Dream Trilogy (13 page)

Satisfied, she sat back and lazily chose a tiny cake from the basket. That, she was sure, should settle that.

“You might be able to get away with that.” She was right, he thought. The coffee was excellent, and put him in a better
mood. “If you hadn’t been trembling and moaning under me half an hour ago.”

“I was not moaning.”

He smiled. “Oh, yes. You were.” Yes, indeed, he was feeling much, much better. “And on the verge of writhing.”

“I never writhe.”

“You will.”

She bit neatly into the cake. “Every boy should have his dreams. Now if we’re finished jousting over sex—”

“Darling, I haven’t even picked up my lance.”

“That’s a very weak double entendre.”

She had him there. “It’s early. Why don’t you tell me why I’m having breakfast with you.”

“I was up all night.”

The comment that occurred to him was not only weak, but crude. He let it pass. “And?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about the spot I’m in, the options you’d suggested. The first seems the most sensible. Having an agent come in and make me an offer on the furnishings, my jewelry. It would probably be the quickest solution, and the least complicated.”

“Agreed.”

She pushed away from the table, rubbing her hands together as she paced. Her soft suede boots were as soundless on the tile as they were on the thick carpet. “It’s probably time I learned to be sensible. I’m twenty-eight, unemployed, with the wolf snarling at the door. I was feeling sorry for myself at first, but now I realize I had an incredible run of luck. I got to go places and do things, be things that I’d always dreamed of. And why?”

She stopped in the center of the room, turned a slow circle under the ornate gold and crystal chandelier. In tight jodhpur-style pants and a drapey white blouse, she looked voluptuous and vibrant.

“Why?”

“Because I have a face and a body that translate well through the camera. That’s all. A good face, a killer body. Not that I didn’t have to work hard, be clever and stubborn. But the core of it, Josh, is luck. The luck of the draw from the gene pool. Now, through circumstances that may or may not have been beyond my control, that’s done. I’m through whining about it.”

“You’ve never been a whiner, Margo.”

“I could give lessons. It’s time for me to grow up, take responsibility, be sensible.”

“Talk to life insurance salesmen,” Josh said dryly. “Apply for a library card. Clip coupons.”

She looked down her nose. “Spoken like a man born with not only a silver spoon but the whole place setting stuck in his arrogant little mouth.”

“I happen to have several library cards,” he muttered. “Somewhere.”

“Do you mind?”

“Sorry.” He waved her on, but he was worried. She looked eager and happy, but she wasn’t talking like Margo. Not his delightfully reckless Margo. “Keep going.”

“Okay, I can probably weather this, eventually I could wrangle some shoots, get a spot on the catwalk in Paris or New York. It would take time, but I could come around.” Struggling to think clearly, she traced a finger down a candlestick in the form of a maiden in flowing robes flanked by twin cups holding gold tapers. “There are other ways to make money modeling. I could go back to catalogs, where I started.”

“Selling teddies for Victoria’s Secret?”

She whirled, fire in her eyes. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.” He broke open a small roll. “I appreciate a well-sold teddy as much as the next guy.”

She took a slow breath. He would not annoy her, not now. “It wouldn’t be easy in my current situation to get bookings. But I did it before.”

“You were ten years younger,” he pointed out helpfully.

“Thank you so much for reminding me,” she said between her teeth. “Look at Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Lauren Hutton, for God’s sake. They’re not teenagers. And as far as your brilliant solution, the idea of opening a shop is ludicrous. I thought of half a dozen valid reasons against it last night. Over and above the fact that I don’t have a clue how to run a business is the larger fact that if I was crazy enough to try I could very well make my situation—a very unstable situation—worse. It’s more than likely I’d be bankrupt within six months, faced with yet another public humiliation and forced to sell myself on street corners to traveling salesmen looking for cheap thrills.”

“You’re right. It’s out of the question.”

“Absolutely.”

“So when do you want to start?”

“Today.” With a jubilant laugh, she dashed to him, threw her arms around his neck. “Do you know what’s better than having someone who knows you inside out?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek. “If you’re going to go down—”

“Go down swinging.” He caught her hair in his hand and pulled her laughing mouth to his.

It wasn’t a laughing matter. She discovered that very quickly. His lips were hot and clever and had hers parting in sighing response. The lazy sweep of his tongue sent shock waves of need vibrating out to her fingertips.

It should have been familiar. She’d kissed him before, tasted him before. But those casual brotherly embraces hadn’t prepared her for the instant, undeniable jolt of pure animal lust.

