled in the chandelier’s light; outside was a howling blizzard—snow hurling at the windows and wind shrieking around corners. “Because you know I like it. And so does Brian.”

“Well, Brian won’t be home. He’s got more sense than to drive in this weather. He’ll stay in town,” she said firmly.

Robert shook his head. “He’ll be home, Leigh.” The words were barely out before the front door opened with a whistle of wind they could hear in the dining room. “See, honey?”

The lighthearted smile disappeared from her face as she started to lay a third place for dinner. She was furious with herself for having worried about Brian for the past three hours, furious with him for driving in the blizzard. Flicking her hair back from her face, she carted the rest of the dinner to the dining room with hot pads, and by the time she took off the apron that protected her blue cotton shirtwaist, Brian was there in the doorway.

His hair was still glistening with dampness, the impassive features he’d worn since their return from Minnesota reddened by the cold. In a dark charcoal suit, he evoked the most visceral kind of sexuality. Every time he walked into a room, she felt the vibrations intensely, just as she felt the neutral mask he’d deliberately worn lately. And it hurt. It hurt like hell.

It shocked her, having to face up to how much she cared. She’d always known what he didn’t want from her, just as she knew what she wasn’t capable of giving him. But after Christmas—not just the release and closeness she’d felt after telling him her story, but all of it, the tenderness and sharing, his sexual teasing that one morning—she’d expected something when they got home that simply wasn’t there. Had it really been just a holiday game for him, an act for his family? And her story, her sordid little story, was he now experiencing some sort of revulsion toward her because of it? Had he decided that the cool, independent woman he’d thought he’d married was in reality a hopeless neurotic? And was he merely biding his time, plotting his escape from their marriage?

She didn’t want to push anything. All she really wanted, she thought fleetingly, was not to lose him. To have him in her life.

“I knew you’d make it by dinner,” Robert told Brian with satisfaction. “Leigh was worried sick.”

“Robert, were you one of those kids who always told tales in school?” Leigh wondered aloud as she seated herself and started passing the dishes, avoiding Brian’s eyes.

“Speaking of getting into hot water, Robert, I’m about to get into a bit of some myself. With the silent redhead over here,” Brian remarked.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Robert advised obligingly.

“Would the two of you rather I ate in the kitchen? Because if it’s going to be one of those two-against-one nights…”

Brian ignored her, speaking directly to Robert. “It seems I’ve been roped into a two-week trip to Florida—actually, the Keys. We’ve been hired to submit a design for a motel complex. It’s a challenging business, building anything down there. The ground’s mostly coral base.” He shrugged, rolling up his sleeves as he prepared to tackle the meal. “For now, it’s just two weeks of discussions. But if I actually get the bid, it would mean being down there for at least two months. Actual construction might call for design changes on the spot, depending on what they find underground.”

He continued to talk about the project through dinner, with Robert asking interested questions. All Leigh could think of was what it would be like without him for two weeks, much less two months or more. Perhaps he had contrived the project deliberately as a means of getting away from her.

“Well, that’s all fine and good,” he was saying now. “The condominium’s right on the oceanfront, a good-sized place—I
hate
motels when I’m working. But I happen to need a chief cook and bottle-washer—in exchange for a spot of fun in the sun. Only redheads need apply, of course.”

Leigh’s eyes darted up warily, noting the glint in his eyes, directed deliberately and solely at Robert. “No,” she said simply, suddenly understanding. She was not going anywhere alone with him, not again, not now that he knew. She recalled what he had said about Peter, about a more experienced, more sensitive lover. She had no intention of letting him try to “cure” her, and blow apart their whole relationship. Survival mattered, and she knew that neither she nor their marriage could survive the debacle that was certain to occur.

