Stephanie laughed gaily. “You’ll defend me, won’t you, Mimi? As a happily married woman.”
Mimi chuckled. “Of course! Ah. Here we are.” She drew their little party to a halt and opened the door on a sea of blue. “The Blue Room for you, David, sweetie.” She leaned toward him, batting her lashes. “I’m just across the hall, remember?”
David smiled politely. “How could I possibly forget?”
“And your girlfriend—”
“Fiancée.”
“Fiancée. Of course. That’s what I meant. She’s in the Ruby Room in the West Wi—”
“No.”
Mimi’s smile faltered. “No?”
David looked down at Mimi’s hand, clutching his elbow. Gently, he peeled it loose, moved to Stephanie’s side, and put his arm around her.
“Scarlett and I wouldn’t want to be separated, not even for one night. Would we, darling?”
“Scarlett,” Mimi said with a little laugh, “isn’t that charming?”
“Charming,” Stephanie said through her teeth. She looked at David. “Of course we wouldn’t want to be separated, lover. But if those are the arrangements our hostess has made…”
“Then,” David said, “I’m afraid she’ll just have to unmake them.” He looked at Mimi. “That isn’t a problem, is it?”
Mimi cleared her throat. “Well…well, I suppose… Scarlett—I mean, Stephanie can have the room next to yours.”
“Do the rooms connect?”
Stephanie resisted the urge to slap that little smile from David’s handsome face. “It really isn’t necessary—”
“Yes, it is,” David said, and kissed her.
Mimi made a strangled sound. “Cocktails in an hour,” she chirruped, and fled.
* * *
Stephanie glared at her opened suitcase.
“I,” she said to it, “am going home.” All David’s talk, about needing to thwart Mimi Sheraton’s plans. “Liar,” Stephanie muttered.
What did he think? That he’d purchased a playmate for the weekend? Well, he was in for one hell of a nasty surprise… although, it was true, Mimi did seem to have her sights set on David.
Stephanie sat down on the edge of the bed. Actually. even a trout snapping at a mayfly would have shown more finesse, but that didn’t mean David had to make such a display of kissing her or of his intention of supposedly slipping into her bed tonight, when the house lay silent and sleeping.
Didn’t he care what people thought?
Stephanie flopped back against the pillows. Of course, he cared. He wanted them to think exactly what Mimi was thinking. That was the purpose of all of this. And she had no right to complain. She’d agreed to play this dumb game. David was lending her five thousand dollars to go along with it, and who was she kidding? He was giving her the money because she’d probably be a hundred years old before she saved enough to pay him back.
Oh, lord. What a mess. She hated the way Mimi Sheraton had looked at her, hated the cheap way she’d felt…
Be honest, Steffie. What you really hate is how you crumple each time David kisses you.
She sat up. There was only one thing to do. She’d have to tell him this ridiculous deal was off. No playing his girlfriend.
No five thousand dollars.
What would become of Paul?
He had never turned his back on her, not even after their mother left. Not that Bess’s leaving had made a difference. Bess hadn’t paid much attention to either of them, and Stephanie had done the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing ever since she could remember.
Paul was the one whose life had changed. He’d been forced to grow up fast. He’d quit school and become their breadwinner, and even though he was younger than she by eleven months, he’d turned into her big brother and father all in one. He’d even given up his music, the thing he loved most, rather than leave her alone to face Willingham Corners and the world it represented.
How could she have left him, after his accident? It hadn’t even been much of an accident. His car skidded off the road one rainy night and hit a tree. The fender got crumpled and Paul got a bump on his head, but a few weeks later, he’d started to change. He began to have headaches, and hear noises, and sometimes he didn’t know who she was or where he was…
“Swear to me, Steff,” he’d begged when he was lucid. “Swear you won’t ever tell anybody what’s happened to me. They’ll say it’s ‘cause I’m a Horton, ’cause I’m our mama’s son.”
So she’d sworn. And she’d never gone back on her word—except when, in desperation, she’d told Avery Willingham.
Stephanie rose to her feet. Paul needed her help, as she had once needed his. She didn’t regret the sacrifice she’d made, marrying Avery, even though he’d lied when he’d promised to treat her like a daughter. It was this sacrifice that was the difficult one. Pretending to be in love with David was hard. No. That was wrong. The pretending wasn’t hard. Why would it be? David was—he was… A woman would find it easy to love him. He was wonderful, everything she’d ever wanted, ever hoped and prayed for.
Stephanie’s breath caught. No, she thought, no, please, no…
“No,” she said, and hurried to the door that connected their rooms. She couldn’t go through with this. She’d take a train, go to Rest Haven. She’d plead with the doctors. With the director. They’d understand. They had to, because she couldn’t do this, couldn’t spend this weekend with David, pretending to be his lover.
“David?” she called, and knocked on the door. “David, are you there?” She knocked again, waited, and then, carefully, she opened the door.
David’s clothing lay strewn across the bed. Beyond, the bathroom door stood ajar. She could hear the sound of running water.
