by Nora Roberts
more than I can ever tell you—the way you listened and didn’t judge. You were there when I needed you, and I’ll never forget it.”
“Sounds like a kiss-off,” he murmured.
“No, of course it isn’t. But you should understand now why I feel so strongly about being involved with you. Why it won’t work.”
“I must be pretty stupid, because I don’t. I do understand why you’re scared. Johanna, we have to talk.”
“I have to get back. There’s only a few more minutes.”
“Sit down,” he told her as she started to rise. She might have ignored the order, but the look in his eyes had her sitting again. “I’ll try to make it quick. Time’s either a blessing or a curse now, anyway. I’ve got to fly East the day after tomorrow to start filming.”
“Oh.” She dug deep for a smile. “Well, that’s good. I know you’ve been anxious to start.”
“I’ll be gone three weeks, probably more. It isn’t possible for me to put this off.”
“Of course not. I hope—well, I hope you let me know how it’s going.”
“Johanna, I want you to come with me.”
“What?”
“I said I want you to come with me.”
“I—I can’t. How could I? I have my job, and—”
“I’m not asking you to make a choice between your job and us. Any more than I’d expect you to ask me to make one between mine and the way I feel about you.”
“No, of course I wouldn’t.”
“I’d like to think you meant that.” He paused a moment, searching her face. “The script that Max sent me—I want to do it.”
“You should do it. It’s perfect for you.”
“Maybe, but I want to know if it’s perfect for you. Your father’s producing it, Johanna.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her hands a moment, hands that were still caught in his. “Well, then, you’ve got the best.”
“I want to know how you feel about it, Johanna. How you really feel.”
“It’s more a matter of how you feel.”
“Not this time. Don’t make me use pliers.”
“Sam, your professional choices have to be yours, but I’d say you’d be a fool not to grab a chance to work with Max and Patterson Productions. That script might have been written for you, and I’d be disappointed if I didn’t see you in it.”
“Always sensible.”
“I hope so.”
“Then be sensible about this. Take a few days off and come East with me.” Before she could protest again, he was continuing. “You’ve got a tight crew, Johanna. I’ve seen them work firsthand. You know they could run things for a couple of weeks.”
“I suppose, but not without any notice. Then there’s my father . . .” She let her words trail off. There must have been dozens of reasons, but they seemed to slide away before she could get a grip on them.
“All right. Take a week to make sure your crew is on top of things and that your father’s recovering. Then fly out and meet me.”
“Why?”
“I wondered when you’d ask.” He reached in his pocket to pull out a box. Through his life he’d done a great many things on impulse. This wasn’t one of them. He’d thought it through carefully, and had kept coming up with one answer. He needed her. “Things like this usually speak for themselves.” After opening the lid, he took her hand and set the box in her palm. “I want you to marry me.”
She stared at the single flawless diamond. It was square-cut, very classic and simple. The kind of ring, Johanna thought, girls dreamed about when they thought of white chargers and castles in the sky.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t marry you. You know I can’t. I had no idea you’d started thinking like this.”
“Neither had I, until today. When Marv called I knew I had two choices. I could go East and stew about it or I could take the step and let you stew about it.” He touched her hair, just the tips. “I’m sure, Johanna.”
“I’m sorry.” She offered the box back to him. When he didn’t take it, she set it on the desk. “I don’t want to hurt you, you know I don’t. That’s why I can’t.”
“It’s about time you unloaded some of the baggage you’ve been carrying around, Johanna.” Rising, he drew her up with him. “We both know what we’ve got doesn’t come along every day. You might think you’re doing me a favor by turning me down, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
His fingers tangled in her hair as he kissed her. Unable to deny him—or herself—she curled her arms up his back until she gripped his shoulders. She held on to him even while her mind whirled with dozens of questions.
“Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?” he demanded.
“Yes.” She held him tighter, burying her face against his shoulder to absorb his scent. “Sam, I don’t want you to go. I know you have to, and I know how much I’ll miss you, but I can’t give you what you want. If I could . . . if I could you’re the only one I’d give it to.”
He hadn’t expected to hear even that much. Another man might have been discouraged, but he’d run into too many walls in his life to be put off by one more. Particularly since he had every intention of tearing this one down, brick by brick.
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I already know what I need and what I want.” He drew her away until their eyes met. “You’d better start thinking about yourself, Johanna. About what you want, what you need. Just you. I figure you’re smart enough to come up with an answer before too long.” He kissed her again until she was breathless. “Keep in touch.”
