Warm Hearts (50 page)

“He did. He seduced me.”

“Seduced—what does that mean?”

“Brenda…!” Diane protested in a whine.

“Seduced. Explain.”

For the first time, Diane seemed to waver. “He … he … made love to me.”

“Where?” Brenda shot back.

“Now just a minute,” Henry the lawyer spoke up, Leslie thought his voice was as phony as the rest of him. “I don't believe my client has to answer your questions.”

Brenda came forward, her hands on her hips. “Your client happens to be my sister. And the man she's accusing is a man who means one hell of a lot to my other sister. I'll ask whatever questions I want.” She turned back to Diane. “Well? Where did you two make love?”

Diane shifted in her seat, keeping her gaze far from Oliver. “He made love to me, and it was in his office.”

“On the desk?” Brenda came back as sweetly and sarcastically as Tony had moments before.

Diane scowled. “No.” Her voice wavered. “There's a sofa there.”

“Do you lie on the sofa during your sessions?”

“No. I … I sit in a chair.”

“So how did he get you to the sofa?”

Diane grew petulant, reminding Leslie of a child who'd been caught in a lie and was trying to lie her way out of it. “He told me I'd feel better if I were to lie down.”

“So you did.”

“He was the doctor. Yes.”

“And he just told you to take off your clothes?”

“Wait a minute—” Brad cut in, only to have Tony cut him off in turn.

“Let her answer. This is getting interesting.”

“It's getting personal,” Brad argued.

Tony's nostrils flared. “Isn't the whole thing personal?” Sucking in a loud breath, he turned to Brenda. “Go on.”

Without pause, she resumed her relentless prodding. “What did he do … after you stretched out on the couch?”

Diane looked at the carpet. “He … he told me.…” She waved a hand and winced. “You know.”

“I don't. Tell me.”

“He said.…” She scowled in frustration. “You can imagine what he said, Brenda! What does any man say when he sets out to seduce a woman?”

Brenda pursed her lips. “I've only known two men in my life, and neither of them has tried to seduce me on a psychiatrist's couch. So my imagination's no good, Di. Tell me what he said.”

Diane seemed to hesitate. She frowned, then gripped the arm of the chair. “He said sweet things.”

“
Like what
?”

If Brenda's patience was wearing thin, Diane's was exhausted. With a sudden fury, she glared at her sister. “He told me it would be good for me, that it was a vital part of my treatment! He told me that he wanted me anyway, and that he'd make it good!” Her anger took on a touch of sadness. “He said that Brad must have been crazy to pass me by and spend time with women who couldn't possibly hold a candle to me.”

Tears in her eyes, she bolted up. She was oblivious to the contorted expression on her husband's face. “He told me that I was still young and beautiful. That he loved me,” she blurted defiantly. “And I loved him. He was kind and considerate and caring.” Standing rigidly, she sent Leslie a gloating stare. “He's a good lover, Leslie. Very skilled and gentle. Not selfish like Brad,” she spat.

Then, as the others watched in varying stages of anger, dismay and pity, she sank into her chair and let her head loll back. Astonishingly, her voice gentled along with her expression. She seemed to enter a dreamlike state. “His skin was smooth here, rough there. And he was lean and hard. He wanted me. He did. And I wanted him.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I think I'll always remember that smell.…”

Leslie sat forward. “What smell?” she whispered, entranced by her sister's performance.

Diane opened her eyes and sent Leslie a patronizing smile. “His cologne. Homme Premier.” She shook her head. “He's so handsome. It's not every girl who's lucky enough to have a model as a therapist.”

“He doesn't wear cologne,” Leslie stated quietly.

“Excuse me?” Henry asked, twisting to study her.

She looked him in the eye and spoke slowly, with confidence. “I said that he doesn't wear cologne. I know. I spent a week with him at the villa on St. Barts.” Rising smoothly, she walked to where Oliver stood and slipped her arm around his waist. Together they faced the gathering. “I know him far better than Diane ever will. Oliver doesn't wear Homme Premier … or any other cologne, for that matter. He never has. And if I have any say in the matter—” she looked adoringly up at him “—he never will.” A slow smile found its way to her lips as a foil for the tears in her eyes. “He smells far too good on his own.” Then, at the urging of his arms, she turned fully into his embrace. “I love you,” she mouthed.

