The Lady and the Lion

by Kay Hooper

  By the time she went to answer the knock on her door at eight, Erin was in a tenuous state best described as guarded. The man was a warlock, and she was bewitched—there was no other explanation for it.

  When she opened the door, Keith took one look at the dress she had chosen to wear and said simply, “Gold is your color.”

  “Thank you. And thank you for the flowers.”

  His crooked smile dawned. “I would have brought them myself, but I figured you’d throw them in my face.”

  “Perceptive of you.”

  “She’s still feeling hostile,” he murmured, stepping back so she could come out into the hall.

  “Do admit she has reason,” Erin retorted, pulling her door shut behind her.

  “I’ll admit it.” He took her arm in a light grasp as they walked toward the elevator. “I’ll even admit that I’ll probably get worse before I get better.”

  Vaguely wishing he didn’t look so devastating in a formal suit and tie, Erin said in a very polite tone, “Oh, are you planning to get better?”

  He chuckled. “I’m hoping you can reform me.”

  Erin glanced up at him, very conscious of the intensity lurking beneath his composed surface. She was wary of this new mood of his, and painfully aware of how quickly and easily she’d caved in when he asked her to dinner. She hadn’t even been able to pretend she had any pride left. Bewitched, that was it. The man had her bewitched and beguiled, and she wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to do it. She didn’t respond to his comment, remaining silent as they took the elevator down and walked across the lobby to the most elegant restaurant the hotel boasted.

  She could feel the stares as they were conducted to their table, and while that was a familiar sensation, what she sensed in Keith was not. He was, she realized in surprise, focused on her totally. He was completely indifferent to the eyes on them, and there was nothing proprietary or arrogantly possessive in the way he held her arm. Having been regarded by many men as an ornament they displayed proudly in public, Erin had grown to hate entering any crowded room on a man’s arm; they always seemed to feel that there was some kind of male triumph in being the escort of a woman other men watched.

  She was accustomed to most men acting differently when they were with her in public. The most quiet and unassuming men tended to become more assertive, to sit taller and speak louder, while the ones with natural confidence surrounded her with an air of intimacy as though they were lovers.

  But not Keith. He was exactly the same in public as in private, and as maddening as she found him she was very grateful for that evidence of consistency.

  “You’re smiling,” he noted as the waiter left with their drink orders.

  She looked him in the eye, and said calmly, “You have your secrets—I have mine.”

  “Which is as it should be,” he said.

  Erin decided not to pursue the subject.

  “Have you canceled your plans to leave?” he asked, as if he hadn’t expected her to reply to the statement.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean—exactly?”

  She sighed. “It means that I have airline reservations for tomorrow afternoon.”

  He gazed steadily at her, his expression unreadable. “I see. So tonight will determine whether you’ll get on the plane.”

  It didn’t sound like a question, but Erin knew it was. She managed a shrug, and hoped she didn’t look defensive.

  Keith didn’t say anything until their waiter had delivered the drinks and left, and when he did speak his voice was very quiet. “I know you’re angry, and I can’t blame you. I can’t even explain why I’ve been so…contradictory.”

  “Try,” she requested evenly.

  He shook his head a little, more, it seemed, at himself than at her. “Erin, my life is very complicated right now. I’m under a lot of pressure, and it’s having a negative effect on me. On my emotions, my temper.”

  “Pressure? From what?” As curious about the careful way he was telling her this as she was about what he was saying, Erin listened intently as she tried to pick up subtle nuances in his deep voice.

  “From my work. Work I don’t want to talk about. I know it isn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. I’m not a criminal. I’m not doing anything illegal. In another week, two at most, my work here will be finished.”

  “And then?”

  That, Keith thought, was a loaded question. To see the end of what had obsessed him for nearly a year…what would it do to him? How would it change him? Could he ever go back to being the man he had been before all this began? He didn’t know. And all he could do was to answer Erin’s question in the simplest way possible.

  “Then the pressure will be gone. I have a home in New York, a business. A normal life.”

  Erin gazed at him, trying to understand. “What you’re doing here isn’t a part of your normal life?”

  “No, this is something else. Something I have to do.”

  “A man of mystery,” she murmured.

  “Hardly. The point is, I won’t be a very good…companion until my work’s finished. I know that I should escort you to the plane tomorrow, let you go. Later, when I’m through here, I could follow you.”

  “But?” Erin prompted when he fell silent and looked at her broodingly.

  “But…no matter how many times I tell myself to do that, I can’t seem to listen to reason. This is the worst possible time to begin any kind of relationship, but I don’t want you to go. I’m selfish, Erin. I want you with me. On my terms.”

  The waiter came to take their orders then, allowing Erin a few moments to gather her thoughts. She ordered automatically, hardly paying attention to her choices, her mind in turmoil.

  His terms? She thought she knew what those would be. No commitment, no demands—and no questions. Any woman would be a fool to accept that, she knew. Where he went and what he did at night would be none of her business, that half of his life closed to her. Even if it were only a week or two, she had heard the strain and edginess in his voice during their dawn conversations, had sensed the smoldering anger in him, and even though she wasn’t afraid of him, how could she cope with emotions like that when she had no understanding of the source?

