Darling Enemy (10 page)

It was late before she finally got to sleep, and she dragged out of bed the next morning with eyes that were red from the combination of tears and insomnia. She packed before she went downstairs, knowing that King had meant every word of that terse command the night before.

She went into the dining room at the usual time for breakfast, expecting and hoping to see King already gone. But he was sitting at the table by himself, a cup of coffee in front of him, and nothing else.

She moved into the room with a bravado she didn’t feel, elegant in her white pleated skirt, white gauze blouse and black bolero jacket.

“Could I have a cup of coffee?” she asked, intimidated by the expression on his hard face, the glittering anger in his deep-set eyes. He was wearing brown denims with a pullover beige shirt, and despite his fair hair, he looked dark and foreboding.

“Help yourself, darling,” he said coldly.

She sat down as far away from him as she could get and poured herself a cup of black coffee from the pot on the warmer. The mahogany dining table was long, and she felt uncomfortable seated at one end in her brocade-upholstered chair. She glanced from the crystal prisms of the chandelier to King, silhouetted against the drawn pale jade curtains at the window behind him.

“Is...is Jenna coming down?” she asked falteringly.

“She and Mother have already been down,” he said curtly. “I asked them to stay upstairs until you left. I’ve told my sister that if she continues her friendship with you, I’ll send her young Blakely to the Australian property for an indefinite stay.”

The pure chauvinism of the remark made her bristle. “In chains?” she asked with a cool smile. “Or perhaps you thought you’d make him swim the Pacific while you rowed alongside yelling suggestions?”

His face went harder. “My family’s business is no longer any of your concern,” he said remotely. “Your friend should be down any minute. I’ve lent him a vehicle to drive you into Calgary. I’ll have it picked up later.”

She stared into her coffee, too drained of emotion to even cry. Not only was she losing King, but Jenna was to be forbidden any contact with her. Her only friend....

“Do you have enough money to get to New York?” he asked with casual politeness.

“Yes,” she bit off.

He finished his coffee and set the cup down firmly. “How is he in bed?” he asked, lashing out unexpectedly.

Her eyes jerked up and she glared at him with pain and anger in every line of her pale face. “Just great, thanks!” she threw at him. “He could give you lessons!”

“You little tramp!” he breathed. He was on his feet before she could move, reaching down to drag her out of the chair and up into his hard arms.

“Put me down!” she cried, fighting. But he was strong—much stronger than Bruce had been. He carried her, squirming, into his study and kicked the door shut behind them without even breaking stride.

He threw her down onto the long, leather sofa and stood over her, breathing roughly, his face livid with barely leashed fury.

He paused just long enough to rip off the knit shirt, baring a chest with bronzed muscles under a thick wedge of curling dark blond hair, before he came down beside her.

“Go ahead, darling, fight me,” he ground out, controlling her struggles easily as his mouth crushed down on hers. “It’ll just make it that much more intense when I make you submit.”

She felt his hands on her body, careless of hurting her, while she tried vainly to push him away, to free herself. She loved him, but what he was doing to her was monstrous. Her mind reeled back to that long-ago night, to the feel of that drunken beast’s cruel hands, the hot searching of his mouth. She cried out, but King didn’t seem to hear.

He dragged her blouse away from her skirt, and his hands went roughly under it, easily disposing of the lacy obstacles, to find her bare, soft flesh with rough fingers.

It was just like that long-ago night, and she was fighting suddenly for all she was worth, mindlessly fighting in a blind fury, sobbing, crying, her face contorted into a mask of panic-stricken terror.

His hands were busy again, on the buttons of her blouse, and before she could stop him, the fabric was suddenly out of the way, and King drew back. He held her by the wrists, his eyes cloudy as he studied her writhing body, her white face, her wide, frightened eyes.

He stood poised there, like a man barely able to think at all, staring down at her half-nude body, bare from the waist up where her blouse was pushed aside. For an instant, his gaze was riveted to the soft mounds of her breasts and he dragged in breaths like a man dying of oxygen deprivation. Did she imagine it, or was there a softening in his face, did his steely fingers relax just a little where they were biting into her wrists?

“Please,” she whispered brokenly. “Please, King, don’t hurt me!”

