A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  So he’d just wing dinner with Ms. Barracuda.

  Chapter Four

  As she rode the main escalator up to the second floor of shops at Copley Place, Page considered forgetting dinner altogether and heading over to Neiman-Marcus to check out what was on sale. Boston’s first indoor mall, sandwiched between venerable Copley Square and the revived South End, Copley Place had opened in 1984 to considerable hoopla with high-priced and specialty shops. Even though the mall was within easy walking distance of her condominium, Page wasn’t one to fritter away her time shopping. But tonight, she was tempted.

  She’d eaten at the original Durgin Park at Faneuil Hall Marketplace a few times and had enjoyed the unique atmosphere of the restaurant, famous for its ‘‘surly” waiters and waitresses, its family-style service and its refusal to accept checks, credit cards or reservations. The Copley Place version wasn’t as rough around the edges, but she’d never checked it out herself. Ordinarily she preferred small, quiet restaurants. But right now noise and crowds—witnesses—seemed like a good idea to her. She wasn’t sure how Chris Battle would exact his revenge for her not having let him get away with his delivery-boy act. But he’d no doubt try something. It seemed he always did.

  He was sitting at a table along the rail in the outside section overlooking the second-floor marble plaza, which provided the place with the ambience of an indoor cafe. He didn’t wave or smile, but Page knew he’d spotted her as she walked past him to the entrance. She could feel the effect of his gaze as a wave of buttery-warm sensations hit her lower back. Now that he knew she’d come this far, if she didn’t go in, he’d fly out of there like the proverbial bat out of hell and haul her in himself. It might actually be interesting to have him try. He could have Copley Place security on his case just like the hotel security. Pretty soon there’d be nowhere left in Boston he could go. Page had to smile thinking of it. But she supposed she’d had her fair share of revenge for one night.

  She just wasn’t sure she was being smart in giving him the opportunity to get in his fair share of revenge. But after thinking over the delivery episode, she wondered if perhaps she’d misinterpreted his actions. What if he had, in fact, been trying in his own peculiarly warped way to make amends? She’d cut him off a number of times. Had he been trying to explain? Apologize? She hadn’t given him a chance, but with her need to control the situation—her fear of not giving him an inch—how could she have let him into her apartment and left herself open to insult and ridicule?

  She had to remember that as much as she might be drawn to his dark eyes and deep voice and sexy grin, he was motivated by his own professional interests. He was Wile E. Coyote trying to chase down the Roadrunner. He was determined, he’d stop at nothing and he had to have his own way.

  And she was nuts for having shown up.

  Still, she thought it polite to get her butt inside.

  Only vaguely, deep in the dark recesses of her mind, did it occur to her she might have some amends to make herself. But she didn’t drag the thought out into the open and examine it. She left it back there, lurking.

  Battle’s eyes, mysterious, almost murky in the shadows of the restaurant, held hers as she manufactured a smile and made her way to the table. He seemed neither angry nor amused nor even pleased or displeased by what he saw, only strangely objective—as if he were keeping his feelings, his subjectivity, at bay. She felt him studying her, taking in what she wore, her looks, her expression, how she walked, everything he could and storing it all in that cynical mind. Probably thinking about how he’d describe her in his column.

  She wasn’t sure she liked feeling this way, like an amoeba on a slide under a microscope, like one of those poor slobs captured on camera by a tough, unrelenting reporter—not one of the pretty boys or pretty girls, but one of those hound dogs, male or female, who knew how to ferret out information. The Chris Battles of the world. They weren’t meant to be pretty. Page tried to imagine him with all the wrong angles in his face smoothed over, all the wrinkles in his clothes pressed out, all the cynicism in his eyes gone. It wouldn’t work. He’d be someone else. A different—a worse—kind of wrong.

