Torn Asunder

CHAPTER
ONE

Cle
Orwell stretched and yawned, loath to open her eyes and start the day. She felt
the warmth on her right side, the warmth that had become familiar and necessary
in the short year she and Dev Carstairs had been together. Dev of the emerald
eyes, whose warm gleam triggered a fire in her. Dev of the tall, broad
shouldered athlete's body which so excited her. Dev of the finely honed legal
and business mind which kept her on her toes mentally and challenged her
constantly. Dev of the midnight black hair, not the blue black of her own, but
the night black of an Indian's with the persistent wave to it that no amount of
brushing tamed. Dev of the six foot three inch height and massive physique that
made her own five foot ten inch height and fine boned frame seem diminutive.
Dev who made every hair on her body feel curled, even to the hair on her head
that was so straight it looked plumbed from crown to shoulder.

They had been
together a year! She couldn't believe it! The anniversary of the day they had
decided to live together would be in less than two weeks. Two weeks! Cle
frowned, even as she lifted one hand to stifle another yawn. That's how long
she knew Dev when she agreed to live with him. Two weeks of seeing each other
every second they could, two weeks of having all her conceptions of a quiet
bland love mutually satisfying to both parties ripped apart, two weeks of a
shuddering, raw awareness that without him nothing would ever have the same
dimension or color again. As the dawn was breaking after their first night
together, the night that neither of them slept, Dev had whispered that he
wanted her to stay with him, to live with him.

Did Dev remember
that moment? Did he remember that night?

Cle swung her
legs off the bed and came to a sitting position, trying not to be bothered by
the thought that he might not recall those moments that were so precious to
her, that were so vivid they might have just passed. She chided herself for
being so stupid, being depressed because Dev might not—probably would not—remember
the anniversary of the day they decided to live together! How Dev would laugh
if she told him how daffy she was acting! She could hear him saying that.
"Cle, darling, you're daffy!" he would say. Then, she thought with a
pang, he just might tell her that he would leave her and go back to
London
where he came
from. She shivered, angry with herself for being so imaginative. After all, she
was a twenty seven year old woman who had a very satisfying, however budding,
career in design.

She remembered for a fleeting moment the
young twenty year old Cle, fresh from the
School
of
Design
at Rochester Institute of
Technology, coming to
New York
for the first time. She had been green as grass and scared witless when she
applied for the job at Toner Fabrics and Design. She was still embarrassed when
she remembered her stuttering acceptance of Jaime Toner's offer. It was exactly
what she'd wanted: working in clothing design, not fabric design, with such a
supremely talented, well known person. She hadn't been able to believe her
great good luck!

Her own innate shyness kept Cle in the
background for the first few years, but gradually Jaime had come to recognize
her talent and begun to give her more sophisticated assignments.

"What are you dreaming about? Come
back under the covers and let me warm you," Dev's voice crooned in her ear
as one of his arms snaked around her waist and pulled her back to him.

Cle smiled, her face turned away from
him. "We'll be late. You have a conference call from
Bonn
today and I have to put the final
touches on the fall show," she whispered teasingly, her body pliant in his
arms as he turned her toward him, her own arms reaching up to feather the dark
stubble on his cheeks. "You have to shave and shower. So do I." She
laughed. "Shower that is!" She ran her hands up into his anthracite
black hair, tousled by sleep.

"Yes, I know, but as much as I need
to get a running jump on the day, I need to have you, too." He mumbled
this into her neck, one hand running from thigh to hip to breast over her naked
body. His mouth slipped down to her shoulder then fastened gently on her
breast. The sucking and pulling sensation of his mouth drove her crazy... as he
well knew. Her body turned liquid as he touched her. There was a fleeting
moment of resentment, but before Cle could analyze it she was submerged in Dev
again, drowning in that well of feeling that never seemed to quench the thirst
they had for one another.

He played with her body as though he were
composing a beautiful melody, and her form was the rare Guarneri on which it
would be performed. With gentle awareness he probed all the recesses of her
body that gave her the most pleasure. It never ceased to amaze Cle how devotedly
Dev went about arousing her. Her pleasure seemed to be to him the most erotic
thing in the world and one of his greatest joys in their love play.

But, then, she knew how much she
delighted in pleasing him, too, and, as her fingers danced over him in the
caresses he enjoyed, she felt ecstatic. Her rapture mounted when Dev's body
arched in response to her touches.

Their blood pounded in tempo as their
need reached incendiary stages. The silent explosion of their bodies was
accompanied by their sighs and groans.

"Dev! Oh, Dev!"

"Cle, darling."

