Lauren's Designs (10 page)

“I think I’d have known that was September Song even if you weren’t wearing it,” he said at last. “It’s feminine, gentle, lovely. It suits you.”

Lauren couldn’t take her eyes off his face as it bent down over hers. When the beautifully cut, sensuous lips were so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath, she slowly lowered her eyelids.

The dark voice said softly, “Look at me, Lauren. I want to see your violet eyes when I kiss you.”

Almost drowsily, she lifted her lids and he kissed her. It was a slow, easy, gentle kiss. A
friendly
kiss, Lauren thought, alarmed at her own disappointment. Still, it had magic, a slow, sensuous stroking of his firm lips against hers. Lauren gave herself up to it. Even if it lacked the passionate demand she had been hoping for, it was richly caressing and comforting. When she felt herself fully relaxed, melted into his arms, Mike removed his lips with a slow regret that communicated itself to her.

“First we’ll have a drink and a snack. I couldn’t eat any dinner, worrying about what you were doing.”

Lauren walked over and sat down on a comfortable lounge chair. “I forgot to eat tonight,” she confessed. “I was trying to look my best for Shere’s presentation.”

“You succeeded.” He was bringing a chilled bottle and a large, covered silver dish from the refrigerator in the guest bathroom. “Sandwiches,” he boasted happily. “The British do them so well, ever since good old Lord Sandwich invented the bally things.”

Chuckling, Lauren agreed. She took off the cover while Mike poured the wine into glasses. The sandwiches looked so good that she couldn’t wait. She was biting into a chicken with mayonnaise as Mike turned around.

“Caught you! Trying to steal a march, are you? You’ll pay for that, my girl.”

Lauren found herself choking with laughter. Mike offered her a glass of chilled wine. Sipping it, she regarded him with laughter-filled eyes.

He returned the compliment. “Fun, eh?”

Lauren nodded at him. “I haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time,” she admitted honestly. “You know the script in business: life is real, life is earnest, and the cash flow is our only goal.”

“But you’re on the creative end,” Mike admonished. “That ought to ease some pressures, surely?”

“My husband’s been dead for several years,” said Lauren quietly. “I’m trying—with the help of a fabulous accountant, who is both loyal and competent—to run the whole thing myself.”

Mike ripped his dark head to one side, scanning her face. “Wouldn’t it make sense to sign up with one of the big corporations, let them handle the commercial end of it?”

“I’d have to make sure none of my own staff were fired,” mused Lauren, her expression telling the man that she was indeed considering the idea of a contract.

“Why don’t you let me handle it for you?” he said. “It’s my field, after all. And your own lawyer could check the proposition carefully.”

“Have you direct affiliations with any special company, Mike, or do you act as a middleman only?”

“I’ve got a lead to Landrill’s,” he told her. “But that’s not my only field. I work with an international hotel chain, scouting interesting sites for new buildings and talented young executives—both male and female—to run them with class and good business sense.”

Lauren chuckled. “So you’re not a male chauvinist. And from the sound of it, you’ve got an exciting job. I guess you’ve been told, if you work with Landrill’s, that they’ve already made September Song an offer?”

“
One?
Lady, they tried four times to set up a deal with your husband. They
believe
in you, Mrs. Rose.”

“At least they believe I can make them a bundle,” she retorted.

“Why not? Aren’t you in designing to make money? You don’t give away the dresses,” he challenged a little harshly.

Lauren nodded. She understood the reason for his annoyance. Of course, she was in the business of designing to make money. Sometimes the sheer pleasure of seeing one of her ideas come alive was more than enough payment for hours of work and frequent frustration, but if it were not for the fact that women were willing to pay a good price for her dresses she wouldn’t be able to enjoy her creative satisfactions. She faced Mike with an open smile.

“You’re right, of course. We creative types should never forget that we don’t design in a vacuum. Somebody has to want what we make.”

