by Janet Dailey
"I'm sorry," he offered over his shoulder, the apology directed to the landlady. "I know Miss Templeton doesn't want you to see her like this. I'm afraid she's had too much to drink tonight."
"I'm not drunk!" Lexie denied, knowing she barely tasted her wine.
She tried to twist out of his hold, but his strength was too much. With the slightest exertion of pressure he caused her to stagger forward against his chest, reinforcing his claim of her inebriated state.
Mrs. McNulty clicked her tongue in reproof. "That's what my late husband used to say, too, God rest his soul. He never drew a sober breath in his life," she sighed.
Lexie sobbed at the comment. The woman was convinced and Lexie was too overwrought to try to correct the impression. She lowered her head and tried to ignore the exquisite pressure of Rome's touch.
"There's some coffee in the kitchen," Rome said, still addressing his remarks to her landlady. "I'll get some of that down her. Perhaps that will help."
"It's the best thing," the woman nodded.
"If she needs assistance getting to bed may I call on you, Mrs. McNulty?" he asked. In effect, he was dismissing the woman from the apartment.
"I'll be right downstairs if you need me," she promised and moved toward the door.
"Thank you."
And Lexie laughed with faint hysteria at the way he had wound another woman around his finger, pulling her strings and directing her to do his bidding. The door closed and he set her firmly down on the couch. As he walked away Lexie turned to see where he was going. In the kitchen he put the coffee on to heat.
"I don't need any coffee. I am not drunk," Lexie insisted. Did he think she was?
"I know that." He took a cup from the cupboard. "But you could use some strong hot coffee just the same."
Lexie didn't argue about such a trivial thing. She needed to conserve her strength for what was to come. Her hopes of putting off this discussion to some future time weren't to be realized.
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Chapter Ten
HER EYES AND CHEEKS were dried when Rome entered the living room with the cup of hot coffee. There was a determined set to her chin as she glanced up at him, towering beside the couch, and accepted the cup from his hand.
"Why did you come here?" It was more of a bitter protest than a question.
"Did you expect me to believe that excuse about a headache?" Rome countered.
"It's real." Her temples were throbbing, a thousand snare drums beating in her head.
"Real or imagined, you surely didn't think I'd let you run away like that without an explanation," he persisted.
"Do you need one?" Lexie stared at the shining black surface of the liquid in the cup, wishing she could sink beneath it into oblivion. "Wasn't it obvious?"
"I can imagine how you must have felt when you met your father's fiancée," He seemed to answer the question carefully. "I know it's probably difficult to adjust to the idea of your father remarrying. Evidently he failed to mention the fact that his prospective bride was no older than you."
Lexie lifted her gaze to stare, unable to believe the words she was hearing. His handsome face was grim, a troubled darkness in his eyes lit by a spark of compassion.
"Running out like that didn't solve anything, Lexie," Rome said, tempering his criticism by a gentle voice. "You still have to face the fact that he's going to marry her."
"No," she mocked.
"You' re just making it more difficult," he reasoned. "I want to help you but you have to let me."
"Didn't you listen to anything that was said tonight?" Lexie accused him in disbelief.
Rome frowned, not following her question. "What do you mean?"
"Teresa isn't the first girl friend my father has had who could pass for my sister," she declared in agitation. "Angela, Beth, Doreen, Cynthia, Mary-Anne—he's practically gone through the alphabet. He's all the way up to the T's!"
"Girl friends, yes, but this one he's marrying," he reminded her. "There is a difference."
"Is there? Do you think this is something different?" taunted Lexie. "Since my mother died, I've had three stepmothers. My father finally got wise and stopped marrying before he was financially destroyed by all the alimony payments. I've lost track of how many times he's been engaged. He always insists each time that this is the right one. The sad part is I think he really believes it. Of course the poor girl never is the right one. Give him a year and my father will be accidentally calling some new girl by Teresa's name."
"You aren't making any sense." Impatience edged Rome's voice. "Drink your coffee."
