Man of the Hour. Diana Palmer
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me while I go out back and skin a rock,” David mumbled with a grin, diving quickly past his sister in a most ungentlemanly way to get out of the line of fire.
“Coward!” she yelled after him as the door slammed.
“You wouldn’t need protection if you could learn to keep your mouth shut, Mary Margaret,” Steven said with a cool smile. “I’d had my calls forwarded here while I was playing tennis. Jane couldn’t believe what she’d heard, so she telephoned my home again and got me. It so happened David and I had stopped back by the house to look at a new painting I’d bought. I canceled the call forwarding just in time—or I might have been left in blissful ignorance.”
She glared at him. “It was your own fault. You don’t have to have your women telephone you here!”
The glitter in his eyes got worse. “Jealous, Meg?” he taunted.
“Of you? God forbid,” she said as casually as she could, and with a forced smile. “Of course I do remember vividly the wonderful things you can do with your hands and those hard lips, darling, but I’m quite urbane these days and less easily impressed.”
“Careful,” he warned softly. “You may be more vulnerable than you realize.”
She backed down. “Anyway,” she muttered, “why don’t you just take Jane Thingamabob out for a steak and warm her back up again?”
“Jane Dray is my mother’s maiden aunt,” he said after a minute, watching her reaction with amusement. “You might remember her from the last company picnic?”
Meg did, with horror. The old dowager was a people-eater of the first order, who probably still wore corsets and cursed modern transportation. “Oh, dear,” she began.
“She is now horrified that her favorite great-nephew is sleeping with little Meggie Shannon, who used to be such a sweet, innocent child.”
“Oh, my God,” Meg groaned, leaning against the wall.
“Yes. And she’ll more than likely rush to tell your great-aunt Henrietta, who will feel obliged to write to my mother in West Palm Beach and tell her the scandalous news that you are now a scarlet woman. And my mother, who always has preferred you to me, will naturally assume that I seduced you, not the reverse.”
“Damn!” she moaned. “This is all your fault!”
He folded his arms over his broad chest. “You brought it on yourself. Don’t blame me. I’m sure my mother will be utterly shocked at your behavior, nevertheless, especially since she’s taken great pains to try to make up for the loss of your own mother years ago.”
“I’ll kill myself!” she said dramatically.
“Could you fix supper first?” David asked, sticking his head around the kitchen door. “I’m starved. So is Steve.”
“Then why don’t the two of you go out to a restaurant?” she asked, still reeling from her horrid mistake.
“Heartless woman.” David sighed. “And I was so looking forward to the potatoes and roast I can smell cooking on the stove.”
He managed to look pitiful and thin, all at the same time. She glared at him. “Well, I suppose I can manage supper. As if you need feeding up! Look at you!”
“I’m a walking monument of your culinary skills,” David argued. “If I could cook, I’d look healthy between your vacations.”
“It isn’t exactly a vacation,” Meg murmured worriedly. “The ballet company I work for is between engagements, and when there’s no money to pay the light bill, we can’t keep the theater open. Our manager is looking for more financing even now.”
“He’ll find it,” David consoled her. “It’s an established ballet company, and he’s a good finance man. Stop brooding.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Do we have time to shower and change?” David asked.
“Sure,” she told him. “I need to do that myself. I’ve been working out all afternoon.”
“You push yourself too hard,” Steve remarked coolly. “Is it really worth it?”
“Of course!” she said. She smiled outrageously. “Don’t you know that ballerinas are the ideal ornament for rich gentlemen?” she added, lying through her teeth. “I actually had a patron offer to keep me.” She didn’t add that the man had adoption, not seduction, in mind, and that he was the caretaker at her apartment house.
Incredibly Steve’s eyes began to glitter. “What did you tell him?”
“That I pay my own way, of course.” She laughed. She held on to the railing of the long staircase and leaned forward. “Tell you what, Steve. If you play your cards right, when I get to the top of the ladder and start earning what I’m really worth, I’ll keep you.”
He tried not to smile, but telltale lines rippled around his firm, sculptured mouth.
“You’re impossible.” David chuckled.
“I make your taciturn friend smile, though,” she added, watching Steve with twinkling eyes. “I don’t think he knew how until I came along. I keep his temper honed, too.”
“Be careful that I don’t hone it on you,” he cautioned quietly. There was something smoldering in his eyes, something tightly leashed. There always had been, but when he was around her, just lately, it threatened to escape.
She laughed, because the look in those gunmetal-gray eyes made her nervous. “I won’t provoke you, Steven,” she said. “I’m not quite that brave.” He scowled and she changed the subject. “I’m sorry about Aunt Jane,” she added with sincere apology. “I’ll call her and explain, if you like.”
“There’s no need,” he said absently, his gaze intent on her flushed face. “I’ve already taken care of it.”
As usual. She could have said it, but she didn’t. Steven didn’t let grass grow under his feet. He was an accomplished mover and shaker, which was why his company was still solvent when others had gone bankrupt. She made a slight movement with her shoulders and proceeded up the staircase. She felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t look back.
When Meg had showered and changed into a lacy white pantsuit, she went back downstairs. She’d left her long blond hair in a knot, because she knew how much Steven disliked it up. Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief.
Steve had changed, too, and returned from his house, which was barely two blocks away. He was wearing white slacks with a soft blue knit shirt, and he looked elegant and unapproachable. His back was broad, his shoulders straining against the expensive material of his shirt. Meg remembered without wanting to how it had felt all those years ago to run her hands up and down that expanse of muscle while he kissed her. There was a thick pelt of hair over his chest and stomach. During their brief interlude, she’d learned the hard contours of his body with delight. He could have had her anytime during that one exquisite month of togetherness, but he’d always drawn back in time. She wondered sometimes if he’d ever regretted it. Secretly she did. There would never be anyone else that she’d want as she had wanted Steve. The memories would have been bittersweet if they’d been lovers, but at least they might fill the emptiness she felt now. Her life was dedicated to ballet and as lonely as death. No man touched her, except her ballet partners, and none of them excited her.
She’d always been excited by Steven. That hadn’t faded. The past two times she’d come home to visit David, the hunger she felt for her ex-fiancé had grown unexpectedly, until it actually frightened her. He frightened her, with his vast experience of women and his intent way of looking at her.
He turned when he heard her enter the room, with a cigarette in his hand. He quit smoking periodically, sometimes with more success than others. He was restless and high-strung, and the cigarette seemed to calm him. Fortunately,