The Mistress Deal

by Sandra Field

  If her shoulder was on fire, her heart now felt as if it were encased in ice. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I damn well do.”

  Her pride in shreds around her feet, she faltered, “You mean we won’t see each other again?”

  “There’s no point. I shouldn’t have forgotten the lessons I learned that day—and for that I’m sorry. This has been wonderful while it lasted, Lauren. But it’s over now. Before either of us gets hurt.”

  A tap came at the door. Reece strode across the carpet, ushering in a gray-haired man in a wet raincoat who said briskly, “Dr. Huskins. A mugging? Atrocious that the streets are so unsafe—where did he hit you, madam?”

  She’d never been called madam by a doctor before. As he examined her shoulder and washed her cheek, Lauren realized with an ugly shock that she hated Reece seeing her in her bra, her upper body bare. Hated being exposed to him and consequently vulnerable. Only this morning such a consideration would have been unthinkable.

  The doctor recommended bed rest, ice packs and pain-killers, all of which she could have thought of herself. She thanked him politely, and as soon as he was gone, said, “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

  “I’ll order room service for you.”

  “I’m not hungry. I’ll get a cab to the airport tomorrow, would you arrange that?”

  “I’ll take you to the airport,” Reece said through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t want you to! You’ve made it horribly clear you can’t wait to see the last of me. So order me a cab.”

  “I don’t take orders and I’ll drive you in the morning.”

  “Everything’s got to be your way, hasn’t it?” Lauren flared. “You can go to Ecuador and Cairo, you can tell me what to do with my own money, you can get rid of me when and how you please. Fine. Do what you like. But don’t expect to ever hear from me again.”

  By a superhuman effort she managed not to wince as she got to her feet, and to walk to the bathroom in a straight line. For the first time in many days, she locked the door. Then she stripped off her clothes and looked at herself in the mirror. Dried blood had crusted under her chin, while her cheeks were as white as the sheets on the bed.

  The last bed that she and Reece would ever share.

  Her shoulder was a dull red; it was her eyes that looked bruised, she thought clinically. And why not? The world she’d shared with Reece all Christmas, a world she would have said was both drenched in ecstasy and utterly dependable, had fallen apart. In her heart of hearts, hadn’t she believed that the intimacy between her and Reece could only grow deeper and stronger, binding them closer and closer as the days—and nights—went by?

  But she’d been wrong. He’d opposed her flying to New York for the most important commission in her life, and then an act of violence in the rain had done the rest.

  I’ll cry tomorrow evening, she thought. Not tonight. Not tomorrow morning at the airport. And not in front of Maxwell Galway or Beth.

  Or maybe I won’t cry at all. Maybe instead I’ll give thanks for a narrow escape from a man who’s locked in the past.

  Her mouth twisted. Who was she kidding? She’d cry her eyes out once she had time and privacy. But no one else had to know that. Least of all Reece.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT WAS five o’clock in the morning. With a groan of dismay, Lauren punched down her pillow and pulled up the covers. She had a headache because for the seventh night in a row she’d cried herself to sleep; she was also suffering from heartache. She felt wretched. Rotten. Lousy. And, she thought miserably, sexually deprived into the bargain.

  Not to mention lonely.

  How could she, in so short a time, have grown so accustomed to Reece’s body beside her, to the rhythm of his breathing in the dark? To his laughter, his incisive intelligence, his rapier wit? Not that he’d been laughing the morning he’d put her on the plane to New York. Far from it. He’d looked as though he couldn’t wait to be rid of her.

  She hadn’t heard from him in the last week. Surprise, surprise, she thought ironically, burrowing her head into the pillow. For him it was over, and she’d be willing to bet he wasn’t lying awake thinking about her. He’d probably already moved on to someone else. As an antidote to too much emotion.

  The only comfort she could take was that she couldn’t have done anything differently. She’d been herself with Reece. And he hadn’t wanted her.

