Lauren's Designs (14 page)

Mike was beside her, towering over her, his forehead creased into a thunderous frown. “What do you mean, good night? You’re staying here with me. I haven’t had enough of you yet.”

Lauren saw the anger, hurt, and suspicion he was covering with the arrogant demand. She wasn’t a promiscuous woman. The very idea of a one-night stand was abhorrent to her. And yet this was Mike, of the big, warm hands that had gently dried her feet; Mike, who had held off his own satisfaction for a long time while he brought Lauren to a full and delicious consummation. This was the man she could talk to, laugh with, be comfortable with. Love.

Her smile was natural and tender this time. “Of course, I’m staying,” she said softly.

Mike’s body relaxed, but he still had the wary expression on his face. “Want any more to drink or eat?”

Lauren shook her head, patting her stomach ruefully. “It’s lucky I’m not needed to model the clothes tomorrow. I’m sure I’ve gained five pounds since we left New York.”

Mike grinned and caught her up in his arms, swinging her off her feet and against his chest. He grinned, then mimed a stagger. “Phew! Closer to fifty pounds, Mrs. Rose. We’ll have to work some of that off right now.”

Looking up into his glinting gray eyes, set in their fan-shaped laugh wrinkles, Lauren realized that she loved him. Even his would-be-lecherous jokes seemed funny to her. So he didn’t want to take a chance on being hurt again. She could understand that, although she didn’t think there was much similarity between herself and a greedy, shallow seventeen-year-old starlet. But Mike had his brother’s failed marriage, and apparently an unhappy childhood, fixed in his mind as the inevitable result of marriage. It
wasn’t
inevitable, but Lauren could understand his bias. He’d been taught in a hard school. She looked up into his face and knew she would never deliberately hurt him.

When he put her down beside his bed, he sat on the side of it and drew her in between his thighs. For a moment he stared up into her face, a questioning look so plain that Lauren impulsively pulled his head gently against her body.

“I love you, Mike.”

He became very still in her arms. Then he leaned back and stared at her face. This time there was a hard, cold doubt in his expression.

“Is this a pity trip, Lauren?” he asked sharply. “If so, I don’t want any part of it.”

“Pity? For whom?” Lauren scoffed lovingly. “You know better than that, Mr. Gorgeous Mike Landrill. You were
here
last night. It was Christmas and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July rolled into one package.”

A grin broke slowly over Mike’s face. “You do know how to make a man feel good, Lauren Rose,” he said softly. He stood up and led her back to the sitting room.

Lauren went reluctantly. She had brought herself to the point of accepting what he was able to offer her, and now it seemed as though he was having second thoughts.

“Is something wrong?” she asked nervously.

“We’ve got to talk,” he said in that deep, abrasive voice that set her nerves to tingling. “I have a special feeling for you, Lauren, but I’m not sure what it is. I sure as hell know what I
don’t
want: marriage with you or any other woman.” He brooded for a moment over the idea. “I might conceivably decide to get married someday, just to have a son, but I can’t imagine doing it in this decade, and by that time you’d be too old for safe child-bearing. Although you might have made a good mother if you hadn’t been a professional woman.” He scanned her face and body darkly.

Lauren felt as though she had received a blow in the stomach. How casually he had just cast away a dream of hers, as if it were already too late for her. He couldn’t know how cruelly his remark had hurt. For years she had tried to coax Al to start a family. He had always said kids were a nuisance, that neither of them had time, especially with her work, to being them up. He always managed to have a crisis or a problem about the work to turn aside her plea. She turned her head away.

He seated her at one corner of the couch and took a chair across from her. After a long, probing glance, he said, “All right, Lauren, tell me what you expect from me.”

Lauren’s head came up proudly. “I don’t expect anything, Mike Landrill. I knew from the beginning that this was just a shipboard romance, a fling for you.” It seemed that that rankled; she hoped her voice hadn’t given her away. She tried for a sophisticated smile as she concluded, “I expect you to say, ‘Thank you, Lauren-baby, for a lovely—a lovely . . .’ ” To her horror, she couldn’t complete the flip little sentence.

