An Irresistible Temptation (15 page)

“We agreed to get married. Her father wanted
to know that she’d be taken care of after he died and there wasn’t
anyone else in town who . . .” He trailed off.

“Who . . . what?” she prompted him.

He shrugged, looking embarrassed.

“Who looks as good as you?” Sophie suggested.
“Who measures up to Eliza’s level of attractiveness?”

Riley flushed. “That’s not what I was going
to say. Jesus, woman. There are plenty of good-looking folk in
Spring City.”

Perhaps he really had no idea of his own
draw, but Sarah had been right that he was the most handsome man in
the United States. Or, at least, Sophie remembered her saying
something to that effect. In his denims or his city clothes, when
Riley was near her, Sophie felt overly warm all over. She almost
missed the fact that he was speaking again.

“Eliza couldn’t see herself married to a
farmer or a rancher or a storeowner. That left me, I suppose. Or
Thaddeus Sanborn, but he was never around.”

“A doctor or a drifter? I guess she made the
right choice.” Riley would have been Sophie’s choice, too, but for
other reasons than him being a doctor.

“When I’m so close to earning my degree, I
can’t leave her high and dry.”

“A well-developed sense of honor,” Sophie
mused, knowing she ought not to be mocking him. “And Eliza is
willing to settle for this match, without love, without
passion?”

“I suppose so. She’s a good woman despite her
temper.”

“You admire her. Well, that’s something, I
guess, to base a marriage on. Perhaps in time . . .” She couldn’t
believe she was advising the man whom she . . . had such strong
feelings for on how to make his marriage work with another woman.
Next she’d be helping to choose Eliza’s dress.

He shook his head. “We already know that we
can be kind to each other; we even understand each other to a
degree. Our marriage will be a real one, I imagine, with
children.”

Sophie wanted to scream, thinking of Eliza
growing big with Riley’s child one day. How fondly he would look at
his beautiful wife. Yes, Sophie wanted to have a full-blown
tantrum. Instead, she asked him, “Knowing all this, why do you
persist in dallying with me?”

He groaned and closed his eyes. “Why, indeed!
You’re like a fascination, Sophie. Or like opium—once addicted to
it, it’s nearly impossible to break the habit. When you disappeared
from Spring, I went mad for a few days and then, after getting
stymied by the Cuthins, I resigned myself. Or I thought I had.”

He opened his eyes again and looked at her.
“You left my life as abruptly as you entered it, and I convinced
myself your disappearance was for the best. But I found you again,
and my feelings for you haven’t changed.”

He sat down heavily in the chair next to hers
and took hold of her undamaged hand. “I need to see you and touch
you. I want to breathe in the fragrance of your skin. Damn it,
you’re mine.” He brought her hand to his lips and lingeringly
kissed her knuckles before turning her hand over and placing a
searing kiss in the middle of her palm.

Sophie’s breath hitched and she felt her toes
curl inside her leather slip-ons, while her stomach seemed to drop
away as though she were on a swing. She stared, enthralled, at her
hand held in his.

“You were meant to be mine,” he stated. “I
know it as surely as I knew I was meant to be a doctor. I knew it
when you opened your mouth and apologized after I’d knocked you
into the street. I wanted you more than I ever wanted any woman,
especially after I saw your purple drawers.”

“They were lavender,” she corrected him,
without any hint of humor for certainly two hearts were breaking in
that one small apartment. She had known this feeling before but had
been alone in it, when Philip had let her go the way a child
captures and then releases a butterfly. She tugged her hand out of
his.

Thank God Riley hadn’t gone so far as to say
he loved her, though he had danced around it. Throwing away love
was even worse than throwing away their physical attraction. It was
downright wicked to waste love. That’s how she’d felt with Philip,
too, though in honesty, her blood had never stirred within her when
Philip was near or when he touched her. Though she had imagined
herself in love with the cool, ideological man who was Philip, he
had hardly made her feel anything—in comparison to Riley.

Exhausted with the strain of wanting him and
knowing she couldn’t or shouldn’t have him, Sophie’s tone was
harsh. “If we gave in to this ‘fascination,’ what then? My bed is
right there.” They both looked at it. She saw him swallow, then his
jaw tightened.

