She leaned out over the curb to look for a break in the traffic, a move that emphasized the lush curve of her hips, and Denys turned away from the window with an oath. To feel all this again after half a dozen years of peace and sanity was aggravating as hell. To know his control and his will could slip away any moment she was near him was just too galling to bear.
No man could be expected to endure this sort of situation. There had to be a way out of this, by God, and he was going to find it, for he had no intention of wrecking his life a second time because of her.
Lola strode away from Denys’s office mad as a hornet, so mad that she paid no attention to where she was going except that it was away from him. She couldn’t even remember now what reply she’d offered to his infuriating remark, but whatever she’d said didn’t matter, for no words would have been sufficient to express her fury. She ought to have hurled an inkstand at him instead.
Or is your true talent merely that of sleeping with the right man at the right time?
Of all the hypocritical, ruthless, downright unfair remarks—
But not wholly unwarranted.
She stopped on the sidewalk, so abruptly that she was nearly run down by the man walking behind her. He dodged, just managing to avoid a collision, and went around her, while she stood motionless on the sidewalk and faced the brutal fact that though Denys’s accusation wasn’t technically true, it was a reasonable conclusion. She had no right to be angry when what he thought of her was exactly what she’d led him to think.
Denys believed she had jilted him for Henry Latham, and a more lucrative career in New York had been part of the bargain. In choosing to come back, she’d expected his enmity, so why was she angry at him for expressing it?
Because she hadn’t realized how much it would hurt.
That was the real reason she was angry enough to spit nails. She was angry with herself. Hearing Denys say what he thought of her opened a wound inside, a wound she hadn’t been honest enough with herself to admit was even there.
She’d ceased to care a long time ago what people thought of her, but Denys was different. He had always been able to get under her skin and slip past her defenses like no one else could.
And that feeling seemed to be mutual, or he would not have kissed her. He’d done it intending to prove the untenable nature of their partnership, but it was only untenable if he still wanted her.
He resented her, he might even despise her, he certainly did not want to forgive her, and he hadn’t a shred of respect for her. But amid all that, the lust he’d once felt for her was still there.
That was a possibility she had refused to consider until now. During the weeks since Henry’s death, whenever the possibility that Denys might still want her passed through her mind, she’d dismissed it and chided herself for her conceit. On the voyage over, it was the one scenario she hadn’t rehearsed, the one contingency she had refused to plan for. Even last night, when Kitty had warned her, she’d managed to convince herself it was as likely as flying pigs. But now, her body still burning from his kiss, she no longer had the luxury of self-deceit. His desire for her was still there. And, as that kiss had so ruthlessly demonstrated, so was her desire for him.
Mortified, Lola groaned and buried her flushed face in her hands, heedless of the pedestrians streaming by. Her whole life, she’d lived by the knowledge that if anything was going to happen for her in this world, she’d have to make it happen. When Henry’s will had dropped this chance in her lap, she’d known it would be up to her to make it work, and she’d dared to think that was possible. She’d hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that she could wipe away the past and start again. That she could erase the girl who’d taken off her clothes for men in a Brooklyn saloon and the cabaret dancer who’d allowed herself to be kept by her aristocratic lover. She’d believed that she, who had perfected the art of using sexual allure to entertain, could become an actress and producer worthy of respect. And yet, she had just behaved like the wanton everyone, including Denys, believed her to be.
The moment he’d hauled her into his arms, she ought to have shoved him away, slapped him across the face, and told him to keep his hands to himself. He’d kissed her, he’d even manhandled her, and not only had she allowed it, she’d relished every second of it, and she hadn’t spared a thought for their partnership, her aspirations, and her future.
“Are you all right, miss?”
Lola lifted her head, turning to find a young man standing beside her, a young man in the pin-striped suit and ink-stained cuffs of a clerk, who was studying her with polite concern.
She pasted on a smile at once. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”
He went on, and Lola took a deep, steadying breath, working to think with her head.
In choosing to come back here, she’d ignored some of the possible consequences, true, but even if she’d allowed herself to foresee today’s events, would she have chosen to stay in New York and let this opportunity slip through her fingers?
Not a chance.
She’d spent years shimmying around a stage showing off her body, but she wanted to show the world she really could act. She wanted the critics who had heaped scorn on her for her performance in A Doll’s House to eat the biting words they’d written about her afterward. She wanted respect, the professional respect garnered by the likes of Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, respect performers like her never got. And she wanted to learn the business side of things. She wanted to produce her own plays, see her ideas come to life in a way that was not only creatively satisfying but also profitable.
The Imperial was her chance to do all those things, and she wasn’t about to let one stupid kiss get in the way. She might have blindly refused to see this coming, but she’d always known this partnership wouldn’t be smooth sailing, so there was no point in crying at the first squall. What she and Denys had once had was over, and any lingering desires from their past could not be allowed to get in the way of the future—for either of them.
Denys must be made to see her not as his former lover, or as his former mistress, or as the woman who’d hurt him. She had to make him see her as his equal.
And just how, a rather deflating little voice inside her whispered, are you going to do that?
As if in answer, Denys’s voice came back to her.
Can you contribute even one idea that would increase the Imperial’s profits?
Of all the challenges he’d hurled at her a short time ago, that was the one she had the best chance of rising to, at least in the short term. She had no contacts in London yet, and she had no business experience at all, and she’d never seen a financial statement in her life. But she had intelligence, she had grit, and she had imagination. Those traits had carried her from the stockyards of Kansas City to the cabarets of Paris to a successful one-woman show in New York. Surely she could rely on them now.
With that, Lola’s innate optimism and resolve began to return. She’d arrange that partnership meeting, just as she’d told Denys she would, and she could only hope he showed up because she intended to bring an absolutely brilliant business idea with her. She just had to figure out what it was.