Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

“Maybe he’s trying to make you jealous.”

“That will be the day, when Steven Ryker stoops to that sort of tactic.”

David started to speak and decided against it. He only smiled as he unlocked the door and let her in.

“Ahmed is very mysterious,” she said abruptly. “It’s as if he’s not really what he seems at all. He’s a very gentle man, isn’t he?” she added thoughtfully.

He gave her a blank stare. “Ahmed? Uh, well, yes. Certainly. I mean, of course he is.” He looked as if he had to bite his tongue. “But, despite the fact that Ahmed is Christian, he’s still very much an Arab in his customs and beliefs. And his country is a hotbed of intrigue and danger right now.” He studied her closely. “You don’t watch much television, do you, Meg? Not the national news programs, I mean.”

“They’re much too upsetting for me,” she confessed. “No, I don’t watch the news or read newspapers unless I can’t avoid them. I know,” she said before he could taunt her about it, “I’m hiding my head in the sand. But honestly, David, what could I do to change any of that? We elect politicians and trust them to have our best interests at heart. It isn’t the best system going, but I can hardly rush overseas and tell people to do what I think they should, now can I?”

“It doesn’t hurt to stay informed,” he said. “Although right now, maybe it’s just as well that you aren’t,” he added under his breath. “See you in the morning.”

“Yes.” She stared after him, frowning. David could be pretty mysterious himself at times.

David didn’t invite Steve to the house that week, because he could see how any mention of the man cut Meg. But although Wichita was a big city, it was still possible to run into people when you traveled in the same social circles.

Meg found it out the hard way when she went to a men’s department store that her family had always frequented to buy a birthday present for David. She ran almost literally into Steve there.

If she was shocked and displeased to meet him, the reverse was also true. He looked instantly hostile.

Her eyes slid away from his tall, fit body in the pale tan suit he was wearing. It hurt to look at him too much.

“Shopping for a suit?” he asked sarcastically. “You’ll have a hard time finding anything to fit you here.”

“I’m shopping for David’s birthday next week,” she said tightly.

“By an odd coincidence, so am I.”

“Doesn’t your secretary,” she stressed the word, “perform that sort of menial chore for you?”

“I pick out gifts for my friends myself,” he said with cold hauteur. “Besides,” he added, watching her face, “I have other uses for Daphne. I wouldn’t want to tire her too much in the daytime.”

Insinuating that he wanted her rested at night. Meg had to fight down anger and distaste. She kept her eyes on the ties. “Certainly not,” she said with forced humor.

“My father was right in the first place,” he said shortly, angered at her lack of reaction. “She would have made the perfect wife. I don’t know why it took me four years to realize it.”

Her heart died. Died! She swallowed. “Sometimes we don’t realize the value of things until it’s too late.”

His breath caught, not quite audibly. “Don’t we?”

She looked up, her eyes full of blue malice. “I didn’t realize how much ballet meant to me until I got engaged to you,” she said with a cold smile.

His fists clenched. He fought for control and smiled. “As we said once before, we had a lucky escape.” He cocked his head and studied her. “How’s the financing going for the ballet company?” he added pointedly.

She drew in a sharp breath. “Just fine, thanks,” she said venomously. “I won’t need any…help.”

“Pity,” he said, letting his eyes punctuate the word.

“Is it? I’m sure Daphne wouldn’t agree!”

“Oh, she doesn’t expect me to be faithful at this stage of the game,” he replied lazily. “Not until the engagement’s official, at least.”

Meg felt faint. She knew the color was draining slowly out of her face, but she stood firm and didn’t grab for support. “I see.”

“I still have your ring,” he said conversationally. “Locked up tight in my safe.”

She remembered giving it to her mother to hand back to him. The memory was vivid, violent. Daphne. Daphne!

“I kept it to remind me what a fool I was to think I could make a wife of you,” he continued. “I won’t make the same mistake again. Daphne doesn’t want just a career. She wants my babies,” he added flatly, cruelly.

