Annette felt her heart give a little lurch. She’d almost forgotten the job involved – that of creating the floral accessories for Elena’s wedding. For a second the issue at stake had been whether or not she wished to go to Amsterdam with this intriguing man who could disturb her peace of mind faster than anyone she’d met in years.
“Of course I’ll take on the job – ”
“Then you’ll have to come to Amsterdam, won’t you? Good. It’s settled. And tonight we’ll dine at the Ritz. I’ll pick you up about eight o’clock. Until then...”
He suddenly touched his lips to the back of her hand in the continental manner, and the blood surged to Annette’s cheeks again. She realized he was already clattering back down the stairs to leave, yet she still stood in the same spot. Her assistants would think something was wrong if she didn’t go back down to see
Pieter Van Ness out of the premises, but when she walked quickly after him, he’d already left the shop. The doorbell was still jangling after he’d opened it, and the sweet scents of the flowers wafted around her with the disturbance of air. The shop clerks chattered away to customers. Everything was as it had been before...and yet everything had changed.
Chapter Two
It was strange how one Saturday in February had changed her life, Annette thought at the end of that day, and now here was the second.
When Pieter had left the shop, the idea of working on Elena’s wedding flowers had taken over her mind. She loved the challenge of every new assignment, and the anticipation of creating something beautiful out of one of nature’s most bountiful gifts never failed to excite her. And when it was for someone special in her life, the task was even more of a joy. Combinations of flowers with their old traditional meanings flitted through her mind. Red roses for love; lily of the valley, meaning doubly dear; fern for sincerity; white heather for good luck; myrtle, unforgotten joys...She realized she was remembering the blooms that had fashioned her own bouquet, and felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes.
“Are you okay, Annette?’’ Margaret, her senior clerk was hovering nearby, having just shown out a customer. “That guy didn’t upset you, did he?”
“Oh, no!’’ She gave a forced laugh. “Not at all. In fact, he brought me some very nice news. His sister wants me to do her wedding flowers. There’s only one little snag – the wedding’s going to be in Holland!”
“So what’s the problem?” Margaret, who would jet-hop every week if she got the chance, said practically. “Unless you think June and I aren’t capable of running things here. If you’re that worried, of course, I could always take your place with the flying Dutchman,” she added archly.
“You won’t.” Annette grinned. “The wedding’s not until May, but how would you feel if I went over for a few days, say, next week, to see just what’s needed? Can you cope?”
“Dearest Annette, stop mothering us,” Margaret said with a hint of impatience. “The place won’t fall down just because you’re not in it for a few days, and we’ve nothing spectacular to arrange for a while. So go off and enjoy yourself for once.”
Margaret was the one who did the mothering. Annette smiled to herself. She was five years older than Annette, and acted sometimes as if she were fifty. She admired her employer tremendously, but she still thought Annette should find a nice man and settle down and have kids, and she made no bones about telling her so.
So by the time Annette was ready for Pieter to call for her that evening, her mind was made up. She was ready to go to Amsterdam as soon as it could be arranged with Elena. It would be a business trip in a way, but the thought gave her so much pleasure she didn’t choose to analyze whether it was because she would see Elena again in such happy circumstances or because she would be traveling there with Pieter.
She dressed carefully and elegantly as always, wearing a midnight-blue dress with long sleeves and a deep slashed neckline. It was perfectly plain, but with Annette’s smooth brown hair that shone as if it had been polished, and her vivid blue eyes, it looked stunning. Pieter Van Ness told her so the moment he saw her. He had none of the false platitudes of a younger man, nor the sometimes gushing overstatement of an older one. He was exactly right, and it made her shiver to realize it.
“You look beautiful, Annette, and only a genuine admirer would dare to bring the acclaimed ‘Annette’ a corsage. But I was never known for being anything other than conventional!”
He produced a florist’s box with a rival name on it that made Annette laugh. But she couldn’t object to the exquisite little arrangement of the star-shaped winter jasmine and tiny white rosebuds, held together with white ribbon.
“As I didn’t know what you’d be wearing, I thought it best to play it safe and select white flowers,” Pieter went on. He was about to pin the corsage on her dress, and she felt the brush of his fingers against her breast. She felt the tingling run through her veins once more as her blood raced at the touch of his hands. She must be bewitched to feel such a reaction, she told herself shakily, but it was undeniably there all the same.
When he’d finished pinning on the corsage, a small smile lingered around Pieter’s lips.
“I’ve never envied flowers before,” he said softly. “But they have the sweetest resting place I’ve ever known.”
Suddenly she had to take the heat out of the moment. She moved away to pick up her coat and bag.
“You chose cleverly, Pieter. I’ve made a study of the meaning of flowers, and jasmine is symbolic of ‘friends only’!”
He laughed. “And white roses? I must confess I didn’t know about the jasmine, but the girl in the shop where I bought the corsage mentioned the roses! ‘Worthy of love,’ isn’t it? I’d say it was an appropriate sentiment for such a lovely lady.”
