"No." Dreamy eyed, Karen put her hand on a ringing phone. "But it sure is part of being a woman. From desk, Karen speaking. May I help you?"
William Livingston, Amanda thought, tapping his registration form against her palm. New York, New York. If he could afford a couple of weeks in the Island Suite, that meant he had money as well as charm, good looks and impeccable taste in clothes. If she'd been looking for a man, he would have fit the bill nicely.
Opening up the phone book, Amanda reminded herself she was looking for a fax machine, not a man.
"Hey, Calhoun."
With her finger on Office Supplies in the business section, she glanced up. Sloan, his chambray shirt rolled up to the elbows, his hair curling untidily over its collar, leaned on the counter.
"I'm busy," she said dismissively. "Working late?"
"Good guess."
"You sure look pretty in that little suit." He reached over the counter to rub a thumb and finger down the crisp red lapel of her jacket "Kinda prim and proper."
Unlike the little bounce her pulse had given when William Livingstone had taken her hand, it went haywire at Sloan's touch. Annoyed, she brushed it away. "Do you have a problem with your room?"
"Nope. It's pretty as a picture." "With the service?"
"Slick as a wet rock."
"Then if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."
"Oh, I figured that. I've been watching you tow the mark here for the last half hour."
. The line appeared between her brows. "You've been watching me?"
His gaze lingered on her mouth as he remembered just how it tasted. "It made the beer go down easy."
"It must be nice to have so much free time. Now—"
"It's not how much, it's what you do with it. Since you were...tied up for breakfast, why don't we have dinner?"
Well aware that her co-workers had their ears pricked, Amanda leaned closer and kept her voice low. "Can't you get it through your head that I'm not interested?"
"No." He grinned, then sent a wink toward Karen, who was hovering as close as discretion allowed. "You said you didn't like to waste time. So I figured we could have a little supper and pick up where we left off this morning."
In his arms, she thought, lost for a moment. With her mind fuddled and her blood racing. She was staring at his mouth when it curved and snapped her back to reality. "I'm busy, and I have no desire—"
"You've got plenty of that, Amanda."
She set her teeth, wishing with all her heart she could call him a liar and mean it. "I don't want to have dinner with you. Clear?"
"As glass." He flicked a finger down her nose. "I'll be upstairs if you get hungry. Three-twenty, remember?" He lifted the rose from behind the counter and put it into her hand. "Don't work too hard."
"Two winners in one night," Karen murmured, and watched Sloan walk away. "Lord, he sure knows how to wear jeans, doesn't he?"
Indeed he did, Amanda thought, then cursed herself. "He's crude, annoying and intolerable." But she brushed the rosebud against her cheek.
"Okay, I'll take bachelor number two. You can concentrate on Mister Beautiful from New York."
Damn it, why was she so breathless? "I'm going to concentrate on my job," Amanda corrected. "And so are you. Stenerson's on the warpath, and the last thing I need is some cowboy stud interrupting my routine."
"I wish he'd offer to interrupt mine," Karen murmured, then bent over her terminal.
She wasn't going to think about him, Amanda promised herself. She set the rose aside, then picked it up again. It wasn't the flower's fault, after all. It deserved to be put in water and appreciated for what it was. Softening a bit, she sniffed at it and smiled. And it had been sweet of him to give it to her. No matter how annoying he might be, she should have thanked him.
Absently she lifted the phone as it rang. "Front desk, Amanda speaking. May I help you?"
"I just wanted to hear you say that." Sloan chuckled into the phone. "Good night, Calhoun."
Biting back an oath, Amanda banged down the receiver. For the life of her she couldn't understand why she was laughing when she took the rose back into her office to find a vase.
I ran to him. It was as if another woman burst out into the twilight to race over the lawn, down the slope, over the rocks. In that moment there was no right or wrong, no duty but to my own heart. Indeed, it was my heart that guided my legs, my eyes, my voice.
He had turned back to the sea. The first time I had seen him he had been facing the sea, fighting his own personal war with paint and canvas. Now he only stared out at the water.
When I called to him, he spun around. In his face I could see the mirror of my own joy. There was laughter, mine and his, as he rushed toward me.
His arms went around me, so tightly. My dreams had known what it would be like to finally be held by them. His mouth fitted truly to mine, so sweet, so urgent.
Time does not stop. As I sit here and write this, I know that. But then, oh then, it did. There was only the wind and the sound of the sea and the sheer and simple glory of being in his arms. It was as if I had waited my entire life, sleeping, eating, breathing, all for the purpose of that single precious window of time. If I have another hundred years left to me, I will never forget an instant ofit.
He drew away, his hands sliding down my arms to grip mine, then to bring them to his lips. His eyes were so dark, like gray smoke.
"I'd packed, " he said. "I'd made arrangements to sail to England. Staying here without you was hell. Thinking you would come back, and that I'd never be able to touch you nearly drove me mad. Every day, every night. Bianca, I've achedfor you. "
My hands moved over his face, tracing it as I'd often longed to. "I thought I'd never see you again. I tried to pray that I wouldn 't. '' As shame crept through my joy, I tried to turn away. “Oh, what you must think of me. I'm another man's wife, the mother ofhis children.''
"Not here. " His voice was rough, even as his hands were gentle. "Here you belong to me. Here, where Ifirst saw you a year ago. Don't think ofhim. "
He kissed me again, and I could not think, could not care.
"I've waited for you. Bianca, through the chill of winter, the warmth of spring. When I tried to paint, it was your image that haunted me. I could see you standing here, with the wind in your hair, the sunlight turning it copper, then gold, then flame. I tried to forget you. " His hands were on my shoulders, holding me back while his eyes seemed to devour my face. "I tried to tell myself it was wrong, that for your sake if not my own, I should leave here. I would think ofyou, with him, dancing at a ball, attending the theater, taking him into your bed.'' His fingers tightened on my shoulders. “She is his wife, I would tell myself. You have no right to want her, to wish that she would come to you. That she could belong to you.''
I lifted my fingers to his lips. His pain was my pain.
I think it will always be so. "I have come to you, " I told him. “I do belong to you.''
He turned away from me, the struggle between conscience and love as strong in him as it was in me. "I have nothing to offer you. "
"Your love. There is nothing else I want. "
"It's already yours, has been yours from the first moment I looked at you. " He came back to me to touch my cheek. I could see the regret, and the longing, in those beautiful eyes. “Bianca, there is no future for us. I cannot and will not ask you to give up what you have. ''
"Christian—"
“No. Whatever wrongs I do, I will not do that. I know you would give me what I ask, what I have no right to ask, then come to hate me for it. ''
"No. " Tears came to my eyes then, bitter in the cooling wind. "I could never hate you. "
' "Then I would hate myself'' He crushed my fingers against his lips again. "But I'll ask you for the summer, for a few hours when you can come here and we can pretend winter will never be. " He smiled and kissed me softly. “Come here and meet me, Bianca, in the sunlight. Let me paint you. I'll be content with that. "