by Carol Devine
“She’s family, isn’t she?”
“Yours, not mine. Betz is her last name, remember? Allen will always officially be her father.”
Later, Meg was to ponder why Jack was so adamant. But that was the one promise that gave her the most comfort. In many ways, Jack was an honorable man.
Meg wrestled with the meaning of her own honor the following week, when she ducked into Bloomingdale’s to shop for a wedding dress.
She started in the Career Woman Department, looking for something in knee-length ivory, classy and dressy enough for evening. Problem was, she already owned such a dress. She’d worn it the first time around, when she married Allen.
Marrying as soon as possible had been the priority then. Unable to splurge, she stitched faux pearls on the bodice of her whitest dress. Hours later, they came out of the courthouse after a five-minute ceremony. Family and friends weren’t told until after the fact.
At least this time, her mother and siblings would be in attendance. But just as before, there were no invitations. Invitations would tip the media, as would the inclusion of bridesmaids and groomsmen. In fact, too much was just like before, including the dresses she was looking at.
Meg wandered on to Evening Attire, feeling alone and out of place. If she weren’t so pressed for time, she could have used her designer contacts to come up with something original. The world of fashion was not the place to keep secrets, however. With all the rumors flying around about her and Jack Tarkenton, Meg didn’t want to be asked why she needed a cream-colored suit whipped together by New Year’s Day.
She had yet to talk to him about New Year’s resolutions, but she would, though, and soon. Already there was speculation about whether he was faithful to her, and the idea of his cheating bothered her more and more.
Was that why she chose a sexy floor-length gown, thin as gossamer and white as fresh-fallen snow? The significance of the virginal color would not be lost on him, either. If nothing else, Meg respected his intelligence. And wasn’t it perfectly natural for the bride to want fidelity from the groom?
She justified the outrageous cost of the dress by telling herself she’d wear it again and again. Jack had already put her on notice that he expected her to accompany him to various charity balls and fund-raisers. The Tarkentons were widely known for their many philanthropic interests.
Recalling the probable recognition that went with those interests, Meg plunked down her credit card. If Jack wanted her by his side, she wasn’t going to fade into the woodwork. She would make a statement all her own.
Accordingly, she refused to buy a veil or even a hat. She refused to wear his diamond engagement ring, either. His secretary ended up ordering their wedding bands through a catalog. Simple bands of gold, they were identical in every way except size, and were shipped to a post office box registered to another name. The subterfuge was necessary, again because of the media.
With her wearing pristine white, Meg chose pink taffeta for her daughter. The color of the dresses was her only concession to convention. She planned to enter this marriage with her eyes open and her head uncovered. This time around, she wasn’t harboring any illusions.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Jack kissed her as if their union was a love match. There were a lot of people they needed to fool. His best man was one of them. Bram glowered throughout the ceremony. Jack saw what it did to Meg. He also saw what happened when he kissed her.
Flustered was not the right word. Meg was too regal to get flustered. Color regained, she turned on her heel and took his arm. That’s when he realized how shaky his bride truly was. Her death grip made him feel more like her husband than the vows did.
Katie led the way down the aisle formed by rows of chairs set in the formal living room, dropping little pink flower petals from a miniature basket. Meg’s mother and his met their procession at the archway to the dining room, misty-eyed but smiling proudly, and started the receiving line. Standing amidst the lot of them, he was outnumbered by females four to one.
His sense of suffocation worsened as the day progressed. It was all the things he was giving up. The nightlife, the women, the freedom to come and go when he pleased.
The dress Meg wore didn’t help She had poured herself into a vaselike shape of shimmering white, flawless and fair like her skin, the whole crowned by the cloud of her hair.
He couldn’t wait to sink his hands into it.
He’d take the time necessary to bring her willingly to their bed. But he would have her there and soon. He was her husband, dammit, and she was his wife.
During the reception, he touched her in small ways, in discreet places. She pretended not to notice. If he looked closely, though, he spotted the telltale signs of arousal. The dress was a simple slip of a thing, designed to show every curve of her slender figure.
Ridiculous as the idea was, Jack arranged a honeymoon. Ridiculous because Meg had rejected the idea out of hand. Her best argument concerned Katie. Even one night was one night too long to be away from her.
Jack agreed. But their families didn’t know why that was true. Neither did the media. They would think it strange if he didn’t stage some sort of an escape with his bride. So he arranged for Katie to spend the night with Amanda and Bram, and made reservations at the very new and exclusive Hotel Coventry.
There was always a chance once he got Meg alone, he’d overcome her scruples. She had the heart of a romantic. He knew the art of romance well. That’s how he first introduced himself to her, in fact.
Arriving at the rehearsal dinner for his sister’s wedding late as usual, he did his customary scoping for the best looking women in the crowd. Through the din of the crowd, he heard a distinctive female voice speaking French.
Intrigued, he moved in behind her, overhearing the obscure but excellent French wine she ordered in the accent of a native. The moment the waiter left, Jack whispered a rather bawdy French joke in her ear. She turned to see who would say such a naughty thing, eyes merry. The rest of her was pure Paris couture.
