glanced at her. “You’ve been very quiet since you danced with Steve,” he observed. “More trouble?”
She sighed wistfully. “Not really. Steven’s only shoving Daphne down my throat. Why should that bother me?”
“Maybe he’s trying to make you jealous.”
“That will be the day, when Steven Ryker stoops to that sort of tactic.”
David started to speak and decided against it. He only smiled as he unlocked the door and let her in.
“Ahmed is very mysterious,” she said abruptly. “It’s as if he’s not really what he seems at all. He’s a very gentle man, isn’t he?” she added thoughtfully.
He gave her a blank stare. “Ahmed? Uh, well, yes. Certainly. I mean, of course he is.” He looked as if he had to bite his tongue. “But, despite the fact that Ahmed is Christian, he’s still very much an Arab in his customs and beliefs. And his country is a hotbed of intrigue and danger right now.” He studied her closely. “You don’t watch much television, do you, Meg? Not the national news programs, I mean.”
“They’re much too upsetting for me,” she confessed. “No, I don’t watch the news or read newspapers unless I can’t avoid them. I know,” she said before he could taunt her about it, “I’m hiding my head in the sand. But honestly, David, what could I do to change any of that? We elect politicians and trust them to have our best interests at heart. It isn’t the best system going, but I can hardly rush overseas and tell people to do what I think they should, now can I?”
“It doesn’t hurt to stay informed,” he said. “Although right now, maybe it’s just as well that you aren’t,” he added under his breath. “See you in the morning.”
“Yes.” She stared after him, frowning. David could be pretty mysterious himself at times.
David didn’t invite Steve to the house that week, because he could see how any mention of the man cut Meg. But although Wichita was a big city, it was still possible to run into people when you traveled in the same social circles.
Meg found it out the hard way when she went to a men’s department store that her family had always frequented to buy a birthday present for David. She ran almost literally into Steve there.
If she was shocked and displeased to meet him, the reverse was also true. He looked instantly hostile.
Her eyes slid away from his tall, fit body in the pale tan suit he was wearing. It hurt to look at him too much.
“Shopping for a suit?” he asked sarcastically. “You’ll have a hard time finding anything to fit you here.”
“I’m shopping for David’s birthday next week,” she said tightly.
“By an odd coincidence, so am I.”
“Doesn’t your secretary,” she stressed the word, “perform that sort of menial chore for you?”
“I pick out gifts for my friends myself,” he said with cold hauteur. “Besides,” he added, watching her face, “I have other uses for Daphne. I wouldn’t want to tire her too much in the daytime.”
Insinuating that he wanted her rested at night. Meg had to fight down anger and distaste. She kept her eyes on the ties. “Certainly not,” she said with forced humor.
“My father was right in the first place,” he said shortly, angered at her lack of reaction. “She would have made the perfect wife. I don’t know why it took me four years to realize it.”
Her heart died. Died! She swallowed. “Sometimes we don’t realize the value of things until it’s too late.”
His breath caught, not quite audibly. “Don’t we?”
She looked up, her eyes full of blue malice. “I didn’t realize how much ballet meant to me until I got engaged to you,” she said with a cold smile.
His fists clenched. He fought for control and smiled. “As we said once before, we had a lucky escape.” He cocked his head and studied her. “How’s the financing going for the ballet company?” he added pointedly.
She drew in a sharp breath. “Just fine, thanks,” she said venomously. “I won’t need any…help.”
“Pity,” he said, letting his eyes punctuate the word.
“Is it? I’m sure Daphne wouldn’t agree!”
“Oh, she doesn’t expect me to be faithful at this stage of the game,” he replied lazily. “Not until the engagement’s official, at least.”
Meg felt faint. She knew the color was draining slowly out of her face, but she stood firm and didn’t grab for support. “I see.”
“I still have your ring,” he said conversationally. “Locked up tight in my safe.”
She remembered giving it to her mother to hand back to him. The memory was vivid, violent. Daphne. Daphne!
“I kept it to remind me what a fool I was to think I could make a wife of you,” he continued. “I won’t make the same mistake again. Daphne doesn’t want just a career. She wants my babies,” he added flatly, cruelly.
She dropped her eyes, exhausted, almost ill with the pain of what he was saying. Her hand trembled as she fingered a silk tie. “Ahmed invited us to dinner and the theater Friday night.” Her voice only wobbled a little, thank God.
“I know,” he said, and sounded unhappy about it.
She forced her eyes up. “You don’t have to be deliberately insulting, do you, Steven?” she asked quietly. “I know you hate me. There’s no need for all this—” She stopped, almost choking on the word that almost escaped.
“Isn’t there? But, then, you don’t know how I feel, do you, Meg? You never did. You never gave a damn, either.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and glowered at her. She looked fragile somehow in the pale green knit suit she was wearing. “Ahmed is leaving soon,” he told her. “Don’t get attached to him.”
“He’s a friend. That’s all.”
His silver eyes slid over her bowed head with faint hunger and then moved away quickly. “How are the exercises coming?”
“Fine, thanks.”
He hesitated, bristling with bad temper. “When do you leave?” he asked bluntly.
She didn’t react. “At the end of the month.”
He let out a breath. “Well, thank God for that!”
Her eyes closed briefly. She’d had enough. She pulled the tie she’d been examining off the rack and moved away, refusing to look at him, to speak to him. Her throat felt swollen, raw.
“I’ll have this one, please,” she told the smiling clerk and produced her credit card. Her voice sounded odd.
Steven was standing just behind her, trying desperately to work up
