Turn Back the Dawn Page 3

  A few moments after Dayton and Smithfield left, Kate dialed Ben's office. Though she had imagined at least a half a dozen times making the call, she hadn't known how jumpy she'd feel. Now that her adversaries were gone and she had won, it was as if she was finally allowing herself to feel all the tension that had been there during the meeting. Her adrenaline was flowing, her heart was pounding, and the moment she heard the words "Blake-Canfield Advertising," her knees were like jelly.

  She had won. And now there was no turning back. Whether Ben was Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong or destined to be merely a friend, Ben Austin was going to be part of her life over the coming weeks. And suddenly she was uncomfortably nervous.

  "Ben Austin," came his voice, interrupting her thoughts with that low caress that made her tremble.

  "Hi. It's Kate Churchill."

  There was a silence. Then: "Tell me you have good news, Kate."

  She smiled and sank into her chair. "I do," she said.

  "Fantastic. That is the best news I've had in I don't know how long!" he cried. "That's wonderful. So. Next step next. To get together. How does your schedule look tomorrow? How about meeting from ten or so on through lunch? This is wonderful, you know—getting a jump on the schedule like this. So how about it?"

  She smiled. It was the first time she had ever heard him sound "Madison Avenue," talking a mile a minute. "Well, let's see," she said, looking at her calendar and crossing ofT "facial at Georgette Klinger" scheduled for twelve o'clock. "Sure, Ben—that'll work out."

  "Wonderful." He paused for a moment. "And really, Kate, I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to working with you."

  "Yes, well, I feel the same way," she said vaguely, her mind not at all on what she was saying. For hearing the slight huskiness of his voice, remembering the dark-lashed amber of his eyes and the warmth of his strong hands, she was pulled in two directions — swept up in a sensual mem ory she wanted more of, and also wary of the ways he could affect her so easily.

  "I'm glad," he said softly. "Until tomorrow, then. Good-bye, Kate."

  "Good-bye," she said, trying to ignore the small inner voice that was saying, Watch out, he's turning very tempt- ing again. And he's too good to be true.

  The next day, a bit after ten, Kate was sitting at her desk trying to relax. She had tried on four different outfits that morning, angrily telling herself that h er complete in decisiveness had nothing to do with Ben. But it was one of those days when absolutely nothing looked right or even half-decent. Finally she had settled on a forest-green silk button-down dress with short sleeves, something she knew looked good even though she didn't feel that way. Now, as she sat at her desk, she resisted the impulse to take out her compact to see how she looked. For she knew that in her current mood, she would think she looked terrible no matter what the reality was. She would feel her hair was too straight, her lips were too full, that her skin looked too pale next to green silk. And she didn't need to be any more ill at ease than she already was.

  When the intercom on her desk buzzed, she jumped, and a few moments later Linda was ushering Ben into the office. He looked handsomer than Kate remembered, with his warm, smiling eyes and wonderfully relaxed and rugged air.

  He glanced at Kate, then thanked Linda and shut the door. When he turned to Kate, he smiled. She thought he looked magnificent. "Good to see you," he said. "And so soon."

  "Listen. It wasn't an easy fight. If I hadn't been almost obnoxiously persistent, the account would have gone to someone else."

  He pursed his lips and looked at her thoughtfully. "I'm sure you were persistent. Obnoxious I doubt. But I'm sorry to hear you had trouble," he said as he put his briefcase and a paper bag down on the conference table. "What was the problem?"

  "Oh, everything," she said, coming over to where he stood. "I'd say that the objections were more politically based than anything else." 1

  "That's right," he said. "I forgot you've just been pro moted. Well. I promise," he said, stepping forward and putting his hands at her waist. "I promise that you'll never be sorry you decided on Blake-Canfield."«

  Fighting with herself, she reached down and took his hands from her waist. "Please," she said quietly, looking into his eyes and resisting their liquid softness. "Just— let's back up a little bit — for the moment."

  He looked at her questioningly and she turned away, sitting down before she began to speak again. "I know," she began slowly, as he pulled out a chair and sat down beside her, "that I wasn't exactly cold to you the other day." She glanced at him then: He looked very serious, and she went on. "I don't like to give double messages. It's a habit of mine, I'm afraid. But in the end, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. So I want to be straightforward with you, Ben. Let's just agree — for now—that we'll slow down, and back off a bit."

  He smiled. " 'We.' That's a nice way of putting it."

  She shrugged. "It's true. Why should I be naive and pretend I have nothing to do with what's happening be tween us— that I'm an innocent who doesn't know what's going on?"

  "Many women do just that."

  "Well, I used to. But not anymore."

  He looked into her eyes. "Have you made any deci sions? About— what was his name — Kurt?"

  She nodded, trying to read his tone, wondering whether he was really as concerned or caring as he sounded. How could he be, when he didn't even know her? "Look," she said. "Your asking me that is just the kind of thing I'm talking about. Let's just forget girl friends, boyfriends, past loves, future loves, and concentrate on trying to get some work done."

