Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 (19 page)

“That’s fine,” Alex said, “but you’re getting it anyway.”

Gordon looked away from him, and in his face Alex saw the direction his own life might have taken. Life hadn’t played fair with either one of them, but love had turned Alex’s life around. Rikki’s love had made it possible for him to expand his horizons and not grow suspicious and solitary as Gordon had.

Tonight he had made the final break with his past and come full circle. He loved Larkin—that fact was undeniable. But he wanted everything she had: her mind, her heart, her body.

The stakes were too high and he wasn’t willing to settle for anything less.

T
hey couldn’t find
Patti anywhere. Larkin had tried Vladimir’s penthouse suite at the Garden City Hotel with no luck. Ultimately it was Gordon’s doctor from the psychiatric center and two attendants who took him away. The police had showed up not long after Larkin called them, but after one look at Gordon, tearful and trembling on the floor, they knew it wasn’t a police matter at all.

It was a matter of the heart.

Now the house was empty except for Larkin and Alex. “A hell of a Thanksgiving,” Alex said, accepting a snifter of brandy from her.

She glanced at the clock by the fireplace. “Only two more minutes left, thank God. I wouldn’t care to go through another day like this.”

They raised glasses to each other and she took a sip of the liqueur, relishing the warmth that spread outward from her chest.

“Alex?” He turned and met her eyes. “Why did you come back here tonight?”

“To make sense out of things,” he said without hesitation. “To see where we really stand. I love you too much to let it end like that.”

Simple words. Profound emotion. He faced her head-on, open and vulnerable, something she had been unwilling to do until now.
Tell him, you fool. Tell him how you feel.

This was the moment she’d been waiting for. She half expected a swell of organ music to blossom offstage. “You asked me a question earlier this evening,” she said softly. “I’d like to give you my answer.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the mantel. “You gave me your answer. You said you needed time.”

Didn’t he know a hundred years had passed since they sat in his car at the beach?

“It just took this horror with Gordon to make me realize I’ve been running scared.” She let her emotional armor drop. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Alex Jakobs.”

There was no organ music, no choir of angels and—worst of all—no answer from Alex.

F
our hours ago
, those words “Yes, I’ll marry you,” would have catapulted Alex somewhere beyond the Milky Way. Now he needed more than words.

“Say something, Alex. This isn’t the way I had it pictured.” She moved over to where he stood near the fireplace. “I love you so much.”

“It’s not enough.” Was he really saying this? Why not take what she offered and be thankful? He’d already known more happiness in the past two months than most people knew in a lifetime.

She put her drink down on the mantel. “I love you and I want to spend my life with you. What more can I offer?”

“Everything.” She stared at him. “I want all of you—no halfway measures. I don’t want to lie with you at night and wonder if your heart is somewhere else.”

“Rikki is a tough act to follow, Alex. If I’m willing to take a chance, why aren’t you?”

“I’ve leveled with you about Rikki,” he said carefully, “and she isn’t going to show up one Thanksgiving and turn our lives inside out.”

“Like Vladimir?”

“I expect you to have a past, Larkin, but when the past shows up on the doorstep, that’s something else entirely.”

“I don’t love him, Alex. I haven’t for a long time.”

“I believe that, but I also know things aren’t over between you.”

She said nothing.

“Finish it, Larkin. Whatever it is that pulls you to him, confront it, then put it behind you once and for all.”

Her smile was rueful. “That’s the trouble with failing in love with a shrink. Too perceptive. Too logical. You should have swept me off my feet—Alex the Blackhearted would have.”

“If you can’t come to me without reservation, don’t come to me at all, Larkin.” His control snapped and he pulled her against him in a fierce embrace. “I love you, but I’ll give you up before I share you with any man.” He kissed her and tasted brandy on her lips. “It’s up to you.”

He loved her too much to have her for a little while, only to lose her to an old love. He’d tasted loss before, and he didn’t think he could bear that pain again.

“I love you, Alex,” she said as they said goodbye at the door. “That will never change.”

