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“You’re too upset,” he said quietly. “I can’t let you do that.”
She dropped her gaze to her lap, studying her bare knees, which were bent beneath her. “Why did you do this to me?” she cried. “Why couldn’t you have left me alone?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m sorry.”
He picked up his robe from the floor and slipped into it. It was dark green and richly patterned. Gently clasping her arm, he drew her up off the carpet. As she stood next to him, he pulled a white terry cloth robe from a hook by the door and helped her into it, though it was much too large for her. His hand rested in the center of her back as he steered her from the closet she had entered so many centuries before. She moved automatically beside him. What difference did it make where he took her? What more could he do to her?
He led her as if she were a child, to a comfortable, overstuffed chair sitting near the window. Her eyes pleaded with him. “Let me go now.” Once again, she began to cry.
He lifted her into his arms and settled her on his lap in the chair. Tucking her against his chest, he stroked her hair. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry.” His lips brushed her forehead, her temple. “This wasn’t your fault. It was me. I did this to you.”
“I let you. Why did I let you?”
“Because you’re a warm and sensuous woman, love, and it had been too long for you.”
She told herself she would take no comfort from him. Her betrayal ran so deep she had no right to comfort. But he stroked her hair and held her tight. Eventually her tears stopped, and she slept in his arms.
When Way finally heard the deep, even sound of her breathing, he pressed his lips to her forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. How had he let this get so far out of his control? Suzy Denton had never harmed him, and she didn’t deserve what he’d done to her. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been the subject of his teenage crush, the target of all the surly scowls and snarling comments he’d leveled at her, a dime store James Dean trying to impress Natalie Wood.
When she’d walked into his living room a month ago and he’d seen the same fearful expression on her face she’d worn as a teenager whenever he’d looked at her, something inside him had snapped. All his money and power had evaporated, and he felt that familiar impotent rage that had been his constant companion when he was a kid. He’d invited her to his house with some half-assed notion of sweeping her off her feet with his charm and making her see him as he was now, instead of as he’d been thirty-five years earlier. Instead, he’d insulted her beyond belief.
Despite the way he’d baited her, it hadn’t occurred to him that she would think he was trying to blackmail her into his bed. He’d had his share of female companionship over the years, and he’d certainly never had to resort to blackmail to get it. But she didn’t know that. His proposal that she act as his companion and hostess had been an impulsive one, born of anger. He’d expected her to tell him to go to hell, but instead, she’d stood there in his rose garden and looked as if he’d slapped her.
This past month while he’d been gone from Telarosa, his shame over the way he’d treated her had grown. By the time he’d returned to town, he’d already made up his mind to call her and apologize, hoping that he could still somehow salvage the situation. But the moment he identified himself, he’d heard the quaver in her voice and he’d lost control. Instead of asking her forgiveness, he had bullied her into joining him here by continuing to imply that her acceptance was linked with the future of Rosatech.
Even tonight, he could have denied it. Tonight, when she’d stormed into his bedroom, he could have told her the truth. So why hadn’t he done it?
He stared blindly ahead as awareness hit him with brutal force. He had done this awful thing because he had fallen in love with Suzy Denton. Whether it had happened tonight, last month, or thirty years ago, he didn’t know. He only knew that he loved her, and he hadn’t found the will to stop himself.
He was a man who prided himself on always being in control, on never acting impulsively or reacting emotionally. When he’d been presented with the opportunity to take over Rosatech, for example, he’d done it with a cool head. He’d even experienced a trace of cynical amusement that he still wanted revenge for the way the town had treated his mother. He’d never imagined that he would get emotionally involved. The pain was too old, even if the urge to even up the balance sheet had never quite gone away.
He was the one who’d planted the rumor about Rosatech’s closing—for a while he’d toyed with the notion of actually doing it—but despite the deliberate misinformation he’d disseminated, Rosatech was marginally profitable, and he didn’t have the stomach to destroy so many innocent lives. He had the stomach to make the town’s citizens squirm, though, and that’s why he’d deliberately set out to make them believe he was closing the plant. He’d enjoyed seeing their doomsday expressions and watching their pitiful attempts to punish him by ostracizing him, as if he cared about their good opinion. He’d even acknowledged that his desire for retribution was juvenile.
Juvenile, yes. But also satisfying. What was the sense of accumulating power and wealth if he couldn’t earn a little frontier justice with it? Watching fear spread through the town that had killed his mother wouldn’t change the past, but at least he had finally called Telarosa to account for turning their backs on justice and breaking Trudy Sawyer’s spirit.
Tonight it had come full circle. Tonight, in one of the few impulsive actions of his life, Trudy Sawyer’s son had made the town’s most respectable woman feel like a whore. First thing tomorrow morning, he would have to tell her the truth. Then he would send her back to Telarosa and never bother her again.
He gazed down at her. Jesus. She was still so beautiful. Sweet and sensitive. Would it be so terrible if he waited one more day before he sent her away? He wouldn’t touch her. He’d treat her with every courtesy. Would that be so terrible? Just one more day to win Suzy Denton’s affection.
18
Bobby Tom was getting ready to leave the movie set for the day when Connie Cameron slipped into his motor home carrying two frosty bottles of beer. It was Saturday evening, they were done shooting for the week, and he was looking forward to having a day off.
“It’s been hot today; I thought you might like to share a cold one.”
He gazed at her as he finished buttoning his shirt. He’d spent the past week either tied up while he was being tortured by Paolo Mendez, the actor who was playing the kingpin, or jumping into the river with Natalie as explosive charges went off around them, and he wasn’t in the mood to be seduced by anybody but Gracie. Just the thought of that sweet small body made him hard. Even though a month had passed since they’d first made love, he hadn’t gotten nearly enough of her.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but the little woman’s waiting for me at home.”
“What the little woman doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” She gave each cap an angry twist and held one bottle out to him.
He set it on the counter while he tucked his shirt in his jeans. Her short, stretchy skirt rode up on her thighs as she sat down on the built-in couch. Her legs were tan, but they didn’t seem quite as shapely as Gracie’s.
“Where’s she been the past few days, anyway?” Connie flicked open an extra button on her blouse, as if she’d gotten overheated.
“Either on the phone or setting everybody straight over at the nursing home. She’s organizing the golf tournament travel arrangements for me. It’s a big job.”
“I’m sure she can handle it.” She took a sip of beer, then brought up one foot, bending her knee so she could tuck it beneath the opposite thigh. The position left him with a clear view of her purple panties.
