by Nora Roberts
At precisely eleven o’clock, she answered the buzzer on her desk. “Yes, Cassie.”
“Dr. Pike is here, Miss Perkins.”
“Ah, good.” A feline smile crossed her face as she walked toward the office door. She liked a man to be prompt. “Marshall.” She held out both hands to grip his, easing forward and tilting her head to offer her cheek. And to give him an interesting glimpse of black lace. “I really appreciate your making time for me today.”
“You said it was important.”
“Oh, and it is. Cassie, would you mind taking those letters right to the post office? Then you can go ahead and take your lunch. I won’t need you back here until one.” Turning, Angela led Marshall into her office, being certain to leave the door open a few inches. “What can I get you, Marshall? Something cold?” She trailed a fingertip down her jacket. “Something hot?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well then, let’s sit down.” She took his hand again, steered him toward the love seat. “It’s awfully good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you, too.” Puzzled, he watched her settle back, her skirt riding up on her thigh as she crossed her legs.
“You know how pleased I am with the help you’ve given me on the show, but I asked you here today to discuss something more personal.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve been seeing a lot of Deanna.”
He relaxed and struggled to keep his eyes from roaming down from her face. “Yes, I have. In fact, I’ve been meaning to call you and thank you for indirectly bringing us together.”
“I’m very fond of her. As I’m sure you are,” she added, laying a hand lightly on his thigh. “All that energy, that youthful enthusiasm. A beautiful girl.”
“Yes, she is.”
“And so sweet. Wholesome, really.” Angela’s fingers stroked lightly along his leg. “Not your usual type.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re a man who’s attracted to experience, to a certain sophistication. Except in one illuminating case.”
He stiffened, drew back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” Her voice remained pleasant, easy. But her eyes had sharpened like two blue blades. “You see, I know all about you, Marshall. I know about your foolish slip with one Annie Gilby, age sixteen. And all about your previous, I should say pre-Deanna, arrangement with a certain woman who lives on Lake Shore. In fact, I made it my business to know everything there is to know about you.”
“You’ve had me followed?” He struggled for outrage, but panic had already outdistanced everything else. She could ruin him, with one careless announcement on her show. “What right do you have to pry into my personal life?”
“None at all. That’s what makes it so exciting. And it is exciting.” She toyed with the top button of her jacket. When his eyes flicked down to the movement, she glanced at the antique clock behind him. Eleven-ten, she thought, coolheaded, cold-blooded. Perfect.
“If you think you can use some sort of blackmail to ruin my relationship with Deanna, it isn’t going to happen.” His palms were wet, from fear, and from a terrible arousal. He would resist it. He had to resist it. “She’s not a child. She’ll understand.”
“She may, or she may not. But I do.” With her eyes on his, Angela flicked open the first button on her jacket. “I understand. I sent my secretary away, Marshall.” Her voice lowered, thickened. “So I could be alone with you. Why do you think I went to all the trouble to find out about you?” She released the second button, toyed with the third and last.
He wasn’t sure he could speak. When he forced the words out, they were like grains of sand in his throat. “What kind of game is this, Angela?”
“Any kind you want.” She shot forward, quick as a snake, and caught his bottom lip between her teeth. “I want you,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.” Straddling him, she pressed his face against the breasts that strained against the hint of black lace. “You want me, don’t you?” She felt his mouth open, grope blindly for flesh. There was a flash, razor-edged and hot, that was power. She’d won. “Don’t you?” she demanded, gripping his head in both hands.
“Yes.” He was already dragging her skirt up to her waist.
Deanna waited impatiently for the elevator to climb to sixteen. She really didn’t have time to keep the appointment with Angela. But she was obligated by that invincible combination of manners and affection. She glanced at her watch again as people shuffled on and off on seven.
Angela was going to be upset, she mused. And there was no preventing it. Deanna hoped the dozen roses she’d brought along would soften the refusal.
She owed Angela much more than a few flowers, she thought. So many people didn’t see what a generous and giving person Angela Perkins was, or how vulnerable. All they saw was the power, the ambition, the need for perfection. If Angela had been a man, those traits would have been celebrated. But because she was a woman, they were considered flaws.
As she stepped off the elevator on sixteen, Deanna promised herself that she would follow Angela’s example, and the hell with the critics.
“Hi, Simon.”
“Dee.” He moved past her, double time, then stopped short and rushed back. “It’s not her birthday. Tell me it’s not her birthday.”
“What? Oh.” Seeing the horror on his face as he stared at the armload of flowers, she laughed. “No. These are a thank-you gift.”
He let out a sigh, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “Thank God. She’d have killed me if I’d forgotten. She was already chewing off heads this morning because her flight was delayed getting in last night.”
Deanna’s friendly smile faded. “I’m sure she was just tired.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “Right, right. And who wouldn’t be? I get jet-lagged on the el.” To show his complete sympathy with his boss’s mood swings, he sniffed deeply at the flowers. “Well, those should brighten her mood.”
