Tender Deception: A Novel of Romance (18 page)

I love you, Kirk
, she whispered in her heart. How she longed to speak the words aloud! But pride stilled them on her lips. What thoughts were going through Kirk’s mind, she wondered? Was he filled with a sense of tenderness toward her? But sadness engulfed her as she realized that he must be thinking of Marie Algretto at this very moment, regretting that she was not the woman in his arms.

Remington kissed her. “Forgive me for deserting you, Lilly. I’d like to prolong this moment, but I think it’s about time for the catering service to deliver our dinner.”

He stepped out of the pool with a shower of wet drops. He toweled himself dry vigorously, then slipped into a robe and left.

Lilly suddenly felt very alone. Her tears mingled with the water, dropping on an orchid that floated near her cheek. If she could be sure Kirk truly loved her, she would have been happier in a third-rate hotel room with stained wallpaper!

Finally there were no tears left. She dried and dressed in the gown and negligee. She caught a sight of her flushed face and her damp, towel-dried hair. A sudden, mischievous mood came over her. Perhaps it was a reaction to the depression she had been feeling. Looking at herself in the mirror, she giggled, “Lilly Parker, you look like a woman who has just been thoroughly slept with!” Kirk Remington might be an egotistical, ruthless man, but he was definitely a master at lovemaking. She almost wished that they were not so good together. It would be easier to deny her love for him.

Suddenly, she remembered, “It’s not Lilly Parker anymore, is it?” She held up her left hand with the massive diamond and the gold wedding band. “You’re a married woman now. You are Mrs. Kirk Remington.”

Again a sense of unreality gripped her. Lilly sighed, fastened the negligee around her slim waist, and rejoined Kirk in the main room of the suite. While she had been dressing, the catering service had delivered their dinner. It was waiting for her, a lavish spread of gourmet meats and sauces, steaming vegetables and crisp salads. Kirk was opening a bottle of wine.

The food was as delicious as it looked. Succulent Maine lobster melted in her mouth. Tender asparagus in hollandaise sauce brought an ecstatic response from her taste buds. The excellent wine spread its warmth through her.

Kirk was watching her with an amused expression. “You have quite an appetite, Mrs. Remington.”

Lilly stopped eating. She averted her gaze, looking down at her plate. She felt painfully self-conscious.

“I would say,” Kirk observed with a teasing note in his voice, “that lovemaking agrees with you.”

She felt a hot flush spread from her throat up her cheeks to her hair line.

“Am I embarrassing you?”

“You certainly are!”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” he smiled, raising his glass of wine. “We’re married. It’s quite legal...and moral now.”

“Legal, perhaps,” she murmured. “I think there may be a good question about how moral it is.”

“But I didn’t hear many protests from you. Be honest, Lilly. Admit it. You liked making love with me. You reveled in it.”

Angrily, she looked at him. “Don’t rub it in! All right, yes, sex between us is good. I’m not a frigid woman. I suppose you’ve found that out to your satisfaction. Is that what you want to hear?”

He gazed at her with a questioning expression. “Then why sound so angry about it?”

“I think you know the answer to that. It’s the situation. All of this has been forced on me. You certainly didn’t marry me because you loved me! I don’t know why you did. Probably to satisfy your swollen ego. Sex doesn’t add up to love. You may be able to arouse a physical response in me. You’re quite good at that. I suppose you’ve had enough practice! But you’ll never own my heart.”

He flushed angrily. “Then I’ll settle for what I do own!”

They lapsed into a cold, remote silence. Lilly no longer enjoyed the food. She left the table, went to a window, pushed the drapes aside and gazed out at the scene below.

Kirk remained at the table, moodily drinking. After a while he rose, moved to where she was standing and said, “Suppose we declare a truce. We might as well make the best of the evening. Why don’t you try the piano?”

