Ashley flushed with embarrassment. Here she was, dragging him all over the hospital so she could prove she wasn’t a patient. What did she care what this arrogant rich putz thought? And why should he care if she was a patient or not? He was just being polite. A busy man like him probably had a thousand things to do, and she was wasting time with her nonsense, all so she could keep looking at him. She was acting like an idiot!
“What’s the matter with you?”
Ashley jumped. “What?”
“Your face,” he said, sounding bored and not looking at her, “is as red as a tomato. You look like you’re going to have a stroke.”
“The curse of having a pale complexion,” she sighed. “Actually, I was kind of embarrassed. You’ve got way more important things to do than hang around with me. I’m sorry I was so pushy. I’ll see you around. Or maybe not.”
With perfect timing—or disastrous, depending on how you looked at it—the elevator doors snapped open. She stepped forward just as his hand closed around her bicep. “Please,” he said, “hold up.”
She looked at him, conscious of the warmth of his hand on her arm. “What? I said I was going. It’s going to be a lot harder if I have to drag you along behind me like the world’s biggest rag doll.”
“When did I say I wanted you to go?” He couldn’t believe her. Further proof she was clearly unbalanced: no sane woman would be this refreshingly honest, this direct. He had asked why she was blushing and she had told him exactly why, not worried about how silly it might have seemed to him. Not that he found it silly. He found her explanation—and her—charming. And she was going to walk out of his life with a glib ‘See you around’? Not likely! “Ah-ha! Now that you actually have to prove you don’t belong here, you balk. Why don’t you just admit you were wrong and we can go on from there? You don’t have to be ashamed about living here. It’s good that you’re getting help—this is an excellent facility. Who’s your doctor? I’m going to be able to pull a lot of weight around here, maybe I could get you—”
“Extra pudding with dinner?”
“—more privileges. Maybe you could get a day pass and we could do something together. You’re not...um...a danger to yourself or others, right?”
“Only when I’m in a wheelchair.” Ashley realized he was still holding her arm, and the elevator door was starting to close. She jumped through the narrowing crack, pulling him with her. He dropped her arm and she was sorry. She was still reeling from his casual invitation. He was asking her out? Mr. Rich Classy Guy Who Thinks She’s Nuts wanted to go out together? It was almost worth it to let him keep thinking she was a patient.
She realized he was waiting for an answer. “Maybe I’m dreaming,” she said with a frown. “Some Technicolor dream with tons of Freudian symbolism. You’re not carrying a banana with you by any chance, are you?”
“I left it home with my cigars. Come on, let’s get you back to your room.” He prodded her gently and she finally quit frowning at him and started walking. He wanted to rest his hand on the small of her back, but restrained himself. There were a lot of things he wanted to do, and he suspected restraining himself would get to be a habit. For he intended to get to know this creature very well in the coming weeks. She was fascinating and funny and drop-dead gorgeous, and if she had some problems, if she was a patient here, so what?
He wondered briefly if Ashley would be a transitional woman, someone to use in order to get over the pain of divorce, then dismissed the thought. This woman could not be less like his ex-wife if she were from another planet. Where Crystal was calculating, Ashley spoke without thinking. Crystal’s humor was biting and always drew blood; Ashley made him laugh out loud. Even Crystal’s beauty was cold—short, spiky blonde hair, chilly green eyes, sallow skin, colorless lips smeared with frosty lipsticks. Crystal was a tall, urbane, refined woman, and Ashley was none of these things. Hell, she barely came up to his shoulder. No, she was nothing like the woman he married, loved briefly, lived with too long, divorced hurriedly.
“What’s the matter?”
Startled out of his train of thought, he looked at her. “Pardon?”
“You’ve got this really intent look on your face. Planning on foreclosing on a few widows after lunch?”
“Thursdays is Foreclosure day. Today I’m tearing down the orphanage.”
She snorted, then marched into her room (12A, he noted, and committed to memory) and gaily greeted the woman sitting on the bed. “Jeannie, you’ll never guess who saved me from being tossed out by Dr. Doofus Langenfeld.”
