“I never thought of that. Thank you,” she said softly. “I’ll never forget it. The next time I walk onto a stage, I’ll remind myself that a part of her is right there with me.”
A minute ago, she’d made him ache for her; now she smiled at him and made him feel like a king. Loving Leigh Kendall had always been an emotional roller-coaster ride for him. Long ago, he’d had to stay away from her, and that had been agonizingly hard. Now, he was with her, and he was growing so attuned to her that he could almost feel what she felt. “You grew up in Ohio, then?”
She nodded. “In a tiny little town you’ve never heard of.”
“Were you lonely?”
“No, I really wasn’t. Everyone in town knew my grandmother and they’d known my mother when she was a girl. I was ‘a motherless waif,’ so half the town just sort of—adopted me.”
“A beautiful motherless waif,” he clarified.
“I’ve never been close to beautiful, and especially not in those days. I had freckles and fire-engine red hair. There’s a picture of me when I was about three, sitting on a sofa, holding my Raggedy Ann doll up to my face.” Laughingly, she confided, “We looked like twins!”
Her smile was so contagious that he grinned at her. “How did you end up in New York?”
“My high school teacher decided I had a talent for drama and she made it her mission in life to get a scholarship for me to NYU. When I left for New York, half the town went to the bus station to see me off. They never doubted I’d succeed, and for a long time, I felt driven to do it more for their sake than mine. My grandmother died two years ago, and I stopped going back there.”
Michael handed her a glass of brandy and picked up his. “Come with me,” he said, “and I’ll show you what architects refer to as ‘the owner’s retreat.’ ” He waited for her to stand up and take a sip of brandy; then he put his hand on the small of her back. He had waited long enough to taste those soft lips of hers.
She shivered and said, “The first sip of brandy always tastes like gasoline.”
Leigh saw his mouth quirk in a half-smile. “Did I say something funny?”
The half-smile became a lazy grin. “No.”
“Then—why are you smiling?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Chapter 49
* * *
Anxious to see what he wanted to show her, Leigh walked with him to the far side of the foyer. Concealed from view of the living room by the curve of the staircase were a pair of doors that opened onto a beautiful, sunken sitting area with groupings of comfortable-looking sofas arranged in front of a fireplace.
Earlier, the absence of furniture had reassured her, but after the congenial time they’d spent talking in the family room, she realized her worries had been groundless. Michael hadn’t made a single overture, and she wondered why she’d imagined he might be planning to. In the aftermath of Logan’s death, her emotions weren’t stable and neither, clearly, was her judgment at times.
As she walked down the steps into the sitting room, she looked around and said, “You own a piece of heaven, with the views to go with it.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it.” On the right, through a wide arched opening, was what she assumed was the bedroom, but she had a clear view straight through the room to the wide windows beyond, overlooking Central Park, so she wasn’t certain. However, on the left, a matching opening showed a glimpse of wood-and-glass-fronted cabinets with recessed lighting, so she assumed that room must be his study. “I thought you said you hadn’t moved in?” she asked idly.
“I didn’t mean to imply I wasn’t living here yet. I had this suite furnished two weeks ago so that I could. The rest of my things will arrive next week, but there isn’t much to bring here. I sold nearly everything with my other place,” he explained as he walked into the study. Leigh put her brandy glass on an end table, and followed him. “The only significant things I kept are my desk, because I designed it, my books, and some art and sculptures I particularly value.”
He touched a light switch and muted cove lighting glowed on the ceiling overheard. Everything in the study was paneled in rich wood the color of light mahogany, even the carved box molding on the ceiling overhead.
His desk was a beautiful piece, large without being massive, with rounded corners. It was positioned on the far left of the room, facing the glassed cases and art niches. Leigh walked over to admire it. “You have many talents,” she said as she ran her finger over its smooth inlaid wood.
When he didn’t answer, she looked over her shoulder and saw him still standing just inside the room, his left hand in his pocket, a glass of brandy in his hand . . . watching her, his expression solemn, yet amused. Puzzled, she turned away and looked at the books in the bookcases that lined the wall on the right, walking slowly along, scanning titles. “Is there anything you aren’t interested in?” she asked with a quick smile.
“A few things.”
An odd, brief answer, she noticed. Perhaps he was tired. He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy that enabled him to work all day and stay late at her apartment whenever they had dinner together. “Are you tired?”
“Not in the least.”
She moved along the bookshelves until she came to where he was standing; then she turned and walked over to the wall of glass cases and niches facing his desk. “Now, let’s see what art and sculptures you particularly value.” His tastes were eclectic and refined, she thought—a fabulous Etruscan vase, a splendid marble bust, a magnificent carved lapis bowl inlaid with gold. She came to a small framed oil painting on a stand behind the backlit glass. “Please tell me you haven’t had that Renoir here with workmen around the place.”
“It’s been in a vault until today, and the security system in this room is much more elaborate than it appears.”
She looked in the next niche—a very small one—and stared in blank astonishment at what it held. In that niche was a small, inexpensive pewter figure of a knight in armor. Leigh turned halfway around, staring at him.