Lilly shrugged, not wanting to speak to him. She moved away from the window to the baby grand. She touched the keys and found the response irresistible. Here, at least was a friend, a lover she could trust. Taking a seat on the bench, she began to play, limbering her hands first with arpeggios, then allowing melodies to flow from her heart to the keyboard. She found herself playing Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata.

As she played, she caught a glimpse of Kirk. He had settled into a chair nearby, watching her intently. He seemed transfixed, his attention heightened and centered on her. Strong emotions played over his face as he listened.

She played for half an hour, during which time Kirk did not move from the chair. When she paused for a moment to rest, he suddenly rose and moved to her side. “That was superb,” he whispered huskily. His eyes were aflame with a passion she couldn’t define.

He caught her arms and lifted her from the piano bench until they were standing close together. He kissed her, a lingering kiss, different from his other kisses. She was at a loss to describe the feeling he put into the embrace. She sensed that her playing aroused some kind of emotion in him that she did not yet understand.

He touched the ribbons on her robe and gown, whispering against her lips, “Please don’t stop, Lilly. Play for me again.”

With a feeling of being half dazed, she again took her seat at the piano. He stood nearby, hungrily drinking in the sight of her as she played. She felt his gaze like a hot mantel over her trembling flesh. It was a moment of unreality. Incredible as it seemed, it was as if her music had become an intimate link between them, a joining of something deeper in both of them than a mere physical union.

She sensed that his passion was fueled by the music that sprang from her fingertips. She heard his breath, deep and strained as he drank in the sight of her swaying and moving on the piano bench to the rhythm of the melody she was playing. She was gripped in the spell of the moment, compelled to play harder. Was this the secret key that would unlock his heart? Had she temporarily wiped the image of Marie Algretto from his mind? Was he in love with Lilly Parker in this moment?

Her left hand moved in a sensuous eight-to-the-bar rhythmic bass while her right hand sought out rich melodic chords, all of it building in tempo and intensity into a heated jazz improvisation.

Suddenly, as if his storm of emotions had become too violent to control, Kirk swept her up from the piano bench in his strong arms. He carried her into the bedroom, covering the distance in long, powerful strides. He placed her on the round bed, flung his robe aside and joined her. He seized her with a primitive kind of passion more demanding than anything she had experienced in him before. At first she recoiled from his rough approach, but then the yearning nature of his desire communicated itself to her and a primitive force of her own responded. She was overcome by the moment, controlled by passion, swept into a furious storm of emotion, sensation, elation.

Long afterward, when the passion they’d shared had been drained, she lay still and spent in the quiet, darkened room, gazing at the ceiling. Now in the coldness of returned sanity, she pondered the incredible sequel of events that had aroused Kirk. She was beginning to understand that Kirk had married her for her musical ability as much as for herself. But more than that, perhaps the two were somehow linked. He had expressed more than once his fascination and envy of persons with her talent. Was his own frustration so great that he was driven to possess her and thereby seek to become part of her music? The concept was so confusing and so new, that as yet she couldn’t get a grip on it. But she was certain that her playing was somehow mixed up with his physical desire for her. There were sexually related overtones involved with her musical ability. If she could understand that, perhaps she could understand the baffling mystery of the man she had married.

CHAPTER TEN

The next day they left on the final lap of their flight to San Francisco.

“I’ve bought a house for us to live in,” Kirk told her. “But it needs some work. We’ll be staying at the Hyatt Regency for a short while until the house is ready.”

Lilly saw the blue Pacific and then the bay area of San Francisco below them. When they left the airport, she was greeted by a gust of chilly, damp air off the Pacific. She snuggled into her new fur coat, glad of its protection.

They were met by a limousine ordered by Kirk’s San Francisco office. The sleek automobile transported them up and down the steep grades of the San Francisco streets. Then Kirk escorted Lilly into the incredibly luxurious Hyatt Regency hotel. She gazed in wonder at the great lobby, the vast open spaces, the fountains, the stringed orchestra, the caged doves, and up at the eighteen-story tiers of rooms rising in terraces above the huge lobby. She saw the lighted glass gondolas that sped up and down open shafts, whisking guests to their floors.