She dropped her eyes, exhausted, almost ill with the pain of what he was saying. Her hand trembled as she fingered a silk tie. “Ahmed invited us to dinner and the theater Friday night.” Her voice only wobbled a little, thank God.

“I know,” he said, and sounded unhappy about it.

She forced her eyes up. “You don’t have to be deliberately insulting, do you, Steven?” she asked quietly. “I know you hate me. There’s no need for all this—” She stopped, almost choking on the word that almost escaped.

“Isn’t there? But, then, you don’t know how I feel, do you, Meg? You never did. You never gave a damn, either.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and glowered at her. She looked fragile somehow in the pale green knit suit she was wearing. “Ahmed is leaving soon,” he told her. “Don’t get attached to him.”

“He’s a friend. That’s all.”

His silver eyes slid over her bowed head with faint hunger and then moved away quickly. “How are the exercises coming?”

“Fine, thanks.”

He hesitated, bristling with bad temper. “When do you leave?” he asked bluntly.

She didn’t react. “At the end of the month.”

He let out a breath. “Well, thank God for that!”

Her eyes closed briefly. She’d had enough. She pulled the tie she’d been examining off the rack and moved away, refusing to look at him, to speak to him. Her throat felt swollen, raw.

“I’ll have this one, please,” she told the smiling clerk and produced her credit card. Her voice sounded odd.

Steven was standing just behind her, trying desperately to work up to an apology. It was becoming a habit to savage her. All he could think about was how much he’d loved her, and how easily she’d discarded him. He didn’t trust her, but, God, he still wanted her. She colored his dreams. Without her, everything was flat. Even now, looking at her fed his heart, uplifted him. She was so lovely. Fair and sweet and gentle, and all she wanted was a pair of toe shoes and a stage.

He groaned inwardly. How was he going to survive when she left again? He never should have touched her. Now it was going to be just as bad as before. He was going to watch her walk away a second time and part of him was going to die.

Daphne was coming with him tonight or he didn’t think he could survive Meg’s company. Thank God for Daphne. She was a friend, and quite content to be that, but she was his coconspirator as well now, part of this dangerous business that revolved around Ahmed. She was privileged to know things that no one else in his organization knew. But meanwhile she was also his camouflage. Daphne had a man of her own, one of the two government agents who were helping keep a careful eye on Ahmed. But fortunately, Meg didn’t know that.

Steven was in some danger. Almost as much as Ahmed. He couldn’t tell Meg that without having to give some top-secret answers. Daphne knew, of course. She was as protected as he was, as Ahmed was. But despite his bitterness toward Meg, he didn’t want her in the line of fire. Loving her was a disease, he sometimes thought, and there was no cure, not even a temporary respite. She was the very blood in his veins. And to her, he was expendable. He was of no importance to her, because all she needed from life was to dance. The knowledge cut deep into his heart. It made him cruel. But hurting her gave him no pleasure. He watched her with possessive eyes, aching to hold her and apologize for his latest cruelty.

Her purchase completed, Meg left the counter and turned away without looking up. Steven, impelled by forces too strong to control, gently took her arm and pulled her with him to a secluded spot behind some suits.

He looked down into her surprised, wounded eyes until his body began to throb. “I keep hurting you, don’t I?” he said roughly. “I don’t mean to. Honest to God, I don’t mean to, Meg!”

“Don’t you?” she asked with a sad, weary smile. “It’s all right, Steve,” she said quietly, averting her eyes. “Heaven knows, you’re entitled, after what I did to you!”

She pulled away from him and walked quickly out of the store, the cars and people blurring in front of her eyes.

Steve cursed himself while he watched her until she was completely out of view. He’d never felt quite so bad in his whole life.

Meg spent the rest of the week trying to practice her exercises and not think about Steve and Daphne. David didn’t say much, but he spoke to Steve one evening just after she’d met him in the store, and Meg overheard enough to realize that Steve was taking Daphne out for the evening. It made her heart ache.

She telephoned the manager of her ballet company, Tolbert Morse, on Thursday.

“Glad you called,” he said. “I think I may be on the way to meeting our bills. Can you be back in New York for rehearsals next week?”