In response, he lifted his brows, waiting for her to discuss it with him. Inwardly, Leigh was reeling, but this time, she decided firmly, it was up to him to do the explaining voluntarily.
Michael knew she was genuinely shaken, but in a pulse beat, she turned into the actress she was and strolled nonchalantly to the next niche, clasping her hands loosely behind her back. “Is this glass sculpture a Bill Meek piece?”
“Yes,” he said, trying not to laugh. She could not have made her attitude more eloquent unless she’d started humming, and she could not have looked sexier than she did in that long-sleeved black sheath that accented the same provocative curves it concealed from his view—temporarily. Very temporarily.
“I love Bill Meek’s work. It’s so uplifting it’s almost spiritual.”
He decided to call her bluff. “What did you think of the pewter knight before that?”
Politely she leaned back to reexamine it and said, as if truly looking for something about it to compliment, “It has excellent lighting.”
Tenderness shook through him. “I’ve always admired the subtlety of its message.”
“What do you think a piece like that is worth?” she inquired, feigning interest.
“That particular piece is priceless.”
“I see.” She moved away to another niche, and he watched the way her hair gleamed in the light when she leaned close to study its sculpture. “You know,” she mused as if just recalling the incident, “a long time ago, I gave a man a little pewter knight like that one.”
“Really? How did he react?”
“He didn’t want it. In fact, he didn’t want anything to do with me. He never spoke to me unless he had to, and when he did, he was either impolite or caustic.”
“What a jerk.”
She crouched a little to see into the niche below. “Yes, he was. But for reasons I couldn’t understand, it always bothered me that he didn’t like me. I kept trying
to befriend him.”
“He probably noticed that.”
“Maybe so. But here’s what’s really peculiar: Years later, I discovered he’d spent his money to buy me special pears he wouldn’t give to me in person . . . and he also went to see me in a play.” She moved past the next case, stopping at the one after that, then she came to the end and began slowly retracing her steps. “One night, he risked his life to save mine. Don’t you find all that a little odd?”
“On the surface, yes.”
“What do you think I should do about it?”
“In your place,” Michael said with solemn amusement, as he put his brandy glass on a shelf and started toward her, “I would insist on an explanation.”
She sent him a sideways glance beneath her lashes. “Do you have one?”
“Yes.” Putting his hand on her arm, he turned her around to face him while he told her the truth: “Fourteen years ago, I wanted you to have the most beautiful pears in the state of New York, and I wanted to be the one who got them for you. I wanted you to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to keep the gift you gave me, and I wanted to give you gifts. In short,” he finished, “I wanted you.”
She stared at him in a comic struggle to understand. “And you thought you could make me want you by being hateful?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head firmly in the negative. “I already had a dark past and a gray future; I didn’t want you to have anything to do with me. I wanted something much better for you, than me.” In a tone of reprimand, he added, “I also wanted something a hell of a lot better for you than that phony, preppy asshole you fell for. I was furious when you told my aunt you were engaged to him. I could not believe I’d actually saved you from me, only to have you end up with Logan Manning.”
For several moments, Leigh struggled against simultaneous urges to laugh, cry, and lean up and kiss his lean cheek. “That is the most bizarre story I’ve ever heard,” she told him finally with a winsome smile. “And very possibly the sweetest.”
Smiling back at her, he put his arm around her shoulders and started walking toward the doorway while he told her something so poignant that she leaned her head against his shoulder: “I’ve kept that knight somewhere in sight in every office I’ve had. It was my beacon. In the early years, if I faltered over a choice, I’d look at that little pewter knight and remember that I was ‘gallant’ in your eyes, and I would make whatever choice was ethical and right.” Teasingly, he explained, “I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to be ‘gallant,’ so I settled for ethical instead.”
He stopped in the sitting room and perched his hip on the back of a sofa; then he drew her close against his legs and settled his hands on her waist.
Leigh sensed that whatever he wanted to say next was very important, because he seemed to be taking an unusual amount of time thinking about it. Either that, or he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Reaching toward the table, she picked up her brandy and sipped it, waiting, noticing how attractive he looked in an open-collared white shirt. His was a sternly handsome face, more stern than handsome, at times, but infinitely more “male” than Logan’s face. Michael had strength carved in his jaw and pride stamped on his rugged features. And he had wonderful eyes, eyes that could turn hard or be soft, but they were always knowing and wise. Logan’s mind had usually been on something besides the person talking to him; his eyes had strayed along with his thoughts.
Michael didn’t notice that she was taking stock of his face; he was trying to decide what to say next. He knew exactly what he wanted to say: “I’m in love with you. Come to bed with me, and I’ll make you forget how badly he hurt you.” The problem was that her husband’s betrayal would stop her from believing him if he told her how he felt, just as it was going to stop her from wanting to go to bed with him now.
He was as sure of that as he was that her feelings for him went much deeper than she wanted to realize right now. There had always been an inexplicable bond between them; some essential understanding that took over as soon as they were together. Years ago, she’d seen something good in him and instinctively forced it to the surface. Even now, when the world understandably believed the worst of him, when a newspaper could make a logical case for the theory that he’d murdered her husband, she—who should have been the most suspicious—was his staunchest supporter.
