Lauren's Designs (13 page)

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.”