Lessons Learned

by Nora Roberts

  She nodded absently as she skimmed the first paragraph. Chatty, shallow, but certainly not offensive. A lot of people who might not glance at the food or cooking sections would give the gossip columns a working over. All in all, it was probably an excellent break. Then she read the second paragraph.

  Juliet was up out of her folding chair. This time the coffee that dripped onto the floor went unnoticed. Her expression changed from surprised astonishment to fury in a matter of seconds. In the same amount of time, she stuffed the clippings back into their envelope. It wasn’t easy, but she gave herself five minutes for control before she walked back into the main store.

  The schedule called for another fifteen minutes, but Carlo had more than twenty people in line, and that many again just milling around. Fifteen minutes would have to be stretched to thirty. Grinding her teeth, Juliet stalked over to Bill.

  “There you are.” Friendly as always, he threw his arm over her shoulder and squeezed. “Going great guns out here. Old Carlo knows how to twinkle to the ladies without setting the men off. Damn clever sonofabitch.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Her knuckles were white on the strap of her briefcase. “Bill, is there a phone I can use? I have to call the office.”

  “No problem at all. Y’all just come on back with me.” He led her through Psychology, into Westerns and around Romances to a door marked Private. “You just help yourself,” he invited and showed her into a room with a cluttered metal desk, a goosenecked lamp and stacks upon stacks of books. Juliet headed straight for the phone.

  “Thanks, Bill.” She didn’t even wait until the door closed before she started dialing. “Deborah Mortimor, please,” she said to the answering switchboard. Tapping her foot, Juliet waited.

  “Ms. Mortimor.”

  “Deb, it’s Juliet.”

  “Hi. I’ve been waiting for you to call in. Looks like we’ve got a strong nibble with the Times when you come back to New York. I just—”

  “Later.” Juliet reached into her briefcase for a roll of antacids. “I got the clippings today.”

  “Great, aren’t they?”

  “Oh sure. They’re just dandy.”

  “Uh-huh.” Deb waited only a beat. “It’s the little number in Denver, isn’t it?”

  She gave the rolling chair a quick kick. “Of course it is.”

  “Sit down, Juliet.” Deb didn’t have to see to know her boss was pacing.

  “Sit down? I’m tempted to fly back to Denver and ring Chatty Cathy’s neck.”

  “Killing columnists isn’t good for PR, Juliet.”

  “It was garbage.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t that bad. Trash maybe, but not garbage.”

  She struggled for control and managed to get a very slippery rein on her temper. Popping the first antacid into her mouth, she crunched down. “Don’t be cute, Deb. I didn’t like the insinuations about Carlo and me. Carlo Franconi’s lovely American traveling companion,” she quoted between her teeth. “Traveling companion. It makes me sound as though I’m just along for the ride. And then—”

  “I read it,” Deb interrupted. “So did Hal,” she added, referring to the head of publicity.

  Juliet closed her eyes a moment. “And?”

  “Well, he went through about six different reactions. In the end, he decided a few comments like that were bound to come up and only added to Franconi’s—well, mystique might be the best term.”

  “I see.” Her jaw clenched, her fingers tight around the little roll of stomach pills. “That’s fine then, isn’t it? I’m just thrilled to add to a client’s mystique.”

  “Now, Juliet—”

  “Look, just tell dear old Hal that Houston went perfectly.” She was definitely going to need two pills. Juliet popped another out of the roll with her thumb. “I don’t even want you to mention to him that I called about this—this tripe in Denver.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Taking a pen, she sat down and made space on the desk. “Now, give me what you have with the Times.”

  A half hour later, Juliet was just finishing up her last call when Carlo poked his head in the office. Seeing she was on the phone, he rolled his eyes, closed the door and leaned against it. His brow lifted when he spotted the half-eaten roll of antacids.

  “Yes, thank you, Ed, Mr. Franconi will bring all the necessary ingredients and be in the studio at 8:00. Yes.” She laughed, though her foot was tapping out a rhythm on the floor. “It’s absolutely delicious. Guaranteed. See you in two days.”

  When she hung up the receiver, Carlo stepped forward. “You didn’t come to save me.”

  She gave him a long, slow look. “You seemed to be handling the situation without me.”

  He knew the tone, and the expression. Now all he had to do was find the reason for them. Strolling over, he picked up the roll of pills. “You’re much too young to need these.”

  “I’ve never heard that ulcers had an age barrier.”

  His brows drew together as he sat on the edge of the desk. “Juliet, if I believed you had an ulcer, I’d pack you off to my home in Rome and keep you in bed on bland foods for the next month. Now…” He slipped the roll into his pocket. “What problem is there?”

  “Several,” she said briskly as she began to gather up her notes. “But they’re fairly well smoothed out now. We’ll need to go shopping again in Chicago for that chicken dish you’d planned to cook. So, if you’ve finished up here, we can just—”

  “No.” He put a hand on her shoulder and held her in the chair. “We’re not finished. Shopping for chicken in Chicago isn’t what had you reaching for pills. What?”

  The best defense was always ice. Her voice chilled. “Carlo, I’ve been very busy.”