  Her thoughts went ’round and ’round, in a way she deplored but was unable to halt. Finally, at half past five she got up, put on a pot of coffee and got dressed in tights and a sweater. As she poked around the scraps of metal and wooden blocks in one corner of her studio, desperate for an outlet for her emotions, she suddenly remembered the clay she’d bought the week before Christmas. Shaping clay had always given her pleasure. She grabbed an old cotton smock, pulled it over her head, and sat down at her table, a mug of coffee nearby.

  Three hours later, Lauren pushed back her chair. The bust on the table in front of her had more or less made itself: she’d scarcely had anything to do with it. It was a portrait of Reece, infused with all his energy and decisiveness, faithful to the jut of his cheekbones and the strong line of his jaw. His eyes seemed to look right through her, discerning her most intimate concerns. I’m in love with you, she thought, and in utter astonishment repeated the words in her head. I’m in love with Reece Callahan.

  Of course she was. Why else had she cried herself silly the very day she’d found out that Maxwell Galway was going to purchase one of her works? Six months ago she’d have been delirious with joy. But not now. Not when she couldn’t share the news with Reece. Not when she was totally estranged from him, missing him achingly and unremittingly, in bed and out.

  He didn’t love her. He wouldn’t allow himself to. But, frowning, she found herself wondering for the first time if he’d been afraid he might fall in love with her. Why else had he picked that ridiculous fight about her flying to New York, if at some level their intimacy hadn’t scared him to death? And why else, in the cold flash of lights from the police car, had he looked at her with hatred in his eyes? His hands, she remembered suddenly, had been unsteady; he’d jammed them in his pockets when he’d caught her noticing them.

  Could it be true? Had Reece sent her away so he wouldn’t fall in love with her? Or was she building castles in the air because she couldn’t bear the hard truth?

  Her heart was fluttering in her breast like that of a trapped bird, and she found it hard to breathe. There was one way to find out. Ask him. Or tell him she’d fallen in love with him, and see what he said.

  Lauren began pacing up and down her studio, her brain racing and her emotions in a tumult. She was being a total idiot to even think this way; wasn’t it enough to have been so thoroughly rejected once without courting a second rejection?

  Impulsively she picked up the phone and called Sam at his office in Boston. “Sam,” she said without preamble, “do you think there’s any chance Reece could be falling in love with me?”

  “Happy New Year to you, too,” Sam said. “Yes, I do.”

  “You do?”

  “He certainly isn’t indifferent to you. I was talking to him a couple of days ago and asked how you were—you’d think I’d asked about the wicked witch of the west…what’s up?”

  Briefly she described the events of the last week. “Where is he now, do you know?”

  “In England. Staying in Surrey until he goes to Hong Kong later in the week. Why don’t you phone him and find out if he’s in love with you?”

  “I have to see his face when I ask,” she said edgily.

  “I was supposed to fly to London around noon today. But the meeting was postponed and I haven’t gotten around to canceling my ticket. You can have my seat.”

  “Oh, God,” said Lauren, “I’m out of my mind to even think of seeing him again.”

  “We only go this way once.”

  Clea. Again. “All right,” Lauren said, “I will.”


  “I’ll square it with the airlines, luckily I do have some influence there—not as much as Reece, but enough. You’ll pick up the ticket at the counter, okay?” Quickly he gave her the details. “Do you want me to phone him? Let him know you’re coming? I could try and talk some sense into him.”

  “No! No, I have to take him by surprise—that way maybe I’ll find out what’s really going on…wish me luck, Sam.”

  “Right on. Let me know what happens, either way. Or if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

  “You’ve already done a lot, thanks so much. ’Bye for now.”

  Lauren put down the phone. Absently she ran her finger down the throat of the clay sculpture to the curve of collarbone. What use was clay? It was the real man she wanted. The real man she was going to fight for. And hadn’t she, unconsciously, infused his features with all the intensity he’d shown in their lovemaking? All the tenderness that she’d put her trust in? A film of tears distorting her vision, she realized she’d modeled the face of a man in love.

