Love Me or Leave Me

by Gwynne Forster

  Telford walked over to the long brown leather sofa, sat down and patted the place beside him. “Pamela?”

  “Right.”

  “You don’t have to make up your mind about anything today, do you? It isn’t as if she’s pregnant.”

  Drake’s eyes widened. “Heavens, no. We’ve never been intimate. I’ve avoided that, because I know she thinks a lot of me. And since I don’t know where I’m headed with her, I try not to do anything that she’d be sorry for.”

  A half laugh that sounded like a hiccup eased out of Telford’s throat. “She may be sorry if you break up and nothing’s happened. Better to love and lose than never to love at all, or something like that.”

  “She’s a very special person, Telford, and—”

  Telford interrupted him. “And she’s beautiful, soft, intelligent and fun. Need I say more?”

  Drake sat forward, rested his elbows on his thighs and supported his chin with both hands. “When did you know you loved Alexis so much that you wanted to marry her?”

  “I knew I wanted her the minute I saw her. In fact, I think I fell for her on sight, and I knew it was mutual. At first, I fought it, but every day that hook sank deeper. The first time I had her in my arms, I knew I’d never get her out of my system. She’s the one who slowed the relationship. Not me. When we were in Cape May, she, Tara and I had adjoining rooms, and we did everything as a family. It was the happiest time of my life up to then. I knew then that I would marry her if she’d let me. Tara wanted us to continue to live that way here at Harrington House, but of course it wasn’t possible until we married.”

  “I knew the two of you hit it off immediately and that she was right for you. How do you feel about impending fatherhood?”

  “I’m already a father, and I have been ever since I met Tara. Alexis wants a boy, and I hope we get what she wants, but I don’t care as long as we have another healthy, happy child. If you’re lucky enough and smart enough to choose the right woman, you’ll be a changed man and happier for it.”

  Drake patted Telford on the shoulder and got up. “I think I’ll go see what Henry’s doing.”

  “Henry and Tara were supposed to go to Frederick to look at grand pianos. Alexis is cooking dinner.”

  “How’s Tara’s piano playing?”

  “Fantastic. That’s why I’m sending her to a professional teacher.”

  “See you later.” He dashed up the stairs, didn’t see Henry in the kitchen and went on up to his room. If only he could be as sure as his brothers. He dialed Kendra’s number and hung up before the second ring. That wasn’t the way to go. She wasn’t for him, and he shouldn’t mislead her. He opened his briefcase and gazed unseeing at Russ’s drawings for extensions to the Florence Griffith Joyner Houses. What kind of evening did he want with Pamela? At times, thinking about her softness aggravated his libido until it made him uncomfortable. At other times, he could see her and think of her dispassionately.

  “No point in stewing over it,” he said to himself. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

  Pamela, too, had concerns about the course of their relationship. Now that she knew he cared but was uncertain as to what he wanted for them, she meant to teach him to love her. If that didn’t work and soon, she meant to invite him to take a walk. She put on a red woolen suit and silver hoop earrings, let her hair hang on her shoulders, added Calèche perfume and black accessories, and looked at her watch. He’d be there in five minutes. Almost immediately the doorman buzzed her.

  “Good evening, Miss Langford. Mr. Harrington to see you.”

  “Thanks, Mike. Ask him to come up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sang the words, because he liked Drake and encouraged her to be with him.

  She walked around the living room rubbing her hands together, fingering the art objects that she had collected in her travels, lecturing herself that she shouldn’t seem eager. And then the doorbell rang and she sprang toward it, calmed herself and walked the remainder of the way.

  “Hi,” he said, handed her a bouquet of tea roses and grinned. “You look better every time I see you.”

  “Stop fibbing and come in while I put these in water. They’re beautiful. Thank you.” She went to the kitchen, got a vase, put water in it and arranged the flowers, taking her time in order to retrieve her aplomb. She brought them back, said, “I’m putting these on my night table,” and brushed past him on her way to her bedroom, the fabric of her suit gently caressing his.

  “I’m ready,” she said when she came back to the living room.

  “I’m not.”

  Before the words registered, she was in his arms and his mouth was on her. His lips parted over hers; she inhaled his breath and the tip of his warm tongue probed for entrance into her mouth. Stunned by the swiftness of it, she hadn’t time to summon control and submitted to the passion that swirled within her. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, and he demanded that she take more. Her nipples hardened and she heard her moans as he gripped her hips to his body with one hand and, with the other, tightened around her shoulder until she could almost count his heartbeats. His hand roamed over her back as if he sought the answer to what touched her, to what would make her his alone. Her hand went to his nape, caressing, asking for more, and he gave it, darting here and there to every crevice in her mouth, squeezing her to him until she had a raw, aching need to have all of him.

  Shamelessly she rubbed the painful nipple, and he moved her hand, pinched and caressed it until she cried out, “Drake, I can’t stand this.”

  He stopped the torture at once, and with both arms around her he enveloped her in a gentle embrace. “I don’t suppose you intended for it to go that far. I know I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I’ll do it again, unless you make it impossible.”

