The Lady and the Lion

by Kay Hooper

  Keith was too curious not to ask. “What does your father do?”

  After a slight hesitation, Erin said, “He’s an ambassador. Has been for thirty years.”

  “Ambassador to England?”

  “For England. My mother was American, but Dad’s British. I have a dual citizenship.”

  The news was unexpected, and it bothered Keith. He didn’t much care what Erin’s father did for a living, but when the public visibility of a nation’s ambassador combined with the anxiety of a father, things could get tricky. If that father decided to cross the Atlantic in search of his erring daughter, it was entirely possible Keith would find himself in the middle of a most unwelcome spotlight. He tried to reassure himself on that point; the American press might not even notice the arrival of an English ambassador in this resort area. Unless…

  “Your father isn’t anything else, is he?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like titled.”

  Erin looked absurdly guilty. “He’s an earl.”

  “Great,” Keith muttered. “That makes you Lady Erin. And the American press loves titles.”

  “I don’t use mine over here,” she protested. “It’s just a courtesy anyway.”

  “I’ll bet your father uses his.”

  “Well, yes, but—” She broke off, frowning a little. “Are you worried that he might come here?”

  Keith had known the first time he set eyes on Erin that it would be all too easy to tell her things, even things he didn’t want her to know. But this…His hesitation was brief. “I really don’t want any unusual attention right now, Erin. It could be a problem for me. Is he likely to come here?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. He has to take up a new post in a few weeks, so he’ll be very busy. I’ve never seen him abandon his work for any reason. Even when Mother died, he just worked harder than ever.”

  “If he’s worried about you…”

  Erin couldn’t imagine her father crossing the Atlantic just because of her, but said, “I’ll call him later today and tell him I’ll fly over in a week or so to talk; that should satisfy him.” She studied Keith’s face, then added very quietly, “He doesn’t have to know you exist unless you want him to. I hadn’t planned to tell him anything about us.”

  He had to look away from those luminous green eyes as he said, “Don’t mention me. To anyone.” Concentrating on eating, he tried to remind himself that all this was for the best. The only relationship he could have with Erin right now was a sexual one, and she had agreed to that. So why did he feel as if he were betraying her by insisting that his only place in her life was in her bed, and secretly at that?

  Everything had seemed so simple before he met her. He had set himself on a course of action that all the anger and grief inside him had demanded, and nothing had distracted him from his goal. Until he heard a sweet voice on a dark balcony. He had needed that then, he knew, needed the connection to sanity that she had unknowingly provided. For a time, she had kept him balanced, prevented his rage from drawing him over the edge.

  But now, with his anger still eating away at him, he was farther from the edge, nearer to her; he wasn’t balanced anymore. He was divided, not just by the role, but by the new conflicts raging inside him. Part of him wanted to turn away from the obsession that had driven him for months, to release those bitter emotions and allow himself to begin healing; but he couldn’t let go, he just couldn’t. He wanted Erin even closer, not kept away by a wall of secrecy, but at the same time was afraid that the danger of his role would spill over onto her, and he didn’t even want to tell her what he was doing because he was afraid it would horrify her.

  He didn’t want their relationship to be only sexual. He wanted to be her lover in every sense of the word, to give her as much as she gave him. But…

  Keith violently shoved the thoughts away. He looked across the table at Erin, suddenly conscious of the silence and wondering if she was upset. She didn’t seem to be; her expression was thoughtful as she ate, but not withdrawn or anxious. But she was silent, and he knew he had disturbed her contentment. He hated that.

  Reaching for anything to recapture the earlier relaxed mood, he said, “So you grew up in the diplomatic corps.”

  Erin replied to that easily and readily, smiling a little as she sat back and sipped her coffee. “More or less. I was usually in school, here or in Europe, with only vacations and holidays spent with Mother and Dad.”

  “Sounds like a lonely life,” he commented, watching her.

  Musingly, she said, “Not really. I had friends and family scattered all over. I would have liked to be with Mother and Dad more, but I didn’t feel particularly neglected. Probably because I was never emotionally close to either of them. Dad was wrapped up in his work; Mother was wrapped up in him and in the social life of an ambassador’s wife.”

  “No siblings?”

  “No. Mother had several miscarriages while I was growing up. They left her frail and depressed. She knew Dad was disappointed, even though I doubt he said anything about it. But he wanted a son. I always knew that. His title had been handed down in a direct line for five hundred years. Now it will go to a cousin.”

  “He won’t remarry?”

  Erin looked faintly surprised. “I’ve never even thought about that, and I’ve watched women chase him for years. He should remarry, for himself as well as the title. Maybe now that I won’t be there to act as his hostess and make a home for him, he will. He likes his life to run smoothly.”

  After a moment, Keith said, “I don’t think I’d like your father very much.”

  She smiled. “He isn’t a cold man, not really. But he is reserved and a bit detached. I suppose he has to be. In his world, people never say what they mean in plain words, everything is subtle, even deceptive. It’s gamesmanship with them. And he plays the game very well.”

  “Even with his daughter?”