Part of her mind tried to draw back, to remember that this was Josh. Josh who had scorned her prized collection of dolls when she was six. Who had dared her to scramble with him on the cliffs when she was eight, then had carried her back to the house when she gashed her leg on a rock.

Josh who had smirked at her adolescent crushes on his friends, who had patiently taught her to handle a five-speed. Josh who had always been somewhere right around the corner wherever she had gone in her life.

But this was like kissing someone new. Someone dangerously exciting. Painfully tempting.

He’d been expecting it. Hadn’t he dreamed, hundreds of times, of tasting her like this? Of having her go taut in his arms, her mouth answering his with a kind of banked fury?

He’d been willing to wait, just as he’d been willing to dream. Because he knew she would be his. He knew she needed to be.

But he wasn’t going to make it easy.

He drew back, pleased that when her lashes slowly lifted her eyes were dark and clouded. He hoped to God the same jittery desire that was churning in his gut was churning in hers.

“You’re awfully good at that,” she managed. “I’d heard rumors.” She realized she was in his lap but wasn’t sure if he’d pulled her there or if she’d simply crawled onto him. “I believe they might have been understated. Actually I did sneak outside one night and watch you put the moves on Babs Carstairs out by the pool. I was impressed.”

Nothing she could have said could have been more perfectly designed to make desire wilt. “You spied on me and Babs?”

“Just once. Or twice. Hell, Josh, I was thirteen. Curious.”

“Jesus.” He remembered exactly how far things had gone with Babs out by the pool on one pretty summer night. “Did you see— No, I don’t want to know.”

“Laura and Kate and I all agreed she was over-mammaried.”

“Over—” Before he could laugh at the term, he winced. “You
and
Laura
and
Kate. Why didn’t you just sell tickets?”

“I believe it’s perfectly natural for a younger sister to spy on her older brother.”

His eyes glinted. “I’m not your brother.”

“From where I’m sitting, I’d say that fact saves our immortal souls.”

The glint turned into a grin. “You may be right. I want you, Margo. There are all manner of incredible, nasty, unspeakable things I want to do to you.”

“Well.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “So much for our immortal souls. Listen, I have to say this change is a little abrupt for me.”

“You haven’t been paying attention.”

“Obviously not.” She couldn’t take her eyes off his. It would be wiser to, she knew. She had survived all the games men and women play by always, without exception, staying in control. Those eyes, gray and cool and confident, warned her that that wouldn’t be an option with him. Not for long. “I’m paying attention now, but I’m not ready for the starting gun.”

“It went off years ago.” His hands skimmed up her sides, brushed her breasts. “I’m way ahead of you.”

“I have to decide if I want to catch up.” She laughed and scrambled off his lap. “It’s just too weird, the whole concept of you and me and sex.” Then she rubbed a hand over her heart because it was plunging like a mare in heat. “And it’s surprisingly tempting. There was a time, not that long ago, I’d have said what the hell, it’ll be fun, and raced you to the bed.”

When he rose, she laughed again and put the table between them. “I’m not being coy. I don’t believe in it.”

“What are you being?”

“Cautious, for once in my life.” Suddenly, her eyes were sober, her mouth soft instead of teasing. “You matter too much. And I’ve just figured out that I matter, too. Not just out here,” she said, gesturing toward her face. “Inside. I’ve got to straighten out my life. I’ve got to do something with it I can be proud of. I have all these new plans, all these new dreams. I want to make them work. No.” She closed her eyes a moment. “I
have
to make them work. To do that I need to take time and effort. Sex is distracting if you do it right.” She smiled again. “We would.”

He tucked his thumbs in his pockets. “What are you going to do? Take a vow of celibacy?”

Her smile spread slowly. “That’s an excellent idea. I can always count on you for a viable solution.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m perfectly serious.” Delighted with both of them, she walked over and patted his cheek. “Okay, I’m celibate until my life is in order and my business is up and running. Thanks for thinking of it.”

He circled her throat with his hand, but was more inclined to throttle himself. “I could seduce you in thirty seconds flat.”

Now he was getting cocky. “If I let you,” she said silkily. “But it’s not going to happen until I’m ready.”

“And I’m supposed to enter a monastery until you’re ready?”

“Your life’s your own. You can have anyone you want.” She turned to wander back toward the cakes, looked over her shoulder. “Except me.”

But the idea didn’t sit very well. Nibbling on the cake, she contemplated. “Unless, of course, you’d like to make it a kind of bet.”

She was licking those crumbs off her bottom lip on purpose, he thought. He knew when a woman was trying to drive him crazy. “What kind of bet?”

