Man of the Hour (6 page)

“This dancing…it hurts you?” he asked suddenly when she was less than graceful and fell heavily against him.

She swallowed. “My ankle is still painful,” she said honestly. “And not mending as I had hoped.” Her eyes lifted with panic in their depths. “It was a bad sprain…”

“And dancing is your life.”

She gnawed on her lower lip, wincing as she moved again with him to the bluesy music. “It has had to be,” she said oddly.

“May I cut in?”

The voice was deep and cutting and not the kind to ignore unless a brawl was desirable.

“But of course,” Ahmed said, smiling at Steven.
“Merci, mademoiselle,”
he added softly and moved back.

Steven drew Meg to him, much too closely, and riveted her in place with one long, powerful arm as he moved her to the music.

“My ankle hurts,” she said icily, “and I don’t want to dance with you.”

“I know.” He tilted her face up to his and studied the dark circles under her eyes, the wan complexion. “I know why you wore the red dress, too. It was to rub my nose in what I said to you last night, wasn’t it?”

“Bingo,” she said with a cold smile.

He drew in a long breath. His silver eyes slid over the length
of her waving hair, down to her bare shoulders. They fell to her breasts where the soft V at the neckline revealed their exquisite swell, and his jaw clenched. The arm at her back went rigid.

“You have the softest skin I’ve ever touched,” he said gruffly. “Silky and warm and fragrant. I don’t need this dress to remind me that I can’t think sanely when you’re within reach.”

“Then stay out of reach,” she shot back. “Why don’t you take Daphne home with you and seduce her? If you didn’t on the way here,” she added with hauteur.

She missed a step and he caught her, easily, holding her upright.

“That ankle is hurting you. You shouldn’t be dancing,” he said firmly.

“The therapist said to exercise it,” she said through her teeth. “And she said that it would hurt.”

He didn’t say what he was thinking. If the ankle was painful after five long weeks, how would she be able to dance on it? Would it hold her weight? It certainly didn’t seem as if it would.

She saw the expression on his face. “I’ll dance again,” she told him. “I will!”

He touched her face with lean, careful fingers, traced her cheek and her chin and around her full, bow mouth. “For yourself, Meg, or because it was what your mother always wanted?”

“It was the only thing I ever did in my life that pleased her,” she said without thinking.

“Yes. I think perhaps it was.” His finger traced her lower lip. Odd how tremulous that finger seemed, especially when it teased between her lips and felt them part, felt her breath catch. “Are you still afraid of making a baby?” he whispered unsteadily.

“Steven!” she exclaimed. She jerked her face back and it flushed red.

“You made me think about what happened that last night we were together before we fought,” he said, as if she hadn’t reacted to the question at all. “I remember when you started fighting me. I remember what I said to you.”

“This isn’t necessary…!” she broke in frantically.

“I said that if we went all the way, it wouldn’t really matter,” he whispered deeply, holding her eyes. “Because I’d love making you pregnant.”

She actually shivered and her body trembled as it sought the strength and comfort of his.

He cradled her in his arms, barely moving to the music, his mouth at her ear. “You didn’t think I was going to stop. And you were afraid of a baby.” “Yes.”

His fingers threaded into her soft, silky hair and he drew her even closer. His legs trembled against her own as the incredible chemistry they shared made him weak. And all at once, instantly, he was fully capable and she could feel it.

“Don’t pull away from me,” he said roughly. “I know it repulses you, but, my God, it isn’t as if I can help it…!”

She stilled instantly. “Oh, no, it isn’t that,” she whispered,
lifting her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you! You used to tell me not to move when it happened, remember?”

He stopped dancing and his eyes searched hers so hungrily that she could hardly bear the intensity of the look they were sharing.

His lips parted as he tried to breathe, enmeshed by his hunger for her, by the beauty of her uplifted face, the temptation of her perfect, innocent body against his. “I remember everything,” he said tautly. “You haunt me, Meg. Night after empty night.”

She saw the strain in his dark face and felt guilty that she should be the cause of it. Her hand pressed flat against his shirtfront, feeling the strength and heat and under it the feverish throb of his pulse.

“I’m sorry,” she said tenderly. “I’m so sorry…”

He fought for control, his eyes lifting finally to stare over her head.

Meg moved away a little, and began talking quite calmly about the state of the world, the weather, dancing lazily while he recovered.

“I have to stop now, Steven,” she said finally. “My ankle really hurts.”

He stopped dancing. His eyes searched over her face. “I’m sorry about what I said to you last night, when I asked you,” he said curtly. “I wanted you to the point of madness.” He laughed bitterly. “That, at least, has never changed.”

