Authors: Ann Cristy
"All
right. I thought you were being condescending. I apologize if I was
wrong." Cle looked at the wall of the elevator. She jumped as she felt his
mouth on her cheek.
"You
were wrong, darling. I would never patronize you."
Before
Cle was on even keel, the elevator doors opened and the cacophony of voices and
music precluded conversation.
The
maitre d' said something to Dev, then snapped his fingers to an underling who
took their coats before he led them to a booth along the wall. The noise seemed
appreciably less when they were cocooned in the leather privacy of the booth.
"Do
you come here often?" Cle asked, feeling the hairs on her arm lift as he
edged closer to her on the semicircular bench. "It certainly is
lively."
Dev
shrugged, the movement bringing his silk coated arm in contact with hers.
"Now and then. The food is good and if I feel like dancing, the music,
too, is very good." He turned to look down into her face and Cle wanted to
throw herself backwards. "Do you like to dance, Cle?"
"Ah..
.yes." She looked back at him, saliva filling her mouth. She wanted to
swallow but her muscles were spastic.
"Good.
We'll dance." He took one finger and ran it up her cheek into her hair.
"I love your coloring, that blue black hair with the china white skin and
sky blue eyes. That could sound conceited, I suppose, since our coloring is
similar." He lifted a strand of her hair to his mouth, his eyes never
leaving her face.
"But
your eyes are green," she murmured.
"Quite
green," he said teasingly. Suddenly his expression turned serious.
"After the fashion show, I asked Toner for your name. He didn't want to
tell me but I was persistent. He's in love with you, isn't he? Do you feel the
same about him?"
"What
you're saying is ridiculous." Cle looked at him openmouthed. "Jaime
is my boss and we have a very good working relationship... not that it's any of
your business," she finished, her tone stiff.
Dev's
smile spread that sensual mouth wide, live sparks seeming to leap from his
eyes. "So Toner is just your boss, eh? Good. Any other boy friends?"
"Thousands.
How about you? I'll want you to dump any old mistresses you might have hanging
around and I trust your teeth are good. I should hate to have to pay for your
braces." She smiled so wide she felt her jaw crack. "Of course, I'm
assuming you don't have any debilitating disease. I can see you're no spring
chicken."
"Very
amusing. I'm thirty six years old, in acceptable control of my faculties, and
very, very attracted to you," Dev replied taking her hand and lifting one
of her fingers into his mouth and chewing at it. "I've never wanted any
woman so fast or so completely." He spoke in a surprised way, almost as
though he were talking to himself.
"Big
whip." Cle croaked, feeling her heart kick into high gear at his words.
"I'm twenty six and see so clearly that I can see right through you. I'm
not at all attracted to you," she lied, struggling to keep her equilibrium
with him.
They
had ordered dinner but even now, lying in bed and concentrating on it, Cle did
not remember what she ate or what she drank. She did remember dancing with Dev
and feeling like a kamikaze pilot. No matter how she struggled, destiny was
netting her in, tying her to Dev.
He
had taken her home at two o'clock in the morning and they hardly spoke. He told
her he would pick her up at Toner's right after work the next day.
Two
weeks later she slept with him, delighting him because at her ripe old age of
twenty six she was still man wary, inexperienced; and shocking herself because
sleeping with Dev had seemed to be the most natural— and marvelous—thing in the
world to do.
When
she tried to explain her reticence at their first meeting she wound up
explaining about Red Shafer the boy she had fully intended to marry. They
attended the same college—he for engineering, she for art. By the beginning of
their third year they had decided to marry after graduating and finding jobs.
But in their senior year Red had been killed when he and some buddies had been
coming home from a fraternity party at a nearby university. The car had
skidded on icy pavement. "I dated other people of course but there was no
one that I...well..." Cle stumbled, wondering with amused horror why she
had opened herself up like that to Dev.
"Darling,
I love you telling me all about yourself. Now I want to be your only man."
He had kissed her ear. "You have a freshness about you, an inner beauty
that I want for my own." His smile had a surprised possessiveness to it.
"You've made me very happy by letting me love you, and from this moment
on, I'm not going to lose you."
A
week later she had moved to Dev's apartment, happy and confident that she was
doing the right thing.
She
relived those early months in her mind, relishing even the fights they'd had.
Both she and Dev had independent natures and asserted themselves on every
plane of life.
It
was late when Cle's eyes fluttered shut, but there was a delightful contentment
in her sleep, only lightly laced with an uneasiness that she couldn't fathom.
The
next weeks were hectic for Cle and she sensed the increasing coldness in Dev as
the time for his trip to
Britain
One
evening as she dressed for a dinner they had promised to attend, she found
herself nervous and all thumbs. She had put the thought of their separation
into the deepest recesses of her mind but now in just days they would be
parting for three weeks, maybe longer if Dev's work hit a snag.
Her
hand shook as she tried to put on a sapphire teardrop earring. She dropped the
screw type back that acted as a fastener to the gold posts that held the sapphires.
Cursing she fell to her knees, feeling around on the smooth surface of the
Aubusson carpet. She knew they were antiques and even Dev's casual reference to
them as mere trinkets he had picked up didn't lessen their value in Cle's eyes.
If they had been glass from a wholesale junk dealer she would still have
treasured them because they came from him.
"What
the hell..." The low key anger in Dev's voice seemed to bounce off Cle's
skin.