He was showering. Well, she’d sit down and wait until… until what? Until he walked, naked, into the room? Her heart banged into her throat. She could imagine how he’d look, his skin golden and glistening with drops of water, his hair loose around his face. He’d be magnificent to look at, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his muscles taut…
Stephanie fled to the safety of her own room, and locked the door behind her.
* * *
“Chambers, you lucky son of a gun!” The newest, youngest Supreme Court justice paused en route to the bar and slapped David lightly on the back. “You certainly have found yourself a winner.”
“That I have,” David said. He smiled and took a sip of his cognac. A winner, he thought, and took another sip. Maybe the cognac would take the edge off. Something had to, or he was going to explode.
The evening wasn’t going quite the way he’d imagined.
It had seemed such a fine plan—telling Mimi he was engaged, bringing Stephanie along and making it clear he was out of circulation. He’d been so sure of its logic.
What an idiot he was.
Everything had seemed fine. Well, not fine, really. Kissing Stephanie hadn’t been so clever. He’d done it for Mimi’s benefit, but he’d been the one who’d ended up standing under a cold shower, thinking thoughts he knew better than to think, trying but not succeeding in not imagining what would happen if Stephanie climbed into the shower with him.
But the shower had helped. He’d cooled down, had a stern heart-to-heart with himself in the bathroom mirror as he’d shaved, gotten all spiffed up in his white dinner jacket and black trousers and marched to the door that led into Stephanie’s room.
“All ready?” he’d said pleasantly when she’d opened the door…and that had been the end of him, because one look at her and he knew it was all over.
She was simply gorgeous.
There were other ways to describe how she looked, in a creamy slip of a dress with her hair loose and shining and hanging down her back, but why come up with a bunch of useless adjectives when one would do?
He’d sent her shopping in Georgetown, with instructions to buy whatever she thought would make Mimi Sheraton take notice.
“I’ll repay the cost of whatever I purc
hase,” she’d said stiffly, and he hadn’t bothered arguing. What was the point, when she already owed him five thousand bucks and had to know, as he did, that she could probably never repay it?
But when he saw her, he knew it wasn’t only Mimi who’d take notice, it would be every man on the premises.
“Will I do?” she’d said as dispassionately as you’d ask somebody if they wanted their coffee black or with cream.
“Sure,” he’d said with a shrug, while some evil presence in his primitive male brain urged him to grab her and drag her into his cave. His civilized brain argued that it didn’t have to be a cave. His bed would do. But even in his demented state, he knew she wouldn’t let him get away with it. So he’d compromised by pulling her into his arms and kissing her. She hadn’t protested. He hadn’t given her the chance, though it had pleased him, when the kiss ended, to see how her eyes glittered.
“Just wanted to be sure you had the right look,” he’d said briskly, as if kissing her had been part of some careful plan, and then he’d put his arm around her waist and led her down to the party.
Half an hour later, he knew he’d made a mistake. Not in figuring the dampening effect Stephanie would have on Mimi. That seemed to be working just fine. David took a hefty swig of his cognac. No, his mistake had been in thinking he could bring Stephanie into a roomful of men, turn her loose and not go crazy watching what happened.
The men circled her like bees around the sweetest flower in the garden.
The jerk from The Washingtonian had damn near drooled into his cold sorrel soup. A lecherous congressman from California had all but dipped his tie into his blackened tuna. And when the fat cat financier from Boston had put his hand on Stephanie’s, David had come close to grabbing him by the throat and telling him to back off because, dammit, she belonged to him.
All these s.o.b.’s thought she was his fiancée. They had no right to hover around her. She had no right, either, to laugh and listen with rapt attention to every stupid story they told. She had no right to have a good time with anybody but him. Didn’t she know she was his? Well, supposed to be his. For the night. For the weekend. Hell, for as long as he wanted. Didn’t she know that?
Just now, she was holding court with a group of men who pretty much ran the world, according to the American press, and they were lapping up her every word—including the congressman from California, who’d just casually slipped his arm around her waist.
David’s eyes narrowed. He tossed back the rest of his cognac and put down the snifter.
“Easy,” a male voice said.
He swung around. Tom Sheraton had come up beside him.
“She can handle things, that girlfriend of yours.” Tom smiled. “But the sooner you put a wedding band on her finger, the sooner those fools will get the message.”
“Yeah,” David said through his teeth. “If you’ll excuse me, Tom…”
“So, when’s the happy occasion?”
“The? Oh. Well, we only just got engaged…” David frowned. The congressman whispered something in Stephanie’s ear. She tossed back her head and laughed. “Uh, as I was saying, we just got engaged, so…” The syndicated political columnist standing on Stephanie’s other side leaned in, too, and offered a comment. She smiled and turned toward him, at the same time neatly dislodging the old goat’s arm. “As I was saying, we really haven’t had time to…” Dammit, was there no end in sight? A movie star with a mane of blond hair, a thousand-watt smile and a penchant for the-cause-of-the-day, deftly shouldered the columnist aside and took Stephanie’s arm. He said something, she nodded, and the two of them started toward the terrace.
Enough, David thought. “Great party, Tom,” he said, and he strode up to Stephanie and lay a proprietorial hand on her shoulder.