"I'm making a lot of sense." Absently she took an obedient sip and felt the hot liquid burn down her throat. "You just don't want to understand."
"If it isn't because of your father or his engagement, then why are you so upset?" Rome demanded.
"Don't you see?" she pleaded. "You and my father are just alike. You're both handsome and exceptionally charming men. Look at the way you just persuaded Mrs. McNulty to let you into my apartment!"
"And you think—" he began angrily.
"I don't think, I know," Lexie interrupted. "Ever since my mother died, there's been a steady stream of beautiful women in my father's life. At first when he brought one of them home and announced that so-and-so was going to be my new stepmother, I used to try to like her, to be friends with her. But they never stayed around long enough. Someone else always took their place. I always had to compete with somebody for my father's attention. I can still remember hearing my mother cry because he didn't come home until late at night."
Rome sat down on the couch beside her, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of them. He stared for a silent minute at his intertwining fingers, his jaw hard, his mouth grimly straight.
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" He slid her a sidelook.
"Would it have done any good?" she whispered, her heart aching. "Would it have made any difference?"
"At least I would have understood why you were so reluctant to trust me," Rome stated, and let his mouth twist into a smile. "But you didn't trust me enough to tell me."
"Sometimes words aren't convincing. You wouldn't have believed me. You had to be shown." Her voice was barely above a murmur. "You and my father are two of a kind." She saw him start to deny it and rushed on. "I've seen what happens when you walk into a room. I don't think there's a woman born that can say no to you and it's the same with my father. Women are putty in your hands. When you get tired of playing with one, you pick up another."
"You aren't putty to me, you're a woman. I don't want to play with you, I want to love you," Rome declared with convincing steadiness.
"I love you, Rome," Lexie admitted. "I don't even have the excuse that I didn't know what I was doing. My eyes were open. I knew what kind of a man you were, but it will never work, because I won't sit home and cry for you the way my mother cried for my father and I won't compete with other women for you. I'm tired of competing. I only know that I couldn't live my life with you never being secure in your love."
"I've given you my love, Lexie, offered you my ring and my name, asked you to spend the rest of your life with me." His gaze searched her face. "What more can I say or do to make you believe me? If the positions were reversed, how would you prove you loved me?"
"I…I don't know," she answered.
"Neither do I. Do you want me to buy a desert island? Maybe I should throw acid on my face."
"No!" Lexie cried out at the thought.
"Then tell me what to do, Lexie, because I'm not letting you go. Not now that I've found you." As if to enforce his statement, Rome took the cup from her hands and held them. "I'm only half alive unless I'm with you or unless I know that you're near. How do I convince you that I am not like your father?"
"It's no use." Her heart splintered as his persuasive words tore her apart. "Rome, I've seen you look at other woman when you were with me, admiring them—"
"Yes, I look
at beautiful woman. I admire them the way I would a painting. That doesn't mean I want them to be my wife or that I want to make love to them. If you see a good-looking man, do you pretend he doesn't exist?" he challenged.
"I…" Lexie fumbled for an answer and couldn't find one.
"Don't expect more from me than you do from yourself. I'm not a saint, Lexie," Rome warned.
"I don't expect you to be a saint," she said.
"Don't you?" For an instant he was taunting her with bitterness. "What do you expect of me?"
Lexie trembled, "I just want you to love me." Her eyes were blue luminous saucers, mute and appealing.
His expression softened as his hand cupped her face in a caress. "I do. I've asked for the chance to spend the rest of my life proving it, Lexie."
Her lashes fluttered down, letting the warmth of his touch steal over her skin. When he exerted a faint pressure she let herself be drawn into his arms. Lightly he kissed her temple and the wing of her brow.
"I can't begin to explain why your father is the way he is," Rome told her. "It would probably take a psychiatrist to figure it out. If, as you say, he's made a habit of seeing young beautiful women, maybe he's afraid of growing old. Maybe he hasn't learned yet that it's a privilege few of us ever get to enjoy. But, Lexie, I'm not like your father. For me there's only you. Every other woman can vanish from the face of the earth as far as I'm concerned."
