He opened a heavy-lidded eye with slow reluctance. Deanna reached up and kissed his cheek. “I've got to go,” she murmured softly. “You go back to sleep.”
“Stay, Deanna,” he whispered, closing his eyes again.
“I can't.”
“We have ⦠to talk ⦠.”
“Another time.” Very gently, she untangled herself
from him and quietly dressed. By the time she was ready to leave he was sleeping soundly. Indulging herself for a final moment, she stood looking down at him. He was sprawled on his back, his head fallen sideways on the pillow. His hair was in disarray from their wild passion; his skin had a lingering sheen. He was long and strong, breathtaking in repose. But his body blurred before her when her eyes filled with tears. If only she could stay. He wanted so much, though,
needed
so much. If only she could have been the one. Blotting her eyes with the back of her hand, she turned and left.
Â
It took every bit of her self-command to rouse herself from bed the next morning. She couldn't have slept for more than two or three hours and had a wicked headache as proof. Given her choice, she would have liked to burrow into oblivion for the day. But there were things to be done, people expecting her. And she felt an urgent need to be away from the suite when Mark calledâas she was sure he would.
All the agony of the lonely hours of the night had been futile. She hadn't resolved a thing; the endless battle continued. Was this what she'd invited when she'd surrendered to fantasy one short week earlier? Could she have known she'd fall in love for real?
She breakfasted earlier and more quickly than usual, calling on deep reserves to present her usual image of composure to the world as she prayed that Mark wouldn't show. That particular prayer was answered. As for the escape she'd hoped to achieve by dashing off to the hospital, it evaded her. Throughout the morning, despite every diversion, her thoughts were her own and she brooded darkly. Mark deserved so much more than she could give him. She was a product of twenty-nine years of careful molding and she doubted she could ever break free.
Back at her suite she barely picked at the cold sweet-and-sour salmon Irma had poached for her lunch.
“Is everything all right, Mrs. Hunt?”
“Yes.” She dragged herself from dark reflections. “Uh, yes. I guess I'm just not hungry, Irma. I'm sorry.”
“You're feeling all right?”
“I'm fine.”
The housekeeper knew her place and didn't question her further. But she was watchful, much as she had been the night before when Deanna had returned to the suite so late with a flush of rose on her cheeks and her hair tumbling wildly about her shoulders. Then there were those phone calls this morning so soon after Deanna had left, and again before she'd returned. When Irma had mentioned them, Deanna had shrugged with an indifference she might have carried off had it not been for the betraying tremor of her lower lip. Something was happening, Irma knew. Whether it was good or bad remained to be seen.
In her room Deanna rehearsed every excuse in the book before reaching the conclusion that she simply couldn't avoid the office. If it wasn't that afternoon it would be the next day or Thursday, and she doubted she'd have anything more to say then than she had now. With a deep sigh of resignation she had Henry bring the car around.
An hour later she was in the office, trying to pretend she was the same woman who'd spent every other Tuesday and Thursday there for what suddenly seemed forever. But she'd changed. The keen gaze she shot warily toward the door every now and then gave evidence of that. Fortunately, she wasn't with any one person long enough to betray her unease.
The hours dragged. She was busy enough, yet the slim gold watch on her wrist seemed to operate in slow
motion. With each glance at the door she expected to see
his
face. Yet ⦠nothing. Two. Two-thirty. Three. Three-thirty. Nothing. At four o'clock she gave up all pretense of collectedness. Wrapping her work up quickly, she spoke briefly with Bob, then left as furtively as possible.
To her list of self-directed epithets she now added another: coward. Not only had she not had the courage to question Bob Warner about Mark's whereabouts, she'd taken to avoiding Mark after all. As she let herself into the suite she felt ashamed. What had happened to the poised, dignified woman Larry Hunt had left behind? This new woman might have known the richness of love, but Deanna wasn't sure she liked the side effects.
She had barely started dinner when the doorbell rang. There was no question in her mind as to who it was. Nor had she any doubt that, for the sake of her self-respect alone, she had to see him.
Laying her fork quietly on the plate, she waited. The voices from the foyer were muted; then Mark appeared at the archway to the breakfast room in which she sat Irma was immediately behind him, clenching her hands. Deanna took the situation in at a glance.
“It's all right, Irma. Mr. Birmingham is welcome.” Irma relaxed visibly, smiled more shyly and left. Mark, on the other hand, grew more tense. He didn't move from the door, simply stared at her.
“Have a seat, Mark.” She gestured, the near-perfect hostess. She would have stood had it not been for the familiar weakness in her knees. It wasn't fair that she could be so affected by any man.
“Deanna?”
She averted her eyes in sheer defense. “Please sit. Have you eaten?”
“You know I haven't.”
Looking out toward the kitchen, she raised her voice.
“Irma?” A soft rustle of skirts brought the woman back. “If you could set another place, Mr. Birmingham will join me for dinner.”
She heard Mark add a gentle “If it's no trouble,” heard the smile in his words and finally looked up to see the broad grin with which he had melted Irma's hesitancy in an instant.
“Oh, it's no trouble at all, Mr. Birmingham. I won't be but a minute.” She whisked away again, leaving them momentarily alone.
Deanna's eyes dropped to her lap, where her napkin was bunched in her fist. She was marginally aware that Mark had settled into a chair opposite her.
“You've been avoiding me,” he stated calmly, his tension in check.
She met his gaze with a shot of petulance. “I could say the same about you.” The best defense was a good offense, so they said. But this had come too easily. Shocked, she realized that one part of her had been hurt when he hadn't appeared at the office.
