Experiment In Love (16 page)

“Do you think so?”

“Sure.” Chet said
, his voice filled with confidence. “And if he isn’t, then give me a call and we’ll do the town together. I know a classy lady when I see one.”

Chet stood and held out his hand, smiling down at her. “Tell you what. Take your chances with the guy and go after him. If it works you owe me the biggest and best story you can write, promoting me as the next Valentino.” He winked.
“Deal?”

“Deal,” she finally said with a smile, her hand slipping into his. “And whether you’re right or wrong, I’ll write that story,” she promised, giving him her first real smile.

It took three hours for Victoria to realize just what a coward she was. She had always had a temper. However, over the past few years she had thought she had learned how to control it. But with Kurt she had proven she couldn’t control her emotions time and time again. And now she couldn’t even apologize properly for her own lack of control.

It was because of her that they had gone from the expectation of ecstasy to breaking up so completely so quickly. Why hadn’t she had the sense to keep her mouth shut? Was she so self-destructive that she had to wreck whatever happiness came her way?

She was behaving like an abandoned child again, and that had never done well for her.

Was there a flaw in her character that wouldn’t allow her to see what she wanted until it was too late to do anything about it?
Apparently so. For so many years she had accused her parents of wrecking her happy home, but it had always been just the same. It was only the fact that she knew more about her parents’ relationship that had made it different. The hard truth was that they hadn’t changed. She had. And she had thought she had known everything. How sanctimonious teenagers could be!

And now, looking back, she realized that she had carried her juvenile emotions into an adult man to woman relationship that meant more than the world to her. She had acted and reacted like a child. No wonder she had lost him.

Then the solution came to her. A small smile played around her mouth as she envisioned the scene that would begin in Kurt’s office. It had to work. It
would
work!

CHAPTER NINE

The
Newstime Tower stood silhouetted against the dusty pale blue of the Los Angeles skyline. Victoria strode straight through the thick glass doors. She looked totally chic and very much a part of the scene, wearing a sleek black dress with a high collar, short capped sleeves and a slit up one side to expose a barely decent length of tan leg. Her long dark brown hair was piled in a loose, chic and very attractive knot on the top of her head, fastened with large wooden stick-pins.

She walked straight into an elevator and rose quickly to the executive suite. But as Victoria walked down the long carpeted hallway toward Kurt’s office, her spirit began to falter. What if he wouldn’t see her? What if he wouldn’t accept her? What if he didn’t want to have anything to do with her, ever again? What if he really thought that she was just too juvenile for him? What if he wasn’t willing to take the time to show her the right way to grow, to learn, to satisfy? She gave a deep sigh. And all this was because it had taken her seven years longer to grow up, behaving like an adult instead of a spoiled brat than it should have!

She hesitated just outside the glass door that led to the reception area of his office and peered in, seeing his secretary talking on the phone as she scratched something on a memo pad. Victoria’s hands were clammy with perspiration; her nerves stretched tight. Her eyes darted about the area, unconsciously seeking a place to hide if necessary. What would she do if she couldn’t get past Kurt’s watchdog?

She straightened her shoulders. It was time to grow up and face that the rest of her life that was at stake. She’d get past his secretary if it killed her! She had to!

Victoria gave the older woman her best smile, looking what she hoped was confident and self-assured “I’d like to see Mr. Morgan, please.”

“Do you have an appointment?” Margie took in the appearance of the girl in front of her. She seemed to be sweet but there was a definite sense of panic in the air.

“I didn’t think I needed one.” She forced a light airy laugh, only she sounded like a croaking frog to her own ears. “After all, I am his intended” His intended! Couldn’t she have said something, anything, except that? That sounded like it came straight out of a period romance or something! “I mean, we’re engaged. We’re getting married.”

“I see,” Margie muttered dryly. “And does the bridegroom know about this? Or are you here to inform him of the fact now?”

Victoria flushed a deep red. Just then Kurt’s office door opened and he ushered an older man out, his eyes turning to chipped ice when he spied Victoria.

She smiled brightly, but it wasn’t returned. He was surprised to see her, but he certainly didn’t look happy.

She walked toward him, her arms out as if to embrace the world. “Darling!” Her voice was supposed to sound throaty; instead it sounded hoarse.

