Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers Page 53

  “We’ll have to see about that,” Brian said coolly, and Laura’s head came up.

  She focused on Peter Winters. “I’ll be here, Dr. Winters—you can count on it.”

  “Laura—” Brian started, but the smile she flashed in his direction seemed to cut off his next words. “We can talk about it later,” he said gruffly. “In the meantime, I’ll drive you home…that is, if it’s all right with you.”

  Laura looked at Julie, then back to the tall bearded man. “I’d like that, Dr. Heraldson.”

  “Brian,” he corrected. “I’m not your doctor anymore. From now on we’re just friends.”

  Laura smiled softly. Her cheeks still held a trace of her earlier tears, but some of the color had returned to her face.

  Julie squeezed her sister’s hand. “Call me if you need anything.” She watched the two of them walk away, worried about Laura yet grateful her sister had a friend like Brian Heraldson to lean on.

  Then another man’s image came to mind, taller, darker, more sensually handsome. She wondered what Patrick Donovan would have thought about the events of the evening. His opinion might have mattered if things had worked out differently between them.

  After his icy rejection, she told herself she didn’t really care.

  * * *

  Walking over to the built-in bar in Patrick’s office, Val reached for a crystal decanter of scotch. “Still a Chivas drinker?” he asked the tall, statuesque woman in black who had just walked into the room. Onyx hair framed a beautiful oval face, a cloud of black that set off her pale, nearly flawless complexion.

  Felicia Salazar smiled, lifting a small heart-shaped round mole near the corner of her mouth. “You always did have a good memory…at least for the important things in life.”

  He felt a trace of amusement, appreciating another of Patrick’s many talents. “On occasion it’s a handy thing to have.”

  She walked up behind him, rested a long-fingered hand on his shoulder. “What else do you remember, Patrick?” She brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his navy blue sport coat. “The night we made love on the terrace of our room in Puerta Vallarta? We drank champagne that night, do you recall? You poured it onto my breasts then licked it off while we sat on the edge of the pool. God, you were so romantic.”

  She bent forward till her breath feathered over his ear. “Or perhaps you remember something a little more erotic…like that time in Century City when you pushed the elevator stop button between the eight and ninth floors of Daddy’s new office building. The walls of the elevator were mirrored, do you remember? We could watch each other while we did it. I remember how hard you were, how you forced me into the corner and shoved up my skirt. You buried yourself so deep I came almost instantly. You do recall that…don’t you, Patrick?”

  He swallowed, his hands a little unsteady. He remembered, all right. The erotic images had him hard again, just thinking about what they had done.

  Her smile turned more exotic, her thick-lashed eyes going dark. She reached down and cupped his groin. “Yes…I can see you do.” She bent forward and kissed him, stuck her tongue inside his mouth.

  Val kissed her back, enjoying the hot sensations washing through him, opening himself up to them. Felicia Salazar had just returned to the States from Brazil, where she had been living with her third husband. They were separated, she said. She was lonely. She was looking to Patrick for company.

  He deepened the kiss, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her against his groin. He cupped her buttocks, massaged the firm globes through her short black skirt. It occurred to him that although his body was aroused, he was far more in control than he had been with Julie.

  Felicia slowly ended the kiss. “I’m sure your couch would suffice, darling, but I’ve an appointment at one, and I’m too greedy to settle for just a few minutes. My limo will pick you up at eight. We’ll go somewhere special for dinner then go back to my suite at the Penn. We can fuck like rabbits all night, then have breakfast together in the morning.” She kissed him again. “No strings. No expectations. It’ll be just like old times.”

  Val’s dark eyebrows drew together. It was Julie he wanted, not Felicia. He was even more determined to have her, but if they did make love, he couldn’t afford to make another mistake. Even though he could relive Patrick’s experiences through his memory any time he wanted, it wasn’t the same as having actually done it. He wanted desperately to do things right this time and there was only one way to insure that.