  “You think after two weeks I don’t know you?” Impatient, he gave her a little shake. “You dig in that briefcase for your aspirin or your little mints only when you feel too much pressure. I don’t like to see it.”

  “It comes with the territory.” She tried to shrug off his hand and failed. “Carlo, we’ve got to get to the airport.”

  “We have more than enough time. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “All right then.” In two sharp moves, she pulled the clipping out of her case and pushed it into his hands.

  “What’s this?” He skimmed it first without really reading it. “One of those little columns about who is seen with whom and what they wear while they’re seen?”

  “More or less.”

  “Ah.” As he began to read from the top, he nodded. “And you were seen with me.”

  Closing her notebook, she slipped it neatly into her briefcase. Twice she reminded herself that losing her temper would accomplish nothing. “As your publicist, that could hardly be avoided.”

  Because he’d come to expect logic from her, he only nodded again. “But you feel this intimates something else.”

  “It says something else,” she tossed back. “Something that isn’t true.”

  “It calls you my traveling companion.” He glanced up, knowing that wouldn’t sit well with her. “It’s perhaps not the full story, but not untrue. Does it upset you to be known as my companion?”

  She didn’t want him to be reasonable. She had no intention of emulating him. “When companion takes on this shade of meaning, it isn’t professional or innocent. I’m not here to have my name linked with you this way, Carlo.”

  “In what way, Juliet?”

  “It gives my name and goes on to say that I’m never out of arm’s length, that I guard you as though you were my own personal property. And that you—”

  “That I kiss your hand in public restaurants as though I couldn’t wait for privacy,” Carlo read at a glance. “So? What difference does it make what it says here?”

  She dragged both hands through her hair. “Carlo, I’m here, with you, to do a job. This clipping came through my office, through my supervisor. Don’t you know something like this could ruin my credibility?”

  �
��No,” he said simply enough. “This is no more than gossip. Your supervisor, he’s upset by this?”

  She laughed, but it had little to do with humor. “No, actually, it seems he’s decided it’s just fine. Good for your image.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I don’t want to be good for your image,” she threw back with such passion, it shocked both of them. “I won’t be one of the dozens of names and faces linked with you.”

  “So,” he murmured. “Now, we push away to the truth. You’re angry with me, for this.” He set the clipping down. “You’re angry because there’s more truth in it now than there was when it was written.”

  “I don’t want to be on anyone’s list, Carlo.” Her voice had lowered, calmed. She dug balled fists into the pockets of her skirt. “Not yours, not anyone’s. I haven’t come this far in my life to let that happen now.”

  He stood, wondering if she understood how insulting her words were. No, she’d see them as facts, not as darts. “I haven’t put you on a list. If you have one in your own mind, it has nothing to do with me.”

  “A few weeks ago it was the French actress, a month before that a widowed countess.”

  He didn’t shout, but it was only force of will that kept his voice even. “I never pretended you were the first woman in my bed. I never expected I was the first man in yours.”

  “That’s entirely different.”

  “Ah, now you find the double standard convenient.” He picked up the clipping, balled it in his fist then dropped it into the wastebasket. “I’ve no patience for this, Juliet.”

  He was to the door again before she spoke. “Carlo, wait.” With a polite veneer stretched thinly over fury he turned. “Damn.” Hands still in her pockets, she paced from one stack of books to the other. “I never intended to take this out on you. It’s totally out of line and I’m sorry, really. You might guess I’m not thinking very clearly right now.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Juliet let out a sigh, knowing she observed the cutting edge of his voice. “I don’t know how to explain, except to say that my career’s very important to me.”

  “I understand that.”

  “But it’s no more important to me than my privacy. I don’t want my personal life discussed around the office water cooler.”

  “People talk, Juliet. It’s natural and it’s meaningless.”

  “I can’t brush it off the way you do.” She picked up her briefcase by the strap then set it down again. “I’m used to staying in the background. I set things up, handle the details, do the legwork, and someone else’s picture gets in the paper. That’s the way I want it.”

  “You don’t always get what you want.” With his thumbs hooked in his pockets, he leaned back against the door and watched her. “Your anger goes deeper than a few lines in a paper people will have forgotten tomorrow.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then turned back to him. “All right, yes, but it’s not a matter of being angry. Carlo, I’ve put myself in a delicate position with you.”

  Carefully, he weighed the phrase, tested it, judged it. “Delicate position?”

  “Please, don’t misunderstand. I’m here, with you, because of my job. It’s very important to me that that’s handled in the best, the most professional manner I can manage. What’s happened between us…”

  “What has happened between us?” he prompted when she trailed off.

  “Don’t make it difficult.”

  “All right, we’ll make it easy. We’re lovers.”

  She let out a long, unsteady breath, wondering if he really believed that was easy. For him it might be just another stroll through the moonlight. For her, it was a race through a hurricane. “I want to keep that aspect of our relationship completely separate from the professional area.”

  It surprised him he could find such a statement endearing. Perhaps the fact that she was half romanticist and half businesswoman was part of her appeal to him. “Juliet, my love, you sound as though you’re negotiating a contract.”