  When she didn’t respond, he tipped up her chin and gazed into her eyes. Knowing what he saw, she quickly closed them. The feel of his lips on her forehead, her cheeks and the tip of her nose told her that he cherished her. At least for now, he does, she thought.

  “I think it would be a good thing if we headed for the restaurant.”

  The expression on his face and the tone of his voice made it clear that if they didn’t leave, they might be there till morning. “I’ll get my coat.”

  “You know,” he said near the end of their dinner, “I like the fact that you’re comfortable enough with me that you don’t feel a need to chat. Self-possession is a good trait.”

  She nearly laughed. “Drake, I’m not one bit comfortable with you right now. I am overwhelmed by what you did to me in my apartment. It’s the first time in my life that a man destroyed my will. I am self-possessed most of the time, or so people tell me, but not right now. I’m quiet because if I talk, I’ll probably say something I’ll regret…like what I just said.”

  His stare seemed to penetrate her. Then, he laughed. “If I was sitting beside you, I’d hug you. I wondered if I was out of line back there. You’re not alone, Pamela. I also got a surprise. A big one. As long as you’re not sorry—”

  “I’m not.”

  “Neither am I.”

  He held her hand as they walked to his Jaguar, which he’d parked three blocks from the restaurant. “I’ll be terribly disappointed if you don’t like this movie,” he said.

  “Not to worry. I need a good laugh.”

  “I’m going to assume that that remark had no negative implications.”

  “I don’t believe in indirect insults. A stab ought to be clean and lethal.”

  He opened the passenger door for her, fastened her seat belt and closed the door. “Something tells me I’d better get a breastplate,” he said after settling into the car and closing the door.

  “Why? I wouldn’t harm a strand of your hair. Besides, do I look like I’d hurt a flea?”

  He turned fully to face her. “If my hair is so safe with you, move over here and let me get my arms around you.”

  She did as he’d asked and was rewarded with a tenderness that was new
to her, with him or with anyone. “I could get used to this with you,” he whispered, “but I’d better move slowly, because I don’t know what the end will be.”

  She didn’t release him, because she didn’t want to, because she needed to prolong and savor that moment when she first knew she loved him. She reached up, ran her hands over his hair and then let her fingers trail down the side of his face and her thumb caress his bottom lip. It was an intimate gesture, she knew, but she felt like being honest with him. And it was the one way she could tell him he was precious to her without saying the words.

  As if he understood the meaning of her gesture, he whispered, “Yeah. Me, too,” turned the key in the ignition, put the car in Drive and headed for the movie.

  Chapter 3

  This must be my day, Drake thought as Pamela’s head lolled on his shoulder while she laughed hysterically. “Everybody must to get off from street,” the on-screen Russian sailor said to the old woman in his broken English as he pretended to be a representative of the local authorities. His submarine had accidentally surfaced off Nantucket, and he and his fellow sailors were trying to get back to it without causing an international incident.

  “Did you really enjoy it so much?” he asked her as they left the theater. “I confess I’ve seen it a dozen times, beginning when I was a teenager, and I’ve laughed as hard each time I’ve seen it as I did the first time.”

  They walked out swinging their locked hands, and through out the drive to the apartment building in which she lived, they reminisced about the movie, laughing at the funny parts. He walked with her to her apartment door, uncertain as to how he wanted to end the evening, though he knew lovemaking or the suggestion of it would be a mistake.

  She proved the wisdom of his intuition when she said, “This evening was very special. Do you still need breathing space?”

  Unprepared for the question, but aware that she had a penchant for candidness, he took his time answering. “I don’t remember having equivocated about anything of importance to me, but how I answer your question could have a powerful effect on my life. I like being with you, and I want to see you, but right now, that’s as far as I can go.”

  She laid her head to one side and looked hard at him, so much so that she nearly unnerved him. “That isn’t far enough for me, Drake. Limbo isn’t a place where I would knowingly go. I realize that you need to assure yourself that you have a firm grip on your future, that you’re managing your life’s course, and I respect that, but I also have to manage mine. You can start a family when you’re sixty, but I don’t have that option.”

  Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek and dazzled him with the smile that showed a half dimple in her right cheek. “If the tide was moving in the right direction, you could mean everything to me. But it isn’t, and I’m not going to wait for you to make up your mind. Good night.”

  He told her good-night, and as he walked down the hall to the elevator, it was as if the weight of his feet dragged him along. He heard the lock turn on her door and swung around, wanting with all his heart to turn back and find solace in her arms. But he comforted himself with the thought that what he needed was a good rest, a chance to empty his head of work and of the minutiae cluttering his life, a chance to focus on what was important to him personally.

  He had planned to spend the night with Russ, but changed his mind and headed for Eagle Park. He got home after midnight, and it surprised him to find Telford and Alexis sitting in the den watching a movie. He was tempted to slip by and go to his room. He had never been less willing to share himself with another person. But that was not the way of the Harrington brothers, so he went into the den, mixed a Scotch whiskey and soda, and joined Telford and Alexis.

  “I hardly expected you back tonight,” Telford said. “I hope all’s well.”

  He pulled out the hassock from beneath his chair and propped his feet on it. “Let’s put it this way. For now, at least, everything depends on me. But she’s not waiting while I figure out where I’m going.”

