A Daring Proposition (9 page)

It was nearing seven when Leigh came down. Brian was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in a black cashmere sport jacket and pale gray pants, leafing through the sterling platter that held the day’s mail. With his dark good looks accentuated, he struck Leigh as even more sophisticated and sensual than usual. He glanced up at the sound of her high heels on the parquet floor.

With an odd little pulse throbbing in her throat, she waited while he took in the very different look of her this evening. The cream-colored gown had medieval long sleeves and a deep V-neck. Gold braid at the hem was accented by gold barrettes at the sides of her flowing auburn hair. She wore a subtle perfume that was new and softly feminine, and she had brushed on an array of makeup with a light but deliberate hand. The mirror had already told her that she looked radiantly lovely, and for just one instant in Brian’s eyes…

“Very nice, Leigh,” he said flatly, and turned away, busying himself with getting her coat from the closet.

The little pulse in her throat stilled. Did it matter so much that he saw her, just for once, as attractive? Perhaps even desirable? That thought started her pulse racing again, and she firmly banished it from her mind.

His voice was strangely harsh for no reason, as he held out her coat with his eyes averted. “Look, Red, I told you there’s no reason for you to go to the Rawlings’ with me. The other dinners were different—”

“Yes. You told me. And I told you that if you don’t want me to go—”

“I told you it wasn’t that,” he said brusquely. “I just don’t want to push you into something you can’t handle. I told you what kind of man Steven Rawlings is.”

“And also that you want to subcontract him for the electrical work on the college project,” Leigh said in her best CPA voice. Brian opened the door and she stepped out to a night sky lazily tossing down snow. “And that he likes to do business socially, which is why we’re going. He’s good at his job, you want him, he specifically requested that you come with your wife, and I don’t know why you keep bringing it up!”

“He’s an ass,” Brian said curtly. She wondered at the concerned frown he gave her as she slid into the car seat. The door shut with a bang, and Leigh nearly winced.

Their host-to-be wasn’t an “ass.” Brian had hinted very carefully at the kind of man he was: a womanizer. That Brian thought she couldn’t handle the evening grated; his respect had become as essential to Leigh as her very breath. This was the fourth of their business evenings out, and she had felt that respect building as she handled his clients and colleagues with aplomb.

“I don’t know how you got a reputation as a man-about-town,” Leigh deliberately continued as Brian started the engine. “You seem to absolutely hate—”

“Drinking martinis one after the other. Wasting time with people I don’t want to be with. I like business during business hours, that’s all.”

“It’s only for one short evening!”

He glanced momentarily at her. “
You,
Red, keep that in mind.”

The house was a sprawling example of contemporary architecture, standing bleak and cold in a treeless landscape. Leigh disliked it even before she stepped from the starry-soft night into the chrome glitter of the Rawlings’ living room. And then, for a moment she felt her breath catch as their host made his way toward them. She’d met Steven Rawlings before, in an older version. Not tall, he had curly sandy hair and a practiced smile, and his blue eyes already had an alcoholic glaze as they focused almost leeringly on Leigh. “So you’re Hathaway’s lady, are you, darling? We understand congratulations are in order!”

He pressed a damp version of the European greeting on both her cheeks as his hands deliberately snaked their way up her torso to the sides of her breasts. Nausea burgeoned. She hadn’t had the nightmare in months, but if he wasn’t David Hines’s son, he could have been.

“My wife, Janet…”

The blonde was kissing a hello to Brian. She wore a leather jumpsuit, designed to be worn over a shirt or sweater that she had apparently forgotten to put on. Her every movement revealed not just the curve of a stark white breast but its nipple as well. “Brian, honey, you haven’t been to one of our parties in so long! I thought you’d forgotten all about us!” She turned with a distinctly cooler smile to Leigh, taking in her attire and looks. “Nice to meet you, Leigh. I hope you’re going to help me keep our boys off business for at least a little while. I’m up for some fun tonight!”

Janet made manhattans for herself and Leigh and martinis for the men. The pair of long, tall pitchers would have served quite a crowd. The living room, in scarlet oak paneling, had been designed to imitate an English pub, and though Leigh found it attractive in its way, there was a strange absence of books and personal effects that might have made it warm.