She felt like pinching herself. Could Lilly Parker really be in a place like this?

In the luxurious, pink-tiled bathroom of their suite, Lilly had a few moments of privacy. She stared at her image reflected in the expanse of mirrors above the long counter. “Is this really you, Lilly, in this place? Is all this actually happening?” She felt a hysterical impulse to giggle. She remembered the bare little frame house that had been her family’s home back in Millerdale. In winter they had battled with an open space heater the cold drafts that came around the windows. Summers without air-conditioning had been stifling. There had been no closets in the house. Her few garments had been hung behind a door on an improvised rack. When she went off to college she had shared a small, furnished room with a girlfriend and when she went to New Orleans, the shabby third-rate hotel room had been her home. Now she suddenly found herself in one of the most glamorous hotels in America, the wife of a wealthy, sophisticated man of the world. It was small wonder that there was an aura of unreality about the situation.

When she undressed, she saw the gold locket she had worn for so many years dangling between her breasts. She unfastened the clasp and opened the locket, seeing Jimmy’s high school picture. She put the locket in her purse. If Kirk discovered she carried a locket given to her by Jimmy, it would only start another jealous argument.

She soaked in a warm, scented bath, allowing her tense muscles to relax, her nerves to grow more calm. Surrounded by the soapy liquid that gently caressed her body, her thoughts languidly drifted. She closed her eyes, experiencing in her memory Kirk’s caresses, his murmured endearments, his kisses. A fresh thrill raced through her and her flesh tingled. She hugged herself, aware of her anticipation and attraction for Kirk.

Then her daydreams turned to more practical matters—her own career. By accepting Kirk’s bargain she had saved Jimmy’s future. But what would the future hold for her? Kirk had promised her big things. Obviously he had important connections in the entertainment world. Would she become a star as he promised? She felt a surge of excitement. Was she headed for some kind of thrilling appointment with destiny?

She stepped from the tub and rubbed her body until it turned a glowing pink with a great, thick bath towel. She ran a comb through her hair and applied makeup lightly. Then she slipped into a filmy nightgown and fastened the sash of a robe tightly about her slim waist.

Kirk was standing at a window, gazing down at the city. He was wearing a wine-red robe and smoking an expensive cigar. Hearing her, he put out the cigar in an ashtray and turned to gaze at her. He drank in the sight of her with a look that made her blush to the roots of her hair. But at the same time, it brought a quickening response of her heartbeat. Kirk had a way of looking at a woman as if she were the center of the universe. He seemed oblivious of their surroundings, only aware of her.

“You’re beautiful, Lilly,” he murmured. “The sight of you takes my breath away.”

She swallowed hard, not knowing what to say, but feeling a magnetic attraction drawing her to his side.

“I’ve been looking out at the city,” he said, putting his arm around her.

The lights of the city spread before her, a twinkling blanket of rolling hills, streets that swept up at steep angles, then dropped swiftly to the sea. A light fog formed halos around the lights, creating a scene of soft, transparent beauty.

“It’s lovely,” she murmured.

“Yes. San Francisco is my favorite city. I’m going to enjoy showing it to you—Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Japanese Gardens, the art museums, the theaters. It’s a picturesque and cosmopolitan city.”

Then he moved to a nearby table where a bottle of champagne was cooling. The loud pop of the cork caused Lilly to start. Kirk poured two glasses and handed one to Lilly.

She sipped the bubbly liquid, feeling it tickle her nose. It gave her a light-headed, giddy feeling, a reckless feeling of daring.

Kirk downed his glass, refilled it, but left it on the table. He moved to her side and suddenly swept her up in his powerful arms. He carried her lightly and sat in a chair, holding her on his lap.

“You’re very tense, Lilly. You feel stiff.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to relax.”