The moisture that gathered at the corner of his eye only enchanted his silent echo of the words. Then he smiled, and Leslie knew that everything would be fine.

10

Fascinated, Leslie stood staring at Oliver's sleeping form. He was magnificent. Dark wavy hair, mussed by loving, fell across his brow. His jaw bore the faintest shadow of a beard. His nose was straight, his lips firm. Lying amid a sensual array of sheets that barely covered one leg, and that part she now knew so well, he was the epitome of health, good looks and raw masculinity.

Again and again her gaze returned to the taunting, strip of flesh at his hip. It would always excite her, even now that her fingers had repeatedly conquered its velvet smoothness. With a sultry half smile, she let her eye creep back up, over the broad and sinewed expanse of his lightly haired chest, to his face.

“Where've you been?” he murmured sleepily, holding out an arm in invitation for her to join him.

Flipping off the bathroom light, she was across the room and in his arms, stretched out against him, in seconds. “I was just looking at you,” she said softly, “remembering the very first time I saw you.”

“On St. Barts?”

“In
Man's Mode.
You were so beautiful. Tony must have thought I was crazy. I kept staring at that ad, at the expression on your face.” She nestled her chin atop the soft hair on his chest. “You wore such a look of vulnerability; you seemed lonely and in love. I wanted to reach out to you then!”

“Took you long enough,” he chided, giving her a squeeze.

Her voice was mellow. She kissed his warm skin, then laid her ear against it. “I know.”

“What was it, Les? What finally brought you back to me?”

Surrounded by the night sounds of the Berkshires, she pondered his question. It had been long after dark when they'd arrived, so she'd been unable to see the beauty of the hills. But the sounds—the rustle of wind through the forest, the murmur of nocturnal life along its mossy floor, the occasional hoot of an owl—gave her a sense of well-being.

“I think I never really left you,” she confessed, experimenting with the fit of her hand to his ribs. “I was so in love with you on St. Barts. I'd never known anything like that before!”

“You should have told me.”

“Did you tell me?”

“No. But that was because I knew I'd been deceiving you, and I felt like a louse. The last thing I wanted was to tell you I loved you, then, when you learned the truth about what I did, have you throw the words back in my face. With regard to those three little words, I needed you to believe me.”

“I believed you. Oh, I tried not to. But I believed you.”

“You said you didn't.”

“I lied. I was angry and hurt. I felt so … naive. I'd had a complex all along about having to compete with the glossy women I'd assumed you were used to. Then when I found out that you were a psychiatrist.…”

“Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“That I'm a psychiatrist.”

“Of course not. What's to mind?”

In the darkness she could just make out the gleam in his eye. “Psychiatrists are loonies, didn't you know? They're as crazy as their patients. They're—” he curled his mouth around and drawled the word “—strange.”

“Not this one.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure. You must be nearly as rational as my sister Brenda.” When he eyed her as though she were the strange one, she explained. “Your plan. It was brilliant. Those weeks you left me alone were awful. I missed you so terribly and kept trying to convince myself that I was better without such a lying devil, but it didn't work. When you sent that little kitten, I was overjoyed.” Her voice dropped. “I love the kitten, Oliver.”

“I'm glad,” he whispered against her brow. His fingers idly traced the line of her spine. Her skin was warm and smooth; he'd never get his fill of touching her. “I had it all worked out. I figured I'd give you time to cool off and even miss me, then I'd let you get to know the real me. Then I'd bring you up here and start the seduction all over again.” He paused. “But it was going to be slow and considerate, not fast and furious. I think I miscalculated somewhere along the way.”

“There'll be other times for slow and considerate. Tonight I needed fast and furious. How did you know?”