“Leigh?”

She glanced at Brian, who had seated himself on one of three short sofas. Clearly, he was offering her the place next to him, but she didn’t believe it was because he wanted her close. Smiling with deliberate vagueness, she stayed where she was, feeling like a feather in the wind. Still, she would handle the situation; she’d made it a long time without anyone’s protection.

“Do you like modern art?” Janet questioned from behind the bar where she was getting herself a third drink. She motioned vaguely to the copper sculpture that stood on the coffee table in the midst of the couches. “I picked that up in Paris last year. I’m getting a pretty extensive collection if you like that sort of thing.”

The copper man and woman were twisted in an explicitly erotic mode. Leigh wondered fleetingly if Janet collected pornography or modern art. “It’s interesting,” she said politely.

Janet grimaced. “Oh, well, you don’t like it.” She sighed and leaned back against the bar with a look of dissatisfaction as she listened for a moment to the business discussion Brian had initiated with her husband. “It looks like we’ll have to do something to stir them up,” she said lightly.

Quick as a cat, Janet curled up in the empty place next to Brian, with one long arm extended on the back of the couch so that her red-tipped fingernails rested languidly on his cashmere coat. She said something, leaning forward, giving him a clear glimpse of both breasts. In a moment, the two of them were laughing.

Leigh stepped forward with a smile that already ached from effort, set her glass down next to the contorted faces of the copper lovers and sat on the scarlet velvet couch next to Steven Rawlings. If Brian was comfortable with these people, she was not going to let him see that she felt otherwise. With practiced ease, Steven drew an arm around her shoulders to hug her close. “I love newlyweds,” he whispered teasingly. “They’ve always got just one thing on their minds. We don’t believe in much formality around here, darling…”

Dinner was easier. At Brian’s insistence, the two men did settle down to business, and Steven quickly changed into a model professional. He knew his electrical business and he talked it up well; in fact, he talked nearly all of the time. The contrast between the two men became more and more apparent to Leigh. Brian was a man the way her father had been a man. He didn’t need to tell the world how strong and tough and good he was; he had nothing to prove. Steven, however, had something to prove every minute; her stepfather had been of that same mold.

Thoughtfully, she raised the wineglass to her lips, suddenly catching Brian’s eyes on her from across the table. He was still talking to Steven, but the intent look on his face made her uneasy. She had been quiet; was she failing him? At the other dinners they’d gone to she’d had the chance to ask questions and to listen, to encourage his clients to talk about themselves; there had been anecdotes, laughter. Tonight she felt out of her element, but if Brian expected something from her…

He did. She could see it in the haunting depths of his eyes. As if he were trying to tell her something, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t understand. He had the most beautiful eyes. Beautiful, dark, intimate eyes, eyes that touched her perfumed hair, and her nose and chin and slant of cheekbones, her lips… She found herself staring back almost wistfully, desperately trying to figure out what he wanted, so caught up in the black-fired depths that she could not look away.

“Come
on
now. Business is over and we’ve all had our coffee,” Janet said petulantly. “I’ve got a new group of paintings I’ve been dying to show Brian, but first let’s get some cognac from the living room.” They all stood up at Janet’s direction, Leigh lethargically feeling as if she were waking from a witch’s spell. Janet was all vibrant sexual energy, winking at Leigh as if to say,
I’m sure this is all right with you,
as she wound an arm around Brian’s waist.

“You two just go on then,” Steven encouraged lazily. “Leigh and I will find some way to amuse ourselves.”

“Perhaps Leigh would like to see—”

“Brian, Leigh doesn’t like that sort of art,” Janet scolded. “Surely you two have been married long enough to know her likes and dislikes? Or have you been spending all your time in bed?”

Leigh watched dispassionately as the two left the room. Inside she felt an unexpected jolt of panic at finding herself alone with another man. Brian had spelled protection for so long that she’d almost forgotten what that fear felt like.

