I’m not sure I want dessert; perhaps I’ll just have coffee.”
Nonplussed, because she was acting more like a Victorian virgin than the capable and confident woman he knew her to be, Slade drained his glass of wine. “So are we going to pretend that nothing happened out there? That I wasn’t entirely ready to make love to you?”
The menu slipped from Cory’s fingers. Her eyes widened and for a full five seconds she gaped at him as though she had never seen him before. Make love to you, make love, make love... The words echoed in her brain as all the pain and longing of the last week coalesced into an idea so simple and so outrageous that she was struck dumb.
“Now what’s wrong?”
She grabbed her wine glass and tossed back the contents. Then she blurted, “Are you married, Slade? Or engaged? Or living with someone?”
“No, no and no. What about you?”
His answer sank in; his question scarcely registered. It was a crazy idea. Crazy. She should be committed for even thinking it. “This wine is really excellent, isn’t it?” she gabbled. “Just a hint of oak and that glorious rubyred.”
Slade leaned forward. “Why did you ask about my marital status?”
“I was just wondering,” she said weakly, “that’s all.”
“Why don’t you try telling me the truth? You’re a lousy liar.”
“My mother used to shut me up in a cupboard if I lied to her—that’s probably why. Slade, I had an idea. But it was a totally insane idea and I want to forget about it—please. Let’s talk about anything from horticulture to horoscopes, and maybe I will have dessert. I adore key lime pie.”
Storing in the back of his mind the image of a small, chestnut-haired girl being confined in the dark, Slade said implacably, “Tell me about your idea. Because it’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” she said wildly. “Very definitely.”
“When you first arrived, I thought you looked tired. That’s not considered much of an opener for impressing your dinner date, so I didn’t mention it. What’s up, Cory?”
So much for mascara. “I don’t have to tell you,” she said defiantly. “In fact, I’m not going to tell you.”
“The restaurant doesn’t close until midnight and it’s only nine-thirty. I can wait. I could even order another bottle of the wine you so much admired.” He gave her a charming smile. “I’d enjoy having to carry you out.”
He’d do it, too. She knew he would. And if she kept the idea to herself certainly nothing would come of it.
With the sense that she was embarking on a very flimsy bridge across an extremely deep gorge, Cory said, “All right—you asked for it.”
Who knows? she thought. He might even say yes.
CHAPTER THREE
CORY held out her glass to Slade for a refill, shadows dancing over her features from the candle that flickered on their table; she was rather proud to see that her hand was entirely steady.
“I want to have a baby,” she said, and heard the words coming from a distance, as though someone else were saying them. “I’d like you to be the father. But I don’t want to get married or live with you or even see you again once I’m pregnant.”
There was a moment of silence, a silence so charged with tension that Cory frantically wished her request unsaid. Then Slade bit out a single word. “No!” His voice was raw with pain, and she watched as wine sloshed over the edge of her glass.
The stain on the cloth looked like blood. With a superstitious shiver, Cory looked up. The same pain had scored deep lines in his face; his eyes looked like those of a man in hell. She felt as though, rough-handed, she’d ripped a dressing from a wound not yet healed. Yet she’d had no inkling of the presence of the wound, and no idea as to its source or meaning.
Appalled, she whispered, “Slade, I’m sorry.”
Briefly Slade closed his eyes, knowing he’d revealed something he’d have much preferred to keep hidden. With a superhuman effort he clamped down on himself, forcing breath through the tightness in his chest. Picking up his serviette, he mopped at the spilt wine and said, more or less evenly, “You took me by surprise—that’s all.”
“Come off it! You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but kindly don’t pretend that nothing is. I’m not blind and deaf.”
Hard-eyed, he said, “Mind your own business, Cory.”
She plonked her glass down and said with more vigour than tact, “I bet you’re not often taken by surprise, Slade Redden. Especially by a woman.”
Pain translated itself to anger. “You take the cake, I’ll grant you that. Here’s a guy who’ll donate a park ... might as well get him to make a baby while I’m at it.”
“There’s no need to be crude.”
“I feel crude.”
“I told you it was a ridiculous idea!”
“Ridiculous comes nowhere near describing it. And the answer, in case you’re wondering, really is no.”
The expression on his face when she’d first spoken had given her that message right away. Bright patches of color staining her cheeks, she said, “OK—the answer’s no. So let’s forget about it. Why don’t you order the chocolate pâté? Then I could try it too.”
Slade’s anger went too deep to be so easily defused. “You drop a bombshell like that and then expect me to discuss desserts?”
“You’ve given me your answer—there’s nothing more to discuss!”
“That’s what you think.” He’d been ambushed by an old agony, there was no question of that; but now that he’d subdued that particular feeling Slade was aware of other emotions, none of them pleasant. “If you didn’t want anything to do with me afterwards, why should it matter to you whether I’m married or engaged?” he demanded. Because that, he thought with ugly accuracy, was where she’d knifed his self-esteem. In the cold-blooded way she was prepared to dismiss him. As if he didn’t exist.
Faintly surprised that he should even have to ask, Cory said, “Oh, that wouldn’t be moral. To cheat on another woman, I mean.”
“Whereas bringing up a fatherless child would be?”
Her temper rising, Cory said, “I don’t want to talk about this any more; I thought I’d made that clear.”
“We’re going to. Whether you want to or not.” Viciously he stabbed at the cloth with his fork. “How many other men have you asked?”
“None!”
The odd thing was that he believed her instantly. “So why me? Why don’t you ask your squash partner? You must know him a whole lot better than you know me.”
“Joe?”