“Do you always behave like this with strangers?” His hands were helping her with her coat now, and she felt the warmth of them on her shoulders, and then the touch of his lips at the nape of her neck. For a second Annette closed her eyes as ecstatic feelings washed over her, and then she jerked her eyes wide open. It was all happening too soon, and she wasn’t in the habit of giving herself for the price of a dinner at the Ritz.
“Do you think you and I are destined to remain strangers?” Pieter’s voice was warm and intimate and sensual in her ear. “From the moment I looked into your beautiful eyes, I wanted you, Annette. I’m a forthright man, and you and I aren’t children. We could have a good relationship, a fulfilling one – ”
She twisted out of his arms. Inside she was trembling all over, because all her senses responded in a way that almost overwhelmed her. Her body yearned to take all that he was offering, but her head was still in control of her heart, and she couldn’t bear it if he guessed just how aroused she was beneath her hard-fought sophistication.
“Our relationship is that of friends and nothing more, Pieter.” She hoped he wouldn’t detect the tremor in her voice. “I agreed to dine with you because of my fondness for Elena, and nothing more. I...I had to cancel another date this evening, because I didn’t want you to feel stranded in London, but you surely don’t think I have no other life than the flowers? And no other men in my life?” She tried to sound amused, even though it cost her a lot to do so. She wasn’t the brittle type, but that was exactly how she was portraying herself at this moment.
“Do you think there is no other woman in mine?” he shot back at her, and the words stunned her. She’d never considered it. Why should she, when she’d only just met him? The thought trembled through her that in her soul she had always known him. The passionate, subdued part of her nature wanted to rage at him that from now on there must be only her. She was shocked at the force of her own emotions.
“I’m sure there is,” she said through wooden lips. “I can’t remember Elena telling me you were married – ” “I’m not,” he said shortly. “And neither are you.” He picked up her ringless left hand. “I know you were married, Annette, and Elena told me about the tragic circumstances of your husband�
�s death. I can understand you mourning, but not forever! And though he meant a lot to you, you no longer wear your wedding ring. It would seem to suggest that your heart is no longer broken. So why do you recoil from the thought of love as if it’s a deadly spider?”
“I wasn’t aware I did that!” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “If you must know, I was very ill several years ago, and my ring kept slipping off after I lost so much weight. It seemed safer to remove it altogether. Satisfied? And if you’ve got a table booked at the Ritz, hadn’t we better be going?”
He moved to the door at once and opened it for her. He really was the limit, Annette thought as he opened the car door for her and she slid inside the car he’d hired for his London stay. In one day he’d ruffled her serenity, he’d made a pass at her and analyzed her character as if he had every right to do so. And he’d discovered more about her in that short while than anyone had a right to know, except Tony. She knew very well he was aware of her every response to his maleness, no matter how she tried to disguise it.
The evening was an undoubted success, if only because she insisted on talking about Elena and Nels for much of the time, and the fact that the Ritz Hotel catered to them so beautifully. Pieter was staying there, a respected hotelier himself, and the staff knew Annette through her own business. They were rather special guests among an exclusive clientele. The lighting was soft and flattering, and Annette’s eyes were large and luminous as they met Pieter’s across the table when the meal was over. He stretched out a hand and touched her fingers as they lay on the immaculate tablecloth.
“I don’t want to say all those corny old clichés about being so glad I found you, and all the other days of my life seeming dull in comparison to this one – ”
“Then don’t say them, please.” Annette spoke softly, not meaning to hurt him, but not wanting this evening to become more personal, more supercharged than it was already.
“I don’t think I need to. We both know they’re true, don’t we, Annette?”
She found herself twisting the huge sapphire ring on the third finger of her left hand. It was true that she’d had to remove Tony’s modest wedding ring after the illness that had left her nearer to death than she wished to remember – a nervous disorder, the doctor had called it delicately – and she had not wanted to have the ring made smaller, to change anything that had been so perfect. But although she no longer wore the outer symbolism of her marriage, she still felt married in spirit to Tony. Since he died she had never given herself fully to another man, and she had never wanted to. Suddenly she felt that all her carefully guarded self-possession was in danger of slipping away from her.
She didn’t understand herself anymore. In the back of her mind there had always been the ideal of Tony, but Annette had imagined there would be someone else, in time. A vague figure who had never really taken shape in her mind, but who would bring her new joy and fulfillment when she was ready. She was ready to admit that she needed someone in her life. But now that the shadowy background figure had crystallized into this warm, caring man sitting opposite her, she was suddenly afraid.
“Pieter,” she said carefully, “I don’t know how much Elena has told you about me. We grew very close in the six months she was over here on a teaching exchange, and when two women discover they are very much on the same wavelength, it’s easy to confide more than you intend – ”
“Elena didn’t give away any of your secrets, my love. You should know she would never betray a confidence. But what she didn’t tell me about your tragic experience and its aftereffects, I supplied for myself. I’m not an unimaginative man, Annette.”