Victor nodded politely. “Ma’am,” he said, though he’d bet half his fortune she hadn’t yet seen twenty-five.
Jeannie nodded back. She was dressed in orange stirrup pants with the stirrups loose and flapping around her ankles, and a white turtleneck roughly four times too large for her. She had short, curly strawberry blonde hair and freckles, vivid green eyes, and a small, perfectly upturned nose. She looked like an imp, a sprite, some small creature of gaiety and fun, so he was more than a little surprised when she greeted him with a husky, “Bonjour. Many thanks for saving my friend from the dire Dr. Langenfeld’s odious clutches. And Ashley, as you well know, my name is not Jeannie, it is Jeannette. Triscuit?” She offered him the box.
“No thanks.”
“Jean, you’ll never guess! Vic thinks I’m a patient here. Isn’t that wild?”
“Your character judgment is shadowed only by your good looks. You are uncommonly handsome.”
“Thank you,” he managed.
“Why are you thanking me? You had nothing to do with it. You’re the result of a crapshoot, genetically speaking. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky.”
“You’re pretty!” he protested.
“Pretty,” she sneered, as if she were saying ‘garbage’.
“Oh, here we go,” Ashley said.
“I am cute, I am adorable, I am pretty. Bah! My outside should match my inside. I should be tall, stately and stunning, with a commanding presence. Instead I look like I fell off a Disney set.” Her tone was severe but she smiled as she spoke and Vic, after his initial discomfort, found himself smiling back.
“Anyway,” Ashley said impatiently, “this is why I was here, Vic. Jean’s the patient. I just come to visit.”
“Is that true?” he asked Jeannette.
Jeannette’s eyes, the green of dusty leaves, began to gleam in a way he didn’t like. “Now, Ashley. You know Dr. Ristau doesn’t like it when you tell lies.”
“This is not the time for one of your sick jokes,” Ashley said warningly, beginning to look alarmed.
“Did she tell you she could leave any time she pleased?” Jeannette asked him, her voice heavy with sympathy. Vic nodded. “Ah, well. New medication, don’t you know.”
“I’m not on any medication, you liar!”
“I’m the liar?” she asked, offended. “You’re the one claiming you don’t live here.”
Ashley actually hopped with rage. “I don’t live here! And I’m never coming to visit you again if you don’t tell him the truth!”
Jeannette sighed. “Oh, Ash, poor darling. Deluded to the end.”
Ashley growled and started forward, fists clenched. Jeannette squeaked and snatched a pillow to her chest in defense. “Now Ashley,” she gasped. “Remember what Dr. Ristau said. You have to get in touch with your anger, stop lashing out at innocents.”
“I’m going to lash out, all right,” she promised grimly. “You won’t be able to walk for a week when I get done lashing out.”
Victor decided now might be a prudent time to jump in, so he reached out, grabbed Ashley, and pulled her back. “You’d better not,” he said, hellishly conscious of her warm bottom against his groin. “They’ll probably send orderlies to tranq you or something. I’m pretty sure they don’t let the patients get into fistfights.”
“Jeannie!” Ashley shouted as he pulled her away from the cowering woman. “Tell him the truth!”
“Actually,” she sai
d, peeking out from under the pillow, “I find it interesting that it matters so much to you what he thinks. Most interesting.”
“You’re going to find traction interesting if you don’t cut the crap!”
“Ashley, Ashley,” Vic said soothingly, then nearly went sprawling as she tried to yank herself away from him by lunging for Jeannette. He solved that problem by wrapping his arms around her middle and picking her up off the floor, holding her against him. “Don’t get upset. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“It does matter,” she said, feet swinging impotently.
“No,” he said firmly. “It doesn’t. I’m just glad you’re in a place where you can get better.”
She made an inarticulate sound of rage and wriggled to get loose. Her feet kicked and swung six inches off the floor. He squeezed her until she squeaked and stopped kicking. “If I put you down,” he said, not particularly wanting to, “will you stop trying to hurt Jeannette?”