“That I can abstain longer than you. That I can make an adult commitment to control my hormones and seriously pursue a career.”

His face bland, he added hot coffee to his cup, then hers. Inside he was snickering. She hadn’t a clue how long it would take to open the doors to this shop she was planning. It could be months. She would never last that long, he mused as he lifted his cup, watched her over the rim. He’d see to it.

“How much?”

“Your new car.”

He choked on coffee. “My car? My Jag?”

“That’s right. I have to sell my car and I don’t know when I’ll be able to replace it. You succumb first, I get the Jag. Clear title. You ship it to Italy.”

“And if you succumb first?” When she gestured, dismissing the possibility, he grinned. “I get your art.”

“My street scenes.” Her heart actually fluttered at the thought. “All of them?”

“Every last one. Unless you’re afraid to risk it.”

She lifted her chin, held out a hand. “Done.”

He closed his hand over hers, then brought it up, brushed his lips over her wrist, nibbled lightly to her palm.

“Nice try,” she murmured, and shook free. “Now I’ve got business to tend to. I’m going to go sell my car.”

“You’re not going to take it to a dealer,” he objected as she grabbed her bag and jacket. “They’ll scalp you.”

“Oh, no.” She paused at the door, her smile sly and irresistible. “No, they won’t.”

It amazed Margo how quickly she got into the spirit. She’d never realized how much fun, how simply exhilarating wheeling and dealing could be. The car started it all.

It hadn’t shamed her a bit to use every ounce of charm, all of her sex appeal and generous dollops of femininity, not merely as bargaining chips, but as weapons, God-given and well honed. She was at war.

After choosing the car dealer, she had ambushed her quarry with flattery and smiles, fencing expertly with claims of her inexperience in business dealings, her trust in his judgment. She batted her eyes, looked helpless, and slowly, sweetly annihilated him.

And had squeezed lire out of him until he was gasping for breath.

The jeweler, being a woman, had been more of a challenge.
Margo had selected two of her best and most expensive pieces, and after sizing up her opponent as a clever, hardheaded, unsentimental businesswoman, she had adopted the same pose.

It had been, she thought,
mano a mano
, female style. They’d negotiated, argued, scorned each other’s offers, insulted one another, then come to terms each of them could live with.

Now, adding the take from her furs, she had enough ready cash to hold her more impatient creditors off for a few weeks.

With the breathing room, she buckled down and completed a tentative cataloging of her possessions, and began to pack them up, knowing the sooner she thought of them as inventory, the easier it would be. No longer were they her personal possessions. Now they were business assets.

Each morning she studied the paper for available space to rent. The prices made her wince and worry and eventually concede that she wouldn’t be able to afford a prime location. Nor would she be able to advertise by conventional means if she wanted her money to last. Which left her a second-rate location that she would have to make work, and unconventional means.

Comfortable in leggings and a T-shirt, she stretched out in a chair and surveyed her living space. Tables had been ruthlessly cleared off. A good many of them were stacked alongside packing boxes and crates. Her paintings remained on the walls. A symbol, she thought, of what she was risking in so many areas of her life just now.

She’d gone to work elsewhere in the flat as well. Her wardrobe had been cut down to a quarter of its original size. The other seventy-five percent was carefully packed away. She’d been merciless in her selections, with an eye to her new lifestyle rather than sentiment. Not that she intended to dress down as a merchant. She would dress as she would run her business. With flair and style and bold pride.

With luck, one of the three locations she had arranged to
view that afternoon would be just the one she was looking for.

She was anxious to begin before the press got a firm hold on her situation. There were already dribbles in the papers about La Margo selling her jewelry to pay her mounting debts. She’d taken to sneaking out of the service entrance to avoid the reporters and paparazzi who so often ambushed her outside the building.

She’d begun to wonder if she should just give up the flat after all. Kate had been right—trying to keep it was whittling her already meager resources to nothing. If she found a good location for the shop, she could simply move in there. Temporarily.

At least, she thought with a laugh, that way she would have her things around her.

She wished she had Josh to play the idea off of. But he was in Paris. No, she remembered, by now it was Berlin, and after that Stockholm. There was no telling when she would hear from him again, much less see him.

The few days they’d spent together in Milan, that jarring and exciting morning in his suite, were more like a dream now than a memory. She might have wondered if she’d actually ached when he’d kissed her, but whenever she thought of it, she ached again.

He was probably nibbling some Fräulein’s ear right now, Margo thought and kicked at the corner of the sofa as she rose. He’d never be able to keep those clever hands of his off a willing female. The jerk.