“I’m sure you’re not.” The slow color stole into her face as she saw his gray eyes flicker. What was he imagining right now? she wondered. To her embarrassment she felt a shivering excitement run over her as his eyes traveled downward to where the plunging neckline of her dress revealed the deep cleft between her breasts. It was a very sensuous appraisal of her body, and she could no more stop her nipples hardening in unspoken body language than she could stop night following day. She tried to draw her hand away from Pieter’s, but his fingers only curled more tightly around her own.
“Why do you fight me, Annette? You must have known other men since your husband. I’ve no wish to be offensive or insensitive, but I cannot believe a lovely and desirable woman like you has denied her own nature all these years.”
“Are you so perceptive with every woman you meet?” she asked with a thickness in her throat that was combined with a spark of anger that he could reduce her to a vulnerable ingénue so easily.
“Only those I want to know more – ”
“And there have been many of those, I suppose.” Annette seized the opportunity to turn the conversation away from herself. “I don’t imagine a man of your undoubted masculinity and other assets could have spent too many hours without female company!” Pieter suddenly smiled, with a little mocking light in his eyes. Annette found herself watching the long sensual curve of his lips, not too full, but not thin and pursed either. She dragged her gaze to his eyes once more. The champagne Pieter had ordered had to be going to her head, she thought in alarm, for her to be reacting in this way.
“I don’t pretend to be a saint, Annette. Would you believe a man of thirty-seven years to have had no contact with women? There have been attachments, some more long-standing than others, but never one that made me want to desert my bachelor status.”
“Ah. So you’re what they call the eternal bachelor, are you?”
“I hope not eternal! I have no wish to go into old age still searching for the woman who will share my life, the one woman I can cherish above all others!”
He tipped his champagne glass toward her slightly, and the shiver ran down Annette’s spine again. His words could mean everything or nothing. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Was he just a playboy, making the most of his position and his indisputable charisma to add so many more scalps to his belt? Was he making some sort of meaningful statement to her, that she could be the woman of whom he spoke so lightly? For a moment Annette let herself wonder what it would be like to be cherished by a man such as Pieter.
Cherished...such a lovely, old-fashioned word that encompassed all the love and passion and protection in the world.
“I think it’s time we left if you’re ready.” His voice came softly through the haze of her dreaming, and Annette gave a small start. She allowed Pieter to help her into her coat and felt his arm around her as he led her into the crispness of the February night. A short car ride, and they were at the door of the flat, alongside the impressive shop entrance, with its one word, “Annette,” illuminated over the window. It had always seemed like a dream come true, once she was established, something to link her always with Tony and their brief life together.
Now, in the cold brittle night, with the moonlight adding to the fragility of the leafless trees that lined the waterfront, it all seemed more empty than she’d ever known it before. The shop, of which she was so proud, and the work that had given her self-confidence and pride were suddenly shallow, and she longed for Tony with a fierceness that she had successfully suppressed for a long time.
Pieter’s arm slid around her in the darkness of the car.
“Are you going to ask me into the flat, or are you still afraid of me, Annette?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she answered at once. But she was, and she knew it. Afraid of him, and of herself, of her own needs and the passionate nature Pieter had somehow managed to detect beneath the veneer of sophistication.
“Of course you must come in for some coffee,” she heard herself say brightly, as if he were one of her more usual escorts, who knew the score as far as Annette Granger was concerned. They could go so far and no farther before the prickles came out, and they were frozen off by that cool blue stare and that frigid indifference that could quell a man’s ardor in seconds. It was her armor. It had helped her to survive and enjoy the company of men without
the entanglement of sex or love spoiling things. Sometimes she was horrified at herself for thinking that way. She had adored her young husband; with him the physical pleasures of love had been magical.
Pieter followed her inside the flat. It was like a rerun of the earlier little scene, Annette thought briefly. Had that really been that morning? She felt as if she had known Pieter Van Ness for always, and it was one more thing to disturb her. As they reached the living room, Pieter pulled her gently into his arms. She had already shed her coat, and her lithe body molded itself to his without resistance. Any other man would have known that it was a passive reaction rather than a submission.
But Pieter Van Ness was not the man to accept such noncooperation, nor to flinch from it. He merely stood holding her for a long moment, looking deeply into her eyes, until Annette felt that the tension was unbearable. If he intended kissing her, why didn’t he get on with it? Why prolong this moment when they were so close, almost every part of their bodies touching, and yet without the contact she suddenly craved? She almost had to force her head to remain still and not to lean toward him, betraying the fact that she wanted his kiss more desperately than she’d wanted anything before.
It was as if she watched the scene in slow motion, holding her breath as his dark head slowly descended toward her face and blotted out the moonlight behind him. Or perhaps it was because her eyes softly closed as she felt the warmth of his mouth against hers, giving her little ghost kisses at first, hardly more than a whisper against her flesh, which sent the tingles racing through her limbs.
And then the pressure became deeper, his mouth demanding a response from hers, but hardly needing to ask, because she found herself kissing him back, arching toward him as if she would become part of him. The slight roughness of his cheek against hers was an erotic sensation that awoke all the wanton desires she’d ever known. He alternated his kisses so that just when she felt she was drowning in desire, they became fleeting and gentle again, leaving her wanting more.
The Language of Love Page 2