Mike was staring hard at her. “You know neither of us feels that way about what’s happened. Tell me what you really think about us, Lauren.”

She had to pull herself together and answer honestly as a woman.

“I think you’ll have to make your own decision about what you want from our—our coming together on this ship and finding a mutual attraction. I can’t impose my standards on you.” She was trying to think her position through and explain it to him. She was happy to see that he was listening carefully, his eyes intent on her. She went on, slowly, “I’ve been married, and only now am I beginning to realize how unsatisfactory it was. Now that I’ve found something so much better.” She smiled at him warmly. “It seems to me that people go through the motions—courtship, engagement party, wedding with gifts and guests and a reception and a honeymoon—all as if it’s a sort of tribal custom. And somewhere there, the way the two people feel about each other gets lost. They’ve signed a life contract without reading the fine print, without considering the real reasons why a man and a woman would want to commit themselves. Sexual attraction, yes. We know how potent that can be.” She gave him a slow sensuous smile that left him grinning. “But it’s got to be more than sex. What would motivate a person to commit himself
for life
to some other person?”

“Now you’re stating my point of view,” Mike said. “People grow and change. Nothing remains the same. Why make promises you know you can’t keep?”

Lauren nodded briefly. “I seem to have talked myself out of what my friends call ‘a relationship.’ ”

Mike shook his head. “No, you’ve talked yourself out of the naïve romanticism of marry-and-live-happily-ever-after.” He got up and came to sit beside her: He took her hand and turned her to face him. “But you haven’t told me how you feel about some sort of a—a partnership with me. What do you see for us, Lauren?”

“I guess I haven’t finished stating my position,” Lauren said. She looked at him, and a bitter smile tugged at her lips. “One thing I never thought I’d do was enter into an academic discussion of the kind of affair I’d be willing to engage in. And yet I’m glad we had this talk, Mike. Because I’ve discovered that, much as I believe I’ve fallen in love with you”—she twisted her soft lips cynically over the phrase—“I’m not ready to have a brief, sexual fling or even a longer-term liaison with you. I’m being as honest as I can, Mike,” she said as he became hard-faced. “I’ll wait for another idiotic romantic like myself, I think. A man who can visualize living with me, sharing the hard going, reveling in the good times, facing the challenges that might break up two less caring people. Making it
work
, Mike. It’s not easy, but I know one thing. And it’s thanks to you that I finally understand it.”

“And what’s that?” His voice was harsh, angry.

“That you have to care more about the other person’s pain than about your own. Isn’t it crazy?” she asked. “That old chestnut—‘it hurts me more than it does you’—it’s true, Mike. I think that’s what love means to me: that I would rather be hurt than let my loved one suffer.” She got up at his shuttered expression with rueful eyes. “I’ve sounded like a prig or a schoolgirl, I know. But that’s the way it is for me. I guess I’ve got to have a man who wants me in the same way I want him.”

“With a marriage license in one hand and a ring on the other,” Mike said bitterly. “I thought we had something less commercial than that going for us.”

Lauren frowned. “You’ve missed my point. It’s not commercial—it’s sacred, a dedication. The ring is a vow, not a payment. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

Mike could see just how much she meant her words by the look of pain and regret on her face. He said shrewdly, “If you love me with the sort of love you claim, and don’t want to see me suffer, then you’ll stay with me tonight. Because if you don’t, I’m going to suffer in more ways than one.” He took her slowly into his arms and bent his head to take her lips with his mouth, at first gently, and then, as he felt her response, with increasing arrogance, moving one hand inside her jacket to grasp her breast.