“I called here several times this morning. You weren't in. Then, when I returned to your office late this afternoon, you'd already left.”
“You did stop at the office?” she asked more contritely.
“Of course! I was out at the site. Didn't Warner tell you that?”
“Not.”
“And you didn't ask.” It was a statement. He understood her too well.
“No”
“I see,” he murmured, propping his elbows on the arms of the chair, interlacing his fingers, then resting them against the firm line of his mouth. He seemed to deliberate as he sat staring at her and only blinked away his concentration when Irma returned bearing a tray and his meal.
Deanna had waited until he had food before him to pick up her fork once more. Now, as she stared down at the
boeuf bourguignone
, she felt no appetite whatsoever. Her stomach had begun to churn, a victim of the whirling emotions that made clear thought an effort. Mark, on the contrary, seemed to have suddenly revived.
“This is delicious. Does she cook like this all the time?”
Deanna's head shot up. “Irma? Yes, she's a jewel.” When Mark continued to eat, Deanna could only settle back in her chair and watch him in amazement. What had become of his anger or tension or whatever it was that had possessed him when he'd arrived? He ate slowly, thoughtfully. Perhaps he too was working it all out in his mind. Perhaps he'd have better success than she was having.
As the minutes passed, Deanna found herself growing amused. The man had really been hungry. Her smile came easily when she finally broke the silence. “Are you always a grump on an empty stomach?”
Satisfied with something, at least, he sat back in a lazy pose. “For the answer to that, Deanna, you'll just have to stick around. I wasn't thrilled to wake up to a cold bed this morning.”
“You were dead to the world! I told you I was leaving.”
“That didn't make the fact any easier to take.” He had grown more serious, his eyes as intense as they had ever been. “Why did you leave? You could have spent the night.”
“I couldn't haveâ”
“You could have ⦠if you'd wanted to. Irma would have kept your secret if you'd called to tell her you'd be back in the morning. She doesn't look like such an ogre. And she would have been flattered by your trust.”
Deanna frowned, reflecting on his smooth and ready answers. One part of her ached to blurt out her deepest thoughts, those dreadful fears. Might he have solutions
for those? But the more immediate worry was Mark's strange look as he stared at her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked more timidly than she would have liked.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing. What's wrong, Deanna? What's going on in that mind of yours that you can be so wary of me after last night?”
“Last night ⦔ She breathed the words as though they were part dream, part nightmare.
But Mark pounced on her words, leaning suddenly forward. “Last night you loved me, Deanna. You can deny it as much as you want, but a woman doesn't respond to a man that way unless she feels it here.” He thumped his chest She couldn't deny the truth of that, but it didn't change the facts.
“It was one night, Markâ”
“It was
two
nights ⦠two nights in bed, plus all those others just thinking about each other. We have something good. Why can't you face that?”
Closing her eyes for a moment of respite, she shook her head. “We've been through all this,” she whispered. When she looked up again her eyes held a sober poignancy. “I'm not good for you, Mark. Last night ⦠today ⦠there's your proof. I have other obligations. I'm not free.”
The abruptness with which he shot from his seat to lean on the table startled her. “That's a lot of garbage!”
But he'd stirred her own anger and she lashed back at being pushed so hard. “I take back what I said about your being a grump on an empty stomach. You just must have gotten up on the wrong side of bed!”
“Damn right I did!” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing darkly. “I crawled all over your side looking for you before I fell on the floor!”
Unable to resist the image, Deanna brust into a smug
laugh. “Serves you right for falling asleep on me like that!”
In a split-second turnabout, Mark grew sheepish. His chin fell to his chest and he scratched the back of his head. “Boy, was I exhausted. Must have been all those restless nights in between.” When he shook his head again, Deanna felt her anger begin to dissolve, only to have it rise again moments later under his renewed assault. “So we're back on the ground floor, hmmm?” There was no humor in his straight gaze. “Back to the yes-no's, you can-I canât's, you could-I couldn't's.”
What could she say to that? He'd been right about one thing, she mused. She
had
loved him the night beforeâmind, body and soul. As for the rest, it couldn't work. His fantasy was misdirected. He wanted a woman, an active, capable woman. And he wanted children. She'd only frustrate him on both counts.
“You know, Deanna,” he began, moving around the table until he towered over her. “I know that something frightens you, but I can't figure out exactly what it is. We work on the same wavelength on almost everything else. On this, though, you're shutting me out. It's like there's a block and I can't seem to break through.” As he paused the muscle at his jaw flexed, a product of his taut-held control, a control that seemed ready to snap.
“What is it with you?” he spat out vehemently. “Have you got something against happiness? Some kind of martyr complex?” Even the chill in his voice didn't prepare her for his follow-up. “Your brother dies, therefore you become the model daughter. Your husband dies, so you've become the model widow. Damn itâwake up! Life doesn't work that way. No one's asking you to pay for their deaths!”
For an instant Deanna sat stunned. “You're wrong, Mark,” she whispered, needing desperately to deny his
charge. “That's not it at all.” But she was frightened, unable to go on. And Mark knew that.
Again he lowered his head, this time rubbing the back of his neck in the process. “Well, Deanna, I can't pull it out of you,
whatever
it is. Maybe you do need time ⦠.”
Turning on his heel, he left her alone. She heard his voice in the hall, saying something to Irma; then the front door shut with definite finality. She'd never felt so alone in her life.