“David,” she said with a little smile, “have you met Gary?”
David looked at the actor. “No.”
“Well, let me intro—”
“Stephanie, could I see you for a minute?”
Stephanie frowned. “Yes, but first—”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I understand, David, but—”
“Forget the ‘but’s,’ Scarlett.” David clamped his arm around her waist. “You’re coming with me, and now.”
He saw the flash of anger in her eyes but he moved quickly, herding her out the door and onto the terrace before she could protest. His luck ran out as soon as they stepped outside; she twisted free of his arm and glared at him.
“What kind of performance was that?”
“You’re the one who’s been giving a performance, madam, starting with the hors d’oeuvres and working straight through the coffee and cake.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stalked down the stone steps and into the garden, with him on her heels. “How dare you drag me off that way?”
“I did not ‘drag’ you off, though believe me, I was tempted.” David grabbed her arm and spun her toward him. “Since when does a man have to beg his fiancée for a minute of her time?”
“I was talking to someone, or hadn’t you noticed? Gary was telling me a funny story about something that happened on the set of his last film, and—”
“Gary,” David said, “wouldn’t know a funny story unless somebody pointed it in his direction and told it to bite him on the ankle.”
“For your information, Gary not only acted in that film, he directed it. And wrote the script.”
“A, a piece of wood shows more acting talent than he does. B, he couldn’t direct a dog to lift its leg at the nearest tree, and C, can you really write a script with crayons?”
“Oh, that’s hilarious, David. Very funny. And, by the way, I would remind you, I am not your fiancée.”
“You are, for the weekend.”
“And what a mistake that was,” Stephanie said, blowing a curl out of her eyes.
David’s gaze narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, I agreed to help you out of a tight spot. I didn’t agree to become your property. Now, if that’s all—”
David clamped a hand around her wrist as she started to turn away.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To my room, to pack. I have decided to return to the city.”
“No way, Scarlett. We made a deal, remember?”
“It was a bad one, and I am terminating it.”
“You didn’t quit when Avery Willingham bought your services.”
He saw the color drain from her face and cursed himself for being a fool. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say. The truth was, he didn’t know what he’d meant to say. He only knew that it was safer to be angry at her than to admit the truth, that he was hurting because she’d ignored him all night and that the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life was to keep smiling while he shared her with a roomful of people.
“You’re right,” she said, “I didn’t.” Her voice trembled, but she met his eyes with unflinching determination. “I’m an honest whore, David. I sold myself to you and to him, and both times I got exactly what I deserved.”
“Damn you,” he growled. His fingers bit into her wrist and he moved closer to her. “I want some answers. Why, Scarlett? Why did you marry a man you despised?”
“This isn’t the time.”
“It damn well is. Tell me the truth.”
“Please.” She shook her head, grateful for the darkness of the night, knowing that what he saw in her eyes now could be her undoing. “Let go of me, David. We both know this was a mistake. I’ll pack my things and make some excuse to Mimi—”
“Scarlett. Look at me.”
She shook her head again but the pressure of his hand was persistent.
“I need to know the reason.” He thought he could see the telltale glimmer of tears in her eyes, and he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers. “Don’t shut me out, Scarlett. Please. Let me help you.”
Silence filled the moment. It stretched between them, shimmering wi
th a quality as ephemeral as the moonlight, and then the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I have a brother.” She spoke in a whisper; David had to lean closer to hear her words. “My little brother. He’s always been—he means everything to me, David. He’s all I have, all I ever had, and—and he’s ill. Terribly ill. He needs special care, and it costs a small fortune. Avery knew. He was wonderful. He helped me find the right place for Paul. He even lent me money for his care, but it grew more and more costly and eventually, Avery said—he suggested…”
She trembled, and David drew her closer.
“It’s all right,” he said softly.
“But it isn’t. Don’t you understand? I married Avery because he said—he said it was the only way he could guarantee Paul would always be cared for properly. He said he’d—he’d treat me as he always had, that he’d be my friend….” She shuddered. “He lied,” she whispered. “About everything.”
About everything. The words echoed in David’s brain. God, what had Avery Willingham done to her?
“Sweetheart.” He drew her close, stroked her hair as she buried her face against him. Her body was racked with sobs, and it broke his heart. “Sweetheart, don’t cry.”
She pulled back in his embrace and looked up at him, eyes wide, mouth tremulous.
“I was supposed to be his hostess. His companion. His social secretary. He said—he said he’d never touch me.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “But he lied. After a while, he—he came to my room…”
“Hush,” David said, and told himself that wanting to beat the crap out of a dead man was possibly blasphemous and undoubtedly insane. “It’s over now, Scarlett. Try and forget.”
“And then, he died. And Clare came, and she laughed and laughed, and she told me Avery had never intended to leave me anything, that as it was, he’d kept me around longer than he’d intended, but it was only because he’d gotten sick—”
David kissed her. Her lips were cold, her skin icy, but he kept kissing her until he felt the warmth returning to her flesh.
“I know what you must think of me,” she whispered. “But I trusted Avery. And I couldn’t see any other way—”
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