  But as she moved closer, Page saw that he wasn’t viewing her with any objectivity whatsoever but was keeping a tight rein on his reaction to her. She could see the tensed muscles in his neck, the smoldering look in his eyes, the way he held one hand on his beer glass, rigid and carefully under control. She had thought control was Chris Battle’s strong suit. Perhaps it wasn’t and he was using everything at his command to retain that control. But control over what? She didn’t know what he was thinking, couldn’t imagine or just didn’t want to complicate her life by trotting out the possibilities. But whatever it was, it damn well wasn’t how his beer tasted.

  Keeping a tight rein on her own reactions, she slid into the chair opposite him.

  He picked up his glass and took a sip of beer, licking his lips slowly and intentionally, as if he were licking her, and set the glass back down. “So you didn’t have an attack of common sense.”

  “Actually I did. Not an attack, really—”

  “Too disorderly.” He smiled, warmth coming into his eyes as he teased her. “If you’re attacked, it’s by a lack of common sense.”

  She drank some ice water, feeling suddenly nervous and uncomfortable and, worse, not knowing why. “You’re a know-it-all, aren’t you?” she shot back, overreacting to what had been nothing more than a gentle tease. Couldn’t she laugh at herself? Sure. But being laughed at was another matter altogether. Or perhaps she was just more at ease when they were arguing. “You’re no better than a playground bully always spoiling for a fight. Be that as it may, I reasoned that by joining you for dinner, I could perhaps convince you to quit this ridiculous assault on my privacy—”

  She stopped and stared at him. He had leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, and was grinning broadly at her, his slate eyes gleaming. Her gaze dropped to the dark hairs on his wrists, then lifted back to his face. There were more sensations. Many more.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.

  The grin didn’t waver. “Do you always talk like a pompous ass?”

  “Only when I’m dealing with one!”

  “Quick,” he said. “Very quick. My assorted ‘ex-wives’ would love you. They weren’t as good at comebacks.”

  Inhaling deeply, Page forced herself not to stoop to his level. It would only be counterproductive. She had sounded a bit pompous, but only as a device to maintain some objectivity for herself. Reason and intuition both told her to treat Chris Battle as a textbook problem, not a living, breathing, irritating man.

  “All right, look,” she said, “we’re both adults, and there’s no need to reduce ourselves to a couple of squabbling adolescents. I understand you want to do a piece on professional organizers and that I’m your target and can’t stop you from pursuing what you think is a legitimate idea. I can’t control what I can’t control.”

  “How astute. You make that up yourself?”

  Her look darkened as she resisted the temptation to pour Mr. Christopher O. Battle’s beer on his arrogant head. “Learning to recognize what you can’t control is an important part of becoming more organized, one that’s quite liberating, in fact. But I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t care that you don’t. May I continue?”

  He didn’t look properly chastened but merely shrugged and motioned for her to proceed, the gleam still in his eyes. “Please. By all means continue.”

  “I wasn’t asking for permission,” she said hotly.

  “I know. You were being sarcastic. I’m not stupid, Page B. I might not be organized, but don’t ever think I’m stupid.”

  “What about reckless, inconsiderate, conceited, irritating, stubborn, close-minded—”

  “Sure.”

  “But not stupid.”

  “Right.”

  She sighed. What had she gotten herself into?

  “Go on,”
he said, and this time she saw he was biting back a smile and realized he had been at least half kidding. Was there no figuring the man? Didn’t he even regard himself without a measured dose of cynicism?

  “I thought we could make a deal.”

  He shook his head. “Journalists don’t make deals.”

  “But you’re not really a journalist. You’re a columnist. That’s different.”

  “Okay, then, I don’t make deals.”

  “Mr. Battle—”

  “Will you stop with the ‘mister’ already? It’s Chris. Would you call the playground bully ‘mister’?”

  “Chris,” she said, hanging on to the last threads of her patience, “I’m calling what I’m offering a deal only because it sounds nicer. But it’s not really a deal.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? It’s your way or no way.”

  The man was an outrage. “It’s an ultimatum.”

  “Oh-ho. Should I write this down?”