  She’d take it with her; maybe it would speak to Reece in a way that she couldn’t.

  But if it didn’t, at least she’d know she’d tried.

  Many long hours later, Lauren stepped out of a taxi at the gateway to Reece’s property. It was well past sunset, the trees barely discernible against the blackness of sky. “Sure you want to get out here, miss?” the cabbie said doubtfully.

  She wasn’t quite as sure as she had been. “Yes,” she said, smiling at him as she hefted the box with the sculpture under one arm and picked up her overnight bag. “I’ll be fine.”

  He tipped his cap and drove off. Lauren walked through the gate and along the driveway to the lodge, her eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness. In the grove of oaks, a branch rubbed against another, squealing like an animal in pain; an owl hooted in the distance. Then she saw the lights of the lodge gleam through the trees.

  So Reece was here. Although her relief, she noticed, was almost instantly eclipsed by an equally strong sense of dread. She had no idea what she was going to say to him. Or would she simply thrust the box at him and see what happened?

  Steadfastly she walked on, the lights growing brighter. Not stopping to think, because if she did there was a fair likelihood she’d turn tail and run, Lauren marched up the steps and pushed the doorbell. Distantly, over the pounding of her heart, she heard it chime inside, followed by the sound of footsteps.

  The door swung open. “Why, Miss Courtney,” Hazel said, “what a nice surprise.”

  Swallowing a crushing disappointment, Lauren said, “Reece—he’s here, isn’t he?”

  “Come in, come in, it’s turned chilly, hasn’t it?” Hazel said, and took Lauren’s bag from her unresisting fingers. “Did you walk all by yourself up the lane? Now I’ve lived here all my life and that’s more than I’d do. Mr. Reece? No, he left for London early yesterday morning. To fly to the States, he said.”

  “Yesterday?” Lauren repeated numbly.

  “I believe so. Some emergency or other, he didn’t say what. Or when he’d be home…are you all right, dear?”

  Lauren put the box down on the nearest chair. So Reece had been on her side of the Atlantic yesterday and hadn’t got in touch with her.

  She had her answer. The one she’d come all this way to find. As the heat of the hallway enveloped her, she said vaguely, “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Hazel pulled out another chair and eased Lauren into it. “You don’t look well, if I may say so,” she said. “You’ll stay overnight, and I’ll call Mr. Reece’s office and find out—”

  Roused from her lethargy, Lauren spluttered, “No, you mustn’t do that.”

  Hazel’s shrewd gray eyes sharpened. “Very well. But I’m going to get you a nice bite to eat and make sure you’re settled in before I go back to the big house. Tom, my husband, will come by in the morning. You’ll be comfortable here, by yourself?”

  “Oh, yes.” Lauren was craving privacy; and despite Hazel’s genuine kindness was relieved when a couple of hours later she had the house to herself. Hazel had put her in the guest room; she didn’t think she could have borne sleeping in the bed she and Reece had shared.

  Restlessly she prowled through the house, picking things up, putting them down, feeling Reece’s presence in every corner. She’d leave first thing in the morning. Go back to London and get the first flight home and do her best to forget a man who’d turned her life upside down, teaching her the joy and utter misery that was called love.

  She found herself taking the clay bust out of its box and staring at it as though it could give her some answers. Carrying it downstairs and putting it on the coffee table, she sat down on the sofa. She’d deluded herself when she’d modeled the face of a man in love. Reece wasn’t in love with her. He never had been.

  Dazed with unhappiness, she burrowed her face in the soft velvet cushions. Half asleep, half awake, quite unable to gather the energy to go back upstairs, Lauren heard the antique clock chime each passing hour: ten, eleven, twelve, one. Then suddenly she jerked upright on the sofa, her heart leaping in her breast. Someone was turning a key in the lock.