  For a moment the amber of his eyes flashed into gold reflecting his deepening interest. They held her in thrall, telling her she was making a foolish mistake by protesting. And she wondered. For when she gazed into those eyes, she imagined them as they would be if she were in Ben's arms, his lips ready to melt with hers, his gaze as smooth and strong as silk.

  As he looked at her, saying nothing, she resisted the impulse to tell him to forget what she had said; she fought against her natural desire once again to touch him, if only for a moment; she held herself — body and mind, impulse and words — in check.

  And then he spoke. "I'm not going to sit here as we work together in the coming weeks and pretend that I'm not curious about you. Nor am I going to sit here and pretend I'm not interested. What if we both pretended — and we parted, in the end, never knowing what we might have meant to each other?"

  She smiled. "That's a point. But really—I don't know you, Ben. I don't even know if you're married, for God's sake."

  He tilted his head. "Do I act married?"

  She laughed. "In a way, yes."

  He didn't smile. "When I was married," he said slowly, "and I don't mean to sound sanctimonious — but I did not act as I have with you. In the first years of my marriage I never even looked at another woman."

  "And then what happened?" she asked quietly.

  "Something I'll never let happen again. We drifted apart, as they say. It's such an overused expression that it sounds trite, only partially true. But that was exactly what happened, in the most classic of ways. We had our kids, Eliza and Christopher, only a year and a half apart. F rom the moment Eliza was born — and then Christopher, so quickly afterward it seemed like weeks — we did nothing hut talk about the kids. I went to work — I was a teacher then—came home, and from the moment I was home until I left the next morning, all that was on either of our minds was the kids. We stopped talking, really. We were both reciting, going through questions and answers, litanies of the day. I' d tell her a few things about work, she'd tell me a few things about the babies, and we might as well have been talking to walls, though neither of us noticed because we were so damn wrapped up in our problems. We caught ourselves when I decided to try my hand at advertising. I think Eliza was three at the time."

  "Why did you switch?" Kate asked, settling more com fortably back in her chair.

  "Money," he said simply. "I was already working a twelve-hour day. And I knew we
weren't going to be able to raise two kids the way I wanted to on my salary."

  "Are you sorry you switched?"

  "Sometimes, yes. I went back to teaching after Celia and I were divorced. She was working by then and refused anything but child support." He paused and took out his pipe. "But anyway," he said, packing the sweet-smelling tobacco in and then lighting it, "it worked for a while again, when I began in the ad business. We thought of it as a new beginning, and we acknowledged that we needed

  one. But it never did work after that." He puffed on his pipe, and then smiled, his eyes flickering with warmth. "So much for getting down to business," he said. "How did we get on to marriage?"

  She smiled. "You were telling me that you never looked at another woman at the beginning of your marriage."

  "Well, I seem to have taken us off track once again." He smiled. "Maybe we should actually get started."

  He took out two cups of coffee he had brought in a paper bag — a nice and surprising touch, she felt — along with the layouts Tommy Sullivan had sketched out, and they set to work. He began by reviewing the basic concept — talking quietly, slowly, intensely. He was relaxed but totally absorbed, and as Kate listened and occasionally questioned him, she was silently congratulating herself for having been wise enough to choose Ben Austin's campaign. Without him it would have been very, very good. With him and all the attention and enthusiasm he would bring to it, it was destined to be nothing short of wonder- ful.

  They worked hard until lunch, and Kate was annoyed to find that it was she, not he, who tended to break the businesslike mood. She was constantly breaking her promise against giving double messages. When he would look up from a chart or sketch or layout he was showing her, she would catch his gaze in a look that said not, "How interesting," or "I agree," or anything relating in any way to what he had said. All she said with her eyes was "I wanl you." At those moments he tried to fight back. At the beginning, at least. He would look away as if he hadn't seen, or look at her in reproach and surprise, as if to say,

  "I'm keeping up my end of the bargain. Why can't you?" Yet, for a reason she couldn't fathom, she kept it up: simmering glances, gentle touches on the hand or knee, her softest, lowest, most bedroom-seductive voice.

  When the intercom buzzed and she rose to answer it, she silently warned herself that when she returned to Be n's side, she would be wise to cool down. And, for a few moments, as Linda told her she was going to lunch, Kate was distracted from Ben and her apparently uncontrolla ble behavior. But once she hung up and returned to the table, she could feel herself — with one glance at Ben—slip back into her most seductive of roles.

  "That was Linda," she said. "Going to lunch. I hadn't reali zed it was so late."

  He smiled. "Time flies when you're breaking your promise."

  Her lips parted and then curved into a smile. "Ah. Not too s ubtle, then."

