He walked down the steps to the driveway. Finding Ronnie without saddling himself with unwanted companions was not going to be easy. He looked in the direction of the tents, trying to catch a glimpse of red hair.
A glint on the pavement not too far from his feet caught his eye. Something shiny and reflective—a piece of glass? No, it was too small and symmetrical.
Frowning suddenly, Tom stooped to pick it up. It was small and round and crystal clear, and he knew instantly what it was.
Straightening, putting the object into his pocket, he looked around again.
There, maybe a dozen feet away, was another one.
Tom followed the trail of the beads. Like Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs, Ronnie had marked her path, though she had done it inadvertently by shedding crystals from her dress.
He only found four. But then, he had only needed two. As soon as he had seen in what direction she had headed, he had a pretty fair idea of where she was.
Strolling away from the party into the dark at the other side of the house, Tom took a deep breath, and frowned. Though he knew it was pretty close to impossible, he thought that he could detect just a hint of her perfume on the warm wind caressing his face.
Chapter
29
R
ONNIE HEARD THE CREAK OF THE GATE
, and glanced over her shoulder. It was dark in the small fortress around the pool, but not so dark that she could not see the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man as he came through the gate and closed it behind him. For just an instant she frowned. Then the moonlight glinted on his hair and she was left in no doubt as to who he was.
“Go away,” she said, and breast-stroked to the far side of the pool. Though she didn’t think there was enough moonlight for it to be apparent, she was wearing only her panties; her dress, stockings, shoes, and jewelry lay on a chair at the shallow end of the pool.
“I apologize for everything I said in the house. I completely misread the situation,” Tom said. He followed her progress from one side of the pool to the other, pacing alongside her on the concrete deck.
“I don’t accept your apology. Now, go away.”
“This isn’t easy for me, either, you know,” he said.
“What exactly is it that you want from me, Tom?” she asked suddenly, standing up to face him, her arms
moving in the water to keep her balanced. At its deepest point the pool was only five feet, which left her, standing on tiptoes, shoulder-deep. She had been breast-stroking since she had entered the pool, and as a consequence her makeup was still largely in place and her upswept hair was still dry except for the tendrils around her neck.
“Now that,” he said, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets so that his coat was pushed back behind his hips, “is a good question.”
She laughed, but the sound was unamused. “Don’t be such a hypocrite! You want sex; you’re just having trouble climbing over your conscience to get it.”
He made no reply for a moment, then said, “Let me ask you a question, then: What exactly is it that you want from me?”
Ronnie stared at him, dumbstruck. She had never really thought about it before. What she wanted wasn’t sex per se; it was Tom.
She started swimming again, heading to the opposite end of the pool.
“Sex? Is that what you want from me, Ronnie?” He pursued her on the concrete surround, keeping even with her progress.
“I want you to go away,” she said, reaching the side and turning back for another lap.
“If I did, it wouldn’t help. I’d just come back. We’ve already established that.”
She kept swimming.
“We’ve got to deal with this, Ronnie.” His voice was patient as he paced alongside her.
Standing up in the shoulder-deep water again, she faced him, suddenly angry. “I don’t see any way to
deal with it. The problem you have with this whole thing is that I’m married. Well, I can’t change that. I
am married.
”
“Have you ever thought about getting a divorce?” he asked quietly. He had stopped pacing when she stopped swimming, and now he stood looking down at her.
“No.” She started swimming again.
“So what you want to happen here is for you to stay married to the Senator while you sleep with me on the side, do I have that right?”
The sideways look she cast him was defiant. “Why not?”
“Because I have a problem with that.”
“Then go away.” She finished one lap and headed the other way. He stayed even with her.
“Would you come out of there so that we can talk about this like reasonable people?” There was a touch of impatience in his voice.
“There’s nothing to talk about. If you have a problem with me being married, then I suggest you go back to Diane, who is not married, and have sex with her.”