“Your, uh, intended just announced herself to me, Mr. Morgan. I haven’t had a chance to announce her to you.” Margie left the one big question hanging in the air. Was he really engaged?

“My intended?” Kurt’s attitude became even chillier, if that was possible. He held her arms away from him, staring down at her face. “That’s because she’s not my ‘intended,’ Margie.”  Victoria’s heart dropped to her knees. “She has a great deal of explaining to do and then she has to propose, properly, on one knee. If I like what she has to say, then I’ll make my decision.” His voice was as grim as a death knell, but his words put a giggle in Victoria’s heart. He would listen to her! He would!

She followed him into his office, her head bowed contritely until the outer door was shut and they were alone.

Peeping through her lashes she saw him cross his arms and take a waiting stance. His brows were still etched in a dark, ominous frown. She took a deep breath.

“Will you marry me, Kurt Morgan?” she questioned testily. After all, she wasn’t totally at fault here. He
had
had another mistress before her, and he had kept her in the same apartment! She forgot that this same topic was the very thing that had torn them apart a few days before.

“I don’t think so, but thanks anyway,” he said calmly.

Her eyes opened wide. After that speech to his secretary she hadn’t expected him to say no! “What?”

“I said no, thank you.” His dark brown eyes glanced off her and stared out the window as if he were bored with the whole conversation. “Now, if there’s nothing else…?”

“Who in the hell do you think you are? I came here in good faith, ready to apologize for all the bad times I’ve put you through! The least you can do is listen to what I have to say!” she shouted, hands on hips.

Kurt walked slowly to the window and continued to stare out, his back toward her. “All right, say what you have to say. I have other things to do today.”

Victoria’s thoughts raced so wildly in her brain that she couldn’t think of a single coherent sentence. Her hands reached out imploringly to his broad, silent back before once more dropping to her sides.

She’d just have to begin at the beginning.

“When I found out that my father still cared for us as if we were his only family, even when he was married to someone else, it destroyed all the illusions I had lived with for so long. When I was young I thought that people married and lived happily ever after. But our family was different from the others I knew, and I blamed my father. It never dawned on me that both of them could have wanted such an unusual setup. It’s only recently that I've grown up enough emotionally to realize that nothing is ever just one person’s fault.”

Kurt continued to stare out the window, his silence becoming oppressive. “Go on,” he requested.

“That’s it. I love you, but I was afraid to make a commitment to you for fear of losing you later, like I thought my mother lost my father, like I thought I lost my father. Now I realize that if I don’t have you, I don’t have anything.” She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m accepting your proposal and I promise to try hard to make our marriage work.”

“It sounds like a Girl Scout pledge, Victoria. It’s not enough.”

“What else do you want for goodness’ sake? Do you want me to jump out the window to prove my love? Do you want me to lie down on your carpet so you can walk all over me? Well, I won’t do it!”

“I don’t want you to do any of that. I want you to tell me why you love me, why you’ve suddenly decided that you won’t lose yourself in my image.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Those were the reasons why you were hesitant before, weren’t they?”

Anger and frustration made her adrenaline pump. She closed her eyes and said a quick prayer, hoping that he would be able to read between the lines and understand the feeling her inadequate words were trying to communicate. “I don’t know why I love you. It could be because you have such knowing hands, a quick mind, a crooked smile, a giving nature or even a beautiful body. I do know that you have a tendency to read my mind, but this time you don’t seem to have any idea what I’m thinking.” She waited for a reaction to her teasing, but there was none. “Turn around, Kurt. Look at me,” she pleaded “Don’t let me continue to make an absolute fool out of myself if you’ve decided you can’t stand the sight of me anymore.”

Kurt did as she asked, his arms still crossed over his broad chest, the expensive dark-gray fabric of his suit jacket stretched across his biceps to accentuate the strength of them. “I haven’t decided anything, Victoria. I just don’t know if I can cope with your moods, your wild whims and fancies. You’ve been telling me how important your freedom is to you, and suddenly you walk in here to announce that not only is it
not
important anymore, but that you’ve decided that you want to marry me. What’s really odd is that it was all right for you to reject me, but it’s not fair for me to do the same to you.”

Her eyes pleaded for him to understand “I know. Women expect all sorts of things from men that aren’t right or realistic. Like expecting you to be able to take rejection better than we do, or being
more brave in the face of adversity.”