  He smiled. “All right. Sounds like the perfect evening.”

  Felicia ran a long red nail down his cheek. “It will be, darling, I promise.”

  She left him then and watching her walk away, he pondered his decision. He felt uneasy about it. Something didn’t feel right. Still, it seemed the sensible thing to do, the most logical way to achieve his final objective.

  He had a couple of phone calls to make. When he was finished, he left his office and headed toward the receptionist’s desk up at the front.

  “What time did Julie say she’d be in?” he asked Shirl Bingham.

  “Actually, she didn’t say. She said she had appointments all day. She called in a couple of times for her messages, but I didn’t get the impression she was going to actually come in.” Behind him the front door swung open, ringing the bell on the top. “Babs just walked in. You might try asking her.”

  He turned in her direction. She was dressed impeccably in wide-legged lemon-yellow pants and a black-and-yellow top.

  “Hi, stranger,” he said. “How was Mexico?” She’d gone to Acapulco for three days with her latest flame, a polo player named Renaldo de la Garza.

  “Hot.” She rolled her pale blue eyes. “I must have been out of my mind to go down there this time of year. All we did was drink Margaritas and vegetate in the pool.”

  “Sounds like real tough duty.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, well, somebody’s got to do it.”

  Val smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I might find Julie?”

  “Not right now, I’m afraid. I talked to her though. She said she’d be working late. Maybe you can catch her tonight at home.”

  Not tonight, he thought, he planned to get laid—to coin a phrase from Patrick’s vernacular. Then again, perhaps it was better this way, to wait to straighten things out between them when his night with Felicia was over. “If you happen to see her, tell her I need to talk to her, will you? Tell her I’ll be in my office all day tomorrow.”

  “Will do.” One of Bab’s sleek dark eyebrows arched up. “By the way, I saw your ex-girlfriend out in the parking lot. She says she’s back on the loose.”

  “So I gather,” Val said.

  “I guess we both know what that means.”

  “Do we?”

  “Sure. It means wild nights and partying. It means the old Patrick is on his way back in.”

  “I told you, I’m through with alcohol and drugs.”

  She fixed him with a cold-eyed stare. “Try to remember that, will you, Patrick? You’ve really been a nice guy lately. Even Fred’s starting to like you. Don’t screw things up.”

  Val didn’t answer. There was only one thing he wanted from Felicia Salazar. He wanted a lesson on how to make love. No strings, she’d said. No expectations. As soon as the lesson was over, that would be the end of it.

  He left the office at five, headed home, wrote in his journal for a while, then changed to go out for the evening. He wasn’t as nervous as he had expected to be. He had tuned in to Patrick’s memories of sex with Felicia, something he didn’t have with Julie, and he intended to use them to guide him. When the limo driver called from the lobby, announcing Felicia’s arrival, he shrugged into his double-breasted black silk Armani jacket and headed downstairs, looking forward to the evening with a calm he hadn’t expected.


  The limo driver held open the door of the long white Lincoln stretch limo and Val climbed in. The slender black-haired beauty was waiting for him in the back seat, extending a frosty champagne glass in his direction.

  Val accepted the glass. His body was in perfect physical condition. He would never take drugs, but in contrast to Babs’s and Julie’s fears, he knew a drink or two wouldn’t hurt him, and tonight he needed to appease the lady he was with if he was going to accomplish his purpose.

  “Thanks.” He took the crystal goblet from her hand and settled his tall frame next to her on the cushy gray leather seat.

  “You look marvelous, Patrick, the best you’ve looked in years.”

  He smiled. “I gave up the dope and the booze. This is the first drink I’ve had since my heart attack.”

  “I heard about that.” She rested a hand on his leg, ran it halfway up his thigh. “It doesn’t look like it’s slowed you down any.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “I guess we’ll find out a little later on.”

  They drove to the bar at the Four Seasons hotel, one of the current celebrity hot spots in L.A., ordered an extravagant meal at an intimate table in the dining room, then returned to the limo.