  He wasn’t a criminal, he’d said, and what he was doing was not illegal. But he wouldn’t talk about it, except to say the pressure was having a negative effect on him. It wasn’t a part of his “normal” life, it was something he had to do. Alone. Something that was, she was very much afraid, tearing him up inside. And he wouldn’t share that with her, wouldn’t explain what was going on.

  And what was he asking of her, really? Did he want no more than a brief affair, an outlet for the physical tensions left by these unnamed pressures? Did he want her only because of the explosive passion they’d both felt? Had it really been her voice on a dark balcony that had drawn him, or had he merely needed a woman and sensed her vulnerability?

  The questions were hateful ones, and she hated them.

  “Erin?”

  She looked up, realizing that the waiter had departed and that Keith was gazing at her with his enigmatic eyes, his face revealing nothing of his thoughts. He wouldn’t give an inch, she mused vaguely, not an inch. He wouldn’t offer bedroom lies or empty promises. He was hard, paradoxical, uncompromising, secretive, angry—and altogether dangerous.

  If she had a grain of sense, Erin realized, she would walk away from him and never look back. Instead, she heard herself say evenly, “Your terms. Which are?”

  “Which are brutally unfair.” His voice was still quiet and matter-of-fact. “My work comes first, Erin. It has to. And you aren’t involved in it. No questions. And no ties. I don’t want a love affair. I don’t want a relationship. I just want you. For as long as it lasts—and I don’t know how long that will be. I can promise not to be cruel, but I can’t promise to be kind. I can’t say I won’t hurt you, because I probably will.”

  Erin drew a d
eep breath, her eyes locked with his. “You are a bastard, aren’t you?”

  Chapter 4

  “Sometimes.” There was no apology in his deep voice. “Often, these days.”

  Erin took a swallow of her drink and wished she’d ordered something stronger. “You expect me to accept all this? Meekly agree to have a—what? A fling? Sleep with you because all you want from me is sex? Why should I agree to that, Keith?”

  Very softly he said, “Because you want me, too.”

  She didn’t say another word. The lifelong training that had taught her to show her best face in public always and to keep her private emotions to herself served her well now. She wanted to hit Keith with something, to storm at him and rant and walk out. But the low hum of conversation all around them in the restaurant steadied her, and her social mask held. Just.

  She wondered if he knew he should lay out his “terms” in a public place where she was unable to react as she wanted to. If so, that was as unfair as all the rest, because not being able to vent her emotions meant that her first negative impulses had to be fought and reined, and that gave her far too much time to become aware of other much deeper feelings.

  When their food came, she ate as automatically as she’d ordered, and couldn’t have said later what she had eaten. He was as silent as she, but she could feel his eyes on her almost continually, and she wondered what he was thinking.

  That was the most difficult part of this entire situation, not knowing what was driving him. She could feel his emotions sometimes, so intense they were almost shocking, but his thoughts were a puzzle to her. She believed what he had told her was honest—but not the whole truth. This mysterious “work” of his was the most important thing in his life right now, and whatever it was, he had no intention of telling her anything at all about it. His terms made it clear. He could—and certainly wanted to—share his bed with her, but everything else was off limits. No promises at all.

  It should have been easy to say no, Erin thought miserably, confronted by her own confusion and uncertainty. Few women would have hesitated when presented with such unjust conditions, not if they valued their self-respect. And she did. But it wasn’t easy at all to allow the hurt and indignation to voice a flat refusal.

  For the first time in her life, Erin began to understand how some people could be carried so far from reason, from logic and sense, when emotions drove them. Because that was it. No matter what her mind told her, her emotions tugged her wildly in the opposite direction. Even knowing that she had precious little chance of emerging from this unscathed, she wanted whatever she could get from Keith, and the realization was as terrifying as it was humiliating.

  And it made her angry. Angry at him and angry at herself. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she treat his proposition with the contempt it deserved?

  Because it hurts him too.

  Erin examined this sudden, new idea, and realized it was more than just a wistful hope. All this time, she’d been listening to more than his words; that was why his anger hadn’t frightened her, and why she’d been so confused by what he was telling her. Despite his curt recitation of terms, Keith was deeply disturbed by his own feelings for her, and hated making the proposition both because he knew the unfairness of it and because it wasn’t what he wanted.

  But he wanted her. The desire that had exploded between them had overwhelmed him just as much as it had her.

  She had heard that in his voice, heard it in the subtle shades and nuances she had learned to listen to in her father’s world. All her instincts told her that although he was clearly obsessed with this work of his, he was also obsessed with her.

  Erin didn’t know what that would lead to. Perhaps nothing. Even if she agreed to his proposition…especially if she did. Perhaps all he needed was to let the passion run its course, to get her out of his system in the most basic and simple way possible—by taking her to his bed. But would that be the result if they became lovers? Could he allow her to know him in the most intimate of ways without also exposing other parts of himself to her—even if he didn’t want to?