"I've
dropped the sapphire earring back and you know it's the screw type and not the
ordinary push fastener," Cle babbled, not looking up from her search. In
her peripheral vision she saw Dev's black silk coated leg bend, showing the
black silk of his socks as he came
down
next to her.
"Don't
get too excited. They're just—"
"Don't
you dare call them trinkets or I'll hit you,"
Cle's
voice grated out, her eyes frantic as they combed
the
rug for the tiny gold screw.
"Ah,
here it is, love. It was behind the leg of your dressing table stool. Here, let
me do it for you." Dev smiled at her, holding the gold culprit in the palm
of his hand.
Relief
at having Dev smile at her after days of coolness and her own dejection over
his departure brought the tears welling in Cle's eyes.
"Oh,
Dev, I'm going to miss you when you go to
Then she was in his arms, held tight to that strong chest.
"Then
come with me. I want that so much. I want you to see my home, Larren. I want
you to see my flat in
there's so much I want to show you. Won't you come?"
"Dev,
I can't. I told you..." She stopped speaking as she watched a now familiar
shuttered look take away his smile. "Well, maybe, just maybe I could ask
Jaime if I could pass this show and maybe he would let me do the spring
one—"
Before
Cle could finish she was clamped close to him, his mouth seeking hers. It was
as though someone had released the flood gate. Dev's passion washed over her.
In seconds she had forgotten the dinner, forgotten her earring, forgotten
everything but Dev and that he wanted her with him.
He
lifted his head, his strong mouth shaking. "Oh, darling talk to him right
away, call him now. My God, you don't know how happy I'd feel if I thought you
were coming with me."
"Me,
too." She glowed. Her hands threading through his crisp black hair, the
waves held in tight control, springing back in her fingers just as the
grandfather clock boomed from the front foyer that it was seven o'clock.
Dev
looked up, an irritated expression on his face. "We're late." He
looked back down at her. "And I don't want to go at all." His eyes
had that melted emerald look that always jammed Cle's pulse rate into
overdrive.
"We
promised. Clive Lawson is your best friend and he has to return to the embassy
in
voice.
"Tough."
Cle
laughed up at him as he let his fingers wander over her back. "You sounded
like an American there for a moment."
"I
feel like a man who could commit mayhem at the moment. I'm bloody sick of so
many people deciding when we can be together. That has to change." Dev's
eyes took on an opaque glint.
Cle
lifted herself on her tiptoes to give him one last kiss before she turned to
repair her lip gloss. "One of these days we'll run away to a desert
island." Her voice lilted as she looked past her own image in the mirror
to stare at Dev.
"Damn
right." He let his hand slide down her back and gently cup her buttock.
With a sigh then he stepped back and let her precede him out of the room.
In
the warmth of Dev's Ferrari, their mute closeness was like electricity between
them. Cle refused to let the doubts surface. How would she approach Jaime?
Would he let her go? If she did go, how would Dev's family receive her? She
might be an outsized sore thumb among the numerous Carstairs who would be called
together to look her over. Then, would Dev see her as she really was—an
ordinary upstate New Yorker who knew how to work hard and love harder?
When
Dev led her up the wide fan shaped steps leading to the double doors of the
Georgian mansion, she looked around her, amazed at the contrasts on
seen pockets of real poverty and neglect almost back to back with opulence. She
paused for a moment under the stone portico and looked out over the grounds.
"This is some weekend pad your friend Clive has."
Dev
chuckled, his breath ruffling the hair at her temples. "Clive always had
more money than he could handle. This place belonged to an American aunt of
his. Naturally Clive inherited when she died. I say naturally because he is the
only male member of his family, not that his three sisters suffer in any way.
They don't. Come along, love." Dev smiled down at her as though he could
feel her reluctance to meet his friends. Cle was always more relaxed with her
friends rather than Dev's. With Dev, it was different. He was his smooth and
sophisticated self with anyone.
Clive
was on the heels of the butler who answered the door. "
you dog, you're damn late. Ah, you have the beautiful Cleora with you. You'll
have every woman here jealous, my lovely one. The ones that won't hate you for
having that luscious body and face will hate you for having Devon Carstairs in
tow. Come along, dear, I'll show you where the powder room is. Shall I?"
"No
thank you. Just give me directions." Cle smiled her widest professional
cheek stretcher.
Dev
laughed, slapping his old friend on the back, the sudden glitter in his eyes a
warning. "Cle is well aware of your wolfish ways, my friend. She doesn't like
that type of treatment. I don't like it either." He turned to Cle.
"I'll wait for you in the foyer, darling." His smile had a proud
possessive tinge that had Cle reeling as she went to the powder room.
Dev
was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when she started to descend, but now
there was a group of people around him. Despite the speed with which she'd
straightened her hair and checked her makeup, Dev had already collected a
crowd. Cle felt a bitter taste in her mouth as she watched a chiffon swathed
creature fasten her hands to Dev's neck and attempt to pull his head down for a
hello kiss.
"Will
I have to wrestle them for you, darling?" Cle drawled, pausing on the
stairs, letting her voice wrap like silk around the people below her. She was
well aware of the theatrical effect she was having, being told by Jaime
hundreds of times the value of stairs, the value of looking down on people in a
queenly way. Cle used every trick in the book, letting her brows raise slowly,
letting her eyes widen in surprise, then letting her mouth melt in a smile as
her gaze rested on Dev.