“You could persuade me to lie down with you,”
she continued, feeling her heartbeat speed up, “or I could . . .
entice you, I suppose. Either way. But after we went to bed
together, what would happen? Do you think after we make love once
or twice, we’ll be done with each other? Will it be easier, then,
to marry Eliza?”

He looked stricken. “I think after I have
touched you in all the ways I want to, that I’d never be able to
let you go.”

Her mind flitted to the tempting thought of
his hands on her bare skin. She let her breath out slowly. Their
relationship was like a piece of music; they were stuck in the
chorus, though she could imagine the verse, beginning to end, and
her heart felt tight and heavy with the futility of loving him.

“You might not intend it,” she said quietly,
“but perhaps you’re using me to get out of your engagement. I think
you’re an honorable man, terribly torn right now. I think if we end
up in that bed, you won’t go through with marrying Eliza, but it
will be my fault. You will be able to place the blame at my feet
rather than making the decision on your own.”

“I would never blame you.”

“You misunderstand me. I don’t think you’d
resent me, Riley, but I would still be the catalyst, the reason you
had to tell Eliza finally that you won’t marry her. She could blame
me, too, of course.”

Sophie got up and went to her door, walking a
little stiffly to keep her legs from shaking. “I decline to be the
tool for either of you to disentangle yourselves from your
passionless business-arrangement of a marriage.” She heard his
chair scrape the floor.

“How did you get to be so smart?” he asked,
standing closely behind her. She turned and he pulled her into his
embrace. If she hadn’t had one hand in bandages, she would have
moved his coat aside and started to unbutton his shirt—just so she
could press her face against his chest, to feel his warm skin. She
swallowed and his gaze darted to her throat.

“I won’t drag you to that bed,” he assured
her, “I promise.” The words were barely out of his mouth before his
lips were on the pulse point of her throat. He kissed her skin and
then flicked his tongue over the same spot. She shuddered.

“I’ve wanted to taste you . . . forever, it
seems,” he said, his voice husky. As close as they were, she could
feel his manhood firm against her stomach and she pressed closer,
feeling him shudder slightly. She longed to touch him everywhere.
Now that they’d decided they wouldn’t act on this white hot desire,
they were teasing each other beyond reason.

“What were you doing before I arrived?” he
asked against her neck.

“I was about to undress.” She couldn’t
believe that whispery voice was her own.

“You might hurt your hand. Let me help
you.”

She started to protest.

“I have never broken a promise. That’s why
I’m in the pickle I’m in now,” he added, referring to his
engagement. “I won’t make love to you. Not tonight. I told you
that.”

Without another word, he began to undo her
buttons, then her laces, until her layers were pooled at her feet
and she stood in her shift. His hungry gaze lingered on her dusky
nipples visible through the pale fabric. He held her good hand and
she stepped out of the fabric. He kept holding it as he led her
toward her bed and she sat, trembling at the intimacy, wishing
things were different and he could raise her shift and explore all
her womanly places that yearned for him.

He relinquished his hold and returned to the
pile of clothing, picking up each piece in turn and placing it over
the back of one of the chairs. The last garment, he buried his face
in for a moment, then tossed it from him.

“I’m going to do the hardest thing I’ve ever
had to do. I’m going to leave you, Sophie, sitting on your bed,
just as you are. Your eyes are huge blue sapphires and you look
like the epitome of a virgin sacrifice, except for the bandaged
hand.”

She tried to smile, but her lower lip
wobbled. This was the closest they would ever get to her heart’s
desire. She knew she had only to open her arms to tempt him back to
her side. But then, the blame truly would be hers. She bit her lip
and remained silent, except to say, “Goodbye, Riley,” as he slipped
out her door.

Without a piano to soothe her, or even the
ability to play if she had one, Sophie curled up on her bed and
cried, not solely for herself, but also for the honor-bound young
doctor who owed too much.