  Conversation with Felicia was limited at best, mostly sexual overtones about what she intended to do to him once she got him in bed. By the time the meal was finished, considering how little both of them ate and the uninspired dialogue between them, he wondered why they had bothered going out at all.

  They returned to the car and the chauffeur started back to the Peninsula, Felicia’s luxury hotel.

  “Damn.” A sudden thought occurred, and Val pressed the intercom button that connected the back seat to the driver, who was sealed behind a darkened window in front. “I need to swing by my office. There’s a file I’ve got to have.” To Felicia he said, “I’ve got a meeting first thing in the morning.”

  She arched a brow at a move so out of character for Patrick, then gave him a petulant glance. “Not too early, I hope.”

  His mouth curved faintly. “No. Not too early.” The big black Lincoln stopped at the rear of the office and as Val climbed out, Felicia pulled his head down for a kiss.

  “Hurry back,” she said in her deep sexy voice, and he smiled.

  “I’ll only be a minute.”

  As soon as he returned, they were off, the driver pulling into the long sweeping drive of the Peninsula hotel, a uniformed doorman helping them out of the car. Felicia’s suite, in a separate row of town houses in the rear, was richly decorated in muted peach and cream. Marble and gilt, lavish and expensive. The minute the door was closed, he found himself wrapped in her arms.

  “I must have been crazy not to bring you straight here,” she said, kissing him fiercely, dragging her fingers through his hair then biting the side of his neck. “In fact, I should have let you screw me in your office. That’s what I really wanted. I just thought it would be nice for us to get reacquainted a little bit first.”

  They were never really acquainted, Patrick’s memory said. They had used each other. That was the way each of them wanted it.

  Val kissed her deeply. His body stirred, continued to harden, but there was none of the hot, lusty fire he had known when he had kissed Julie. He felt Felicia’s hands on his crotch, stroking him through his slacks. He worked the zipper at the back of her black cocktail dress and she stepped out of it, stood in front of him in a garter belt and black nylon stockings. She wasn’t wearing a bra. And she wasn’t wearing panties.

  For a minute he stood there frozen. His loins were thick and heavy and yet he sensed there was something wrong. His body wanted him to take her, but the man he truly was, the man he seemed to be losing, said no. He wanted to have sex with her, to finally reach release, but his mind remained strangely unmoved.

  Something is wrong, he thought again, more and more uneasy. With Julie his body and mind had worked as one, each heightening the sensations of the other. Now he was dealing with just his physical needs.

  And something else bothered him.

  It was an odd sensation, a gut-deep awareness that he was somehow failing Julie. He labeled the feeling betrayal, a violation of trust, a word that meant disloyalty and deceit. They were simply not acceptable to the man he truly was.

  Felicia had his shirt stripped away and his pants unzipped before the full implications hit him. Sex was different than making love. Sex was physical. The animal act of procreation. Making love to someone required a form of caring. It was Patrick’s way to stay removed from emotional involvement, to remain uncommitted, unconcerned and uncaring.

  It wasn’t Val’s way and it never would be.

  He grabbed her slim wrist as she reached inside the waistband of his shorts and Felicia’s dark head came up. Her lips glistened with moisture, her eyes were glazed with passion, the brown of the irises nearly as dark as the pupils. His body craved release, ached to quench this hunger that had been with him for so long, yet his mind could not be swayed to that end.

  For the second time in a matter of days, he was leaving a woman who wanted him in her bed. But for two far different reasons.

  “Patrick?”

  “I’m sorry, Felicia, this isn’t going to work.”

  “What…what are you talking about?”

  He began to ease away. “I said this isn’t going to work. Too much has happened since we were together last. Too much has changed.”

  “Wh-what’s happened? What’s changed?”

  “I have,” he said softly, easing himself farther away. He reached down and picked up her dress, then handed it over to her. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I hope you’ll try to understand.”