  He laughed. "Very subtle. Very lovely. But sometimes thing s that are very subtle and very lovely have a very str ong impact." He inhaled deeply. "For instance — that perfume you were wearing the other day. It was gentle, almos t not there. At one moment I would sense it, and at the next, wonder if it had just been my imagination. But that night, when I closed my eyes and thought of you, Kate, I knew that every part of you, every aspect of you, had been real." He reached out and gently stroked her hand. E ach stroking movement sent a rolling wave of war mth through her, a hazy heat that made her feel heavy with longing.

  She gazed at him with a lazy half-smile. "Now I'm not

  the only one breaking the promise."

  He grinned. "But you started it. Which, as it turns out, is as meaningless a phrase as it is in childs' fights—because it could have been me." His hand moved upward, making bot, lazy circles along her arm, and she found herself leaning toward him, lips parted in desire, breathless. "And I hope you know that the reason I tried so very hard to resist," he murmured, his warm fingers moving over from her arm to the sensitive skin of her neck, "is that I just wanted to please you," he whispered.

  Please me, she thought. Oh, God, she wanted him to, but not by staying away.

  As she gazed into eyes of liquid honey, she was seared by the movement of his fingers just inside her collar. His fingers were warm, persuasive, and her breath quickened as his touch grew warmer. She could barely find her voice through thickening layers of desire. "And are you still trying to please me?" she whispered.

  "I can think of nothing better," he said huskily.

  For one moment their gazes were locked in a searing, breathless hold. And then, just as she wondered how long she would be able to wait, his hand at the back of her neck began to urge her forward, and his lips met hers in a blazing touch of exquisite lightness and intoxicating pleasure. His mouth on hers was warm, sweet, urgent, with the promise of unending passion. And then, somehow already attuned to each other's needs and wants and pleasures, they deepened the kiss together, lips parting in a moan of shared wonder and desire.

  A fierce warmth spread through her body, igniting into a deep fire within her. The swiftness of her response was

  frightening and exhilarating at the same time, for somewhere in the back of Kate's mind was the thought This is only a kiss—how can I be responding so deeply? But her body had no questions, no doubts—only a smoldering certainty of coursing desire that craved this man in a much, much deeper way.

  He tore his mouth from hers and looked at her with stormy eyes. "I've made a mistake," he murmured huski- his breath coming quickly.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, still hazy and reeling from the pleasures of his lips.

  "I had thought that perhaps we'd see—that we'd kiss, and all the undercurrents we've been fighting against wouldn't be there after all. But . . . Kate."

  She smiled lazily.

  His face was close to hers—inches from her own—and she loved the scent that had intoxicated her moments before, the closeness of his hazel eyes, the feel of his breath soft against her cheek.

  'You know what this means," he said quietly, drawing her to him once again for a gentle kiss.

  Her senses were filled with exhilaration and desire, and * :th wonder as well—for she wondered at this man whose most gentle of touches could fill her with such pleasure.

  He drew back, eyes serious. "Do you?" he asked.

  "Do I what?" she asked dreamily, her voice barely there.

  "Do you know what this means?" he asked, smiling.

  She answered with a smile of her own. "No. Tell me what you think this means," she said playfully.

  "It means there's no turning back," he said quietly.

  For a moment she reveled in his gaze—in the obvious longing, the clear appreciation, the humor lurking just below the surface. "Tell me more," she said.

  And then, inexplicably, his smile faded. "I'm serious, actually," he said. "And you may not even like what I'm going to say."

  She frowned. "Maybe not. You're making me very nervous all of a sudden." ,

  He put a hand under her chin and then held it against her cheek. "Don't be," he said tenderly. "It's just that we probably have trouble on our hands. All your talk about backing up and backing off obviously did no good. Look at us. And I want to respect your wishes, Kate—to do what you want. But Lord—do you honestly think that now we can back off? I just can't quite imagine sitting here talking with you over the next few weeks without wanting you." He smiled. "And I don't mean it in the 'mad lust' sense, as if I'm some teen-aged kid who's just discovered sex. I do mean it, Kate, but in a much subtler, I hope more meaningful, way."

  She laughed. "Well! I'm glad to know I don't have a sex-starved teen-ager on my hands."

  He pursed his lips. "Now, wait a minute," he said, trying to suppress a smile. "I don't want you going and thinking the opposite, Kate. My point was—"

  "Understood," she finished for him. "And really, Ben," she said, looking into his eyes, "I have no idea what to say. I love everything you've said. I loved kissing you just now—obvious
ly. But I just... don't feel I know anything. I don't know how we're going to work together over the next few weeks. We'll just have to see." And, though she

  had just finished giving a very neutral, cautioning little speech, only moments later she was taking in his hand some features with her most seductive of glances.

  And she realized that somewhere along the way, she had lost control of her impulses and feelings and actions. Because no matter how cautious she had determined to be, she was falling very rapidly into the silken net of Ben's charms.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Later that afternoon, right after Ben left, Linda buzzed Kate on the intercom. "Kurt Reeves has been calling all day. Do you have a chance to talk to him now?"