  “I think you’ll remember, and besides, I don’t want to wait for you to find something to write with... or on.”

  “That’s a low blow. Restaurants always have match-books, and I’ve got a pencil stashed in a pocket somewhere.”

  “Yes, but which one? Never mind. You’re driving me crazy, you know that? One more interruption and I swear I’ll—”

  The waiter interrupted. With a sigh Page ordered roast turkey. Battle embarrassed her by ordering just a bowl of soup. But what could she do? She was hungry.

  “My offer-deal-ultimatum is this,” she continued, their order in, the waiter gone, nothing to interrupt her. “You can ask me two questions—any two questions you want. I’ll answer them honestly and to the best of my ability. Then you go write your damn article and leave me alone.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “I don’t have my tape recorder with me.”

  “I’ll give you time to find your pencil and tear open some matchbooks.”

  “But even if I did have my tape recorder,” he went on, ignoring her gibe, “it wouldn’t matter. I don’t like offers, deals or ultimatums.”

  “Then you don’t get anything out of me. I’m not going to help you get organized. I’m not going to talk to you about how I help other people get organized. I’m not going to tolerate your attempts to sneak into my home so you can write some nasty little piece on how I organize myself. In short, Chris, I’m not going to allow you to belittle me.”

  He tilted his head back, eyeing her through half-closed eyes, and again she found herself responding to his unbridled masculinity. She imagined the touch of his lips on hers and had to drink more ice water, just to cool off. She didn’t need to fan the flames between them. She burned enough as it was.

  “Why do you insist on thinking I’m going to belittle you?” he asked, his expression unchanged.

  “Because you’ve already tried—and I read your column.”

  His eyes opened and he grinned. “Is that right?”

  “Not with any joy, I assure you. It’s hardly the first thing I turn to.”

  “You have a routine for reading the paper?”

  “Well—”

  He waved off her retort and leaned over, one hand very close to hers, tapping his fingertips on the table one at a time. “Page, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. “I’m egging you on and I know it. It’s just that professional organizers are so easy to poke fun at. That’s the mind-set I have or had going into this thing. Get It Together Inc.—how could I resist? But that doesn’t mean you can’t change my mind. You obviously take yourself seriously. Show me what you do, show me how you do it and show me why you do it. Make me take you seriously.”

  She avoided his eyes...and his fingers. “Why should I?”

  “Consider it a challenge.”

  His voice had lowered, deepened, and with his index finger he flicked drops of condensation off the outside of her water glass. It was a deliberate move. It didn’t take a great leap of imagination for her to feel that same finger on her skin. Her nipples hardened at the thought, and she quickly folded her arms under her breasts, feeling their ache. The challenge he was presenting, she suspected, went beyond a simple column.

  “I face challenges every day,” she said, proud of the level sound of her voice. “Far more enticing challenges, I might add. I prefer to put my energy into helping people who need and want my help. All you want to do is make a buck off me.”

  He didn’t appear taken aback as one eyebrow quirked and he leaned back in his chair. “Low, Page.”

  “Accurate.”

  “You want to know what I think?”

  “No.”

  “I think you’re afraid of me.”

  “Pshaw.”

  Battle smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and she saw a crookedness about his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. It was both endearing and unexpectedly, undeniably sensual. The challenge was there, all right. Take me on, it said.

  “Forget it, Chris.” But she was really saying, forget it, Page, you’re not that crazy. “I’m not afraid to take you on. I believe I’ve already proved that, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t say you were afraid to take me on. I don’t even think you’re afraid of what I might write about you. What I said—and what I believe—is that you’re afraid of me. You know I’m attracted to you on a physical level.”

  “Oh, right. You make fun of me and drive me nuts.”

  “That’s just me doing my job. And being attracted to you on a physical level has nothing to do with making fun of you or driving you nuts. It has to do with—”

  “Don’t.”