They traded witty repartee until dinner was called. By then he had discovered who she was. Meg Masterson, sister to his soon-to-be brother-in-law. Marguerite, as she was called in French, currently lived on the Upper West side of New York city, had talent enough to have graduated from the Sorbonne, and a mind quick enough to pick up nuances.
He maneuvered his way into being her dinner partner. She was flattered, he could tell. Her eyes sparkled when he seated her. She even flirted. Only later would he realize she did it rather artlessly. But he’d been drinking very heavily in those days, and he encouraged her to drink more.
With his obligation to toast the impending nuptials done with, he wooed her away from family and friends. They strolled the grounds of the hotel where the wedding party was staying, talking. The night was cool enough for her to take his coat and the shadows deep enough to disguise their path, and though it taxed his skills of discretion, he seduced her to his room.
Once they got there, it felt as if she won in the wild rush that followed. Won a contest, a duel, one where he made the rules. He broke them with her that night, the only time in his life when he wasn’t careful or controlled, and Katie was conceived.
He had wanted Meg that badly.
Far too enamored for his own good, he decided to kill his lust for the lovely young woman when he woke at dawn the next morning to find her still in his bed.
He roused her in slow degrees, dedicated to proving that the previous night had simply been a lesson in the recklessness of too much drink in too little time.
He didn’t confess what he was up to other than to whisper that he wanted to see her in the early morning light, for she was like the finest sculpture to him, irresistible to the touch and priceless in her perfection.
Such words came easily because he said them often. Women rewarded such flattery. Meg was no different. But that morning he discovered she was far less sophisticated than he thought.<
br />
He measured the way they came together, judging the fit of their bodies, watching how she moved and he moved, and fell under her spell once again, discovering the art of their very special dance.
When she left, sneaking out to her own room, he wanted to follow. He wanted to have her all over again. Until he saw traces of fresh blood on the sheets. That’s when he realized how truly infatuated he was. He had missed all the signs, ignored all the signals the uninitiated usually sent out.
That’s why he lured her back to his room the next night. He could not believe she was a virgin. She had to be faking it. There had to be subterfuge behind that dark and cosmopolitan beauty, that continental flair.
Planning to test his theory with a quick bout of unadulterated, raw sex, he captured her bodily the moment she entered his room. Shutting the door, he pinned her against it. But she put shy hands on his chest and lifted her face to be kissed, and he knew what he had suspected was true even while he denied it.
He found himself teasing her, rubbing her soft, full lips, and there wasn’t anything raw about it.
It was Saturday, the wedding day, and she still wore her bridesmaid’s dress. Deep teal in color, it swathed her from her neck to the tips of her dyed-to-match shoes. He skimmed his hands down her sides, the delicacy of curves enhanced by the slip-slide of silk against lace.
She wore the most famous and beloved of French perfumes behind her ears, on her wrists and between her breasts. That he already had discovered. But it wasn’t until he turned her around and unzipped her dress that he learned she perfumed the back of her neck as well.
Breathing deeply, he let the dress fall and whispered words of enticement to her, the usual words. Only she quivered when she heard them. He had to close his eyes to cut off the sight, to keep from taking her right then and there.
Perhaps that was why he scooped her into his arms and carried her to his bed. Until Meg, he had never made the mistake of carrying a woman to his bed before. Certainly he hadn’t since.
With her settled against the pillows, he kicked off his shoes, stripped off his tie. Studs flew with the shedding of his shirt, and he hooked his briefs along with his trousers, sliding them down together. Suddenly shy, she shuttered her eyes.
He should have been angry. Instead, he thought how precious she was and used her shyness as an excuse to slow down.
By then he knew the sacrifices she had made for the sake of her art. She worked with her hands, so her nails were cut short and straight across, and he wanted to feel how she shaped and created in the pursuit of her passion.
He slid his hand beneath the small of her back, hearing the rustle of taffeta against satin, feeling the seams and subtle abrasions of lace underneath. The delicate lingerie he drew off her yesterday came to mind, especially the triangle of black silk that led him where he most wanted to go.
The texture did something to her, adding to her experience of pleasure. He brushed the nest of lace with the heel of his hand, then fingered her, and her eyes begged. “Please,” she gasped.
“Please what?”
“Free me.”
He did, slipping the lace down her legs. Yet when he locked his gaze with hers and eased his way in, the color of her eyes changed with each move he made, as the color of van Gogh’s paintings changed with the light. Only with her, it was life he saw, life that changed.
He tried to go back. He tried to recapture his jaded youth. He tried to prove she wasn’t the cause of his listless days and sleepless nights. He certainly told himself otherwise. He showed it by not calling her as promised, resorting to aimlessly traveling the world, performing every act imaginable and unimaginable with the constant stream of women he took, satiating an insatiable need.
Drowning himself, in the end, in a den of iniquities
Meg laced her hands together nervously. Their going-away limousine was chilly. Blessedly so. Thank heavens for January, for winter, for the icy pall that reduced her wedding day to the dull look of the ordinary.
