The Player, page 12
Chapter Nine
THE NEXT MORNING Joy woke up alone in the big bed, still wrapped tightly in the comforter. Next to her, there was a deep indent on top of the duvet and a pillow wadded up into a ball.
She pushed her hair back, threw off the covers and got to her feet. When she returned from the bathroom in a robe, Gray was standing at the bed, fully clothed. And staring at the small spot of blood on the sheets.
He looked over his shoulder, eyes dilated.
“Are you okay?” he said roughly.
In a flash, she remembered what he’d felt like on top of her. Heavy, hard, strong. She was dying to have him again.
“Joy?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
His eyes traced over her body, but there was no heat in them. “May I bring you some breakfast?”
This was said as if she were a houseguest and not someone he’d been naked with the night before.
Joy shook her head. “I’m not hungry, but you can answer a question for me. How is it possible that we made love and now you look at me with clinical detachment?”
He closed his eyes, withdrawing even further. As if that were possible?
“First of all, that was sex last night. You deserved to be caressed and worshiped and entered gently. All you got was laid and laid badly. I will never forgive myself. And secondly, my primary concern is taking care of you, not making you feel awkward because I’m a leering son of a bitch.”
Joy put her hands on her hips, taking strength from frustration.
“You know, I really need you to ditch the hair shirt you’ve strapped on.” Her voice was strong, direct. She couldn’t believe she was talking to him with such authority. “I still want you. You gave me so little of what we both needed—”
“I gave you every inch and then some. Until you bled.”
“Will you let me finish? You pulled out so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to get used to you. To feel you. I want to know what it’s really like. With you.”
“Someday, a man will love you rig—”
“Spare me the fairy tale, okay?” she snapped. “Just because I haven’t had a lover before, doesn’t mean I can’t make my own decisions. I want you. I chose you.”
“I didn’t deserve the gift!” His voice boomed through the room, self-hatred rolling off him in waves.
“I think you did,” she said quietly.
Gray leaned forward on his hips and spoke in a low, dangerous tone. “Then you don’t know me well enough.”
She thought of him refusing to let her ride home from his house in the dark on her bike. Of the respect he had for the way she treated her family with kindness. She remembered him lying beside her in the dark last night, his big body so tense as he pleaded with her to stay. She saw him staring down at the blood on the sheets just now, looking as if he were going to cry out.
He was a hard man. But never a bad one.
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “I know you very well.”
“No, you don’t.” He looked down at the bed again.
She went over and touched his arm. His body jerked and he stepped back from her.
“Don’t.”
Joy frowned. “Why not?”
“Because compassion from you is the last thing I want right now.”
Pain cut through her chest, draining her burst of strength. Gathering up the lapels of the robe, she said in a small voice, “I’d like to get dressed now, if you don’t mind.”
He cursed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Joy. It’s just…you don’t need to be taking care of me. You’re the one who got hurt.”
No, she thought. They were both aching this morning.
“Are you available at three o’clock today?” he asked.
“For what?”
“To see me.”
“Why?”
“Please.” His eyes held hers, as if he wanted to will her into saying yes. She had a feeling it was as close as he’d ever gotten to begging.
“Okay, but on one condition.”
“Anything. You name it.”
“Kiss me. Right now.”
Gray’s eyes flared. “Joy—”
“I’m serious. I want you to kiss me.”
She had no idea where this strong woman thing was coming from. But she was going to go with it.
And evidently, so was he.
Gray slowly reached out, taking her face gently into his hands. His mouth brushed over hers. Lightly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing her body against his. “Like you mean it, Gray.”
His eyes squeezed shut. The thick vein at his throat started throbbing from the hard pump of his blood and his lips parted as though he were having trouble finding his next breath.
Still, his touch stayed soft, his thumb stroking her cheek.
When his eyelids flipped open, she caught a quick glance of a surging, sexual burn. Then his head came down, his mouth hovering over hers without making contact. She could feel the coiled strength in him, the heat coming off of him. However conflicted his mind was about what had happened, his body was hard for her. Ready for her.
“I always mean it when I kiss you,” he said with more gravel than voice.
His lips stroked hers once and then he strode out of the room.
Joy reached out for the wall to steady herself.
Frankly, she was impressed he could walk without a limp after that.
Damn it, the man had way too much self-control. And she wanted the very beast he refused to let out.
When he reappeared with her dress, he put it down on the bureau.
“May I call a car for you?” His voice was smooth as an ice cube and just about as warm. As if that incandescent moment between them had never happened.
So this is sophistication in action, she thought. Here she was quaking in a bathrobe, while he waltzed around as though the last thing he’d done was read the newspaper.
Must be nice.
“I’ll get a taxi myself,” she muttered.
“I’d rather call my car—”
“I’m sure you would.”
He hesitated in the doorway.
She wondered what he would do if she stepped out of the robe. Would he turn away? Probably. And though she wanted him like nothing else, she didn’t need to get shut down by the man.