“And Landrill’s will make sure that lots of women know how attractive and flattering your line of clothing is. Can I put together a deal?”

Lauren nodded. This Fashion Cruise had opened her eyes; it would be increasingly difficult for her to do battle alone in the marketplace and keep up her creative work at the same time. She needed a manager; Al had kept all the business side of the operation away from her, so she really didn’t know enough to cope, hadn’t the skills or the toughness or the knowledge it took. She began to realize that she really didn’t want to fight that battle. She wanted to design clothing. Was that too much to ask? She noticed that Mike was watching her, probably evaluating her changing expressions.

“Yes, let’s see what your lawyer and mine can work out,” she said.

His face showed only the normal pleasure at the successful conclusion of negotiations. “Now we’ve got that settled,” he said, “let’s eat, drink, and forget that tomorrow we diet.”

The sandwiches were delicious: chicken breast, roast beef, cheese with bacon, pâté, even sliced tomatoes with pepper and mayonnaise. They fought over the last of that kind.

Lauren drank more wine that she usually allowed herself. As a result, her mood became more and more unguarded. After one particularly provocative remark from her, Mike phoned for coffee.

“I won’t have you accusing me, tomorrow, of getting you—ah—mellow and then clinching a deal,” he teased, eyes warmly satisfied.

Lauren felt the laughter fading from her lips as it struck her that she had thrown away her independence as lightly as she had eaten the sandwiches. “I wasn’t too hard to persuade, was I?” she mocked herself.

Mike frowned. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

Lauren shrugged. “Dani tells me you and Herbert were having a heart-to-heart in the pub. Was he telling you where I am vulnerable? Or were you hiring him as a hotel manager?”

“I wouldn’t hire Masen to pass out free samples,” Mike snapped. “For your information, Mrs. Rose,
he
was telling
me
that you two had been lovers ever since your husband died.” Ignoring Lauren’s gasp of outrage, Mike went on. “When I reminded him that his behavior on this trip hadn’t been exactly devoted, he said he was trying to make you jealous.”

Lauren’s outrage dissolved in surprised laughter. “Jealous? She hooted. “Of Herbert?”

Mike grinned. “My reaction exactly. Too bad Dani didn’t get close enough to hear what I replied to that statement.”

Lauren got up and went to him. She met his quizzical glance squarely. “I’m sorry I said that about persuasion. Since I came on this trip, I’ve been forced to face the fact that I really
don’t
know all the answers, either about my own profession or about other human beings. I don’t know what’s behind anyone’s mask. I’ve let Herbert hang around and harass me; even Tony told me I was an easy sell when I agreed without criticism to his choreography. I guess the truth is I suddenly felt very . . . insecure.” She put on a bright smile. “Would you say I’m out of my league?”

Mike put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’d say you were a very honest, modest, intelligent human being who’s fighting hard to produce an innovative presentation of her talent. With no help from people she could have expected it from. It’s lucky you ran into those dancers and persuaded them to help you, but I think you would have found some way to handle it even if you hadn’t. You’re a fighter, Lauren.”

She felt a light pressure on her hair. Was he kissing her? She turned her face up to meet his intent gaze. He was smiling down at her, a warm light in his silver eyes.

“You’re pretty, too,” he added.

He released her as the steward knocked and entered with their coffee. As she poured it, Lauren wanted to ask him what he thought of her. She had meant it when she told him she couldn’t appraise people, couldn’t read their motives or their intentions. She especially couldn’t pigeonhole Mike. He wasn’t like any man she’d ever met.

“I haven’t really known many men,” she said, not realizing how vulnerable she looked, small and exquisite and feminine in the corner of the huge sofa. “I never understood my father. I think I was afraid of him, although he never hurt me. He had very rigid views about the place of women, especially girl children, in his world. I know it’s archaic, but I wouldn’t have dared to disagree with any of his judgments, no matter how chauvinistic and unreasonable they were. I can’t understand the way I felt.” She sighed and shook her head. Mike didn’t comment. He sat drinking his coffee and listening as she spoke.

