That question wiped the complacent look from Mark’s face.
“On and off for about six months,” Margery responded with a philosophical sigh. Then she gave her date an affectionately suspicious glance. “But I’ve heard rumors that he’s running around with some bimbo at the newspaper office.”
Carly managed to swallow the sip of white wine she’d taken without choking on it, but just barely. She gave Mark a look that said, just you wait, fella, then changed the subject.
By the time Jim drove her home, she was exhausted. “I’m sorry,” she said again at her door. “Tonight was probably a real drag for you.”
He smiled and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Actually it was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. If it helps any, I can tell you that Mark’s in love with you.”
The words gave Carly a soft, melting feeling inside. “It helps,” she said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jim answered with a grin and a shrug. He kissed Carly again and walked away.
As soon as Carly was inside her apartment with the lights flipped on and the door locked behind her, she saw that she had messages. Kicking off her high-heeled shoes and pushing one hand through her hair, she played the first message.
“Who was that hunk?” Janet’s voice demanded without so much as a hello. “I mean, I know who he is because I’ve seen him on television. What I meant was, what are you doing going out with him when you’ve got this hot thing going with Mark Holbrook? You’d better call me tonight, Carly Barnett, or our friendship is over!”
Carly grinned as she moved on to the next message.
“Carly, honey, this is your dad. I was just calling to see how you’re doing. Give me a ring tomorrow sometime, if you have a chance—I’ll be at the filling station.”
Her throat thick, because she would have liked very much to talk with her father and maybe get some perspective on the situation with Mark, Carly sank into the desk chair to hear any further messages.
“Okay, I acted like a caveman,” Mark’s voice confessed. “It’s pretty strange, Scoop—I’m sorry, and yet I know I’d do the same thing all over again. I’ll pick you up in the morning for breakfast and we’ll get started on the new project. Bye.”
She wondered what her dad would think of Mark Holbrook and his high-handed but virtually irresistible methods. Her teeth sinking into her lower lip, Carly glanced at the clock on her desk and wished it wasn’t so late in Kansas.
The sudden jangling of the telephone startled her so much that she nearly fell off her chair. Knowing the caller was probably either Mark or Janet, she answered with a somewhat snappish “Hello.”
“Hi, baby,” her father’s voice said.
“Dad!” Carly looked at the clock again. “Is everything okay? Are you sick?”
He chuckled. “Do I have to be sick to call my little girl?”
Carly let out a long sigh. “I’m so glad you did,” she said. “I really need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.”
Carly’s eyes stung with tears of love and homesickness. Her dad had always been willing to listen, and she was grateful. “I think I’m falling in love, Dad. His name is Mark Holbrook, and he’s utterly obnoxious, but I can’t stay away from him.”
Her father laughed affectionately. “Did you think it would be bad news to me, your falling in love? I’m happy for you, honey.”
“Didn’t you hear me, Dad? I said he was obnoxious! And he is. He’s got this Pulitzer Prize, and he’s always making comments about my title—”
“There are worse problems.”
“I think he’s going to ask me to move in with him,” Carly burst out.
Don Barnett was quiet for several moments. “If he does, what are you going to say?”
Carly swallowed hard. “Yes. I think.”
If her father had made any private judgments, he didn’t voice them. “You’re a big girl now, Carly. You have to make decisions like that for yourself.”
Carly sighed. “Maybe I should hold out for white lace and promises,” she mused.
Her dad chuckled at that. “Even when you’ve got those things, there aren’t any guarantees. The name of the game is risk.”
It seemed like a good time to change the subject. “Speaking of risk, Dad,” Carly began with a smile in her voice, “are you still eating your meals over at Mad Bill’s Café?”
He laughed. “Bill’s going to be real hurt when I tell him you said that.”
Five minutes later, an impatient knock at Carly’s door terminated the conversation. She said goodbye to her father, went to the peephole and looked out.
Her arms folded, Janet was standing in the hallway, wearing her bathrobe.
Carly opened the door, and her friend swept into the room.
“You didn’t call,” Janet accused.
“I was talking with my dad,” Carly answered, grinning as she went into the kitchen to put on the teakettle. A nice cup of chamomile would help her sleep.
Janet followed her into the kitchenette. “Well? What’s going on? Is it over between you and Mark?”
Carly chuckled and shook her head. “No, but it sure is complicated. Jim is just an acquaintance, Janet—I want to make contacts.”
There was a pause while Janet inspected her freshly polished fingernails and Carly got mugs down from the cupboard, along with a box of herbal tea bags. “Maybe you could fix me up with him,” she finally said. “Jim, I mean.”
Carly smiled. “Sure,” she said gently. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re a true friend.” Janet beamed. But then she glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’d better not stay for tea—I’m putting in some overtime tomorrow. Let me know when things are set.”
“I will,” Carly promised, following Janet to the door and closing and locking it behind her.
It was very late and Carly had to be up early the next morning herself, but even after drinking the chamomile tea, she couldn’t go to sleep. She got Mark’s play out, carried it to bed and began to read.