At least she was going to get a car out of the whole mess. If nothing else, Josh Templeton was a man of his word.

She didn’t have time to think about him—swilling beer and tickling some statuesque German goddess. She had to change for her appointments, adopt the appropriate image. As she dressed she practiced the technique she would employ with
the realtor. Picky, she mused, braiding her hair. No enthusiasm.

“Questa camera . . .” A dismissive look, a gesture of the hand. “Piccola.” Or, it would be too large to suit her needs. She would make unhappy noises as she wandered around and let the realtor try to convince her. Of course, she would remain unconvinced. She would say the rent was absurd. She would ask to see something else, say she had another appointment in an hour.

She stepped back, studied herself. Yes, the black suit was businesslike but had the flair the Italian eye recognized and appreciated. The smooth French braid was feminine, flattering but not fussy, and the oversized Bandalino bag was tailored like a briefcase.

Odds were, her opponent—and she thought of everyone on the other side of her business deals as opponents now—would have recognized her name. He would certainly recognize her face. So much the better. In all likelihood he’d assume he was meeting a flighty, empty-headed bimbo. And that would give her not only the advantage but the sizzling satisfaction of proving him wrong.

Drawing a long breath, she stared at herself. Margo Sullivan was not a bimbo, she insisted to the reflection. Margo Sullivan was a businesswoman, with brains, ambition, plans, goals, and determination. Margo Sullivan was not a loser. She was a survivor.

She closed her eyes for a moment, struggling to absorb the self-administered pep talk, needing to believe it. Doesn’t matter, she thought with an inner quaver, as long as I can make everyone else believe it.

Damned if she wouldn’t.

The phone was ringing as she shouldered her bag and headed out. “Just leave your name and a brief message,” she
told the insistent two-toned bell, “and I won’t get back to you.”

It was Kate’s impatient voice that stopped her.

“Damn it all to hell and back, Margo. Are you ever going to answer this thing? I know you’re there. I know you’re standing right there sneering at the phone. Pick it up, will you? It’s important.”

“It’s always important,” Margo muttered and kept right on sneering.

“Goddamn it, Margo. It’s about Laura.”

Margo pounced on the phone, jerking the receiver to her ear. “Is she hurt? What’s wrong? Was there an accident?”

“No, she’s not hurt. Take off your earring, it’s clinking on the phone.”

Disgusted, Margo worked it off. “If you’re yanking my chain just to get me to talk to you—”

“Like I’ve got nothing better to do at five
A
.
M
. on April fifteenth than make crank phone calls. Listen, pal, I haven’t slept in twenty-six hours and I’ve burned off most of my stomach lining with caffeine. Don’t start with me.”

“You called me, remember? I’m on my way out the door.”

“And Laura’s on her way to see a lawyer.”

“A lawyer? At five
A
.
M
.? You said there wasn’t an accident.”

“She’s not literally on her way. She has an appointment at ten. I wouldn’t have even known about it, but her lawyer’s a client of the firm and he thought I knew. He said he was sorry she was upset, and—”

“Just nail it down, Kate.”

“Sorry, I’m strung out. She’s divorcing Peter.”

“Divorcing?” Since the chair that had been by the phone was now in the inventory section, she sat down abruptly on the floor. “Oh, Christ, Kate, it’s not because they fought over me?”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Margo. Hell, sorry. It’s not your fault,” she said more gently. “I didn’t get much out of her when I went over, but the deciding factor seemed to be that she walked in on him and his secretary. And he wasn’t dictating a letter.”

“You’re kidding. That’s so . . .”

“Ordinary?” Kate suggested dryly. “Trite? Disgusting?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that sums it up. If it’s happened before, she’s not saying. But I can tell you she’s not giving him another turn at bat. She’s dead serious.”

“Is she all right?”

“She seems very calm, very civilized. I’m so bogged down here, Margo, I can’t work on her. You know how she is when she’s really upset.”

“Sucks it all in,” Margo murmured, jiggling the earring impatiently in her hand. “The kids?”

“I just don’t know. If I could get out of here I would. But I’ve got another nineteen hours before flash point. I’ll corner her then.”

“I’ll be there inside of ten.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. I’ll see you at home.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised you’d fly six thousand miles for something like this, Margo.” Laura competently sewed stars onto Ali’s tutu for her daughter’s ballet recital. “It’s just like you.”

“I want to know how you are, Laura. I want to know what’s going on.”

Margo stopped pacing the sitting room and slapped her hands on her hips. She was past exhaustion and into the floaty stage of endless travel. Ten hours had been typically optimistic. It had taken her closer to fifteen to manage all the
connections and layovers. Now, she was cross-eyed with fatigue, and Laura just sat there calmly plying needle and thread.