  “I always thought you were the most resolute person imaginable,” Alexis said. “Do you have misgivings about her?”

  “That’s one of the things about this that perplexes me,” he said. “She’s the kind of woman I want. Nothing’s wrong with her, and she suits me, but still I seem willing to risk losing her. I don’t think that any woman I want will be available to me, nor do I believe I’ll meet another one like Pamela, at least not soon. I guess the problem is that there is unspoken pressure on me to fall in love and get married. Nobody’s said it, but all this marital and soon-to-be marital bliss is making me feel that I’m missing a lot. I can see the difference in you and in Russ, and I also want to feel equally secure with the woman who’s special to me.” He threw up his hands. “Oh, what the hell. I guess I’m just not ready to settle down.”

  “So she told you she won’t wait while you shilly-shally?” Telford asked, pushing the needle where he knew it would hurt, for Drake prided himself in his ability to think through a problem, come to a decision and act on it without equivocating.

  Drake spread his legs, leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “You could say that.”

  “Man, I hope she doesn’t settle on someone else.”

  “I hope for her sake that she does,” Alexis said, causing both men to sit upright and stare at her. “If she wants children, she’d better do something about it, or she will forever regret it. A man can’t possibly understand the instinct that makes women want to be mothers.”

  “I know it’s powerful,” Drake said. He wished he’d gone directly to his room. Alexis was right, but knowing that caused a cloud of weariness to settle over him. “I think I’ll be getting to bed,” he said. “Thanks for the company.” He plodded up the wide, winding stairs, his mind on Pamela and how he’d felt earlier that evening at the door of her apartment. And he thought back to the times she had caressed him so sweetly and so lovingly—asking nothing and demanding nothing—and he’d felt as if he could move mountains.

  He reached the landing and banged his fist on the railing. “What the hell’s wrong with me? I know damned well I don’t want any other man to have that woman.” But did he love her? “Hell, I’m not going there,” he said to himself. “If I do love her, I’ll probably act like it.”

  After a shower, he dried his body and slid between the leopard-print sheets that he preferred. “The day will come, I hope, when I look back at this time and laugh at myself.” He turned out the light and went to sleep.

  At that moment, Pamela worried less about Drake’s decision than he did. She had made up her mind to relegate him to her past and look for a man with whom she could build a life. She loved him, and she believed in his integrity, but he’d already killed enough time. Long after telling him good-night and, in effect, goodbye, she sat on the edge of her bed trying to deal with her inner conflict and her sense that their song hadn’t played out.

  But I can’t go on like this. I need someone I can count on, a man who will give me the family I long for.

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned. “Why did I have to fall in love with him?”

  Refusing to succumb to the moroseness that threatened her, she went into the living room and put on Jump for Joy, a compact disc that she bought in Paris two years earlier. Where but in Paris would one find the music of Josephine Baker, who died decades earlier? Pamela never failed to dance to that music, and she danced then. Danced until she fell across her living-room sofa exhausted. Danced until the tears cascaded down her cheeks like water from a broken dam. She lay there for a few minutes, getting used to the pain, then got up from the sofa, splashed cold water on her face and laughed.

  “Drake Harrington, you’re the only man who can lay claim to making me cry, and, honey, you’re the last one.”

  Awaking the next morning to the ringing of the telephone, she slammed the pillow over her head, dragged the blanket up to her neck and got more comfortable. The ringing persisted, and she reached from bene
ath the covers to knock the phone from its cradle, but missed and bruised her hand against the lamp.

  “All right,” she grumbled and sat up. “Hello.”

  “You still in bed? Sorry to wake you up. I know it’s Saturday, but I thought you’d be up and around. I called to remind you that Tuesday is your mother’s birthday,” her father said, “so don’t forget. You know how she loves her birthdays. We don’t expect you to come down here during the week. Just call.”

  “I’d be there if I could get off, Daddy. How are you and Mama?”

  “We’re good.” His deep and musical voice had always given her a feeling of security, as did the strength he projected with every word he spoke, even when he was being amusing. “We watched you on the national news the other night. First time we saw you on camera. I can’t tell you how proud we were. I opened a bottle of champagne, and we congratulated ourselves on what we’d created.” Laughter rumbled out of him, the self-deprecating and mischievous laughter that she loved so much.

  “Bob Kramer had an emergency, and the producer grabbed me the last minute and said, ‘You’re on.’ How did I do?”

  “Great. You don’t think I’d open my best champagne to commemorate a flop, do you? We’re proud of you. It was first-class.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “And you looked great in that red suit. Where’s that engineer you were talking about? Isn’t it about time he spoke to me?”

  “That may never happen, Daddy. There’s something real good between us, but… Well, he isn’t ready.”

  “From all you said about him, he’s probably a good man, but if he isn’t ready, move on. A lot of first-class white guys would flip backward over you. I keep telling you that.”

  “I know, Daddy. I know. Where’s Mama? Let me speak with her, please.”

  “She’s at the hairdresser’s.”

  “Well, give her a hug for me. I’ll be sure to call her Tuesday.”