But, of course, change was the one constant in life, and Alex wondered what kind of fool would send the woman he loved back into the arms of the man she’d left.

Maybe Alex the Blackhearted had the right idea after all. Maybe a taste of paradise was better than none at all. All he could do now was wait.

V
ladimir Karpov’s
two-bedroom suite at the Garden City Hotel was one of the most expensive accommodations on Long Island.

Larkin should know. The Learning Center was footing the nine-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-per-night tab on the suite. If that didn’t give her the right to bang on his door at 7:00 A.M. on the day after Thanksgiving, nothing did.

She knocked sharply three times, waited, then knocked again. From somewhere inside she heard the familiar sound of a Russian curse.

“No room service,” he called out. “Not before noon.”

“It’s Larkin,” she said, trying not to wake the rest of the guests. “I want to talk to you.”

There were more muttered curses, a woman’s voice, the sound of footsteps approaching. The door swung open.

“You are full of surprises, my love.” He kissed her on both cheeks and ushered her inside the massive drawing room. She tried to ignore the fact that he wore a short silk robe that barely covered his buttocks. “A call, though, would have simplified things.”

She looked around. “Is Patti here?”

He pushed his thick blond hair off his forehead. “A lady’s privacy is paramount.”

“Her brother is in the hospital. He needs to see her. If you’d answered the telephone last night, I wouldn’t have to break it to her like this.”

He disappeared into the bedroom, and minutes later a distraught and disheveled Patti Franklin appeared.

“Oh God, Larkin,” she said, as Larkin hugged her. “Was he in an accident? Is he—?”

“Nothing like that, Patti.” Briefly Larkin explained what had happened, leaving out the more personal details. “My car’s downstairs,” she said, handing the young woman the keys. “Take it. Gordon needs you with him, Patti.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll call a cab.” She gave her a gentle push. “Go.”

Patti was gone before Vladimir finished dressing.

“Patricia is gone?”

Larkin nodded. She couldn’t help noticing that Patti hadn’t said goodbye to him.

Vladimir sat down on the sofa opposite Larkin and stretched his long legs out in front of him. His bare feet grazed her ankles and she moved away. “You do terrible things to my social life, my love. You owe me an apology.”

“You’ll survive,” she said dryly. “I’m sure you have five more Patti Franklins waiting in the wings.”

“Such cynicism.” He reached for the phone and dialed room service. “Do you still like Mimosas and scrambled eggs?”

“Make it plain orange juice and toast.”

He made a face, but placed her order as she gave it. “First you take my new lover away from my bed, then you insult me. What else brings you here before dawn?”

“Check your watch, Vladimir. It’s after seven.”

“So literal, my love, so businesslike. Why, then, do. I think this visit is not strictly business?”

She dodged the question until room service arrived. However, as soon as the uniformed waiter disappeared, Vladimir, Bloody Mary in hand, was back on track.

“You did not come here just for Patricia, did you?”

“Very perceptive of you.” She slowly sipped her orange juice. “We have some unfinished business.” She’d been awake all night planning what she would say to Vladimir and how she would say it.

“About the workshop?”

“About us.”

He leaned forward. “You are more direct.” He finished his drink and put it on the table between them. “I think I like this change in you, my love.”

“That’s not important, Vladimir. What
is
important is the fact that I like the change in me.”

He reached for a piece of dark Russian bread and tore off a chunk with his teeth. “Your Alex—does he like this independence in a woman?”

“He values independence in anyone, man or woman.”

“How enlightened.” He leaned back on the sofa. “Perhaps had I not been so European in outlook, you would not have left me.”

“You didn’t do anything I didn’t allow.” Amazing how clear things suddenly seemed. Vladimir had required constant attention, constant tending. She had willingly adopted a posture of servitude, and he couldn’t be blamed totally for taking advantage of it. “It took me three years to realize the fault was as much mine as yours.”

The perennial twinkle in his blue eyes disappeared. For the first time since she’d known him, Vladimir Karpov looked his age.