“I hope so.” Deanna continued down the corridor, wondering if Angela was taking Simon to New York. If she wasn’t taking Lew . . . just how much of her staff would be laid off? Simon, the perennial bachelor and fussbudget, might be a bit twitchy, but he was loyal.
The twinge of guilt at knowing, when he didn’t, that his career was on the line made her wince.
She found the outer office deserted. Puzzled, she looked at her watch again. Cassie must have had an early errand. With a shrug, she approached Angela’s door.
She heard the music first, quiet, lovely. The fact that the door was open several inches was rare. Deanna knew that Angela was obsessive about keeping it firmly shut whether she was in or out. Shrugging, she crossed over, knocked lightly.
She heard other sounds now, not as quiet, not as lovely as the music. She knocked again, easing the door open wider.
“Angela?”
The name stuck in her throat as she saw the two forms wrestling on the love seat. She would have stepped back immediately, with embarrassment flaming in her cheeks, but she recognized the man, and the heat drained away into cold shock.
Marshall’s hands were on Angela’s breasts, his face buried in the valley between them. Even as she watched, those hands, ones she’d admired for their elegance, slid down to tug at the stylish linen skirt.
And as he did, Angela turned her head, slowly, even while her body arched forward. Her eyes met Deanna’s.
Even in her haze of shock, Deanna saw the quick smile, the cagey delight before the distress clicked in. “Oh my God.” Angela shoved against Marshall’s shoulder. “Deanna.” Her voice held the horror she couldn’t quite bring to her eyes.
He turned his head. His eyes, dark and glassy, fixed on Deanna’s. All movement froze, hideously, as if a switch had freeze-framed them. Deanna broke the tableau with a strangled cry. She turned and ran, trampling the roses she’d dropped at her feet.
Her breath was heaving by the time she reached the elevator. There w
as pain, a terrible pain radiating out from her chest. She stabbed the Down button again and again. Driven, she whirled away and ran for the stairs. She couldn’t stand still, couldn’t think. She stumbled down, saving herself from a fall by instinct rather than design. Knowing only that she had to get away, she plunged down, floor after floor, her sobbing breaths echoing behind her.
At street level, she rammed blindly against the door. She battered against it, weeping, until she found the control to depress the handle. Shoving through, she ran straight into Finn.
“Hey.” Amusement came and went in a heartbeat. The moment he saw her face, his laughter fled. She was pale as a sheet, her eyes wild and wet. “Are you hurt?” He gripped her by the shoulders, drawing her out into the sunlight. “What happened?”
“Let me go.” She twisted, shoving against him. “Goddamn it, leave me alone.”
“I don’t think so.” Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her. “Okay, baby. I’ll just hold on, and you can cut loose.”
He rocked, stroking her hair while she wept against his shoulder. She didn’t hold back, but let all the shock and hurt pour out with the tears. The surging pressure in her chest eased with them, like a swelling soothed with cool water. When he sensed her calming, Finn shifted his hold. With his arm around her shoulders, he led her across the lot to a low stone wall.
“Let’s sit.” He dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. Though he hated a woman’s tears, escaping Deanna’s would brand him as the worst sort of coward. “You can pull yourself together and tell Uncle Finn all about it.”
“Go to hell,” she muttered, and blew her nose.
“That’s a good start.” Gently, he brushed the hair away from her damp cheeks. “What happened, Deanna?”
She looked away from him. There was too much concern, too much willingness to understand in his eyes. “I just found out I’m an idiot. That I have no sense of judgment, and that no one can be trusted.”
“Sounds like a résumé for a television news anchor.” When she didn’t smile, he took her hand. “I haven’t got any whiskey on me, and I gave up smoking last year. The best I can offer you is a shoulder.”
“I seem to have used that already.”
“I have another one.”
Instead of leaning on it, she sat up straighter, squeezed her eyes tight a moment. Maybe she was an idiot, but she still had pride. “I just walked in on a woman I considered a friend, and a man I was considering as a lover.”
“That’s a big one.” And he didn’t have any clever words to smooth it over. “The psychologist?”
“Marshall, yes.” Her lips trembled. With an effort, she firmed them. The tears she’d shed didn’t shame her, but they were over. She meant to keep it that way. “And Angela. In her office.”
Muttering an oath, he glanced up to the windows on the sixteenth floor. “I don’t suppose you could have mistaken the situation.”
Her laugh was as dry as dust. “I’m a trained observer. When I see two people, one half naked, pawing each other, I know what they’re up to. I don’t need corroboration to make the report.”
“I guess not.” He was silent a moment. The breeze whispered through the plot of grass behind them and waved through the bank of tulips that spelled out CBC in sunny yellow. “I could round up a crew,” Finn considered, “go up to sixteen with a camera, lights and a mike, and make his life a living hell.”
This time her laugh was less strained. “Interview him at the scene of the crime? It’s a nice offer.”
“No, really, I’d enjoy it.” The more he thought about it, the more he believed it was the perfect solution. “Dr. Pike, as a respected family counselor, how do you explain being caught with your pants down in a place of business before noon? Was this a professional call? A new form of therapy you’d like to share with the public?”