She didn’t have the strength to do anything but sink into the chair when he left her. The show was starting, but she continued to sit, staring at the ring he’d left behind.
12
The man was playing games. Johanna knew it, and though she tried not to nibble at the bait, she was already being reeled in. He’d been gone two weeks, and she hadn’t gotten a single phone call.
But there had been flowers.
They’d arrived every evening. Black-eyed Susans one day, white orchids another. She couldn’t walk into any room of her house without thinking of him. After the first week they’d begun to arrive at her office—a small clutch of violets, a huge bouquet of tea roses. She couldn’t even escape from him there.
The man was definitely playing, and he wasn’t playing fair.
Of course, she wasn’t going to marry him. That was absurd. She didn’t believe people could love, honor and cherish for a lifetime. She’d told him so, and she’d been sorry, but she had no intention of changing her mind.
She might carry the ring with her—for safekeeping, that is—but she hadn’t taken it out of its box. At least not more than two or three times.
She was grateful that her work load had intensified so that she was unceasingly busy. It didn’t leave much time to mope around missing him. Unless you counted the long, solitary nights when she kept listening for the phone.
He’d told her to keep in touch, but he hadn’t told her where he’d be staying. If she’d wanted to, she could have found out easily enough. It did happen that a few discreet inquiries had put the name and address of his hotel in her hands, but that didn’t mean she would call him. If she called, he’d know she’d gone to some trouble—damn it, a great deal of trouble—to find out where he was.
Then he would know she’d not only nibbled at the bait but swallowed it whole.
By the end of the second week, she was furious with him. He’d pushed her into a corner where she didn’t want to be, wedged her in and then strolled off, leaving her trapped. A man didn’t ask a woman to marry him, drop a ring in her hand, then waltz off.
Once she’d considered putting the ring in the mail and shipping it off to him. That had been at three o’clock in the morning on the fifteenth day. Johanna had rolled over, slammed the pillow a few satisfactory times and vowed to do just that the minute the post office opened in the morning.
She would have, too, if she hadn’t been running a few minutes late. Then she’d been tied up at lunchtime and unable to get five free minutes until after six. She decided against mailing it, thinking it would be more civil and courteous to throw it in his face when he got back into town.
It was just her bad luck he’d chosen to send forget-me-nots that day. They happened to be one of her particular favorites.
As the third week approached, she was a wreck. Johanna knew she deserved the wary glances of her staff. She pushed through Monday’s taping, growling at every interruption. Her excuse was that she’d agreed to take duplicates to her father that evening.
He wasn’t particularly interested in the show, she knew, but his recuperation wasn’t sitting well with him. He wanted to live badly enough to follow his doctor’s orders, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t review everything Patterson Productions had a part in. Johanna waited impatiently for the copies, pacing the set and toying with the ring box in her pocket.
“Here you go.” Bethany put on an exaggerated smile. “Try not to gnaw on them on the way home.”
Johanna dumped them in her bag. “I’ll need you here by nine. We can work until it’s time to set up for taping.”
“Whatever you say.”
Johanna narrowed her eyes at the overbright tone. “Have you got a problem?”
“Me?” All innocence, Bethany opened her eyes wide. “No, not me. Well, there is my back.”
“Your back? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s nothing really. It always aches a bit when I’ve been flogged.”
Johanna opened her mouth, then shut it again on a puff of air. “I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been a little edgy.”
“Just a tad. Funny, if someone had been sending me flowers every day for weeks I’d be a bit more cheerful.”
“He thinks that’s all it takes to twist me around his finger.”
“There are worse positions to be in. Forget I said it,” Bethany said immediately, holding up a hand. “There’s nothing more diabolical than sending a basket of tiger lilies. The man’s obviously slime.”
For the first time in days, Johanna smiled. “He’s wonderful.”
The smile confirmed what Johanna’s scowls had already told her. “You miss him?”
“Yes, I miss him. Just like he knew I would.”
Bethany looked at romance in the most straightforward of terms. If you cared, you showed it, then put all your energy into making it work. Her solution for Johanna was just as simple. “You know, Johanna, it’s the same distance from the West to the East Coast as it is from East to West.”
She’d already thought of going. Not that she’d considered it, but she had thought of it. “No, I can’t.” She fingered the box in her pocket. “It wouldn’t be fair to him.”
“Because?”
