Experiment In Love (12 page)

“Actually, I’m extremely choosy. There’s only one qualification I look for.”

“Oh?” She strained to act unconcerned. “And that is…?”

“I think we’ve had this discussion before.” he murmured quietly before reaching to shake hands with a man who had just walked up to them. “Hi, Bob, how have you been?” From that point until they left they had no further chance to talk privately.

The drive home brought more of the small talk that had filled most of the evening. They spoke of the people who had been there, the paintings, even the champagne that had been served.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked as they drew up to her front door. “I also have some two-day-old
danish to challenge your teeth.”

He smiled. “I’d like that.”

Once they were inside Victoria reached for the light switch, but Kurt stopped her, pulling her into his arms and against his body. “Keep it off for a minute. Let me hold you. Let me know you’re really here.”

Her arms looped around his neck, her head tilting, her soft lips unerringly finding his warm, firm mouth. A low groan escaped him before he deepened the kiss, holding her tightly against him as if she would disappear any second. “Why, Victoria? Why are you doing this to us?”

She shook her head, confused thoughts tumbling one over the other. When she was in his arms all rational ideas flitted away on gossamer wings.

His hands traveled over her slender body, searching, searing in their quest. She didn’t care that he was fanning a fire that would soon be out of control. Kurt was all that mattered. His lips traced a pattern down the side of her cheek to the small throbbing hollow at the base of her throat, searing a path that flooded warmth through her veins like slow-moving, heated lava. She could hardly stand, her legs were quivering so. All the electricity that had sparked between them during the evening had been let loose, the switch pulled to allow it to crackle from one to the other, burning, lighting them with unbelievable frenzy. And then the telephone rang. It didn’t register in Victoria’s ears at first, but she felt Kurt stiffen; then his hands dropped to his sides.

“Who would call you this late?” he growled “Another lover?”

“Yes. After losing my virginity with you last week I decided to try everyone, so I went on a prowling binge for the past four days!” She flipped on the light and turned away so he wouldn’t see the hurt his words had caused. But his hand on her shoulder stopped her from moving toward the phone.

“I’m sorry.”

“No more than I am.” Her throat had a large lump in it as she reached for the phone. “Hello?” Her voice was sharp.

“Victoria? I’ve been trying to reach you all night. I need to talk to you.” Her father’s voice came across the wire, tired and dejected as if he were exhausted.

“I don’t think so.”

“I do.” Suddenly his tone took on purpose. “And I mean to see you. Now, where will it be? At your place or at my hotel?”

“Call me tomorrow and we’ll discuss it.”

“I’ll be right there. I don’t care what time it is, I’m going to see you.”

“No! Wait!” Suddenly she was alert again, and a sense of danger flooded through her veins. Her father wasn’t a man to be dismissed easily. “All right I’ll meet you for lunch tomorrow.”

He calmed down slightly and they made the arrangements. After she had hung up Kurt still stood by the door, his jacket open, and one hand in his pocket. He looked like an ad for good liquor in a slick fashion magazine. His brows came together in a frown that her hands itched to wipe away. “I gather that you’re meeting your father?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, her mind completely occupied with the next day.

“Would you like me to go with you?”

“No. I’ll handle him myself.” Her voice held a thread of steel.

Kurt continued to persist. “He’s probably upset because of your living arrangements, and I don’t want you to have to face his accusations alone. After all, you moved here because of me.”

“I don’t need someone to hide behind when it comes to talking to my father.”

“No.” His voice turned bitter. “And you don’t want anyone either, do you?”

“I can take care of myself.” She sounded like a small, belligerent child, bolstering herself with her own words.

“Of course you can. That’s why you spent the weekend at my house, in my bed. That’s why you turned down my proposal of marriage. That’s why you were so jealous tonight when you met Julie.” He almost trembled with anger. “You’re a child, Victoria. A spoiled, frightened child who can’t even see the mess she’s making out of her life. And all because your past memories are getting twisted up with your present life.”