Conquered as much by love as by his use of her own argument, Lauren allowed herself to enter into the kiss fullheartedly. She did love Mike, whatever that meant to either of them. She wanted to satisfy his body, comfort his ego, make him feel strong and desirable and wanted. She gave herself ardently to the kiss, putting her arms around his shoulders and stroking as much of him as she could reach. She melded herself against his hardness, pressed her breasts and hips against him softened her lips and opened them to his demanding mouth. She could feel his excitement burning hotter as her surrender roused him.

“Do you want me, Lauren?” he demanded, raising his dark head.

“I love you,” she said softly. She wouldn’t compromise.

The man stared into her face, reading the clear dedication there. Slowly he let her go, turned, and walked over to the door leading to the terrace. “It’s gone flat, hasn’t it? We’ve talked away the lovely lust we felt for each other. Was last night just a lucky fluke?” He was refusing to look at her, failing to see the steady light in her eyes. He shrugged. “Well, perhaps it was too much to expect, that anything that good could be repeated. I’ll see you to your cabin.”

“No, thank you.” Lauren couldn’t believe how calm her quiet voice was sounding, while, inside, something was tearing with a pain so hard it made her dizzy. “I’d rather go alone.”

She heard his door close before she was three steps along the corridor. He wasn’t going to come after her, pull her into his arms, tell her that it was all a mistake, that he loved her . . .

It was over.

Chapter Six

Ten minutes later, Lauren was sorry she had refused Mike’s offer. She unlocked the door to the sitting room, relocked it from the inside, noted that the door to the models’ room was closed, and slipped quietly into her own bedroom.

She was immediately aware of a heavy reek of wine. Oh, no, she groaned, not Herbert again. Switching on the light, she glanced quickly at the bed, fearful of seeing a red-faced, drunken man asleep on it. The bed was empty.

Lauren scanned the room. Her glance rested on the covered rack containing the new collection. She went to it at once to check on its safety. At least no one had taken it. But then she noticed that, near it, the stench of wine was stronger.

Frantically, Lauren unzipped the cover. Then she stood, frozen, staring. One hand crept up to press against her lips. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision, unable, unwilling to believe. . . .

Every garment on the rack had been liberally soaked with wine. Dark red and odorous, the heavy liquid still dripped from many of the costumes. The shoulders and tops of her new dresses and suits had the most massive stains . . . not removable even if she had time. It was wrecked. The whole new collection was ruined.

Although she knew it was no use, Lauren gently separated the dripping garments and tried to assess the damage. Was there anything usable left? The showing! Could she pull together a few outfits, enough to make some kind of presentation?

No. Whoever had done this had separated each hanger and doused its burden liberally. How many gallons does it take to ruin a collection? Lauren heard herself asking wildly.

She walked back and sat on the side of her bed almost mindlessly. She was finished. Aside from the destruction of months of work, there would be her public failure to present a fashion show tomorrow. How could she explain that to the Cunard officials who had given her this wonderful chance? Of course she could tell them about the ruined garments, but that wouldn’t fill the runway for the final presentation of their special event. The event for which this very cruise had been set up. They would naturally wish to know what kind of security she had set up and how it had been breached.

Who would be this eager to see Lauren Rose fail? Carlos? How could he have gotten into her bedroom? The staff and crew of the
Queen Elizabeth II
were not people who could be bribed to open doors.

Herbert had had a key! On Sunday night he had been sprawled on the couch when she entered the sitting room. She tried to remember whether he had had a key or imposed on Dani. If he had a key, had he dropped it on a table before he left?

Lauren rubbed her forehead frantically. She must
think
. What was to be done? Go at once to the cruise director and tell her of the disaster, of course. And then find Derek and tell him—

Derek! Her eyes widened with incredulous joy. He and Tony had wheeled out a whole rack of the costumes, everything they would be wearing for their presentation, before she had left for Mike’s suite. September Song still had a show! Incomplete, yes—quite failing to do justice to her planning and the seamstresses’ inspired sewing—but a show. Lauren dropped to her bed and lay there, a hand over her eyes, too busy planning to cry.