Something snapped in him at the husky sob of her voice. He looked back up at her face, and she watched the conflicting emotions war in his eyes.

“Teddi?” he murmured, seeming to snap back to sanity as he realized how frightened she was.

He let her go all at once and watched, frozen, as she dragged her blouse around herself and huddled into the corner of the sofa, crying like a terrified child in the dark, in little breathless, broken sobs that echoed through the room.

“I wouldn’t have forced you,” he managed tautly, his eyes never leaving her. “Must you have hysterics every time I touch you?”

“I was fourteen,” she said in a strangled voice. “Dilly was going with a decorator who...who took a fancy to me. One night they had a terrible argument and she...she stormed out of the apartment and didn’t come back. He’d been drinking, and I thought I’d be safer if I went to my room.” She laughed brokenly, avoiding his eyes. “I almost made it. He caught me at the door and dragged me back to the couch and tore half my clothes off.” Her eyes closed and she cringed. “He was like a wild animal. He hurt me terribly...hands all over me, horrible wet kisses...and just before he tried to force me, he heard Dilly at the door.” She shivered at the memory. She couldn’t even look at King. It would have been a revelation to her if she had, because his features had taken on the look of a man being dragged apart by a team of horses.

She swallowed. “He thought he was irresistible, you see, and it made him angry that I fought. He slapped me around quite a lot, and then dared me to tell Dilly. She didn’t even question the marks on me,” she added with a bitter smile.

She managed to fasten her blouse in the silence that followed. “I’ve never slept with Bruce,” she said finally. “I’ve never slept with any man. Just the thought of it...terrifies me. I...I thought for a little while that I might be able to accept more than kisses...with you, at least,” she whispered. “But not anymore.” She stood up, turning toward the door.

“That was why you were so frightened of me in the car on the way back from Banff,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she told him. “I...I suppose the scars go pretty deep. He was...quite brutal.”

“Teddi!”

She paused with her hand on the doorknob, but she couldn’t look at him. “I’ll go with Bruce,” she said with gentle pride. “And if you still want me to keep away from Jenna, I will.”

“Oh, God, don’t turn the knife!” he said in a barely audible tone. He started toward her, but she opened the door and moved quickly away from him.

He flinched. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, hesitating.

“So you promised me once before,” she reminded him, choking on the word. “I think I’d die if you touched me again. Please...all I want is to get away from you!”

She turned, oblivious of the look on his face, and ran all the way upstairs to her room. She didn’t leave it until she heard Jenna’s concerned voice on the other side. She opened the door and ran straight into her friend’s outstretched arms.

Chapter Eight

The only good thing about Teddi’s abrupt arrival in New York was that Dilly was still away. There was a curt little note on the coffee table telling her that her aunt would most likely be away until late September.

Teddi called her agency first thing, and was pleased to hear that they had work for her right away.

“Velvet Moth is having a showing Saturday for buyers and the press,” Mandy burst out enthusiastically. “I told Mr. Sethwick that you were out of town, but he insisted that he only wanted you to do his new gown. He calls it the ‘firemist special,’” she added, teasing. “If you accept, you’ll need a fitting at Jomar’s in the morning at ten. And Lovewear wants a girl for a millinery ad, if you’re interested in a go-see. There’s an open call Thursday morning at nine, there. I’ve got a weather permitting for a soft drink commercial as well—you’d fit the client’s requirements very well.”

A weather permitting assignment would mean a cancellation fee if it fell through, and Teddi jumped at it. It would mean more exposure, too. But she was cautious.

“Who’s shooting it?” she asked quickly before she accepted.

“Ronnie, remember him?” came the laughing reply from her agent.

“As long as it’s not that crazy Irishman,” Teddi said with a relieved sigh. “Do you remember, he made me jump the wall in that hosiery commercial he was shooting no less than fifty times? I was a nervous wreck when we finished, and it cost me twelve pair of hose because of the snags!”

“I hear he’s given up fashion photography and gone into films,” Mandy told her.

“And next thing,” Teddi murmured, “we’ll hear about a film producer going bankrupt on retakes.”

Mandy giggled. “No doubt. Well, I’ll get back to you on the commercial, and keep in touch tomorrow. Welcome back, by the way. How was Canada?”