They were long past the time when they
tried to check the flood of passion that engulfed them, and it was always so
wondrous to Cle, so incredible. The intensity of the emotion increased each
time they made love. It irritated Cle somewhat that Dev never seemed to be as
affected as she was, that after, he was able to switch to "normal"
faster than she could.

This time was no exception. As she lay
breathing in ragged cadence against his neck, he was able to speak in normal
tones. He let his hand move in a whirling motion down her spine and over her
buttocks. "Cle, I know we've talked of this before, but I want you to
rethink your position on my trip back to
England
. I want you to go with
me."

"I want to go with you, Dev, you
know that, but Jaime is getting the new line ready. With a little luck, I could
be chief designer. I've waited for this chance, Dev, worked hard for it."

He rolled away from her and sat on his
side of the bed, his back stiff. "I think I've heard all this at some time
or other—"

"Then why don't you listen to
me?" Cle argued, watching him rise to his feet and walk toward the bathroom.
No matter how long they were together, how many years she knew him so
intimately, she was aware that she'd never stop admiring his body: the long
trim torso, narrow hips, muscular thighs, broad shoulders. She gazed at the
light feathering of hair down his spine and remembered the tactile delight when
she caressed him there. She hated to argue with Dev. He made the sun rise each
morning for her. Still she didn't feel that she could back down on this. Too
many times she put aside her own needs and wants in order to fulfill some
request or need of Dev's. More and more, he seemed to demand her time, her
energies away from her work. Cle knew she couldn't let him do it again... not
this time. She had worked too hard for this chance.

She heard the
bathroom door close with a muted slam and sighed, turning over on her stomach
to bury her face in the pillow. It hurt so much when Dev was angry with her as
he was now. Her feelings for him seemed to have ballooned out of all
proportion, and it was getting worse. Even when she was hard at work on a
design, his face would suddenly jump into her mind. She might be shopping for
clothes on her lunch hour and find herself in the men's section of the store
looking at a sweater that was just the color of Dev's lime green eyes.

Cle was still
lying there day dreaming when Dev returned from the bathroom, his hair
glistening wet and curling, his face tight and controlled, the look that told
her his anger was at full height.

"Are you
coming to the
Hopewell
party this evening or have you something that can't wait at Toner's?" His
clipped British accent was more pronounced when he was angry. At the moment he
sounded like John Gielgud doing Hamlet.

"Of course
I'm coming to the
Hopewell
party. We planned on going." Cle pushed herself to a sitting position,
her eyes not quite meeting his.

"Say it out,
Cle, for God's sake." Dev threw the towel to the floor with unaccustomed
violence.

She glared at
him. "Don't use that courtroom tone with me, solicitor. Your international
reputation doesn't cut any ice here." In her agitation, she rose to her
knees, letting the sheet fall.

The hard look on
Dev's face softened, the sensual fullness of his lower lip more prominent as
his eyes roved her body. "What reputation is that, darling? My bedroom
one, I hope." His words had a softer slur to them, making Cle smile, even
though that was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Never mind
that now." She gave a reluctant laugh as he growled. She bit her lip
looking right into those metal green eyes. "Dev, I've told you before,
that with the show coming up my hours would be erratic. Tonight Jaime wants to
go over the choice of gowns for each model. I'll be as fast as I can. I won't
come home and dress. I'll cut corners, taking my things to the salon. I'll just
dress there and call a cab to go right to the hotel. I won't be too late."
Cle held her breath while Dev stepped into a pair of gray trousers of the
richest worsted that were tailored to hug his body like a glove. It was one of
Cle's favorite suits and she loved to see Dev in it.

He didn't turn to
look at her until he had knotted his hand woven, deep blue and silver tie.
"All right, if that's the best you can do. I'll meet you at the
hotel."

The quick peck he
gave her before he left the apartment told her more clearly than words that
Dev was far from placated.

She stepped into
the shower, sighing, the ambivalent feelings crisscrossing her mind. On one
hand she was furious at Dev for what she felt was his high handed treatment of
her career and his lack of understanding. At the same time she felt a wrenching
pain that they should quarrel so often about something that should have been so
easy to handle. Why wasn't it easy to handle? And why exactly did they have
such a problem working out such things? She'd asked herself these questions a
thousand times; a thousand times she hadn't come up with good answers. And,
so, she let the cold water course down her body until she was gasping.

Cle had to repair her makeup twice, her
slight hand tremors betraying her tension. She knew that Dev would expect her
to be wearing something black when she arrived at the gathering: Black was his
preference for her at any function that included his colleagues. Dev was
managing director of
Hopewell
,
Brand, and Carstairs and, according to Silas Hopewell, considered one of the
most brilliant in his field of international law and business.