“I think of you often these years, my love. I—”

She laughed out loud. “You never thought of me when I slept next to you every night. Why think of me now?”

“Because, strange to tell, I miss you still.”

“You don’t miss me, Vladimir. You just find it difficult to accept the fact that one got away.” She smiled at him. “I consider that my one claim to fame.”

He didn’t laugh with her. Something inside her heart softened toward him.

“I make things hard on you.” Under stress, he reverted to the present tense. “I take and take, and what do I give?” His large, slender hands fanned out in a graceful gesture of defeat. “Nothing. I give nothing.”

“And I asked for nothing. We made a perfect couple.”

He offered her a piece of sausage, but she shook her head.

“For months I’d planned how I would dazzle you with my business acumen and astound you with my sophistication. I wanted you to marvel at my success and wonder how you ever let such a treasure get away.”

“But I show up at your house and ruin everything?”

“Exactly. There I was, your little bourgeois darling, with her family and friends, doing the same things I was doing when I left you. What had changed?”

He said nothing.

“Well, I finally figured it out: I had changed, Vladimir. It didn’t matter whether you saw me at home or at the Center. I like my life and I like the woman I’ve become.” She no longer cared if he was impressed by her success; the fact that she had succeeded was reward enough.

“American women care so much for these things. In Europe life is simpler.” The twinkle in his eye returned; “In Europe, man is king—much better system.”

She laughed and tossed her linen napkin at him. “You’re still impossible. It’s nice to know some things never change.” She stood up.

He stood up also and took her hands in his. “We make mistakes along the way, you and I. We see life differently. I wish change is possible.”

Years ago that simple statement would have sent her spirits skyward with hope. Now it didn’t matter. She knew exactly what she wanted out of life.

“Don’t ever change, Vladimir,” she said lightly. “You’d disappoint so many women if you did.”

“For you perhaps I try.”

“You’re a gallant liar. Thank you.”

“I see you at the big dinner Sunday night?”

“Of course. I’m looking forward to it.”

She quickly ran over some of the details concerning the gala and promised to contact his manager, Mikhail, to firm up time and place. Then she looked up at Vladimir and kissed him.

No magic. No fireworks. A bittersweet longing for simpler times tugged at her heart for a moment, then disappeared. She was free at last to move forward.

Before she left, she turned back to him. “You be good to Patti, Vladimir. Don’t go promising her love eternal.”

He laughed and his old charm returned. “I never make promises like that, my love. I’ll just leave her with happy memories.”

That’s not enough,
Larkin thought as the elevator glided back down to the lobby. She wanted a hell of a lot more than memories to warm her in her old age.

She wanted Alex Jakobs and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

B
y 9
:00 A.M., Alex had run three miles, washed and waxed his car, repaired the back fence on his property, then driven out to the airport. He’d exhausted all of his earthbound activities and was going to take to the air in an attempt to keep one step ahead of his thoughts.

Only a wise man or a fool would have encouraged the woman he loved to confront her past, and at the moment, Alex had a pretty good idea which term best suited him. He should have taken a lesson from his Halloween alter ego, Alex the Blackhearted, and thrown Larkin over his shoulder and spirited her away.

He was still chuckling over the image of himself in thigh-high boots, striding down Jericho Turnpike when he stepped inside the office of the control tower to file his flight plan.

“You’re early today, Alex,” the ground coordinator said. “Going somewhere special?”

“Any place but here. How does Newport sound?” He tried not to think about the plans he’d once had concerning Larkin and Newport and a ring he’d spotted in a jewelry store in the center of town.

The coordinator punched a couple of buttons on his computer terminal. The printer clicked on. “Some fog, but it’s still okay.” He handed Alex a weather and traffic report and a current sectional chart. “Hang loose.”

Alex took the printout from Gene, then jogged back to his Cessna. He was finishing his preflight check when he heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel behind him. “Don’t tell me, Gene! Newport’s socked in and the only place left on the Eastern Seaboard is Philadelphia.”

