by Janet Dailey
"Why don't you put an announcement in the paper, Mike?" Lexie grumbled, certain he was going to run down the halls shouting the news to everyone.
He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a bone-crunching hug. "You deserve a bonus for this, Lexie. Rome Lockwood has some influential friends. We were all expecting some pressure to be applied to put an end to the way Shari has been bandying his name about with your insults. But you just wrapped him around your little finger."
"It wasn't quite like that," she protested, both at his praise and the painful embrace.
Others had begun to gather around, bombarding her with questions, asking how she'd done it, what had she said…It became impossible for Lexie to deny she had used feminine allure. Nobody believed her. Finally she just gave up and let the storm of enthusiasm rain over her.
In the midst of it all, Shari Sullivan appeared. "Honey, I just heard that Rome Lockwood was here to see you!" she exclaimed. "What happened? Was there a big scene? What did he say?"
For the first time the others fell silent, eyes gleaming, giving Lexie a chance to tell her cohort of the triumph. "He indicated he wasn't pleased with the items that had been appearing in your column about him."
"Hell! Get to the point!" Mike barked. "She has a date with him this Friday." He couldn't wait any longer.
"What?" Shari's poise slipped as she stared at Lexie in dumbfounded amazement. "Is that true?"
"Yes," Lexie nodded. It was impossible to explain with everyone telling what they thought the story was.
Finally the columnist shooed the others away and sat Lexie down in her chair. "I want you to tell me about it just the way it happened," she insisted, drawing up a second chair and leaning eagerly forward.
"I would rather forget the whole thing," Lexie protested, tension hammering at her temples.
"Don't be silly," Shari frowned impatiently. "This is going to make a terrific wrap-up for the story."
"Don't you dare print in your column that I'm going out with Rome Lockwood!" If it hadn't been for her other comments Shari had included, Lexie wouldn't be in her present fix.
"Why not?" The other woman bristled, then immediately changed to a reasoning attitude, appealing to Lexie's reporter instinct. "Just think of the lead-in. 'Feuding reporter and playboy out on the town—together!' It'll be sensational, honey."
"I don't care how sensational it is, you aren't going to print a word of it." Lexie held her ground.
"If I don't, one of the other papers will," Shari reminded her. "I've made you and Rome Lockwood news in this city. Someone will see you together. Why let someone else have the story?"
Shari's logic defeated Lexie. "Very well," She conceded, "but I don't want anything in there about the meeting today and what was said between us. And nothing about our date, other than that we were seen together."
"You can't be serious!"
"I am," said Lexie; this time nothing would budge her. "No one else will have that story. Only Rome Lockwood and I are going to know what we said to each other, and that's the way it's going to stay."
"But the date…Surely you can phone me some details Saturday morning so I can get it in Sunday's paper," Shari wheedled.
"Listen, Shari, the date is going to be a disaster."
"No date with Rome Lockwood is a disaster. It's more like a dream come true as far as half the woman in this town are concerned."
Lexie realized there wasn't any way she could trust the older woman with the true story of what happened. Shari's sole interest was in furthering her reputation. She couldn't be trusted to keep the actual circumstances that led to the date out of her column. Lexie didn't object to Shari's knowing, but she certainly didn't want it appearing in print.
"That's all you're going to get from me, Shari," Lexie stated. "You'd better be satisfied with that."
When further cajoling and pleading and reasoning didn't elicit more information from Lexie, Shari accused her of not being a true friend, an attack designed to make Lexie feel guilty, and left in a huff. Lexie sighed and turned back to the notes she had taken at the press conference that morning.
When she went home to her apartment that evening, Lexie thought she had left the furor of Rome Lockwood's visit behind her. But her roommate, Ginger, was waiting eagerly for her arrival, filled with questions about the rumors that had so swiftly circulated through the building.
"Yes, it's all true," Lexie nodded helplessly. "Rome Lockwood did stop by this afternoon. I did talk to him. And I do have a date with him this Friday night. End of story."