Brian carted his plate to the kitchen, returning with the coffeepot, still looking only at Robert. “I don’t have time to cook or iron shirts. That’s insulting, of course—female stereotypes and all that. And then Red’s tight with a dollar, Robert, we both know that. Plane fare, a few summer clothes—we have to worry about these pennies. God knows how, between our two paltry incomes, we could scrape up a little vacation. And of course she won’t want to leave
you
…”

Robert was already chuckling. “John can stay here. He cheats at cribbage, but I guess I could put up with him for a couple of weeks.”

“No,” Leigh repeated, still pleasantly.

“Then there’s sheer bullheadedness. We’re undoubtedly going to argue the advantages of slush and subzero temperatures over eighty-degree days, sunny and dry.”

She opened her mouth and closed it when Robert frowned deeply at her. From Robert’s viewpoint, of course, she should want to be with her husband. Leigh got up from the table, nearly tripping over the patiently waiting puppy as she took their plates to the kitchen. Monster followed, woofing politely in case she had forgotten the table scraps she wasn’t supposed to give him. He woofed just as politely every night to be let out of the kitchen so he could sleep under her bed. She knelt, feeding the pup tidbits of steak, feeling a ridiculous turmoil inside. What was Brian up to now? Had she let her imagination run away with her? Maybe he did need someone to run a bit of housekeeping interference for him, but she doubted it. Maybe he felt he had to keep an eye on her because of the pregnancy. That seemed more likely. Still…

It didn’t matter why. She was vulnerable. She wanted to feel less of that, not more. She couldn’t risk any more private time with Brian. “And there really isn’t any other reason why he would want me to come, anyway,” she whispered to the ecstatic puppy.

“Oh, yes there is, Red.” He stood in the doorway, the night shadows behind him hiding the expression on his face. Startled and embarrassed, she glanced up, seeing the same night shadows in his eyes, gravely intent on hers as she drew the puppy protectively closer to her. “I need you, Leigh,” he said lightly, but all of the teasing was gone from his look.

She bit on the inside of her lip, staring at him, and then bent to stroke the puppy’s soft, wooly neck. How did he do it? Because she knew then that despite her misgivings and dread, she would go to the Keys with him.

***

The condominium was the opposite of what Leigh had expected. She had heard Florida was a retired man’s paradise, where condos and trailer parks vied for space with tourist-attracting motels. The condominium that Brian anticipated living in for two weeks was a playboy’s hideaway, with a sunken living room and creamy thick carpet throughout. A smoky-mirrored bar and hidden lighting added to the image, not to mention the master bedroom with its king-sized bed mounted on a pedestal and graced with satin sheets and a furry scarlet cover.

The place was stocked with linens and kitchenware, Leigh noted as she opened cupboards and probed corners, yet they were of a very specific kind: thick, huge towels, satin sheets. In the kitchen there were more champagne glasses than coffee cups, cutlery and china that would gleam beautifully under candlelight, but barely enough pots to cook a proper dinner. The second bedroom stood out like a sore thumb. In harmonious blues and greens, the room had a double bed and chest in walnut, and the entire west corner was taken up by a very austere-looking drawing board and work space.

“Just your average run-of-the-mill condominium,” Leigh said straight-faced to Brian, as she made a point of righting a nude print that was slightly askew on the living-room wall.

“It doesn’t please?”

“Who does it belong to?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“One of the partners. It was his…vacation place until he married, and after that he brought it with him to the business. We’ve all used it at one time or another, for business reasons or not.”

More “or not,” Leigh thought wickedly. Good heavens, was she actually getting a sense of humor about such things?

“Leigh…” Brian poured his own coffee and then hers, to finish off their simple meal of steak and salad. They’d been here all of two hours. “I’ve got a solid week of work, and then a week that’s mostly free. The Harris Company will pick me up in the morning, so you can have the rental car.”

“I can fend for myself. I had in mind burying my feet in that carpet for at least a full morning.” She simply could not raise a smile. “Go to bed, Brian. You’re exhausted.”

He paused. “I will. The red bedroom’s yours, if you haven’t already guessed. I’ll need the drawing board in the other one, probably late on occasion, particularly this week.”