“It’s
my
past and
my
present!” she stated defensively, stiffening in anger.

His expression hardened. “That’s right, it is. You won’t let anyone else into your little world. You’re afraid to live, to take a chance of someone hurting you. That’s why you won’t commit yourself to me, why you’ve refused to see your family again. You’re damned afraid of almost everything except holding on to your anger!”

She stood tall and straight. “Get out of here, Kurt Morgan, and don’t ever come back.” Her voice was low, filled with pain. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He shook his
head, the look in his deep brown eyes was one of sadness. “Someday...”

“There’ll be no someday. You just don’t understand me.”

“I understand you well enough, Victoria. It’s you who won’t try to see anything but what you want to see.”

“Get out.”

“For good, Vicky? Or until you realize just what a great thing we have going for us?” His dark eyes probed hers, his expression grim and accusing. She stared down at the carpet, unable to hold his look, unable to answer.

“I see. Goodbye, then, my Victoria.”

“I’m not yours!”

“You’ll always be mine in my heart. You just don’t know it yet.”

And before she could scream her answer at him he was gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

For the luncheon with her father Victoria mutinously dressed in a way she knew he would dislike. She wore a white and blue peasant blouse tucked into a long, faded, blue denim skirt and tall brown western boots. She tied her sleek, dark hair back in a low ponytail. Long silver earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. She looked properly rebellious, no doubt exactly what her father expected from her. Victoria began putting on her contacts but decided against them, placing her large, round glasses on the perch of her small nose. Now let him compare her to his other daughter.

The restaurant was a new one, crowded, but not overly so. She spotted him immediately, sitting quietly at a table as he stared into space, his expression sad and tired, confirming that the sound of his voice on the telephone last night had not been an act. “Hello, Senator.” Her voice was soft. She immediately wished she had been more discreet in her choice of dress. It seemed so juvenile all of a sudden.

His eyes lit up as he stood, motioning her into the seat across from him. “I’m glad you came,” he said simply. “I thought you might have changed your mind.”

“And what would you have done?”

“Come after you. You’re my daughter.”

“Really?’
Suddenly the anger and hurt were back, bombarding her nerves. “What a shame you just realized it. We could have had such good times together.”

He wasn’t put off. “We did have good times together. You must have forgotten.”

“I didn’t. You did.” she said with false sweetness. “Remember?”

He ran a hand through thinning hair the color of hers. “You’ll never let me forget will you?” He stared at her. “You’ll pay me and your mother back for one mistake for the rest of our lives.
Just like you’re doing now with that outfit. With the coldness in your voice.”

Her chin tilted defiantly. “I’d call it more than one mistake, Senator.”

“No, only one. Your mother and I should never have divorced, but we also foolishly thought that another divorce for me and whether or not we chose to remarry and all the reasons for and against it were our business and no one else’s.”

“It became my business when I was forced to realize just where I stood in your life.”

He sighed heavily. “So it did.” he admitted.

“Why am I here?” Her heart beat heavily as she tried to casually scan the menu. Anything would taste like sawdust right now, so why bother picking and choosing?

“Your mother is in the hospital here. She wants to see you. I want you to visit her.”

“You want, she wants. What about what I want?”

He looked her straight in the eyes. His own tired ones daring her to look away. “All right, Victoria. What
do
you want? The last time I attempted to talk to you, you didn’t seem too clear on the subject. Want to try again?”

He had stumped her. She didn’t know what she wanted. And what was worse, she knew that he knew it too.

“How’s your daughter?” Her voice held an airy quality, a false gaiety.

“She’s fine. She’s going to have a baby next month.”

“Congratulations. You’ll be a grandfather.” The words stuck in her throat. He nodded. “For the second time, yes. Your brother’s wife had a baby girl three months ago.”

“Don’t tell me you’re claiming it?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Don’t do this to yourself, or to me, Victoria. Keeping alive a hurt that should have died years ago will only make you turn bitter and old before your time.”

