The Seduction Plan (17 page)

Well, this is the price she’d have to pay for that head in the sand approach. She walked the opposite direction toward the stores she knew about and chose several pairs of slacks, shirts and underwear, avoiding all the sexy lingerie she’d been wearing for the past several months while with Victor and reverting back to her plain, cotton underwear. It was good enough, she told herself. She wouldn’t be allowing any other views of this underwear, she told herself as she walked back to her apartment, clothes and a few kitchen items under her arm. She should take a cab but she wasn’t sure what her financial situation was at the moment.

Two weeks later, she finally got up the nerve to call Victor’s secretary and demand that she have her furniture back. The woman had arranged for the storage in the first place so Lana reasoned that she didn’t need to speak to Victor in order to get her furniture back. She was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and her back was starting to suffer from the hard surface. She’d only broken down to call now because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could take it.

“Good evening, Edith. This is Lana,” she said as soon as the efficient woman answered the phone.

 

“Lana?” the other woman replied, startled. “Goodness! Where are you, Miss? Mr. Davenport has been searching everywhere for you.”

Lana wasn’t exactly sure how to answer. She didn’t want to talk to Victor but she needed her furniture. She couldn’t afford to buy all new things and a lot of her furniture and dishes she loved, having bought them after her first book sold. They represented her freedom from the life she’d shared with Drew and now, freeing her furniture from Victor’s storage stranglehold would make her feel empowered after this latest debacle. “I don’t really want to talk about where I am. I’d just like to find my furniture and get it out of storage. I’ll even pay for the storage fees, if you’ll just give me the total.”

Lana could hear Norma’s hesitation. “Well, why don’t you give me your address and I’ll have it all delivered.”

Lana almost laughed at how transparent Victor’s secretary was. “Edith, if I give you my address, I’ll be telling you where I am. I don’t want Victor showing up on my doorstep. I don’t ever want to talk to him again.”

“Oh, please don’t say that, Miss Lana. I know he feels horrible about whatever happened between the two of you. I mean, he’s been an awful bear around here for the past couple of weeks.”

“Good,” Lana said, but her heart was tearing apart at the woman’s words. “Is he okay?” she asked with a small voice, then shook her head, remembering that she didn’t care about him. “Forget I asked that. I don’t care if he’s okay. He lied to me and used me and I don’t want to have anything to do with him.” She took a deep breath and regrouped. “Just tell me which storage facility is keeping my furniture and I’ll arrange everything else.”

Edith hesitated. “Why don’t you give me your phone number and I’ll have a delivery person call you back. I don’t remember exactly which storage facility was used, to be honest with you.”

Lana gritted her teeth in frustration. She didn’t believe Edith for a moment. The woman was efficiency personified and was just trying to get more information out of her. “Edith, Victor has my cell phone number so I’m sure he’s already passed it on to you. When you have the storage phone number, just leave me a message on my cell phone and I’ll do the rest.” She couldn’t battle with the woman any longer. The short conversation had left her exhausted as it is. “I have to go, Edith. Please hurry with the details. I can’t cook anything without my pots and pans.”

“I’ll do my best,” Edith assured Lana before ringing off.

Lana shook her head as she snapped her cell phone shut. She hated that man more than anything she’d ever imagined she could hate. It was a deep, horrible, energyrobbing hatred. And underneath it all, Lana knew she was lying to herself. She loved Victor. She’d fallen in love with the man so completely she couldn’t imagine having any other man touch her. It was a daunting feeling to see one’s future without any emotion in it. No children, no husband, no love.

The thought sent a chill down her body but she buried herself in work. She’d finished the first book and now, knowing how she could do it, she was eager to start a new plot. She had it worked out in her mind but she fleshed it out a little more on her computer.

That was how her life was for the next two weeks. She worked long hours on the computer, barely eating because she didn’t have an appetite. She barely slept, partially because she was still sleeping on the floor, too nervous about calling Edith once again but also because each time she fell asleep, Victor came to her in her dreams. It was like she relived all the amazing experiences with him each night. Lana would wake up in a sweat, her breathing rapid and her mind disoriented because the dreams were so real. And she wanted Victor so desperately.