"You really have a date with Rome Lockwood!" Ginger sat down in the nearest chair, long corn-silk hair swinging about her shoulders as she shook her head. "Lexie, you must be thrilled out of your mind!"
"Far from it." Lexie kicked off her shoes and sank into the only other easy chair in their small apartment. Wryly she noticed how the strain between Ginger and herself had been temporarily lifted—at least on Ginger's part—because of Rome Lockwood. The man's name seemed to be magic. Black magic was probably closer, Lexie decided.
"How can you be so down?" Ginger protested at Lexie's disgruntled air. "You should be jumping for joy. I would be."
"What about Bob?" Lexie wished she could bite off her tongue. She and Ginger had got along so well until Bob had come on the scene, so why had she brought him up?
"Bob is different," Ginger retorted defensively. "But Rome Lockwood…Well, he's like a celebrity in a way. Who wouldn't be excited about that?"
"It depends a great deal on the circumstances."
"What aren't you telling me?" Ginger tipped her blonde head to one side in a frowning study of Lexie's grim look.
"That it isn't as wonderful and glorious as all of you are thinking it is. This date…We trapped each other into it." She sighed heavily.
"What?" Ginger was confused.
"Rome was upset about the things in the column," Lexie began at the beginning. "We started going down the list of my quotes to show him my observations were accurate. When we came to the one about women's lib and equal opportunity, things got out of hand. Look—" she straightened in her chair and leaned forward "—if you tell this to Shari, I swear I'll move out of this place."
"What is it? I won't tell. I promise." Ginger crossed her heart in a child's promise, her eyes widening.
"At lunch today, Gary wouldn't let me pay for his lunch. It wasn't the manly thing to do and all that rubbish."
"What has that got to do with Rome Lockwood?" her roommate demanded.
"It was right after lunch that I talked to him and I was still upset by Gary's stupidly chauvinistic behavior. When Rome and I began talking about equal rights, I asked him if he would let a woman take him out for an evening and buy him dinner, et cetera. He said he wouldn't object and I challenged him to go out with me. He accepted, even though he despises me and I hate him. So that's your grand date that everyone is buzzing about."
"You're kidding!" Ginger breathed.
"I only wish I were." Lexie raked her fingers through the long titian curls of her hair and leaned back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. "I have to pick him up at his apartment at seven on Friday."
"Are you going to?"
"I have to," Lexie sighed, "I tried to back out of it when he first accepted. That's when he threw the challenge back to me. We're both trapped."
"Where are you going to take him?"
"I don't know." An impish smile curved her mouth. "How does MacDonald's sound for dinner and a drive-in movie later on? Can't you just picture Rome Lockwood in my banged-up Mustang? He's so tall."
"Lexie, you wouldn't!" Ginger exclaimed in horror.
"Wouldn't I? I'd love to do just that. To tell you the truth, that's just about all I can afford." The grimace was back.
"I can lend you a few dollars," her roommate offered. "Haven't you got anything in savings at the bank?"
"There's my vacation fund," Lexie remembered.
"But you were saving to go to London."
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Chapter Three
WITH THE EARRING FASTENED, Lexie stepped back to survey the results in the mirror. Shimmering coppery hair framed her oval face and cascaded in curls to her shoulders. Beneath the auburn wings of her brows she had added a touch of eye shadow, and on her mouth a lipstick of muted claret glistened on the shapely curves of her lips.
The jersy-like silk of her dress was silver gray, its style elegantly simple, clinging softly to her figure without molding it in a bold display. A necklace of antique silver circled her throat, its scrolling design studded with turquoise. Matching earrings dangled from her lobes, the blue of precious stones winking through the loose curls of her red hair.
Lexie touched a finger to the pulsing vein in her neck that betrayed the inner state of her nerves. She took a calming breath and tried to make herself relax. The tension didn't leave.
"Stunning!" Ginger exclaimed from the doorway. "Where did you get that dress, Lexie? I haven't seen it before."