  “Understand?” she repeated, her back going rigid. She stepped into her dress, reached behind her to zip it up. “I understand, all right. I understand you’re a real son of a bitch, Patrick. Just like you’ve always been.”

  He drew on his shirt, buttoned it up and tucked it in. “I’m sorry, Felicia, I really am.”

  “Get out of here, you bastard.”

  He didn’t say more, just opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. When he reached the lobby, one of the guys at the front desk waved a farewell, and a uniformed doorman hailed a cab for him outside the entrance to the hotel.

  All the way back to his apartment, he reviewed what he had done, going back over each precise moment. Of all the decisions he had made, he had never been so certain he had done the right thing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was silly. Absolutely idiotic to be crying about a man like Patrick Donovan. But Julie couldn’t help it. Not since the moment she had left the office at 10:00 p.m., climbed behind the wheel of her car, and seen Patrick pull up in Felicia Salazar’s fancy limousine. Julie knew who it was—with a plate that read Feline l, it wasn’t hard to figure out. Besides, she had seen the woman kissing Patrick when he had opened the heavy car door.

  God, just thinking about it made her stomach roll with nausea.

  Julie took a nerve-calming sip of the brandy she had poured herself when she got home. No wonder Patrick hadn’t wanted her. Why should he when he had a beautiful, exotic creature like Felicia dying to crawl into his bed?

  God, she felt like a fool.

  She drank some more of the brandy, tilted the glass and drained the contents, then coughed as the burning liquid fired down her throat. Damn him! Damn him to hell! What in the world had ever made her believe he had changed?

  Grateful to the alcohol for the numbness that began to seep through her body, Julie went to bed and eventually fell asleep. She tossed and turned, woke up at least four times, then lay awake till the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.

  All morning she felt groggy, drained and out of sorts, but she dressed in a pale peach pantsuit, grabbed her briefcase, climbed
in her car, and headed in to work. She was tired of hiding. Patrick had made a fool of her, but she hadn’t actually gone to bed with him so she still had the remnants of her pride.

  And now that she knew the truth, she would arm herself against him more fiercely than she had ever done before.

  She saw him at ten o’clock that morning, when he walked in with Ron Jacobs, one of the newer salesmen in the office. They were talking about selling the Weatherby estate, a listing Patrick had apparently just helped Ron get, and both of them were laughing, heady with their victory over half the other agents in Beverly Hills who had been trying to do the same thing.

  Even at a distance, Patrick’s rough male voice sent an unwelcome fission of heat sliding through her. She tried not to notice how fresh he looked this morning, not at all as if he had spent the night thrashing around in Felicia’s bed. She tried to ignore the hurt that welled inside her, making her want to turn and run.

  “Hey, Julie!” Ron approached as she walked past Fred Thompson’s desk. “Did you hear? I just got the Weatherby listing—thanks to Patrick. You should have seen him. He was really terrific.”

  “That’s great,” Fred said, grinning. “Congratulations, boy. Now all we have to do is get the damned thing sold for you.” It was Saturday morning. Fred wasn’t dressed for work. He had only just stopped in to pick up some paperwork on one of the properties he had sold. Instead of his usual suit and colorful bow tie, he wore khaki pants and a T-shirt that read Math Students Do It By The Numbers, apparently a leftover from his teaching days.

  “I’ve seen the property,” Julie said, keeping her eyes on Ron, refusing to glance at Patrick, who stood just a few feet away. “I was there a couple of years back. I might be able to show it for you. I’ve got a client coming in from New York on Wednesday afternoon whose husband’s with NBC. He’s being transferred to the West Coast office. The place might be perfect for them.”

  “Great,” Ron said. “I’ll get you a copy of the listing and make arrangements for you to get in. Just let me know what you need.” Ron was thirty, a college grad who’d always had trouble working for others. He seemed to have found his niche in the real estate business, where his employer, for the most part, was himself.