“Because I won’t . . . can’t . . .” On impulse she pulled the box out and opened it. “Because of this.”
“Oh, my.” Bethany couldn’t help the long-drawn-out sigh. “My, oh, my,” she managed, already smelling orange blossoms. “Congratulations, best wishes and bon voyage. Where’s a bottle of champagne when you need it?”
“No, I didn’t accept it. I’m not going to. I told him no.”
“Then why do you still have it?”
Because the question was so reasonable, Johanna could only frown and stare at the diamond while it winked at her. “He just dropped it in my hand and walked off.”
“Romantic devil, isn’t he?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly— That’s close enough,” she decided. “It was more of an ultimatum than a proposal, but either way, I told him no.”
It sounded wonderfully romantic to Bethany. She stuck her tongue in her cheek. “So you just decided to walk around with it in your pocket for a few days.”
“No, I . . .” There had to be a reasonable excuse. “I wanted to have it handy so I could give it back to him.”
Bethany thought that over, then tilted her head. “I think that’s the first lie I’ve ever heard you tell.”
“I don’t know why I’ve still got it.” Johanna closed the box with a snap, then pushed it into her pocket. “It’s not important.”
“No, I’ve never thought proposals of marriage or gorgeous engagement rings were anything to get excited about.” She put a hand on Johanna’s shoulder. “What you need is some fresh air.”
“I don’t believe in marriage.”
“That’s like not believing in Santa Claus.” At Johanna’s lifted brow, Bethany shook her head. “Johanna, don’t tell me you don’t believe in him, either? He might be something of a fantasy, but he’s been around a while, and he’s going to stay around.”
It was hard to argue with that kind of logic. Johanna decided she was too tired to try. “We’ll talk about the logic of that some other time. I have to drop off these tapes.” With Bethany beside her, she started out. “I’d like you to keep this to yourself.”
“It goes with me to the grave.”
“You’re good for me,” Johanna said with a laugh. “I’m going to be sorry to lose you.”
“Am I fired?”
“Sooner or later you’re going to fire me. You won’t be content to be anyone’s assistant for long.” Outside, Johanna took a deep breath. So much had changed since she’d walked with Bethany from the studio weeks before. “Leaving Santa Claus out of it, do you believe in marriage, Beth?”
“I’m just an old-fashioned girl with strong feminist underpinnings. Yeah, I believe in marriage as long as two people are willing to give it their best shot.”
“You know what the odds are of a marriage making it in this town?”
“Lousy. But strikeout or home run, you’ve got to step up to bat. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Beth.”
She did a great deal of thinking as she drove to Beverly Hills. Not all of it was clear, but every thought circled back to Sam. Johanna was coming to realize that her thoughts would, whether she was with or without him.
The gates were locked, as they always were. Reaching out, she pressed the button on the intercom and waited for her father’s housekeeper to ask her name. In moments the gates opened soundlessly.
The drive toward the house didn’t stir any childish memories. She saw the estate as an adult. Perhaps she always had. It was stunning—the white columns, the terraces and balconies. The exterior had changed little from her earliest recollections.
Inside, it had gone through major overhauls, depending on its mistress. Her mother had preferred the feminine and delicate look of Louis Quinze. Darlene had chosen art nouveau, right down to the light fixtures. Its last mistress had gone for the opulently elegant. Johanna didn’t think it would take Toni long to put her stamp on it.
The door was opened for her by the gray-uniformed maid before she’d reached the top of the wide, curved steps.
“Good evening, Miss Patterson.”
“Good evening. Is Mr. Patterson expecting me?”
“He and Miss DuMonde are in the sitting room.”
“Thank you.”
Johanna crossed the glossy tiles, skirting the fish pond her father’s last wife had installed. She found her father looking well, and impatient, in a dark blue smoking jacket. Toni sprawled lazily on the sofa across from him, sipping wine and flipping through a magazine. Johanna nearly smiled when she saw that it was one on home fashion and decoration.
“I expected you an hour ago,” Carl said without preamble.
“We ran late.” She took the tapes from her bag to set them on the table beside him. “You’re looking well.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Carl’s a bit bored.” Toni stretched herself into a sitting position. She wore silk lounging pajamas the color of ripe peaches. The pout she wore went with them beautifully. “Perhaps you can entertain him better than I.” Rising, she stalked gracefully out of the room.
Johanna lifted a brow. “Have I come at a bad tim
e?”