  And what about her? Could she risk so much, gamble her self-respect, possibly even her future, on the chance there was more between them than passion?

  What did she want? Only an affair, a chance to explore desire she had never felt before? Or had this tenuous bond she sensed between them tied her to him in ways she hadn’t begun to understand? That connection, she thought, had been forged in the dawn hush of nameless, faceless conversations, when a much more gentle Keith had spoken quietly and perceptively. No masks were needed in the darkness. The man he really was revealed himself only in those talks at dawn.

  But that door had begun closing the moment they saw each other in the brightness of day, shutting firmly by the end of their breakfast together, and Keith clearly had no intention of opening it again. Could she? Could she find the source of his pain and anger even if he didn’t want her to?

  Totally wrapped up in her thoughts, Erin was only dimly aware of finishing the meal, and didn’t notice when Keith refused coffee or dessert for them both and signed the check.

  “Will you walk with me on the beach?”

  She looked at him, nodded slowly. So many questions, she thought, and the path to answers so potentially painful.

  Erin remained silent while they walked without touching back through the lobby and took the path to the beach. She paused when they reached the sand to step out of her shoes, and carried them along with her small clutch purse in one hand. The tide was out and turning, and they walked on the hard-packed sand that would be covered with water later. The moon was rising, hanging low and full over the ocean, and the beach was deserted.

  “You haven’t said a word,” Keith said finally, reaching up to loosen his tie with a jerky movement that belied the calm tone of his voice.

  “What can I say?” Her voice was just loud enough to rise above the steady roar of the ocean. “You’ve stated your terms very frankly. I suppose I should be grateful for that; at least I know where I’ll stand if I don’t leave.”

  “You’re mad as hell, aren’t you?”

  She stopped and turned, looking up at his face and glad the moonlight was behind her. “Shouldn’t I be? You won’t even try to pretend, will you, Keith?”

  “Pretend what?”

  “That you care about me.” She didn’t want him to pretend, but she wanted to hear what he had to say in response.

  “Is that what you want? Pretense? I told you I wasn’t playing games, and I meant it, Erin.”

  “So all you’re offering is lust?”

  He made a slight movement as if he would have reached out to her, then slid his hands into his pockets. “I want to be with you,” he said flatly. “When I can, as often as I can. I want to hear your voice and look into your eyes. I want to touch you, make love to you. If that’s lust—then so be it.”

  Erin wished he would touch her now. There weren’t any questions when he touched her. “Make love? That’s a euphemistic way of putting it, don’t you think? It hardly describes what two people do when they aren’t lovers, aren’t emotionally involved with each other, aren’t having an affair. They share nothing but a bed. There are better words for that. Ugly words.” She was quite deliberately needling him, hoping for some kind of reaction that would prove her instincts about him were right.

  “Don’t.” The word seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest with a guttural sound. “Don’t say it. Don’t think it. If I were looking for nothing but cheap sex I wouldn’t come to you, Erin. I don’t want only a warm body in my bed, a carnal pill to make it easier for me to sleep. If that’s what you believe, then get on the plane tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know what I believe,” she told him, more than a little fierceness creeping into her voice. “More than sex—and less than an affair? What is that? Does it have a name?”

  “Want,” he said roughly. “Need. That’s all I have to offer you.”

  Staring up
at a face that stark moonlight painted even harsher and more compelling than normal, Erin wondered suddenly why he didn’t touch her, hold her, why he didn’t take advantage of a desire they both knew she couldn’t handle. If the answer was that he refused to try and sway her in a way she couldn’t fight, it did great credit to him as an honest man. And added another layer to his complex personality to baffle her even more.

  Erin was a normal woman, and she had dreamed the normal dreams a woman’s heart knows. She had thought of love, of moonlight and roses and a deep voice saying magical things to stir her heart and her blood. She had dreamed of a faceless lover who wanted only her, who was her match and her mate on some basic level they both recognized.

  Keith had sent her roses, and the moonlight was streaming over them both. But…The words his dark voice uttered were blunt and stark, and even though they stirred her blood, they also made her heart ache. And perhaps Keith did want only her, but not forever, only for now.

  How could she love a man who—

  Erin caught her breath, everything inside her hanging suspended for an endless moment. Then, before she could blurt out something he certainly wouldn’t want to hear, she turned abruptly and hurried back toward the hotel, almost running.

  He didn’t call after her. Or follow her.

  —

  Julia looked up from her comfortable chair in the corner of the lobby and watched an elegantly dressed and astonishingly beautiful young woman hurry across the marble floor barefoot, her shoes and purse clutched in one hand, her bright red hair windblown, and her face unnaturally pale. After watching the young woman disappear into one of the elevators, Julia returned her gaze to the very large man sitting beside her, and said, “That doesn’t look promising.”

  Cyrus Fortune, who had also keenly observed Erin’s entrance, shook his head a little. “They aren’t having an easy time of it. He doesn’t dare tell her why he’s here, and she’s left with nothing to hold on to. Not even a promise.”