Her eyes adored him. She couldn’t help it. He was more
perfect to her than anything in the world, and when he was close to her, she had everything. But what he wanted would destroy her.

“I can’t sleep with you and just…just go on with my life,” she said softly. “It would be another night, another body, to you. But it would be devastating to me. Not only my first time, but with someone whom I…” She averted her eyes. “Someone for whom I once cared very much.”

“Look at me.”

She forced her eyes up to his, curious about their sudden intent scrutiny.

“Meg,” he said, as the music began again, “it wouldn’t be just another night and another body.”

“It would be for revenge,” she argued. “And you know it, Steven. It isn’t about lovemaking, it’s about getting even. I walked out of your life and hurt you. Now you want to pay me back, and what better way than to sleep with me and walk away yourself?”

“Do you think I could?” he asked with a bitter laugh.

“Neither of us would really know until it happened.” She stared at his chest. “I know you’d try to protect me, but you aren’t quite in control when we make love. You certainly weren’t last night.” She raised her face. “Then what would we do if I really did get pregnant?”

His lips parted. He studied her slowly. “You could marry me,” he said softly. “We could raise our child together.”

The thought thrilled, uplifted, frightened. “And my career?”

The pleasure washed out of him. His face lost its softness and his eyes grew cold. “That, of course, would be history. And you couldn’t stand that. After all, you’ve worked all your life for it, haven’t you?” He let her go. “We’d better go back to the table. We don’t want to put that ankle at risk.”

They did go back to the table. He took Daphne’s hand and kept it in his for the rest of the evening. And every time he looked at Meg, his eyes were hostile and full of bitterness and contempt.

D
avid and Meg, who’d taken a cab to the restaurant, rode back to their house with Ahmed in his chauffeured limousine. Steven, Meg noticed, hadn’t even offered them a ride; he probably had other plans, ones that included Daphne.

“It’s been a great evening,” David remarked. “How much longer are you going to stay in Wichita, Ahmed?”

“Until the last of the authorizations are signed,” the other man replied. He glanced at Meg with slow, bold appraisal in his liquid black eyes. “Alas, then duty forces me back to my own land. Are you certain that you would not consider coming with me,
ma chou?
” he teased. “You could wear that dress and enchant me as you dance.”

Meg forced a smile, but she was having some misgivings about her future. Her ankle was no stronger than when it was first damaged. Her concern grew by the day.

“I’m very flattered,” she began.

“We are allowing our women more freedom,” he mused. “At least they are no longer required to wear veiling from head to toe and cover their faces in public.”

“Are you married?” she asked curiously. “Aren’t Moslems allowed four wives?”

The laughter went out of his eyes. “No, I am not married. It is true that a Moslem may have up to four wives, but while I accept many of the teachings of the Prophet, I am not Moslem,
mademoiselle
. I was raised a Christian, which precludes me from polygamy.”

“That’s the road, just up ahead,” David said quickly, gesturing toward their street. “You haven’t seen our home, have you, Ahmed?” he added, smiling at the other man.

“No.”

“Do come in,” Meg asked. “We can offer you coffee. Your chauffeur as well.”

“Another time, perhaps,” Ahmed said gently, glancing behind them at a dark car in the near distance. “I have an appointment this evening at my hotel.”

“Certainly,” Meg replied.

“Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” David said as they pulled up in the driveway.

Ahmed nodded. “Friday will see the conclusion of our business,” he remarked. “I should enjoy escorting the two of you and our friend Steven to a performance at the theater. I have obtained tickets in anticipation of your acceptance.”

Meg was thrilled. “I’d love to! David…?”

“Certainly,” her brother said readily. He smiled. “Thank you.”

“I will send the car for you at six, then. We will enjoy a leisurely meal before the curtain rises.” He didn’t offer to get out of the car, but he smiled and waved at Meg as David closed the door behind her. The limousine sped off, with the dark car close behind it.

“Is he being followed?” she asked David carefully.

“Yes, he is,” David said, but he avoided looking at her. “He has his own security people.”

“I like him,” she said as they walked toward the front door.

David glanced at her. “You’ve been very quiet since you danced with Steve,” he observed. “More trouble?”

She sighed wistfully. “Not really. Steven’s only shoving Daphne down my throat. Why should that bother me?”

“Maybe he’s trying to make you jealous.”

“That will be the day, when Steven Ryker stoops to that sort of tactic.”

David started to speak and decided against it. He only smiled as he unlocked the door and let her in.

“Ahmed is very mysterious,” she said abruptly. “It’s as if he’s not really what he seems at all. He’s a very gentle man, isn’t he?” she added thoughtfully.