Riley walked the streets a long time that
night, breathing in the damp night air. What a snake he was! Sophie
must hate him. He wished he had his horse so he could ride right
through Golden Gate Park, then up the Twin Peaks and back to the
harbor. But no amount of galloping was going to let him ride away
from what he’d done tonight. Hell, he would probably gallop
straight into the bay and have done with it.

Sophie was here, in San Francisco, which both
gladdened him and tormented him.
Was the good Lord trying to
make him crazy?
He stopped and leaned his back against a
chilled brick wall, dropping his medical bag at his feet.

He had told her the truth. Weeks earlier,
he’d made peace with losing her when he thought she’d walked out of
his life forever, and he’d restrained himself from contacting
Charlotte, who would certainly know where Sophie was. Whether she
would have given him any information was debatable anyway. He had
no idea what Sophie might have said to Charlotte about their brief
association in Spring, but she might have said he was a no-good
cheat, and she would have been right.

Instead, he’d resigned himself to being a
good husband to Eliza. Or, at least, as good as he could be,
knowing there’d be times when he was going to imagine it was Sophie
in his arms when he took his wife to bed.

But all that had changed. Sophie was here,
and his gut twisted and his mind rebelled at losing her all over
again. Eliza would return to Spring City in a few days, and he was
not feeling nearly so resigned to losing Sophie as he’d
imagined.

Hell fire! He slapped the brick wall behind
him with both hands. The stinging was a pathetic replica of the
pain that felt like boulders on his chest.

He’d been so weak tonight.
What had he
gone to Sophie’s home for?
In his heart of hearts, he knew he’d
intended to have relations with her. He couldn’t lie to himself, as
he couldn’t lie to her. If she hadn’t been so damned practical and
honorable and decent, he would still be with her, spending the
whole night just pleasing her. He would have despised himself
tomorrow and, worse than that, Sophie would have despised him,
too.

But for one night, oh, Lord, for this one
night, he would have made love to her with everything he had and
made her feel like a queen.

*****

Sophie used her head and took Freddie Vern up
on his offer. After all, without a job, she’d have to start
depending on her family to pay for her apartment. That meant she’d
have to tell them she’d been attacked and she knew she’d be back in
Boston so fast her head would be spinning. With Carling’s help, she
was soon ensconced on the third floor of The Grand, in the back of
the building.

“I’m starting to regret this,” Sophie said as
Carling helped her put the last of her clothes in the wardrobe.

“Why ever for?” Carling asked.

“You won’t be a street away anymore.”

Carling hugged her. “I’ll be a block away
during the day. Come over to The Palace and see me anytime.”

“But our evening chats over that god-awful
wine,” Sophie persisted.

“We’ll still have them, but we’ll have them
here instead. Not exactly the lap of luxury this room, but it’s
cozy, or we can sit in the lounge. Now that you’re a resident, I
bet you can take your own drink in there. Or maybe get it ‘on the
house,’ as they say.”

“I can’t have you leaving here late at night.
I’d be ever so worried,” Sophie said. “No, I’ve gone and ruined our
lovely arrangement. And if my hand heals completely—”

“
When
it heals completely,” Caring
interrupted.

“All right.
When
it heals, what
happens if I do get my dream position at the opera house or the
symphony? I’ll have to look for a place to live again. I can’t see
Freddie letting me live here scot free if I don’t work for
him.”

“You are a sad Sue today, aren’t you?”
Carling sat down on the bed and then lay back. “Hm, this room might
not be the best, but this bed is fabulously comfortable.”

Sophie sighed and joined her, staring at the
high ceiling. “Yes, it is.”

Carling took Sophie’s hand. “Anyway, don’t
borrow trouble. Let’s see how it goes. I mean, Freddie is obviously
mad for you. If you fall for him, then you can live wherever he
lives.”

“Carling!” Sophie scolded, but she had to
laugh at her friend’s romantic notions. Freddie held no more
interest for her than Dan had.

“Anyway, maybe I’ll move closer to you,
instead. Egbert lives on Bush Street, near Mason. Just as you’d
expect, he has scrimped and saved and he’s bought a house, nearly
on Nob Hill. He’s ever so sensible.”