"I bought it for the occasion." The dryness in her mouth coated her voice as she turned away from the mirror to pick up her matching shawl of silver gray. "I decided if I was going to splurge on this evening I might as well go all the way."
"And the jewelry—I've never seen you wearing that necklace before."
"A gift from my father." Lexie had kept it tucked away in the folds of her lingerie in a dresser drawer, but it had seemed appropriate to her to wear it tonight.
"Aren't you excited?" Her roommate's innocently beautiful face was wide-eyed with imagined anticipation. "I know all about the circumstances, but aren't you just a little bit excited?"
"I'm dreading the entire affair," Lexie stated unequivocally as she picked up her evening bag. Pausing, she thought aloud, "I wonder if Rome Lockwood has ever been stood up."
"You wouldn't!" Ginger gasped.
"I wish I could," Lexie sighed wistfully and walked from her tiny bedroom, not much bigger than a large closet.
"Are you leaving now?" Ginger followed.
"I have to if I want to be at his apartment by seven. I doubt if I'll be very late coming home tonight."
"Bob said he'd call me tonight, so I may not be here."
"See you in the morning, then," Lexie offered in goodbye.
"Have fun!" Ginger wished her.
Lexie's mouth twisted wryly on that thought as she left the apartment. Her small car, freshly washed and shined, was parked outside of the aging apartment building. The interior of the Mustang was vacuumed and spotless. Except for the dented and rusting mudguard, Lexie thought it looked better than it had in months, not quite in Rome Lockwood's luxury class of transportation, though.
Nor did its appearance fit her extravagant plans for this evening, dinner at one of the poshest restaurants that Lexie knew about in Boston, followed by after-dinner drinks at an equally renowned club featuring live entertainment. It was going to be an expensive evening. Lexie freely admitted that she was doing it to impress Rome that a woman was just as capable of planning a lavish evening as a man.
The narrow, twisting streets of inner-city Boston didn't permit Lexie to drive fast. A taxi would have been better, but her already depleted finances wouldn't allow it. Turning a corner, she slowed the car as she neared the address Rome had given her.
Squeezing her car in a parking spot between a Mercedes and a Cadillac, Lexie switched off the engine. "It isn't the company you're used to keeping, is it?" She chided the cars, adding wryly, "Talk about the high-rent district."
It was a shock to discover that her legs felt weak when she stepped out of the car, Lexie silently wished the evening was already over. It soon would be, she consoled herself and squared her shoulders.
In front of his door, she punched its buzzer and waited. It felt strange to be standing outside a man's apartment, picking him up for a date, but Lexie wouldn't have admitted that for anything. When there was no answer, she pushed the bell again and waited.
It suddenly occurred to her that possibly Rome Lockwood had changed his mind. Anger flushed through her at all the effort she had gone to and the wretched anxiety of waiting for Friday to come. She had joked about standing him up only to have it happen to her. She started to spin away from the door when it opened. Her lightning-blue glance flicked sharply to the lean, dark man framed by the opening.
His hard male vitality seemed to reach out and ensnare her. A smile of apology that was forming on his disturbing mouth was arrested for a scant second as his gaze darkened mysteriously in a sweeping assessment of her.
There was something much too admiring about the look and it curled her toes with its sheer sensuality. It was a fleeting sensation, replaced by a formal polite expression as Rome opened the door wider to admit her.
"Come in," he invited.
Lexie hesitated, letting her pulse settle to an even pace before entering his apartment. She knew how sexually appealing Rome Lockwood was to women—to her—but she wasn't intimidated by it. Being forearmed, she knew she would not be so foolish as to take any attention he paid to her seriously.
She let her senses register his physically disturbing state. The white of his shirt, only half-buttoned, contrasted with the even bronze tan of his skin. There was a sheen of dampness to his jet dark hair, so invitingly thick. The fresh and heady scent of musky after-shave lotion came from the smooth jawline.