He gave her a blank stare. “Ahmed? Uh, well, yes. Certainly. I mean, of course he is.” He looked as if he had to bite his tongue. “But, despite the fact that Ahmed is Christian, he’s still very much an Arab in his customs and beliefs. And his country is a
hotbed of intrigue and danger right now.” He studied her closely. “You don’t watch much television, do you, Meg? Not the national news programs, I mean.”

“They’re much too upsetting for me,” she confessed. “No, I don’t watch the news or read newspapers unless I can’t avoid them. I know,” she said before he could taunt her about it, “I’m hiding my head in the sand. But honestly, David, what could I do to change any of that? We elect politicians and trust them to have our best interests at heart. It isn’t the best system going, but I can hardly rush overseas and tell people to do what I think they should, now can I?”

“It doesn’t hurt to stay informed,” he said. “Although right now, maybe it’s just as well that you aren’t,” he added under his breath. “See you in the morning.”

“Yes.” She stared after him, frowning. David could be pretty mysterious himself at times.

David didn’t invite Steve to the house that week, because he could see how any mention of the man cut Meg. But although Wichita was a big city, it was still possible to run into people when you traveled in the same social circles.

Meg found it out the hard way when she went to a men’s department store that her family had always frequented to buy a birthday present for David. She ran almost literally into Steve there.

If she was shocked and displeased to meet him, the reverse was also true. He looked instantly hostile.

Her eyes slid away from his tall, fit body in the pale tan suit he was wearing. It hurt to look at him too much.

“Shopping for a suit?” he asked sarcastically. “You’ll have a hard time finding anything to fit you here.”

“I’m shopping for David’s birthday next week,” she said tightly.

“By an odd coincidence, so am I.”

“Doesn’t your
secretary
,” she stressed the word, “perform that sort of menial chore for you?”

“I pick out gifts for my friends myself,” he said with cold hauteur. “Besides,” he added, watching her face, “I have other uses for Daphne. I wouldn’t want to tire her too much in the daytime.”

Insinuating that he wanted her rested at night. Meg had to fight down anger and distaste. She kept her eyes on the ties. “Certainly not,” she said with forced humor.

“My father was right in the first place,” he said shortly, angered at her lack of reaction. “She would have made the perfect wife. I don’t know why it took me four years to realize it.”

Her heart died.
Died!
She swallowed. “Sometimes we don’t realize the value of things until it’s too late.”

His breath caught, not quite audibly. “Don’t we?”

She looked up, her eyes full of blue malice. “I didn’t realize how much ballet meant to me until I got engaged to you,” she said with a cold smile.

His fists clenched. He fought for control and smiled. “As we said once before, we had a lucky escape.” He cocked his head and
studied her. “How’s the financing going for the ballet company?” he added pointedly.

She drew in a sharp breath. “Just fine, thanks,” she said venomously. “I won’t need any…help.”

“Pity,” he said, letting his eyes punctuate the word.

“Is it? I’m sure Daphne wouldn’t agree!”

“Oh, she doesn’t expect me to be faithful at this stage of the game,” he replied lazily. “Not until the engagement’s official, at least.”

Meg felt faint. She knew the color was draining slowly out of her face, but she stood firm and didn’t grab for support. “I see.”

“I still have your ring,” he said conversationally. “Locked up tight in my safe.”

She remembered giving it to her mother to hand back to him. The memory was vivid, violent. Daphne. Daphne!

“I kept it to remind me what a fool I was to think I could make a wife of you,” he continued. “I won’t make the same mistake again. Daphne doesn’t want just a career. She wants my babies,” he added flatly, cruelly.

She dropped her eyes, exhausted, almost ill with the pain of what he was saying. Her hand trembled as she fingered a silk tie. “Ahmed invited us to dinner and the theater Friday night.” Her voice only wobbled a little, thank God.

“I know,” he said, and sounded unhappy about it.

She forced her eyes up. “You don’t have to be deliberately insulting, do you, Steven?” she asked quietly. “I know you hate me.
There’s no need for all this—” She stopped, almost choking on the word that almost escaped.

“Isn’t there? But, then, you don’t know how I feel, do you, Meg? You never did. You never gave a damn, either.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and glowered at her. She looked fragile somehow in the pale green knit suit she was wearing. “Ahmed is leaving soon,” he told her. “Don’t get attached to him.”

“He’s a friend. That’s all.”

His silver eyes slid over her bowed head with faint hunger and then moved away quickly. “How are the exercises coming?”

“Fine, thanks.”

He hesitated, bristling with bad temper. “When do you leave?” he asked bluntly.

She didn’t react. “At the end of the month.”

He let out a breath. “Well, thank God for that!”

