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He paused to sip, to look back. Beside him Natasha stared into her glass, watching bubbles rise. “And she wanted you.”
“In her way. The pity was that her attraction for me was as shallow as mine for her. And in the end just as destructive. I loved beautiful things.” With a half laugh he tilted his glass again. “And I was used to having them. She was exquisite, like a delicate porcelain doll. We moved in the same circles, attended the same parties, preferred the same literature and music.”
Natasha shifted her glass from one hand to the other, wishing his words didn’t make her feel so miserable. “It’s important to have things in common.”
“Oh, we had plenty in common. She was as spoiled and as pampered as I, as self-absorbed and as ambitious. I don’t think we shared any particularly admirable qualities.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“You didn’t know me then.” He found himself profoundly grateful for that. “I was a very rich young man who took everything I had for granted, because I had always had it. Things change,” he murmured.
“Only people who are born with money can consider it a disadvantage.”
He glanced over to see her sitting cross-legged, the glass cupped in both hands. Her eyes were solemn and direct, and made him smile at himself. “Yes, you’re right. I wonder what might have happened if I had met you when I was twenty-five.” He touched her hair, but didn’t dwell on the point. “In any case, Angela and I were married within a year and bored with each other only months after the ink had dried on the marriage certificate.”
“Why?”
“Because at that time we were so much alike. When it started to fall apart, I wanted badly to fix it. I’d never failed at anything. The worst of it was, I wanted the marriage to work more for my own ego than because of my feelings for her. I was in love with the image of her and the image we made together.”
“Yes.” She thought of herself and her feelings for Anthony. “I understand.”
“Do you?” The question was only a murmur. “It took me years to understand it. In any case, once I did, there were other considerations.”
“Freddie,” Natasha said again.
“Yes, Freddie. Though we still lived together and went through the motions of marriage, Angela and I had drifted apart. But in public and in private we were…civilized. I can’t tell you how demeaning and destructive a civilized marriage can be. It’s a cheat, Natasha, to both parties. And we were equally to blame. Then one day she came home furious, livid. I remember how she stalked over to the bar, tossing her mink aside so that it fell on the floor. She poured a drink, drank it down, then threw the glass against the wall. And told me she was pregnant.”
Her throat dry, Natasha drank. “How did you feel?”
“Stunned. Rocked. We’d never planned on having children. We were much too much children, spoiled children ourselves. Angela had had a little more time to think it all through and had her answer. She wanted to go to Europe to a private clinic and have an abortion.”
Something tightened inside Natasha. “Is that what you wanted?”
He wished, how he wished he could have answered unequivocably no. “At first I didn’t know. My marriage was falling apart, I’d never given a thought to having children. It seemed sensible. And then, I’m not sure why, but I was furious. I guess it was because it was the easy way again, the easy way out for both of us. She wanted me to snap my fingers and get rid of this…inconvenience.”
Natasha stared down at her own balled fist. His words were hitting much too close to home. “What did you do?”
“I made a bargain with her. She would have the baby, and we would give the marriage another shot. She would have the abortion and I would divorce her, and make certain that she didn’t get what she considered her share of the Kimball money.”
“Because you wanted the child.”
“No.” It was a painful admission, one that still cost him. “Because I wanted my life to run the way I’d imagined it would. I knew if she had an abortion, we would never put the pieces back. I thought perhaps if we shared this, we’d pull it all together again.”
Natasha remained silent for a moment, absorbing his words and seeing them reflected in her own memories. “People sometimes think a baby will fix what’s broken.”
“And it doesn’t,” he finished. “Nor should it have to. By the time Freddie was born, I was already losing my grip on my music. I couldn’t write. Angela had delivered Freddie, then passed her over to Vera, as though she were no more than a litter of kittens. I was little better.”
“No.” She reached out to take his wrist. “I’ve seen you with her. I know how you love her.”
“Now. What you said to me that night on the steps of the college, about not deserving her. It hurt because it was true.” He saw Natasha shake her head but went on. “I’d made a bargain with Angela, and for more than a year I kept it. I barely saw the child, because I was so busy escorting Angela to the ballet or the theater. I’d stopped working completely. I did nothing. I never fed her or bathed her or cuddled her at night. Sometimes I’d hear her crying in the other room and wonder—what is that noise? Then I’d remember.”
He picked up the bottle to top off his glass. “Sometime before Freddie was two I stepped back and looked at what I’d done with my life. And what I hadn’t done. It made me sick. I had a child. It took more than a year for it to sink in. I had no marriage, no wife, no music, but I had a child. I decided I had an obligation, a responsibility, and it was time to pull myself up and deal with it. That’s how I thought of Freddie at first, when I finally began to think of her. An obligation.” He drank again, then shook his head. “That was little better than ignoring her. Finally I looked, really looked at that beautiful little girl and fell in love. I picked her up out of her crib, scared to death, and just held her. She screamed for Vera.”