He turned. Larkin, looking tired and anxious and absolutely beautiful, stood twenty feet away.

“If I were Philadelphia, I’d be furious,” she said, walking toward him. “You should have more respect for the Cradle of Liberty. Think of our forefathers slaving over the Declaration of Independence, struggling with—”

“My apologies to Philadelphia,” he said, struggling to sound as if his whole future didn’t rest in her hands. “I’ll send the chamber of commerce a donation.”

She stopped in front of him. The early sunlight sparkled in the pale highlights of her amber hair.

“I finally found Patti.”

It was a good thing that she spoke first; he was having trouble forming a coherent sentence. “I’m glad,” he managed at last. “How did she take the news?”

“She’s upset, but she’s a survivor. She’s with Gordon now.”

He leaned against the open door of his Cessna. “Where did you finally track her down?”

“The Garden City Hotel, penthouse suite.”

His stomach clenched. “With Karpov?”

Larkin nodded. “Afraid I put quite a damper on their morning frolic.”

He couldn’t muster any sympathy for the Russian. “He’ll live.”

“No doubt.” Larkin’s eyes twinkled. He didn’t want to speculate what that meant.

He looked toward the small parking lot beyond the chain link fence. “Where’s your car?” There was no sign of her red Datsun anywhere.

“Patti has it.”

“How did you get here?”

“Taxi.”

“Must have cost a fortune.”
Good going, Jakobs. Woo her with witty conversation.

“It did.” She moved closer to him. “First I went to your house, then your office. This was my last resort—I’m almost out of money.”

“Good timing. I’m cleared for takeoff in ten minutes.”

“Then I’ll get right to the point.” Her eyes never left his. He hoped that was a good sign, but he was beyond rational thought. “As Roger said to me last night, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’” She smiled at him. “It’s over.”

His heart went crazy inside his chest with hope. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. The memories were there, but that’s all.” Her expression was both rueful and bemused. “I put him up in a nine-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-per-night suite to impress him and found out his opinion doesn’t matter to me anymore. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Not ironic,
he thought.
Wonderful.

“The memories were there, but I’ve found I need more than memories to warm me when I’m old and grey.”

He put his flight log down on the wing of the Cessna and drew her into his arms. “Spell it out, Larkin,” he said over the roar of a private jet streaking down the runway. “Where do we go from here?”

She peeked over his shoulder and checked his log. “Newport?” Her smile reached all the way to his heart. “If you could use a good navigator, I’m willing to sign on.”

“It’s a long trip,” he said. “The ride can get pretty bumpy.”

“I know. That doesn’t scare me.”

“I want forever from you,” he said, searching her face for any lingering doubt. “I want forever or nothing at all.”

She brushed his hair from his eyes, and he felt the rapid beating of her heart against his chest. “I’ll give you sixty years,” she said, laughing. “Then we’ll renegotiate the contract.”

“Sorry.” He kissed her in a way that would do Alex the BIackhearted proud. “We’re signing up for life.”

“No escape clauses?”

He pulled her closer. “No escape clauses, no options, no renegotiations.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“The stakes are high, I want you to know what you’re getting into.”‘

“What happened to the logical Dr. Jakobs?”

“When it comes to you, I think only with my heart.”

She touched his mouth with her fingertip. “I love you, Alex,” she whispered. “I always will.”

He opened the door of the Cessna and helped her inside.

“Why are we going to Newport?” she asked as he climbed in beside her. “A good navigator needs to know these things.”

He grinned as he put on the headphones. “I know a terrific little store where we can get a jump on our Christmas shopping.”

“We haven’t finished the leftover turkey yet, and you’re talking Christmas shopping.” She shook her head and he laughed. “Sometimes you baffle me, Doctor.”

Sometimes he baffled himself. Cool, logical Alex Jakobs didn’t stand a chance before the power of love.

First stop was that little jewelry store in the center of town. Then, if the lady was willing, he knew of a colonial inn not too far from there that catered to newlyweds.

It would make one hell of an early Christmas present—and a great story to tell their grandchildren one day.