  “Not intentionally, I think. Not deliberately. We didn’t know each other very well when Mother died and I left school to live with him, and I suppose he didn’t really think of himself as a father. I tried to make myself useful, and I believe I did, but I could never get close to him.”

  Her voice was quiet and matter-of-fact, but Keith thought he’d never heard anything so bleak as the simple phrase we didn’t know each other very well. What a damning condemnation of any man! He told himself fiercely that if he were ever lucky enough to have a child, son or daughter, those words would never be said about him.

  He cleared his throat. “Yet you were afraid you’d hurt him by breaking away.”

  “A euphemistic choice of words. Wishful thinking, maybe. I knew he’d be disappointed in me. I was even afraid that if I broke away I wouldn’t have any place in his life at all. That I’d be dismissed from his mind. I suppose that was the real fear. That I could only be part of his life—” She broke off abruptly.

  “On his terms,” Keith finished evenly.

  After a moment, Erin said, “I couldn’t go on agreeing to his terms.”

  “What about mine?”

  She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her, what he wanted to hear. He had been clearly upset by the knowledge of what her father was, not because she was the daughter of a titled nobleman, but because that nobleman could direct unwanted attention at Keith and what he was doing here. She had done what she could to remove that worry.

  But this…It was like walking a high wire with a gust of wind whipping around her, trying to maintain her balance when she couldn’t predict where or when the next blast would come. His emotions were like that, escaping suddenly and without warning, triggered by something she said or did, and there was no way she could keep it from happening because she didn’t know what it was that lay at the root of his simmering anger.

  Erin didn’t resent that, but it worried her for both their sakes. Their relationship was so tenuous because he had posted so many no trespassing signs, shutting off a great deal of himself from her. She had made up her mind not to
ask for more than he was prepared to give her, yet she knew he was in pain and it went against both her nature and her love for him to do nothing at all to try and ease that.

  “Erin?”

  She lifted one hand in a helpless gesture. “What are you asking me?”

  “I’m asking how long you can go on accepting my terms.” His voice was flat in that familiar way that told her he was deeply disturbed.

  Erin wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a flash of resentment—and she was very human. She was also, she reminded herself, dealing with a man who, where she was concerned at least, was so contradictory that it was maddening. He wanted no ties or promises, he said, and when she accepted his word, he had the nerve to ask how long she would accept it.

  She took a deliberate sip of her cooling coffee, then said mildly, “Since you set the terms, why don’t you set the time limit?” He looked a bit disconcerted, and she was glad.

  “How can I?” he asked.

  “How can I?” Erin met his gaze steadily. “Keith, you haven’t given me any room to find that answer. I don’t have the right to ask you anything at all, not about us. You defined what we are. And I think your words were ‘as long as it lasts.’ So I guess that’s your answer.”

  He should have let it go then, but the part of Keith that needed to know if she wanted him was too strong and too primitive to fight. “My answer, yes. But not yours.”

  Erin looked at him for a long moment, her green eyes disturbed for the first time, a little wary and a little angry. She shook her head and tossed her napkin aside, then rose and went out onto the sunny balcony. Keith followed as far as the doorway, watching her as she looked out over the ocean. Then she turned back to him.

  “You can’t have everything your own way, Keith,” she said in a voice that shook slightly. “I haven’t asked anything of you. I haven’t asked you to promise you’d be with me next year, or next week, or an hour from now. I haven’t asked you to tell me where your anger came from, and why it’s eating you up inside. I haven’t asked you to cross the line you drew.”

  “I know,” he said roughly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Then stop making it even harder for me. Stop making me feel like a damned sacrificial victim because you so obviously think I’m making a mistake. It was my decision, and I don’t need you doubting that I know what I’m doing. I feel as if I’m walking through a mine field as it is.”

  “It doesn’t show,” he muttered. “I can’t even tell if it’s me you want, or just passion.” He saw the flash of hurt in her lovely eyes, but her chin lifted swiftly, and her voice was very quiet.

  “I won’t make it any easier for you, either.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about us. You want me, Keith, but you don’t want me close emotionally. I’ve accepted that. But if you’re off limits that way—so am I. You have no right to ask me how long I’ll accept anything from you. Or even what it is I want from you. That wasn’t part of the deal. You don’t want a love affair, you don’t even want a relationship, you just want me in your bed. I want the same thing, obviously. I haven’t exactly tried to hide that from you. My reasons for agreeing, and my emotions about it, are none of your business.”

  It hurt, and he knew he deserved it. Because she was right. He had demanded that she forfeit every one of a lover’s rights except for physical pleasure, and it was cruelly unfair for him to ask anything else of her at all.

  He drew a deep breath, then took two steps and pulled her into his arms, holding her slender body hard against his. “Right now, all I can offer of myself is this,” he said in a taut voice. “I don’t have anything left to give you, Erin. Not now.”

  After a moment, her arms slid up around his neck, and she said almost gently, “When you do, if you do, then maybe we’ll both have questions. But right now, this is enough for me, Keith. I don’t want to think beyond it.”

  He didn’t know if he believed her, but with her in his arms, he couldn’t think beyond it himself. Whatever else he needed from her, physical desire was so potent that it pushed all else aside, and he didn’t question that as he carried her back to their bed.