Unfortunately, those were all emotional issues, and he did not think she was ready to talk about them, because her emotions were already overburdened. But he decided to try that approach first. He slid his hands up her arms, and quietly asked, “Do you believe in fate?”
She laughed, and there was a catch in her voice. “Not anymore.” After a pause she wrinkled her nose and said, “Do you?”
That catch in her voice made him hate Logan Manning twice as much as he already did. “I’m Italian and Irish,” he joked. “My forebears invented superstition and folklore. Of course I believe in fate.” She smiled at that, so he continued lightly, “I believe you were meant to give that knight to me. You were meant to be my beacon.”
He watched uncertainty and disbelief darken her eyes, but he kept going anyway, testing her emotional boundaries. “I was meant to watch over you. I was meant to be there for you when two punks tried to attack you. I was also supposed to keep you,” he added bluntly, “but I screwed up and let Logan Manning have you. Do you know what else I believe?”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
Damn Logan Manning. “I believe fate is giving me another chance to do my job.”
“And—what do you think your job is?” she asked with wary amusement.
“I told you,” Michael said, trying not to sound as solemn as he felt, “my job is to watch over you. And part of that job right now is to help you get over Logan. It’s time to get even with him for cheating on you and betraying your trust. You’re not going to be able to feel like yourself until you get some of your pride back.”
“And how would I get even?”
He looked at her with a slow, roguish grin. “An eye for an eye—” he said. “He cheated on you, so you have to cheat on him now—on his memory.”
Her eyes were swimming with mirth and she bit her lip to stop from laughing, but there was unmistakable affection in her voice. “Have you ever considered an insanity plea, when the police hassle you?” she asked, “because I really think we could get you off with—”
“ ‘We’?” he repeated, interrupting her. “Notice how naturally you team up with me. You wouldn’t fight for yourself, but when that newspaper said something evil about me, you came out swinging at everybody involved.” He chuckled and shook his head. “We’d have made a hell of a team fourteen years ago.”
With an effort, he put that poignant thought aside and braced himself for a brief skirmish. “But that was then, and this is now, and here I am—ready to do my job and help you get even with Logan tonight. Volunteering, in fact. Come to bed with me.”
It hit Leigh for the first time that despite his teasing attitude, he was serious. Very, very serious. “No! Absolutely not! That’s insane. It would change everything. We wouldn’t be the same. I love the way we are. And besides that, it wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“To whom?”
“To you! How could you think I would ever . . . use . . . you like that? I wouldn’t dream of it!”
He chuckled. “I want to be used.”
He was laughing, but he wasn’t merely serious, he was resolute! She could hear it in his voice. The mere thought of going to bed with him, of exposing herself emotionally as well as physically, made her cringe with panic. She would lose him, along with what little self-respect she had left. “Please,” she said achingly, “please don’t do this to me. Let things stay the way they are. I don’t want to . . . to do that. Not with anyone.”
She pulled back enough to put her glass down, but his hands tightened and he stood up when she tried to back out of his reach.
“You’re going to hav
e to tell me why . . .” Rage at Logan Manning poured through Michael’s veins like acid, but he kept his voice neutral. “ . . . or I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
Her voice broke. “Damn you, why are you doing this to me!” She leaned her forehead against his chest, her eyes flooding with tears of humiliation and despair. “Can’t you leave me a little pride?”
He stared over her head blindly, his hands tightening protectively on her back while he purposely probed at her wounds. “I want you to tell me why you won’t go to bed with me. I want you to tell me the truth.”
“Fine!” she cried. “Here’s your truth! The whole world knows ‘the truth.’ My husband didn’t want me. I don’t know what you think you’d get out of going to bed with me, but it wasn’t enough for him, and it won’t be enough for you. I loved him,” she choked brokenly, “and he didn’t even care enough about me to keep his hands off my friends, or my colleagues. Let go of me, I want to go home!” She struggled harder, and when his arms tightened even more, imprisoning her against his chest, she collapsed against him sobbing. “The names of his lovers are in all the newspapers. . . .”
“I know,” he whispered. Holding her tighter, he rested his cheek against the top of her head, swallowing against the aching lump of emotion in his throat, his hands drifting over her sides and back while her slim shoulders shook with anguished weeping. He remembered the first time he saw those laughing green eyes looking up at him, framed by a curtain of auburn hair, and he squeezed his own eyes closed.
He waited until her crying finally started to subside; then he firmly shook off his own sorrow and resolved to make her laugh. “I don’t blame you for crying. I mean, where will you ever find another man with so much integrity, loyalty, and ego?” With a joking sigh, he added, “You’re going to have to tramp through a lot of manure-filled pastures before you can find a pile as big as the one you had.”
Her body stiffened as if a jolt of electricity had shot through her, and after a moment of tense stillness, her shoulders began to shake again, only harder than before. Grinning, Michael lifted his head. He knew she was laughing even before she dragged her face away from his shirt and lifted her glorious eyes to his.