Lauren went on. “Al asked my father before he asked me. My father was very wealthy and Al was just beginning to make his own way. Then Dad told me
I’d
made a good choice. Al knew how to present himself to older, conservative men. He was a man’s man: loved hunting and fishing and drinking with other men. He wasn’t ever really comfortable with a woman, except in bed. And then only briefly.”

She heard herself making these embarrassingly blunt admissions but couldn’t seem to stop. Mike was listening as though he really cared, as though it mattered to him what had happened to her and what she thought. It struck her that very few people had ever truly listened to what she had to say. Her father certainly never had. Her mother had listened but not understood. Al had never made a pretense of discussing anything with her beyond her next collection and the problems it might present to his sales campaign. Lauren sighed and relaxed against the back of the comfortable sofa. She smiled trustingly.

“Now you,” she invited.

“Me?” Mike rose and placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table.

“Aren’t you going to share with me?” All at once she felt like some sort of groupie in a therapy rap session.

Mike loomed over her, bent to seize her hands, and pulled her to her feet. She was so close to him that she felt the heat from his body.

“Yes, I’m going to share with you, Lauren Rose. I’m going to share the loneliness we both feel under our bright impersonal masks. And the hunger we have for the act of love with someone to whom it means more than lust—oh, what the use of words? Let me show you.”

He lifted her easily and carried her into the bedroom. Putting her down gently beside the bed, he began to remove her clothing. His big hands were gentle at her throat as he unhooked the sequin collar, then took off the delicate, filmy caftan. At first Lauren couldn’t face him, but her glance was finally drawn to his face as to a magnet. His expression was solemn, absorbed, and told Lauren he considered her important to him, valuable, even. As though what he was doing was a kind of worship. So when he gently took the dress from her body, Lauren felt no shame, only a faint sense of embarrassment that Mike might not find her worthy of his passionate regard.

When he had removed the last of her clothing, Mike lifted her gently onto the bed. Then he turned and walked to the door. Lauren voiced a small inarticulate cry. He turned at once.

“Just for our privacy,” he said softly, closing and locking the door. Then he came back to the bed and began to strip. Lauren couldn’t take her eyes from his body. She had seen it when they swam in the pool, big and brown and well-muscled, but this disrobing was a thousand times more erotic. He had draped her costume carefully over a chair; his own clothes he merely dropped to the floor. Then he came to stand beside her.

“May I leave the lights on, Lauren?” he asked. And when she would have objected, fearing that her body would disappoint him, he said, “Please, you are so lovely,” and she could not deny him.

She held out her arms to him. With a sigh as deep as a groan, Mike came down beside her on the bed and took her into his arms.

She had never known such pleasure. He shared with her his delight in every part of her body. His lips and hands moved over her, sweetly tormenting and rousing her. Within a few minutes he had excited her in ways she had not known were possible. Her muscles tensed with the need to respond to him. Warmth flooded her, and she trembled involuntarily. When his hand moved over her body and down to her hips, Lauren sobbed, “Yes, Mike. Yes,” and clung to him, holding him close to her.

Moving together, murmuring tenderness against each other’s lips and shoulders and throats, they drove on to ecstasy together, reaching the exploding moment at the same quivering instant. Gasping, they relaxed against the soft bed, still close in each other’s arms. Mike settled her more comfortably against him, pulling her head over onto his chest and holding it there.

Lauren began to laugh soundlessly. Mike felt her body’s small tremors and lifted her chin so he could see her face. “What is it sweetheart? Why are you laughing?” His smile was tender.

Lauren smiled into his eyes. “Your hair tickles my nose.” She patted the curly black thatch on his chest with possessive fingers.

Mike pretended exasperation. “I give you world-class treatment and you say my hair tickles! I thought you were a romantic.”