Lions Walk Alone

by Susanna Firth

  That was the trouble with this kind of life: it made you cynical. Nita pulled a face at herself in the mirror and concentrated on getting her make-up exactly right, her eyes skilfully outlined, her cheeks and lips ablaze with hectic colour. Then she stepped into the dress and zipped it round her. It clung to every curve of her figure and showed it off superbly. At least she had nothing to be ashamed of.

  She was shaking out the folds of chiffon that swirled about her legs when there was a tap at the door. She turned a welcoming smile towards it as she called 'Come in.' Sandy often dropped by about now, taking an illicit few minutes' break from her front of house duties. She would light a cigarette and relax, kicking off her high-heeled shoes and massaging her aching feet as she told funny stories about disasters that had befallen her or one of the other hostesses in the course of the evening.

  But it wasn't Sandy tonight. No doubt she was licking her wounds and finding consolation elsewhere, scared that Nita would only say, 'I told you so'. Instead the tow-coloured head and slightly pink features of Jefferson Peters appeared round the door.

  'Hi, Jeff. Come on in.'

  He pursed his lips in a long, low whistle as he did so. 'That's a stunner, Nita! I haven't seen you in that before, have I? I'd have remembered if I had.'

  'I bought it yesterday. And now I'm having doubts.'

  'I'm not. You look terrific!'

  'Was there something?' Nita cut short the flow. Fulsome compliments annoyed her, however well meant they were.

  'I only dropped, by to let you know they loved you. But you knew that already, I guess.'

  'It's always nice to have it confirmed,' she said lightly.

  She sat down before the mirror and waved him casually to a spare chair while she fixed two combs in her hair, Spanish style. They barely kept its dark, springy length in order, but they looked good with this outfit, she knew. Behind her she was aware of Jeff's admiring glance.

  'Have dinner with me tonight, Nita?'

  'I'll be tired when I finish—you know that. All I really feel like when it's over is flopping into bed.'

  He grinned. 'That programme sounds fine by me!'

  'A good try, Jeff. But—'

  'But not this time. It's O.K.—I get the message.'

  Did he? Nita wondered sometimes. They had been dating on and off all season in a fairly casual fashion that allowed each of them to see other people when it suited them. But lately she had begun to get the feeling that it irked Jeff to have made so little headway with her. She hoped that he was not getting different ideas about their future relationship. He was a very pleasant companion when it suited him and also a highly professional colleague. But that was as far as it went, at least on her side.

  He was looking a little aggrieved, and she felt faintly guilty. It was the third time that he had asked her out this week and each time she had put him off with some excuse. Perhaps she was being a little unfair.

  'Come back to my place for a sandwich and coffee after the show,' she offered impulsively, adding with heavy emphasis, 'And I mean just a sandwich and coffee. Don't get any other ideas, will you?' Not that it mattered. Sandy would be there to chaperone them, with a bit of luck.

  'I know—you only love your audiences,' he said, resigned to the fact.

  'Guessed it in one! Now let me get back to the one I've got waiting for me.' Nita picked up the scarlet flower that stood in a glass of water on her dressing table and pushed it behind her ear.

  'Ready?'

  'As much as I'll ever be,' she said.

  He opened the door for her and she moved eagerly forward.

  The songs that she sang in the second half of her act were all about love and passion. They were sultry and seductive, as alluring as the girl who performed them, moving about the audience in a way that sent a beguiling message to every man who looked at her.

  It was an approach that Nita had been reluctant to use at first, but Jefferson had talked her into it.

  'You're not singing on college campuses any more,' he told her shortly after he signed her up for the season. 'The sort of entertainment that we offer here in Miami Beach is as sophisticated as you'll find anywhere in the States. People expect certain standards or they go some place else. And I need hardly tell you that's the last thing we can afford.'

  'I've never done that kind of act before. I wouldn't know where to start,' she argued defensively.

  'High time you learnt, then, honey.' And, as she still hesitated, he went on, 'To stay ahead of the game you've got to offer what everybody else does and a little more, otherwise you go under.'

  'If you think I'm so behind the times, why did you sign me up in the first place?'

  'I saw you had potential and I took a gamble. Don't let me down, Nita.'

  'Are you telling me that I lose my job here if I don't go along with your ideas?' she asked directly.

  'Hell, no!' His pink face expressed concern. 'You're doing fine. But I'm advising you as a friend. If you want to be successful, be prepared to adapt. That's all I'm saying.'

  Nita had the sense to acknowledge the truth of what he said and to be grateful for it in the end. She went to dancing classes and learnt to use her slim, supple body to the best advantage. She let Jefferson talk her into extending her wardrobe to include dresses that she would once have rejected out of hand as too extreme for her—plunge necklines, bare midriffs, skirts cut to show her legs to best advantage. Now she wore them with hardly a qualm. And her repertoire of songs broadened from the simple folk tunes that she had originally confined herself to, including international favourites and old standards.