With one last look toward the bed, he stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind himself.
She wanted to yell out that his Prince Charming thing wasn’t charming. Wasn’t necessary. Was driving her flipping nuts.
Joy stripped the robe off, balled it up and pitched it at the double doors.
Man, she’d learned a nasty little lesson in the last twelve hours. When people had told her reality was never as good as a fantasy, she’d believed them on some level. She’d just been unprepared for how much the real thing sucked in comparison.
She’d actually been to bed with Gray, the man she’d worshiped for years, except she was still a virgin for all intents and purposes.
And he still wanted her, badly enough to shake from it, except now he wouldn’t touch her.
Great.
Just terrific.
No wonder people liked fiction.
* * *
A LITTLE BEFORE three o’clock, Joy left Cass’s penthouse and went down to wait for Gray on Park Avenue. It was an exceptional fall day with warm sunshine and a cool breeze, and after having spent hours working on the red gown, it felt good to be outside. She was just beginning to relax when a black limousine eased to a halt in front of the building. Gray emerged from the rear and smiled remotely as she walked over. He didn’t touch her as she moved past him and slid inside.
“Did you have lunch?” he asked, getting in and shutting the door.
“Just some crackers and cheese.” She stretched, easing her back. The limousine smelled like leather and Gray’s aftershave. She tried to ignore how good the combination was.
“We’ll go for tea afterward at the Pierre.”
She looked at her black pants and the loose black blazer.
“You’re perfectly dressed,” he said. “You look beautiful.”
She laughed tightly. “These clothes are off the rack. Really off the rack. I can’t believe you mean that.”
“I don’t lie. It’s one of my few virtues.”
“What are the others?”
“I take responsibility for my actions.”
She took a deep breath and looked out the window. An awkward silence cropped up between them, growing thicker as the limousine got stuck in traffic.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
A little while later the car stopped on Fifth Avenue. Gray didn’t wait for the driver to come around, but opened the door and stood at the curb himself. As she got out, she looked up at a towering, stone facade.
Tiffany’s.
“What are we doing here?” she asked slowly.
“Come with me.” He touched her elbow, ushering her through a pair of glass doors. As soon as they were inside the yawning space, a man in a three-piece suit came up to them.
“Mr. Bennett, good afternoon. Please, this way.”
The only thing that stopped Joy from planting her feet and demanding to know what was going on was a fear that she was jumping to conclusions. No man, especially not Gray Bennett, asked a woman to marry him just because he took her virginity. No way. And how embarrassing would it be to blurt out that little misconception when all he wanted was her advice on a set of cuff links?
As they walked through a maze of glass cases, salespeople dressed like businessmen and women watched them, as if Gray’s arrival was something extraordinary. Their smiles and nods to him were deferential. They flat-out stared in awe at Joy.
To avoid the looks, she kept her eyes on the sparklers lying in their see-through cages.
It was as though the place were some kind of jewelry zoo, she thought numbly.
When she hesitated at the elevators, she felt Gray take her hand. From then on, she barely tracked where they went in the building. She just followed along, swept up in some tide, thinking that God only knew where she was going to end up.
They were shown into a small room with a high ceiling. The furniture was minimal, but lovely, a mahogany table and three ornate, matching chairs, two on one side. A bouquet of fresh roses, in pale pinks and yellows, was arranged in a crystal bowl. The place smelled like a garden, but she wasn’t calmed.
No, she wasn’t calm at all. Her heart was beating like a bird’s and she took her hand from Gray’s because her palm was getting sweaty.
Gray indicated she should sit, which was just fine. Her knees were thinking of taking a break anyway. He took the chair beside hers, resting one arm on the table. She noticed absently that the white of his cuff screamed in contrast to the dark sleeve of his jacket.
During the ensuing silence, Joy downshifted from anxious into panic. And the suffocating sensation got worse when Three Piece came in with a thin leather box about eight inches long and four inches wide. The man flipped open the top and slid the tray forward.
Diamond rings.
She looked at Three Piece. His eyes glowed with pride at what he could offer.
Which was understandable considering you could light up a football stadium with what was shining out of that box.
“Will you excuse us?” she said to the man in a surprisingly commanding tone.
But that was the strength of insanity, she thought. Steady conviction backed up by nothing rational.
Three Piece nodded, as if she were his boss. “But of course.”
While he left with a bow, she had a feeling he would have taken a swan dive out the window if she or Gray had asked him to.
Commission. Clearly on commission. And what a bundle he could make moving one of those headlights, she thought.
When the door shut, she reached out and plucked a ring from its velvet sheath. The size was substantial. Absurd. And it was one of the smaller ones.
Beneath the overhead lighting, the stone’s brilliance hurt her eyes. And surely there was a hell of a metaphor in that.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She didn’t look at Gray. Couldn’t.
“Asking you to marry me.”
