"I told you you'd never want another woman," Julie said. "And now if you make up for hiding from me and causing me all that worry, I might let you love me again tonight."
Under his breath Nick cursed her. It was suddenly so clear. He never would dream of marrying a woman like Julie if it wasn't for her father and for the future a marriage with Julie might offer. He didn't love her, he didn't feel toward her the way he felt even about Holly.
But he said nothing about it. Instead, he poured out a string of flattery and sweet talk. It was what she wanted. And whatever Julie wants, she gets.
Nick stumbled into a bar and ordered a double scotch and water and drank it down in one swallow. He had another drink and tried to erase the memory of his groveling scene on the floor with Julie, and the way he had faked desperate passion while he pandered to her vanity.
He did not know if he could love Julie again after seeing her like that. And yet, he told himself, none of this would have happened if he had not gotten involved with Holly. Julie would change after the marriage, he told himself.
The marriage, he said, and saw a couple of men stare at him and he realized he was mumbling aloud. The juke box was loud and the bar filled with smoke and Nick tried desperately to sort out his thoughts, but everything was a haze. He felt weak and desperate and he despised himself.
Then, as he finished the drink, the thought came to him. And it was so simple he marveled that he had not thought of it sooner. He could not deny his obsession with Holly. And he could not give her up. So he would simply tuck her away in an apartment, and see her there. Yes, he said, and smiled, and realized that he could work on the beer account and somehow cover things until after the marriage.
Nick was smiling as he left the bar. He caught a cab and leaned forward, anxious to get home. He would enjoy Holly tonight, and tomorrow get her a place of her own. He could see her only when he wanted to, and somehow everything would work out. And there would be no danger that Julie or her father or someone else would walk in and find him living with a teenager.
Nick settled back and whistled softly and stared at the snow from the window of the speeding cab and knew now that he would break that damned Dennison thing wide open tomorrow.
CHAPTER TEN
Nick was still whistling as he entered the apartment. A night with Holly, then the ending of the agony of being discovered, he told himself.
"Hey, anybody home?" he called as he walked over to the bar.
Holly came from the bedroom, dressed only in the plaid shirt with the two buttons open as usual. Nick stared from the surge of the breasts down to where the shirt ended, and despite his love-making to Julie he immediately went warm and his face flushed with desire.
"Baby, am I ever glad to see you and have I ever solved my dilemma," he said.
"Nick, listen," she said very softly, and she looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen.
Nick swallowed and his mood evaporated in an instant. Instinctively he knew that something was badly wrong. And then he realized Holly was pale, and there was a strange desperate look in her eyes.
She took a step toward him. "Nick, I'm sorry, listen to me," she said. "When the bell rang I thought it was you and I was so anxious to see you I answered the door without thinking. You never told me not to, Nick."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nick asked.
"Well, when this dippy old lady came barging in, I had no idea what to do or say, Nick," she said.
"Old lady?" Nick asked and a chill shot up his spine. "Oh, God, it can't be. Not now."
"She insisted on waiting for you," Holly said. "Is she something else, baby. I offered her a drink. And you know what she did? She took a bottle of gin and insisted on going into the kitchen to look for a teacup."
Nick poured a glass half full of scotch and gulped it down. It fell heavily onto a gnawing, rolling stomach. "Christ, there goes the whole works," he said. "I'm dead in this town, Holly."
He could see himself now, trying for unemployment and not even being able to get that. He licked his lips and shook his head. Here everything was going to be worked out, and he had to come home and find Frances Dennison in his kitchen and Holly standing here in nothing but that shirt.
"Why the hell didn't you put something on after you let her in?" he asked. And he cursed the day he ever met Holly.
"I did, Nick," she said, very quietly. "I put this shirt on. I was naked when I answered the door."
Nick laughed then, laughed and shook his head and felt tears forming in his eyes from the wracking laughter. "We're some team, Holly," he said. "We've really done this thing beautifully. We just missed one trick. We should have been making love on the floor when she came in." He laughed harder, then the laughter choked in his throat.
"Nick, are you all right," Holly asked.
"Sounds like a party in there," Frances Dennison called, and Nick stumbled back and sat on the couch and muttered, "Oh, Christ."
"Oh, here you are young man," Mrs. Dennison said as she emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of gin in one hand and a tea cup in the other. Her faded eyes were sparkling and she was wrapped in a huge flowered shawl.
Nick stood up and glanced at Holly, then at the old lady. "Good evening, Mrs. Dennison," he said and felt absolutely defeated and absurd.
"Young man, don't you ever answer your phone?" she asked, and she perched on the edge of a straight backed chair by the desk. "This is the first time I've been out of the house in weeks. But I was intrigued about you after our meeting and curious about your work on my beer advertising. And Marshall Connors told me you had been working at home. But he didn't tell me you had a helper."
She glanced at Holly and the girl shrank back and looked at Nick. "Christ, go put something on," he snapped at Holly. "You're dressed like a tramp."
"Why young man, how very rude," Mrs. Dennison said. "Come here child, I want to get a closer look at you."
Holly inched over and stood in front of Mrs. Dennison. Nick watched the old lady look from head to toe as she sipped her gin.
"About this girl," Nick said.
"Come now, young man," Mrs. Dennison said. "I hope you're not going to offer me some feeble excuse, and tell me she's doing your typing or something like that."
"There's not much of an excuse, is there?" he asked. "I guess the situation is rather obvious."
"Rather obvious," she said and nodded and sipped from the tea cup, "even to an old lady who is filled with gin."
"But things are over now," Nick said desperately. "This in the end, in fact. If you weren't here, she'd be out by now. This in no way impairs my love for Miss Connors. It was a stupid indiscretion on my part."
Nick saw Holly's lips tremble and she sniffed, but she did not say anything.
"Oh that's right, you're engaged to that pasty-faced Connors girl," Mrs. Dennison said. "Why it's terrible for you to talk about this lovely girl the way you are. I won't have it. Why she'd make three times the woman that frigid Connors would. What's your name, child?"
There was no answer and Nick looked up to tears rolling down the lovely golden cheeks. "Her name's Holly," he said.
"Holly," Mrs. Dennison said. "Holly, what a lovely name. Well, young man if I were Holly, I would not stand for the way you talk to her. But that's between you two. Now tell me how you're planning to sell my beer?"
Nick thought of half a dozen lies, each one less plausible and more stupid than the last. He swallowed and felt his stomach rolling and stared into the penetrating eyes embedded in the deeply wrinkled face. Then he shook his head.
"I don't have any idea, to be perfectly frank," he said. "I haven't been able to come up with a damn thing."
"I respect you for being honest," she said. "But I must say I'm disappointed. I couldn't help but see the papers on your desk here. I would say the word HOLLY is written approximately twice as many times as the word DENNISON."