She gulped past the lump in her throat, angry yet knowing he was right. But somehow she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out; she couldn’t halt the hurt that spilled forth. “I didn’t know you cared, Senator. It certainly didn’t show before this. What a turnaround! From having one child to claiming two more! My, my, what will the voters think?”

“It’s a matter of record that I was married before. The only person who didn’t recognize it was a young girl who accidentally met her half-sister on the street.”

He stared at her a long minute. “Was I supposed to shock her or was it the other way around? If it were your decision, which would you have chosen?”

The silence was stiff with emotion. It had never been stated in that way before, and she was startled with the choice he’d had to make that day.

Her father suddenly looked old, much older than she remembered. “Besides, I’m not running again. I’m retiring to live the rest of my days in private. And if your mother pulls through this next ordeal, with God’s help, I’ll live them by her side.”

“Leaving your wife?” she sneered.

“My wife left me years ago, Victoria. We live separate lives. She’s there for the occasional function when I need her, but she has her friends and I have mine. She’d have no objection if I asked for a separation or divorce. But you didn’t know that did you? If it hadn’t been for your mother I would have been a free man by now.”

“What did mom have to do with it?” Was he trying to soft-soap her? No, his expression was too serious, too honest. The word seemed a mockery when connected with him, but it seemed to be the only one that applied.

“Your mother always had a fear of crowds, groups, gatherings. We weren’t married a month when we realized just how ill-suited she was for public life. By the time your brother was born we both knew that either my career stopped or we stopped. Divorce was the only answer. The problem was that we were still in love with each other and nothing has changed that fact. I convinced myself otherwise and married a woman who thrived in the political limelight, only to find that remarriage wasn’t the answer, either.

But by that time your mother had decided that she liked the present plan. Before we knew it”, he gave a shrug, his eyes dark with the remembrance of another time, “we were committed to a relationship and a way of life that has lasted all this time. Your mother hated public life and everything it stood for. And it was the only thing I loved, next to her.”

“So you had the best of both worlds,” she finished bitterly.

“So I walked a tightrope, willing to give neither of them up but never having the life I wanted either.”

“And will you have enough money to support two families once you retire?”

“I never supported your mother, whatever you may have thought. The house, furniture, daily expenditures, they were all paid for by her with her father’s money. She had a good business head on her shoulders, not like your uncle Jake. All I ever gave her was my love.” He smiled sadly. “I know it sounds corny to you in today’s world, but it’s the truth.”

Her glistening brown eyes were wide as saucers; the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. In fact it was growing larger. “Why are you telling me this
now
? Why didn’t you tell me years ago, when I needed to know?”

“Years ago you wouldn’t have understood. Every-thing was black and white to you, with no gray to mess up your idealistic personal standards.” His eyes grew grave. “But I’m telling you now because I think you’re old enough to understand a little more. Maybe not” He shrugged, looking oddly tired. “I don’t know.” He gave a small sigh. “It’s tough to find out that someone you idolize has feet of clay. As a child you never seemed to see the faults in people until it was too late. Then you hated them for their weaknesses instead of understanding that they were human, just like everyone else. Maybe that hasn’t changed.”

The waiter took their order, returning a little while later with their food. She was right, the lunch tasted like sawdust, the drink like poison. They spoke little, each eyeing the other furtively. Conflicting thoughts crowded in and out of Victoria’s brain. Could there be any truth in what her father had said? She didn’t know. She didn’t seem to know anything anymore. A few short weeks ago she had thought she had life under control — until she met Kurt. Now it was a mess of her own making.

They were sitting over coffee when her father decided to break the silence once more. “Don’t make the same mistakes your mother and I did. If you love someone, princess, commit yourself to him.
Completely and forever.”

“Isn’t it a little late for fatherly advice?” She raised an eyebrow, angry that he had read her thoughts. “About seven years too late.”

His patience was at an end. He was once more the senator. “You can’t act the martyr forever. What happened seven years ago can’t possibly wipe out the seventeen years before. The family times we had together. What you resent is that my career and your mother’s and my own poor decisions changed your life.”