Again she was awed by the scope of the man’s talent—and a little jealous, too. No matter how hard she worked, it would be years before she was even in the same ballpark. In fact, in her heart Carly knew she would never be the caliber of journalist Mark was, and she wondered if she would be able to live with that fact and accept it.
Long after she had set the play aside and turned out the light, Carly lay in the darkness, thinking about it, envisioning it produced on a stage or movie screen. It would be remarkable in either medium.
A wild idea she barely dared to entertain came to her. The temptation to send the work to an agent was almost overpowering. After all, Mark had said the play was hers, that she could do what she wanted to with it.
Carly sighed. He’d been upset at the time.
Finally, after much tossing and turning, she was able to go to sleep.
It seemed to Carly that no more than five minutes could have passed when her eyes were suddenly flooded with spring sunlight from the window facing her bed. At the same time, Mark—it had to be Mark—was leaning on the doorbell.
Grabbing for her robe, Carly shrugged into it and went grumpily to the door. Sure enough, the peephole revealed Mark standing in the hallway.
Carly let him in, prepared for a lecture.
“You’re not ready,” he pointed out. “What kind of reporter are you, Barnett? There’s a whole world out there living, dying, loving and fighting. And here you are—” his eyes ran mischievously over her pink bathrobe “—standing around looking like a giant piece of cotton candy.”
Carly retreated a step and cinched her belt tighter. She knew the perils of standing too close to Mark Holbrook in a bathrobe. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she said.
“Make it five,” Mark retorted, glancing pointedly at his watch. “We ha
ve a plane to catch.”
Carly stared at him. “A plane?”
Mark nodded, his hands tucked into his hip pockets. “If we’re going to write about fathers’ rights, Scoop, you’re going to have to do a little research on the subject. We’ll start by introducing you to Nathan.”
“But I can’t just leave—”
“Why do you think Clark gave me this story?” Mark interrupted. “He knows I’ve got my guts invested in it. And you’re my assistant. Therefore, where I go, you go. Now hurry up.”
Carly hurried into the bathroom, showered, and hastily styled her hair and put on light makeup. After that, she pulled a suitcase out from under the bed.
“How long are we going to be gone?” she called out.
Mark appeared in her doorway. He was sipping a cup of coffee, and he looked impossibly attractive in his jeans and Irish cable-knit sweater. “Long enough for you to see that women aren’t the only ones who sometimes have their rights trampled on,” he responded.
Carly wasn’t about to comment on that one—not before breakfast. She packed as sensibly as she could, tucking the play into her suitcase when Mark wasn’t looking, and left a message for Janet saying she’d be away on business for a while. Finally she and Mark set out for the airport in his car.
After they’d bought their tickets and checked in their baggage, they went to a busy restaurant for breakfast. Carly left the table for a few minutes, and when she returned, there was a long velvet box beside her orange juice.
Her hand trembled a little as she reached for it and lifted the lid to find a bracelet of square gold links. She was unable to speak when she lifted her eyes to Mark’s face.
He took the bracelet from the box and deftly clasped it around her wrist. “I can’t pretend this trip is strictly business, Carly,” he said, his eyes warm and serious. “I guess what it all boils down to is, I’m asking you to move in with me.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I NEED SOME time to think,” Carly said softly, gazing down at the bracelet in stricken wonder. The words sounded odd even to her, especially in light of what she’d told her father the night before, about saying yes if Mark asked her to live with him. Being confronted with the reality was something quite different, though, and whatever it was that she and Mark had together was still fragile. She didn’t want to ruin it.
She was trying to unfasten the bracelet when Mark’s fingers stopped her.
“It’s all right, Carly,” he said quietly. “No matter what you decide, I want you to keep the bracelet.”
They finished their breakfast in a silence that was at once awkward and cordial, then went to board their plane.
Once they were settled in their seats and their aircraft had taken off, Mark was all business. He pulled a notebook and a couple of pens from his briefcase and started outlining his basic ideas about the piece on fathers’ rights. He listened to Carly’s input thoughtfully and even condescended to use some of it.
By the time they landed in San Francisco, they had the basic structure of the article sketched in.
In the cab that brought them into the city, they argued. Mark naturally felt that fathers got a bad deal, as a general rule, when it came to questions like custody and visitation rights. Carly responded that he was prejudiced, that many fathers didn’t care enough about their children to pay support, let alone visit or seek custody.
The taxi came to a stop in front of an elegant house overlooking the Bay, and Carly was surprised. She hadn’t paid attention when Mark gave directions to the cabdriver.
“We’re not staying in a hotel?”
Mark grinned as he held the car door open for her. “My parents would regard it as an insult,” he answered.
Soon they were standing on the sidewalk with their luggage, the cab speeding away down the hill. And Carly was nervous.
“This isn’t fair, Mark. You didn’t warn me that I was going to be meeting your family.”
“You didn’t ask,” he said as a plump woman in a maid’s uniform opened the front door and came out onto the porch.
“They’re here!” she called back over one shoulder.
Mark was holding Carly’s suitcase, but she grabbed it. “How are you going to present me?” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “As the woman you want to live with?”