Lexie lifted her head a few inches in order to see his face. His look was so earnest, so determined, so compelling. There was so much strength of character in his male features. And the burning flame of love in his eyes simply could not be faked.
"I believe you," she whispered, and it was the sweet glorious truth.
His hand was at the back of her neck tangling in her hair and drawing her upward to his mouth. The moaning sigh that escaped from her lips an instant before they felt the crush of his kiss carried with it the last doubts, banishing them forever from her mind. Her arms slid inside his jacket, curving around his waist to spread her hands over the sinewy muscles of his back.
With unrestrained joy she answered the urgency of his kiss, the blood singing through her veins with the wildly happy song of her love. Rome twisted her onto his lap, touching her, caressing her, needing the reassurance of her responses.
As his head bent to explore the ecstatically pulsing vein in her throat, Lexie murmured, "You'll have to teach me how to trust, Rome. It's something I didn't learn very well when I was growing up."
"There are a few other areas of your education that have been sadly neglected, too," he added, his mouth moving against the silken texture of her skin.
"Such as?" She smiled as an assortment of lessons ran through her mind.
"Such as learning when to stop talking." And he let his mouth silence her for the time being.
Lexie didn't mind. It was enough to be in his arms and knowing that he truly loved her. The erratic beat of his heart beneath her hand was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard—perhaps second only to his low voice saying "I love you." He was life, and from him flowed her vitality.
"My ring—" Rome teased her lips with his "—you will wear it?"
"Yes," she agreed in a voice choked by the depth of her emotion.
"I've been carrying it with me," he said smiling, "just in case you changed your mind."
Her hand was trembling as he slipped the ring on her finger and kissed it, then the sensitive hollow of her palm before sealing a final vow against her lips. It was a searing fire of possession that leapt through her, flaming and holy in its desire.
"Do you suppose your landlady thinks I've gone?" Rome pushed aside the material of her dress to nibble a pale, golden shoulder bone.
"She's bound to have noticed how quiet it is up here," Lexie admitted, and shivered at the sensual caress. "She probably thinks I've passed out."
"It was the only excuse I could think of to persuade her to let me into your apartment," Rome smiled, and a series of kisses traced the outline of her lips.
"I wonder if she'll come up to check," she mused, and let her fingertips explore the chiseled contours of his face.
"I doubt it."
"If she does my lease will be canceled for sure." But Lexie didn't care.
It would take an atom bomb to get her out of Rome's arms now. This was where she belonged. This was home. It always had been, only she had been too frightened to admit it.
"Then you can move into my apartment," he said.
"Will you do all the cooking and laundry?" she teased.
"No, my little feminist, you will."
"We'll share," she compromised.
"Maybe I should knock something over to get Mrs. McNulty to come up," Rome suggested. "Then she can throw you out. We can elope and you can start living with me and end all this frustration."
"It won't be necessary to go to such lengths," Lexie laughed softly. "I'll marry you whenever you say."
"Tomorrow," he stated.
"Mm." She drew away to give him a considering look. "That might be soon enough."
"I love you, Lexie," he declared in a sharply in-drawn breath.
She pressed her lips to his. "I love you, too, Rome," she said against them.
The kiss soon deepened with drugging ardency. The caress of his hands became more demanding and evocative. Her arms wound around his neck as she strained to eliminate the physical limitations of the embrace. Rome stiffened and tried to draw back, shuddering with his effort at control.
"When will your roommate be home?" he asked thickly.
"She won't." Lexie pulled him back.
"What do you mean?" His lips hovered above hers.
"She's left for good, moved out," she explained.
"You mean…" Rome began.
"Yes," Lexie breathed.
With a stifled groan he covered her mouth and pressed her backward onto the cushions. The time for words had come to an end.
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