  —

  They left his suite only once that day, going for a walk on the beach while the maid was cleaning, and Keith realized that a part of Erin was quite deliberately off limits to him. Her earlier contentment had returned along with her casual ease, her eyes and smile unshadowed, but after their strained conversation he began to understand that she had marked the boundaries carefully and with precision. When he touched her, her response was totally honest, her pleasure unhidden; the label she had chosen to wear read lover, and she was as passionate and giving as any man could have wanted.

  Conversation about them was matter-of-fact, focused totally on the here and now, and all emotions she revealed dealt strictly with the pleasure she found in his arms. Period. What she felt about him as a lover was obvious; what she felt about him as a man was her own secret. She readily answered his questions about her life, but asked none about him.

  She never once crossed the line he had drawn.

  Keith couldn’t complain. He’d gotten what he demanded: Erin in his bed on his own terms. She didn’t try to make him feel guilty about that, and she didn’t indicate by the slightest sign that she wanted anything else from him. He should have been satisfied, but he wasn’t. He managed to contain his struggle through the remainder of the day, but as evening approached his tension increased.

  He had to leave her, had to put her out of his mind while he wore the skin of his alter ego, while he continued with his plan to destroy two men.

  He barely let her out of his sight all day, a possessiveness that she seemed unconscious of, and when he literally forced himself to get ready to go, it was straight from their bed while she lay naked in a tangle of covers and watched him. He dressed casually in jeans and a knit shirt, knowing he had to stop at the boat and don a tuxedo; tonight he was attending a formal party at Vincent Arturo’s palatial home, where he planned to begin drawing the threads of his plot tighter.

  It would be a night of strain and tension, and he needed all his concentration.

  He couldn’t think of anything but her.

  “You haven’t called your father,” he commented as he sat on the foot of the bed to put on his shoes.

  Erin glanced at the clock on the nightstand; it was a quarter past six. “I’ll call in a few minutes. He’s always up until after midnight.”

  Keith stood up. He was ready, and he knew he couldn’t delay any longer, but leaving her was killing him. He wanted to kiss her again, and hold her again. But he couldn’t. Without moving toward her, he said, “Will you be here when I get back?” He meant here, in his bed, waiting for him.

  “Yes,” she said simply. Then, before he could turn away, she went on in a quiet voice. “Earlier today, you said that you didn’t know if it was you I wanted or just passion.”

  “I had no right to ask that.”

  She half nodded, agreeing, but said gravely, “It’s your passion I want. It’s you I want.”

  Keith didn’t ask why she was willing to tell him that; he couldn’t have said a word right then. It meant more than he’d realized, too much for him to have an easy or ready response. He simply nodded, and left the room quickly.

  Erin lay alone in the big bed for a long time, just thinking. The worries that had been absent this morning had finally arrived at some point, creeping into her thoughts from time to time all day. The kind of worries she’d expected. Not about what she had done; she loved Keith, and that was why she was in his bed now. That wasn’t a mistake. But she was worried about him, and worried about the future. She had been able to push the anxieties aside while Keith was with her, but now that he was gone she couldn’t ignore them any longer.

  She thought it would have been easier if Keith had been content with his own terms. At least then, she would know exactly what was expected of her. But he was still holding
her off with one hand while trying to pull her closer with the other, still immersed in a conflict she could sense, even feel sometimes, and yet didn’t understand because he wouldn’t talk about it with her. He didn’t want her too close, and yet she wasn’t close enough.

  That was what gave her hope, as maddening as his contradictory desires were. Part of him did want an emotional closeness, she felt that with certainty—but he was fighting it.

  It had been Keith’s emotions she had trusted from the first—because they were so strong she felt them and because she had known instinctively that they were honest. Now, after all the hours with him, she believed that even more. His physical desire, unhidden and almost shockingly intense, was a need for her, not merely a need for sexual release.

  And she thought he cared about her, whether he knew it or would admit it. His vivid eyes, less enigmatic than they had been at first, held expressions she had read easily: burning hunger when he wanted her, pain when he had guessed the loneliness of her childhood despite her denial, anger when she had described her relationship with her father, and a wrenching reluctance when he had left her tonight.

  He had said that all he could give her of himself was what his terms so briefly defined, that he had nothing left, but Erin didn’t believe that. What she believed, what she felt with certainty, was that he had built a wall with his anger, that simmering rage locked inside him, and until he released that, it would continue to stand between them.

  But how could she help him free that fury? It was all tied up with what he was doing here in Miami Beach, she felt that. Something he had to do; she no longer believed the fiction of “work.” He was here to do something very specific, something that put him under enormous pressure, and whatever it was, he didn’t want to tell her because…Why?

  With nothing more to go on, Erin couldn’t begin to answer that question. And she couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t.

  Her contentment since they had become lovers was an instinctive thing; everything inside her was certain that she and Keith belonged together, and with such a certainty to hold on to, she could live for today. But the connection between them, strengthened during the last hours, also told her that the conflicts in Keith, steadily intensifying, could destroy him. And she didn’t know how to help him.