“I detect hostility,” Mark whispered back just as a tall, striking lady with white hair came out of the house, beaming with delight.
Carly knew immediately that this was Mark’s mother, and she smiled nervously as Mrs. Holbrook kissed her son’s cheek. “It’s so good to see you again, darling.”
“It’s only been a few days, Mom,” Mark pointed out, but the look in his eyes was affectionate. “This is Carly,” he added, slipping his free arm around her waist.
Carly smiled and offered her hand. “Hello.”
Mrs. Holbrook’s grasp was firm and friendly. “Welcome, Carly. I’m very pleased to meet you.” She turned resigned eyes to Mark. “There is a problem, though.”
“What?” Mark asked, starting toward the door.
Mrs. Holbrook stopped him with two words. “Jeanine’s here.”
Carly felt a wild urge to turn and chase the taxi down the street.
Mark paused on the step, frowning down into his mother’s concerned face. “What the—”
Before he could finish, a tall beauty with auburn hair and Irish green eyes appeared in the doorway. Her complexion was flawless, and her gaze moved over Mark in a proprietary way, then strayed to Carly.
“So,” she said, her voice icy. “This is Mark’s beauty queen.”
Although the words had not been particularly inflammatory, Carly felt as though she’d been slapped. She lifted her chin and met Jeanine’s gaze straight on, though she didn’t speak.
Mrs. Holbrook linked her arm through Carly’s and politely propelled her toward the door, forcing Jeanine to shrink back into the entryway. “Don’t be rude, dear,” she said evenly. “Carly is my guest.”
The maid led the way up the stairs, depositing Carly in a lovely room decorated in muted mauve and ivory. There was an inner door that probably led to Mark’s quarters.
Sure enough, he came through it five seconds after Carly had popped open her suitcase.
“I should have warned you,” he said, giving her a light kiss on the mouth. “Here be dragons, milady.”
“Thanks a lot,” Carly said furiously. She was still smarting because Jeanine had called her a “beauty queen,” and because she had a pretty good idea where the description had come from.
Mark’s eyes were dancing as he shrugged and spread his hands. “Don’t feel bad, Scoop—I didn’t like her, either. That’s why we are divorced.”
“How did she know we were coming?” Carly demanded in a furious whisper.
Mark sighed and sat down on the edge of Carly’s four-poster bed. “Mom probably told her.”
“It must be nice to be let in on little things like that!” Carly spat, pacing. She had half a mind to call a cab and head straight for the airport. The trouble was, half a mind wasn’t enough for the task.
Mark reached out and pulled her easily onto his lap. She struggled, he restrained her, and she gave up with an angry huff.
He unbuttoned her blouse far enough to kiss the cleft between her breasts, resting his hand lightly on her thigh.
Carly felt as though someone had doused her in kerosene, then touched a match to her. “Mark, not here. Not now.”
“Umm-hmm,” he agreed, pushing down her bra on one side and nonchalantly taking her nipple into his mouth.
She stiffened on his lap, unwilling to free herself from his spell even though she knew it was desperately important to do so. “Mark,” she moaned in feeble protest.
He raised her linen skirt, and dipped his hand inside her panties. His lips never left her breast.
“Umm,” he said.
Carly swallowed a strangled cry of delighted protest as he found her secret and began to toy with it. “You—are—an absolute—bastard,” she panted.
He chuckled and nuzzled her other breast, nipping at it through the thin, lacy fabric of her bra. “No question about it,” he admitted. And he slid his fingers inside Carly and plied her with his thumb.
She clutched his shoulders, and a soft sob of rebellious submission escaped her as he worked his singular magic. She felt a fine mist of perspiration on her upper lip and between her breasts as he made her body respond to him. She let her head fall back in surrender. “So—arrogant—”
He slipped his tongue beneath the top of her bra to find her nipple. “You love it,” he said when he paused to bare her for his leisurely enjoyment.
That was the worst part of it, Carly thought, writhing helplessly under Mark’s attentions. She did love it.
Her climax was a noisy one, despite her efforts to swallow her cries of release, and Mark muffled it by covering her mouth with his own. When she sagged against him in a sated stupor, he withdrew his hand and calmly fastened her bra, buttoned her blouse and straightened her skirt.
When he set her on her feet, she swayed, and he steadied her by grasping her hips in his hands.
He stood, kissed her gently on the mouth, then disappeared into his room.
Mark hadn’t been gone five minutes when a light knock sounded at the outer door. Carly had been sitting on the window seat, staring out at the Bay and wondering whether what she felt for Mark was love or obsession, and she was grateful for a distraction.
“Come in,” she said quietly.
Mrs. Holbrook stepped into the room. “Lunch is nearly ready,” she said with a smile. “I do hope you’re hungry, my dear. Eleanor makes a very nice crab salad sandwich.”
Carly smiled lamely and hoped her clothes weren’t rumpled from those wild minutes on Mark’s lap. “That sounds marvelous,” she answered. She didn’t have the courage to ask if Jeanine was still present and, fortunately, she didn’t have to.
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