  “Maybe I do.” Nerves were beginning to run through her too quickly again. “Maybe I am, in a way.”

  His own anger had disappeared. Her eyes weren’t nearly as certain as her voice. Her hands, he noted, were twisting together. Slowly, he walked toward her, pleased that though she didn’t back away, the wariness was back. “Juliet…” He lifted a hand to brush through her hair. “You can negotiate terms and times, but not emotion.”

  “You can—regulate it.”

  He took both her hands, kissing them. “No.”

  “Carlo, please—”

  “You like me to touch you,” he murmured. “Whether we stand here alone, or we stand in a group of strangers. If I touch your hand, like this, you know what’s in my mind. It’s not always passion. There are times, I see you, I touch you, and I think only of being with you—talking, or sitting silently. Will you negotiate now how I am to touch your hand, how many times a day it’s permitted?”

  “Don’t make me sound like a fool.”

  His fingers tightened on hers. “Don’t make what I feel for you sound foolish.”

  “I—” No, she couldn’t touch that. She didn’t dare. “Carlo, I just want to keep things simple.”

  “Impossible.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Then tell me, is this simple?” With just his fingertips on her shoulder, he leaned down to kiss her. So softly, so lightly, it was hardly a kiss at all. She felt her legs dissolve from the knees down.

  “Carlo, we’re not staying on the point.”

  He slipped his arms around her. “I like this point much better. When we get to Chicago…” His fingers slipped up and down her spine as he began to brush his lips over her face. “I want to spend the evening alone with you.”

  “We—have an appointment for drinks at ten with—”

  “Cancel it.”

  “Carlo, you know I can’t.”

  “Very well.” He caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth. “I’ll plead fatigue and make certain we have a very quick, very early evening. Then, I’ll spend the rest of the night doing little things, like this.”

  His tongue darted inside her ear, then retreated to the vulnerable spot just below. The shudder that went through her was enough to arouse both of them. “Carlo, you don’t understand.”

  “I understand that I want you.” In a swift mood swing, he had her by the shoulders. “If I told you now that I want you more than I’ve wanted any other woman, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  She backed away from that, but was caught close again. “No, I wouldn’t. It isn’t necessary to say so.”

  “You’re afraid to hear it, afraid to believe it. You won’t get simple with me, Juliet. But you’ll get a lover you’ll never forget.”

  She steadied a bit, meeting his look levelly. “I’ve already resigned myself to that, Carlo. I don’t apologize to myself, and I don’t pretend to have any regrets about coming to you last night.”

  “Then resign yourself to this.” The temper was back in his eyes, hot and volatile. “I don’t care what’s written in the paper, what’s whispered about in offices in New York. You, this moment, are all I care about.”

  Something shattered quietly inside her. A defense built instinctively through years. She knew she shouldn’t take him literally. He was Franconi after all. If he cared about her, it was only in his way, and in his time. But something had shattered, and she couldn’t rebuild it so quickly. Instead, she chose to be blunt.

  “Carlo, I don’t know how to handle you. I haven’t the experience.”

  “Then don’t handle me.” Again, he took her by the shoulders. “Trust me.”

  She put her hands on his, held them a moment, then drew them away. “It’s too soon, and too much.”

  There were times, in his work, where he had to be very, very patient. As a man, it happened much more rarely. Yet he knew if he pushed now, as for some inexplicable reason he wanted to, he’d only create more
distance between them. “Then, for now, we just enjoy each other.”

  That’s what she wanted. Juliet told herself that was exactly what she wanted—no more, no less. But she felt like weeping.

  “We’ll enjoy each other,” she agreed. Letting out a sigh, she framed his face with her hands as he so often did with her. “Very much.”

  He wondered, when he lowered his brow to hers, why it didn’t quite satisfy.

  Chapter Nine

  Burned out from traveling, ready for a drink and elevated feet, Juliet walked up to the front desk of their Chicago hotel. Taking a quick glimpse around the lobby, she was pleased with the marble floors, sculpture and elegant potted palms. Such places usually lent themselves to big, stylish bathrooms. She intended to spend her first hour in Chicago with everything from the neck down submerged.

  “May I help you?”

  “You have a reservation for Franconi and Trent.”

  With a few punches on the keyboard, the clerk brought up their reservations on the screen. “You’ll both be staying for two nights, Miss Trent?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “It’s direct bill. Everything’s set. If you and Mr. Franconi will just fill out these forms, I’ll ring for a bellman.”

  As he scrawled the information on the form, Carlo glanced over. From the profile, she looked lovely, though perhaps a bit tired. Her hair was pinned up in the back, fluffed out on the sides and barely mussed from traveling. She looked as though she could head a three-hour business meeting without a whimper. But then she arched her back, closing her eyes briefly as she stretched her shoulders. He wanted to take care of her.

  “Juliet, there’s no need for two rooms.”

  She shifted her shoulder bag and signed her name. “Carlo, don’t start. Arrangements have already been made.”

  “But it’s absurd. You’ll be staying in my suite, so the extra room is simply extra.”