  “See? Cold, hard fear, Page B. It’s making your skin clammy, isn’t it? You know damn well I’m sitting here fighting the urge to kiss you.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “Sarcasm won’t get it. What would you do?”

  “If you kissed me? I don’t know. I can’t imagine I’d let you get that far—that close, I should say. If you did, I guess I’d just smack you one.”

  “An organized response. I love your nonviolent approach. But I don’t believe you. I think you’d kiss me back, and I think that’s precisely what scares you—that you think you’d kiss me back, too.”

  She raised her chin and stared him down. “You’re implying that this attraction business isn’t just one way.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Amazing. Just amazing. I’d have thought a columnist known for his incisiveness would demonstrate more of it, but we all make mistakes. I’m neither afraid of you nor attracted to you, and I’m sure as hell not afraid of myself or anything to do with our ‘relationship,’ such as it is.”

  Chris Battle regarded her with open skepticism, not believing her any more than she believed herself. They both knew she was lying. She was attracted to him, all right. His raw sensuality, the twist of his mouth, the gleam of his slate eyes, the sandy roughness of his voice, the quickness of his wit—they all combined to make him one difficult-to-resist male. His talk of kissing her had made her tingle with anticipation until she ached all over.

  But she didn’t trust him. Wouldn’t.

  Maybe he was attracted to her, but in none of the ways that mattered. Wanting to kiss her was one thing. The sexual tension that had been crackling and sparking between them since she’d heard his voice on her message machine could easily burst into a hot, open flame that consumed them both. It would be satisfying to burn up in his arms, to feel him burn up in hers. But then what? They were incompatible on every other level, and she was too organized and self-disciplined to permit herself to give in to a desire that was purely physical.

  She didn’t need to complicate her life that way. Perhaps another woman would be willing to face the consequences, but that was another woman. She was Page B. Harrington and had to live with her limitations.

  She didn’t expect Chris would understand, and even if he did, why bother to explain? It was simpler to tell herself—and him—that he
was just trying out another strategy to get into her condominium so he could write his column. Tell the woman he wants to kiss her and watch her melt.

  It wouldn’t work.

  Even if it wasn’t what he was doing.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” he said, the grin vanishing as warmth, even sympathy, came into his expression. “I won’t push.”

  “Thank you. Think about my offer. It’ll stand until this time tomorrow.”

  “Okay, but my answer won’t change.”

  Her dinner and his bowl of chowder arrived, but before they’d even got started, the waiter returned with a wrapped meal, which he set at Chris’s elbow. Chris thanked him and just had a taste of his soup.

  “Well,” he said, as he got up, grabbed the wrapped dinner and tucked it under his arm, “this has been an interesting conversation, but I have to run. Enjoy your dinner—and thanks.”

  “For what? Wait just a minute! What’s going on here?”

  “I’m thanking you for dinner.” He was obviously fighting a laugh. “And what’s going on here, Ms. Barracuda, is tit for tat—or almost. Durgin Park isn’t as expensive as the Four Seasons.”

  “You mean you’ve—”

  “I mean I’ve stuck you with the bill.”

  Page could feel her eyes narrowing. “You are a snake in the grass, Battle, and I’m glad I— Never mind. Just go.”

  He grinned at her, looking very pleased with himself, indeed. “You’re glad you didn’t tell me you think I’m sexy as hell, aren’t you? Yeah, I’ll bet you’re damn glad.”

  “Battle—”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “You’re damn right you will!”

  Raging, she watched him saunter off thinking he’d won. She’d have to show him—somehow. But when she turned back to her turkey dinner and saw his soup bowl and empty chair, she suddenly felt an emptiness inside herself. And she wondered if perhaps they both wanted their private little war to keep dragging on, just as an excuse to stay in each other’s lives a bit longer. Because when the war ended, she thought, he’d return to his messy attic on one side of the Public Garden, she’d return to her tidy condominium on the other side, and whatever had been between them, or even might have been between them, would be just a memory.