“I couldn't control myself! I mean, it's tough for a man to be so turned on by a woman and not be able to go through with it.”

“But you never even kissed me!” she protested, eyeing him in surprise. “You never gave the slightest indication that you wanted anything more than a squeeze or a hug.”

“That was all part of the plan,” he scoffed. “Let me tell you, you were gonna get it one way or the other over the weekend. Maybe it was good that Diane pulled her little act. She certainly brought things to a head.”

His words gave them both food for thought. Leslie rubbed her cheek against his chest. He pulled her more tightly against him. Their voices were soft and intimate.

“Oliver, will she be all right?”

“I think so. I gave Tony a name of a colleague of mine who's very good. He'll be better able to treat Diane than I ever could.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Ironically, it was probably her seeing us together at Brenda's reception that did it. It's not an uncommon phenomenon for a woman patient of a male doctor—in any kind of therapy—to think she's in love with him. She sees him as the source of her health, her confidence, her general well-being. I'd already begun to feel that Diane was growing too dependent on me; I told you that.”

“I remember.”

“I had just cut her sessions back from three a week to two. That may have bothered her. Brad was obviously still bothering her. He's a bastard.” The aside was muttered under his breath. “A good deal of the time she feels she is unwanted and unloved. When she saw us together and, from what Brenda says, looking very much in love, she was jealous. Furiously jealous. Jealous of you. Furious at me. And Brad—well, with her cock-and-bull story she thought she'd be giving him the message that someone did want her, even if he did not.”

“I feel so badly for her.”

He drew soothing circles on her back. “So do I. She's very unhappy. I told Tony that I thought she and Brad should separate. Even her original outburst didn't faze Brad; Diane says that he's still seeing some little sweetie, and I think I believe her.”

“Poor Diane. And we've got so much.”

He hugged her, his arms trembling. “We do.”

They lay together in silence for several minutes, each simply enjoying the presence of the other.

“Oliver?”

“Mmm?”

“How did you get to Diane's tonight? I mean, I'm surprised that she'd have wanted to give you a chance to defend yourself.”

“She didn't. But she needed some sense of power, so she called Tony to tell him what she'd planned. He called me, then Brenda. He knew their lawyer was going to be there and hoped to nip the whole scheme in the bud.”

“Why wasn't I called?” Leslie asked in a small voice.

Oliver planted a gentle kiss on her nose. “We didn't want you to be hurt. Diane's claim was pretty ugly.”

“But it was false!”

“I knew that, but the words would have been hurtful enough. Besides, if we were successful, you'd never have been any the wiser to her threat.” He paused then, hesitant. “Leslie?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you ever believe her?”

She brought her head up in surprise. “Believe Diane? Of course not. Were you worried?”

“That you'd believe her, a little. After what I'd done to you on St. Barts, I wasn't sure how far your trust would go.”

“Were you worried that she would bring the case to trial?”

“I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say yes. She was right in a way. Headlines and innuendo could have easily damaged my career. Not destroyed it, but damaged it badly. Even if a person is found not guilty by a jury, the stigma of having been accused in the first place remains. It's a sad fact, one that our system of justice can do little to change.” He grew quiet, pensive, his breathing even, close to her ear. Hooking his foot around her shin, he drew her leg between his and pressed her hips more snugly to him. Then he held her still, appreciating the beauty of the moment. “Thank you, Leslie,” he said at last, his voice intensely gentle.

“For what?”

“For trusting me.”

She laughed shyly. “It's nothing. You're an easy one to trust,” she pinched his ribs, “even when you are lying through your teeth.”

“I don't lie!” he stated with such vehemence that she realized he would always be sensitive about what had happened on St. Barts. She couldn't deny her delight; somehow she had managed to find the most straightforward man in the world.

“I know,” she apologized gently. “I was only teasing.” Then she grew more thoughtful herself. “A little while ago you asked what had brought me back to you. It was several things, I think. Time, for one. I was able to sort things out, to put things into perspective. I realized that what you'd said made sense. And I missed you so much I was very willing to give you any benefit of the doubt.