  The front door opened with the faintest squeal of hinges, slammed shut, and then footsteps marched along the hall. “Lauren?” Reece called. “Where are you?”

  How did he know she was here? She faltered, “In the living room,” and, as though it were all happening to another woman, watched his big body fill the doorway, his blazingly blue eyes trained on her face. She grabbed the bust, trying to thrust it between the table and the sofa, and said rapidly, “I shouldn’t have come, I’m sorry, I’ll never do this again and I’m going to leave first thing in the morning—”

  “What’s that you’re trying to hide?”

  His appearance in the middle of the night, so unexpected, so disconcerting, seemed to have loosed all the holds on her tongue. “I made it. I came here yesterday to tell you I love you, but I shouldn’t have, you were in the States the day before and you didn’t even call me, so I’ve made a complete fool of myself.” Resorting to anger for a situation she had no idea how to cope with, she finished, “Why don’t you just go to bed and forget I’m here? You’re good at forgetting me, and I’ll be gone by the time you wake up. Gone for good, this time.”

  He walked over to her. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a blue shirt and silk tie; he looked exhausted. “Don’t come near me!” she exclaimed, and clutched the bust all the tighter.

  For a moment Reece froze in his tracks. “But you said you love me.”

  She thrust the clay bust at him. “When I made this, that’s what I found out. But I have this stupid habit of acting before I think. Really stupid, under the circumstances, and not a mistake I’ll make again.”

  He took the clay piece from her, setting it down on the table and gazing at it. “When did you see my face like that?”

  “Whenever we made love,” she said defiantly.

  “You saw what I’ve been blind to.”

  “I don’t know what you mean…”

  “I went to Cairo right after you left. Thought about you the whole time I was there. Came back. Couldn’t stand being here on my own. Went to London—when the devil was it, the day before yesterday? I’m so jet-lagged I don’t even know what day of the week it is.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes glued to her face. “I stayed in the same hotel where you and I stayed, thought about you every minute of the day and night. So yesterday morning I got on a jet to New York. You weren’t at your studio, your landlord didn’t know where you were, nor did your neighbors. So I phoned Sam, who told me you were here, and told me—fairly forcefully—to smarten up.”

  Lauren said faintly, “Hazel told me you’d flown to the States the day before yesterday—that’s why I was so upset.”

  “I was half crazy when I left here—didn’t know what I was going to do.” He glanced at the bust on the table. “The truth’s been staring me in the
face. But did I see it? No, sir. I was too busy protecting myself from feeling what the whole world feels—joy and pain. The happiness and vulnerability that comes from loving someone.” He hesitated. “Do you know what suddenly hit me in the hotel in the middle of the night?”

  She shook her head, suspense clamping her by the throat. “What?” she said baldly.

  “That Clea was the last woman in the world who would have wanted me to shut myself off from loving you. She was very much alive in her short life—and she would have liked you so much, Lauren, I know she would have.”

  “I’m crying again,” Lauren muttered. “I’ve got to stop this.”

  “I’ve been a fool, that’s what I’m saying. I acted like a prize idiot about that cheque and about Maxwell Galway, because I knew I was in deep with you and it was time I put on the brakes. The mugging gave me a perfect excuse. End it. Send you home and go back to my nice, safe life.”

  So she’d been right, Lauren thought dazedly; Reece had been afraid of falling in love with her. Trying to get her facts straight through a surge of hope that felt like sunlight after rain, she said, “So you arrived in New York about the time I was leaving?”

  “Yeah…if we’d met at the airport, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time.”

  “Time, money and grief. When I heard your key in the lock, I thought I was going to get mugged for the second time.”

  Making no attempt to touch her, Reece said hoarsely, “Lauren, I love you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m not dreaming, am I? Please tell me I’m not going to wake up in my studio to an empty bed—and an empty heart.”

  “I’m only sorry it’s taken me this long to come to my senses,” Reece said violently. “That I caused you pain when you’re the last person in the world I want to hurt.”