  She was confident that she looked her best tonight as she left the stage to make a slow progress round the room. Jefferson was right when he had said that the audience would like to see her close at hand. The women took the chance to size up her clothes and envy the figure that set them off so well. The men enjoyed the way that she paused in her circuit of the tables, her enormous dark eyes singling out individuals and issuing a tantalising invitation to them.

  'Are you man enough for me?' she sang, her voice deep and attractive as it sought out every nuance in the words that she was putting over. At this point in the evening she usually stopped to direct lines of her songs at particular males, taking care to select those well-chaperoned by wives or girl-friends. 'Are you man enough to give me what I crave for?' she went on, and she would invariably raise a shout of laughter as she moved on again with a rueful shake of her head. No one ever took such advances seriously—Nita saw to that!

  She was enjoying herself tonight as she steered a skilful path between the tables. She was woman enough to appreciate the warmth in men's eyes as they looked at her, artist enough to approve of the genuine pleasure that her singing was giving. There was a smile on every face.

  Except one. Consciously or not, she had started her tour of the floor at the opposite end to that where Leon Calveto sat. She hadn't even looked in his direction as she had continued in a wide semi-circle that took in most of the tables in the room. She didn't know why she had left him until the last. Perhaps she was hoping that he would have gone by the time she reached him. Everyone in the room was riveted to her performance. But that wouldn't stop Leon Calveto from registering a one-man protest if it suited him, she was sure.

  But he was still there, his long, well-shaped fingers toying with the glass that held his drink. It looked like Scotch on the rocks. Not for him the fancy cocktails in which the barman specialised, heavy with an assortment of fruit and decorated with a frivolous flamingo in the sugar pink that was the club's colour. A plain man with plain tastes.

  And she didn't seem to be one of them. He was looking straight at her, his dark, almost black gaze impersonal, faintly disdainful. Yet there was a challenge there if she cared to read it in the sardonic twist of his mouth. 'Is this the best that you can do?' he was saying to her, more clearly than if he had actually spoken the words. 'Can't you manage anything more polished?'

  Nita didn't know what to
ok hold of her. She was just aware of a sudden blaze of anger, rapidly succeeded by a determination to wipe that contemptuous expression off his arrogant face. Just who did he think he was, to walk in here and act as if everyone was less than the dust beneath his feet? First Sandy, now herself. How dared he?

  She would make him sit up and notice her, she vowed. And then, when he was well and truly hooked, she would turn away from him, as she had done with all the others. He would know how it felt to be made a fool of in public. And it would serve him right!

  'Are you the man to make me love you?' She moved closer towards him, singing as she did so, then halted deliberately in front of him, swaying seductively in time to the music. She forced herself to smile enticingly, straight at that hard, ruthless face.

  A man would have to be made of stone to resist an appeal like that; Jefferson had told her that often enough. And it had always worked like a charm for her before. At least she had all his attention now. He put down his glass and he was looking at her intently. There was a gleam of something in his eyes. Amusement? Appreciation at the picture she made? Had she cracked him?

  'Are you the man to make me care?' She sang the next line full at him and extended her arms teasingly towards him. The next move on her part was a quick retreat, a mocking smile as she spun away towards the safety of the stage while the rest of the audience laughed at his discomfiture.

  That was the plan. But, even as she moved to carry it out, he acted. A strong arm snaked out and intercepted her as she turned away, and before she knew what she was about she was gathered up to him, losing her balance as she did so and ending up on his lap.

  The audience was indeed laughing, but at Nita's loss of face, not his, as she had intended. As she tried to move away and felt his restraining arm tighten around her, her heart sank. What was it she had said to Sandy? 'Big cats can be dangerous if you don't know how to handle them'. What on earth had made her provoke this one to the point of retaliation?

  The steel band around her forced her close, uncomfortably close, to him. Pressed against the strong wall of his chest, she could feel the steady beat of his heart against her. It took no effort at all on his part to restrain her attempts to free herself. He wasn't even breathing any faster and the sardonic expression on his face had, if anything, deepened.

  'Let me go!' she muttered furiously at him.

  'When I'm ready.' His voice was deep and as attractive as Sandy had claimed, she thought irrelevantly. It was tinged with the faintest trace of a foreign accent. He raised it slightly now, mocking her attempts to get away from him. 'Don't leave me, sweetheart. Take pity on a man who wants to take up the invitation you're offering to him.'

  The microphone in her hand picked up that statement as he intended that it should and the audience received it rapturously. Some even clapped their encouragement. A quick glance round her revealed that even the members of her backing group had collapsed in laughter at her plight.

  Leon Calveto was smiling now. He might well. He had certainly turned the tables on her with a vengeance!

  'This isn't a joke,' she told him in an undertone that she hoped would not reach general circulation, forcing a smile on to her face to show the onlookers that she was taking everything well.

  'Isn't it? We must have a different sense of humour.' There was mockery in the dark eyes that flicked over her, registering the fury that seethed within her.

  'All right, so you've had your little bit of fun at my expense. But it's over now.'

  'Is it?' He flung back his head and laughed in genuine amusement. 'I don't think so, somehow. I've got a notion it's just beginning.'

  'Then you're wrong.'

  'I don't think so,' he said.

