True Bliss (10 page)

"/don't like you, Lennox," Sebastian murmured, taking small pleasure in his own perverseness.

From his vantage point on the bench, he watched Bliss walk slowly back and forth between the gallery walls. She studied each painting carefully, with intense concentration.

Daubs of color. No form. Sebastian could see that much without getting an inch closer. Give him a good landscape any day.

Better yet, black and white photographs. A man knew where he was with a photograph.

An athletically built man separated from a group inside the gallery and tapped Bliss's shoulder.

Sebastian leaned forward.

Bliss turned and smiled.

The guy put his arms around her.

Sebastian stood up. Damn the guy's nerve, putting the make on Bliss. She wasn't returning the embrace.

Sebastian started toward the shop door—and caught Bliss's eye through the window. She frowned and shook her head, just once. The message was implicit. Don't interfere.

He held up his palms, forced a toothy smile, and backed away, all the way away to the bench where he sat down again.

It had to be Lennox. What kind of a name was Lennox? Oh, Len-nox! A name that went just fine with a man who wore a navy blue blazer with brass buttons, and white duck pants, at eight in the evening. A name for a man who blew his perfect brown hair dry and sprayed it.

Not the kind of man for Bliss. Elegant in her simple way. One of a kind. He rubbed his palms over his thighs. In the now of Sebastian Plato, women wore only couturier, right down to the red lace bows ... He shoved the image of the bow aside again.

On the day when he'd first found the guts to talk to her, Bliss had told him she ate lunches from home because her mother didn't want her to get fat. Looking at her now, at her slender body in the too-big dress, he remembered needling her by looking under the table. Sebastian smiled.

If there were a way to throw her over his shoulder and take her home to his bed he'd probably die of happiness. Yeah, he'd die a happy man. All she'd have to do was lie there and let him hold her, let him bury his face in her hair, feel her breath against his neck, her head on his shoulder.

Sebastian shuddered all the way to his toes inside their deck shoes.

He looked toward the upper floor of the mall. He ought to

leave. He'd managed to stay away for fifteen years! And now he couldn't be objective about anything when it related to Bliss.

Lennox slipped an arm around her waist and turned her toward one of his daubs. He pointed, made shapes in the air, bent over Bliss and smiled adoringly at her.

He whispered something in her ear. She eased away.

Sebastian smiled. Maybe Lennox would take the hint. Bliss didn't want any part of him.

A stream of shoppers passed in front of the shop. The crowds were thick, the noise too.

He stood up to see better. Lennox stared unseeingly toward him, his hands sunk deep in his pockets. His expression was? . . . Speculative? Not glad, or sad, but speculative. He wandered outside the shop and scanned the crowds.

There weren't many people in the gallery.

Bliss wasn't in the gallery anymore!

In the space of a few moments she'd managed to leave unnoticed, and had deliberately given him the slip. "She goes up to the second floor ofNordy's to buy a cookie for Bobby, then catches the bus back." Sebastian broke into a run and scoured the upper gallery—and saw a slim woman in black hurrying toward the entrance to Nordstrom's.

"Thank you, Fabiola," he said aloud, running flat out, dodging strollers, and mommas, and daddies, and the sleek groups of women with velvet hair bands. "Thank you! Excuse me, ladies!"

They just stood there and stared at him while he ran by. He'd never understand why women would do that, just stare at a man when he went by. Like they'd never seen a man running before.

He caught Bliss as she drew level with the black grand piano inside the store. He caught her by the arm and swung her around. "Hey, there, old buddy. I thought that was you I saw."

She blinked rapidly behind her wire-rimmed glasses and said, "Why are you here?" very softly.

He ducked his head until she raised her chin. The pianist tripped smoothly from "Masquerade" into a conveniently rich

rendition of "Samba Beach." "What did you say?" Sebastian mouthed at Bliss.

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, just as he remembered them doing so often—usually when he wanted to kiss her, and she was afraid someone would see. "Want to dance?" He drew her into his arms so fast she had no chance to resist.

"We never got a chance to dance before," he said into her ear, and thanked his good fortune that dancing was something he'd learned to do very well along the way.