“Cold,” Teddi said without further ado, and hung up.

The next few days went by in a flash. She made sure that she didn’t have time to think about King. Mandy outdid herself in bookings. Teddi did two commercials, the Velvet Moth fashion show, a photography session for the millinery ad and three photographic sessions for other ads. By the end of the week, she was exhausted. She spent Sunday with her feet in a hot tub of water and counted her blessings. She’d made enough to pay next semester’s fees and would have just enough left over when all the checks came to pay her airfare back to school.

The slump season in the fashion industry was just down the road, but if she worked a little harder, she might save up a nest egg to carry her through the rest of the year. And the restaurant job near the college would keep her in clothes and incidentals.

That night, her dreams were wild and disturbed and full of King. She woke up at four in the morning crying, and got up to make coffee. Would she ever forget his cruelty to her, the cheap way he’d treated her? Would she ever stop thinking about the way it had been that morning they went riding, when, for the first time, she wasn’t afraid, when she was able to give, to open her heart, to love him?

She got dressed in slacks and a loose white blouse with high-heeled sandals and waited impatiently for the agency to open so that she could call Mandy and see if there were any jobs for her. She took a long time over her makeup, did her nails carefully, packed her carryall with the essentials of her trade—brush, comb, makeup, tissues, shoes, hairpieces and clothes, anything she might need during a shooting—and wandered around the living room of the apartment to watch the sun rise over the sleeping city.

Why, oh, why did King always have to think the worst of her? She still cringed at the memory of his hands hurting her, his eyes contemptuous as they stared down at her bareness. It hadn’t all been contempt, she reminded herself. For an instant he had seemed to be awed by her, savagely hungry for the sight and feel of her. Of course, any man could feel desire in those circumstances, it meant nothing. The thing that puzzled her was his unreasonable anger about Bruce. Jealousy would explain such fury, but King wasn’t jealous of her, how could he be when he thought so little of her? But...why had he fired Bruce? Since his contempt was mainly for her, why punish a man he thought she’d tempted?

She sipped her lukewarm coffee with a grimace of distaste. How hard it was to kill hope, she thought miserably. All the way to the airport, with Bruce contrite and worried beside her, she’d hoped against hope that King would come after her. But he hadn’t. She hadn’t seen him again after she left the study. When she’d gone downstairs, leaving Jenna behind, Bruce had been waiting, quiet and subdued, and King hadn’t even stayed around long enough to say goodbye.

Even the first few days she’d been home, she wondered if King might call. But he hadn’t. Why should he? she asked herself, laughing aloud at her own idiocy. He didn’t care. If he felt anything now, it was probably guilt over his treatment of her—if his hatred would permit that. At least now that he knew the truth, perhaps he thought less harshly of her.

King. Her eyes pictured him and closed on a new wave of tears. Would she ever get used to being apart from him? Every day she lived was filled with that kind of loneliness that only those who love in vain understand. It had always been King, from the time she was fifteen and got her first look at him. There’d been boys she dated, but none of them could hold her interest. King was so much a man, so far removed from ordinary men. Now she couldn’t settle for less.

Angrily, she dashed away the tears and got to her feet. What she needed, she decided, was another cup of hot coffee.

Mandy called an hour later, full of enthusiasm. “Lovewear wants you at nine,” she told Teddi. “Can you make it? It’s for an interview on three commercials for their new line of jeans!”

“Can I make it? Are you kidding?” Teddi laughed. “I’ll crawl there on my knees if I can’t catch a cab. Thanks, Mandy!”

She snatched up her portfolio with the composites safely tucked away inside, and paused just long enough to grab her small shoulder bag before she rushed into the elevator, cursing the incredibly high heels that she couldn’t take time to change.

She darted through the door and out onto the sidewalk, making a wild dash for the first cab she saw pulling up at the curb. She misjudged the step, and in an incredible series of stumbles, worsened by the high heels, she managed to land herself just past the cab’s front bumper, right in the path of an oncoming car.

Wide-eyed, helpless, she could see the disaster coming, but there was nothing in the world she could do in that split second to save herself. Like a spectator watching her own body, she observed with an inhuman calmness. Then she felt a sudden cold emptiness, numbness, and screams followed her down into the darkness.