Page 99

"No. I don't imagine you are." he said. He stared at me a moment and then smiled and said. "When are you going to tell me why you are really here. Willow?"

I nearly choked on my last spoonful. "What do you mean?"

"I think you know what I mean, but that's all right. Whatever the reason. I'm grateful it brought you here." he said quickly.

I felt like bursting out with the truth, but the waitress appeared and asked us if we wanted anything else. We said no, and he paid the check.

Neither of us spoke as we walked back to the car. When he got in, he started to laugh,

"What?"

"I can just imagine Bunny if I tell her what we really did tonight and where her pearls were seen." he said.

I laughed, too. It felt so good.

Of course, his parents weren't home when we arrived. They had gone to an event of their own.

"Tired?" he asked.

"No."

"You haven't been to my suite of rooms yet, have you?"

"Inviting me up to see your etchings?"

"I assure you," he said. "I have no kinetic art waiting. You're the only kinetic art I'm interested in." "Is that so?"

"Yes," he said. "It's so."

We ascended the stairs holding hands and went down the corridor to his room, where our lovemaking started slowly, almost indecisively, as if neither he nor I were sure what we wanted. He kissed me on the cheek while I looked at his art and his collection of Bosson heads from England. He caressed my neck, then rested his hands on my shoulders. I pressed my cheek to his right hand and then moved away to gaze at the framed photographs on his desk.

"Is this Mai Stone?" I asked, lifting a picture of him on a sailboat with a beautiful, tall brunette, both of them in shorts and sailor's caps.

"Yes," he said. "Early vintage, not long after we met. If I only knew then what I know now," he added, mostly for my benefit. I thought.

"She's very pretty, beautiful in fact."

"And no one exemplifies the adage 'Beauty is only skin deep' more than she does."

He was determined to reduce her as a threat to me.

"If you have so many unpleasant thoughts about her, why do you still have this picture out on your desk?" I asked.

He shrugged and smiled. "It's a good picture of me, don't you think?"

"Right," I said, putting it back.

He spun me around roughly and held my shoulders firmly as he looked into my face.

"Look, Willow, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that you are the first woman I've ever been with or cared for. and I would tend to doubt I was the first man you have ever been intimate with or cared for, but if we hold our pasts over our heads like sins, we'll never see who we are now. The truth is, I was capable of having feeling for someone else, but I have more feeling for vou. Is that so terrible?"

"No," I said softly.

He smiled, "Then let's throw the baggage of bad memories overboard and sail on together with lighter hearts." he said, and kissed rue.

The kiss was long, hard, and almost desperate. I wanted to hold back, to put on some brakes and slow Our momentum toward each other. I was too involved in what I had come to do here now. But Thatcher was a man for whom the word no didn't exist or, if it reared its ugly head, only made him try harder. I was swept under the tide of his passion. I couldn't help but want to ride the waves of his love.

It carried us both to his bed, where we were soon entwined, naked, holding onto each other as tightly as two people being carried off in a hurricane. Afterward, like two exhausted swimmers who had reached the safety of the shore, we lay quietly beside each other. He fell asleep, and then I rose, got dressed quietly, and returned to my room.