At first she stumbled over his feet, but, despite her hesitancy—and backless sandals, and amid chuckles from onlookers, she followed him into the short samba, burying her face in his chest by the time the last notes were played.

When they stopped, and he tilted her scarlet face up to his, a smattering of applause broke out. Sebastian kissed her pink nose, then the corner of her mouth.

Laughter joined the applause.

"You haven't changed," Bliss said. "You were always wild."

"I'd prefer to think of myself as spontaneous."

"Stop it. Why are you doing this to me?"

"I want to be with you. I'll take it any way I can get it."

"You must think I'm an idiot. You've stayed away almost half of our lifetimes. Now you'll do anything you have to, to be with me? Please. Give me some credit for a little intelligence."

"I couldn't be here any sooner." Those were dangerous words, words that he couldn't afford to have probed too deeply.

Bliss looked at him quizzically.

"You want some coffee?" he asked her hastily.

"I want to go home."

"How about my home." Red bows. "I mean, how about I take you to your home."

"I came alone. I'll go home alone."

"It's getting dark out there."

"I'm a big girl."

He held her away and studied her baggy, black cotton dress

all the way to slim ankles and narrow bare feet in brown Birken-stocks. "No, you're not."

"What?"

"You're not a big girl. You're little. You always were."

She drew herself up. "I'm five-eight in my .. . Oh, for crying out loud." Furtively, she checked around. "I suppose there's someone watching, right? Someone who'll say I'm spurned or something. They'll say I let you dance with me willingly enough and that will supposedly prove I'm besotted with you."

Deja vu all but winded Sebastian. "That's one of the first things you ever said to me. When I talked to you in the school cafeteria. You thought I was doing it on a bet and someone would hop out and laugh."

The corners of her mouth jerked—down. She was struggling against tears.

"Hey, I'm sorry." Very firmly, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her through the store and outside. A little bar served coffee drinks and snacks. He sat Bliss at one of the iron tables on the balcony overlooking NE 8th Street. "Sit here. Would you like some coffee?"

She shook her head. "A cookie. One of the shortbreads with pink frosting."

For the boy. Sebastian nodded and went for the cookie, never taking his eyes off Bliss until he returned. "Here you go." He put the white bag on the table in front of her and sat down. "Please hear me out, okay?"

"I don't cry," she said, staring at her lap. "Twice today you've made me want to cry."

Earlier she'd done more than want to cry. "All I'm asking you to do is listen to me."

"I'm so tired, I could sleep right here."

"Not too tired to come and see lover boy." He clamped her wrist to the table, stopping her from leaping up. "I don't believe I said that. Forgive me."

"Forgive you. Forgive you? Sebastian, I've got to get on with my life and forget you. I have forgotten you."

"No you haven't. I saw it in your eyes this afternoon. You haven't forgotten anymore than I have."

"Thanks for getting the cookie." She curled her fingers over the bag. "I don't want to talk to anyone. You're here because you want me to squelch this action committee for you."

That would be nice. "I'm here because I want to be."

"I'm not good at conflict."

"Who's the guy?"

Her fine brows rose. "Guy?"

"Don't kid around, Bliss. You aren't good at that, either. The snazzy dude in boating gear."

"Snazzy." A smile put light back into her dark blue eyes. "Is that a word in current usage?"

"Must be. I just used it. Lennox. Who is he?"

"How do you know his . . . You went to the Point."

"Don't blame Fabiola. She knows I'm a friend of yours so she told me how to find you."

"You used to be a friend of mine."

"I still am. At least, I want to be. Who's good old Lennox?"

"A friend." Bliss made to get up.

Sebastian scraped his chair beside hers and put a hand on her arm. "Don't leave me. I really need you, Bliss."

She sat down slowly. "You do know this is bizarre, don't you? Showing up a lifetime after you left me sitting in a car in downtown Seattle waiting for you to take me away to get married?"

It hurt him to think about that night. "If I could change it, I would. If I could turn the clock back, I would."

Bliss looked at his hand where it rested on her wrist and said, "So would I," so quietly he wondered if he'd misheard.