By the end of the first month, she had to call Nancy. She’d had no messages about her book and her bank balance was getting dangerously low. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she had to find out why the book wasn’t hitting the markets yet.

“Nancy, what’s going on?” Lana demanded without preamble as soon as her editor answered the phone.

 

This was so unlike her even Nancy hesitated. “Lana? Where are you?”

 

“Don’t worry about where I am. What’s going on with my book? I gave you the manuscript so you have everything you need. Why haven’t you put it on the queue?” There was a long silence before Nancy finally said, “It isn’t ever going to be published, Lana.”

Lana was too stunned by her editor’s words to take them in immediately. She sat on the floor, her bottom already numb from sitting there for several hours even though it was only ten o’clock in the morning. She’d been working since midnight, unable to sleep. She was tired, achy and now scared that she’d have to dip into her precious savings account if she didn’t get her latest book published. “What are you talking about? You said yourself that the book was terrific. What’s wrong with it?”

Nancy sighed. “It isn’t the book. It’s the owner. The new guy has ordered that it couldn’t be published. He said if you want more information, you’d have to call this number.” Nancy rattled off the phone number but Lana didn’t bother to write it down. She already had it in her cell phone’s memory. It was Victor’s personal cell phone number.

“Are you serious?” Lana whispered. “It won’t be published at all?”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Davenport, the new owner, was very specific. He doesn’t usually become involved at our level but after our meeting last month, he stormed into my office, saw your manuscript and took it with him. Less than three hours later, he called personally to tell me that all copies of the book should be destroyed and I should contact him if you contacted me for any reason.” Nancy hesitated before continuing. “Why are you being blackballed?”

That dirty word hung in the air between them and Lana could hardly breathe, much less answer the question. She finally got enough air in her lungs to say, “I have to go now Nancy.”

“Call me later,” her editor said a moment before Lana disconnected the call.

Lana glared at the boring white wall in front of her. She had two choices. She could live off her savings for the next six months while she worked on her next manuscript, prayed that another publishing house would ignore Victor’s powerful reach and publish it, or she could force a confrontation with Victor and demand that he lift the ban on her work. A few months ago, she would have taken the first option, hiding instead of confronting. But after spending so much time with Victor, she’d gained a large dose of self worth and she wasn’t going to give it up. He might be powerful and wealthy and all those other awful words that could put her out of commission. But she wasn’t anyone’s coward.

She’d been so for the past four weeks and she wasn’t going to do it any more. It was time she stood up for herself. She had to be strong or become homeless soon and she wasn’t going down that route for any man.

She picked herself up off the floor and showered. This time, she pulled on a pair of jeans and sweater, applying a light coat of makeup and pulling her hair back into a chic pony tail. She wished she had a nicer pair of slacks but she didn’t want to spend any more money than she had to. Especially just to tell off a man who had too much power and not enough morals.

The cab ride over to his office gave her the time to build up her indignation. She supposed she should have called Edith and asked if Victor was even in New York but she was too furious to think properly and the idea that he might not even be in the office or in a meeting didn’t occur to her until she was standing in front of Edith’s desk. “Is he available?” Lana asked a gaping Edith.

“Absolutely,” Edith replied, her harried face turning to smiles instantly. “And boy am I glad he is,” she muttered under her breath but Lana heard her. She might have wondered about the comment but she was too furious with Victor’s machinations to care what his secretary was muttering about.

She followed Edith into Victor’s office. What she saw almost broke her but she stood firm, despite the hair that was already out of place and the loosened tie around Victor’s neck. Victor never loosened his tie until he was walking into the penthouse each evening. So it was odd to see him so disheveled this early in the morning. “Mr. Davenport…” Edith started to say but Victor waved her away.

“No interruptions today, Edith. Just tell me if she calls again.”

 

Victor’s eyes were haggard and his mouth grim as he ignored Edith’s chuckle to sift through the files on his desk.