He laughed at that, then stared once more into his wine. “It took months before she was comfortable around me. By that time I’d asked Angela for a divorce. She’d snapped up my offer without a blink. When I told her I was keeping the child, she wished me luck and walked out. She never came back to see Freddie, not once in all the months the lawyers were battling over a settlement. Then I heard that she’d been killed. A boating accident in the Mediterranean. Sometimes I’m afraid Freddie remembers what her mother was like. More, I’m afraid she’ll remember what I was like.”
Natasha remembered how Freddie had spoken of her mother when they had rocked. Setting aside her glass, she took Spence’s face in her hand. “Children forgive,” she told him. “Forgiveness is easy when you’re loved. It’s harder, so much harder to forgive yourself. But you must.”
“I think I’ve begun to.”
Natasha took his glass and set it aside. “Let me love you,” she said simply, and enfolded him.
It was different now that passion had mellowed. Slower, smoother, richer. As they knelt on the bed, their mouths met dreamily—a long, lazy exploration of tastes that had become hauntingly familiar. She wanted to show him what he meant to her, and that what they had together, tonight, was worlds apart from what had been. She wanted to comfort, excite and cleanse.
A sigh, then a murmur, then a low, liquid moan. The sounds were followed by a light, breezy touch. Fingertips trailing on flesh. She knew his body now as well as her own, every angle, every plane, every vulnerability. When his breath caught on a tremble, her laughter came quietly. Watching him in the shifting candlelight, she brushed kisses at his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his throat. There a pulse beat for her, heavy and fast.
She was as erotic as any fantasy, her body swaying first to, then away from his. Her eyes stayed on him, glowing, aware, and her hair fell in a torrent of dark silk over her naked shoulders.
When he touched her, skimming his hands up and over, her head fell back. But there was nothing of submission in the gesture. It was a demand. Pleasure me.
On a groan he lowered his mouth to her throat and felt the need punch like a fist through his gut. His open mouth growing greedy, he trailed down her, pausing to linger at the firm swell of her breast. He could feel her heart, almost taste it, as its beat grew fast and hard against his lips. Her hands came to his hair, gripping tight while she arched like a bow.
Before he could think he reached for her and sent her spiraling over the first crest.
Breathless, shuddering, she clung, managing only a confused murmur as he laid her back on the bed. She struggled for inner balance, but he was already destroying will and mind and control.
This was seduction. She hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t wanted it. Now she welcomed it. She couldn’t move, couldn’t object. Helpless, drowning in her own pleasure, she let him take her where he willed. His mouth roamed freely over her damp skin. His hands played her as skillfully as they might a fine-tuned instrument. Her muscles went lax.
Her breath began to rush through her lips. She heard music. Symphonies, cantatas, preludes. Weakness became strength and she reached for him, wanting only to feel his body fit against her own.
Slowly, tormentingly, he slid up her, leaving trails of heat and ice, of pleasure and pain. His own body throbbed as she moved under him. He found her mouth, diving deep, holding back even when her fingers dug into his hips.
Again and again he brought them both shivering to the edge, only to retreat, prolonging dozens of smaller pleasures. Her throat was a long white column he could feast on as she rose to him. Her arms wrapped themselves fast around him like taut silk. Her breath rushed along his cheek, then into his mouth, where it formed his own name like a prayer against his lips.
When he slipped into her, even pleasure was shattered.
Natasha awoke to the scent of coffee and soap, and the enjoyable sensation of having her neck nuzzled.
“If you don’t wake up,” Spence murmured into her ear, “I’m going to have to crawl back into bed with you.”
“All right,” she said on a sigh and snuggled closer.
Spence took along, reluctant look at her shoulders, which the shifting sheets had bared. “It’s tempting, but I should be home in an hour.”
“Why?” Her eyes still closed, she reached out. “It’s early.”
“It’s nearly nine.”
“Nine? In the morning?” Her eyes flew open. She shot up in bed, and he wisely moved the cup of coffee out of harm’s way. “How can it be nine?”
“It comes after eight.”
“But I never sleep so late.” She pushed back her hair with both hands, then managed to focus. “You’re dressed.”
“Unfortunately,” he agreed, even more reluctantly when the sheets pooled around her waist. “Freddie’s due home at ten. I had a shower.” Reaching out, he began to toy with her hair. “I was going to wake you, see if you wanted to join me, but you looked so terrific sleeping I didn’t have the heart.” He leaned over to nip at her bottom lip. “I’ve never watched you sleep before.”
The very idea of it had the blood rushing warm under her skin. “You should have gotten me up.”
“Yes.” With a half smile he offered her the coffee. “I can see I made a mistake. Easy with the coffee,” he warned. “It’s really terrible. I’ve never made it before.”
Eyeing him, she took a sip, then grimaced. “You really should have wakened me.” But she valiantly took another sip, thinking how sweet it was of him to bring it to her. “Do you have time for breakfast? I’ll make you some.”
“I’d like that. I was going to grab a doughnut from the bakery down the street.”
“I can’t make pastries like Ye Old Sweet Shoppe, but I can fix you eggs.” Laughing, she set the cup aside. “And coffee.”