Her eyes closed briefly. She’d had enough. She pulled the tie she’d been examining off the rack and moved away, refusing to look at him, to speak to him. Her throat felt swollen, raw.

“I’ll have this one, please,” she told the smiling clerk and produced her credit card. Her voice sounded odd.

Steven was standing just behind her, trying desperately to work up to an apology. It was becoming a habit to savage her. All he could think about was how much he’d loved her, and how easily she’d discarded him. He didn’t trust her, but, God, he still wanted her. She colored his dreams. Without her, everything was flat. Even now, looking at her fed his heart, uplifted him.
She was so lovely. Fair and sweet and gentle, and all she wanted was a pair of toe shoes and a stage.

He groaned inwardly. How was he going to survive when she left again? He never should have touched her. Now it was going to be just as bad as before. He was going to watch her walk away a second time and part of him was going to die.

Daphne was coming with him tonight or he didn’t think he could survive Meg’s company. Thank God for Daphne. She was a friend, and quite content to be that, but she was his coconspirator as well now, part of this dangerous business that revolved around Ahmed. She was privileged to know things that no one else in his organization knew. But meanwhile she was also his camouflage. Daphne had a man of her own, one of the two government agents who were helping keep a careful eye on Ahmed. But fortunately, Meg didn’t know that.

Steven was in some danger. Almost as much as Ahmed. He couldn’t tell Meg that without having to give some top-secret answers. Daphne knew, of course. She was as protected as he was, as Ahmed was. But despite his bitterness toward Meg, he didn’t want her in the line of fire. Loving her was a disease, he sometimes thought, and there was no cure, not even a temporary respite. She was the very blood in his veins. And to her, he was expendable. He was of no importance to her, because all she needed from life was to dance. The knowledge cut deep into his heart. It made him cruel. But hurting her gave him no pleasure. He watched her with possessive eyes, aching to hold her and apologize for his latest cruelty.

Her purchase completed, Meg left the counter and turned away without looking up. Steven, impelled by forces too strong to control, gently took her arm and pulled her with him to a secluded spot behind some suits.

He looked down into her surprised, wounded eyes until his body began to throb. “I keep hurting you, don’t I?” he said roughly. “I don’t mean to. Honest to God, I don’t mean to, Meg!”

“Don’t you?” she asked with a sad, weary smile. “It’s all right, Steve,” she said quietly, averting her eyes. “Heaven knows, you’re entitled, after what I did to you!”

She pulled away from him and walked quickly out of the store, the cars and people blurring in front of her eyes.

Steve cursed himself while he watched her until she was completely out of view. He’d never felt quite so bad in his whole life.

Meg spent the rest of the week trying to practice her exercises and not think about Steve and Daphne. David didn’t say much, but he spoke to Steve one evening just after she’d met him in the store, and Meg overheard enough to realize that Steve was taking Daphne out for the evening. It made her heart ache.

She telephoned the manager of her ballet company, Tolbert Morse, on Thursday.

“Glad you called,” he said. “I think I may be on the way to meeting our bills. Can you be back in New York for rehearsals next week?”

She went rigid. In that length of time, only a miracle would
mend her ankle. But she hesitated. She didn’t want to admit the slow progress she was making. Deep inside she knew she’d never be able to dance that soon. She couldn’t force the words out. Dance was all she had. Steve had made his rejection of Meg very blatant. Any hope in that area was gone forever.

Her dream of a school of ballet for little girls was slowly growing, but it would have to be opened in Wichita. Could she really bear having to see Steven all the time? His friendship with David would mean having him at the house constantly. No. She had to get her ankle well. She had to dance. It was the only escape she had now! Steven’s latest cruelty only punctuated the fact that she had no place in his life anymore.

Fighting down panic, she forced herself to laugh. “Can I ever be ready in a week!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be there with my toe shoes on!”

“Good girl! I’ll tell Henrietta you’ll want your old room back. Ankle doing okay?”

“Just fine,” she lied.

“Then I’ll see you next week.”

He hung up. So did Meg. Then she stood looking down at the receiver for a long time before she could bring herself to move. One lie led to another, but how could she lie when she was up on toe shoes trying to interpret ballet?

She pushed the pessimistic thought out of her mind and went back to the practice bar. If she concentrated, there was every hope that she could accomplish what she had to.

David paused in the doorway to watch her Friday afternoon
when he came home from work. He was frowning, and when she stopped to rest, she couldn’t help but notice the concern in his eyes, quickly concealed.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She grinned at him, determined not to show her own misgivings. “Slow but steady,” she told him.

He pursed his lips. “What does the physical therapist say?”

Her eyes became shuttered and she avoided looking directly at him. “Oh, that it will take time.”