She went rigid. In that length of time, only a miracle would mend her ankle. But she hesitated. She didn’t want to admit the slow progress she was making. Deep inside she knew she’d never be able to dance that soon. She couldn’t force the words out. Dance was all she had. Steve had made his rejection of Meg very blatant. Any hope in that area was gone forever.

Her dream of a school of ballet for little girls was slowly growing, but it would have to be opened in Wichita. Could she really bear having to see Steven all the time? His friendship with David would mean having him at the house constantly. No. She had to get her ankle well. She had to dance. It was the only escape she had now! Steven’s latest cruelty only punctuated the fact that she had no place in his life anymore.

Fighting down panic, she forced herself to laugh. “Can I ever be ready in a week!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be there with my toe shoes on!”

“Good girl! I’ll tell Henrietta you’ll want your old room back. Ankle doing okay?”

“Just fine,” she lied.

“Then I’ll see you next week.”

He hung up. So did Meg. Then she stood looking down at the receiver for a long time before she could bring herself to move. One lie led to another, but how could she lie when she was up on toe shoes trying to interpret ballet?

She pushed the pessimistic thought out of her mind and went back to the practice bar. If she concentrated, there was every hope that she could accomplish what she had to.

David paused in the doorway to watch her Friday afternoon when he came home from work. He was frowning, and when she stopped to rest, she couldn’t help but notice the concern in his eyes, quickly concealed.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She grinned at him, determined not to show her own misgivings. “Slow but steady,” she told him.

He pursed his lips. “What does the physical therapist say?”

Her eyes became shuttered and she avoided looking directly at him. “Oh, that it will take time.”

“You’re supposed to start rehearsing in a month,” he persisted. “Will you actually be ready by then?”

“It’s in a week, actually,” she said tautly, and told him about the telephone call. He protested violently. “David, for heaven’s sake, I’ll be fine!” she burst out, exasperated to hear her own fears coming from his lips.

He stuck his hands into his pockets with a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll stop. Ahmed’s going to be here at six.”

“Yes, I remember. And you don’t have to look so worried. I know that he invited Steve and Daphne, too.”

His shoulders rose and fell heavily. He knew what was going on, but he couldn’t tell Meg. She looked haunted and he felt terrible. “I’m sorry.”

She forced down the memories of her last meeting with Steven, the painful things he’d said. “Why?” she asked with studied nonchalance. She dabbed at her face with the towel around her neck. “I don’t mind.”

“Right.”

She lifted her eyes to his. “What if I did mind, David, what good would it do? I ran, four years ago,” she said quietly. “I could have stayed here and faced him, faced her. I let myself be manipulated and I threw it all away, don’t you understand? I never realized how much it would hurt him….” She turned, trying to control her tears. “Anyway, he’s made his choice now, and I wish him well. I’m sure Daphne will do her best to make him happy. She’s cared about him for a long time.”

“She’s cared about him, yes,” he agreed. “But he doesn’t love her. He never did. If he had, he’d have married her like a shot.”

“Maybe so. But he might have changed his feelings toward her.”

He gave her a wry glance. “If you could see the way he treats her at the office, you wouldn’t believe that. It’s strictly business. Not even a flirtatious glance between them.”

“Yes, but you said that it all came to a head when she quit.”

He grimaced. “So it did.”

Her heart felt as heavy as lead. She turned away toward the staircase. “Anyway, I’m going back to New York soon.”

“Sis,” he said softly. She paused with her back to him. “Can I help?”

She shook her head. “But, thanks.” She choked. “Thanks a lot, David.”

“I thought you might get over him, in time.”

She studied her hand on the banister. “I’ve tried, you know,” she said a little unsteadily. She drew in a small breath. “I do have my dancing, David. It will compensate.”

He watched her go up the staircase with a terrible certainty that ballet wouldn’t compensate for a life without Steve. Her very posture was pained. Her ankle wasn’t getting any better. She had to know it. But she must know, too, that Steve wasn’t going to give in to whatever he felt for her; not when he’d been hurt so badly before. David shook his head and went upstairs to his own room to dress.

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