In ten minutes she was wrapped in a short red robe, frying thin slices of ham. He liked watching her like this, her hair tousled, eyes still heavy with sleep. She moved competently from stove to counter, like a woman who had grown up doing such chores as a matter of course.
Outside a thin November rain was falling from a pewter sky. He heard the muffled sound of footsteps from the apartment above, then the faint sound of music. Jazz from the neighbor’s radio. And there was the sizzle of meat grilling, the hum of the baseboard heater under the window. Morning music, Spence thought.
“I could get used to this,” he said, thinking aloud.
“To what?” Natasha popped two slices of bread into the toaster.
“To waking up with you, having breakfast with you.”
Her hands fluttered once, as if her thoughts had suddenly taken a sharp turn. Then, very deliberately they began to work again. And she said nothing at all.
“That’s the wrong thing to say again, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t right or wrong.” Her movements brisk, she brought him a cup of coffee. She would have turned away once more, but he caught her wrist. When she forced herself to look at him, she saw that the expression in his eyes was very intense. “You don’t want me to fall in love with you, Natasha, but neither one of us have a choice about it.”
“There’s always a choice,” she said carefully. “It’s sometimes hard to make the right one, or to know the right one.”
“Then it’s already been made. I am in love with you.”
He saw the change in her face, a softening, a yielding, and something in her eyes, something deep and shadowed and incredibly beautiful. Then it was gone. “The eggs are going to burn.”
His hand balled into a fist as she walked back to the stove. Slowly, carefully he flexed his fingers. “I said I love you, and you’re worried about eggs burning.”
“I’m a practical woman, Spence. I’ve had to be.” But it was hard to think, very hard, when her mind and heart were dragging her in opposing directions. She fixed the plates with the care she might have given to a state dinner. Going over and over the words in her head, she set the plates on the table, then sat down across from him.
“We’ve only known each other a short time.”
“Long enough.”
She moistened her lips. What she heard in his voice was more hurt than anger. She wanted nothing less than to hurt him. “There are things about me you don’t know. Things I’m not ready to tell you.”
“They don’t matter.”
“They do.” She took a deep breath. “We have something. It would be ridiculous to try to deny it. But love—there is no bigger word in the world. If we share that word, things will change.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t let them. From the beginning I told you there could be no promises, no plans. I don’t want to move my life beyond what I have now.”
“Is it because I have a child?”
“Yes, and no.” For the first time since he’d met her, nerves showed in the way she linked and unlinked her fingers. “I would love Freddie even if I hated you. For herself. Because I care for you, I only love her more. But for you and me to take what we have and make something more from this would change even that. I’m not ready to take on the responsibilities of a child.” Under the table she pressed her hand hard against her stomach. “But with or without Freddie, I don’t want to take the next step with you. I’m sorry, and I understand if you don’t want to see me again.”
Torn between frustration and fury, he rose to pace to the window. The rain was still falling thinly, coldly upon the dying flowers outside. She was leaving something out, something big and vital. She didn’t trust him yet, Spence realized. After everything they’d shared, she didn’t yet trust him. Not enough.
“You know I can’t stop seeing you, any more than I can stop loving you.”
You could stop being in love, she thought, but found herself afraid to tell him. It was selfish, hideously so, but she wanted him to love her. “Spence, three months ago I didn’t even know you.”
“So I’m rushing things.”
She moved her shoulder and began to poke at her eggs.
He studied her from behind, the way she held herself, how her fingers moved restlessly from her fork to her cup, then back again. He wasn’t rushing a damn thing, and they both knew it. She was afraid. He leaned against the window, thinking it through. Some jerk had broken her heart, and she was afraid to have it broken again.
All right, he thought. He could get around that. A little time and the most subtle kind of pressure. He would get around it, he promised himself. For the first part of his life, he’d thought nothing would ever be as important to him as his music. In the last few years he’d learned differently. A child was infinitely more important, more precious and more beautiful. Now he’d been taught in a matter of weeks that a woman could be as important, in a different way, but just as important.
Freddie had waited for him, bless her. He would wait for Natasha.
“Want to go to a matinee?”
She’d been braced for anger, so only looked blankly over her shoulder. “What?”
“I said would you like to go to a matinee? The movies.” Casually he walked back to the table to join her. “I promised Freddie I’d take her to the movies this afternoon.”
“I—yes.” A cautious smile bloomed. “I’d like to go with you. You’re not angry with me?”
“Yes, I am.” But he returned her smile as he began to eat. “I figured if you came along, you’d buy the popcorn.”
“Okay.”
“The jumbo size.”
“Ah, now I begin to see the strategy. You make me feel guilty, so I spend all my money.”
“That’s right, and when you’re broke, you’ll have to marry me. Great eggs,” he added when her mouth dropped open. “You should eat yours before they get cold.”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Since you’ve offered me an invitation, I have one for you. I was going to mention it last night, but you kept distracting me.”
“I remember.” He rubbed his foot over hers. “You’re easily distracted, Natasha.”
“Perhaps. It was about my mother’s phone call and Thanksgiving. She asked me if I wanted to bring someone along.” She frowned at her eggs. “I imagine you have plans.”