“No.”
Jeannette laughed, and he was surprised into temporary silence. It certainly wasn’t the answer he’d expected. After thinking of with several things to say and discarding them all, he finally came up with, “Are you open to bribery?”
“Oh, put me down, I won’t hurt the creep. Why give her something fun to talk about in Group?” He did as she asked and Ashley stood alone, hands on her hips, glaring at the other woman. “Jean, I’m about to prove I’m not a patient,” she warned. “It’s your last chance to come clean.”
“She has an obsession with cleanliness,” Jean explained to Victor. “She scrubs her hands twenty, thirty times a day. And takes dozens of showers. It’s even, as you can see, invaded her speech patterns.”
Before Ashley could reply, and what a colorful reply it would have been, he had no doubt, the door swung open and Dr. Langenfeld, flanked by two security guards, glowered at them.
“Bother,” Jean muttered.
“Miss Lorentz! I told you earlier you were banned from this floor for the week. In addition to ignoring visiting hours, your presence here has stirred up the patients. I asked you to leave or be escorted out. As you have not done the former, you will now suffer the latter. You will not be allowed back onto hospital property for one week.”
And before Victor’s astonished gaze, the guards stepped forward in frighteningly perfect unison, grabbed each of Ashley’s arms, and bore her away.
CHAPTER TWO
Stupid, Ashley told herself, racing to be on time. She dodged fellow pedestrians and darted across the street, just missing getting creamed by a taxi. You’re as giddy as a girl on her first date. Which this ain’t. So get hold of yourself, you twit!
No, definitely not a date. This was work. She’d gone to her editor, suggested a profile piece about the man who’d so casually donated half a mill to Carlson-Musch, and he’d given her the assignment. Now she had a legitimate excuse to see Victor again, and couldn’t wait. Hell, look at her—sprinting to her luncheon with the man. She’d be trying to interview him while panting for breath. He was bound to get the wrong idea.
The trouble was, she had liked Victor from the moment she saw him. The trouble was, he was everything she admired in a man. The trouble was, she was very much afraid she was halfway in love with the guy already…and this, on less than an hour’s acquaintance!
Play it cool, okay? Got that? Coooooool.
“Got it,” she said aloud. She always agreed when she heard good advice. She started to jump over a homeless man crouched by the curb, stopped, fumbled for a couple dollars, tossed them in the general direction of his cup, barely heard his, “Thanks, Cherry!” waved distractedly over his shoulder, and then was skidding to a halt in front of the restaurant, pulling open the door and charging inside.
She knew she was a sucker for homeless people but, again, knowing a thing didn’t mean you could—or would—do anything about it. In her case, it was simple. That grizzled, trembling man on the corner, that too-thin, shivering woman in line for a free blanket, they could be her father, her mother. An uncle. A cousin. When you didn’t know who you came from, you couldn’t afford to be a snob. Or prejudiced. Nothing worse, she thought with grim cheer, than biting your own tail.
So, over the years she had tucked countless dollars into countless cups (once accidentally stuffing a fiver into a man’s half-full coffee cup…he had been so irritated. “For Christ’s sake, lady, I’m just wearing old clothes!”), working in soup kitchens during the holidays and donating blankets and pillows to the city’s homeless shelters. Her friend Jean had once asked her if she expected to find her family that way, if she was, in fact, looking for her family that way, and Ashley hadn’t been able to deny it.
This man, the one she had almost jumped over in her rush to get to the restaurant, had been calling her Cherry for most of the year. He said her hair reminded him of black cherry soda—dark, with dark red highlights. “Makes me thirsty for a Coke every time I see you,” he had complained, but she could see the smile in his eyes. She kept a special eye out for him, and often gave him more than she could afford.
“Ma’am?”
The restaurant hostess brought Ashley out of her reverie; she treated the woman to a sunny grin and said breathlessly, “I’m meeting Victor Lawrence.”
