Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

The question disturbed her. “Daphne was beautiful and sophisticated,” she replied. “I was green behind the ears. Totally uninhibited. I used to embarrass you…”

“Never!”

There was muted violence in the explosive word.

She glanced up at him curiously. “But I did! Your father said that’s why you never liked to take me out in public…”

“My father. What a champion.” He lifted the cold coffee to his lips and sipped it. It felt as cold as he did inside. He looked at Meg and ached. “Between them, your mother and my father did a pretty damned good job, didn’t they?”

“Daphne was a fact,” she replied stubbornly.

He drew in a long, weary breath. “Yes. She was, wasn’t she? You saw that for yourself in the newspaper.”

“I certainly did.” She sounded bitter. She hated having given her feelings away. She forced a smile. “But, as they say, no harm done. I have a bright career ahead of me and you’re a millionaire several times over.”

“I’m that, all right. I look in the mirror twice a day and say, ‘lucky me.’”

“Don’t tease.”

He turned his wrist and glanced at the face of the thin gold watch. “I have to go,” he said, pushing back his chair.

“Are you off to a business meeting?” she probed gently.

He stared at her without speaking for a few seconds, just long enough to give him a psychological advantage. “No,” he said. “I have a date. As my mother told you,” he added with a cold smile, “I don’t have any problem getting women these days.”

Meg didn’t know how she managed to smile, but she did. “The lucky girl,” she murmured on a prolonged sigh.

Steve glowered at her. “You never stop, do you?”

“Can I help it if you’re devastating?” she replied. “I don’t blame women for falling all over you. I used to.”

“Not for long.”

She searched his hard face curiously. “I should have talked to you about Daphne, instead of running away.”

“Let the past lie,” he said harshly. “We’re not the same people we were.”

“One of us certainly isn’t,” she mused dryly. “You never used to kiss me like that!”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you expect me to remain celibate when you defected?”

“Of course not,” she replied, averting her eyes. “That would have been asking the impossible.”

“Fidelity belongs to a committed relationship,” he said.

She was looking at her hands, not at him. Life seemed so empty lately. Even dancing didn’t fill the great hollow space in her heart. “Being in a committed relationship wouldn’t have mattered,” she murmured. “I doubt if you’d have been capable of staying faithful to just one woman, what with your track record and all. And I’m hardly a raving beauty like Daphne.”

He stiffened slightly, but no reaction showed in his face. He watched her and glowered. “Nice try, but it doesn’t work.”

She glanced up, surprised. “What doesn’t?”

“The wounded, downcast look,” he said. He stretched, and muscles rippled under his knit shirt. “I know you too well, Meg,” he added. “You always were theatrical.”

She stared at him without blinking. “Would you have liked it if I’d gone raging to the door of your apartment after I saw you and Daphne pictured in that newspaper?”

His face hardened to stone. “No,” he admitted, “I loathe scenes. All the same, there’s no reason to lie about the reason you wanted to break our engagement. You told your mother that dancing was more important than me, that you got cold feet and ran for it. That’s all she told me.”

Meg was puzzled, but perhaps Nicole had decided against mentioning Daphne’s place in Steven’s life. “I suppose she decided that the best course all around was to make you believe my career was the reason I left.”

“That’s right. Your mother decided,” he corrected, and his eyes glittered coldly. “She yelled frog, and you jumped. You always were afraid of her.”

“Who wasn’t?” she muttered. “She was a world-beater, and I was a sheltered babe in the woods. I didn’t know beans about men until you came along.”

“You still don’t,” he said flatly. “I’m surprised that living in New York hasn’t changed you.”

“What you are is what you are, despite where you live,” she reminded him. She looked down again, infuriated with him. “I dance. That’s what I do. That’s all I do. I’ve worked hard all my life at ballet, and now I’m beginning to reap the rewards for it. I like my life. So it was probably a good thing that I found out how you felt about me in time, wasn’t it? I had a lucky escape, Steve,” she added bitterly.

He moved close, just close enough to make her feel threatened, to make her aware of him so that she’d look up.

He smiled with faint cruelty. “Does your good fortune compensate?” he asked with soft sarcasm.

“For what?”

“For knowing how much other women enjoy lying in my arms in the darkness.”

She felt her composure shatter, and knew by the smile that he’d seen it in her eyes.

“Damn you!” she choked.

He turned away, laughing. “That’s what I thought.” He paused at the doorway. “Tell your brother I’ll call him tomorrow.” His eyes narrowed. “I hated you when your mother handed me the ring you’d left with her. You were the biggest mistake of my life. And, as you said, it was a lucky escape. For both of us.”

He turned and left, his steady footsteps echoing down the hall before the door opened and closed with firm control behind him. Meg stood where he’d left her, aching from head to toe with renewed misery. He said he’d hated her in the past, but it was still there, in his eyes, when he looked at her. He hadn’t stopped resenting her for what she’d done, despite the fact that he’d been unfaithful to her. He was in the wrong, so why was he blaming Meg?

“Where’s Steve?” her brother asked when he reappeared.

“He had to go. He had a hot date,” she said through her teeth.

“Good old Steve. He sure can draw ’em. I wish I had half his…Where are you going?”

“To bed,” Meg said from the staircase, and her voice didn’t encourage any more questions.

Meg only wished that she had someplace to go, but she was stuck in Wichita for the time being. Stuck with Steven always around, throwing his new conquests in her face. She limped because of the accident, and the tendons were mending, but not as quickly as she’d hoped. The doctor had been uncertain as to whether the damage would eventually right itself, and the physical therapist whom Meg saw three times a week was uncommunicative. Talk to the doctor, she told Meg. But Meg wouldn’t, because she knew she wasn’t making much progress and she was afraid to know why.

Besides her injury, there was no work in New York for her just now. Her ballet company couldn’t perform without funds, and unless they raised some soon, she wouldn’t have a job. It was a pity to waste so many years of her life on such a gamble. She loved ballet. If only she were wealthy enough to finance the company herself, but her small dividends from her stock in Ryker Air wouldn’t be nearly enough.

David didn’t have the money, either, but Steve did. She grimaced at just the thought. Steve would throw the money away or even burn it before he’d lend any to Meg. Not that she’d ever ask him, she promised herself. She had too much pride.

She’d tried not to panic at the thought of never dancing again. She consoled herself with a small dream of her own, of opening a ballet school here in Wichita. It would be nice to teach little girls how to dance. After all, Meg had studied ballet since her fourth birthday. She certainly had the knowledge, and she loved children. It was an option that she’d never seriously considered before, but now, with her injury, it became a security blanket. It was there to keep her going. If she failed in one area, she still had prospects in another. Yes, she had prospects.