“I could. Just like you could have sex with your husband the Senator. But I don’t think that would satisfy either one of us.”
She swam without replying.
“Ronnie, would you please come out of that damned pool and talk to me?” There was an edge to his voice now.
She stopped swimming to look up at him. “Lots of people have affairs while they’re married. Hundreds. Thousands.”
“Is that the voice of experience I hear?” he asked dryly.
“Just for the record, during my three years as a married woman
I’ve
never had an affair. But Lewis has been screwing around since day one. So why shouldn’t I?”
“No reason, except maybe I don’t feel like being the man you’re screwing around with.”
“Why
not?
”
“Because affairs are messy, and people get hurt. Because tonight when I danced with you, I had to be real careful to pretend I didn’t like it too much so that people wouldn’t get the idea there was something going on between us. Because I might like to take you out to lunch, or dinner, or the movies. Because I don’t like the idea of fitting in fifteen-minute quickies whenever we can sneak off together. I don’t like the idea of having to sneak off together, period.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“It will be like that.”
“Is that the voice of experience I hear?” She mimicked his question to her.
“Maybe.”
“Oh,
I’m
supposed to confess everything, but you’re not.”
“Ronnie, it is damned hard to conduct this conversation while you’re in that swimming pool.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“You’re avoiding the issue.”
“What is the issue? Whether or not we’re going to sleep together? As far as I’m concerned right this minute, the answer’s no.”
Ronnie started swimming again. Tom stayed where
he was, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her progress. With the length of the pool between them, he was hardly more than a large, dark shadow against the paler shade of the concrete. As she swam back toward him, she saw that he was frowning.
“You don’t sleep with him. You haven’t for over a year,” Tom said when she drew even with him.
Ronnie stopped swimming and turned to look at him. “How do you know that?”
“He told me. Upstairs just now.”
“What were you two doing, comparing sex lives?” Outrage tinged her voice.
“I helped him to bed. He was drunk. We—talked about what he tried to do to you.”
“Oh, did you?”
“He doesn’t love you.”
Ronnie said nothing for a moment, just stared up at him through the darkness. His arms were still folded over his chest, and he was frowning down at her.
“So?” She started swimming again. She knew Lewis didn’t love her, had never loved her. The realization had dawned slowly, but she now knew it was fact. He had married her for the good, old-fashioned reason that he couldn’t get her into bed any other way. Once he’d gotten what he wanted, he’d quickly moved on to greener pastures. Though he had, of course, wanted to keep having sex with his wife whenever he felt like it.
“Damn it, Ronnie, we’re going to talk about this. He doesn’t love you. I know as sure as I know the sun will come up in the morning that you don’t love him. So why do you stay married to him?”
She completed her lap, and swam another.
“Ronnie?”
Now she stood in the water and faced him.
“You really want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you: I grew up in a little bitty ranch house in Boston, one of hundreds of little bitty ranch houses that were exactly the same in our neighborhood alone. My dad worked in a used-car lot for commissions, and most of the time he had to scrape to make the mortgage payment. I know, because my parents were always fighting about money. When I was fourteen, my mother met a man who could give her more, and she took off with him and left my father and sisters and me behind. I was the youngest, and my sisters married and left, and my dad’s income dropped because he didn’t care enough to work hard anymore. The dress I wore to my senior prom cost fifteen dollars. I found it at a resale shop. I vowed right there and then that I wasn’t going to live my whole life like that. I wanted something better.”
Pausing, she took a deep breath to control the emotion that threatened to choke off her words. He hunkered down beside the pool, one arm draped over his raised, bent knee, his eyes intent on her face.
“Would you come out of that damned pool?” His voice was almost a growl.
