Gwynne Forster - Love Me or Leave Me

“Look,” he said, hands up and palms out, “you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“No,” Drake said, his facial expression stern and harsh, “but you can blame him for not having any integrity.” He turned to Pamela. “We’d better be going. If you have any more difficulties with this fellow, report him to the police. After you,” he said to Lawrence, effectively ordering him out of the office.

“When did Lawrence tell you that?” she asked Drake after they seated themselves in the restaurant and gave the waiter their orders.

“When I saw him last evening at an alumni meeting. Both of us attended graduate school at the University of Maryland. He worked on the campus paper. How did he know you were having dinner with me?”

“He asked me for a date, as he frequently does though I’ve yet to say yes, and I said I had a dinner engagement. I suppose he’s seen us together and assumed I was meeting you.”

He leaned back. “Right. What happened to you, and why didn’t you call me?”

“I stopped at that filling station just before you turn into Milford, got an oil change, my front and rearview windows washed, and my tires checked. A few minutes after I turned off the highway, both of my front tires blew out. Fortunately, I was on that ramp, so I wasn’t driving fast. I walked the two miles back to the station, and—”

“Why didn’t you use your cell phone and call me? I would have gone there and helped you.”

Her right shoulder flexed in an automatic shrug. “I forgot it and left it on the desk in my office. When I got to the restaurant, you’d left, and the maître d’ implied that I had bad manners for having stood you up. I called your home from a pay phone in the restaurant, but you weren’t there. Henry took the message.”

“I haven’t been home since then, so he hasn’t seen me.”

When both of her eyebrows shot up, he explained. “I stayed in Baltimore that night with Russ and left for Ghana the next morning. I got back Tuesday night. Incidentally, did you ask the station attendant to check your tires to see what happened?”

She nodded. “He said someone slashed them, probably while he and I were inside the station straightening out my bill. He said a yellow Cadillac drove up, but when he went back outside, it had left, and the driver didn’t make a purchase.”

His fingers moved back and forth across his chin in the manner of one deep in thought. “Sooner or later, you’ll know who did it. A yellow Caddy is hard to hide.”

She fidgeted beneath his direct gaze, uncomfortable because of her reaction to him, but also because she couldn’t fathom his demeanor.

“What is it, Drake?”

“You’re so beautiful. I watched you on television last night and, well…all that polish and intelligence in such a beautiful package.”

She could say the same about him, but she didn’t because she knew he wouldn’t like it. He had made it clear on a number of occasions and in several situations that he wanted to be accepted for himself. “I can’t take credit for the way I look. That’s a genetic accident,” he once told a matronly hostess, “but I gladly take responsibility for the man I am.”

“Last night, you said you weren’t satisfied with the way things are. I want you to clarify that.”

“We were estranged, out of touch.” He leaned forward, reached across the table and took her hand, sending shivers of apprehension through her system. “Last Friday night, I had planned to ask you to allow us to step back from where we seemed to be headed.” She lowered her gaze so that he wouldn’t be able to discern her feelings. “I dream of becoming nationally recognized in my profession, and I’m so far from that goal. Oh, I know Harrington, Inc. is well thought of in this part of the country, but I want more than that. I want to take chances, do original work, set the pace the way the engineers who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright did, and I can’t do that unless I’m traveling alone. When I was away from here, in Ghana, I couldn’t remember why I wanted some breathing space between us. I’m not even sure now if that’s what I want.

“When I was watching you on TV last night, it certainly wasn’t what I wanted, and it isn’t what I want right now. But I’m thirty-one years old, and I’m not ready to settle down.”

“I don’t remember having asked you to settle down with me.”

“This is true, but I’ve thought about it. A lot, in fact. I don’t mislead women, and I don’t play relationship games with them.”

“Is there another woman you’d like to get to know or that you prefer?”

“Of course not. If there was, I would have told you. I am also not having this conversation with any other woman.”

She looked at him, wondering if he knew he’d just told her that of all the women he knew and associated with, she was the one to whom he was closest. He may want breathing space, but she didn’t. Still, a relationship with a man who didn’t want to settle down was not in her best interest. “Drake, I’m thirty years old, and if I’m ever going to have any children I have to get started soon. Thirty is already old to have a first child.”

“I’m aware of that, and it may account for my need to be direct with you.” His fingers plowed through his hair. “But I’m not saying I’ll be happy to break this off. I definitely won’t, but I have to be straight with you.”

She patted his hand and forced a smile. “Come on. I have to get back to work. If I need an escort that will knock ’em dead, I’ll phone you.”

With cobralike swiftness, he grabbed her left wrist. “That wasn’t called for. I don’t squire women around. If you needed to strike out at me, that was as good a way as any.” He stood and walked around to her side of the table to move her chair. She took her time getting up because he was standing there and she’d be inches from him. As she expected, he didn’t move when she stood, but stared down into her face, his own ablaze with passion. Lost in the moment, she rimmed her lips with her tongue, knowing that she’d fastened her gaze on his mouth, on that firm masculine mouth that with the barest touch could singe her with desire. She closed her eyes, but quickly opened them when his fingers encircled her arm.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

They walked back to the TV station without speaking, each deep in thought. Half a block from the building, his hand captured hers and squeezed her fingers.

“A man doesn’t ask if he can have his cake and eat it, too. He makes a choice, and I thought I’d done that.” At the entrance to the building, he leaned forward, kissed her briefly on the mouth and gazed down at her for a full minute before saying, “I’ll be in touch.”

She tripped to the elevator with a spring in her steps. Oh, she wanted to fly through the air like a prima ballerina, free and unfettered. He could say what he liked and tell himself all the tales he wanted to, but he wasn’t ready to break off their relationship, and she wasn’t going to do anything that would encourage him to. She meant a lot more to him than he was willing to admit. But he’d better hurry up. I want him, but not badly enough to sacrifice motherhood.

Before she could sit down and begin work, Rhoda knocked and walked into her office. “I know you’re busy, but I’m not leaving here till you tell me who that hunk was who kissed you right in front of the door here. Talk about moving from the ridiculous to the sublime. Whew!”

Rhoda’s raving over Drake annoyed her, and she wasn’t sure why. She liked Rhoda and found her work more than satisfactory, but the remark and the question were out of place. Better not leave any doubt in the woman’s mind. She leaned back in the swivel desk chair and looked Rhoda in the eye. “Since you’re aware that he kissed me on the mouth, you don’t need to know who he is.”