“Would you put that silly thing down for a minute and talk to me?”

“Ali would be crushed if she heard you call her fairy tutu silly.” But her daughter was in bed, Laura thought. Safe and innocent. For the moment. “Sit down, Margo, before you collapse.”

“I don’t want to sit.” If she did, she was certain she would simply fade away.

“I didn’t expect you to be so upset. You were hardly fond of Peter.”

“I’m fond of you. And I know you, Laura. You’re not chucking a ten-year marriage without hurting.”

“I’m not hurting. I’m numb. I’m going to stay numb as long as I possibly can.” Gently she smoothed a hand over the net of the ballet skirt. “There are two little girls down the hall who need someone in their life to be strong and stable. Margo . . .” She looked up then with baffled eyes. “I don’t think he loves them. I don’t think he cares at all. I could handle him not loving me. But they’re his children.” She stroked the tulle again, as if it were her daughter’s cheek. “He wanted sons. Ridgeways. Boys to become men and carry on the family name. Well”—she set the skirt aside—“he got daughters.”

Margo lighted a cigarette with a quick jerk, made herself sit. “Tell me what happened.”

“He stopped loving me. I’m not sure he ever did, really. He wanted an important wife.” She moved her shoulders. “He thought he got one. In the past couple of years we began to disagree over quite a lot of things. Or I began to disagree with him out loud. He didn’t care for that. Oh, it’s no use going over all the details.” She waved her hands with self-directed impatience. “Basically we grew apart. He began to spend more time away from home. I thought he was having an affair,
but he was so uncharacteristically furious when I accused him, I believed I was wrong.”

“But you weren’t.”

“I’m not sure, about then. It doesn’t matter.” Laura jerked a shoulder, picked up the tulle again to give herself something to do with her hands. “He hasn’t touched me in more than a year.”

“A year.” It was, perhaps, foolish to be shocked at the idea of marriage without intimacy, but Margo was shocked nonetheless.

“At first, I wanted us to go to a counselor, but he was appalled by the idea. Then I thought I should try some therapy, and he was beyond appalled.” Laura managed a quick, thin smile. “It would get out, and then what would people think, what would they say?”

No sex. None. For a year. Margo fought her way past the block and concentrated. “That’s just ridiculous.”

“Maybe. But I stopped caring. It was easier to stop caring and concentrate on my children, the house. My life.”

What life? Margo wanted to ask, but held her tongue.

“But I could see in the last few weeks that it was affecting the children. Ali in particular.” Gently, she replaced the tutu, folded her hands in her lap to keep them still. “After you left, I decided we had to straighten things out. We had to fix what was wrong. I went to the penthouse. I thought it would be best if we talked there, away from the children. I was willing to do whatever had to be done to put things back together.”

“You were willing,” Margo interrupted, leaping up and puffing out an angry stream of smoke. “It sounds to me like—”

“It doesn’t matter what it sounds like,” Laura said quietly. “It’s what is. Anyway, it was late. I’d put the girls to bed first. All the way over I practiced this little speech about how we’d had a decade together, a family, a history.”

It made her laugh to think of it now. She rose, deciding she could indulge in a short brandy. As she poured two snifters, she related the rest. “The penthouse was locked, but I have a key. He wasn’t in the office.” Calmly she handed Margo a glass, sat down again with her own. “I was annoyed at first, thinking he’d gone out for a late dinner meeting or some such thing and I’d geared myself up for nothing. Then I noticed the light under the bedroom door. I nearly knocked. Can you imagine how pathetic the situation was, Margo, that I nearly knocked? Instead, I just opened the door.” She took a sip of brandy. “He was having a dinner meeting, all right.”

“His secretary?”

Laura gave a snorting laugh. “Like a bad French farce. We have the philandering husband sprawled over the bed with his jazzy redheaded secretary and a bowl of chilled shrimp.”

Barely, Margo managed to strangle a giggle. “Shrimp?”

“And what appeared to be a spiced-honey sauce, with a bottle of Dom to wash it down. Enter the unsuspecting, neglected society wife. The tableau freezes. No one speaks, only the strains of
Bolero
can be heard.”

“
Bolero
. Oh, Jesus.” Her breath hitching, Margo dropped into a chair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I’m too tired to fight back.”

“Go ahead and laugh.” Laura felt a smile breaking through herself. “It is laughable. Pitifully. The wife says, with incredible and foolish dignity, ‘I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your dinner meeting.’”