So she was to have the bedroom with the scarlet decor, the mirrored panel on the ceiling and the oversized, pedestaled bed. “It’s not exactly my style,” she said warily.

He stood up and stretched, and for almost the first time all day he smiled lazily at her. “Be a chameleon, Red. I think I’ll ask you what you dreamed about in that big bed in the morning.”

But Brian didn’t ask; he was gone before Leigh woke up. For the next week he was just as busy as he had warned her he’d be, coming and going at odd hours, sometimes snatching meals with Leigh and sometimes just eating on the run. He came in dusty and perspiring from long hours at the proposed site. He came in frustrated and preoccupied, demanding coffee and sandwiches he never ate, and immediately retiring to his drawing board. He came in snapping and sharp, his mind knife-edged, his head full of creative ideas.

She fell in love with him that week. She loved watching him work, and she cherished the few moments that he snatched to tell her about it, to ask her opinions. The energy, thought and sheer perseverance he put into the project astounded her. It was obviously a challenge for Brian, making something alive from what had started out as only lead in a pencil and a vision in his head. She had not been wrong in her choice for the father of her baby. The passion, the ability to create, the instinct to see beyond obstacles and problems, the strength to order it all into being…that was what she wanted for her child.

For herself, it was the most wonderful vacation she’d had in an age. The coast of the Keys was fantastic: long, shallow waters, easily warmed by the sun, the coral from beneath the sea catching reflections from the sun like rainbow colors. The temperature rested just above eighty degrees, perfect for swimming, sunbathing and combing the beaches for shells and bits of coral. Tourists of all ages sprinkled the shore, stopping to say hello if encouraged with a smile. She met people on the beaches and introduced herself to the neighbors, played tennis with one of the neighborhood boys one day, and met an old couple who went shelling with her. She was a sun child from the first day, immersing herself in every experience the time and place had to offer. Her auburn hair immediately bronzed in the sunlight, and her creamy skin honeyed with no trouble; she forgot about wearing shoes. She never felt lonely; she was too used to being really alone. On the one afternoon that it rained, she stretched lazily out on the thick carpet with a pillow and a book, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t bothered to dust in a week and probably wasn’t going to.

She saw Brian in passing. He sent quick text messages throughout the day and she always had food prepared in case she missed his rapid passages in and out. And he did need her in his way; she finally understood why he had really wanted her to come. In his hectic schedule, there was little enough time to relax; having to freshen up and wait for service in a hotel restaurant wouldn’t have suited him at all, and in a hotel that catered to vacationers there would have been no quiet place to work evenings. Nor could he be bothered about running out of clean shirts, one of his few idiosyncrasies. So she was needed, and she even gave herself silent reassurance that she was doing more for him than one of his women friends might have done. She neither demanded his time nor worried about being ignored, and she forgave his short spurts of arrogant temper because she knew they were the accompaniment of his creative genius. Most of all, she appreciated his sharing with her all his ideas and perceptions, and felt worthwhile in her role as sounding board for his innovative conceptions.

On Friday night, eight days after their arrival, Leigh heard Brian come in sometime after ten; even that early she was already in bed. She heard nothing else until the alarm clock rang for her at three-thirty in the morning. She stumbled from the bed, groping for a sweatshirt and jeans. She splashed cold water on her face, trying to fight the persistent waves of sleepiness. With her hair brushed and a windbreaker over her arm, she tiptoed through the dark hall and living room. Suddenly the light was switched on, half blinding her, and she bumped into a chair.

“Where the hell are you going?”

She whirled to face him. “Lord, I’m sorry I woke you,” she said guiltily, knowing how tired he must be. His hair was rumpled boyishly, obviously fresh from sleep, and when she glanced down she saw he was barefoot. She could not ever remember actually seeing his bare feet before, which suddenly seemed very odd. She yawned. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, Brian. Go back to sleep.”

“Leigh!” His voice was strangely harsh. “Where the devil are you going at four in the morning?”