For it was ordinary. It had to be. However formal and formidable Jack looked in black tie and tails, he didn’t mean a word of the vows he had said. Yet, as he settled next to her in the limo’s leather back seat, the elegance of his body edged her peripheral vision as it had throughout the day, and the pounding of her heart refused to cease.
Cleave unto him.
The width of his powerful shoulders, the bend of his lean, black-clad legs belonged to the man she married. And those vows repeated themselves over and over in her mind.
I now pronounce you man and wife...
Clearing the gates of the Tarkenton estate, the limousine turned east, surrounded by a contingent of motorcycle police. Meg glanced at the caravan of reporters who took up the chase, snaking behind in a long line of jockeying cars and satellite vans.
Jack checked on them, too. Hair the color of sand fanned his collar. Sea-spice aftershave sent visions of sunlit beaches through her head. Deserted beaches. Deserted except for one man and one woman. Her husband, his wife.
“Don’t worry,” he said, and clasped her hand. “The hotel has plenty of security.”
She nodded, too aware of his hand, his voice, of now and forever, amen.
She looked ahead, taking in the reality of snow-banked roads and frozen trees. A nearby hotel was their destination, not Saint-Tropez. However, what remained on her mind was the stripe of his shirt collar against the strong cords of his neck. His very tanned neck. Five years ago, she discovered exactly where that tan ended, too.
Appalled at the direction of her thoughts, Meg concentrated on Katie, sweet and innocent. Katie came from somewhere, though. Katie came from him.
Heat flushed Meg. She pulled her hand out from under his and placed it in her lap, trying to make light of the situation. After all, it was ironic. She had been so worried about Jack coming on to her. But deep in her heart, she didn’t find the situation humorous at all. Deep in her heart, Meg wondered if she lived by her word, if she honored her vows, if she stood as morally upright as she believed.
Does this woman take this man . . .
Or maybe she was simply succumbing to the devil inside and rationalizing beyond belief.
She was not sleeping with him. They had already discussed the parameters of their relationship. Sharing a hotel room was merely a cover for the press. Jack wasn’t expecting a thing.
He didn’t suspect a thing, either.
Meg wished he did. She wished he knew exactly how difficult he was making this for her by virtue of his sheltering hand and husky voice and the power of his masculine presence. Then he’d be the one with the problem on his hands. Knowing Jack, though, he wouldn’t see it as a problem.
Desperate now, she pictured Allen, searching for a literal dash of cold water on her senses. A dash of cold water against a rising Atlantic tide.
The clean, modern lines of the hotel came into view, and the limousine swung off the boulevard. More police lay in wait and closed off the parade of press vehicles, creating a barricade against the blitzkrieg lights and shouts for attention.
Ignoring the din, Jack helped her out of the car and shepherded her through a gauntlet of applauding hotel staff into the relative quiet calm of new world elegance.
The hotel’s spectacular lobby proved to be the distraction Meg needed. Restful in hues of ecru, amber and olive green; it exuded a subdued atmosphere that invited her to take a deep and fortifying breath. She even met Jack’s inquiring lift of his brow with a genuine smile.
“That was quite a welcome. Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine, thanks.”
The long look they exchanged turned her reply into an absolute lie. Her knees weakened, and the time it took to check in and for the elevator to rise to the top floor churned more butterflies. Grateful for the bellboy who chaperoned them, Meg studied the white satin toes of her shoes.
The elevator doors slid apart and she stepped out first, all too conscious of the two men behind her. The bellboy bounded ahe
ad and unlocked the bridal suite door, and suddenly she was swept off her feet.
With one supporting arm at her back and one cradling the crook of her knees, Jack grinned down at her. “Don’t look so surprised, Mrs. Tarkenton. It’s a tradition,” he said, and carried her over the threshold.
He already had the bellboy’s tip in his hand. The bellboy delivered their luggage and saluted smartly before closing the door behind him. Immediately Jack set her down, going so far as to apologize for taking such liberties.
“Jack, please,” Meg protested, thinking of the flannel pajamas she’d packed, of the hardbacks she’d brought, planning to use the books like barricades if he dared get too close.
“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you,” he asked with the most rueful expression on his face.
“Of course not.”
“I really can’t blame you. I’ve given you reason to be.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, escorting her farther into the suite. “The reason I wanted to come here, to have a wedding night,” he said, “was to prove that the two of us can be alone together without me taking advantage of you.”
Before Meg had a chance to shut her open mouth, he left her and disappeared into the adjoining room, whistling and shrugging off his jacket.
Her insane impulse to follow had Meg pacing the suite like a caged tiger. Decorated in pastels and white-washed woods, the room surrounded her with understated style and taste. Unfortunately, she could have been in a budget motel for all she cared. The bedroom occupied her thoughts. And what was he doing in there? Changing his clothes, most likely.
She checked her own dress, making sure every zipper was zipped, every strap was in place, and caught herself wishing she had changed into something more comfortable. Much more comfortable.
Face flaming, she plunked herself in the nearest chair, switched on the television and pushed the remote buttons until she found CNN. Fires and catastrophes loomed large. Across the world, people faced crises of terrible proportions, and here she sat, twisting her brand-new ring, behaving like an ninny.