Sebastian gripped her a little harder and averted his face. "They were the best months of my life. The months we had. I remember every one of them—every day."

She didn't respond, but neither did she attempt to move.

"This afternoon. After I left you. I couldn't believe I'd said those things to you. To you, of all people. I hate myself for that. I'm every kind of a fool, Bliss."

"You're not a fool. You never were."

How little she knew about him, really knew about him. He'd made a mistake. Many mistakes, but one gigantic mistake that he'd never be able to erase, not completely. And he hoped he never had to tell her about it.

"It's getting late," Bliss said. "Bobby will be waiting for his cookie."

"How old is he?"

"Five."

He looked at her. "We'd have had children by now."

For a moment she stared back at him. Then her face crumpled before she covered it with her free hand.

"Oh, no." Almost roughly, he pulled her toward him, wrapped her tightly in his arms. "My mouth is on a suicide mission. A thought comes into my head and, blap, it's out."

She struggled, but he wouldn't let her go.

"I'm going to take you home now."

Bliss shook her head. She pushed on his chest until he released her. "I'm going to catch—" A bus pulled into the stop on the opposite side of the street, picked up a single passenger, and pulled out again. "I'm going to catch the bus."

"The one that just left?"

She shrugged. "There'll be another one. I'll wait here for a few minutes then go down. You don't have to stay."

"Bobby will be waiting for his cookie."

The faintest of smiles flitted over her features. "Big, quick, wild, Sebastian. Some things never change."

"And for these things, we are grateful," he told her, leaning a little closer. "They all said I was crazy to come here."

"Why?"

"To Bellevue. They said if I was going to expand into the Northwest it should be to Seattle or Portland."

"Oh." She tucked the cookie bag into a pocket in her dress. Her arms were bare and she hunched her shoulders.

"Cold?"

"No." But she shivered. "Why didn't you go to Portland or Seattle."

"Because Bellevue's closer to you."

Just as he'd visualized a thousand times, she took off her glasses and set them on the table while she pressed a finger and thumb into her closed eyes.

Sebastian settled a hand carefully on top of her head, stroked her hair slowly, slipped his fingers to rest on her nape.

"You want me to believe you found out I live near Bellevue, then decided to spend a fortune setting up a branch of your modeling agency here? Oh, Sebastian. You never used to be a liar. At least, I didn't think you were."

"I'm not," he told her, rubbing the back of her tensed neck. "And you've got it right. That's exactly what I did. It started when I made a few simple inquiries and found out you weren't married. I just kept on thinking about you. Couldn't stop. Now I'm here."

She shook her head again.

"You are cold. And I'm going to drive you home."

Retrieving her glasses, sniffing and searching through her pockets, she started to get up. Sebastian pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. She used it to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. She went to give it back, but laughed and put it into a pocket. "Thanks. I'll send it back to you."

"You don't know where I live." Yet.

"To your office. I'll find the address."

Very firmly, Sebastian took her left hand in his. "I'm going your way. Can we stop talking about it and let me get you back to your nest?"

He saw her make up her mind. "Okay. Thanks. I probably shouldn't let you, but I'm tired. Exhausted, actually. So I'll accept."

Nordstrom's was beginning to close. They hurried through the store to the garage where Sebastian had parked.

As they approached the Ford, Bliss stopped walking.

"What is it?" Sebastian asked.

"That's not yours."

He frowned, then realized what she was asking, "Oh. Yes, it is mine. I never drive anything else. Never will."

She went silently to the passenger side and waited for him to open the door. Gathering her dress in one hand, she climbed in. Sebastian caught a glimpse of pale, graceful legs all the way to smooth thighs. He slammed the door harder than he intended and walked around the hood, making a great deal of fiddling with his keys.

To lie with her in his arms. Naked.

He turned his back on the truck and ground his teeth. They'd been friends, then sweethearts. Funny, old-fashioned word. They'd never been lovers. The kisses had aroused him, the kisses and the touches. But there had never been any question of expecting more until they had married. This afternoon Sebastian had known the unbridled wanting of a man for a woman—for the first time with Bliss.