She walked toward him, her step firm, her eyes locking with his so he could see the truth of her words reflected there. “All I know is that I love you with all my heart, and that love frightens me. It frightened me so much that I began running away from it even before I realized what it was, and I’ve been running ever since. But now I can’t run anymore. I finally had to stop and face some home truths.

She took a deep breath and attempted to organize her thoughts so he would honestly understand her side. “I’ve held a grudge, a childish grudge, against my parents for not being able to keep to my picture of what an ideal marriage should be like. I thought that if they loved each other, as they obviously did, then that should solve all their problems. When I finally realized that it didn’t, I was crushed. I no longer had faith in any marriage. I only saw the pain, never the joy. I didn’t realize that the joy of a marriage is as private as two people make it.” She waved her hand in the air, dismissing her findings. “But my parents weren’t the core of my problems. I was. I blamed everything on my father, on men, and in doing so, I made you take the brunt of my anger.

“The other night when you walked out the door and I knew that you wouldn’t
return, I had to face some very hard, cold facts and, in doing that, face myself. I don’t want to live without you.” Victoria’s voice dropped an octave. She placed her hands on the firmness of his chest her fingertips feeling the strength of the heartbeat beneath. “I want to be near you in all the ways a woman can be near a man. I want to be there at night when you come in, to share a drink and conversation with you. I want to see you leave in the morning, knowing that at odd times during the day a memory of some of our intimate moments will flash through your mind. I want to breathe deep of the special scent of you, touch the strength and vitality of your body, hold you close, and disappear in your arms to be absorbed inside you. I want to know the corners of your mind and the planes of your body. I want you to need only me as much as I need only you.” She hesitated. “I want you to love me as much as I love you, Kurt.”

“And what about the power I’m supposed to wield with my money?”

“I don’t care.”

“And the family you profess to hate?”

“I lied. I love them.”

“And the plastic women you’ll have to rub elbows with during parties?”

“I’ll find something in common with them. After all, they were young once, too.” Her hands strayed to his throat, her soothing fingers slowly undoing the knot of his tie. He swallowed deeply, but showed no further reaction.

“And the moped?”

‘I’ll let you pay the gas bill on my car.” She dropped the tie to the floor and began loosening the top button of his shirt.

“Are you going to act sweet demure and polite? Be a proud figurehead in high society?”

“Yes, yes.” Her hands were busily unbuttoning his shirt, and when the last button was undone she began tugging on his belt.

“Liar,” he muttered, his hands dangling at his sides, balled into fists.

Her eyes widened, hurt “You don’t believe me?”

He continued to stare at her, his hands clenching and unclenching, his eyes showing as much hurt pride and disillusionment as hers had ever done. He reached over and flicked the switch on the intercom. “Margie, I don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. Understand?” he growled.

“Yes, boss. You’re out for the day,” she confirmed.

Victoria watched him straighten up and face her once more. Her blood pounded through her veins at such a fast rate that she was sure he could hear the noise.

“And now that we know my requirements, and before I decide if you’ve answered me truthfully, what are yours for me?”

Her hands knotted in front of her as she stared at him, her confusion plain to see. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean that after giving all those concessions to me, you must want to demand a few of your own. What are they?” His voice was still velvety rough, grating sensuously against her already raw nerves.

“Will you promise to hold me close when I want you to? Just hold me. No questions asked and no advances made.”

“Yes.”

“Do you promise you won’t have any other women in your life?”

“Does that include Margie?”

She attempted to keep her face solemn. “Not as long as she remains on the other side of that desk.”

“Yes. She will. I promise.”

She was getting into the spirit of this now, and watching his chocolate eyes turn darker and knowing what was on his mind, she continued, teasing him with her glance. “Do you promise that you won’t try to buy me with presents and trips?”

One brow raised. “That’s a cheap enough yes,” he answered dryly.

“And will you make love to me when I approach you and not be chauvinistic enough to want me only
when you want and only on your terms?”

His voice deepened even more. “That’s fair,” he answered.
“As long as I don’t have a headache.”

Her hands once more reached for his buckle. “And will you promise to love me the best you know how?”

Her voice was a mere whisper, all her pent-up emotions showing in her face.