She shook her head, but only because she felt like she needed to do something other than start crying. Destiny seemed so cruel. To put her this close to being his wife.
“Why?” she muttered to herself. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Last night—”
“Oh, please.” God, she’d had it with his regrets. “Are you aware we’re living in the twenty-first century? I mean, we’ve got electricity, cars, the internet—”
“Joy, listen to me—”
“And we’ve been through something called the sexual revolution—”
“Goddamn it—”
“Which, in case you’re not familiar with what happened, made sex not such a big deal. So when you nail a virgin—”
Now he really cursed. A ringing, four-letter, tongue-burner.
“—you don’t have to do something stupid. Like ask her to marry you.”
“Are you finished?”
She cocked her head. Glared at him. “Actually, I’m just getting started. Why do you think in a million years—”
He grabbed her shoulders hard, nearly pulling her out of her chair. Gone was the polite restraint. His eyes burned. “I hurt you.”
“And you think this is going to make it better? Gray, you don’t mean this. You don’t want this. You’re flying wild on some huge guilt trip and as soon as you come down, you’re going to hate what you’ve done. Worse, you’re going to end up resenting the hell out of me and that’ll do more damage than anything you did to my body last night.”
He let her go, moving her gently back. “I just want to make it right. I want to make it up to you.”
“Well, this isn’t going to do it. I want to be chosen by my husband. Freely.” Her voice threatened to break and she glanced away. To the roses.
And didn’t they look just like a bridal bouquet? Terrific.
She fought against the urge to bury her face in her hands.
She wanted to be picked by Gray. She really did. And there was a part of her that was desperately tempted to give herself up to the mistake he was making.
Except she couldn’t. There was no way to ignore the truth that, but for the fact she’d had no lover before him, they never, ever, would have been near those diamonds.
She put the ring back.
“Let’s go,” she said, suddenly exhausted.
He took her hand in his. “Are you sure you don’t want one of those?”
“Under these circumstances? Absolutely not.” She stared at the brilliant display. “Besides, they’re beautiful, but rather cold.”
“Will you still let me see you?” he said abruptly.
She looked over at him. A clean break would be in her best interests, especially because she couldn’t begin to guess where they were headed. It wasn’t as if he was into relationships.
“You can’t be serious.”
He cleared his throat, ignoring her comment. “It can be here, up north, wherever. I’ll do the traveling. I’ll come to you. I just want to keep seeing you, okay?”
She shook her head. “I’m not interested in hanging around just so you can work out your guilt. In fact, it’s kind of insulting to think that’s the only reason you’d want to see me.”
“That’s not why. I like you, I honestly do. I like being with you. You’re…different to me.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. When was the last time you had a v—” She shut her mouth. “Please don’t answer that.”
“Joy, look at me.” She shifted her eyes over to his. “I’m not expecting anything from you. We can keep it as casual, as light, as you want.”
She measured his eyes, surprised by the gravity in them. The need.
“I don’t know, Gray.”
As if her answer wasn’t the one he wanted, he eyed the rings again.
She closed the lid on the box and got to her feet.
He stared up at her. “Most women would have taken one of those.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
He shook his head. “You keep surprising me.”
She thought about the clarity with which she saw what he was doing even though she was hurting. And the strength that had allowed her to pull them both back from his lapse in judgment. It was odd. He was supposed to be the worldly, powerful one, but she had the sense that she was handling the situation, the emotions, better than he was.
“Funny, I’m kind of surprising myself, too.”
Chapter Ten
A WEEK LATER GRAY WATCHED as Joy walked into the Congress Club’s bar. His blood pumped harder just seeing her. It was always like that. Anytime she came into sight. Anytime he smelled her. Anytime he thought about her.
To hell with exposure therapy. He wanted her more every day, not less, though he was keeping a leash on himself.
And he knew he was lucky. One of Cass’s friends had seen some of Joy’s work and ordered two gowns. Which meant Joy had had to stay in Manhattan even after she’d finished the dress for Cass. So he’d had a rare chance to see her on a regular basis.
He’d been with her almost every night, taking her to the theater, out to dinner, to a gallery opening. But at the end of each date, he left her at the lobby of Cassandra’s building with nothing more than the request to see her the next day. He was never sure he would. He kept waiting for her to pull the plug on him, uncertain when he phoned Cass’s that Joy would accept his call or even still be in town.
The combination of sexual frustration and newfound insecurity was driving him nuts. As a public service, every night he’d go back to the Waldorf, change into his workout clothes and hit the gym for hours. He was so sore from lifting, he could barely brush his teeth. And stairs were a challenge because he’d burned out his thighs on the treadmill.
At this rate he was going to end up with dentures and a walker. Prematurely.
When Joy caught sight of him, she gave him a little wave. As she came over to his table, other men watched her discreetly and eyed Gray with envy. He didn’t appreciate either kind of attention. He didn’t need to be reminded of how attractive other men found her.