“You like music, Leigh?” Steven’s languorous appraisal of her figure suddenly became more personal, more threatening.

“Very much,” she said softly.

“They’ll be some time,” he assured her. “The studio’s an entirely separate building from the house.”

She stood rather than sat once they moved into the other room. She couldn’t deny that Steven had excellent taste in music or that his stereo was outstanding. But there was only so much time she could spend mulling over his eclectic record collection and exploring the curios in the room, and the minutes kept ticking by.

“You’re very different than I thought you’d be. You’re beautiful—of course I expected that in Brian’s mate. And you’re remote, cool, yet also…” He smiled appreciatively at her, slouching on the couch with his legs extended. Leigh had the impression he’d tried the position before and knew it gave him an image of casual elegance. “Come on and sit by me,” he coaxed, “while I try to think of the word to describe you.” Abruptly, he snapped his fingers. “
Demure.
That’s the word I’m looking for. Demure, despite that flashy copper hair of yours. If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s sexy as all hell.”

His words sounded so like a line that they almost had a boring ring to them. “Brian thinks so, too,” she said pleasantly.

His eyebrow raised and a little of his smile faded. “We could find more amusing ways of spending our time than discussing what Brian thinks,” he suggested.

Rather than roam a room she had already thoroughly roamed, she perched uneasily on the couch across from him, trying to look relaxed. “I envy you your music system, Steven. Have you had it long?”

He burst out laughing, but there was an annoyed look in his blue eyes. “Never let it be said that I can’t take a hint,” he said dryly.

More minutes went ticking by. Deliberately, Steven refused to initiate any conversation; an awkwardness settled in—in, around, all over.

“They’ve been gone a half hour now,” Steven drawled finally.

She nodded. Long enough? Brian was a very sexual man—she’d never doubted that—who’d had to stay in a month of evenings because of her. Was that really how it was for him, a moment taken with a woman who was willing? Was that why he’d tried to talk her out of accompanying him tonight? “They have,” she agreed quietly. “Your wife evidently has quite an extensive studio.”

“Couch and all.”

She reminded herself that Brian had to work with this man, and that she might have to dine with him again. “You seem to take a certain kind of pride in hinting at the…contemporary sort of marriage you have?” she queried carefully.

He mixed himself a drink, coming back to stand in front of her. “You want to talk about marriages, darling, let’s talk about yours. Maybe that’ll get your mind off the time,” he grated, with a strange smile that held no warmth.

She smiled back with an aching jaw, and picked up the cup with her coffee in it. She didn’t know whether all of his guests regularly switched partners with their hosts, but she could feel a dangerous thread of adrenaline in her bloodstream as he continued to stare at her suggestively. She was simply out of her depth. “I’d like to tell you about Brian and me,” she managed calmly. “We have a sort of…contemporary marriage, too, you see. I don’t know what he’s doing at the moment, but I do know that it has nothing to do with our relationship.”

His eyebrows flickered up sardonically. “You don’t give a hoot in hell if he has sex on the side—and yet you’re too pure to do likewise?”

His crudeness offended her. She had her back to the door as she raised the cup. “I’m just saying that there couldn’t be anyone else but Brian for me.”

“Well, I hate to have to tell you this, darling, but people just don’t have marriages like that anymore. Miss Goody Two Shoes went out about a decade ago, haven’t you heard? They used to say that men couldn’t live without variety, but these days women, too, play that game every day.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and again reminded herself that Brian wanted to do business with this man. She knew that if she’d been the least approachable Steven would have made a pass, and she knew exactly what he thought Janet and Brian were doing. She had not felt so desolate in a long time. Yet pride urged her to prove she could handle the man—perhaps not well, perhaps not at all well—but at least to the extent that there was no question in his mind of where she stood. The words came of their own volition. “Yes,” she repeated, “and I told you we have a very contemporary relationship—based on no one’s standards but our own. I know what Brian brings to me. I just can’t imagine wanting anyone else. But if he does want someone else, on occasion, and as long as it doesn’t take anything away from what he brings to me…” She shrugged expressively.

“A very unusual attitude,” Steven said sarcastically.