“They weren’t down—yet,” she said with a sigh. “I interrupted them. And while your offer’s tempting, I’d just as soon handle the situation myself.” She pushed the used handkerchief back in his hand. “Goddamn it, they made a fool out of me.” Springing off the wall, Deanna wrapped her arms tightly around her body. “She planned it. I don’t know why, I don’t even know how, but she planned it. I saw it in her eyes.”
This news didn’t surprise him. Nothing about Angela did. “Have you pissed her off lately?”
“No.” She lifted her hand to push back her hair and then stopped. New York, she thought, and nearly laughed again. “Maybe I did,” she said softly. “And this is some twisted form of payback for what she sees as ingratitude.” Furious now, Deanna turned back toward him. “She knew how I felt about him, and she used it. And what timing. Less than an hour before I have to go on.” She looked at her watch, then covered her face with her hands. “Oh God. I’ve only got twenty minutes.”
“Take it easy. I’ll go down and tell Benny you’re sick. They’ll get a sub.”
For one indulgent moment, she considered his offer. Then she remembered Angela’s crafty, satisfied smile. “No. She’d enjoy that too much. I can do my job.”
Finn studied her. Her face was tracked with tears and her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, but she was determined. “They grow them tough in Kansas,” he said with approval.
Her chin rose another notch. “Damn right they do.”
“Let’s get you into makeup.”
She said nothing until they’d crossed the lot, walked through the door. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Got any Visine?”
She grimaced as they started up the steps. “That bad?”
“Oh, it’s worse.”
He kept their conversation light as he steered her into makeup. He brought her ice for her eyes, water for her throat, then stayed to chat while she concealed the worst of the damage with cosmetics. But he was thinking, and his thoughts were anything but light. Anything but kind.
“That’s not half bad,” he commented. “Try a little more blusher.”
He was right. Deanna stroked the brush over her cheek. And saw Marshall’s reflection in the mirror. Her hand trembled once before she set the brush aside.
“Deanna, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?” She felt Finn coil beside her, like a big, mean cat about to spring, and laid a hand on his arm. With a jolt she realized the slightest signal from her would have him tearing in. It wasn’t as unattractive an image as she wanted to think. “I’ve been right here,” she said coolly. “I have a show to do.”
“I know. I . . .” His eyes clung to hers, soft and brown and pleading. “I’ll wait.”
“There’s no need for that.” Odd, she thought. She felt powerful. Invincible. There seemed to be no relation between the woman she was at this moment and the one who had run sobbing from Angela’s office. “I have a couple minutes to spare.” Calmly, she leaned back against the counter and smiled at Finn. There was blood in her eye that had nothing to do with tears. “Would you mind leaving us alone?”
“Sure.” He reached over and tipped her chin up another inch with his fingertip. “That’s a good look for you, Kansas.” With a last, ice-edged stare at Marshall, he strolled out.
“Was it necessary to bring him into our private business?”
Deanna cut him off with a look. “Can you really have the gall to criticize me at a time like this?”
“No.” Marshall’s shoulders drooped. “No, of course not. You’re right. It’s just that I find this difficult, and embarrassing enough without the gossip spreading through the newsroom.”
“Finn has more interesting things to discuss than your sex life, Marshall. I promise you. Now if you have something to say, you’d better say it. I only have a few minutes.”
“Deanna.” He stepped forward and would have reached for her, but the flash in her eyes warned him. “I have no excuse for what happened—or nearly happened. But I want you to know there’s nothing between me and Angela. It was an impulse,” he continued, speaking quickly when
Deanna remained silent. “Purely physical and meaningless. It had nothing to do with what I feel for you.”
“I’m sure it didn’t,” she said after a moment. “And I believe you. I believe it was impulsive, meaningless sex.”
Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t lost her. His eyes brightened as he reached out to her. “I knew you’d understand. I knew the minute I saw you that you were a woman generous enough to accept me, to understand me. That’s why I knew we were meant to be together.”
Rigid as stone, she stared up at him. “Take your hands off me,” she said quietly. “Right now.”
“Deanna.” When he only tightened his hold, she fought back a bubble of panic, a quick, ugly sensory memory, and shoved.
“I said now.” Free, she stepped back and took a deep, steadying breath. “I said I believed you, Marshall, and I do. What you did with Angela had nothing to do with your feelings for me. However, it had everything to do with mine for you. I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. That makes it impossible for us to part friends. So, we’ll just part.”
“You’re hurt now.” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “So you’re not being reasonable.” It was like Patricia, he thought. So much like Patricia.
“Yes, I’m hurt,” she agreed. “But I’m being very reasonable.” A ghost of a smile flitted around her mouth, as insulting as a slap. “I make a habit out of being reasonable. I’m not calling you any of the names that occur to me.”
“You see this as my fault. As a weakness.” Confident in his skills as a mediator, he shifted gears. “What you haven’t yet been able to see is your part in it. Your responsibility. I’m sure you’ll agree that no successful relationship is the result of one person’s efforts. All the weeks we’ve been together I’ve been patient, waiting for you to allow our relationship to move to the natural and very human phase of physical pleasure.”