The hostess nodded and brought Ashley to Victor’s table at once. She plunked down in her seat before he could rise.
“Hi!”
“Hello yourself. Are you all right?”
“Sure.” Ashley tried to control her panting while she shrugged out of her jacket. “I was in a hurry to get here, that’s all. Didn’t want to be late.” And I couldn’t wait to see you again.
“Well, you are late. By twenty whole seconds.”
“Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have waited for the Walk sign.”
He laughed, watching her struggle out of her jacket. He’d thought about her all week. He’d been furious with Langenfeld for throwing her out, for being so harsh. “So, what will you have?”
“Whatever I like,” she said pertly. “I’m paying for it, aren’t I? Actually, the newspaper is…”
He shook his head. “Sorry, no. My agreeing to the interview was just a ruse to get you here. Watch out! We’re on a full-fledged date.”
She did an alarming thing, then—blushed to the roots of her hair. He reached for her hand and then stopped himself. “Are you sure you’re all—”
“Victor,” she interrupted, “could we possibly talk about something else besides whether or not I’m all right? You’ve probably asked that question a dozen times and we barely know each other.”
“It’s just…you’re so odd.”
“I’m not. I’m like everyone else. I’m exactly, totally normal.”
He smiled. “No. You’re not.”
“Please! Next you’ll be saying my eyes are like the desert sky and my hair is like…uh…”
“The deepest, richest mahogany?” he suggested, laughing out loud when she rolled her eyes at him.
“I do have to interview you, you know.”
“I don’t want to talk about me. I want to hear about you. I’ll interview you.” He’d been so pleased when she called his work number. She must have gotten it from Dr. Langenfeld, which would have been a dear concession on her part. So he’d been flattered as well. And now that they were here, damned if he was going to waste their time together yakking about his business deductions, which was how he viewed his donations.
The waiter came and Victor noticed with annoyance that the man couldn’t take his eyes off Ashley, walked away besotted, in fact. And came back too many times to see if Ashley needed something, anything, while waiting for her food.
Over appetizers, she listened to him talk about Crystal, his former wife. She noticed how tight his face got when he talked about the woman. She offered no opinion or comment, just listened.
“…and then I caught her cheating on me, but it was over by then, anyway. I wasn’t even that mad about it—her in my bed with some guy. I was just
annoyed because it meant the divorce would drag on longer, if we were going to get into who’s fault it was, and why.”
“And did it?”
“No, not really.” He laughed hollowly. “Turns out she was as anxious to be rid of me as I was to be rid of her. All the baby talk, you know.”
Ashley was busily buttering her muffin, but she looked up at that. “Baby talk?”
“Well…yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I really want—wanted kids. She didn’t. Not ever. We fought about it all the time. That’s when I knew her cheating was a message.”
“Because the other man had had a vasectomy,” she said matter-of-factly, then took a huge bite of her muffin.
Astonished, he stared at her. “How did you know that?”
“You said it was a message, right?” she said with her mouth full, lightly spraying him with crumbs. She swallowed, took a gulp of water, brushed crumbs off his sleeve, and continued. “She figured you weren’t listening when she said she didn’t want children, so why not do the humpty with someone who couldn’t get her pregnant? She could get her rocks off and teach you a lesson at the same time.”
“That’s right. That’s exactly right. You’re quick.”
“I am. Quick like a bunny.”
“And so modest!” he mocked.
“By the way, Crys-dull—”
The laugh almost escaped; he locked it back in time and looked stern. “Crystal.”
“Whatever. She sounds like a real charmer. What in the world did you see in her?”
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “Our marriage…it was sort of a business deal.”
She dropped her knife and it hit her plate with a loud clang. “You mean it wasn’t a marriage, it was a merger?”
“Yup.”
“Wow! This is going to make some story.”
“Don’t you dare print any of—” He saw she was teasing, and smiled. “Sorry. And not just for that…I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
“I’m glad you are,” she said sincerely. “Did you think it was going to last?”