"Sorry, but I'm running a bit late." Rome apologized for not being ready. "I hope you don't mind waiting a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable." He gestured toward the array of chairs and sofas in the spacious living room. "There's liquor in the cabinet. Help yourself."
"Thank you," Lexie murmured, suddenly realizing she hadn't spoken until now.
With a faintly droll smile, Rome moved away, promising, "I won't be long."
Alone, Lexie began to focus her attention on the luxurious surroundings. She wandered into the living room, decorated in earth colors. It was tastefully simple yet bold, as aggressively masculine as its occupant. Lexie suspected it had been furnished by a woman, someone probably in love with him who had the talent to provide him with a background suitable to his image. A sultan's harem would have been more in keeping with his true character, she decided.
Moving to one of the sofas, she sat down to leaf through a business magazine lying on the coffee table. The political news Lexie knew and the rest she wasn't interested in. Finally she flipped it shut and glanced at her watch. How much longer would he be, she wondered. This constant waiting was wearing on her already frayed nerves.
Five minutes stretched into ten. Restlessly, her fingers worried the smooth turquoise stone in her necklace. In agitation, she rose from the table. She refused to pace and walked instead to the liquor cabinet where an ice bucket, glasses, and bottles sat.
The clink of a cube in a squat glass sounded loudly in the overwhelming silence of the room. Lexie splashed in a scant measure of gin and filled the glass with tonic water. Wrapping both hands around the fat glass, she turned and lifted it to her lips. Over the rim of the glass, she saw Rome walk in, stunning in an expertly tailored black suit that intensified his dark good looks.
"Ready?" she questioned, angered by the breathless catch in her voice. There was no way of denying the physical effect he had on her, but Lexie had hoped to conceal it. Averting her face, she turned away to set her barely touched drink on a tray.
"Yes, but there's no rush, is there?" his low, well-modulated voice countered. "Since you haven't finished your drink, I'll join you."
"All right," Lexie smiled stiffly, not wanting him to see how anxious she was to leave and have this evening come to an end.
Her fingers closed tightly around the glass as he crossed the room to the liquor cabinet where she stood. With apparent calm, she watched him pour a shot of Scotch over i
ce cubes in a glass like her own.
The glittering dark eyes gave her a sideways look. "Waiting is hell, isn't it?"
"I beg your pardon?" She was startled by the unexpected content of his observation.
He turned to face her, the corners of his mouth deepening in amusement. "I'm referring to rushing around to arrive on time only to have your date make you cool your heels in the living room. It's a frustrating experience, isn't it?"
Nerve-racking, Lexie could have said, but she was suddenly hit by the discovery, "You deliberately made me wait for you," she said accusingly.
"For part of the time," he admitted without remorse. "I was legitimately detained by some phone calls just before you arrived. It seemed an excellent opportunity to show you how little a man likes to be kept waiting and how difficult it is to pretend he doesn't mind."
"That was a dirty trick!" she breathed angrily.
"Yes, it was," Rome agreed amicably, and sipped at the drink in his glass.
His assessing gaze skimmed Lexie from head to toe and back. It was not so much a stripping look as it was caressing. Her skin quivered in reaction to the pleasant but brief sensation.
"I'd forgotten how beautiful you are, Lexie," he commented.
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Lockwood." His compliment stiffened her.
"Rome," he corrected, and added, "it's going to be a long evening if our conversation is stilted with 'Mr. Lockwoods' and 'Miss Templetons.' "
He was right, but Lexie wasn't willing to admit that at the moment. She sipped absently at her drink and set it down. "I have dinner reservations for eight o'clock. It's seven-thirty now. Perhaps we should be going."
"Of course." He downed his drink and placed the empty glass near Lexie's.
Retrieving her handbag from the sofa cushion, she led the way to the door, waiting while Rome locked it behind them. Her car was parked at the curb and she walked half a step ahead of him toward it. He had to guess which it was; the economical little Mustang looked so out of place amidst all the other expensive models. But Lexie certainly wasn't going to make any apology for her mode of transportation.