Ronnie shook her head. Her voice was under control again. “You asked me why I stay married to Lewis, and I want you to know.” She lifted her left hand out of the shoulder-high water, showing it to him, so that the big diamond on it glittered in the moonlight. “Do you see this ring? This ring cost more than my dad made in a year. Look around you, Tom. Look at this place. The house I grew up in wasn’t much bigger than the pool house. Lewis owns three houses as grand as this. I can buy all the clothes I want, nice clothes, and
presents for my family that they can’t afford. I can travel. I have charge cards. I have jewelry. I have a car, several in fact. We belong to four country clubs.”
“Damn it, Ronnie, are you crying? Would you please come out of the goddamned pool?”
“I’m
not
crying. I’m telling you. I stay married to Lewis because as his wife I have everything that little girl in that fifteen-dollar prom dress ever dreamed of.”
Except love
, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. As that corollary popped into her mind, her throat closed up, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and she willed herself not to cry.
It was stupid to cry about what could not be mended, and absolutely useless.
Tom swore, a filthy word she had never heard him use before. Opening her eyes, she saw that he was walking purposely away from her, toward the opposite end of the pool. There were steps in the corner there that led down into the shallow end. He came down them without even bothering to kick off his shoes, tux and all, and walked toward her through water that started at his waist and rose quickly halfway up his chest.
Watching his approach, Ronnie was surprised to feel hot tears sliding down her cheeks. She wiped them away with both hands.
“Please don’t cry,” he said as he reached her. His voice was gruff, but also tender. His arms came around her, pulling her tight against him. Ronnie drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a sob even to her own ears, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Chapter
30
“Y
OU’RE TEARING MY HEART OUT
. Would you stop?” Tom pulled his head back a little to look into her face.
“I’m not crying,” Ronnie said again stubbornly, and buried her face in the curve between his shoulder and neck. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took deep breaths and concentrated on living up to her words. It was just that she had felt so sad suddenly, remembering that young girl who had never really known what it was to be loved.
And still didn’t know.
“Ronnie, look at me.”
But she couldn’t, not quite yet, not till the tears had all gone away. To be in his arms again felt so good, so right, that she didn’t want to move. The uppermost section of his tux was dry while the rest of him was soaking wet. Plastered against him as she was, she could feel every part of him: the buttons on his shirt, his belt buckle, the hardness below; the warm, muscular strength of his body beneath the wet cloth of his
suit. Her toes were even in contact with the smooth leather tips of his shoes.
“Ronnie.”
She looked up then, up into his face shrouded in shadow, up into his eyes that were agleam with concern for her.
“Tom.”
There wasn’t anything else to say.
Their mouths met, and they kissed, then kissed again. His mouth was hot, and wet, and tasted faintly of whiskey. His arms around her were so tight that Ronnie could scarcely draw breath.
She didn’t care. She slanted her mouth against his and met his tongue with hers, and clung.
Underwater, his hands slid down her back, stroked her spine, molded the indentation of her waist.
“Are you naked?” he asked thickly, sliding his mouth along her cheek to the tender hollow below her ear.
“Almost.” She whispered her answer against his neck as she tasted the warm saltiness of the skin there.
“You would be.” What could have been the ghost of a laugh shook him. But he wasn’t laughing when his mouth found hers again—or when his hand moved over her rib cage to cup her breast.
His hand on her breast made her insides go haywire. Her heart skipped a beat, her breathing suspended, and her blood seemed to sizzle.
He had never touched her intimately before. Ronnie realized with a sense of surprise that he had made her ache and burn and long for him without ever doing anything much more than kiss her. She had dreamed of him, of making love with him. But in her dreams it had
never felt like this. He cupped and stroked and touched her nipple—and she felt her bones dissolve.
Ronnie found herself thinking, what a difference a man makes—the right man.
“Let’s get out of this damned pool.” The words were growled into her ear. He was kissing her again even as he lifted her. Ronnie kissed him back with abandon, wrapping her legs around his waist and keeping her arms around his neck as he walked with her to the side of the pool. He felt so warm and solid and good against her; she squeezed her legs tighter around his middle, and deepened their kiss. His whole body tensed in response.