 

“She’s here,” Edith replied and turned to leave, closing the door behind Lana, giving them the unasked for privacy.

 

“You’re here!” Victor said, the tension lessening slightly in his eyes.

Lana stiffened her resolve. She wasn’t here to find out why he looked so sick. He’d probably been out with so many women lately he hadn’t had enough sleep. “Yes. I’m here. And I want to know why you won’t allow Nancy to publish my book. You’re a lying bastard and I won’t have you manipulating me any longer, Victor!” she said but was furious when her voice broke on the last part of her statement.

Victor dropped his hands to his sides but his eyes drank her in hungrily. “I’m a bastard but I never lied to you. And I wouldn’t think of manipulating you in any way.”

Lana turned her back on him so she didn’t see his eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was in as much pain as she was. “You didn’t tell me that you were the owner of the publishing house. You knew exactly what was going on when you saw me crying and you changed the whole situation around so that it would maximize your profits.”

Victor sighed and she saw his reflection as his hands ran through his hair. “I won’t deny that I’d had a meeting with the editors that morning to let them know that certain lines of the company would die out. But when I saw you crying in the elevator, the furthest thing on my mind was maximizing profits, no matter what the previous editors’ meeting was about.”

She swung back to face him, glaring at his haggard face with anger ripping her up inside. “I don’t believe you, Victor. I read all about your businesses on the internet. You’re wealthier than Midas!”

“My net worth has nothing to do with our relationship!” He came around the desk to pace his office. “I saw you. I wanted you and the more I got to know you, the more I wanted you. Dammit, it’s your fault that we’re in this kind of situation.”

She gasped at his outrageous comment. “My fault! How do you figure that?”

Hands on hips, he glared at her as he advanced to her position in the middle of his office. “If you had been like all the others, then I wouldn’t be feeling this way. I could have my nice, orderly life and gone on to the next woman without a thought. That’s what I do. I run businesses and I meet beautiful women. I have a good time on both ends of those two areas but never do those worlds meet. And then you came along,” he rasped out, moving closer to her, “with your gorgeous hair swinging down around your cute little butt, and your long, sexy legs with those ridiculous preppy shoes that made me lust after you more than any woman I’d ever met in my life.” He paused and stopped less than two inches from her, glaring down at her. “And how you managed to make me fall in love with you, I’ll never know but by god! I’ll never let you go!” he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “And you feel the same way so don’t even deny it,” he mumbled against her lips as her purse dropped from her shoulder.

“You don’t…,” she gasped when he lifted his mouth from hers. “You don’t love me. You’re trying to blackball me!” she remembered and tried to pull out of his arms, her anger returning despite all the passion simmering just under the surface after that kiss.

“I haven’t blackballed you at all. But I won’t let you publish all of our personal details.”

She didn’t understand what he was telling her but she understood her fears. And she lashed out with those first. “I can’t afford to go without that book being published.” But his words didn’t mesh with her perception of the situation. If he’d been so intent on getting more profits out of her books, why wasn’t he publishing the manuscript? The next question that popped into her mind was, if he wasn’t out to get more profits, then why had he been with her? The answer that occurred to her was too wonderful and she couldn’t let her heart wrap around the answer. If she was wrong, it would be too painful.

He pulled her back into his arms and shook his head. “Well, then I think you have two choices.”

“What’s that?” she asked, knowing she should push him away but she couldn’t. He felt too perfect, too wonderful against her. And she’d longed for his touch for so long she couldn’t stop him when his mouth touched her neck, nibbling against the sensitive skin.

“You can go on making us live through a daily hell by keeping us apart while you write another book, one that has nothing to do with our personal love life.”

 

She wiggled against him when he bit her ear lobe. “What’s option number two,” she asked, not liking the first option.

“You can move back in with me, marry me and have children with me, make both our lives livable, love me for the rest of your life and let me love you as well, and write your next romance with me as your role model once again. I can’t guarantee that I’ll let it be published though.”