  'I never want to lay eyes on you again! Do you understand that?'

  'Perfectly,' he said, unmoved. 'But never is a long time.'

  'In my opinion it's not nearly long enough!'

  A dark brow lifted in faint amusement. 'Then I'd better give you something to remember me by, hadn't I?'

  Nita guessed what his next action was going to be, but she was given no chance to take evasive measures. He had the situation too much under control for that. His hand slipped upwards to press against the bare skin of her back and she stiffened in reaction.

  'No!' she protested, although she knew he would not listen.

  'Don't scream,' he said as he pulled her closer to him. 'They might think you're enjoying yourself, and that would never do, would it?'

  'You—'

  Her reply was lost as his mouth descended on hers, plundering her lips with an insistence that shocked her. She had kissed before, of course—she wasn't a complete stranger to physical contact with a man. But she had never suffered a forced intimacy like this, and certainly not in front of a couple of hundred interested observers.

  He could force himself on her because he had outmanoeuvred her, she told herself. But he couldn't force a response from her. She wouldn't fight him. That would be undignified and humiliating. But she would lie there in his arms like a dead weight until he chose to release her. Let him see what satisfaction that gave him! No man took that sort of treatment for very long.

  But her body betrayed her, ignoring the messages that she gave it. Whispers of sensation thrilled down her spine as his fingers stroked her skin, before moving to the nape of her neck and caressing it with feather-light strokes. Try as she would, she could not resist the hard, sensual demands of his mouth. Her lips parted to admit him, allowing him to stir her to a response.

  And then she was lost and she knew it. Waves of pleasure ran riot through her body, making her aware of nothing but the man whose body pressed so close to hers. The tang of the spicy cologne he wore drifted to her nostrils, adding further to her sensual appreciation of him. He roused her fully, stirred her as no man had ever managed to do before now. She no longer entertained any thoughts of fighting him. Her body spoke all too clearly of his complete conquest of her.

  The lights, the room, even the sound of the amused audience that was witnessing the embrace, they all faded away to nothingness as she closed her eyes and let sensation take over. Her arms crept round him, holding him closer to her. She was oblivious to everything except the man who was creating this ecstasy.

  But Leon Calveto had other ideas, Nita soon discovered. He wrenched himself away from her, pushing her roughly aside. He was in no danger of losing control, she realised bitterly. The shock came like a bucket of cold water in her face, instantly sobering her. It took no effort at all for him to call matters to a halt. Either he had superhuman restraint or he simply didn't give a damn for what she had to offer him.

  It was the latter, of course. He had never forgotten that they had an audience, even if she had. It had all been an exhibition for the onlookers, a public demonstration of the power that he had over women. And, if it put her in her place for challenging that authority in the first instance, all to the better.

  In that moment of realisation Nita hated him.

  'You swine!' she breathed furiously.

  Leon Calveto gave her a mocking glance. 'Sorry I stopped?' Without waiting for an answer he turned away from her and, picking up the microphone which she had left carelessly dangling on its lead, he announced to the room at large, 'The show's over, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed watching as much as I did taking part!'

  There was laughter and sporadic applause. Nita felt her cheeks burning with a combination of rage and humiliation. She supposed she couldn't slap his arrogant face here, although her fingers itched to do so.

  He read her intentions loud and clear. 'I shouldn't if you value your job here,' he warned her. 'The customer is usually right in this part of the world.'

  'Damn you! Will you let me go?'

  'A lady would have said please.' But he released her.

  'But I'm no lady, am I? You've made that abundantly clear.'

  'I'm glad you got the message.'

  And, as Nita turned without a word and headed for the safety of backs
tage, she shivered at the cold contempt in his tone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nita was shaking like a leaf with reaction when she reached her dressing room. Too shattered even to make her way to a chair and sit down, she leant for a long moment against the door, fighting a battle to control herself.

  It was a long time since anyone had managed to get beneath the cool, detached mask that she presented to the world. It was an act that she had trained herself to put on in the last few years and that she thought was well nigh impossible to see through.

  Leon Calveto had shown her the foolishness of imagining she was immune. He had stripped aside that surface veneer as easily as if it had never existed and had exposed the mass of vulnerable nerve ends that still seethed underneath. Nita told herself that no man would ever succeed in getting to her again. No man was going to hurt and humiliate her as one man had done in the past.

  Yet Leon Calveto had done both in the space of a very brief encounter. Nita stared at herself, reflected in the long mirror on the other side of the room. Was this flushed, tumbled girl really the cool, professional artiste who was always calm and who boasted that nothing threw her?

  She had lost one of her combs and her hair rioted in dark disorder over her face, the scarlet flower that she tucked carefully behind one ear now sticking out at a rakish angle. Her eyes were bright with suppressed emotion, her cheeks flushed with a colour that owed little to artifice now. And her lips were the biggest giveaway of all, bruised and swollen with passion.

  She looked cheap and she felt it. Anger fought with humiliation and won after a short struggle. Damn Leon Calveto! She wasn't going to collapse in a heap and cry her heart out. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction, whether he knew about it or not.