She reached for her purse in the chair next to hers. “Goodbye, Senator. Thanks for lunch.” Her voice was flippant her stomach churning over the lunch she hadn’t eaten.

“Vicky…” He hesitated. “See your mother. For her sake.”

“Goodbye.”

She spent two days in her townhouse, mulling over the conversation, the inflections of his voice, her reactions, only to wind up back at the same conclusion.

She had to visit her mother.

The night she made that decision, she made another. After drinking three glasses of wine for courage, Victoria picked up the phone and dialed Kurt. He wasn’t home. She continued to call every half-hour until the housekeeper was as short-tempered as Vicky was anxious.

At two in the morning she reached him, but not before she had finished several additional glasses of
chablis.

“Please come,” she whispered brokenly into the phone.

‘I’ll be right there.”

Kurt drove like a maniac toward the townhouse. Vicky had sounded so lonely, so heartbroken, that it had frightened him. He loved her, that was a fact. And if he hadn’t been out tonight he would have been with her sooner. His hand hit the steering wheel. Damn! Why had he let Julie talk him into a night on the town for old times’ sake? It wasn’t because he enjoyed it. There was only one woman who could stir him, and she had been trying to reach him all evening long.

Damn the girl! She was so mixed up that she had begun to mix him up, too! Her fiery, independent streak was going to have to grow up. She’d also have to toe the line and face up to the fact that they belonged together. He suddenly grinned. They’d have a fantastic life together, if they didn’t tear each other to pieces first.

Victoria heard his key in the door before she could reach the stairs. She dashed down them, flinging herself into his arms and pressing her head against his sturdy chest.

“You came.”

“I came for you,” he muttered, suddenly over-whelmed with a need that could not be denied. Reaching down, he swooped her into his arms and marched up the stairs.

Victoria kept her head buried against him, her body singing with unspoken messages of desire. She needed him. How she needed him! He was here, with her, and she didn’t have to be alone to face the heartbreak of the past and the fears of the future. Her arms wound around his neck, clutching him tighter.

They reached the bedroom and he put her feet back on the ground, then stood looking down at her, his velvet dark eyes concerned when he saw the tracks of the tears she had cried. His hand came up and undid the clasp that bound her hair, letting it flow around her shoulders. Soon the buttons of her shirt were undone, the material sliding down her soft skin to lie in a small heap on the floor. Her skirt fell at her feet.

“Come to me now, Victoria. Come to me as a woman who loves me.” His voice shook with emotion, his breath playing along her bare skin as he spoke.

Slowly, but with sure fingers, she undid his tie and shirt, then his slacks, until they both stood naked in the pale golden glow of the small lamp by her bedside.

Her mouth parted silently for his kiss, her arms wrapping around his waist so she could lean against the strength of him. He folded her into his embrace, testing the softness of her slim young body and marveling in the feeling. They blended together, both wanting to be one.

Reluctantly he pulled back to stare hungrily into her eyes as he once more learned the contours of her face. His fingertip followed his gaze, outlining her lips, her brows, her high cheekbones.

“Love me, Kurt,” she whispered simply and he complied, giving her no time to change her mind as he laid her on the bed and followed her onto the cushioned softness, his lips silencing anything more she might have said.

Her hands glided over his strong, toughened form, feeling muscles that moved beneath his skin. He lifted his head to gaze at her once more. Then he lowered it again, taking her mouth roughly this time before moving down her body, savoring her small hollows and slopes, tasting the sweetness of her. Then his mouth returned to hers, fiercely branding her, demanding, his tongue searing her with his heat His hips pressed closer, telling her without words just how much he needed her, and she responded the same way, showing him that she was ready and willing to be his.

“Here, touch me here,” he muttered, taking her hand and leading it to his chest, “And here.” He took it on other travels. “Show me you want me as badly as I want you.”

His mouth took her breast teasing her with the warmth of his tongue. His hand parted the long slim length of her thighs, taunting her with the pleasures to come, and she moaned as the tension built to unbelievable heights.